i wonder why certain extreme right wing posters insist on calling the present U.S. administration´s hardcore fascist ideology "western values" - they are definitely not European values.
Bush's actions are helping Europe to fashion a new sense of identity
Jeremy Rifkin
Saturday April 26, 2003
Love him or hate him, but at least acknowledge the fact that President Bush has a knack for bringing the most unlikely people together. Could anyone have imagined that Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims - historic foes for centuries - would unite in a Baghdad mosque to oppose US occupation of their land and vow to work hand in hand to remove the infidels from their ancestral ground? Equally impressive, President Bush's Iraq policy has helped millions of Europeans, who often find themselves at odds with each other on the most banal considerations of life, to find their common identity in opposition to the war.
I was thinking about this last week, as EU leaders met in Athens to welcome 10 central and eastern European countries into their ranks. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion. Unfortunately, while officials from the old and new Europe stood side by side at the foot of the Acropolis posing for photos, many continued to express concern over the rift that has been created between European powers in the wake of the earlier failed diplomatic efforts leading up to the war. Some wondered out loud whether the growing division and bitterness among European nations might even derail the future prospects of the EU itself. While European leaders engaged in a collective handwringing, they failed to notice that an extraordinary transformation has occurred among ordinary people all over Europe in the course of the past several months.
The Iraq crisis has united Europeans and armed them with a clear sense of shared values and future vision. Millions have taken to the streets in the largest unified public protests in European history. People from every political persuasion, from every demographic category and from the entire rainbow of ethnic persuasions, joined together to condemn the unilateral policy of the Bush White House in Iraq and, by so doing, provided the first dramatic expression of a new European identity.
From this American observer's perspective, it is clear that the raw emotions on display in the streets, and the passionate talk in the salons, is of a far different nature from anything I have experienced in my many years in Europe. These people are not speaking as citizens of France, Italy, Germany, Hungary or Ireland. They are speaking as Europeans. As far as I know, there is no precedent for this kind of deeply felt shared sentiment.
Even in the UK, Spain and Italy, where the governments joined ranks with the US, a majority of the people, in the opinion polls, registered their opposition in the early stages of the war. Indeed, the largest protests in Europe occurred in these countries. The real message here is that national loyalty is being superseded by a new sense of "Europeanness". Even in the so-called "New Europe" - the 10 central and eastern European nations due to join the EU next year - more than 70% of the people oppose their own regimes' stand with Washington.
What we are witnessing is historic. Europeans are finding their identity. That is not to say that the millions of people who are beginning to speak as one suddenly identify with the European Union. I doubt whether a single protester sees himself or herself, first and foremost, as a citizen of the EU. While Brussels is far from most people's minds, what unites Europeans is their repudiation of the geopolitics of the 20th century and their eagerness to embrace a new "biosphere politics" in the 21st century.
The telltale signs of the nascent identity are everywhere. Europeans are concerned over global warming and other environmental issues. They support the international criminal court to ensure universal human rights. They favour generous development assistance to the poor in the third world and they back the United Nations as the appropriate forum to settle disputes among nations.
A growing of number of Europeans see the US government openly opposing these things they so ardently care about. And even on what they regard as the most basic questions of morality, such as opposition to capital punishment, they feel that a chasm is growing between their views and the views across the Atlantic. The US refusal to sign the Kyoto accords, the biodiversity treaty and the amended biological weapons convention, its withdrawal from the anti-ballistic-missile treaty and now the US decision to bypass the UN security council and act virtually unilaterally in Iraq have convinced many Europeans that the US is hopelessly locked into a Hobbesian view of the world. Europeans, on the other hand, have had their fill of wars and centuries of conflict. They are in search of Immanuel Kant's vision of universal and perpetual peace, and increasingly they see US policies and objectives as an anathema to the forging of a truly global consciousness.
It is this kind of fundamental difference in perception that has led so many Europeans to conclude that their interests, hopes and vision for the future are diverging from their old friends in America in ways that may be irreparable by diplomacy alone.
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· Jeremy Rifkin is author of The Age of Access (Tarcher Putnam) and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington DC
Bush's actions are helping Europe to fashion a new sense of identity
Jeremy Rifkin
Saturday April 26, 2003
Love him or hate him, but at least acknowledge the fact that President Bush has a knack for bringing the most unlikely people together. Could anyone have imagined that Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims - historic foes for centuries - would unite in a Baghdad mosque to oppose US occupation of their land and vow to work hand in hand to remove the infidels from their ancestral ground? Equally impressive, President Bush's Iraq policy has helped millions of Europeans, who often find themselves at odds with each other on the most banal considerations of life, to find their common identity in opposition to the war.
I was thinking about this last week, as EU leaders met in Athens to welcome 10 central and eastern European countries into their ranks. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion. Unfortunately, while officials from the old and new Europe stood side by side at the foot of the Acropolis posing for photos, many continued to express concern over the rift that has been created between European powers in the wake of the earlier failed diplomatic efforts leading up to the war. Some wondered out loud whether the growing division and bitterness among European nations might even derail the future prospects of the EU itself. While European leaders engaged in a collective handwringing, they failed to notice that an extraordinary transformation has occurred among ordinary people all over Europe in the course of the past several months.
The Iraq crisis has united Europeans and armed them with a clear sense of shared values and future vision. Millions have taken to the streets in the largest unified public protests in European history. People from every political persuasion, from every demographic category and from the entire rainbow of ethnic persuasions, joined together to condemn the unilateral policy of the Bush White House in Iraq and, by so doing, provided the first dramatic expression of a new European identity.
From this American observer's perspective, it is clear that the raw emotions on display in the streets, and the passionate talk in the salons, is of a far different nature from anything I have experienced in my many years in Europe. These people are not speaking as citizens of France, Italy, Germany, Hungary or Ireland. They are speaking as Europeans. As far as I know, there is no precedent for this kind of deeply felt shared sentiment.
Even in the UK, Spain and Italy, where the governments joined ranks with the US, a majority of the people, in the opinion polls, registered their opposition in the early stages of the war. Indeed, the largest protests in Europe occurred in these countries. The real message here is that national loyalty is being superseded by a new sense of "Europeanness". Even in the so-called "New Europe" - the 10 central and eastern European nations due to join the EU next year - more than 70% of the people oppose their own regimes' stand with Washington.
What we are witnessing is historic. Europeans are finding their identity. That is not to say that the millions of people who are beginning to speak as one suddenly identify with the European Union. I doubt whether a single protester sees himself or herself, first and foremost, as a citizen of the EU. While Brussels is far from most people's minds, what unites Europeans is their repudiation of the geopolitics of the 20th century and their eagerness to embrace a new "biosphere politics" in the 21st century.
The telltale signs of the nascent identity are everywhere. Europeans are concerned over global warming and other environmental issues. They support the international criminal court to ensure universal human rights. They favour generous development assistance to the poor in the third world and they back the United Nations as the appropriate forum to settle disputes among nations.
A growing of number of Europeans see the US government openly opposing these things they so ardently care about. And even on what they regard as the most basic questions of morality, such as opposition to capital punishment, they feel that a chasm is growing between their views and the views across the Atlantic. The US refusal to sign the Kyoto accords, the biodiversity treaty and the amended biological weapons convention, its withdrawal from the anti-ballistic-missile treaty and now the US decision to bypass the UN security council and act virtually unilaterally in Iraq have convinced many Europeans that the US is hopelessly locked into a Hobbesian view of the world. Europeans, on the other hand, have had their fill of wars and centuries of conflict. They are in search of Immanuel Kant's vision of universal and perpetual peace, and increasingly they see US policies and objectives as an anathema to the forging of a truly global consciousness.
It is this kind of fundamental difference in perception that has led so many Europeans to conclude that their interests, hopes and vision for the future are diverging from their old friends in America in ways that may be irreparable by diplomacy alone.
-
· Jeremy Rifkin is author of The Age of Access (Tarcher Putnam) and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington DC