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Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a
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lchic
- 10:32am Oct 23, 2003 EST (#
15470 of 15472) ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has
to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong
foundation
The shadow of empires
Oct 16th 2003 From The Economist print edition
What really unites Europe are faded imperial memories
PASCAL LAMY, a European commissioner from France, recently
mused publicly about why some members of the European Union
are more awkward to deal with than others. “We have to
recognise”, he said, “that there are some countries which
remember that they were once great world powers and which
believe that this was not an accident—that they still have
special qualities that deserve recognition: France, Britain,
Spain, Poland.” At the mention of Poland, there was a snort of
derision from a Hungarian in the audience. But the real
quarrel with Mr Lamy's list is not that it is too long, but
too short. The remarkable thing about the European Union is
how many of its 15—soon to be 25—members once had a crack at
world, or at least continental, power. A shared sense that
they have seen greater days is now a big psychological link
between EU members.
France has its memories of Napoleon; Britain and Spain had
their empires. But faded grandeur is a characteristic of
smaller countries too. When Arnold Schwarzenegger won the
Californian governorship, Anneliese Rohrer, an Austrian
journalist, wrote in the International Herald Tribune that
their compatriot's success had inspired Austrians and “stirred
memories of the times when there was an emperor and an empire;
when the country was a force to be reckoned with.” Similar
sentiments could be echoed by many countries around Europe.
The Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium may just be
small-to-middling European countries today. But within living
memory the Dutch controlled Indonesia, the Portuguese large
chunks of Africa and the Belgians ran the Congo, a country the
size of western Europe.
Colonialism is not nowadays something to boast about. But
many European countries reach further back in history for
their period as a world power. The Greeks take pride in having
been the cradle of western civilisation. The Italians aspire
to be heirs to imperial Rome. Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus
in the 17th century was a European power to rival Russia. Even
Denmark, the epitome of a modest European country with modest
views and ambitions, whose chief sources of pride seem to be
the quality of its social services, the royal family and the
occasional victory on the football field, has folk memories.
Danish fans like to turn up at football matches in Viking
helmets, revealing a certain shy pride in their ancestors'
history of rape and pillage.
After the Union expands from 15 to 25 members next year, it
may be tempting to assume that the new members will not carry
the same sort of historical baggage. When did Malta dominate
the world, or Latvia? But the fact that eight of these
countries have only recently shrugged off years of communism
has in some ways made them even more conscious of their
decline. Hungarians know that their country was once three
times its current size, until it was dismembered after the
first world war. The Poles and Lithuanians recall medieval
times, when their joint empire stretched from the Baltic to
the Black Sea. And just wait for the Turks, who can recall an
Ottoman empire that once came close to the gates of Vienna.
Europe or bust The relationship between awareness of
national decline and a desire to be in the European Union is
complicated and varies from country to country. Germany's bid
for world power ended in disaster and disgrace; for modern
Germans Europe represents an effort to transcend traditional
realpolitik, so the EU is associated more with peace and
prosperity than with power projection. The French sometimes
complain that “the Germans just want Europe to be a big
Switzerland.” They, by contrast, want the European Union to be
a big France. As the Iraq war has shown, the French are a long
way from abandoning the idea that their country can still play
a glorious role on the world stage. But since modern France ca
lchic
- 10:35am Oct 23, 2003 EST (#
15471 of 15472) ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has
to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong
foundation
Cold War - Caribbean
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