You don’t have to be a Catholic, or a Marxist, to acknowledge that Europe is beset by serious problems: soaring unemployment, the unresolved crisis of the euro, rising anti-immigrant sentiment, and the stunning loss of a sense of possibility for young Europeans everywhere – events made intolerable for many by the invisible bondholders, exorbitantly bonused bankers, and the taint of venality that spreads across Europe’s oligarchic political class. “Right in front of our eyes,” the Polish thinker Adam Michnik laments in his new book The Trouble with History, “we can see the marching parade of corrupt hypocrites, thick-necked racketeers, and venal deputies.” “Today, in our world,” Michnik argues, “there exists no great idea of freedom, equality, and fraternity.” European nation-states facilitated extrajudicial execution, torture and rendition, sanctioned in the name of democracy. In these circumstances, the unspoken supposition that while everything else changes in the modern world, European norms should remain self-sufficient and unchangeable, deserving of unconditional submission from backward foreigners, makes you pause. As Tony Judt demonstrated in his magisterial Postwar, the notion of Europe as the embodiment of democracy, rationality, human rights, freedom of speech, gender equality was meant to suppress collective memories of brutal crimes in which almost all European states were complicit. They cannot be said to have reinvigorated the values of the Enlightenment in recent years, either. European nation-states, even those that did not participate in Anglo-American wars and occupations, facilitated extrajudicial execution, torture and rendition, which were originally sanctioned in the name of reason, freedom and democracy. Marine Le Pen has not got close to occupying the Élysée Palace by advocating pluralism and tolerance. Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly secured his tenancy there in 2007 with the help of a €50m donation from Libya’s Gaddafi (Sarkozy denies the charge); he then committed a French version of blasphemy by claiming that the roots of France were “essentially Christian”. theguardian/news/2015/jan/20/-sp-after-paris-its-time-for-new-enlightenment
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:02:03 +0000