The European Question and the National Interest

[ScottSA]

From the desk of Paul Belien on Fri, 2007-03-23 11:18

This is the text of a lecture I gave last October at Cornell University. It is published here on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome (25 March 1957)

In the history of Europe the idea of integrating policies on a pan-European level – in other words the idea of European political integration – is a fairly recent phenomenon. In Europe the word “Europe” has now become almost a synonym of the term European Union. Originally the term Europe stood for a cultural concept. There was a defined European identity and even a feeling of European unity, but it was a cultural unity.

During the Middle Ages, a sense of common allegiance had grown among the citizens or subjects of the different political entities on the European continent. This allegiance transcended the limits of their own village, city, region and state, and encompassed other people living on, and even beyond, the continent. This sense of the larger cultural European community was defined by “Christendom.”

Read it all: http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2005

[Figleaf]

What point are you hoping will be drawn from that particular (somewhat inaccurate) passage?

[Canadian Blue]

Didn't European "Christendom" also create the Inquisition, Crusades, and the ethnic cleansing of the Cathars in France. I wouldn't really consider the middle ages a time common allegiance, it's more likely that people were too afraid of being called a heretic if they questioned the status quo. As for American being populated by "freedom loving people" for some reason I think the Loyalists, black slaves, and those opposed to most wars American was involved in during the first few decades of America would disagree. The poor were fairly oppressed in America, and they weren't even given the right to vote in some caes.

Some Christian scholars even maintain that Christianity lost it's soul when Constantinople made Christianity the state religion. This was primarily because whenever any religion becomes a part of the state it often loses the qualities which help better society, and it also becomes a tool for conquest and the powerful.

[bush_cheney2004]

....As for American being populated by "freedom loving people" for some reason I think the Loyalists, black slaves, and those opposed to most wars American was involved in during the first few decades of America would disagree. The poor were fairly oppressed in America, and they weren't even given the right to vote in some caes.

The same can be said for Canadians, no strangers to slavery, oppression, subjugation, war, and poor people. Canada had to choose between continental Europe and American spheres of influence....the choice it made is obvious.

[Canadian Blue]

Yes, and luckily we made the right choice in not joining the American Revolution.

My contention was with the story stating America was full of "feedom loving people", when history actually tell's a different story.

[ScottSA]

What point are you hoping will be drawn from that particular (somewhat inaccurate) passage?

I was hoping you'd read the whole thing rather than only the "passage" I posted, so as to be able to comment on it knowledgeably.

[PolyNewbie]

I've read it once but I will read it again. I'm wondering if you have any knowledge on the North American Union. It appears as though it is being all set up before the unwashed masses are even aware of it. The Canadian Action Party website has a lot of information on it. The NAU isn't something I have studied in great detail but I do know its a socialist program.

[jbg]

What point are you hoping will be drawn from that particular (somewhat inaccurate) passage?

I was hoping you'd read the whole thing rather than only the "passage" I posted, so as to be able to comment on it knowledgeably.

I did, and focused on this most important short portion of it:

Like the two previous attempts to politically unify Europe, the third attempt is utterly undemocratic. The former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was the chairman of the European Convention which drafted the European Constitution that was rejected by the French and Dutch voters in referendums in May and June 2005. In a lecture at the London School of Economics on 28 February 2006 he declared that the “rejection of the Constitution [by the French and Dutch voters] was a mistake which will have to be corrected.”