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During those 40 years Europe has been without
war-one of the longest continuous periods without
war that the Continent has ever known.
It
is a
precarious peace, more of a standoff.
Four decades after the Second World War the
Continent is becoming restless once again. A new
generation have grown up who have little
knowledge- and no clear memories- of a war that
was fought by their grandfathers. There are sorne
disturbing parallels between the situation today and
the Europe of the 1930s.
·In past centuries, visionary statesmen have
believed that the way to solve the Continent's
perennial squabbles is to federate the individual
nations into a united Europe. Politicians as far apart
ideologically as Churchill and Trotsky saw a united
Europe as the only lasting solution. Sorne, like
Napoleon and Hitler, tried to forge a union through
force of arms. They succeeded for a shor t time, but
their uni ted Europe soon disintegrated. Today more
reasonable men are working hard behind the scenes
to unite Europe by peaceful means.
It is an uphill struggle. The 10 nations of the
European Economic Community with their
headquarters in Brussels have come as close as any
in the building of a united community. But their
la marcher!:
"Stop talking about Europe- make it
work!" was the candidate's slogan.
Roadblocks to Unity
But uniting Europe
is
easier said than done. The
European nations are not in the same situation as
the individual states of North America more than
200 years ago, who shared a common (and short)
history. European countries have long individual
histories and their own very distinct culture and
languages. Sorne have been at each other's throats
for centuries. And to this day, they still do not
really like each other that much. They're going to
have to have a good reason for laying aside
generations of suspicion and misunderstanding to
submerge their identities in a federation.
Today's hopeful architects of a new Europe are
not oblivious to the difficulties. They are patient,
skillful, careful men- a far cry from the bellicose
dictators of the past. They write no
Mein Kampfs.
Their works are calm and reasonable, albeit with an
undertone of urgency. And one sees in them a
glimmer of a solution, if ...
... if only this were a reasonable world where
people could get along with each other. If nations
could give without getting taken. lf people really
knew how to "love their neighbors as
themselves." These are essential
ingredients if Europe is ever to be united
and stay at peace.
But this is not a reasonable world.
And so 40 years after the end of the
Second World War, the dream of a
united Europe seems as far away as ever.
And yet, it isn't.
There will be a United States of
Europe. Today's hopeful architects and
builders of a new Europe are going to
find their dreams fulfilled, but not quite
in the way they have planned. Not
perhaps even among the nations they
expect.
lt
may happen so suddenly that
t:
even the most astute statesmen and
g
politicians are caught off their guard.
~
When it happens it will alter the balance
~
of power in the world almost overnight.
Army barracks at
Oswi~cim
transformed into a concentration camp by
tbe Nazis.
These patient and reasonable Eurocrats
will live to see their dreams appear to
come true. Except that their dream will
union is plagued by disagreement, and their
achievements after 27 years still fall far below what
was politically expected.
There is now a European Parliament of sorts that
meets at Strasbourg. Yet it really has no power or
authority over individual governments. For many
Europeans the Parliament at Strasbourg is a
nonissue and its elections are marked by apathy.
Driving through the countryside of Lorraine last
year 1 carne across an election poster that summed
up the hopes and the frustrations of the European
Parliament.
Arretons de parler de l'Europe- faisons -
May 1985
turn into a nightmare!
The P/ain Truth
has said this consistently. On
what authority can we say it?
What Leaders Don't Know
There is a missing dimension in most analyses of
European history- ancient, modern and future. It
is the prophecies of the book we call the Bible.
Don't be too quick to dismiss that statement as
nonsense. The course of modern European history
was established prophetically long ago, long before
the Peace of Westphalia, the Congress of Vienna
or the Potsdam Agreements that established the
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