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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 17, 1983
PAGE 11
to his countrymen as veaux--a word meaning calves, but, metaphorically,
blunderers or fools, much in the same way sheep, or "dumb sheep" is given a
human dimension in English.) What will contemporary France--beset with
anti-government demonstrations--do during the next five years of President
Mitterrand's seven-year term of office? Barzini continues, concerning what
he calls the "Gallic love for disputes and controversies":
Tacitus [ the Roman historian J wrote, "Galli si non dissenserint,
vix vinci possint" (if they did not quarrel, Gauls could scarcely
be defeated). The French still find it extremely difficult, when
not facing an imminent catastrophe, and sometimes even then, to
form a solid coalition, and act in unison.... These groups in
perpetual conflict may be as numerous as the many varieties of
cheeses de Gaulle loved to quote as a symbol of the impossibility
of making his people act as one. He used to say:... My dear
friend, how can you make a country that has 265 varieties of
cheeses behave, in normal times, as one?
...Perhaps it is their very innate restlessness, love of strife,
and some disorder that made it necessary from the beginning to
try to weave around them one of the most intricate webs of codes,
laws, regulations, and norms in the world, in an effort to fore
see and control every possible circumstance and contingency of
life.
Nevertheless, when life becomes difficult, .•.they long to be
unified and pacified, by force if necessary, led to harmony,
saved from ruin, and made prosperous by one man, •.• When the
danger vanishes, law and order are reasonably reestablished,
public finances restored, anarchy is tamed, and the machinery of
government functioning once more, the French are again devoured
by ennui, restlessness, and the irresistible desire to free them
selves from rigorous discipline and get comfortably back to their
impotent governments and to their accustomed life of divisions
and strife•..•
The British and the Dutch
Of the British, author Barzini is extremely complementary of their tradi
tional values and virtues. He takes note of their tremendous cultural and
technological impact upon continental Europe beginning in the early nine
teenth century (a time of Ephraim's flourishing) when other nations tried
in so many ways to adopt or mimic British customs and mannerisms. Yet,
Barzini explains, the British themselves, then as now, have never really
considered themselves "European."
In a way, Britain still sees itself as the sceptered isle, cut
from the Continent by divine will. If God had wanted to tie it to
the rest of Europe, He would evidently not have dug the Channel.
Wasn't it therefore sinful and somewhat sacrilegious to attach
Britain to the terra firma by treaties, tunnels, or bridges?...
Still today, when one asks a Briton, any Briton, pointblank, "Are
you European?" the answer is always, "European?
Did you say
European? Er, er"--a long thoughtful pause in which all other
continents are mentally evoked and regretfully discarded--"Yes,
of course, I'm European." This admission is pronounced without
pride and with resignation.