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Who was the first European? ý
The answer depends on what one means by 'Europe'. If Europe is a mere
economic ýarrangement among nation-states, then the first European must
surely be Augustus. For it ýwas he who determined the limits of the
Empire which subsequent emperors merely ýtinkered with at the edges.
There were to be no more conquests, no more expansion. The ýriver, the
desert and the ocean set the limits to empire. Within, there was one
economy, ýwithout, the dark world, full of threatening barbarians. ý
However, Europeans do not feel Augustus sufficiently European. The line
of reasoning ýfollowed above might be called the Anglo-Saxon line of
reasoning. The English regard ýEurope as an economic arrangement, a
large trading zone of shopkeepers. Until 1998, this ýwas, for instance,
The Economist's view of Europe. Then, to the surprise no doubt of ýmany
of its readers, it performed a remarkable editorial volte-face. The
London-based ýnewspaper nominated Charlemagne as the 'first European'!
And, for the first time, the ýnewspaper acknowledged that Europe was not
just a nation of shopkeepers, but a political ýdream an, aspiration. ý
Why Charlemagne and not Augustus? Well, simply put, Charlemagne was
Christian, ýwhile Augustus was pagan. And while thinkers such as Edward
Gibbon would happily ýhave regarded the pagan as the first European, the
founding fathers (yes, Europe, too, has ýits founding fathers) could
not: they were all devout Catholics. Jean Monnet, Alcide De ýGasperi,
Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schumann (recently nominated for
'beatification', ýthe first step towards sainthood) were all fervent
Catholics. And Charlemagne had been ýCatholic. ý
After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, in the fifth century,
Europe lay in ruins, ýungoverned for a thousand years. However, an
ephemeral union of western Christendom ýwas achieved under Charlemagne
(768-814), with the denarius circulating as a single ýcurrency. The
contours of the Carolingian Empire more or less coincide with those of
the ýsingle market, achieved on January 1st, 1994. And, on January 1st,
1999, Europe acquired ýits denarius, the euro. ý
Since then, the attempts to unify Europe had been bloody encounters.
Louis XIV ýconfessed on his deathbed that he had "loved war too much".
During the War of ýDevolution, it took the triple alliance between
England, Sweden and the United Provinces ýto defeat Louis. The League of
Augsburg was a Europe-wide alliance against the Sun ýKing. During the
War of the Spanish Succession, it took the combined might of England,
ýHolland and the Holy Roman Empire to frustrate Louis' ambition to
control Spain ýý(1714).
The next unifier of Europe was, of course, Napoleon. Again, a
combination of ýEuropean powers was required to bring him down. The
Congress of Vienna (1814) a ýgrouping of European states emerged to
ensure peace in Europe for another hundred ýyears. The hundred-year
cycle of war and peace prompted Arnold Toynbee to compare ýEurope's
war-cycle with the business cycle! The First World War began eerily in
the year ýý1914. Already, there were voices advocating a unified Europe.
The most active statesman ýin the field of European peace and
co-operation was undoubtedly Aristide Briand.
In ýý1929, he observed: "I think that among peoples constituting
geographical groups, like the ýpeoples of Europe, there should be some
kind of federal bond". And then came the last ýunifier, Adolph Hitler.
It was clear that Europe had to be unified, through war or peace. ýSince
war had failed, the union must be achieved peacefully.
It was in this spirit that ýHelmut Kohl, the ex-Chancellor of Germany,
described the question of the single ýcurrency as one of war or peace.
And it was in this spirit, too, that Europe resorted to the
ýundemocratic method of bribery to enable Kohl to win one more term as
Chancellor to let ýthe statesman push through his most precious project.
The London-based journalist, ýGwynne Dyer, described the bribe as "the
good bribe". ý
The Catholicism of the project was so pronounced that the (Protestant)
Scandinavian ýcountries stayed out of the Union for decades fearing that
it was a Catholic plot. After the ýwar, Christian Democracy emerged as
the leading power in politics. In Italy, the ýDemocrazia Cristiana was
headed initially by De Gasperi; in France, the Mouvement ýRupublicain
Populaire (MRP) was created in 1944; in West Germany, Konrad Adenauer
ýled the Christian Democratic Union; in Holland, it was the Catholic
People's Party. ýExceptionally, Great Britain possessed no Christian
Democratic tradition at all. ý
However, the European Union resembles the Roman Empire of Augustus as
well as the ýHoly Roman Empire of Charlemagne in that it has quietly
eschewed democracy. Just as ýAugustus rendered the Senate and Republican
traditions otiose, maintaining only the ýtrappings of republicanism, so
the European Union, directed by unelected Brussels ýbureaucrats, has
maintained a veneer of democracy. How many Europeans vote for the
ýpowerless European Members of Parliament?
The last time, the percentage was only 45. ýThe most vivid evidence of
the basically undemocratic nature of the Union came after the ýAustrian
elections, when that country was collectively boycotted by Europe since
it had ýelected the fascist and xenophobic Freedom Party. Louis Michel,
the foreign minister of ýBelgium, observed that voters can be 'naïve'
and 'simple'. Of Jorg Haider's Freedom ýParty, he said that to be a
democratic party "you must work by democratic rules, you ýmust accept
not to play on the worst feelings each human being has inside himself".
After ýall, even Hitler had been elected by the people.
However, Europe's 'despotic phase', as ýone newspaper described it, has
been a well-kept secret. In the last ten years, only one ýbook has been
written on the lack of democracy in Europe. And since the purpose of the
ýunion is to prevent future wars, a Pax Europeana along the Augustan
Pax Romana lines ýmust be undemocratic. It was the people of Europe who
caused those wars. One has only ýto compare the patriotism of Rupert
Brooke with the pacifism of Wilfred Owen to ýappreciate the
after-the-event nature of the wisdom of the European Union. ý
http://iftekharsayeed.weebly.com
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The First EuropeanBy Iftekhar Sayeed (about the author) Permalink (Page 1 of 1 pages)OpEdNews Op Eds |
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Iftekhar Sayeed teaches English and economics. He was born and lives in
Dhaka, "ŽBangladesh. He has contributed to AXIS OF LOGIC, ENTER TEXT,
POSTCOLONIAL "ŽTEXT, LEFT CURVE, MOBIUS, ERBACCE, THE JOURNAL, and other
publications. "ŽHe is also a (more...)
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