Ordinarily any mention of Hitler in a debate stops it cold. For any comparison of an opponent to the German fuhrer is considered the last refuge of a scoundrel, or at least a sign that the debater has run out of legitimate tactics and has resorted to name-calling.
But what if the comparison is not only fair but obvious? Was the great Churchill, orator per excellence, just out of figures of speech when he took on Hitler's concept of Fortress Europa? Ditto when Britain stood alone against Napoleon's "continental system."
Circumstances alter cases, and this case is anything but simple as it divides those Britons who seek to have their country remain in the European Union and those who would leave it come next month's referendum on its fate. Whichever side one favors, let's not pretend there's only one. And however high emotions run, let's not pretend all is peace and harmony in this dispute that has divided today's Europeans, whatever a European may be in these bitterly divided days. Call it just another entry in the world's always overflowing Dept. of Fantasy and Fables.
For what exactly is a European? We've met Europeans of every nationality, from British to French, Greek to Spanish, Italian to German, Hungarian to Polish and 57 other varieties, but never this generic watered-down European of no certain identity or history or language. Dialects galore can be found on the continent, whether recognized as full-fledged languages or not, and peoples from Finns and Swedes to Romanians and Estonians to ... many another in that crazy-quilt of ethnicities we call Europeans but never one representative sample of this mythical all-purpose European. What is the native costume these Europeans don on holidays and festivals? When is European Independence Day? And so confusingly on.
To quote Boris Johnson, who was mayor of London not long ago, the past two millennia of European history have been dominated by doomed attempts "to rediscover the lost childhood of Europe, this golden age of peace and prosperity under the Romans by trying to unify it." In vain. He might as well have told the ever rebellious people of Judaea to stop rebelling. Why, they even rebelled against each other.
Unify Europe? "Various people tried this out," to quote Mayor Johnson, "and it ended tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods. But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void." And a demographic one, too.
Think about it. To betray Europe, there would first have to be a Europe to betray. Only there isn't one. Yes, a man can be a traitor to his country or his cause, we've even heard of being a traitor to one's race--a fanciful notion indeed, as if a race had a Pledge of Allegiance to renounce. But how betray a whole continent? Let's not confuse a geographical designation with a political, social, or ideological one.
"After the horror of the Second World War," a campaigner for staying in the European Union declared, "the EU helped to bring an end to centuries of conflict in Europe. And for Boris Johnson to make this comparison [to Hitler's and Napoleon's dream of a continental system] is both offensive and desperate."
Or is Boris Johnson's comparison just realistic? And well-grounded in history. Europeans were left divided, not unified, at the end of the Second World War, split between east and west, slave and free states, as the Cold War commenced. It was soon to be punctuated by an occasional hot one here and there--whether it was the Hungarian Revolution, Berlin Airlift, or some other nom de guerre. The names have changed, the bloodshed didn't. And neither did the fear of nuclear annihilation that haunted the world for decades.
It was no idyllic Garden of Eden the world inherited in those supposedly halcyon days. The lights were going out all over Europe, not to be relit in our time. Historical interpretations may differ, as surely as national interests and ambitions can, do and will. But some of those interpretations invite only skepticism. Just as the very name "European Community" does. For no such community exists except in the fanciful imaginations of those who may wish for the best, but whose distance from reality invites only the worst.
R.I.P., European Community, a sketchy concept that may have existed in embryo once upon a time--but was stillborn.
Editorial on 05/22/2016