What's the essential difference between Americans and Europeans? Answer: When this country's various states went to war against each other in 1861-65, the result was a tragic civil war. But when European states and provinces go spinning off in all directions, the result can be a world war--an international clash rather than the disruption of one nation indivisible.
What was a tragedy on these shores can be only tragicomedy across the ocean. One court over there can issue a warrant for the arrest of secessionist leaders in one country--like Spain--while another hems and haws, hoping the crisis will somehow pass as Europe muddles through it. All is jumble, for there is no one Europe but just an agglomeration of various states, languages, and national heritages.
And as for a single European Union to represent a whole continent, that dream has yet to become reality. For now, a single pan-European government remains as elusive as a single United States was before a work of genius--the Constitution of the United States--replaced the old and unworkable Articles of Confederation.
As for representing all of Europe in negotiations with other countries, that's about as tricky a goal as nailing a blob of Jell-O to a wall. When the continent's equivalent of this country's secretary of state--Federica Mogherini--came back from discussing more European-American sanctions against the mullahs in Iran, she made it clear that Europe was not sufficiently united even to discuss such measures, let alone impose them.
"We did not discuss--not today, nor last week ... further sanctions from the European Union side on Iran," announced Ms. Mogherini. In short, no, non, nein and never. Got any questions? If so, Ms. Mogherini has no answers to them. How could she? For in the end, she represents no one but the class that has benefited from the giant clacking assemblage of bureaucrats in Brussels: All those paper-shufflers who are more than ready to issue reams of regulations but not about to don a discernible national identity. In our time, we've met Frenchmen and Italians, Slovenians and Swedes, but never a clearly identifiable, plain vanilla European--maybe because there ain't such a thing.
Can you imagine a contemporary Jimmy Cagney striding across a stage proclaiming himself not a Yankee Doodle Dandy born on the Fourth of July but a European star of the silver screen, announcing that he's European through and through? Is there a European (inter)national anthem to sing? Rather than an homage to Catalonia, Europe's leaders are singing a requiem for that nascent republic.
Catalonia's government-in-exile now prepares to run not a national but internationalized campaign for recognition. "We can run a campaign anywhere," says its on-the-run leader Carles Puigdemont, who's wanted for various crimes against the Spanish state, among them rebellion, sedition and embezzlement. What, not double parking too? It's enough to make a confused observer wonder whether he's watching a revolution or a burlesque of one. While the United States takes as its motto E Pluribus Unum--from many, one--Europeans seem bent on the opposite goal: making many out of a collection of nationalities that never was one. And never could be.
Yes, there have been those who spoke of a united Europe, but usually only under their own iron heel. Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, proclaimed his Continental System, while Nazi Germany sought a Fortress Europa that would withstand the Allied landings sure to come across the English Channel--or somewhere. In the end, neither tyrant prevailed--for which let us give thanks. Better an inchoate swirl of nations and peoples than one over-arching tyranny. Let freedom ring--even if its sound can be less clear than confusing.
Editorial on 11/17/2017