Tag Archives: History

“The fathers of Europe and their successors”

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In the US, the Founding Fathers occupy a near-sacred place in the national myth and national consciousness – a glorious pantheon of visionaries who helped guide the divided States to their destiny as a greater whole.

In Europe, bar in a few highly europhile circles, there is no such glory attached to those who first came up with the idea of the European Community – bar, perhaps, the old anti-federalist bogeyman of Jean Monnet. But even his will be an unfamiliar name to most Europeans – let alone Sicco Mansholt, Joseph Bech, Alcide de Gasperi, Paul-Henri Spaak, or Count Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi. As for the man who arguably did more than anyone bar Monnet to promote the vision of a unified Europe? Well, Winston Churchill is more often than not used as a figurehead of British opponents of the EU, despite having been one of the most fervent early advocates of a federal European political union.

Of course, as the EU has never had to declare independence from anyone and has singularly failed to come up with a binding constitution, it lacks the obvious father figures of the United States. But nonetheless, behind the scenes countless intellectuals and politicians have contributed to the idea of what Europe is, and what the EU should be for. Bronislaw Geremek, who died last week, was undoubtledly one such – prompting French euroblog Nouvelle Europe to ponder (with apologies for my poor translation): Continue reading →

*Yawn* Another topical Holocaust/Nazis post

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Yesterday I went to my uncle’s funeral. 88 years old and alert and amusing until the day he died. I never knew that he was in the RAF during the war – back-end technical support, I believe. One of the engineers who kept the planes flying during the Battle of Britain. Not as glamorous as being a Spitfire pilot, perhaps, but absolutely vital and insanely dangerous nonetheless (messing around with bombs and ammo while surrounded by fuel tanks, often ducking German air raids while he was at it).

Last week I was down in the West Country visiting my 85-year-old grandmother. In 1940, at the age of 17, she felt the call, left the tiny hamlet in which she had spent her entire life down in a remote part of Cornwall and moved to London to train as a nurse. She hit the wards of Guy’s Hospital just as the bombs of the Blitz started hitting the streets and houses.

In the previous war, her father – my great-grandfather – had likewise signed up as soon as he could (this despite, or perhaps because of his Prussian father’s internment on the Isle of Man), being shipped out from the back-end of Cornish tranquillity to the trenches of the Western Front, and lasting all the way, through both the Somme and Passchendale.

My great-grandfather went on to become a teacher. My grandmother a housewife. My uncle an accountant. They became ordinary, everyday people again, and none of them liked to talk about their experiences. And herein lies the problem.

The recent attacks on Roma settlements in Italy and plans to fingerprint all Roma in the country have so many obvious echoes of the early anti-Jewish rumblings of inter-war Germany (and pre-WWI Austria, where Hitler gained his political education thanks to the populist likes of Schonerer, Lueger and the like, for that matter), that they shouldn’t need to be underlined. Indeed, by likening anything at all to the actions of the fascists of the 1930s/40s it’s hard not to fear slipping into hyperbole – and on the internet, of having Godwin’s Law brought up yet again.

The problem is precisely that everyone knows about the Nazis and about the Holocaust. It’s part of the education of pretty much every European child, and has been for more than half a century. In some countries, the teaching of the Second World War would even take preference over more general national histories, so important has it rightly been considered (while I was at school we spent two years on the Second World War – with not a single lesson on the British Empire). Documentaries about the Nazis are on a constant loop on the various history TV channels. History sections of bookshops are dominated by picture books and chunky tomes about the Third Reich and the chaos it wrought.

And what do we learn? That the Nazis were evil. That this was an extraordinary moment, an unprecedented time.

None of this, of course, is entirely true. Continue reading →

Tories and the EU, trade talks, Russian threats

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Three things that have caught my eye this morning, in ascending order of importance:

1) Following a fun article on the impact a Tory victory in the next UK general election may have on the EU in this week’s Economist, there’s an interesting round-up of Conservative European election posters from the last couple of decades over at the Open Europe blog – a perfect illustration of the fundamental shift in Tory thinking on the EEC/EU that’s taken place over the last 30 years or so.

2) As EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson issues a stark warning about the need for unity over WTO talks, I stumble across EU Trade Policy: Approaching a Crossroads – a handy (mercifully short) briefing paper from Chatham House on the continued lack of a breakthrough in EU trade negotiations as we rumble towards the end of the Cotonou agreement and squabbles with the likes of Russia and China continue. Short version: it doesn’t look promising.

3) Medvedev Criticizes West in Tough Foreign Policy Speech – the usual Russian posturing, or the start of something new? Either way, “The EU and US have been warned”, apparently. Thanks for that, Dmitry! Meanwhile, the Financial Times urges standing up to Russia over Georgia – a much-ignored new Caucasian crisis that’s hardly getting any better, and Europe’s World has an article (promising-looking, but I haven’t had a chance to read in full just yet) on The EU, Russia and the crisis of the post-Cold War European order. From what I’ve seen so far, this looks like essential reading:

“The EU today cannot be described anymore as federalist state in the making – it is something much more complex and undefined. It resembles something closer to post-colonial India, with its mixture of languages, legal regimes, traditions and sensitivities, than it does post-War Germany or France. In the powerful metaphor of Jan Zielonka the post-enlargement EU is not a kind of Westphalia federation; it is more a kind of neo-medieval empire. There is no European demos and there probably never will be – but there is kind of European public. There are no final borders but moving borders and variable geometries. And it was Count Sergei Witte, Prime Minister under Nicholas II, who said there was no such thing as Russia, but only a Russian empire.”

RIP Bronislaw Geremek

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Bronislaw GeremekNow this is sad news indeed.

One of the leading lights of the Solidarity movement – undeniably one of the most important of the late 20th century – and still active in standing up for what’s right (just last year becoming a figurehead for opposition to the Polish government’s fresh anti-communist purges). A former Polish Foreign Minister and historian, he’d also been suggested as a good candidate for first president of the EU, and was one of the few MEPs with genuine name recognition value.

His kind are rare – and exactly what the EU needs if it’s ever going to emerge as something truly worthwhile.

Update: I’d forgotten all about Geremek’s book The Common Roots of Europe. I’m sure I’ve read it, but don’t have a copy. Off to the library, because this all seems strangely appropriate, what with today’s shift in blogging focus and altered tagline. From Amazon’s description: “[Geremek] suggests that it is in everyone’s interest to understand Europe in a wider sense, not just as a geographical concept, but as a political and cultural one too. He discusses unity, variety and collective identity in medieval Europe, social and economic structures in East and West, and the continuity and change in European identity in the intervening centuries.”

Sod it, perhaps I’ll buy the thing…

A shift in focus: History and Culture

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You may have noticed that over the last few months the rate of posting here has declined. It’s a combination of over-work and lack of interest in the current political goings-on, and has inspired a slight shift in focus in an attempt to get me posting more frequently.

In the UK, we’re in that dull mud-slinging period prior to an election almost certain to see a change of government (that may not arrive for another two years), much like the interminable years of party fervour of 1990-97. The Labour v Tory rivalry always bores me – especially when everyone gets so het up about it all. But sadly the golden age of cross-party unity over a hatred of Tony Blair has ended, and petty squabbles are again on the rise.

When it comes to the EU, we’re in yet another period of stagnation caused by the rejection of yet another tedious and uninspiring treaty, much like the interminable last seven years (or more) since the Treaty of Nice singularly failed to achieve what it was meant to. I’ve already written so much on the Lisbon Treaty and Constitution that I’m not sure if I can handle churning out any more attempts at constructive criticism, soothsaying or analysis. At least, not for a while.

Elsewhere in Europe, there’s not a great deal of excitement among the domestic politics of the various states at the moment either, from what I can tell. Even Berlusconi’s being entirely predictable since his return to power (engineering a grant of immunity from prosecution and spurting out broad, brainless populist nonsense at every opportunity). The only thing that does spark an interest is the ongoing threat of Russian energy dominance, a new phase of which was hinted at over the weekend with suggestions that the Kremlin might be using oil supply to the Czech Republic to try and force the Czech government to backtrack over the proposed US missile defence shield.

But this is not meant to be one of those semi-regular “blogger announces he/she’s going to quit blogging in an attempt to garner praise from readers before swiftly posting more than ever” posts.

Clio, The Muse Of History And Song, 1758 - Francois BoucherInstead, I’ve decided to start writing about things that still interest me when the political goings on are getting tedious. Keeping in with the general theme of this place – and giving an excuse to make that little piece of paper with “MA Modern History (Dist.)” and those three years working on a history magazine seem worthwhile – what better than European history and culture? After all, I know my stuff moderately well, am always reading to find out more, and in recent months have most enjoyed writing posts like the Eurovision liveblog and overview of wannabe European states – the political ones have more often been a chore. Blogging should be fun, not dull.

I’ve been pondering this shift in focus ever since the last redesign, but decided for certain this weekend, while browsing through a couple of books. First, Tony Judt’s excellent Postwar, from the Preface:

“The whole of Europe (excluding Russia and Turkey) comprises just five and a half million square kilometers: less than two thirds the area of Brazil, not much more than half the size of China or the US. It is dwarfed by Russia, which covers seventeen million square kilometers. But in the intensity of its internal differences and contrasts, Europe is unique.”

Swiftly followed by this, from the Prologue to Geert Mak’s gloriously engaging In Europe:

“Do we Europeans have a common history? Of course, everyone can rattle their way down the list: Roman Empire, Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, 1914, 1945, 1989. But then one need only look at the enormous differences in the way that history has been experienced by individual Europeans: the older Polish truck driver I spoke to, who had been forced four times in his life to learn a new language; the German couple, bombed out of their home and then endlessly driven from place to place throughout Eastern Europe; the Basque family that fell apart one Christmas Eve arguing about the Spanish Civil War, and never spoke to each other again; the serene satisfaction of the Dutch, the Danes and the Swedes, who have usually avoided catching the full brunt of History. Put a group of Russians, Germans, Britons, Czechs and Spaniards at one table and have them recite their family histories: they are worlds unto themselves. Yet, even so, it is all Europe.”

Because, of course, though Europe has more than its fair share of diversity in history and culture it still has plenty of common ground – be it Saint George acting as patron saint of England, Moscow, Portugal and more, the similarities in old myths and legends (like Zeus and Odin, Tristan and Lancelot), or the flow of artistic motifs (from the use of the eagle in heraldry Europe-wide to the symbolism of the star in art, architecture and the EU flag). Perhaps by focussing more on these areas I’ll be able to track down that elusive, impossible to define quality of what it means to be “European” – the thing that unites us all, from Ulster to the Urals, Nordkapp to Nicosia.

It may turn out that Bismarck was right, and all we have in common is geography. But I prefer to turn to Churchill – a fine historian (if not so fine a politician), with a strong (if frequently misunderstood) idea of Europe:

“I wish to speak about the tragedy of Europe, this noble continent, the home of all the great parent races of the Western world, the foundation of Christian faith and ethics, the origin of most of the culture, arts, philosophy and science both of ancient and modern times. If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance there would be no limit to the happiness, prosperity and glory which its 300 million or 400 million people would enjoy.”

But the major reason is just to have fun with blogging again – so don’t expect a structure or a plan to emerge for a while. This will be more a miscellany. Slices of little-known or forgotten history. Profiles of persons of interest. The occasional book review. Overviews of key events and ideas. Quotations. In other words, random bits and pieces that interest me – sometimes tied to the overriding theme of European identity or current affairs, sometimes just curios. And all the while heeding Hegel:

“Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this – that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it… Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help. It is useless to revert to similar circumstances in the Past.”

When it comes to politics, history is both ignored and useless. What could be a more perfect focus for a political blog, that most ignored and useless of all contributions to the public sphere?

Lessons from America for the EU

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In the wake of the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, I hope that the reason for my quoting the following passage from James Bryce‘s seminal The American Commonwealth is obvious.

This passage outlines, in part, what I envisage when I think of what the EU should be, even though it is talking of the United States of the late 19th century – and it is furthermore an essential lesson from history for the EU as whole (from the individual citizen to the highest of the political elites) to take on board. These words may well have been written well over a century ago, and America may well have changed substantially since they were first committed to paper (Bryce’s book was first published in 1888, after all) – but they still stand.

As I say, I hope the intention of this extended quotation is obvious. If not, I will of course try to elaborate soon. But, in short, I firmly believe that – despite its flaws – the constitution (small “C”) of the United States of America is still the best model for creating a true European union (small “U”).

That old bogeyman of “the United States of Europe” is still all too often based on a misunderstanding. Working together but independent, independent but united is not an impossible dream – it has been done before. The flaw of the European project has always been in attempting to create – artificially and on too short a timescale – something that in America evolved more organically. And not just in America – almost all countries with a history of more than a couple of hundred years were once divided, from Britain and France through Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Russia, China, Japan and on and on…

The same can be true for Europe – though I do not expect to see it in my lifetime or yours. Rome wasn’t built in a day – and the Treaty of Rome was never going to build a truly united Europe in a mere half century. It is high time that those with the power to influence the course of the European project came to realise that.

Anyway, on with the passage, from Volume I, Part I, Chapter II:

Some years ago the American Protestant Episcopal Church was occupied at its triennial convention in revising its liturgy. It was thought desirable to introduce among the short sentence prayers a prayer for the whole people; and an eminent New England divine proposed the words “O Lord, bless our nation.” Accepted one afternoon on the spur of the moment, the sentence was brought up next day for reconsideration, when so many objections were raised by the laity to the word “nation,” as importing too definite a recognition of national unity, that it was dropped, and instead there were adopted the words “O Lord, bless these United States.”

To Europeans who are struck by the patriotism and demonstrative national pride of their transatlantic visitors, this fear of admitting that the American people constitute a nation seems extraordinary. But it is only the expression on its sentimental side of the most striking and pervading characteristic of the political system of the country, the existence of a double government, a double allegiance, a double patriotism. America—I call it America (leaving out of sight South America, Canada, and Mexico), in order to avoid using at this stage the term United States—America is a commonwealth of commonwealths, a republic of republics, a state which, while one, is nevertheless composed of other states even more essential to its existence than it is to theirs.

This is a point of so much consequence, and so apt to be misapprehended by Europeans, that a few sentences may be given to it.

When within a large political community smaller communities are found existing, the relation of the smaller to the larger usually appears in one or other of the two following forms. One form is that of a league, in which a number of political bodies, be they monarchies or republics, are bound together so as to constitute for certain purposes, and especially for the purpose of common defence, a single body. The members of such a composite body or league are not individual men but communities. It exists only as an aggregate of communities, and will therefore vanish so soon as the communities which compose it separate themselves from one another. Moreover it deals with and acts upon these communities only. With the individual citizen it has nothing to do, no right of taxing him, or judging him, or making laws for him, for in all these matters it is to his own community that the allegiance of the citizen is due. A familiar instance of this form is to be found in the Germanic Confederation as it existed from 1815 till 1866. The Hanseatic League in mediæval Germany, the Swiss Confederation down till the present century, are other examples.

In the second form, the smaller communities are mere subdivisions of that greater one which we call the nation. They have been created, or at any rate they exist, for administrative purposes only. Such powers as they possess are powers delegated by the nation, and can be overridden by its will. The nation acts directly by its own officers, not merely on the communities, but upon every single citizen; and the nation, because it is independent of these communities, would continue to exist were they all to disappear. Examples of such minor communities may be found in the departments of modern France and the counties of modern England. Some of the English counties were at one time, like Kent or Dorset, independent kingdoms or tribal districts; some, like Bedfordshire, were artificial divisions from the first. All are now merely local administrative areas, the powers of whose local authorities have been delegated from the national government of England. The national government does not stand by virtue of them, does not need them. They might all be abolished or turned into wholly different communities without seriously affecting its structure.

The American federal republic corresponds to neither of these two forms, but may be said to stand between them. Its central or national government is not a mere league, for it does not wholly depend on the component communities which we call the states. It is itself a commonwealth as well as a union of commonwealths, because it claims directly the obedience of every citizen, and acts immediately upon him through its courts and executive officers. Still less are the minor communities, the states, mere subdivisions of the Union, mere creatures of the national government, like the counties of England or the departments of France. They have over their citizens an authority which is their own, and not delegated by the central government. They have not been called into being by that government. They—that is, the older ones among them—existed before it. They could exist without it.

The central or national government and the state governments may be compared to a large building and a set of smaller buildings standing on the same ground, yet distinct from each other. It is a combination sometimes seen where a great church has been erected over more ancient homes of worship. First the soil is covered by a number of small shrines and chapels, built at different times and in different styles of architecture, each complete in itself. Then over them and including them all in its spacious fabric there is reared a new pile with its own loftier roof, its own walls, which may perhaps rest on and incorporate the walls of the older shrines, its own internal plan.1 The identity of the earlier buildings has however not been obliterated; and if the later and larger structure were to disappear, a little repair would enable them to keep out wind and weather, and be again what they once were, distinct and separate edifices. So the American states are now all inside the Union, and have all become subordinate to it. Yet the Union is more than an aggregate of states, and the states are more than parts of the Union. It might be destroyed, and they, adding a few further attributes of power to those they now possess, might survive as independent self-governing communities.

This is the cause of that immense complexity which startles and at first bewilders the student of American institutions, a complexity which makes American history and current American politics so difficult to the European who finds in them phenomena to which his own experience supplies no parallel. There are two loyalties, two patriotisms; and the lesser patriotism, as the incident in the Episcopal convention shows, is jealous of the greater. There are two governments, covering the same ground, commanding, with equally direct authority, the obedience of the same citizen.

The casual reader of American political intelligence in European newspapers is not struck by this phenomenon, because state politics and state affairs generally are seldom noticed in Europe. Even the traveller who visits America does not realize its importance, because the things that meet his eye are superficially similar all over the continent, and that which Europeans call the machinery of government is in America conspicuous chiefly by its absence. But a due comprehension of this double organization is the first and indispensable step to the comprehension of American institutions: as the elaborate devices whereby the two systems of government are kept from clashing are the most curious subject of study which those institutions present.

A cultural quickie

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If you haven’t seen these already, and are based in the UK, watch today via the really rather fun BBC iPlayer:

Jonathan Meades: Magnetic North – yet another top-notch contribution from the almost always fascinating Meades, this time looking at the shared culture of northern Europe. So good I can ignore his uncanny resemblance to my dear father. (Unfortunate fellow, my dad – HIS father looked just like Gregory Peck…)

If you aren’t aware of Meades, have a gander at his rather good take on Nazi architecture as well, and I can’t recommend his superb programme on Surrealism highly enough:

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Also worth a gander via iPlayer is The Art of Spain: The Mystical North – the third (?) part of this really rather fun series from Andrew Graham-Dixon, not someone I’ve previously taken to. He’s certainly convinced me that Spanish art is well worth paying attention to, however – I was always more of a French/German man myself.

More (possibly) later – busy this morning.

States of mind

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With Kosovo having just declared independence this weekend, it’s time for a look at some of Europe’s other wannabe countries.

Following Vladimir Putin’s largely fair comments about European double-standards over Kosovan independence, it’s certainly worth looking at other wannabe European countries that the EU could technically recognise, once the precedent’s been set. And if not the EU, why not Russia, just to piss Brussels off?

Some are more economically viable, some less; some are more uniform in their national identity, some more controversial; some are more of a joke. But all, really, have similar claims to independent status as Kosovo – and many are associated with the European Parliament’s European Free Alliance group. There’s a surprisingly large number of aspirant Utopias:

Utopia, the ultimate dream state
Continue reading →

Scotland’s debt to Canada

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The new Scottish

Not having particularly kept up with Scottish politics after the ’45, and despite having close Scottish relations involved on the fringe of the Scottish political scene, the niceties of the devolution settlement have largely eluded me. I’ve only made it up to Scotland once since devolution anyway, and spent the majority of the trip in the remote Highlands getting boozed up on fine whisky.

You’d think that for someone with a keen interest in British constitutional history I’d have paid more attention, considering that devolution was always – potentially – the most significant constitutional change since universal suffrage was introduced. I just never really thought it would have legs, and that the entire experiment would end up being scrapped once it was shown to be a huge waste of money. More fool me, it would seem, as it appears that something very odd indeed may be happening north of the border.

Because, you see, in constitutional and international legal terms, terminology is hugely important. Call the Scottish political executive an executive, fine. Call it a government? Well, it’s not, is it? It has elements of the powers of a government, but it’s merely a subservient element of the federation that is the United Kingdom, surely?
Continue reading →

St George’s Day

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One of my most unrelenting (and occasionally nutty) eurosceptic visitors popped up the other day reckoning that I must hate St George’s Day because I’m pro-EU (yes, he’s one of those who rarely reads/understands what I write, so has me down as a slavering, unthinking, traitorous Europhile, rather than someone who’s, you know, thought about it quite a lot and can see all the problems).

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. St George is, after all, one of the ultimate symbols of Britain’s pan-European ties.

He was a Roman soldier (much like St Alban, in fact, the chap some have suggested would be more appropriate as England’s patron saint), so part of that vast organisation which united Europe from the Forth to the Nile, Portugal to the Caspian Sea – and which has helped shape the look and feel of Europe’s geography and culture for so much of the last 2000 years.

He was born in Anatolia, modern Turkey (although probably more like present day Armenia – with his mother having been born in what is now Israel/Palestine), showing how the links between Turkey and Europe have stretched back for millennia – and is the patron saint of Istanbul as well as of England.

He is venerated as an Islamic martyr as well as a Christian one, showing once again the links between the two faiths that so many on both sides seem to have forgotten in recent years (but hey, if you believe in a great big bearded fairy living up in the clouds, don’t expect too much rationality, eh?)

He remains the most venerated saint in the Orthodox Church, so popular on Europe’s eastern fringes – the dominant religion in, for example, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Georgia and Russia.

No doubt due to this Orthodox connection, he is also the patron saint of Georgia, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia and Moscow (Istanbul, of course, was formerly Constantinople / Byzantium, the seat of the Orthodox Church after the great schism, hence George’s patronage there – Constantine the Great, the founder of Constantinople / Istanbul, having been crowned Roman Emperor in the pleasingly English city of York in July 306 AD).

George is also patron saint of Catalonia – a land originally colonised by the ancient Greeks, then taken over by the Carthaginians, then the Romans, then the Visigoths, then the Moors, then the Franks and, after a period under the rule of Aragon (of English king Henry VIII’s first wife Catherine of Aragon fame), Spain. A near perfect encapsulation of the various waves of European civilisations.

Then there’s Portugal, another country with George as Patron (I won’t bother going into detail about Canada and Ethiopia, don’t worry) – and one of the few European countries with whom England has never (officially) gone to war. Portugal’s history is similar to that of Catalonia – only with the added excitement of trade with the Phoenicians (much like pre-Roman Devon and Cornwall) and a sizeable Celtic community – just like the Celtic fringe of the British isles. They may have been conquered by the Moors while England was being conquered by the Vikings, but otherwise the two nations’ histories are remarkably similar – invasions, consolidation, exploration, innovation, empire and decline.

Saint George certainly never killed a dragon, and there is little historical evidence to show that he actually existed.

He is, however, a perfect symbol for both England and Europe – an amalgamation of numerous other myths that epitomise an appeal to civility, chivalry and toleration, yet with a militaristic edge in the dragon legend that is not only perfect for a continent which has seen as many wars as Europe has done, but also warns “if you attack us, we will fight”. His historical nature is pretty doubtful, yet – much like England has King Arthur, the Anglo-Saxon settlement, the Norman Yoke, Robin Hood and that nonsensical “1000 years of history” – the lack of historicity merely makes him that much more powerful as a symbol, as he can become anything we want him to be. He is revered across Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, yet – like so much European culture – originated from the Middle East, demonstrating once again that the diversity of this continent is never so great as people may think.

In other words, as the European Union hunts around for a new direction and a new unifying ideal, it could really look to no better a symbol than Saint George, a truly pan-European figure – and one well worthy of a drink or two in the pub tonight, whether he existed or not.

(Want more Saint George? Try Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopaedia)

Update: Forgot to mention, today is also William Shakespeare’s reputed birthday, and likewise the date recorded for his death. This most influential, most English of poets – as we all know – drew heavily on continental European subjects and history for his many plays, from Romeo and Juliet to Othello, The Merchant of Venice to Macbeth. But he also died on the very same day – 23rd April 1616 – as that other great 16th/17th century writer, Miguel Cervantes, the author of the wonderful Don Quixote – one of the founding texts of modern western civilisation, and another fine example of something typically European: the futile search for something better.

Shakespeare, Cervantes and Saint George – all united by 23rd April, all quite gloriously European.

Europe’s story

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I’m still mired in an intensive real-world project (all revolving around clarifying the insane complexity of post-Soviet Russian politics, which anyone who’s looked into it even briefly will know is a tough – if fascinating – gig…), so continued light posting here for a bit.

Meanwhile, via Kosmopolit, it appears that Timothy Garton Ash (always interesting on Europe, even if you don’t agree with him) has launched a new project to get up a debate about the story Europe should tell.

By “Europe”, of course, he means primarily the EU. At a period when the EU project seems more confused and directionless than ever, and while secretive moves are being made to revive/revise the EU constitution, regular readers of this blog will know that one of my ongoing obsessions is what the decidedly late-20th century EU can do to make itself relevant again for the 21st century.

Garton Ash’s initial essay in Prospect is certainly an interesting starting point, even if his ideas to weave a concept of “Europeanism” around “freedom, peace, law, prosperity, diversity and solidarity” are somewhat vague, and leave out the single most important continent-wide binding force of “artistic culture”. But he’s certainly coming from the right starting point, with no illusions about the difficulty of the task:

“In this proposal, our identity will not be constructed in the fashion of the historic European nation, once humorously defined as a group of people united by a common hatred of their neighbours and a shared misunderstanding of their past. We should not even attempt to retell European history as the kind of teleological mythology characteristic of 19th-century nation-building. No good will come of such a mythopoeic falsification of our history (“From Charlemagne to the euro”), and it won’t work anyway. The nation was brilliantly analysed by the historian Ernest Renan as a community of shared memory and shared forgetting; but what one nation wishes to forget another wishes to remember. The more nations there are in the EU, the more diverse the family of national memories, the more difficult it is to construct shared myths about a common past.

This is a debate worth having. I only wish I had a bit more time to join in…

Magna Carta and Civil Liberties

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A quickie to try and clear up a confusion I’ve seen on a few blogs around the place who seem to think that Magna Carta guarantees British (well, English) people certain freedoms:

The Magna Carta “rights” thing is a complete myth. It never granted anyone other than a few barons any liberties – the attempt to argue that it did began in the 17th century with Sir Edward Coke, and was expanded upon by the Parliamentarians to justify their entirely illegal revolt against the King. Even if it did grant any rights, hardly any of it remains in force.

In fact, there are not, nor ever have been, any guaranteed rights in this country. Not until we signed up to the UN, that is. The way the English constitution works (Scotland is rather different) ensures that nothing can possibly be guaranteed within the nation state itself – only external obligations can compel our government to abide by what many consider to be basic human rights obligations. There is not, nor ever has been, anything in English law that can secure civil liberties.

(Oh, and an additional problem? Legally speaking, any attempt to introduce a codified constitution granting inviolable legal rights to the people would itself be unconstitutional, and therefore illegal and easily repealed by any later government that wished to… The only way to ensure certain rights is to sign up to strict external obligations to force the national government to abide by set rules of conduct – one of the benefits we would have got had the now dead EU constitution been ratified and put into force.)

A bit of over-the-top historical/constitutional pedantry

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Talk Politics on top form once again, highlighting the details of deliberately confused legislation:

“The provisions which appeared in the first draft of the Bill, when glorification was a separate offence, which limit its applicability to terrorist attacks in the last twenty years plus anything before that put explicitly on a designated list by the Home Secretary is no longer part of the Bill – taken to the letter of the law, glorification covers any terrorist or terrorist act at any time in history or just terrorism in general.“

There’s a handy list including a number of the usual suspects – Nelson Mandela, George Washington etc. – who arguably used terrorist tactics (if terrorism is defined in the broad terms the government generally seems to prefer – namely “using violence to secure political ends”), just to undeline the insanity.

It’s easy to forget, however, that two of the documents most frequently held up as the foundation of the modern British political system also arose from acts which could easily be defined as terrorist.

Magna Carta was signed on 15 June 1215 as a concession following a protracted (para-)military campaign, including surprise attacks on government buildings and the assasination of leading government figures. It has practically no legal standing these days, but many hold it up as the first document extolling the virtues of the rights of the people over the state (even though it was no such thing).

More damagingly, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was settled after a military force invited by a group of men who held no political office came to London and surrounded the Palace of Westminster until Parliament agreed to give the crown to William of Orange. A modern equivalent would be if a group of nutjob Islamic fundamentalists took it upon themselves to invite Osama Bin Laden to surround Westminster with his barmy army, intimidating our representatives into instigating Sharia law and declaring Osama to be king.

The handy thing is, as there’s no accepted definition of terrorism, it would be entirely possible to argue (and a number of historians have) that the Glorious Revolution was a terrorist act. And please note the name. That’s right, “Glorious” – glorifying terror if ever I saw it.

The post-1688 political settlement (which is in any case founded on an illegality, as the parliament which gave William the throne had no legal right to exist, and no legal right to depose James II) is usually summed up by the Bill of Rights (which, like Magna Carta has practically no impact on anything, other than as a nice(ish) ideal), but also includes the setting in stone of the concept of no one being above the law and the sovereignty of parliament.

Strictly speaking, as William III was illegally made king following his threat of force, he had no right to give away powers rightfully belonging to the crown, and none of the monarchs who followed him had any legitimacy to grant more powers either, as all of their powers as monarch were based upon an illegal power-grab founded on what was arguably an act of terrorism.

By merely being in office, Tony Blair is glorifying and legitimising terrorism. If he really meant what he says about clamping down on terrorist glorification, the current Royal Family would be booted out and the Stuart line restored in the shape of King Francis II; parliament’s powers would be greatly curtailed to remove all those it has gained since 1688; the Cabinet would be abolished along with the office of Prime Minister as the King returns to government by Privy Council; all crown lands sold or given away in the last 300 years (a sizable chunk of the country) would be returned to King Francis; all currency issued by the Bank of England would instantly be illegal for its glorification of a false monarch and for having not been issued by a legal Royal Mint; Scotland would become an independent nation once again as the Act of Union is inistantly abolished; the Elizabethan Corn Laws would return to replace the welfare state; and the majority of the population would lose its voting rights overnight as we return to male-only voting based on property qualifications.

If these things are not enacted as soon as the current Terrorism Bill passes its final vote, the government must prosecute itself for glorifying and condoning terrorism merely by existing.

Sovereignty

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Via Political Theory Daily Review, a pdf article providing an interesting (if flawed) overview of the development of the concepts of “sovereignty” and “the nation state” which EU-sceptics often seem to get so worked up about, as well as the concept of international law. There’s also a nice little section on Hobbes, demonstrating that his ideas about sovereignty, contract theory and the individual’s relationship to the state (which seem to have been swallowed wholesale by many EU-sceptics) were very much of their time (although I’d suggest reading a bit of Quentin Skinner to get a more in-depth understanding of the pros and cons of continuing to see Hobbes as relevant to the modern world).

Anyway, I digress. Included in the article was a quote (from G. Kitson Clark’s “The Modern State and Modern Society” in Heinz Lubasz (ed.) – The Development of the Modern State, New York; Macmillan, 1964; pp.94) which is worth reproducing in full:

A Soveriegn State is autonomous, it is the sole judge of its own actions, no appeal lies to anyone against it. The sovereignty of Sovereign States is most often considered in the international sphere, in connection with a State’s autonomy in its relations with other Sovereign States; but it is important to remember that it exists in the domestic sphere as well. In a Sovereign State the subject has no legal right against the State at all, the power of the State is absolute. This is palpably true of the total State, but it is true of the liberal State also. It is true of Great Britain. In Great Britain the subject has important rights against the executive, he can sue the policeman, the soldier, the borough official, Her Majesty’s Government itself, if he believes they have infringed his rights. But he has no rights against the law. In England, a rule which is acknowledged part of the English Common Law or the result of a statute duty passed by King, Lords and Commons, may seem to an Englishman to be absurd, unjust and generally intolerable, but he must obey it or take the consequences. there is a moral restriction on the actions which a liberal state may take against its subjects and it is very valuable, but there can be no legal restriction on those actions.

After recent developments in this country, I for one would welcome legal restrictions on the ability of the state to interfere in our lives through unjust laws. I would like there to be lines in the sand, over which no government can step. At present, there are none. A government could force us all to carry ID cards with detailed information about every aspect of our lives stored in a central database which it could then, if it passed a law saying it could, use for any purposes it so desires. A government could grant itself the power to detain any and all of us without trial. All it would need is a sufficient majority in the House of Commons, and then to wait around for a couple of years if the Lords refuses to pass its legislation before using the Parliament Act to override all objections.

If we ratify the EU constitution, we ratify a document which firmly binds us to the European Charter of Fundamental Rights – out of which the British government has currently opted to enable it to do things which all other signatories of the Charter consider, by definition, to be violations of fundamental rights.

If we ratify the EU constitution, in future no government would be able to deny any of us a trial. No government would be able to pass a law allowing its agents to torture us. We would be legally free from tyranny.

If we ratify the EU constitution, for the first time in this nation’s history the state would ACTUALLY, rather than merely theoretically, have certain definite responsibilities towards its citizens. We would no longer need seventeenth century theories about some mythical “original contract”, nor would we need to continue to repeat – albeit using different terminology – seventeenth century complaints about “the Norman yoke” and various pieces of abject nonsense about the rights granted by Magna Carta (based on yet another seventeenth century misinterpretation of what that document actually means) whenever the state gets out of hand.

If we ratify the EU constitution, the British state – and every state in Europe – would be bound by international treaty never to oppress its people. Considering Europe’s turbulent past, and considering the way Britain currently seems to be headed – surely the state’s sovereign right to persecute its citizens is a sovereign right well worth losing?