The European Parliament is used to scoring own-goals. But even by its standards, the assembly’s call last week for the EU flag to be flown at major sporting events and for the European emblem to grace athletes’ shirts was the political equivalent of a defender back-heeling the ball into his own net.
Admittedly, parliament’s report on the European dimension of sport contains plenty of worthy calls for member states to devote a greater share of their budget to sports and for racism, violence and corruption in sport to be rooted out. But as the EU has few competences in the sports arena, this amounts to little more than meaningless political posturing.
Parliament insists the European flag would be displayed alongside national symbols on athletes’ shirts and would be entirely voluntary. What could possibly be wrong with that? Quite a lot actually.
As I argue in the latest edition of Foreign Policy Magazine, there is no such thing as a European people and top-down attempts at moulding one are likely to end in failure.
In opinion polls voters identify themselves much more with their nation state than with Europe. As former European Commissioner Chris Patten has said: “The nation is alive and well and more potent than ever in some respects. It is the largest unit, perhaps, to which people will willingly accord emotional allegiance.”
In fact, even the nation is too big for many people to associate with. Europe has 20 more countries than in 1988 due to the splintering of countries like the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and others. And there will be more on the way if Belgium, Spain or Britain shatter.
In September the New York Times ran a front-page article about plans to have a British soccer team representing the UK in the London Olympics this year. Quite logical, one might think. Except there is no such thing. Instead we have Welsh, English, Scottish and Northern Irish teams and all but the English are against joining Team GB. Said the head of the Scottish football federation – “We need to protect our identity and we have no interest in taking part.” The Welsh former goalkeeper Neville Southall asked: “What flag are they going to put up if Team GB win the football? The Union Jack? Well it’s not my flag; my flag’s a dragon.”
The journalist helpfully pointed out that “It is sometimes hard for outsiders to comprehend how deeply tribal Britain is, and how resistant to the idea that there is a unifying notion of Britishness.”
Not just Britain. In Belgium there is such a vicious division between Flanders and Wallonia that the country’s football association recently voted to divide national amateur leagues along linguistic lines.
Call me tribal, but despite living in Belgium for almost 20 years I am Welsh and proud of it. The symbols I identify with are the dragon, the leek and the daffodil, not a flag designed by a committee of experts half a century ago. When our rugby team beat Ireland on Saturday I jumped for joy like most of my compatriots. The pleasure of beating our opponents – because that is what sport is largely about – would not have been any different if the European flag had been fluttering above the Aviva stadium in Dublin or if the players had worn the 12 stars on their shirts. Its presence would simply have been an irrelevance.
This is not to deny that one can have multiple identities. Many Europeans are Catalan, Spanish and European. Others are Muslim and French. But identities cannot be artificially created – they are forged early on and never go away. As the Jesuits’ used to say: ‘Give me a child until he’s seven and I will give you the man.’
Europeans are slowly coming together after centuries of division – and that is a good thing. Most Europeans care more about the result of the Eurovision Song Contest and the Champions League final than the European Parliament elections. Thanks to no-frills airlines like Ryanair and easyJet, Europeans are criss-crossing the continent like never before. And Brits with no great fondness for the EU cheer on French, Spanish and Portuguese soccer stars playing for their ‘local’ clubs and afterwards head to the pub to drink Belgian and German lagers.
Much of the credit for this is due to the EU for scrapping national airline monopolies, granting Europeans the right to live and work in any member state and ending quotas on foreign soccer players – although, perversely, parliament’s report says that an “over-dependence on the transfer of players can undermine sporting values.” But ultimately Europe will not be built by Brussels edicts but European citizens – whether border-hopping footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo, superstar DJs like David Guetta or brash entrepreneurs like Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary.
In his magisterial book ‘In Europe,’ the Dutch author Geert Mak writes: “People need stories in order to grasp the inexplicable, to cope with their fate. The individual nation, with its common language and shared imagery can always forge these experiences into one great cohesive story. But Europe cannot do that. Unlike the United States it still has no common story.”
There are huge differences between states in America but at the end of the day Americans feel American and are proud of the fact. Their hearts beat faster when they sing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ or watch their athletes winning gold medals in Olympics. Most know their constitution and roughly how their political system works. They speak the same language and are obsessed by the same sports.
The European Union, on the other hand, has created common institutions, laws and even a currency. It has created all the symbols of a nation state – a passport nobody swears allegiance to, an anthem nobody knows and a flag that is only voluntarily waved at the Ryder Cup golf championships between the US and Europe. What it lacks is a people who share a common culture, language or narrative – or at the very least are able to identify with the political construct that has been created in their name. “We have Europe. Now we need Europeans,” was how former Polish foreign minister Bronislaw Geremek put it.
The problem is you cannot manufacture Europeans like toy soldiers. It takes time for a people to evolve and imposing artificial political bodies on disparate peoples has ended in failure or disaster throughout history.
#1 by Spyro on February 6, 2012 - 10:01 pm
I never understood nationalism. How one can be so proud of something that took him no effort, that simply happened to him? It defers personal achievement and worth from the individual to a collective mob based on confounded perceptions of historical events, much like religion defers truth and knowledge away from scientific discourse and philosophy and into the realm of stupidity and faith. How can bashing religiously conservative people be a free for all nowadays, but saying that for instance national politicians have unnecessarily large notions of ‘popular’ legitimacy be a taboo?
I also don’t understand this zero-sum game, you’re either European or X national, EuroUtopianIdiot or Eurohater, etc etc. I mean come on, where’s the grace, where’s the progress? The majority is all shades of grey really, and I am pretty sure that European passports, the flag, the euro, and the treaties with our common rights are far from toilet paper.
You mention America. ‘American’ is not a national identity, first and foremost it is a political identity, a civic identity. Similarly the European identity is a political and civic identity that really is not meant to compete with our national identities. An American will be plain American when reciting his rights, but in a cultural environment or in his immediate daily life, he almost invariably embraces his hyphenated/regional, fuller meta-national identity. How hard is it in the end?
Viz. Europe, the only conflict is for those relics who still believe in the nation-state as the supreme instrument for people achieving prosperity. I hope we all agree that this doctrine has really limited relevance in our age.
And about the conclusion of the article, do you imply that pop culture is the requirement for a European identity? If yes then oh god we are doomed. Otherwise, do these people claim that European peoples don’t have sufficient cultural proximity or common historical narrative for anything bigger than nation-states? …wait what?
Regarding people being happy because some ruggerbuggers in a ‘national’ sports team scored more goals against another ‘national’ team in a sports game, again come on, where’s the elegance? Do people really need props like that to feel joy? Would dismissing nationalistic panem et circenses be a taboo too and sewing a tiny circle of stars somewhere on the kit an anathema?
So much for grounded opinions.
#2 by Calvin Graham on February 6, 2012 - 11:36 pm
Nationalism didn’t “just happen” – it was fought for over centuries and whilst we may have decided to sensibly stop the fighting we are all aware of that different lifestyles and systems of society that those separate governments defended and left us with. The EU can help immensely with transnational ideas but will be pointless and fighting a ridiculous and doomed battle if it thinks that by signing bits of paper it can force the Dutch to start taking siestas or the Greeks to start having a German lifestyle.
#3 by Jose Maria Gonzales on February 7, 2012 - 7:12 am
Contrary to the myths to which some subscribe, including many libertarians, the evolution of capitalism out of the old feudal order was not one where liberty triumphed over privilege, but one where privilege asserted itself in newer and more sophisticated forms.
No man should be allowed to own any land that he does not use. Everybody knows that — I do not care whether he has thousands or millions. I have owned a great deal of land, but I know just as well as I know I am living that I should not be allowed to have it unless I use it. And why? Don’t you know that if people could bottle the air, they would? Don’t you know that there would be an American Air-bottling Association? And don’t you know that they would allow thousands and millions to die for want of breath, if they could not pay for air?
The doctrine of limited liability is central to the rise of unfettered, irresponsible corporate power. It must be challenged in the interests of individual freedom, equality before the law and shared prosperity, argue Stephanie Blankenburg & Dan Plesch.
About the authors
The owners and directors of corporations must be made accountable in law for their actions. Owner-shareholders and top executives exercise immense power, both globally and locally, but are not responsible in law for their actions. This immunity is provided by the legal principle of limited liability.
Society needs successful businesses, but today business is taking over society. It is as if an over-indulged child had taken more and more liberties until it is entirely out of control. Everyone wants the child to do well, no boundaries are set, and before you know it the family is under the thumb of a teenager gone wild. The deep irony is that it is the unfettered rise of corporate power that presents the biggest threat to free markets, and to the ability of free markets to promote individual freedom, equality before the law and equitable prosperity.
The widespread concern over the impact of corporate power is expressed through efforts to achieve corporate social responsibility (CSR). Sadly, CSR has not delivered on its expectation, mostly because it relies on voluntary action and lacks the legal teeth to change business behaviour. Corporations still have the rights of a person, but none of the responsibilities.
#4 by Hans Klein on February 7, 2012 - 7:21 am
Many thought that the new world order proclaimed by George Bush was the promise of 1945 fulfilled, a world in which international institutions, led by the United Nations, guaranteed international peace and security with the active support of the world’s major powers. That world order is a chimera. Even as a liberal internationalist ideal, it is infeasible at best and dangerous at worst. It requires a centralized rule-making authority, a hierarchy of institutions, and universal membership. Equally to the point, efforts to create such an order have failed. The United Nations cannot function effectively independent of the major powers that compose it, nor will those nations cede their power and sovereignty to an international institution. Efforts to expand supranational authority, whether by the U.N. secretary-general’s office, the European Commission, or the World Trade Organization (WTO), have consistently produced a backlash among member states.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/53399/anne-marie-slaughter/the-real-new-world-order
Do free markets, privatization, and open competition help limit corruption, as their advocates often argue? Or do they actually create new opportunities for graft and abuse? The political scientist Warner deserves credit for tackling these issues, but her study begs more questions than it answers. Warner looks at economic liberalization in the European Union over the past 20 years and suggests that the process not only has failed to root out corruption but has actually generated it as well. The book is full of detailed evidence of how European business and political leaders have continued to line their pockets even as the EU single market has progressed. The question, however, is, compared with what? Are EU member states more or less corrupt than before they began to liberalize? How do their levels of corruption compare with those of other advanced industrial countries? How do they compare with those of less integrated or less economically liberal states?
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63137/philip-h-gordon/the-best-system-money-can-buy-corruption-in-the-european-union
“The voluntary transfer of monetary sovereignty from the national to the European level is unique in history. However, it should not be seen as a single, isolated event. The introduction of the euro is part of the process of European integration. . . . The aims of European integration are not only, or even primarily, economic. Indeed, this process has been driven and continues to be driven by the political conviction that an integrated Europe will be safer, more stable and more prosperous than a fragmented Europe.”
– Wim Duisenberg, president of the European Central Bank, May 1999
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/55417/patrick-mccarthy/the-grand-bargain-a-new-book-demystifies-european-integration
A former employee of one of the world’s largest international banks has provided WND with more than 1,000 pages of documents, including customer account ledgers for dozens of companies through which the financial institution was laundering money each month, according to the whistleblower.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/see-big-bank-money-laundering-evidence/
#5 by Atila Kovacs on February 7, 2012 - 7:41 am
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.
During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.”
–Attributed to Scottish History Professor at University of Edinburgh Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813) and others
“…often the most tyrannical government on earth.”
–Noah Webster
Democracy can be explained as “two wolves and a lamb, voting on what to have for dinner” or “A political system calculated to make an intelligent minority subject to the will of the stupid.” –Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)
William H. Dawson, in his sympathetic exposition, Bismarck and State Socialism (1890), explained the difference:
“Socialism would abolish the existing political order altogether, while State Socialism would use the State for the accomplishment of great economic and social purposes, especially restoring to it the function, which Frederick the Great held to be the principle business of the State, of ‘holding the balance’ between classes and parties.”
“State Socialism is the mean between these directions of thought; in it the two extremes meet.”
And it offered the German people a higher “freedom”-a freedom of security and protection from the vicissitudes of life-that the purely “negative” freedoms of classical liberalism failed to provide. This was explained by Frederic C. Howe (an American intellectual who played a leading role in the Progressive movement and later served in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal) in his book Socialized Germany (1915)
http://www.one-evil.org
#6 by Patrick on February 7, 2012 - 11:58 am
With this kind of thinking, there would be no USA, no UK, no Italy and no Germany; Europe would not have advanced from pre-Roman times with masses of tribes each defending their own piece of territory.
Fortunately, history teaches us differently. The US flag was originally used by military, before it took on greater meaning with the American Civil War. How many Kentuckians or Texans would have thought of themselves as “American” in 1860? Very few I would imagine. The same could be said for Prussians and Saxons, and to Sicilians and Sardinians pre-1871.
State identity remains fundamentally a political construct. Despite what certain may say in Wales and Scotland, a large part of the UK population feels British – a notion which derives almost entirely from a law passed in 1707.
The EU is at a similar point as the United States was in 1800. Integration occurs at a far slower pace in the absence of external catalysing factors such as foreign invasions or civil wars. It’s very easy to imagine America in 1776 as a mass of flag-waving, English-speaking people who were united behind their new nation. The reality could not be more different; a mass of languages were spoken and even as late as the 1920s, there were newspapers in German. US Federalism was resisted and even fought over.
Interesting article, but as with much written about Europe by Anglo-Saxons, it doesn’t really hold water.
#7 by Wilfried on February 7, 2012 - 3:03 pm
I have to agree with Patrick. This is one of the few better articles I have seen written about Europe by an English journalist, but then again and as pointed out by previous commentators, it doesn’t really hold water. the problem for British raised and educated people is that they have a completely insular (British Empire infused) view of history that disables them to understand that even without history lessons, growing up in a continental nation, gives you a different understanding and real life experiences in interdependences with your neighbours across artificial national and cultural boarders. And apart from that you learn very early that throughout of thousands of years national borders have come and gone, changed time and time again to serve the very often more then questionable interest of ruling families for which millions of ordinary people lost their lifes. First it was about land and tax income, then it was protection of industrialists’ home territories/market monopolies (national industrues) and now it is speculation with the money/currencies of whole nations and their ordinary people’s living standards. Apart from some global industries, criminal organisations, rough states, have long ago realised that the anachronistic thinking and functioning of most national governments, provide the real opportunities to stripp people’s combined assets without getting caught in time. The EU provides us with an opportunity to act jointly in a powerfull way on this global issues without us having to go to war or loose our own local identity and basic rights.
#8 by Colette on February 7, 2012 - 5:59 pm
@Wilfred I think it’s massively naive to assume that someone from Britain is any more inward looking that someone from anywhere else. When I worked in London I came across far more diversity and tolerance than here on the mainland. Certainly the way that immigration has been dealt with by many EU states does not support the idea that we are any less protective of nationhood and identity than any other countries.
Where the argument for EU statehood breaks down is that being a federal nation state called the USE (or whatever) is no different to being part of a republic called France or Germany. The only difference is the amount of shared values you build your society on and I have more in common with many Canadians than I do with some other Europeans.
The EU should stick to what it’s good at and forget trying to act as if we all hold the same values, lifestyles, work/life balance or aspirations
#9 by gareth harding on February 8, 2012 - 5:08 pm
@Wilfried @Patrick Thanks for the thoughtful – if somewhat condescending – comments on my article. As @Colette points out, I think it is “massively naive” to simply assume that because someone is British they have an insular view of history. If you knew your history – and geography – better you would of course know that someone from Wales is neither ‘English’ nor ‘Anglo-Saxon.’ You would also know that there is no contradiction between being Welsh and British. As I point out in my piece, it is quite possible to have multiple identities – as my Franco-Belgian-British children do. Finally @Spyro completely confuses nationalism and patriotism. The fact that I am proud of being Welsh does not make me want to go and invade neighbouring countries – just beat them in rugby!
#10 by Pedro on February 9, 2012 - 7:17 am
Little englanders do not speak for the 500 million plus citizens of the European Union! If I were an athlete I would gladly emblazon the EU flag on my uniform!! If the insular types see it as an “own goal” that could be due to their xenophobia…..
Regardless, there are more than 500 million of us, some of which support our Parliament on this one!!!
P.S. Here’s hoping the Scots vote for independence in their upcoming referendum! Another step in isolating the isolationists!!!
#11 by Calvin Graham on February 9, 2012 - 3:52 pm
I’m Scottish and we don’t like being called Englanders; we spent a thousand years fighting for our freedom from them. Don’t use words like xenophobia unless you can explain how being from a country called Scotland is any different from being in a country called Europe. A European xenophobe is just as bad, except their phobia is based on people elsewhere (America, China etc)
Also don’t suggest that 500m people are in favour of the EU. If any polls or referendums are to be listende to, you’d be pushing to get to 250m out of that total. The others want out, largely because they don’t like EU Nationalism stuffed down their throats of forced onto their clothing by laws passed far away.
Woops, mistake in my logic there. I forgot that referendums arn’t allowed these days. At least not if you’re from Holland, France, Ireland or anywhere else with a history of “giving the wrong answer” and saying no
#12 by Marcel on February 10, 2012 - 2:00 am
Calvin, Pedro here is trolling and is very happy about the destruction of democracy by the Eurosoviet and the undermining of our wealth by the Euro. Elitists tend to despise little people like us.
People like him would likely have argued cooperation in 1942, because after all ‘as one we are stronger’ and ‘its inevitable anyway’.
#13 by Pedro on February 10, 2012 - 2:16 am
Marcel, Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union…USE IT!!!
Bye-bye…..
#14 by Martin on February 11, 2012 - 1:03 pm
These flashback over the war, Eurosoviet, … oh, please, come on! Europe is overcoming many psycological borders (the scars of history), but there are still some more to remove.
#15 by Marcel on February 12, 2012 - 9:29 pm
@13 Pedro
If only our politicians would let us, we’d be BETTER OFF without the wealth destroying Euro or the undemocratic Eurosoviet Union. But the mainstream politicians were all bribed with promises of EU jobs and journalists are bought with endless EU summits, journalism ‘prizes’ and ‘access’.
Thus the treason continues. The deck is stacked against those like me who love democracy and thus hate the Eurosoviet Union.
What’s your thing anyway? Longing to be an EU-apparatchik?
How’s youth unemployment down there anyhow?
@14 Martin
Do amuse us by taking out some time to explain the political difference between the EU’s Politburo and the old Soviet Politburo? For all intents and purposes, there are few.
#16 by Pedro on February 15, 2012 - 5:53 am
Marcel wrote: “If only our politicians would let us”
Seeing that your so critical of the EU one would suspect that your country is a democracy. The EU allows states to secede. So, Marcel is either in the minority of his fellow citizens in calling for secession from the EU, or his country lacks what he accuses the EU of lacking, democracy.
Signed,
Laughing Out Loud.
#17 by Sylvie on February 15, 2012 - 10:38 pm
British people (English at least) do not have the same cview as us continental europeans. Our parents or grandparents had know war, occupation by the “ennemy”, entirely destroyed towns, lack of freedom, denonciations, deportation, poverty and so on. We have a common history. The history of people who founded european community for peace, for freedom, for no more war between us, for a long walk together, towards the united states of Europe. Great Britain never shared this dream and does not currently. We, French, Germans, italians, belgians, dutch and all those who came later, share this dream. Europe is our dream and our country. Eu flag flies on our schools, our towns, our monuments. It is OUR flag. We are proud of it. Our children go to another member states to sutdy, we travel without borders, we understand each other more or more. Our economies, our interests are linked, our problems as well of course. We are europeans. We have got close friends and colleagues in the other member states. We can argue, but as in a family, sure the things won”t get wrong because we are united. We will solve our problems. Without UK. UK should leave EU as soon as possible and let us make the USE dream become real. Maybe one day english, scottish and welsh will give up with their isolationism and only single market vision. That day they will be welcome again.
#18 by Pedro on February 16, 2012 - 12:21 am
Sylvie, the French and other Europeans also faced the same destruction that england was subjected to in the second world war. But unlike the english, we Europeans don’t suffer from a collective ignorant arrogance.
#19 by OldStone50 on February 22, 2012 - 5:28 pm
What concerns me more than Gareth’s attachment to his Welsh culture and his desire to deny the possibility that a sense of unity greater than nationalist can develop, is his lousy journalism – especially since he “now directs the Missouri School of Journalism’s Brussels programme.” To wit: he initially says that no attempts to encourage loyalties beyond the nationalist are effective and derisively claims that, “But ultimately Europe will not be built by Brussels edicts”. This last bit directly after listing a row of Brussels edicts that he says himself have helped to build a sense of Europeaness!
He then goes on to make some absurd assertions about “Americans” (I assume he meant persons in or from the USA, of which I am one) and to acknowledge that the EU has created numerous institutions and symbols that its people are slowly getting used to.
In all, a terrible piece of journalism, and not even a very coherent opinion piece. I tremble for his department and for the journalists it releases onto the streets.
#20 by dududukkkkkkk on May 18, 2012 - 4:38 am
Scoring an own-goal for EU United Eye on Europe I was recommended this web site by my cousin. I am not sure whether this post is written by him as no one else know such detailed about my trouble. You are amazing! Thanks! your article about Scoring an own-goal for EU United Eye on EuropeBest Regards Lisa