Europe is currently bound to the North by populism and to the South by refugees drowned in the sea. To the East, by Putin's tanks, to the West by the Trump wall. In the past by war, in the future with Brexit. Today, Europe is alone more than ever but its citizens do not know it. Europe is, however, for that reason the best solution (. . . ). Globalisation teaches us that today, Europe is inevitable, there is no alternative. But Brexit also tells us that Europe is reversible, that you can walk backwards in history, even though outside Europe it is very cold. Brexit is the most selfish decision ever made since Winston Churchill saved Europe with the blood, sweat and tears of the English. Saying Brexit is the most insidious way of saying good-bye.
Europe is not just a market, it is the will to live together. Leaving Europe is not leaving a market, it is leaving shared dreams. We can have a common market, but if we do not have common dreams, we have nothing. Europe is the peace that came after the disaster of war. Europe is the pardon between French and Germans. Europe is the return to freedom of Greece, Spain and Portugal. Europe is the fall of the Berlin Wall. Europe is the end of communism. Europe is the welfare state, it is democracy. Europe is fundamental rights. Can we live without all this? Can we give this all up? For what?
from a speech by Spanish member of the European Parliament Esteban González Pons on the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome on 25th March 2017
Seriously, Theresa May, you have no idea what you've signed away.
I was blown away by your eloquence upon reading this and then realised it was not written by you but still, it is eloquently put and I thank you for sharing. My son and his partner and their children live there and did not want it. He still has his American and Irish passports of which he may soon be very glad. So sad to see The Empire come to this...
ReplyDeleteMy disappointment with the world grows everyday. What a mess we humans have made of everything. I love our planet, but not the world.
ReplyDelete"... the will to live together..."
ReplyDeleteGood to hear the voice of Esteban González Pons in these baffling times. There is living proof of eloquence and sanity despite all to the contrary. Thank you for this post.
This is a deeply moving quote. I fear Brexit it will take the Great out of Great Britain. The European Union, however, will survive and thrive.
ReplyDeleteSo true. I want to give this to my former next-door neighbors the Brexiteers -- the ones who said Europe is undemocratic and the peace quotient doesn't matter because "war is inevitable among humans anyway." (!)
ReplyDeleteI so agree. Brexit is still incomprehensible to me.
ReplyDeleteThis eloquently describes the situation in which we find ourselves -- a world crossroads. Most of us in the U.S., where I am, strive to retain our democratic republic, our long standing European bond. Brexit seemed like a monumental mistake I couldn't imagine Great Britain would take. Now, I wonder what will happen to this nation and its people. What a world to find myself living in these later years of my life.
ReplyDeleteI lived in Europe in the golden age that ended with Chernobyl. How lucky I was!
ReplyDeleteQuite recently I discovered I'd been spelling our prime minister's first name incorrectly. For forty-four years I'd earned my crust as a journalist and under normal circumstances I'd have been ashamed; I'd been paid to get things right. These days the only shame I feel is in being a citizen of such a mean-spirited, narrow-gutted, inward-looking, inhumane, morally shrunken country that has the gall to cling on to the prefix "Great" when referring to itself. There is good history I could dwell on, instead I find myself recalling the bad: the reluctance to give up slavery, the repeated conviction that this country won WW2 on its own (forget the USA and - more especially - the USSR), the pathetic touchstone that we won an international soccer competition aeons ago and that ennobling light still radiates from this unimportant achievement. Read The Daily Mail, the Daily Express and The Sun and look for a gutter to spit in.
ReplyDeleteWe have been sabotaged, and there are always those with a grudge who would betray their own right arm. We must be brave and steadfast.
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