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| (Photo from Desmontando Mentiras, Global Voices online.) |
[A
version of this article was first published in Catalonia
Today, January 2014.]
Europe
exists.
It
is certainly under great pressure as an economic group (and therefore
also as a political construction) but the past has shown that, as an
idea and an ideal, Europe exists.
When
I first came to continental Europe I quickly fell in love with this
part of the world. I was only 25 but after three months of continual
travel I realised that Paris, Berlin, Prague, Italy and Greece made
my then hometown in Australia seem ridiculous in comparison, even
though it is a capital city.
Sometimes
it takes someone who originally comes from outside a place to
recognise its worth – someone who does not take it for granted that
there is very different kind of life away from shopping malls and
quiet suburban streets.
In Europe, I found defined culture, vibrant
history and a sense that the twin Australian priorities of sport and
making money are often a very distant second to more sophisticated
concerns across Europe.
In Australia, to call someone an intellectual
is typically to insult them for being pretentious. But over here, a
writer is generally regarded well and the creative arts have always
had a place of broad respect, which is exactly why they are attacked
by those in power who are threatened by their satire and criticism.
They are important enough to be attacked.
I
accept that people are proud of their own cities and countries and I
readily acknowledge the differences between them.
I also believe that
(apart from all we have in common as human beings living and striving
on this planet) there is a great deal that those of us who live in
southern and western Europe share, especially when you think of
Mediterranean Europe.
Here, I mean the (relative) similarity of the
food, the central importance of family, the great tragedy of wars and
re-building from destruction. Europe has been it's own worst enemy
but it is a family of states who have more in common than it's people
often want to admit.
There
is a darker side to Europe though, and as ever, it is institutions
that are failing the people.
The faceless, unelected individuals of
the European Central Bank (ECB) have told Spanish Prime Minister
Mariano Rajoy what to do and he is happily doing as they say.
The ECB
wants further wage cuts and the
creation of "mini-jobs" to “address the issue” of youth
unemployment, in exchange for buying Spanish government bonds. These
"mini-jobs" would pay salaries
below the minimum wage,
which in Spain is 541 euros a month.
Not long ago Rajoy told
union leaders that he would also use the letter from the ECB as a
“road map” for policies aimed at ensuring that Spain remains in
“the vanguard of the Euro zone.” Sadly, this is just one of the
latest steps in turning Europe into
a low-wage “zone.”
Despite
this, there is still popular opinion across the wider region that
Europe is worth being part of.
As I write this, thousands of
pro-European protesters in Ukraine are facing more government
violence against them. They are reported to be angry at the
government's last-minute decision not to sign an association deal
with the EU, and instead form closer ties with Russia and China.
Europe
continues to exist as a progressive ideal but, in some senses, this
ideal has begun to seem like more of a dream than a reality.
