Of magnanimity signalling the freedom of mature people
On 11 September 1989, the Hungarian-Austrian border was reopened. Thousands of East Germans immediately started making way to the free world. Within a few months, the Iron Curtain was history.
Sometime in early December 1989, I was approached by an inconspicuous character, at the Civic Forum information centre, who said he’d like to have over four Belgian students: on a fact-finding mission, he suggested in not-so-clear terms. We thought he was speaking on behalf of a youth or educational institution, but it showed that an invitation had been extended to us by several families from Bruges. In two weeks, we were shown round a university and students’ clubs, visited an English lesson, a hospital, a flower market, the pastor and the local prison, a rural scouting base, and traipsed ancient lanes in old cities. We were pampered like their children.
A lot has changed since that time. Now we are members of the European Union. We share the Schengen zone. We use a single credit card. Czech MEPs sit with their Belgian colleagues in the same room in the European Parliament. But still, when I hear Europe, I always at first backtrack on those initial two weeks: the people who don’t wait until somebody fixes something and instead of that invite youngsters from behind the Iron Curtain to their homes, to share their comfort, time and future plans. They did it just like that, of their own will.
Later on I experienced a similar magnanimity at a meeting of the Ackermann-Gemeinde organization, focusing on European solidarity issues. A member of the European Parliament suggested that solidarity with a debt-laden Greece has its limits, because common European’s money is at stake. But then the rest of the company made it abundantly clear to him that a “joint venture” will cost something.
Nowadays, Europeans and the European Union as a whole face problems we were unprepared to admit, way back in the 1990s, namely the relationships between the rich North and the indebted South, the stability of the common currency, banking supervisions, migration waves, Islamist cells rearing suicidal assassins, and an unpredictable Russia lurking behind the lines.
Maybe in nearly all these areas, starting with the common currency and ending with common defence against terrorists, the proponents of the European Union and possibly even its deeper integration give just as many good reasons as those who would like to see a looser (I’d even say, defunct) Union. The European funds, regarded as the only weighty “pro-EU” argument by some, are shunned by some others as an instrument with which Brussels keeps the national governments at bay.
Man is a social animal prone to breaking the barriers, says philosopher Ladislav Hejdánek. Man needs barriers lest he loses the feeling of safety, argues Professor Petr Piťha.
It is written in the textbooks on European integration that Robert Schuman, an able-bodied politician, knew how to propose a small step, at the right moment, towards a great vision, while Jean Monet assumed after careful calculation that integration will pay economic dividends. It is good to know that. Less often cited studies show how much energy and stamina there is behind the various milestones of integration and how many plans were ultimately foiled (including those for a joint European army). One must count with that. Some projects work flawlessly, including the free movement of persons within Schengen or the student exchange schemes under the Erasmus programme. Every year, almost 300,000 students spend at least one semester in another country, and nearly 100,000 young Czechs have gathered experience in this way, over the past few years. The feedback is incredibly positive, especially when the students also live in host families. It is a worthy experience. Our eldest daughter helped my family to find new friends in Germany last summer.
I don’t hide my predilection for breaking the barriers: I don’t believe that frontiers will usher the feeling of safety and certainty to a naturally insecure world.
However, 11 September also harks back to the terrorist assault on the New York Twins. Europe is no longer able to stave off terrorist attacks, either.
Understandably, one catches the last straw, hoping for any protective shield, face to face with this situation. Understandably, people call for strong leaders and impenetrable borders. But these calls should not silence the magnanimity professed by the freedom of the mature people, who know that giving is a more blessed gift than taking. Will there ever be enough of them to ensure that Europe remains the globally preferred place to live?