In 2007, well before the current turmoil hit the society, Jose Manuel Barroso (president of the European Commission) said: "Sometimes I like to compare the European Union as the creation of organization of Empires. The Empires!...But there is a great difference. The Empires were usually made through force in a center that was imposing a diktat... And now we have what we call a non-Imperial Empire."
Years have passed by and it looks like European Union turned from a beautiful dream into a horrendous nightmare in a blink of an eye. Everything seems to crumble apart. Euro, the common coin (that the strongest economical states use) is at the brink of disaster. Peaceful, pro-European and anti-nationalistic feelings - the very fabric that holds this fragile union together are turning into hateful, egoistic and mean feelings. Day by day, Europeans start thinking not how to get along better but how to hate more.
Each day that passes, one European will stop believing in the United Europe project and start supporting nationalistic (even extremist nationalistic) projects. Each day that passes newspapers will publish a new article of how other countries or even the European Union are at fault for their own economical state. But never their own country will be at fault for anything.
European Commission is overwhelmed by the situation. Greece is falling apart while Merkel and Sarkozy are putting a feeble attempt to save what's left of the dream that no longer than 10 years ago was UNITED EUROPE. Sadly they too seem to be failing.
How is it possible, I wonder, that the best project of peace and prosperity that has ever been seen on this planet is starting to fail so miserably? Is peace overrated? Is economical prosperity pursued in its purest form of sincerity doomed to fail? Are people just selfish, narrow-minded and conflictual?
Actually, most of them are. And history has told us that any enterprise built on denying the reality of human nature - the true fabric of society - is doomed to fail. So shall the European Union in it's current state.
Because European Union is a synthetic construction, with a synthetic ideology and, more important that not, a synthetic communication policy. I mean, what the hell does that flag mean? Saint Peter? Jesus? The constellation of Orion?
Just as the whole structure in itself, the symbols of European Union are flat and lifeless. They are a depiction of the force, the engine that drives hundreds of millions of people into working, fighting and believing in something. That force is missing: a ring of stars.... Those do not even symbolize all the nations united under the flag. Pathetic!
People want GREATNESS! That is something that our European leaders seem to have forgotten long ago. Instead of firefighting the money shortness, in order to build a new Europe, Merkel and Sarkozy should focus not on fighting the banks, but fighting the lack of will of most Europeans these days. A country with an apathetic population will perish. An Empire with an apathetic population will disintegrate.
People want greatness. This is our only chance. People will not fight for something that do not understand (like banks and finance and budgets), but they will fight for that leader that brings greatness back to them. And greatness starts with the symbols of the Empire.
We may be a non-Imperial Empire, but we are an Empire nonetheless.
We the people of Europe want to see a flag, that holds the symbols which drove us to greatness, to work and to war for more than two thousand years: we want to see the Aquila, the lion and the bull united under the same flag. We want to see the cross, the grain and the olive branches. We want to have great symbols if you want us to be great nations united.
And this is how it would be done right. You can keep the blue color or you can have all the colors of Europe as long as all the rest is golden. And somewhere, tiny in one corner you can have your damned ring of stars.
Of course, a symbol is not enough. It takes a true leader to drive and hand it all together. We seem to be short of such at the moment...
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