The Idea of European Unity
ROUCEMONT, DENIS DE
The Idea of European Unity By Denis de Rougemont When Europeans arrive in America, people immediately ask them about the state of the European Defense Community. The European visitor, in turn,...
...We had something positive and concrete: the common future and spirit of all European nations...
...The European visitor, in turn, usually asks about Senator McCarthy...
...Two organizations which are devoting themselves to the preparation and education of minds are the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the European Cultural Center...
...And this is the first big victory for the cause of European federation...
...But we cannot have freedom if we do not have peace, and we cannot have peace if we do not achieve a strong and independent Europe...
...In politics, it is the manner in which an issue is put before the public, the angle of vision imposed on public opinion, that counts...
...Let me illustrate: The recent Berlin Conference, even though it brought about no eonDenis de Rougemont, a Swiss cultural historian, is a leading figure in the Congress for Cultural Freedom...
...Is there any way one can measure its concrete results...
...it is, in T. S. Eliot's words, "that which gives meaning to life and work...
...For the past three or four years, they have ignored frontiers in bringing together artists and writers, scientists and historians...
...and n creating a series of political and cultural publications—five magazines and numerous pamphlets—which are published in the principal European languages...
...In Berlin, thanks to the mere existence of the project for a common European army and a political federation of Europe, we had more to defend than just a glorious past or the status quo...
...The obstacles to unification of Europe lie in neither the acts nor the "economic interests" of any particular country, but rather in the minds of men...
...in organizing music festivals and literary congresses...
...Italy and Germany, in addition to the six Soviet satellites and the Soviet Union itself...
...The Kremlin did not even omit Liechtenstein, Andorra and Monaco...
...The 32-nation "democratic alliance" proposed by the Kremlin would include countries like "fascist" Spain, "corporate" Portugal, the "obscurantist" Vatican, "deviationist" Yugoslavia, and the "American colonies" of France...
...That power could re-emerge tomorrow with unification...
...It is the task of awakening a common consciousness, of stimulating the growth of a supra-national conscience, that is the pressing need: once that is accomplished, everything else—the European Defence Community, political and economic federation, etc.--will follow...
...Moreover, Europe's culture was the secret of the power—the material power, too—which she once enjoyed throughout the world...
...The answer is that our vital task is to change people's angle of vision...
...However, this is a question of general principle...
...But how, one may wonder, can this attempt to reach people on a cultural level change European realities...
...It is this type of reflex reaction, based on mutual suspicion, that we must fight if we wish to make tangible and lasting progress toward unification...
...This is real progress, progress that would have been unthinkable two or...
...As a consequence...
...The moment he succeeded in putting the Jewish question before the German public, he had won his battle: After that, every German was forced to confront each human being with the question: "Is he, or is he not, a Jew...
...These ideological doodles of Molotov are not very important in themselves, but they do prove that the concept of European unity has made such progress that the Kremlin feels it cannot fight it except by pretending to accept it...
...All the public-opinion polls taken in European countries in the past two years show that 75 per cent of the people are in favor of European unification...
...in founding institutions like the European College in Brussels and the European Laboratory for Nuclear Research in Geneva...
...The extent to which this European "angle of vision," the idea of unification, made its influence felt at the Conference is shown by the fact that Molotov himself was forced to present a plan for European unification...
...crete solution to the German and the Austrian questions, had a moral effect of the greatest importance: The trump card that the Western powers were able to play in their discussions with Moscow was the concept of European unity...
...Yet, it is the only realistic approach and the only one that holds out the prospect of success...
...Europeans are fearful and suspicious, and reluctant to undertake jointly something that is great and new...
...At present, European unification is only a plan, an idea...
...What is the reason for all these delays...
...three years ago...
...The racist viewpoint had been forced upon him...
...When you ask Frenchmen whether they would join a European Army and take orders from German officers, the majority of 75 per cent shrinks to a minority...
...The idea of European unity will eventually create the fact...
...For two years, we have been discussing the European Defense Community, and only one country, Holland, has ratified it...
...But it is false "realism" that fails to see the power of ideas to affect historical development...
...The more far-reaching project for a common political constitution for the six Schuman Plan countries, agreed upon a year ago at Strasbourg, has not yet been brought up for debate in a single national parliament...
...Take Hitler as an example...
...The nationalistic education that a European receives from his earliest school days—from history books, from the remembrance of past wars, from the absurd belief in national cultures—prevents him from thinking of himself as a European, rather than as a Frenchman, a German, a Dutchman, or a Swede...
...But the difficulties which still confront us are enormous...
...Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg will doubtless follow, but the project faces great obstacles in France and has not even been discussed in Italy...
...Now Senator McCarthy is quite an important person in Europe, but something else is beginning to overshadow his antics—to wit, Europe itself...
...This is a long-term undertaking whose results cannot be measured, weighed, seen or touched...
...In our time, the big problem is freedom...
...Today, fortunately, it is the issue of European unification that is imposing itself on the minds and hearts of all our European citizens...
...For culture must not be regarded as merely a luxury item or a means of filling leisure hours...
...A strong and independent Europe requires European federation...
Vol. 37 • May 1954 • No. 22
