Inquiry at Bruges
WOODSIDE, WILLSON
The conference on Atlantic community Inquiry at Bruges By Willson Woodside Two LETTERS from friends sped me on my way to Bruges. One hoped that I would enjoy "the NATO conference"; the other...
...Thev included historians, social scientists, economists, university presidents and journalists...
...Members of the Atlantic Community should also maintain close contact with the underdeveloped countries...
...tomorrow, it might be in Russia...
...A large part of it reveled in non-conformity...
...The meeting was mainly one of scholars...
...But a German warned that these particularities, which had been the glory of Europe, now threatened to be its downfall, as was the case with the Greek city-states...
...Indeed, how many people had shoes before they were made in factories...
...The discussions at Bruges were as characteristic of that civilization as the agit-prop handbook and "spontaneous assemblies" are of Communist society...
...The keynote of the conference was set by Hans Kohn, one of its originators, when he insisted that the frontiers of the Atlantic Community were not geographic but in the minds and hearts of men...
...These small groups of 12 to 14 hammered away, day after day...
...However, as one French delegate said, "ours is a civilization of dialogue...
...Other kinds of resistance were noted to that wider political union which many present felt the times required...
...A Swiss historian quickly refuted this view by declaring that "a great alliance, for the life or death of our Western civilization, cannot be considered as a purely technical affair," nor can a crisis which has required American support for Europe against two great onslaughts since 1940 be called temporary...
...The likely center of Atlantic Institute activities in Europe would be the Council of Europe in Bruges...
...More good music is heard in America today than ever before, and machines are making this possible...
...It was privately arranged by the University of Pennsylvania and the College of Europe in Bruges...
...They ask for exchange of secondary-school students as well as teachers, agreement among member countries on equivalent university qualifications, and creation of a "European BA" which would be recognized and accepted in America...
...royalists and republicans...
...Ours had always been an open society and must remain so...
...The further stipulation that Dr...
...It would provide material to educational institutions and seek to inform public opinion...
...But how many of them, one speaker asked, would reject factory-made shoes...
...There was also a Finnish delegate, the former Rector of the University of Helsinki, an Icelander, a Hungarian and, altogether, people of 19 nationalities...
...The presence of a number of distinguished Swiss participants was significant of the broader appeal which the Atlantic Community makes, as compared to NATO...
...The spirit of the conference was best exemplified...
...To these he added the resentment of poor nations toward a rich one and of "old" people toward youthful, pushing people...
...In America, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania have been suggested...
...It was the liveliest of all the groups and produced an excellent set of agreed spiritual values for the Atlantic Community...
...conservatives, liberals and socialists...
...The Icelanders didn't feel that the Americans wanted anything from them...
...and differences in ideology...
...The peasants themselves apparently do not accept this romantic view, for they have been voting against the hardships of peasant life and in favor of shorter working hours in a factory by drifting steadily to the towns...
...the other gently mocked "this gathering of Atlantic Union folk...
...Actually, the Conference on North Atlantic Community was neither a NATO nor an Atlantic Union affair, although both Paul-Henri Spaak and Clarence Streit were there...
...Finally, in the matter of political organization, it was recommended that the work of the NATO Parliamentary Conference be supported and regularized, the status of representatives on the NATO Council be made more political and less ambassadorial than at present, and the information work of NATO be substantially expanded...
...1 thought, by the round table on religion and spiritual values...
...today-it was on the Polish-Russian border...
...And a British historian, Geoffrey Bar-raclough, came to the conference to argue that there was no such thing as an Atlantic Community and that to attempt to create one would merely freeze a temporary military situation...
...One topic that was thoroughly discussed in the round table on tensions was anti-Americanism...
...The Atlantic Institute proposed by the Bruges Conference is to be an independent body, supported by individuals, foundations and governments, with two centers of activity, on either side of the Atlantic...
...The great problem is how to remain liberal, critical and tolerant, and yet unite on positive action...
...Others pointed to the instinctive opposition of many European intellectuals to the rapid cultural changes brought on by the industrial age, for which they readily blame America...
...and Ghana rank among its greatest triumphs...
...In the economic field, it was held that the promotion of an Atlantic economic community should go forward simultaneously with the building of the European Community and that the latter would contribute to the former...
...And it was financed by the Ford and Mellon Foundations and Signor Olivetti, the enlightened Italian industrialist...
...This group met in a building with no facilities for simultaneous translation...
...Kohn laid down—that non-conformity must be treasured as one of the strengths of our society, and only of our society—was scarcely required by this audience...
...The best approach, it was felt, was to arrange Atlantic Community tours by publishers, editors, journalists and commentators...
...It is manifestly impossible here to do more than indicate the scope and spirit of the discussions at Bruges...
...The conference at Bruges was in reality the first session of the Atlantic Institute...
...A Socialist admitted that many European Socialists oppose an Atlantic Community because they fear they would be swamped in it and would "lose their social gains...
...These call for revision of history textbooks, preparation of an Atlantic atlas, and a comprehensive study of tensions within the Community...
...A number of participants noted a tendency to judge America by its worst and Europe by its best-—as though Europeans read Dante and Shakespeare while going to work in the streetcar and Americans read the comics...
...society...
...Leftist European intellectuals, he said, resent every success achieved by "bourgeois," capitalist America as a contradiction of their beliefs, although this ought, instead, to call for a revision of their beliefs...
...It is fine to "nail the flag of diversity to the mast," as one British historian put it, and stress the supreme importance of preserving European particularities in an Atlantic Community...
...A Frenchman, Professor Danielou of the Sor-bonne, insisted eloquently that there should be no attempt to constitute a common Western credo or ideology as an answer to Soviet ideology...
...The talks lasted an entire week, which gave time for extended discussion at the round tables...
...Anti-Americanism, this professor and European federalist held, was spread by European intellectuals and was rooted in feelings of guilt over their own failure to resolve the problems of Europe...
...Most of them appreciated that, on the contrary, the Americans were there against their will, to defend a common ideal...
...It was not how one worked, whether with or without the aid of machines, but what one did with one's leisure that determined if a culture is maintained, one European speaker contended...
...A Dane said that many of his people would prefer a Scandinavian union, which "did not require simultaneous translation" but would solve none of their political or economic problems...
...The Belgian historian Leo Moulin, who submitted a "psychoanalysis" of anti-Americanism to the conference, made the illuminating observation that French intellectuals were still fighting the American industrial society caricatured by Charlie Chaplin in the movie Modern Times...
...The talk swung back and forth from French to English among participants of eight or ten nationalities...
...It may in time be marked as the founding convention of the Atlantic Community...
...the complex of the pensioner...
...Anti-Americanism, this speaker believed, would not have been a decisive factor in last year's election had it not been exploited for political purposes...
...These people often take refuge in a romantic view of peasant life, handicrafts and traditional costumes, as opposed to industrial life and mass-produced goods...
...at the topic they had chosen, whether it was spiritual values, education, economics and technological advance, tensions between Europe and America, the totalitarian challenge, relations between the Atlantic Community and the underdeveloped countries, or the new political forms required for a new era...
...A well-known New York Times correspondent added that the use of leisure for cultural ends is changing U.S...
...the complex of the ungrateful beggar...
...Three of the most distinguished leaders of the European unity movement conducted the plenary sessions: Robert Schuman, Paul van Zeeland and Paul-Henri Spaak...
...We might call it "Western" civilization, but did not the present structure of India Wii.i.son Woopside is foreign editor of the Canadian Commentator, from which this article has heen adapted...
...the differences in outlook between pessimistic and optimistic people...
...It would conduct research into the problems of the Atlantic Community, hold seminars and conferences, and arrange visits and exchanges...
...There was, however, little talk of military matters at this conference...
...An Icelandic editor described the impact which the stationing of American troops had had on a quiet, long-isolated community...
...But an Italian rejoined that American troops were popular in Italy because of the many Italo-Americans among them and that American Negro troops were especially popular in southern Italy...
...A Swiss editor interjected that the Americans were more popular in Switzerland than in any other European country because they had no troops stationed there...
...The chief recommendation of the conference was the establishment of an Atlantic Institute "to promote and develop a sense of community among the Atlantic peoples and all others who share their basic ideals.'' The recommendations of the various conference sections give some indication of the tasks with which such an Institute would be charged...
...and the complex of the country cousin...
...A study of how the press and other mass communications could be used to reduce tensions within the Community (instead of raising them, as often happens now) was recommended...
...Its purpose, as expressed by Rector Hendrik Brugmans of the College of Europe, was to inquire "if there is behind us a common spiritual heritage and in front of us something more than a status quo of power politics to defend...
...The frontier of Western civilization had stood on the English Channel in 1940...
...At meetings like this one, where keen minds stimulate and cross-fertilize each other and the usual number of participants are prepared to ride their hobby-horses off in any direction, it is always difficult to keep the discussion on a reasonably straight course...
...He found "an amalgam of complexes" in the attitude of Europeans toward America, including the complex of the seedy aristocrat, poor but proud...
Vol. 40 • October 1957 • No. 42
