Europe

From: The Other Branch

(Foreword:)
 The fictitious historical situation of this book—a communist-ruled South Tyrol—may seem utopian. But were some consequences of the Second World War, which today are an integral part of historiography, not equally utopian? A nuclear race between the Eastern and Western blocs, almost leading to nuclear war despite the experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Three Western  occupation zones in Berlin holding out until 1989 in the midst of the Eastern bloc? The founding and survival of Israel? Last but not least: A profound European unification process that brought peace to the participating states until the end of the last century and far beyond? What thirty-year-old European, having already been through two world wars by 1945 and living in the midst of physical and moral wreckage, would have dared to imagine that these utopias would become a reality?
 
 (From a discussion among the members of the reformist youth movement:)
 We're not talking about selective demands, but about a vision for a free, democratic and solidaric South Tyrol as part of a united Europe. But what kind of Europe? We might not agree on that even within our movement. A capitalist one, a socialist one, one that leaves behind the nation-states, as Battisti might have wanted? Or do we simply want a liberal framework within which different ideas about the European future can enter into free democratic competition?
 
 From: Michl's Last Journey

(Michl, who suffers from dementia, fears that totalitarianism is rearing its head. Fatima, his Nigerian caregiver, reacts.)
"Michl, do you really see us on the way to dictatorship? There are many people who want to prevent this with all their strength. Doesn't that give you hope? In the US, Trump, the charlatan, was voted out in the presidential elections..."
           "So? And that's why everything is okay again now? Fatima, believe an old, experienced man like me. It will be fine until it goes wrong."
           "Maybe so, but you believe a little more in the good people. In Petra, who is working for a Europe where everyone can live together happily and peacefully. In Bukar, who stands up for justice. People are not stupid, give them a chance. They sometimes need some time to see the difference between truth and lies, but in the end, they understand what they are better off with in the long run. In our country, they say that flowers grow on the tree of lies, but not fruit."

From: Realistic Utopias...

A united Europe is a political system that was a dream, a utopia, for many who looked at Europe's physical and moral ruins after 1945. In the first post-war decades, this dream became partly a reality. As a child growing up in Luxembourg, I witnessed it, including the happiness and gratitude my father felt after rising, more or less without detour, from a French POW camp into the first generation of European civil servants. In 1989, when the ideological encrustations that were dividing Europe broke up, and in the years that followed, there was a new chance for Europe to become not only bigger, but also better, more coherent, and more value-oriented. That opportunity, too, has gradually faded away.
           Today, in the face of enormous global challenges that exceed the capacity of nation states, it seems to me that the moment has come to rekindle the European utopia, enriched by our past experiences, including the experience that Europe must be decentralized in order to be democratically legitimate and for its everyday benefits to be experienced. A "Europe of the regions" that follows the example of the already existing European region North Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino.

By the way: I vote VOLT, the only political party that has a single, European-wide agenda (instead of national agendas sprinkled with a touch of pro-Europeanism, not to mention the anti-European agendas).