As summer advances, and we've now had more than 34° pretty much every day for the last two months, reaching easily 36° most days (93 - 97 F), we live more and more in a strange situation.
America shows its biceps, but the reality is that all the guns that have been sent to Ukraine will slowly but steadily trickle into the hands of bad people (not bcs they are Ukraniana, but because any country has bad people, and bad people know how to take advantage of available weapons), and will slowly but steadily trickle to Western Europe.
Nobody would ever go to war against Russia - after all, didn't we all read War & Peace, and Vasilij Grossman's Stalingrad? (if you haven't, do read Vasilij Grossman - it's an awesome book and it really explains Russia). Granted, I despise this war, but only an idiot would believe that Europe would benefit from a war against Russia.
Russia is one of the countries where women were treated equally decades before Europe started doing so. It was probably one of the best part of communism. Meanwhile, the US are banning abortion.
Last month I attended a conference in Barcelona where a famous economist explained why he was against the European Union, the Euro currency and so on. As it was a Western Europe work event for partners, the audience was your typical white manel. The economist said a lot of interesting and smart things and then over the Q&A everybody rushed to agree with him. Then I raised my hand and asked "I understand the importance of economies and KPIs, but I think there is more to it. What about the possibility of easily having all these people from different countries in this same room? What about how easy it is for young people to travel across Europe this days, to study or work abroad getting to know a different culture? What about the fact that we're enjoyed peace since 1945, sadly not across all Europe, but at least in the European Union, including when the Wall in Berlin went down?"
They said I was talking poetry, but I still believe the European Union represents one of the greatest achievements of the Western culture. It is far from perfect, but it's beautiful in its imperfection. I am somehow more concerned by the warmer summers and the lack of water then by Russia and America.
2 comments:
Good for you speaking up and asking those questions. It seems like dividing people is the favorite pastime these days.
@Shelby: democracy works quite well in France, where they manage to have a relatively simple voting mechanism, elect people who are given real powers, and usually the politician class benefits from great training and excellent preparation.
The rest of Europe suffers from the fear of giving too much power to a single person, thus with a too complex election and powers system. As a result, we have completely incompetent politicians and even when by pure hazard they are competent (usually not elected, like the current Italian prime minister which I adore) they are powerless.
The final result is that more and more people in countries such as Italy, Spain and to some extent Germany, believe less and less in democracy, since they do not want as a ruler someone who has no education to speak of and who's had as sole working experience serving tables. It sounds harsh, but sadly it's very true that often the best leaders we have across Europe have not been elected.
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