Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Van Rompuy describes the independent nation state as "a lie"

The Bank Clerk is back in his assassin of nations garb.
We have together to fight the danger of a new Euro-scepticism.
This is no longer the monopoly of a few countries.
In every Member State, there are people who believe their country can survive alone in the
globalised world.
It is more than an illusion: it is a lie!
What on earth is he saying here? Is he describing the existence of countries such as Switzerland as a falsehood. In some way, Norway is false?

Truly weird.

Her was talking - dare I say ranting - at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And he has the gall to suggest that those of us who do not share his vision, those who do believe that democracy is something best practised at home, those who, like the majority in the UK who believe that their nation is the repository of freedom and liberty, we are warmongers.

The biggest enemy of Europe today is fear.
Fear leads to egoism, egoism leads to nationalism, and nationalism leads to war (“le nationalisme, c’est la guerre” (F. Mitterrand)). Today’s nationalism is often not a positive feeling of pride of one’s own identity, but a negative feeling of apprehension of the others.

Now Mr Van Rompuy, please let me get this straight. Just because you come from a nation that is tearing itself apart, is indeed a failure as a nation and fits with your description,

The time of the homogenous nation-state is over.
indeed in Belgium's case it never existed, don't think we are all Belgians. My wish to be free of you and yours is not driven by fear. It is not driven by contempt, though I feel that for much of the actions of the EU,. No it is driven by a belief that to have a democracy one needs a demos. A people who consent to be governed by each other. In the EU this does not exist. Thus the EU is not, and will not be a democracy.

My love for my country is untainted by fear of your land, or of Germany, or of Lithuania or anybody. I fear, maybe your bureaucracy and its incessant demands to have ever greater controls over every aspect lives of the citizens of the 27 nations unhappily locked within its borders, but nothing else.

Why should I? I am English.

5 comments:

IanPJ said...

I was Born English, I will Die English. I will never be an EU 'citizen' - I do not consent.

Witterings from Witney said...

As IPJ said!

The Little Belgian, together with his cohorts, has my blessing to Foxtrot Oscar!

Anonymous said...

Funny you can mock Belgium's lack of national identity while less and less people feel British in the UK. IanPJ's comment above is telling.

Derek said...

Likewise IPJ.
Belgians? Identity? Nonentities. What else could a race be who find sitting beside the road with individual song birds waiting to see which will sing the longest; filling pipe bowls with tobacco, smoking them and seeing whose will last the longest without going out; or watching a cow defecate in a grid marked field to see where the turd falls to win some prize entertaining. Yes - The Belgians!
Van Rompuy - nonentity. They have no identity.
EU - poison.
Go back from whence you came, and do not collect £1500 on the way.

Gawain Towler said...

Anon, I am British and English, British my citizenship, English my nationality.

It was ever thus. Belgium has never existed, except in the minds of some very venal types. But never in the minds of a majority of its citizens.

Be that as it may, do you disagree with my point?

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