Does the European Union wish to censor nationwide historical past? | EUROtoday
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IIt is simpler to manage historical past than to make it. The European Union sticks to this second-order ambition, and neutralizes the needs it might arouse. And but, as we wish to love her, to not give in to the caricatures of which she is the topic, to tell apart ourselves from her detractors, to imagine in her as a result of, ultimately, democracy, freedom, intelligence are the priorities of the pursuit of happiness to which 18th century Europee century needed to dedicate humanity. But, like happiness, the Union, alas, by no means leaves the state of perspective.
At the top of January 2024, the European Parliament voted for a decision on the “historical consciousness of Europe”, a sequence of provisions referring to historical past, its educating, the previous, its writing and its rewriting, in reminiscence, ours, what we must always do with it. After all why not ? As all the time with the European Union, arguments finish with regulation, together with when it issues an mental or cultural topic, which isn’t with out irony.
READ ALSO Five hundred years of European historical pastThis decision begins with a reminder of the ideas of the neighborhood, on which there’s nothing to say, the precautions to be taken to accurately write historical past, archives, comparisons, sources, and many others. It's proper, it's good: we've identified about it because the nineteenth centurye century. Then, all of the sudden, the tone adjustments, the vocabulary, too. Article 12 “ […] calls on Member States to update their existing curricula and teaching methods in order to put European and world history ahead of national history, and to place greater emphasis on a supranational understanding of history.” Parliament asks States to favor “reflection and discussion rather than the transfer of knowledge, and which have the general objective of getting students to “learn to think” slightly than telling them “what to think” “. As does, for example, line after line, this resolution.
In the identical column
Article 14 locations “chauvinism” and “sexist stereotypes” on the identical stage; Article 15 recommends “intersectional history teaching” (anybody know what which means?); article 22 continues to pay homage to the language of Jean Racine by utilizing clear and stylish expressions resembling “intercultural understanding”; as for article 7, he struggles as finest he can to lastly stumble on the finish of an incomprehensible sentence by this “incitement to call into question stereotypes and the sacred cows of national histories”. General de Gaulle, what a stupendous cow certainly!
A boring, sophisticated and intentionally imprecise decision
Europe would little doubt reply that these sentences are cited out of context, which is why this clumsy, sophisticated and intentionally imprecise decision in its phrases and intention have to be learn in its entirety. Everything occurs as if proof of humanism had been intentionally multiplied with the intention to conceal remarks which aren’t insignificant. The technique is handy: create an equivalence between the struggle towards discrimination and chauvinism. In different phrases: in each patriot there’s a xenophobic and misogynistic particular person. Paul Verlaine declared in 1891, in an interview given to Jules Huret: “I am French, you understand me well, a French chauvinist. » Proof that this word does not mean what Europe claims. And also proof that Europe is keen to give new definitions to words that have hitherto been accepted and acceptable.
READ ALSO André Comte-Sponville: “Atheism leads to humanism”The strict software of values per the rule of regulation is important, however it’s clear that to the rising electoral problem to its mannequin, the Union is responding with an more and more coercive framework for freedom of expression, by diverting ideas inherited from the trauma of totalitarianism. A opposite technique can be welcome. Since we should “liberate energies”, allow us to free minds and provides Europeans the fitting to outline for themselves the character of their attachment to a typical geographical and historic previous, which essentially entails a detour by way of their very own nation. The Union didn’t invent free motion inside its house, the 18the century and its “Grand Tour” have been a golden age of walks between the capitals of the Old Continent, and the aristocracy assumed that its household ties have been infinitely superior to the nation. It took the French Revolution and the warlike chaos of the early nineteenth century.e century in order that nations, translated into an imperial kind, decide communities of pursuits. Does the Union dream of the Ancien Régime? This is the query she should reply since she is making a U-turn in direction of a society to which she was considered a stranger.
The European Union has maintained peace amongst its members for a substantial time, that is its truest and most estimable success. The allure of her ambition got here exactly from the truth that she left us alone by neutralizing politics for the good thing about life, within the fullest sense of the phrase: loving, creating, loving ourselves, considering, whereas bureaucrats crammed out papers. essential, very sophisticated, very pressing. The contract was acceptable. However, it’s starting to behave, whether or not it likes it or not, like all contested powers, particularly by turning into radicalized and calling for an ideology to justify coercive measures which concern what’s most laudable about Europe, extra admirable, extra envied: intelligence.
https://www.lepoint.fr/postillon/l-union-europeenne-veut-elle-censurer-l-histoire-nationale-06-02-2024-2551754_3961.php