Putting Europe to the Peace Test
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The European Union (EU) leaders have celebrated the 50th anniversary of the signature of the Treaty of Rome.
In their Berlin Declaration they tell us that they are "committed to the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the world and to ensuring that people do not become victims of war, terrorism and violence." Mainstream media have written about the EU as the main or only explanation of peace in Europe. It doesn't occur to them that there could be other factors such as the OSCE process, Brandt's Ostpolitik, Gorbachev, peace movements. It does not occur to them that it was due to citizens and their nonviolent actions on both sides that the Cold War didn't end in the Third World War... It is not wrong or a lie. It is just such a tiny part of the whole picture. Virtually no one ask themselves what peace means and how it should be created in the 21st century. Few bother to put the EU, its proposed Constitution and its actual policies, to a peace test. Isn't it strange that there is not a word about disarmament, nuclear abolition (the EU is a nuclear-based union), nonviolence, reconciliation, no peace-making philosophy or any serious adherence to the UN Charter in the proposed EU Treaty? Are people aware how limited the efforts at civil conflict-resolution are compared with military build-up (an obligation according to the EU Treaty!) and coordination with nuclear NATO? It does not even occur to the commentators that the EU doesn't have even one peace academy or that the Treaty mentions "peace" 8 times while speaking about "military/defence" 64 times. Isn't it a bit arrogant that EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has put together an intellectually helpless 16-page document - called a "European Security Strategy" - which served as the basic philosophical document outlining the future security of 400+ million Europeans? And everybody seems to have conveniently forgotten that Solana, in his capacity of SG of NATO, was the highest civil decision-maker responsible 8 years ago these very days for destroying Serbia and Kosovo, a gross violation of international law, done without UN backing and leading to unspeakable suffering in the area while not creating any peace for Kosovo even today. The EU is supposed to speak with one voice in foreign and security policies. One of the few times it has it created a disaster: when recognizing prematurely Croatia and Slovenia out of Yugoslavia, the war in Bosnia became unavoidable. But did you ever hear anyone in EU security policy circles utter a self-critical word or talk about lessons to be learned? The lack of critical media analysis, the self-congratulatory tone, and the lack of honest self-criticism and open debate about the EU bodes ill for its future, for its chance of becoming a democratic peace project. If the EU cannot do better in a time when milllions are looking for alternatives to US imperialism - when will it be able to? |
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