There is a recent example of a reasonably long
lasting currency union between peoples who spoke different languages that is
often forgotten. Not very long ago I could spend the same Rouble whether I
lived in Moscow, Vilnius or Kiev. Further afield I could spend it in Yerevan or
Tbilisi. This currency union endured for at least 70 years and if you count the
time when these places were part of the Russian Empire it existed rather longer
than that. What made this possible? The most important was that throughout all
of these places there was a common language. While people spoke their own
languages at home, at school and at work they spoke Russian. Not only this, but
in every tiny Soviet town and village there was the same ideology. The streets
were called the same sort of names such as Lenin Prospect, Marx Street etc.
There were the same statues of Lenin stretching out his hand. People watched
the same films and the same television. They more or less eat the same food and
drank the same drink. They believed the same things and they were taught to
think of themselves as one Soviet people. For this reason Roubles were
transferred around the Soviet Union without anyone counting the cost. What the
Soviet Union had the Eurozone lacks.
I followed the recent Greek crisis from afar. I was
in a pretty little German town and every morning I would read the headlines in
the German newspapers. There were two I particularly remember. One had Angela
Merkel dressed up as Bismarck and called the Iron Chancellor. The other
complained of bailing out Greece with “our money”. I think people have been
pretty tough on Germany in recent days. I don’t think that people in the UK
would be particularly keen on sending much of our money to Greece either. These
are not trivial sums. But if you think
of it as "our money" you frankly should not be in a currency union with the
people you think of as them.
But this is the problem altogether. People in the EU
are not coming closer together they are moving further apart. If the EU was serious about creating a single
European state it would have made sure by now that everyone was working towards
speaking the same language. It doesn’t matter much which one, but let there be
one, or else free movement of people really means free movement of people to do
menial labour. If we all grew up speaking the same language in school, then I
really could work anywhere. As it is, in most EU countries I would only be able
to clean floors.
But can we really imagine an EU with a common
language and a common ideology, where people felt themselves to be part of one
common European people? Can we imagine that Germans will willingly and gladly
send money to Greece and think of Greeks as more or less the same sort of
people as themselves? If this was going to happen it would have happened by
now. This #Grexit crisis was the crisis that was supposed to bring about closer
monetary union in the Eurozone. Perhaps
it will. Perhaps 10 or 20 years from now we will have a transfer union and a full political union in the EU and this will be seen as the first step towards it. But
no, I can’t see it.
Where I stayed in Germany there were German flags on
every building in a way that would have been unthinkable 20 or 30 years ago.
There was a statue of Frederick Barbarossa (1122-1190) standing next to Wilhelm
the First (1797-1888). It was just fine to celebrate the First Reich (962-1806)
and also the Second Reich (1871-1918), there was a gap and some things that
were never to be mentioned, but then we could all just leap right over to a new
Kaiser and a new Reich.
This is all, no doubt, terribly unfair to Germany,
which remains one of the most pleasant, liberal places imaginable. It should be
remembered that Germany had no vote on joining the Euro and the people would undoubtedly have preferred to keep the D-Mark. But they have been placed in the position of
leadership of the Eurozone and that leadership role looks anything but
democratic.
When Greece had its referendum on austerity, it was
explained very clearly to them by the Eurozone leaders that voting No meant
leaving the Euro and probably the EU. They voted No anyway. But guess what they
got still more austerity and they still stayed in the Euro. There were two
honourable courses of action that were possible for the Eurozone leaders at
this point. Either they should have followed through on their threat and kicked
Greece out of the Euro, or they should have recognised that the Eurozone must henceforth
be a transfer union, where the words "our" and "your" no longer applied. The EU has too frequently been ignoring the
will of the people in recent years and governments, including the Greek Government, have too frequently cooperated. This really is turning the EU into
some sort of modern Holy Roman Empire.
Something died last week. I have always been someone
who was willing to go along with the EU as an ideal. I thought a democratic,
equal EU was a reasonably good ideal. Let’s bring down borders rather than
erect new ones. But that ideal has gone. The Soviet Union fell apart because of
its own contradictions, it would be better if the EU did the same. In the end
even with a common language and a common ideology the Soviet Union could not
overcome the differences that existed in the peoples who lived there. That as
much as anything split the whole thing apart. Yet those differences were small
compared to the difference between a Greek and a German.
This is our problem. If Czechs cannot bear to live
with Slovaks in the same country, if Scots cannot quite bear to live in the
same country as English people, how on earth do we expect Greeks and Germans to
become one people? The problem as always is nationalism. It is something
instinctual and goes back to when Germans were tribes waiting to be united by a
great leader. But what unites these self-same Germans today divides them from
all others. Germans will give to Germans, but they won’t give to Greeks and this
is for reasons that happened both in the 19th century and a thousand years ago.
If we can’t find a sense of being the same people
then it is hard see the EU surviving other than as an Empire held together by
an undemocratic bureaucracy. An EU that is willing to crush democracy in Greece
and ignore the will of the people living there is not a force for good. Until
and unless it can show itself to be a force for good I want no part of it.
If Scotland really thinks in terms of "ours" and "yours" with regard to the people
in the other parts of the UK, then I want no part of that either. Either we are
one British people who share without limit or in the end it would be better for
those who don’t feel a part of our common journey to leave. Choose #Scexit,
choose independence within the Fourth Reich, after all small countries do wonderfully well there, but I’ll not share it. I want no
part of it.
If you like my writing, you can find my books Scarlet on the
Horizon, An Indyref Romance and Lily of St Leonards on Amazon. Please follow
the links on the side. Thanks. I appreciate your support.
