Wednesday 22 September 1999

"The provinces fight among themselves like neglected children..."

(You know that you haven't yet played too much Daggerfall when you cannot remember the whole intro speech by heart.)

I had fallen asleep in my chair, then sort of woke up when my knees hurt, and stumbled to bed in my clothes. I was dreaming that I and Sylvi (it truly makes no sense) were going to cinema in the city. In what can only be called the lobby, there was a small buffet table where the waiting customers could grab something to eat. I grabbed and munched two boiled eggs without shell. (No, I do not normally munch boiled eggs with nothing beside.) Then I went outside to look for Sylvi, who had somehow disappeared since the bus. She was nowhere to be seen. But as I had eaten the eggs, I had to pay, so I lined up in the queue and waited. And as I waited, the phone rang. I felt sorry about not being able to pay at least the eggs, but I knew it would be Staffman calling from the office for help, so I had to wake up. I did, and of course it was Staffman. Let them charge him for the eggs. In the world of dreams.

There was this debacle a couple days ago, where the moderator of the list resigned after repeated attacks on his person. In his goodbye message, he accused one of the male attackers of having no will of his own, but just echoing the current female inspiration of his life, and that this was his mode of operation in general, his loyalty switching with the switching of woman. I had recently read a piece of fiction about a man with this trait (curiously written by the above moderator) and pondered just how common this might be among men.

This lead me to inspect myself, as is my way. I remember Superwoman, my best friend, claiming that she would sooner or later convert me to her positive view of the European Union, as she had taught me to like several music records that were not my style. The music thing is partly correct. I have not generally adopted styles that I did not like, but these are few and far between. My problem has been that I do not hear much modern music - I turn on the radio for news and then turn it off - so I depend on Superwoman to expose me to new stuff. Unlike James Flynn, the discoverer and detractor of the Flynn Effect, I do believe that we are in the midst of an unprecedented cultural renaissance, including music. There is a lot of good stuff being made right now, perhaps some of the best in history. There is also truckloads of sonic crap. I cheerfully leave it to my friends to scour the muck for the occasional coin...

When it comes to the European Union, however, I am harder to budge. I am fairly ambivalent from the start. Unlike most of the Norwegian naysayers, I am at least as well aware of the facts as the adherents are. I know which nations are members and even to which degree they implement the common policy. (Hint: Some of the most eager member states have adapted less to the Union than we have.) I am an eager supporter of the common European currency, and want it implemented in Norway regardless of our non-membership. However, I do not trust empires. They fall apart, and they fall apart in blood.

History is rife with examples, from the dawn of our civilization onwards. Remember the Assyrians and the Babylonians? Both of them forged great empires in the Middle East. And their empires collapsed, and blood flowed, and there were border disputes and general unrest. Remember the Roman empire? Perhaps the most famous of them all, its rise and fall has been analyzed again and again. What we do know is that after the fall of the empire, there were centuries of bloody wars and border disputes. I think it will happen again, given the chance. See Russia. The USSR fell apart, and there were (and still are) border disputes and blood. Now parts of Russia itself fight for independence. And I do not need to go in detail about the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Or the European colonial empires in Africa.

A special case is China, which seems to fall apart and re-assemble like some variable star. Strong rulers have united it, and their heirs ruled it for a while, then it fell apart in warring fiefdoms for a while, rent in blood and fire. Then from the ashes would rise a new empire, and the cycle started anew.

The only seeming success is the USA. And honestly, two hundred years is not much in history. There are special reasons why the USA should have much more hope than the other large countries, though. For one thing, it was settled by a mix of immigrants, and they did not segregate into different states. Well, to some extent they did, but not so much as into different parts of town in each large city around the country. The states are more administrative than cultural entities. (With a few exceptions, most notably Texas and more lately California.) Even so, the USA has already had one bloody civil war.

The current nation is the target of an intense and continuing campaign for building and maintaining the feeling of nationalism. Children are asked to swear fealty to the flag, which is generally treated with almost religious reverence. The use of a single national language (a version of English) is ruthlessly enforced, even though a large and growing part of the population speaks Spanish at home, particularly in the south.

In contrast, the European Union does not have a common language, and any attempt to enforce one would immediately explode the union and probably lead to spontaneous armed rebellion in several countries. It does have a flag, of sorts, the circle of stars. But it is not displayed proudly by the common people, who instead cling to the old national symbols. Even the common currency, a highly practical invention, is being introduced rather slowly and carefully. Unlike the USA, the states of the EU do have their own independent history, stretching back centuries or even millenia. And many of them have been in war with one another repeatedly. This, on one side, is one of the main arguments in favor of the union. But if it breaks up - and it stands a very large chance of doing so - things could turn nasty as old debts are collected. At that point, it might be a good idea to be regarded as an outsider.

There is also the point that the European Union is not quite a democracy in the sense that the USA is. The states are, but much of the power on a federal level lies with the "Eurocrats", men (or occasionally women) appointed rather than elected, living in luxury and making decisions in closed rooms. This may go along with nations that have a history of feudalism. But Norway never had any nobility to reckon with, and the land owning class was the free farmers. In that regard, we have more in common with the USA than with the rest of Europe. Liberty, equality and a total lack of humility...