29 March, 2011

Truth12: EU's refusal to celebrate Europe's 60th Anniversary of Peace and Democracy means it is set again on the way of war.

Should European fighter aircraft be bombing and strafing tanks and killing soldiers across the EU's southern borders? Is there a better way, a way to peace? Can Europe's greatest success be applied across North Africa? The greatest event in recent European history -- perhaps in all of European history over the last recorded two thousand years -- is that Europe is now at peace.

Permanent Peace.

Until the creation of Europe's first Community, every generation across the Community territory knew war. Either the current generation was recovering from war, preparing war or actually fighting wars with its neighbours. Do the present leadership of Europe know of the Founding Fathers' plans to bring peace and prosperity to Africa? Do they ever discuss them? When has Brussels subsidized, funded or even encouraged a whisper of such an idea? Would it use its system of 'official' bribes to have someone talk about a supranational peace system for Africa?

On 18 April 1951 the Founding Fathers of Europe signed an agreement that would make war 'not only unthinkable but materially impossible'. They signed the Treaty of Paris. On the same day they also agreed to a Great Charter, declaring that they were setting out on a new adventure of Democracy. Their destinies because of this were now shared in this peace project.

Is the European Union going to celebrate this hugely important anniversary so that the whole world can learn the way of peace? Are European leaders going to explain how European democracy is supposed to work according to those supranational principles that the Governments said were the TRUE Foundation of Europe?

The European institutions have already refused to publish the full text of the Schuman Declaration for the 60th Anniversary of Robert Schuman's dramatic announcement at the French Foreign Ministry. Schuman repeated this statement on radio and for the press. Why are the European institutions so anti-Schuman? Is it something to do with a bad conscience about refusal to recognize referendums and the lack of democracy in the present Lisbon Treaty?

The present political cartel are apparently trying a new strategy unknown in the abysmal record of their devious and disgraceful Public Relations campaigns, such as the mendacious, multi-million 50th 'Birthday' campaign.

What's their new game? They will announce their plans of what, how, where Europe's 500 million citizens can celebrate Democracy AFTER the date is past! That way they hope no one will notice THEY HAD NO INTENTION EVER TO COMMEMORATE IT AND WITH IT DISCUSS EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY ITSELF. If any European wishes to celebrate European democracy, he or she can do it privately in their own homes! Who on earth will celebrate the appalling state of European democracy spontaneously -- that is WITHOUT a bribe, subvention, 'partial funding' or cash from the Brussels cartel? Who has any real enthusiasm?

No celebration confirms no democracy is now being built. Rather the reverse, a retreat from Democracy and the principles of Peace. A PolitBuro system is being erected based on the secretive European Council.

THAT HAS SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES. If you ignore the way of peace you are directing your steps to the WAY OF WAR. And not only for the Commission and the politicians of the European institutions. That means the leaders and their obedient officials are directing the EUROPEAN PEOPLES onto a war path. The whole Continent will suffer.

The following gives the last exchanges of my correspondence with the European Commission, started two years ago, asking them what are the EU's plans to celebrate the 60th anniversary of European Democracy on 18 April 2011.
Here is the banal correspondence on this the most important issue of our times.

I asked the European Commission what were its plans to publish:
  • the authentic text of the Schuman Declaration
  • the text of the Great Charter of Inter-Dependence signed by the Founding Fathers providing the foundational principles of supranational democracy for Europe that has brought for Europeans the longest period of peace in Europe's more than two thousand year history.
Director General
DG Communication
European Commission

16 March 2011

Dear Mr Sorensen,
I have not yet received a reply to the following letter. I would be grateful to receive one as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely,

The letter asks about the Commission's plans for celebrating the 60th Anniversary of European Democracy on 18 April 2011. It makes plain that the FULL text of the Schuman Declaration should be published by the Commission instead of the abbreviated or censored version it usually publishes. It explains what is the authentic text and where it is. The EU should also publish for the first time in the Commission's history the Great Charter of European Inter-Dependence signed by the Founding Fathers, France's Schuman, Germany's Adenauer, Belgium's Van Zeeland, Meurice, Luxembourg's Bech, Italy's Sforza, The Netherlands' Stikker and van den Brink.

I introduced a second complaint to the European Ombudsman, following my earlier one 1200/2011/RT on the same subject.

The following email arrived Mar 24, 2011 4:50 pm from DG Communication of the Commission .
Please find enclosed a letter that was sent to you on Friday the 11th of March to explain to you that your letter was being analysed.

Please rest assured that you will get a reply within the deadline indicated in the attached letter.

Yours etc
The attached letter, dated 11 March, said
Thank you for your letter to Director General Claus H Sorensen which has received our fullest attention.

The answer to your letter requires further work which is currently in progress.

You can normally expect a reply within six weeks of this letter.

Yours sincerely.

DG Communication
Emphasis added.

I replied as following on Friday, 25 March 2011, 1:04 am
Subject: Re: 60th Anniversary of Europe's Great Charter and Treaty of Paris: legal texts

Dear Ms C
Thank you for your email. I have no record of receiving this letter earlier. That is why I asked the Ombudsman to act a second time. May I draw to your attention to the fact that I asked the question about what measures the Commission would be taking to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the European Charter of Inter-dependence two years ago. I have had a mixture of refusal to reply and obfuscation since then. This is hard for me to understand as the query was about the 60th anniversary of a public event, the signature by the Founding Fathers of what they considered the foundational document for Europe, after having brought into existence the foundational supranational Community of Europe. Both the treaty signing and this Charter are well recorded in the public records, newspapers, radio, photographs, film and books. It should not be a surprise to a civil service that is used to commemorate important events. Yet I have still had no inkling of what, if anything, is being prepared.

You have now given me a deadline for your response which is the 'normally' before 22 April 2011 -- several days after the date of 18 April 2011. This would seem to render futile any and all attempts over these two years to remind the Commission to assume correctly its public responsibilities as guardian of the treaties. What conclusion may I draw from this?

Yours sincerely,
On Monday 28 March 2011 I wrote the following to the European Ombudsman with copies to Mr Barroso and DG Communication

U R G E N T
Complaint No: 0663/2011/RT

Dear Mr Ombudsman,
I have received the following email from the Commission which makes a mockery out of all my correspondence with them over the last several years. It is an affront to European democracy. I asked the Commission about EU plans to celebrate the 60th anniversary of European democracy, as defined by the Founding Fathers and refusal so far to publish what the Founding Fathers said and signed as a Charter of Democracy.

The enclosed letter says that the Commission will reply to me within six weeks -- that is after the 60th Anniversary on the 18 April!!! Even if they replied today it would be practically useless.

I ask you to take urgent action in relation to my complaint. Please expose this flagrant maladministration against European democracy publicly.

Many thanks for your help,

Yours sincerely,

David P
Schuman Project
www.schuman.info
http://democracy.blogactiv.eu

23 March, 2011

Lobby3: MEPs, caught as bribe-taking lobbyists, say Corruption is 'normal' in Europe's parliaments

Three Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been caught in alleged corrupt practice. Demanding loads of money, they agreed to make amendments to legislation that favoured a private financial interest. Or so they thought. It turned out that the offer came from reporters of London's Sunday Times. They had been caught in a public exposure.

The Lisbon system --
* where the Commission is no longer independent of political parties,
* where organized non-political civil society no longer has a voice,
* where the government ministers act more like party politicians and cut deals in private
--will bring more and more corruption.

European citizens can note recurrent facts that show the trend of corruption in the European system. That has arisen because political parties are trying to stifle supranational democracy.

1. High level politicians: the trio included a former deputy prime minister, a former interior minister and a former foreign minister. This implies that behaviour involving this level of corruption is usual at the very highest levels of European governments.

2. Countries: a wide dispersion of Member States are involved Austria, Slovenia and Romania. No one can say that it is a question of new Member States or those without sufficient political infrastructure and inadequate justice systems.

3. Sums involved: MEPs expect retainers of up to 100,000 euros for a bribery contract. One said he had five retainers paying up to this rate. Daily rates at around 4000 euros are expected. It should be recalled that many ordinary Europeans on low income or pensions may have to survive on 4000 euros or so for a YEAR. Where do MEPs' salaries come from? From tax of companies but also of citizens on low income who worked a lifetime and never saw such money.

4. Political Parties: corruption seems to recognize no ideology. Left and right-wing parties are involved. Greed is universal. Stalin never succeeded in removing human nature; neither did the rightwingers like Mussolini or Hitler. Greed is alive and active in major parties of Europe's Lisbon system.

5. Blatant Immorality: Who was the alleged source requiring the amendments? Certainly not an orphans' charity. The reporters told them they were working for a financial group. The MEPs were to water down the Deposit Guarantee Schemes directive, a key financial reform for correcting the financial crisis. It was designed to protect customers’ deposits in the event of another banking collapse. Thus the amendment was useful for the clique of white collar criminals who robbed citizens and who bent rules and ethics getting Europe into a financial crisis. Bent money bends and blinds the conscience of the people's representatives. It encourages political psychopaths.

6. Techniques: The amendment was not necessarily introduced by the MEP being bribed. One of the trio tried to get other MEPs to introduce the measure so that there would be no direct trace leading back to him. He took the money. Someone else actually had his name on the public documents of Parliament. Clever, heh? This requires a network of buddies so that the blame can be shifted and everyone appears innocent. Unfortunately for him the source of the bribery was not a real one. The reporters were able to trace the work methodology. The MEPs' system and its technique only work to hide the evidence when real bribery is involved. That is most of the time.

7. Prevention systems: Apparently none exists. Firms should note that a directory of corrupt MEPs will be useful for their own activities. Perhaps some entrepreneur will make available a (paying) database of corrupt politicians! It's safe. No citizen is likely to blow the whistle. The lack of whistle-blowers proves this. They are more than discouraged about spilling the beans. The MEPs say that such practices of corruption are widespread. But it took investigating journalists to break the story. That shows that the sanctions and threats against any would-be whistler are so severe that no one wants to try. Does this mean that the parties -- that is governmental systems -- would mass their forces to make the whistler's life a misery? Apparently so. Who would be foolish enough to take on the three major parties in 27 governments simultaneously?

8. Widespread practice. This is not an isolated incident. Nor is the action of MEPs unusual. MEPs admit it. This is what one of the three MEPs said:

“I didn’t do anything that was, let’s say, illegal or against any normal behaviour that we have here.”

There you have an admission that bribery is normal and acceptable. The MEPs showed confusion as to whether they were lobbyists themselves or representatives of the people. That is because the parties themselves are in the same lobbying business.

Political parties are Europe's largest lobbyists. They accept funds, sometimes secretly, and advocate the clients' causes.They should also be on the Lobby Register. The only alternative to this logic is to re-instate the supranational democratic system.

They also act as a CARTEL. They are in complete control about how much they should award themselves for salaries and assistants. If they are dissatisfied by not getting enough from public money, they can make 'revolving door' deals with companies -- the party goes soft on legislation and politicians get plush jobs when they resign or cease parliamentary functions.

Thus Europe is again re-living the abusive system of the interwar period. Large interest groups or cartels -- whether labour or companies -- control political parties. Today's political parties are becoming again lobbyists and worse -- secret cartels.

Instead Europeans need to return to the morally sound principles of supranational democracy.
  • The European Commission should be independent of ALL interest groups and composed of the most suitable independent and impartial personalities.
  • Lobbies should be confined to the institutions defined for them -- the Consultative Committee where they should be represented by European civil society organisations, not individual firms. The political parties have refused to let the Economic and Social Committee have its European elections as foreseen in the treaties since the treaty of Paris, 18 April 1951, the Rome Treaties and subsequent ones. Schuman agreed that the Council's action to stop these elections was 'illegal'.
  • Parliament should have fair elections, not fix them on a national basis that benefits the government parties.
  • The Council should represent nations and Member States, not political parties. Who knows what goes on as the politicians insist on closed-door sessions. The European Council's own secrecy rules has made this even worse. Supranational Democracy has only FIVE real institutions and the European Council is not one of them.

15 March, 2011

Truth11 : Is the Commission mad, bad, ignorant or incompetent to refuse to publish Europe's founding Declaration of Interdependence?

The following letter was sent to Mr Barroso and the European Commissioners about the continuing refusal to publish the Great Charter of Interdependence made by the Founding Fathers of the European Community on 18 April 1951.

That Declaration of Inter-dependence marks its 60 years anniversary on 18 APRIL 2011

Why is the Commission not preparing to celebrate the founding of European Democracy?? Refusal to publish the Foundational Charter and the correct version of the Schuman Declaration is one thing. It amounts to censorship and propaganda.

Refusal to even take notice of the foundational dates in European history is quite another. It implies that the leadership is anti-democratic. It will not discuss democracy. Isn't that an extraordinary commentary on the leadership's LACK of Democracy and lack of confidence in a discussion about Democracy? Doesn't it permeate the whole Brussels political cartel ? Why is it not discussing HOW European Democracy is supposed to work -- according to the original treaties?

It fears a revolt. And now it has seen plenty of really worrying revolt on the southern borders. Will Europeans remain passive?

Faced with
the European political Cartel in Brussels is doing everything it can to avoid a referendum on any of these crucial issues. Given the need to change the faulty Lisbon Treaty, they know that any referendum will lead to revolt at their unacceptable behaviour. Not only taxpayers but riots in the streets.


There is one way to avoid revolt. It is easier too. Just introduce the supranational democracy that the treaties require them to install. In a true, supranational democratic system everyone -- individual, civil association or nation -- would have a voice and an influence plus a recourse in justice.

Why won't it publish the Charter and the Schuman Declaration? The Commission wrote that it will ONLY publish documents that are in the Archive of the European University Institute of Florence. Is this a case of willful ignorance or incompetence?

Here is my letter in reply:
To: the Director General of DG Communication and Members of the European Commission.
Schuman Project
www.schuman.info

David H Price
Editor
16 February 2011

Mr Claus Sørensen
Director General
DG Communication
European Commission

Ref: Ombudsman complaint: 1200/2010/RT
Dear Mr Sørensen and Commissioners,
Thank you for your reply of 5 July 2010 following my earlier correspondence about publishing the correct version of the Schuman Declaration and the need to publish what Schuman called the Charter of Europe’s Community.

Firstly, I would like to present to you the probable source of error that lies behind the Commission’s publishing the wrong version of the Declaration. I would renew my request that the correct version be published.

The Commission should be guardian of the treaties. This function requires that the Commission have a clear understanding of the letter and spirit of the treaties, where they are kept and also how to discern the truth and veracity of documents. The officials should know where to look for the original (which is clearly stated in the treaty). The officials quoted in your letter have chosen an archive that is obviously the wrong one. That is the European Institute in Florence. It is true that it is presently the official administrator of the EU’s historical archives. However I would like to point out the following:

(1) It can easily be shown that the real Declaration is not the document at Florence. The document there was presumably that provided during the Monnet presidency of the High Authority. It is not the correct one because the original was not made available at the time. Even the thirty year rule was not generally applied. The Florence archive of Commission documents was only set up by the Commission Decision of 1983. Officially it only deals with documents deposited since the European Coal and Steel Community started. Its archives started in 1952. The archive contains a dossier labeled the Schuman Declaration but when I checked it some years ago it was obvious that it does not contain the original of the Declaration. Nor does the archive contain important originals such as the Treaty of Paris, signed on 18 April 1951 or other foundational documents like the Charter of the Community (‘Europe Declaration of Interdependence’). These documents were apparently never in the Commission archive. That is because the Commission was never given legal power to act as a depository nor was it a designated recipient of an official copy. (There are possible reasons why the Commission never asked for official copies. Monnet did not like the word supranational, the foundational, legal term for the Community. “I do not like the word supranational and never fancied it.” Mémoires p 352.) At best the Commission’s alleged Schuman Declaration used so frequently by the European institutions and others is a shortened copy introduced by the Monnet team who have been proved to be unreliable when it comes to historical fact.

2(a) What is the original of the Schuman Declaration and how can it be identified and proved? The original Declaration is the authentic text of the actual speech that Schuman made on 9 May 1950 in the Salon de l’Horloge of the Quai d’Orsay, the Foreign Ministry building in Paris. Where is it? As might be expected, it is deposited at the French Foreign Ministry archives. Is it considered a secret matter, kept out of public view? Possibly. However, the Commission has at hand an authentic copy of the original text. It is annotated with corrections in the handwriting of Robert Schuman before delivery. That proves it is authentic. It contains the full text of the introduction that set the geopolitical context and describes the importance of the initiative. These vitally important paragraphs are always omitted from Commission publications. Where are these original pages? They are reproduced in colour facsimile in the book, ‘Un Changement d’Esperance’ published only in 2000 (fifty years after the event) by the Jean Monnet Foundation (JMF). A copy is to be found in the Central Library of the European Commission in Brussels. The book says that one copy of the important introductory paragraphs of the Declaration is to be found in the archives of the Jean Monnet Foundation, which also holds important private papers of Schuman. The last words are ‘Voici cette décision, avec les considérations qui l’ont inspirées.’ According to this book, Schuman’s corrected text of the rest of the Declaration is to be found at the French Foreign Ministry. It should be noted that the pages of the typescript are numbered and that page 3 starts with the phrase ‘La paix mondiale …’ (That is the part that the Commission uses with some changes on http://europa.eu/abc/symbols/9-may/decl_en.htm .) That page numbering would indicate the full text with Schuman’s corrections in his own hand is probably in the Ministry. The JMF copy of this first part of the Declaration is typed on a different typewriter and the book says that this is to be found at the JMF at Lausanne, Switzerland.

(2b) In your letter you wrote that in May 2010 a reconstitution of the Schuman Declaration took place at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of celebrations. It is not clear if this and the ‘re-lecture of the Schuman Declaration’ at Paris include the full text. Could you please confirm which version was read out.

(2c) The list of events that the Commission supported for the sixtieth anniversary of the Schuman Declaration includes many events having nothing to do with Schuman (Chopin, Nikowitz, cocktail parties and discussions of Gaullist ideas like ‘Franco-German engines’, which Schuman opposed. I am surprised that the Commission spending money supporting anti-communautaire ideas.) The letter fails to say how much money was spent directly on the Schuman Declaration celebrations compared with the so-called 50th Birthday campaign of 2007-8, called ‘Together since 1957’. I would be grateful if you could supply figures for funding of both projects.

3 (a) The French Foreign Ministry is also the Depository of the original text of the Treaty of Paris. According to Article 100 of the Treaty there is only one authentic copy and that is held in Paris. Certified copies of the Treaty are to be sent to Member States. The Commission is not mentioned as a depository.

(3b) The French Foreign Ministry is presumably the legal Depository of the Charter of the Community, the Europe Declaration of Interdependence. This document is of primary importance as it represents a signed agreement of all the Founding Fathers, the plenipotentiaries of the Six. It defines the spirit and purpose of the European Community. However it is not clear whether the French Ministry sent copies of the Charter of the Community to Member States. It is hard to find. After Schuman left the Foreign Ministry it came under even stronger Gaullist control. The Charter is printed in books about the Treaty such as Der Schuman Plan by Ulrich Sahm with a preference by Prof Walter Hallstein, the first President of the Commission of the Economic Community. It is titled ‘Gemeinsame Erklärung’. It is also published in newspapers of the time with great prominence. This Charter is, by some considerations, more important than the treaty itself as it describes the principles on which Europe should unite, such as freedom of thought and the free and wholehearted action of the people. In signing it, the Founding Fathers defined the federating principle for organizing Europe as supranational democracy. Schuman puts the Charter in the category of the Magna Carta for Europe.

May I ask you again that the Commission publish these foundational documents of the European Union, given the importance of the soon-coming 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Paris and the signing of the Charter on 18 April 1951. I would be grateful to receive your reply to this letter.

Yours etc

No reply to this letter has yet been received.

The present political cartel of the major parties controls the institutions. It refuses to have a Commission independent of political parties. All citizens except politically loyal members are denied. It denies a place for non-political civil society in its institutions.

The Cartel's website continues to publish obvious falsehoods like the following in its "Together since 1957' propaganda :
Primarily an economic organisation at its inception, the EU has evolved into a project to guarantee high levels of social protection for its citizens.

R U B B I S H ! ! !


The EU was in fact founded as a system to make War not only unthinkable but materially impossible. Commerce in history has often led to wars. Commerce without a real democratic foundation leads to corruption and cartels. Commerce with democracy leads to prosperity. That's why the Founding Fathers signed the European Charter of Inter-dependence.

The Community system was designed to deal with the problem of 2000 years of continuous war between its peoples. A Community or the EU could not be built without a system to stop war. When is the EU going to stop publishing such falsehoods?

08 March, 2011

Jihad3 : How can Europe encourage Democracy and Human Rights across the southern Mediterranean?

How do you turn a country that has been ruled by a tyrant into one that respects human rights and is based solidly on democracy? That is more than possible. There is a positive example about how to bring it to success. Recently one country was rebuilt from a broken tyranny, ruined cities, and utter denial of human rights. It was violently anti-Semitic, intolerant to minorities, anti-homosexual and ruled by a leader given to raving hysterically about his ideology.

It changed completely. It soon became prosperous, trusted by its neighbours, the world's largest exporter and a model democracy. It is today a strong supporter of human rights both at home and abroad.

That country was of course Nazi Germany. In 1945 the cities were destroyed. In 1932 the people had brought Nazism into power by a democratic vote and lost democracy. The young were the most fervent Nazis. For more than a decade they had never known anything but Nazism.

If such an exemplary feat of change to democracy and human rights was possible in Germany, is it possible on the south coast of the Mediterranean? There the young people are in the first rank of those demanding democracy and human rights. They want a life like young Europeans have across the Mediterranean. That would seem a good start.

What is democracy? For Abraham Lincoln it was government of the people, by the people for the people. Schuman had a more incisive and scientific definition. He said:

What characterizes a democratic State are the objectives that it proposes and the means by which it seeks to achieve them. It is at the service of the people and it acts in agreement with the people.

For long years, the citizens of the countries from Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco have asked why they could not lead the same lives and have the same privileges as Europeans. They asked. Why did the Europeans not respond with the correct answer? It requires a good understanding about what 'service' means. In particular, what does it mean to serve peace?

Why did both sides of the Mediterranean not boom with the jobs, the industry and the innovation of Europe? Graduates come and work in Europe and the USA, but jobs are lacking at home. Why is illiteracy so high for much of the population?

Why can't the south throw their tyrants into prison for obvious violation of human rights? Why can't they put them on trial in court? To the north of the Mediterranean the French can bring a president to answer alleged abuse of power in court. To the east in Israel a prime minister or even a president can also land up in Court. Why does that not happen on the south side of the Mediterranean?

Why can't the North African countries also have the freedom to speak the truth in the press? Why are so much of their media, one-sided, full of propaganda, race hate, anti-Semitism and obvious lies? The south Mediterranean revolt showed that the problem was not Israel but their own leaders. The 'Palestinian problem' is largely a distraction imposed on their media by ruthless leaders wanting to divert their own subjugated, unemployed and often starving masses.

After World War 2 all of Europe faced far bigger problems. It entire economy was in ruins, balkanized by nationalism, as well as riven with hate and distrust. A crushed Germany was starving and no one, it seemed, cared. Why should they? The victors had rationed food. What was the way forward? They all knew one thing. Fundamental to a free society is freedom of thought in all subjects. That requires a process to develop balanced rules and procedures. Post-war Germany, drenched in Nazi propaganda, went through a short period of apprenticeship to reinforce these liberties with discipline. But it did not do it alone.

In the immediate postwar period Germany was occupied by the Allied armies. After a couple of years, the Allies led by the US encouraged local elections and then provincial elections.

Robert Schuman who became Prime Minister in 1947 encouraged this move that was contrary to the previous unrealistic Gaullist policy. De Gaulle wanted to control the Germans by the permanent occupation of Germany and the annexation of the land up to the Rhine. Constitutions for the provinces had to be forged. Then the heads of the provinces, the Minister-presidents, were allowed to make the first steps for the Constitution or Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. This had provisions for safe-guarding human rights and fundamental freedoms.

For French leaders like Robert Schuman who knew nationalistic Germany well in peace and in war, this was not sufficient. Schuman initiated a process to create a new legal and political instrument -- Europe's first international parliamentary assembly and the Council of Europe. This was to be the framework body that was to create the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. As he made clear in public speeches and at the United Nations, Germany was to have its own role in the organization provided it proved itself trustworthy of the removal of military controls.

Thus a strong framework was needed before the new Constitution was written and the respect for human rights was put in place. For Germany it was the Allied military force. Gradually this military security could be loosened as trust and confidence between the Germans and its former victims grew.

Schuman's analysis as French Prime Minister in 1947 has many parallels with the problems facing the southern Mediterranean today:
Governments are faced with grave and difficult material problems: food supply, production, salaries and prices. They see peace being compromised among the nations by prejudices of race, by the rivalry of force and the rivalry of interests. Inside countries, people are seeking the way to conciliate liberty with authority. They seek understanding between social classes.

To be able to reach such a result in all these fields, we certainly need studies and technical remedies, as well as the scientific development of material energies.
But is this all? Was it a matter of simply providing the systems and democracy would flourish? That had been tried. Nothing like this new era of European peace -- history's longest -- had happened after the previous wars. Was there another dimension? Clearly former Nazis would have been the first to subvert human rights. They would have undermined democracy and seized power.

What happened? The first step was moral reform. Democracy cannot be built as a nest of crooks, fraudsters and mass-killers. This moral renewal was the first stage of creating the European Community. Robert Schuman was among the great leaders that supported this effort. When? Not years after the war but right after the war was finished. During the war he told his friends that reconciliation was necessary after the Allied victory -- which he said was certain. That took vision and strong courage in the postwar years when cities were still in ruins, when hate and revenge were rife and the populations were mourning their dead and tending their wounded.

Prime Minister Schuman said:
All these efforts, however, are insufficient and in vain if they do not stand on a solid moral foundation. The real source is the morality of the individual, of the family and of the State. And at the same time it is the guarantee of peace and wellbeing.
Among those re-animating this moral re-armament was the Swiss center at Caux, where perhaps half of Europe's most active postwar leaders learned about reconciliation, honesty in politics and the home, selfless service and public and private morality. Resistance leaders confronted former Nazis about the future of their countries and Europe. Trade unionists and their bosses washed the dishes together. It was, said Schuman, a school for training Europe's statesmen and women by mutual initiation to create 'a moral climate favourable for a fraternal union.' He commended those who acted like 'apostles of reconciliation and workmen for a world renewed.'

The Swiss and their teams helped re-animate Europe's heart. To the shame of Europe's institutions, they have largely forgotten this important spiritual foundation of the European community. Yet without it, European reconciliation would not have happened. The institutions would not exist. Nor would democracy, human rights and the prosperity Europeans enjoy today.

What is the lesson for the southern Mediterranean? In Egypt six out of ten people say democracy is best for the country. But do they know what it means? Some 95% say that Islam should play a role in politics. Yet there is no Islamic country that of itself has created a democracy.

More than four out of five Egyptians say that Islamic apostates should face the death penalty. Tolerance is the necessary foundation of democracy. It is impossible for any Muslim to announce publicly his conversion to Christianity. Imagine indeed what explosion of emotion and violence would be unleashed if an Egyptian announced his desire to convert to Judaism.

Without real understanding of how democracy is founded Western leaders have too often acted naively towards the Mediterranean. They encouraged a so-called democratic vote among the Palestinian Arabs only to find themselves faced with what others saw as the obvious outcome: a gangster organization in charge. Gaza was taken over by a terrorist organization, Hamas. It is largely funded from Saudi Arabia with in the last few years hundreds of millions of euros coming from Iran.

This 'charity' organization of soup kitchens and AK47s then went about in declaring war against Fatah, killing them in the streets and humiliating any opponents to its rule. Its vowed intention in its constitution is the destruction of Israel.

This is what the EU naively reported after the Palestinian elections of January 2006:

'These elections were notable for the participation of candidates linked to extremist or radical groups that have advocated violence as a means to solving the problems in the Middle East. It is hoped that this participation is an indication of the movement of such groups towards engaging in a truly democratic process, which would be in fundamental contradiction with violent activity.' (my emphasis).

It is as if they were applauding the vote for the Nazi party and some other equally nasty fascists competing to seize power by the ballot box. Is it too much to remind them? Normal democracies do not encourage or involve warlike parties but political parties. Gangsters like Hitler made alliances, even submitted to elections, until they were powerful enough to take over and gaol or kill their opponents and critics. Real democrats must have forsworn violence. They must have said they would never use threats, blackmail, mobs, public hangings and torture. This report supposedly came from experienced politicians. Did Europe's politicians ever read what the Hamas stood for? It is on the EU list of terrorist organizations. Did they check up on Fatah? Do they analyze the Fatah media and its glorification of death?

Did they ensure that peaceful parties or groups that wanted to live and work with Israel were allowed to have a fair participation? Take one example. Did Europeans say loud and clear that they would have absolutely nothing to do with people who passed a decree to execute people who wanted to (horror of horrors!!!) sell a house to a Jew? What would the EU say if Jews declared that they would do exactly the same as the Arabs? Is the EU's silence and financial support the same as Hitler's policy to make the land Judenrein, (Free of Jews)? How disgusting can European foreign policy get?

Today even the majority of Arabs do not want to live under Fatah, the Palestinian Authority or Hamas -- if given a free choice. If ever there were an Arab Palestinian State only a quarter of those in East Jerusalem would move. Most wanted to stay Israelis or become Israelis. If that is a fact, why isn't the EU supporting them. These Arabs obviously know their own and the Israelis well. Do they want to live in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia? No the majority of Arabs polled wanted to live in Israel where they at least have elementary freedoms, laws and justice equivalent to those of Europe.

Do European politicians lose all sense of Human Rights when it comes to countries associated with oil? Does the smell of petroleum addle their brains? Does this oil addiction render them blind and immoral?

Apparently so -- ever since the 1973 Middle East war when Saudi Arabia, OPEC and the Arab League insisted that the European Community countries must change their foreign policy or else they would suffer from an oil embargo. Actually the oil-exporters said the same thing in 1956. It remains a threat, especially with Iran heading OPEC.

Part of the 1970s oil embargo blackmail was that Europe would pay for the Palestinian Arabs. The Venice agreement also forced Europe into a dereliction of responsibility in encouraging violence not peace. Scrutinizing the ballot of two violent groups is not the way of peace. The EU fails to understand its own peace miracle and compounds the error by refusing to do even the most elementary investigation about the groups they were encouraging to gain power by the ballot box.

If you don't believe me that apparently sensible European democrats could encourage such dangerous nonsense, check what the peace partner, the PA, teaches its children: -- that 'Zionist gangs stole Palestine'. It broadcasts on TV and continues to publish maps without any trace of Israel on them.

Read the Hamas Charter. It states that

"Israel will exist, and will continue to exist, until Islam abolishes it, as it abolished that which was before it."

Note 'That which was before it.' That destruction programme would include Christianity in its sights. Egypt and north Africa were the home of major Christian communities before the arrival of the Islamic sword.

Article 2 of the Hamas Covenant reveals a plain contradiction to what representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood are saying in Egypt. There they say that would never hurt a fly and that no one will vote for them any way. Hamas declares that it is a jihadist-terrorist movement with a global agenda. It says that the Muslim Brotherhood is the mother of all such organizations.

Article Two

The Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) is one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood movement is a global organization and is the largest of the Islamic movements in modern times.

Article Four

The Islamic Resistance Movement welcomes every Muslim who embraces its creed, adopts its ideology, is committed to its way, keeps its secrets and desires to join its ranks in order to carry out the duty, and his reward is with Allah.


Hamas lays out its long-term, worldwide strategy as clear as possible. It is not peace.

Article Seven

Muslims who adopt the way of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) are found in all countries of the world, and act to support [the movement], to adopt its positions and to reinforce its jihad. Therefore, it is a world movement, and it is qualified for this [role] owing to the clarity of its ideology, the loftiness of its purpose and the exaltedness of its goals.


The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is one link in the chain of jihad in confronting the Zionist invasion. It is connected and linked to the [courageous] uprising of the martyr 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam and his brethren the jihad fighters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the year 1936. It is further related and connected to another link, [namely] the jihad of the Palestinians, the efforts and jihad of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1948 war, and the jihad operations of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1968 and afterwards. Although these links are far apart, and although the continuity of jihad was interrupted by obstacles placed in the path of the jihad fighters by those who circle in the orbit of Zionism, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to realize the promise of Allah, no matter how long it takes. The Prophet, Allah's prayer and peace be upon him, says: "The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews." (Recorded in the Hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim).

It adds: Any measure which does not conform to this Islamic law regarding Palestine is null and void.

Europe helps pay for the education of the Gazan youth. What does it get: race hatred, lies and the incitement to another holocaust. What right has the EU to use the European taxpayer money for such infamy? Will it teach the truth of history? What about, for example, the Nazi Holocaust? Verboten. Just recently the Hamas regime declared that it will 'never allow Holocaust teaching to Gazan refugee children'. Thus they refuse to teach about one holocaust while in their own constitution inciting the whole Gazan population to a future Israeli Holocaust.

Gaza has become a client statelet of Iran, firing thousands of Qassam rockets and mortars into Israel whom it has declared its intention to destroy.

Now compare this with what fooled the naive democrats of the 1930s. Even though Hitler was astute in lies, twisting the facts and hiding his intentions, not everyone was fooled. Some analysts saw through the subtle clauses in his party programme. It was clear to them that he was about to murder many Jews, Christians and political dissenters. What was the evidence? The Nazi Party (NSAPD) wrote up their policy intentions in the following words of the Nazi party programme.

24. We demand freedom for all religious denominations, provided that they do not endanger the existence of the State or offend the concepts of decency and morality of the Germanic race.

The Party as such stands for positive Christianity, without associating itself with any particular denomination. It fights against the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us...

They understood it. Those words meant an end to religious dissent and the extermination of the Jewish race, the physically unfit and minorities. Today's politicians have no excuse. The programme of Hamas as part of the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood and Fatah is much clearer. Iran's religious leaders keep repeating that their main goal in life is to destroy America, Israel and all infidels in Europe.

Yet for some curious reason Europe's politicians think they should give them the benefit of the doubt that they at really good boys and will not cause anyone harm. They seem to think like their naive grandparents that Hamas and others will like Hitler become good democrats after a ballot. They believe that a signed piece of paper will be a guarantee of good conduct.

Lesson: ignorance by so-called democrats about the roots and functioning of real democracy can lead to even worse situation where terrorism festers and war plans are hatched. Europe will get more than its fingers burned in the next Middle East war.

Can Europeans then realistically prevent a new war in the Middle East? What did Schuman do? As Foreign Minister, he pursued a policy that at one side encouraged the independence of the southern Mediterranean states then under France's control and ensured the survival of Israel as a democratic State.

There are basically two ways to ensure democracy in Egypt. One is to retain a major role for a neutral military that would maintain order, and retain the confidence of the people. A non-ideological force is required to keep terrorist-jihadists from gaining power.

Only when order and stability are maintained would the second stage be possible. That is the signing by the nascent Egyptian democratic parliament in conjunction with the stated will of the people of a Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms similar to Europe's. It could even make it clear that it would abide by the rulings of the judges in Strasbourg in the case of any dispute about democracy including religion.

Is that possible? Is that realistic? The answer must be Yes.

Why? Because the experiment has already been carried out with both the Nazi regime and the atheistic Communist regimes of the Soviet Union's orbit. Both Germany and Russia are now signatories of the Strasbourg Convention. That would have been written off as impossible in 1945 or 1946. Yet it happened.

Europeans need equal courage and faith in their democratic experiment. We have experience. It happened first because Statesmen and courageous members of the public thought it was just possible and they brought it into reality.

How should Europeans go about it today? Europeans should have learned that supporting and giving financial subventions to tyrants and dictators without a plan is not a good idea. If the European Union makes any further subventions to Egypt and the southern Mediterranean countries it should ensure that they make the first steps to democracy. What is that?

Firstly, religious tolerance. Democracy is based on Christian principles, according to Schuman. It involves the full respect of the other. Neither Nazism nor Communism can achieve this. For centuries Ireland was continually in a state of religious war and then it stopped Why? Ireland signed up to the Convention of Human Rights. Previously, strife was stoked up while one side or the other insisted that (1) religious discussions could not take place in peace; (2) religious information of the other side was forbidden; (3) conversion must take place before marriage of mixed couples. (This is clearly contrary to the principle of free religious determination.) (4) Children could be brought up according to sectarian rules not their free will.

Truth, and the freedom to search for truth are at the core of civilization. Specifically the freedom of religion and the ability to change one's religion are fundamental to a functioning democracy. Violence and the threat of violence must continue to be outlawed for religious discussions.

Among these rights must be the right to free information about religion without any group or individual inciting violence. It has been vitally important for Europe. The Mediterranean Litmus test must be the same as we apply to ourselves. In Ireland, it is no longer mandatory for Protestants to convert if they wish to marry a Roman Catholic. Nor must the children be forced to be educated as Roman Catholics. The same goes for those of the Roman faith in Protestant countries.

Secondly violence in politics should be outlawed. Freedom of information does not include incitement to violence and murder. Incitement to violence is a crime in democracies. That should be part of the EU's foreign policy. Should the EU be supporting a country where the Nazi propaganda like 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' and 'Mein Kampf' are recommended by the Muslim Brotherhood and in the mosques? Why aren't these institutions educating people about how to prove them to be (1) fraudulent and (2) ridiculous?

Europe must assure that its foreign policy is based on encouraging peaceful political parties. It must make sure that not a single cent goes to parties or groups that do not believe in the freedom of religion.