Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa? The European Union is going the right way -- the extreme right way -- to encourage Nazi ideology all along its southern borders. It spends millions of tax-payers' money in supporting a regime that is outrightly anti-Semitic and jihadist, that follows the Nazi model on racial supremacy and glorifies the extermination of the Jews as part of its programme.
THIS MUST STOP!! I M M E D I A T E L Y !! THIS IS POLICY MADNESS! IT IS NOT BEING DONE IN MY NAME OR IN THE NAME OF MILLIONS OF FAIR MINDED EUROPEANS.
IT IS TOTALLY AGAINST ALL THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY WAS FOUNDED: HUMAN RIGHTS, DEMOCRACY AND THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND RELIGION.
Consider! THINK!
* If one of EU's Member States demanded that all Jews down to the last man, woman and child must be cleared out of its territory, would it get EU funding for the project?
Yet this is exactly what the EU is doing abroad. The Council of Ministers gives political and diplomatic support and millions of euros -- European taxpayers' money -- to do so.
* If an EU Member State named a football tournament after a jihadist who had hijacked a bus and then murdered the passengers, 37 people including 12 children, would the EU continue its political support and funding?
Yet abroad EU politicians are strongly propping up this regime with diplomatic support and the Europeans' own money.
* If an EU member State refused to recognize another member State, let us say Denmark, Luxembourg or the Netherlands, or even a neighbour like Switzerland and said it should be part of greater Germany or an aggrandized France, would it get EU funding and support?
Yet this is exactly what the EU is supporting abroad with all the political and diplomatic power at its elbow.
* If a member State had official textbooks that preached hatred and war against another member State or a minority inside its borders, would it get OFFICIAL EU funding?
Yet this is exactly what official EU Foreign Policy supports. Other funding is coming directly from Member States budgets.
* If a terrorist organisation was found to be largely sustained because of public funding inside the EU, would it get extra aid and encouragement from Brussels? If the entire population of a region voted in elections to declare war and kill the population of a neighbouring country, would it get EU funding? Is that democracy?
Yet this is what is happening abroad according to EU policy.
* What would the EU do if one of the political parties in the European Parliament made a political merger with a terrorist organisation responsible for countless deaths, bombings and stabbings? Would it continue to give them support, pay its 'politicians' and expect them to attain high office in government?
Yet that is exactly what the EU is doing abroad.
Let us take those points one by one.
1. The EU is providing half a billion euros to support 'ministries' and 'administrations' of what could be the latest neo-Nazi racist and apartheid state. The Palestine Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said that if he had a state 'I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land". He would exclude any European of Jewish origin setting foot in 'HIS' territory. In published sources he is quoted by the official Palestinian agency, Wafa as saying: '"I'm willing to agree to a third party that would supervise the agreement, such as NATO forces, but I would not agree to having Jews among the NATO forces, or that there will live among us even a single Israeli on Palestinian land.” This makes it clear that when Abbas says Israeli he does not mean Israeli Arab, Israeli Christian or Israeli Baha'i. He means Jew.
Later Wafa published the following correction: ' I will not agree that an Israeli, even if he is a Muslim, will be present on my land.' That implies war against any who collaborate with Jews. This is worse than any apartheid state. It is pure racism of the Nazi type -- Judenrein, free of Jews. That is the term the Nazis gave to conquered territories where all the Jews had been murdered or sent to concentration camps elsewhere. Is the Council of Ministers now funding this Nazi policy abroad? Why is there no debate on the subject? Will the EU demand that Abbas repudiate all of these statements before he gets another cent in support?
In any European Member State Abbas would not be allowed even to be a politician. Why then is he recognized at all? What are the EU's rules for talking to anti-Semites? Where has the European External Action Service published its rules? Abbas is the author of a Holocaust denying thesis, passed in Moscow in Cold War days. It says that Zionist leaders conspired with Nazis in the killing of thousands of fellow Jews. It describes as “the Zionist fantasy, the fantastic lie that six million Jews were killed”. It maintains that the gas chambers were built and used for disinfection and control of disease. The Palestinian Authority has steadfastly refused to remove this Holocaust-denying book from all its libraries. It is scarcely surprising that so many Arabs deny the Holocaust. Is the EU also encouraging this in supporting Abbas and 'former' terrorists, now residing in their plush villas? Abbas was once elected but when his term expired declared himself an extension. That puts him in the same category as a dictator, following the German pattern in history. In any EU State he would be boycotted for fraud.
2. Yes, the Palestinian football tournament is named after a bloody murderer, whose war name was Abu Jihad, or Khalil al-Wazir. He was a founder of the Fatah terrorist group which saw killing of defenceless children and civilians as the type of combat to which he was best suited. He was acclaimed by the Palestinian 'peace' leaders as prince of the shahids or martyrs. This is not unusual. The Karate championships are named for Abdallah Daoud who was responsible for many terror attacks. It is sponsored by an organisation wanting the 'repatriation' of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Daoud was one of the terrorists who stormed the Church of the Nativity in 2002, continuing to fight against Israel for several weeks while using the monks and the religious site as shields
What is the EU's policy on such 'sport' ? Does it encourage interchanges with people who glorify the idea of using force against churches? Christians, mainly educated Arab Christians, who used to be the majority of around 75% in Bethlehem have now mainly disappeared to around 23% under the PA 'administration'.
Why is the EU supporting regimes that glory in the destruction of synagogues and churches and anything that opposes a dictatorial Islam? Why is the EU supporting an Arab Palestinian entity that has declared that it wants a state totally dominated by Sharia law where all other religions are banned or subjugated to Islam? All members of any Palestinian parliament would have to be Islamic sectarians and swear allegiance before 'Allah'. "I swear by Allah Almighty to be faithful to the Homeland, and to preserve the rights and interests of the people and nation, and to respect law and perform my duties in the best manner, as Allah is my witness". That is the equivalent term jihadis and other politically brainwashed Islamists use when killing, maiming or stabbing those who disagree with them -- Allahu Akhbar, the takbir, used by various killers including those suicidal jihadi maniacs of 9/11, and the bombers in Europe's capital cities.
Do these so-called Arab 'democrats' expect Europeans, do the expect ME or anyone else, to pay them from our taxes for such bigotry? After they have already eliminated any Arab wanting real friendship with Jews, do they expect EU support? Why? What if someone believes this 'Allah', is a false god. The name is used for bloody and bigoted conflict that also permits witnesses to lie. It is clear, he says, it has nothing to do with the true God, the creator of the universe, who says: you shall not bear false witness. Must that honest person lie or submit to be part of this bigoted, sharia state? Such a constitution is a recipe for increasing aggressive Middle Eastern politics-- which will envelop Europe in more bloody wars.
3. We have already quoted the self-proclaimed 'President' Abbas on the Judenrein Palestine. What is its policy towards Israel, a full member of the UN? The PA issues maps where the State of Israel has been left out altogether. All the land is Palestine, according to the PA. That rather makes nonsense of any peace process. Amendments to the Palestinian Covenant of the PLO that denies Israel's right to exist have been promised many times. The articles on a new Holocaust have never been revoked. Despite promises by Arafat to the press conference that it was 'caduc' and misleading statements by others such as US President Clinton, Palestinians and their documents confirm that all they have agreed to is that sometime in the future they might amend the articles on their policy of Israeli ethnocide. In the meantime such murderous sentiments as were written into the covenant dating back to PLO's Nasserite origins remain. Why is the EU supporting an entity whose official policy is still the extermination of the Jews?
4. According to a monitoring report by EUfunding.org, research which is confirmed by other organisations, the EU and its Member States are funding hatred in school books. Five key points are listed:
* Palestinian children are forced to learn from inflammatory material, much of it containing hidden and/or violent directives. This is an abuse of their basic student rights, as laid down by UNESCO.
* It is evident that the texts are designed not to include the name of Israel. When this rule is breached, Israel is only referred to in a negative context. Any connection between Jews and the Holyland is denied emphatically.
* The result is that the Palestinian children are encouraged to hate their neighbors. This culture not only fans the flames of violence; it significantly reduces the chances for peace among the next generation.
* These books are funded by foreign governments and respected international agencies; in particular Belgium, Italy and UNESCO.
* The institutions of the United Nations, in particular UNESCO and UNRWA, are clearly providing services, which only deepen the fostering hatred directed at Israel.
What about teaching Human Rights in Arab schools? Do the teachers and the workers in Palestinian Arab schools learn the facts about the Holocaust? It is forbidden! Verboten! This is what the Arab daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, published on 14 April 2011.
Headline: "The [UNRWA Workers'] Union emphasized its opposition to teaching the Holocaust of the Jews as part of the curriculum in the [UNRWA] Agency's schools..."
"The [UNRWA] Workers' Union emphasized its adamant opposition to teaching the Holocaust of the Jews within the educational curriculum of UNRWA schools, as part of the topic of human rights. The union said, 'We emphasize our adamant opposition to confusing the thinking of our students' by means of Holocaust studies in the human rights study curriculum ... (emphasis added)
Confused from what? Perhaps the constant encouragement of young people on television and throughout the media to prepare themselves as shahids that is suicide bombers, martyrs and guerrillas against civilians, like Abu Jihad.
5. The EU is sustaining and has sustained this squalid political mess where terrorists -- not democrats -- run the administration. The PLO terrorized any Arab who wanted to collaborate or had collaborated with the Israelis. Why did the EU let that happen? Then the EU encouraged elections in Gaza between two terrorist organizations, the PLO and Hamas, which is still on the EU's terrorist list. Hamas states its goal as Jewish ethnocide. As discussed in the earlier commentary, Hamas sets their goal as the destruction of Israel and the subjection to the whole population to militant Islam 'which will abolish {Israel} as it abolished all that preceded it.'
UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, is mainly paid for by the EU. It pays nearly two-thirds (62%) of its budget. Europe has been paying for more than 60 years! Why? because the Arab refugees in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan refuse to be integrated into those States and the States refuse to integrate them. That was the case when Egypt was in charge of Gaza from 1948 to 1957 and when also Jordan had invaded and controlled Samaria and Judea. They did absolutely nothing for the refugees and kept them in tents.They could have solved the problem then. They refused.
Who are the refugees? They are like no other refugees in the world and they get more more per capita than the really needy elsewhere. They are also permanent. In 1948 there were an estimated 8 million Indian refugees expelled from Pakistan following the independence conflict between Pakistan and India. Where they re-settled? Yes. Is the Palestinian Arab problem an issue about Islam? No. There were six million Islamic refugees from India who went to Pakistan. Were they re-settled? Yes.
Those 14 million refugees have all been re-settled. So have the millions and millions of refugees in Europe after World War 2. But not the much smaller number of Arab Palestinians, half a million maybe three-quarters. Why? Because the other Arab States wanted to create a permanent problem for Israel. They did so because of the humiliating defeat of their seven national armies illegally invading the sovereign State of Israel in 1948. There are now some 4 million refugees!
They created a special definition of 'refugee' like no other in the world. An UNRWA refugee can not only be the person seeking refuge but his children and his children's children and so on ad infinitum. It will never end. UNLESS the EU and democrats take the problem in hand. A Nazi-like Judenrein State with no agreed borders, with terror weapons financed from Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and perhaps Egypt is no solution. It is an invitation for disaster for Europe too. Europe needs to use its influence to create a real DEMOCRATIC solution based on the European Human Rights Convention.
What defines a refugee? He has to be displaced from a dwelling -- where he lived less than TWO years -- before 1948. They had to be in residence from June 1946. An UNRWA refugee is one whose "normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict." And now this is 'inherited' by his many, many children, unlike other refugees.
Many of the original refugees were itinerant workers from Egypt, Syria and neighbouring countries. That definition was not a serious proposition in 1950s. It is ridiculous today where we see the scores of great grandchildren of one wandering agricultural worker from Syria claiming they are Palestinians. Yasser Arafat, despite his claims to the contrary, was born in Egypt as his birth certificate proved.
At the beginning there were many Jews who had been displaced. Some had lived there for generations, despite long persecution under the Ottoman empire, and then through the British Mandate -- the system where the nations of the world promised the conquered land from the Ottomans to the Jews as a national home. All coins and all stamps during the British Mandate period (1922-1948) already bore the designation in Hebrew for Land of Israel, in conformity to the international law of the League of Nations. This law had been passed by all Member States of the League and ratified by all their parliaments. It was re-confirmed by nations joining the United Nations.
The score of Arab States, some immensely rich from oil and including those that illegally invaded the land of Israel, did not deal with the Arab refugee problem. All the Jewish refugees under UNRWA were long resettled -- half a century ago. So have the 900,000 Jewish refugees expelled at that time from Arab lands of the North Africa and the Middle East.
6. The Fatah is taking a two stage solution of trying to obtain concessions and undermine Israel's security and delegitimize it by any means. That will make it weaker for armed attack. That is proved by their refusal to remove the following articles and others from its Covenant:
Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.
Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation - peoples and governments - with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard. Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly in the phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and furnish the Palestinian people with all possible help, and material and human support, and make available to them the means and opportunities that will enable them to continue to carry out their leading role in the armed revolution, until they liberate their homeland.
The PLO also want apply their peculiar version of Arab anti-capitalism, coordinate all the destructive forces of Arabs worldwide and to re-write history, presumably also in the law texts of Europe.
Article 19: The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, particularly the right to self-determination.
Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.
Article 21: The Arab Palestinian people, expressing themselves by the armed Palestinian revolution, reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine and reject all proposals aiming at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem, or its internationalization.
Hamas has the simple idea of destroying all of Israel by terrorism, with the thousands of rockets it has fired and the support of the jihadist network of the Moslem Brotherhood, plus bombs, rockets and hate from Shi'ite Iran.
If the EU recognizes and pays for part of the Palestinian Authority, a covert terrorist organisation, should it continue to do so if it combines with an overtly terrorist group like Hamas? Does adding more poison make a bilious drink more appetizing? Hamas is already on the terrorist list of the EU. If Fatah wants to blow its cover and join forces with an openly terrorist group, then the only question to ask is:
Why hasn't the EU placed Fatah and the PA, open collaborators in Hamas terrorism on the terrorist list too?
It is time for the EU to take stock of their policies. Appeasement with terror in Czechoslovakia in 1938 strengthened the Nazis and led to World War. The EU has ample means to act. The EU is paying for the Palestinians. It should now begin to expect them to implement democratic practices. If politicians have forgotten what they are, they include:
Human Rights, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Assembly ... in fact why don't they just check the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It was created at the initiative of Robert Schuman and the Founding Fathers of modern Europe.
Why did they create it? To stop States and governments becoming like Nazis. They experienced that. Unless a determined moral stance is made a democratic government can slide from bad to worse. It becomes a gangster state, threatening everyone.
Don't just believe me -- listen to what Schuman's friend and colleague, Pierre-Henri Teitgen, said when he introduced the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the Council of Europe.
'Democracies do not become Nazi countries overnight. Evil progresses in an underhand way, with a minority operating to seize what amounts to the levers of power. One by one, freedoms are suppressed, in one sphere then another.
Public opinion is smothered, the worldwide conscience is dulled and the national conscience asphyxiated.
And then, when everything fits in place, the Führer is installed and this evolution continues right on to the deadly gas ovens of the crematorium.
Intervention is needed before it becomes too late. A conscience must exist somewhere which will sound the alarm to the minds of a nation threatened by this spreading gangrene, to warn them of the peril and to show them that they are committing themselves to a crooked road leading far, sometimes even to Buchenwald or to Dachau. An international jurisdiction within the Council of Europe, a system of surveillance and guarantee, could be this conscience, of which other countries also maybe have special need.’
EUROPE MUST ACT NOW -- BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE !
03 May, 2011
18 April, 2011
Mr Barroso: Where is Europe's celebration for the first real peace and democracy in 2000 years? 18 April 2011 is the 60th Anniversary!
OPEN LETTER to President Barroso, Mr Herman van Rumpuy, Member State governments, Presidents of the European Parliament and the Consultative Committees: the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions.
From: David Price, Editor
Schuman Project
Dear President Barroso and Presidents of European institutions,
Today 18 April 2011 marks the sixtieth Anniversary of the foundation of European Democracy. It is also the Birthday of the Commission although the Commission together with the other institutions that were also created that day refuse to acknowledge it. Not even a press release was published.
It is the designated day to commemorate the birth of Europe. It is set by treaty and the by moral authority of all Europeans 60 years ago. That was agreed with huge majorities in all the eleven parliamentary debating chambers of the original Six founding Member States. The Founding Fathers also expressed themselves very clearly. They signed a document -- the Declaration of Inter-Dependence -- saying so.
Konrad Adenauer (West Germany),
Paul van Zeeland, Joseph Meurice (Belgium),
Robert Schuman (France),
Count Sforza (Italy)
Joseph Bech (Luxembourg),
Dirk Stikker and J. R. M. van den Brink (The Netherlands)
signed this document declaring the exact principles and the exact method which laid the TRUE FOUNDATION of a united democratic Europe.
After they had signed the Treaty of Paris creating Europe's first supranational Community, they reinforced it with this separate Declaration of Inter-Dependence.
It celebrates the way to create PEACE.
It celebrates the way to create EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY.
It says that 18 April should be regarded as the TRUE FOUNDATION of a democratic and political entity that had never existed as such before --- EUROPE.
The first European Community laid the foundation for
a peace system,
Today we are celebrating the LONGEST PERIOD OF PEACE in more than 2000 years of European history. At no time in the history of Europe was the territory of the original Six founder States of Europe free from war for more than about fifty years. Usually it was a great deal less.
Every generation in the past knew WAR. Now every generation since World War 2 knows only one thing inside the European Community -- PEACE.
That has NOT happened before.
And yet in spite of all that diversity the New Europeans all have agreed on one thing. They want peace. And they agreed on the Method. That was the the SUPRANATIONAL method of the Community.
It has peace as a SUPRANATIONAL COMMUNITY. It works. Robert Schuman called it an innovation like a great 'scientific discovery'.
Why is the European Commission not explaining HOW it works? Why is it not explaining the difference between Supranational Democracy which works and internationalism or inter-governmentalism which will inevitably FAIL? History shows that to be the case.
That COMMUNITY was founded 60 years ago today. On that day the totally independent States of Europe agreed to a new institution, the European Commission, then called the High Authority. It would have supranational powers. That means it would exercise independent judgement, in the same way as a judge must in Court. It should NOT be in dialogue or tied to any enterprise, labour force, consumer group, nation, political party or other interest group or lobby. It should not take instructions from any government, and that includes resigning when they want a new minister. We would not expect that of a High Court judge. It would function according to universal values such as truth and justice. It would respect the framework agreement of all European States -- the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
To work properly supranational democracy has a minimum of FIVE independent institutions. The Commission's members were to be selected by the governments to fulfill these criteria and also have sound judgement and the necessary experience. (That independence is a continuing struggle as politicians refuse to stop acting like prima donnas. They want to nominate their man or woman in the Commission, an act which is completely illegal in the Community system.)
The Commission's proposals, made as fair as they could judge, were then subject to Legal Opinions from three representative groups: governments, organized civil society (directly elected in their own parliament) and all individuals (represented by the European Parliament). Thus all sections of society should be consulted who were affected by the powers of the Commission. It would then enter into a full dialogue before the proposals became law by their publication by the Commission in the Official Journal. A court also of independent lawyers was given the task to act as a means of legal appeal, should any institution, or organization or individual feel that it was being discriminated. Any such person can ask the European Court a relevant question via a local, regional or national court or even a tribunal.
Because of that great innovation, Europe has had peace since 1945 -- 66 years of peace, totally unknown in the past. Instead of having another war the next generation after World War 2, Europe found a way to peace. That is a fact of history.
This political design was agreed by all governments and signed by their plenipotentiaries on 18 April 1951. It had as its prime goal and purpose:
TO MAKE WAR NOT ONLY UNTHINKABLE BUT MATERIALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
It succeeded.
Peace can only come from TRUTH, Justice and Morality. That was also described in the DEMOCRATIC principles that the leaders defined on that great, historic day, sixty years ago. They said that the TRUE FOUNDATION for building Europe was SUPRANATIONAL DEMOCRACY.
Why, Mr President Barroso, are the European Institutions REFUSING to celebrate this event?
Why do all the histories you publish and all the discussions on Europe start with 1957 and the treaties of Rome?
Why are the politicians REFUSING to spend a Euro of taxpayers' money on commemorating this date?
WHY was there not even a simple Press Release today? Is the Commission not even free enough to commemorate this great day of PEACE -- perhaps the greatest event in some 2000 years of European history?
Is it because the politicians WANT to abandon SUPRANATIONAL DEMOCRACY? What other possible motive do you think they can have?
Is this the reason that the European institutions still refuse to publish the Declaration of Inter-Dependence that the European Founding Fathers signed on this day six decades ago?
I am enclosing a copy of that Declaration below.
Yours sincerely,
David Price
Schuman Project
The President of the Federal Republic of Germany, His Royal Highness the Prince Royal of Belgium, the President of the French Republic, the President of the Italian Republic, Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, Her Majesty, the Queen of The Netherlands,
Considering that world peace can only be safeguarded by creative efforts commensurate with the dangers threatening it;
Convinced that the contribution that an organized and invigorated Europe can bring to civilization is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations;
Conscious that Europe will not be constructed except by concrete achievements establishing first of all the reality of partnership, and by the establishment of common bases for economic development;
Anxious to cooperate through the expansion of their primary products in raising the standard of living and in progressing in works of peace;
Resolved to transform their age-long rivalry through the unification of their essential interests, and, by the inauguration of an economic Community, to assemble the initial basis for a broader and deeper Community of peoples who had for centuries been opposed in bloody conflicts, and to set the foundations of institutions capable of providing a direction to a destiny that is henceforward shared,
Have decided to create a European Coal and Steel.Community
This work, that has just been confirmed by our signature, we owe to the wisdom of our delegations and to the perseverance of our experts. We are deeply grateful to them.
Even before the work was set in motion, the virtues of the idea that inspired it had already aroused in our countries and beyond its borders an extraordinary surge of hope and confidence.
In signing the treaty founding the European Community for Coal and Steel Community, a community of 160 million Europeans, the contracting parties give proof of their determination to call into life the first supranational institution, and consequently create the true foundation for an organized Europe.
This Europe is open to all European countries that are able to choose freely for themselves. We sincerely hope that other countries will join us in our common endeavour.
In full awareness of the need to reveal the significance of this first step by sustained action in other sectors, we have the hope and the will in the same spirit that presided in the elaboration of this Treaty, to bring the current projects now in preparation to a successful conclusion. The work will be pursued in conjunction with the existing European bodies.
These initiatives, each with their particular objective, should rapidly take their place within the framework of a European Political Community, the concept of which is being elaborated in the Council of Europe. This should result in the coordination and simplification of the European institutions as a whole.
All these efforts will be guided by the growing conviction that the countries of free Europe are inter-dependent and that they share a common destiny. We will strengthen this sentiment by combining our energies and our determination, and bringing our work into harmony through frequent consultations and building ever-increasing trust through our contacts.
Herein lies the significance of this day. We have no doubt its importance will be understood by the public opinion of our countries and by our parliaments, who are called to decide on its ratification. The governments that together are represented here will act to all as interpreters of our common will to build a peaceful and prosperous Europe. And together we will serve Europe.
The declaration was signed by Konrad Adenauer (West Germany), Paul van Zeeland, Joseph Meurice (Belgium), Robert Schuman (France), Count Sforza (Italy) Joseph Bech (Luxembourg), Dirk Stikker and J. R. M. van den Brink (The Netherlands).
From: David Price, Editor
Schuman Project
Dear President Barroso and Presidents of European institutions,
Today 18 April 2011 marks the sixtieth Anniversary of the foundation of European Democracy. It is also the Birthday of the Commission although the Commission together with the other institutions that were also created that day refuse to acknowledge it. Not even a press release was published.
It is the designated day to commemorate the birth of Europe. It is set by treaty and the by moral authority of all Europeans 60 years ago. That was agreed with huge majorities in all the eleven parliamentary debating chambers of the original Six founding Member States. The Founding Fathers also expressed themselves very clearly. They signed a document -- the Declaration of Inter-Dependence -- saying so.
Konrad Adenauer (West Germany),
Paul van Zeeland, Joseph Meurice (Belgium),
Robert Schuman (France),
Count Sforza (Italy)
Joseph Bech (Luxembourg),
Dirk Stikker and J. R. M. van den Brink (The Netherlands)
signed this document declaring the exact principles and the exact method which laid the TRUE FOUNDATION of a united democratic Europe.
After they had signed the Treaty of Paris creating Europe's first supranational Community, they reinforced it with this separate Declaration of Inter-Dependence.
It celebrates the way to create PEACE.
It celebrates the way to create EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY.
It says that 18 April should be regarded as the TRUE FOUNDATION of a democratic and political entity that had never existed as such before --- EUROPE.
The first European Community laid the foundation for
a peace system,
- the complete transformation of the Continent,
- breaking the powers of dictatorships,
- healing the division of Europe of the Cold War,
- in the creation of a new entity called EUROPE,
- living in peace and security
- with an unprecedented level of prosperity,
- unknown in all the separate national histories,
- with its own European foreign policy,
- a Single Market,
- a Single Currency,
- a Single, supranational European democracy and
- the European Reconciliation of ideas, governments, peoples and interests.
Today we are celebrating the LONGEST PERIOD OF PEACE in more than 2000 years of European history. At no time in the history of Europe was the territory of the original Six founder States of Europe free from war for more than about fifty years. Usually it was a great deal less.
Every generation in the past knew WAR. Now every generation since World War 2 knows only one thing inside the European Community -- PEACE.
That has NOT happened before.
- Not in the time of the Romans,
- not in the time after the removal of the Roman military dictatorship from Europe,
- not during the time of Roman Emperor Constantine when the capital of the Empire moved to Constantinople, nor at any time till it fell in 1453,
- not during the time of Justinian and his Code,
- not during the time of Goths,
- not during the time of Charlemagne,
- not during the time of Otto,
- not during the Normans,
- not during the low Middle Ages, nor the middle Middle Ages nor the High Middle Ages,
- not under the popes, nor under the emperors,
- not under the Hohenstaufen, nor under Habsburgs,
- not when Europeans where fighting Islamic invasions,
- nor when the were conducting crusades abroad,
- not when the population was diminished by plague,
- nor when they grew in population,
- not when the religion was that of the Roman pontiffs or that of Luther,
- not under kings, nor emperors nor republics,
- not under the 'enlightenment', nor 'humanism', or the age of 'reason',
- not in the age of the French royal absolutism, the Republic or Napoleonism,
- not in the time of industrialization, nor peasant agriculture,
- not under the Congress of Europe,
- not under the League of Nations,
- not in the age of colonialism, nor when the Europeans lost the colonies,
- nor has Europe ever created a United States of Europe based on the American model. It has always been in a constant state of European civil war -- until 18 April 1951.
And yet in spite of all that diversity the New Europeans all have agreed on one thing. They want peace. And they agreed on the Method. That was the the SUPRANATIONAL method of the Community.
It has peace as a SUPRANATIONAL COMMUNITY. It works. Robert Schuman called it an innovation like a great 'scientific discovery'.
Why is the European Commission not explaining HOW it works? Why is it not explaining the difference between Supranational Democracy which works and internationalism or inter-governmentalism which will inevitably FAIL? History shows that to be the case.
That COMMUNITY was founded 60 years ago today. On that day the totally independent States of Europe agreed to a new institution, the European Commission, then called the High Authority. It would have supranational powers. That means it would exercise independent judgement, in the same way as a judge must in Court. It should NOT be in dialogue or tied to any enterprise, labour force, consumer group, nation, political party or other interest group or lobby. It should not take instructions from any government, and that includes resigning when they want a new minister. We would not expect that of a High Court judge. It would function according to universal values such as truth and justice. It would respect the framework agreement of all European States -- the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
To work properly supranational democracy has a minimum of FIVE independent institutions. The Commission's members were to be selected by the governments to fulfill these criteria and also have sound judgement and the necessary experience. (That independence is a continuing struggle as politicians refuse to stop acting like prima donnas. They want to nominate their man or woman in the Commission, an act which is completely illegal in the Community system.)
The Commission's proposals, made as fair as they could judge, were then subject to Legal Opinions from three representative groups: governments, organized civil society (directly elected in their own parliament) and all individuals (represented by the European Parliament). Thus all sections of society should be consulted who were affected by the powers of the Commission. It would then enter into a full dialogue before the proposals became law by their publication by the Commission in the Official Journal. A court also of independent lawyers was given the task to act as a means of legal appeal, should any institution, or organization or individual feel that it was being discriminated. Any such person can ask the European Court a relevant question via a local, regional or national court or even a tribunal.
Because of that great innovation, Europe has had peace since 1945 -- 66 years of peace, totally unknown in the past. Instead of having another war the next generation after World War 2, Europe found a way to peace. That is a fact of history.
This political design was agreed by all governments and signed by their plenipotentiaries on 18 April 1951. It had as its prime goal and purpose:
TO MAKE WAR NOT ONLY UNTHINKABLE BUT MATERIALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
It succeeded.
Peace can only come from TRUTH, Justice and Morality. That was also described in the DEMOCRATIC principles that the leaders defined on that great, historic day, sixty years ago. They said that the TRUE FOUNDATION for building Europe was SUPRANATIONAL DEMOCRACY.
Why, Mr President Barroso, are the European Institutions REFUSING to celebrate this event?
Why do all the histories you publish and all the discussions on Europe start with 1957 and the treaties of Rome?
Why are the politicians REFUSING to spend a Euro of taxpayers' money on commemorating this date?
WHY was there not even a simple Press Release today? Is the Commission not even free enough to commemorate this great day of PEACE -- perhaps the greatest event in some 2000 years of European history?
Is it because the politicians WANT to abandon SUPRANATIONAL DEMOCRACY? What other possible motive do you think they can have?
Is this the reason that the European institutions still refuse to publish the Declaration of Inter-Dependence that the European Founding Fathers signed on this day six decades ago?
I am enclosing a copy of that Declaration below.
Yours sincerely,
David Price
Schuman Project
Europe Declaration
18 April 1951
The following CHARTER OF THE COMMUNITY was made and signed on same day as europe's founding treaty of paris, creating the european coal and steel community. This DECLARATION of INTER-DEPENDENCE affirms that europe must be built on supranational democratic principles.
The President of the Federal Republic of Germany, His Royal Highness the Prince Royal of Belgium, the President of the French Republic, the President of the Italian Republic, Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, Her Majesty, the Queen of The Netherlands,
Considering that world peace can only be safeguarded by creative efforts commensurate with the dangers threatening it;
Convinced that the contribution that an organized and invigorated Europe can bring to civilization is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations;
Conscious that Europe will not be constructed except by concrete achievements establishing first of all the reality of partnership, and by the establishment of common bases for economic development;
Anxious to cooperate through the expansion of their primary products in raising the standard of living and in progressing in works of peace;
Resolved to transform their age-long rivalry through the unification of their essential interests, and, by the inauguration of an economic Community, to assemble the initial basis for a broader and deeper Community of peoples who had for centuries been opposed in bloody conflicts, and to set the foundations of institutions capable of providing a direction to a destiny that is henceforward shared,
Have decided to create a European Coal and Steel.Community
This work, that has just been confirmed by our signature, we owe to the wisdom of our delegations and to the perseverance of our experts. We are deeply grateful to them.
Even before the work was set in motion, the virtues of the idea that inspired it had already aroused in our countries and beyond its borders an extraordinary surge of hope and confidence.
In signing the treaty founding the European Community for Coal and Steel Community, a community of 160 million Europeans, the contracting parties give proof of their determination to call into life the first supranational institution, and consequently create the true foundation for an organized Europe.
This Europe is open to all European countries that are able to choose freely for themselves. We sincerely hope that other countries will join us in our common endeavour.
In full awareness of the need to reveal the significance of this first step by sustained action in other sectors, we have the hope and the will in the same spirit that presided in the elaboration of this Treaty, to bring the current projects now in preparation to a successful conclusion. The work will be pursued in conjunction with the existing European bodies.
These initiatives, each with their particular objective, should rapidly take their place within the framework of a European Political Community, the concept of which is being elaborated in the Council of Europe. This should result in the coordination and simplification of the European institutions as a whole.
All these efforts will be guided by the growing conviction that the countries of free Europe are inter-dependent and that they share a common destiny. We will strengthen this sentiment by combining our energies and our determination, and bringing our work into harmony through frequent consultations and building ever-increasing trust through our contacts.
Herein lies the significance of this day. We have no doubt its importance will be understood by the public opinion of our countries and by our parliaments, who are called to decide on its ratification. The governments that together are represented here will act to all as interpreters of our common will to build a peaceful and prosperous Europe. And together we will serve Europe.
The declaration was signed by Konrad Adenauer (West Germany), Paul van Zeeland, Joseph Meurice (Belgium), Robert Schuman (France), Count Sforza (Italy) Joseph Bech (Luxembourg), Dirk Stikker and J. R. M. van den Brink (The Netherlands).
16 April, 2011
Monnet7: Can YOU discern if Jean Monnet was an egotistical mythmaker and a charlatan?
Why do people read blogs or history books, for that matter? Facts, you might say. A broader purpose is the search for truth. How do you examine history books? Do you always agree with them? Some blogs might seem to be convincing but are they really the truth or smooth public relations? To get at the truth, readers need discernment, logical analysis and background knowledge.
Are you up to the task?
If you doubt, what do you do? You check a reference book. But are they reliable? Take this comment which has found its way from the Memoirs of former Commission President Roy Jenkins into such reference books as the Penguin Companion to the European Union.
Or do you think it is possibly true? Can you be sure and defend your opinion?
Firstly, it seems rather extraordinary that anyone would make such a claim. The European Community is one of the most successful ventures in history. The author of the remark, X, quoted by Jenkins says the EU's originator, Schuman, did not understand what he was doing. Secondly, it is probably more astounding that someone somewhere believed this comment whoever made it. Did they have evidence? None is given. Does this mean that that Jenkins and the reference book's author were wise judges or parrots? All we can say is that they do not treat the reader as having any intelligence because they expect us to accept it purely on their own reputation. What is their reputation? Beyond that we have to suspend judgement on the facts for the moment.
The first rule is that we should have material evidence and logic for our opinions. We should not take any critic at face value. We should examine his credentials but more importantly we should examine the logic and facts first, without getting involved in personalities or opinions, whether a reference book, a Commission president or the original source of the quotation, X. Secondly we should then examine the motivation of the person, X, making the remarks.
The public accept a lot of advertising, propaganda and distortions without reflection. Many clever, well paid people fashioned them in a way to make people swallow them without thought. What a reader should ask is: What is the motivation of this critic and the purpose does he want to achieve? What critic would level such a obvious slander against someone who was considered one of the greatest experts on international treaties?
Let us assume that Roy Jenkins has reported the criticism correctly. This should be checked against other parts of his books. Let us get to the substance of the remark.
So what treaty is the critic is addressing? Schuman's name is associated with so many. The critic betrays his background and also lack of knowledge. No one treaty actually bears Schuman's name. So we must question whether the critic is a proven expert. Was he really familiar with diplomacy and treaty-making?
Schuman was involved in most of the key treaties that are still the democratic foundation of modern Germany, the foundation of modern Europe and trans-Atlantic relations. The understanding and wisdom of these agreements shows his expertise in the matter of treaty writing. Treaties were not only the exclusive prerogative of the Foreign Minister but Schuman as an international lawyer with three decades of experience, was a great specialist.
Does the statement agree with impartial judges? An American diplomatic historian of the US State Department wrote Schuman ‘derived great intellectual delight in the subtleties of international agreement’. Any such postwar treaty also entailed political risks. An effective treaty-writer had to be both an expert lawyer and expert politician. The international negotiations to create the Council of Europe had taken a great deal of energy and time. There is hardly a lawyer one could name in the postwar period that was more expert in treaties, so this criticism seems on any ground, bizarre.
Let us assume that the critic, X, refers to the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty, not the Statutes of London, the European Convention of Human Rights or the Treaty of Washington that created NATO or the numerous others.
We come to specifics. Was it a matter about the technical industry, coking quality, iron ore trade and other details of processing of coal and steel? Did Schuman not understand new innovations and rolling mills? Was he ignorant about coal and steel cartels? That would require someone with enormous knowledge and experience to say that Schuman was inadequate in this department.
Schuman had been a member of the French Parliament for around four decades. He was elected without fail every election for his constituency of Thionville. This city of Lorraine is known as France's city of steel. The area was rich in iron ore but poor in the right sort of coal. It had to be imported mainly from the German Ruhr area. Schuman knew the ins and outs of the trade and also how the German iron, steel and coal barons had over the centuries manipulated and controlled the market against French interests.
Schuman was well aware that various wars with France were largely over asserting primacy for this main sector of the industrial revolution and the modern economy. In the postwar years Schuman had been continuously involved in Allied discussions about German steel production in all its ramifications. In his youth he had spent a great deal of time in Germany, received his education there, gained a Doctorate in Law with the highest honours, and had a large network of German friends. Monnet did not know the language, the commerce, politics or the people.
There was probably no politician in France who knew more about the technical processes of steel making than Schuman. His long speech in Brussels in 1949, well before Monnet had anything to do with the Schuman Declaration, shows his vast encyclopedic knowledge of both coal and steel techniques and hot political issues.
Was it, according to this critic, in the area of European Finance in the treaty that Schuman was so disastrously ignorant? Schuman had as Minister of Finance and Prime Minister achieved what many politicians considered impossible -- tackling simultaneously rampant inflation and balancing the books, both of government accounts and trade balance. In the interwar period he was considered one of Europe's great experts in international finance.
So who is this acerbic critic who says that Schuman did not understand the treaty that bore his name? So secondly, we should analyse the critic himself carefully.
Let's now start asking more personal questions. Who was this genius who far outclassed this intellectual, democratic and political accomplishments of Prime Minister Schuman? Was the critic more experienced in national finance? Did he have a greater political record? Schuman greatly desired that he would become a professor of the subject he had studied all his life -- the history of international and constitutional law.
He was well qualified for such a post, but he had devoted his life to practical work rather than ivory tower expositions. Schuman had been largely responsible both for the Lex Schuman, a consolidation of numerous laws and the civil, criminal and administrative codes that re-united Alsace and Lorraine after the First World War. This code, the Lex Schuman, could be described as the greatest act of legal unification in modern times till then. Did our critic mean this body of law that was named after Schuman? Or was he ignorant of it? Schuman had also been instrumental in the treaties of NATO, the Council of Europe, the Convention of Human Rights and of course the European Community.
The latter was based on a remarkable new innovation in the history of international law called supranational democracy. This was based on a deep analysis of political and moral philosophy as well as a life long study of how in history constitutions from the time of the Greek city states fail.
So if this critic was correct then to find the errors and mistakes of Schuman, he must have an intellect that far outclassed him and a critical sense. He must have political experience greater than a man who had twice been Prime Minister of France. One would have thought so.
Who was he? None other than Jean Monnet. What were his qualifications? He had never been elected to any democratic office. He knew very little about coal and steel. He inherited a brandy firm of Monnet and Co. His lacks when it came to understanding the coal and steel sector are clear from the time he was an administrator of the French economic plan. (This showed he had little grasp of the geopolitical position of the sectors and the key elements in it.)
Did Jean Monnet really understand the treaty of which he was supposed by de Gaulle to have been the inspirer? That epithet 'inspirer' started as a Gaullist slander and later found its way into sycophantic books and biographies.
What was Monnet's background and interest? One of the most in-depth studies of the period was accomplished by historian Georgette Elgey. What did she say about Monnet after interviewing him and his colleagues?
Monnet 'did not possess the faintest understanding of international law.'
Did he then learn on the job? Monnet's own career would indicate he knew little about the working of the treaty because he did not last long as a president of the first Commission, called the High Authority. That whole experience lasted two years nine month at the Commission. Is this period really long enough for Monnet to be able to make up his opinion? Schuman talked about long-term processes, such as that for Europe's national democracies that already took a thousand years.
For Monnet when he was responsible for aspects of the treaty from 10 Aug 1952 to 1 June 1955, he was obviously not concentrating on his job. His mind was elsewhere. During that time he resigned a couple of times but withdrew his first resignation so that his period there might have been rather shorter. He hardly had his mind on the treaty. And he died well before he could see the effects that Schuman predicted such as the re-unification of Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
A clear discrepancy is apparent with Monnet's story and the legend he and his friends constructed for him. For someone who claimed to be the inspirer too, it is obvious that this is false because if the first Community were his work he would have stayed longer. He stayed long enough with the high salary he set himself to clear his old debts. Then he left, presumably on a good pension. Monnet was known to make false claims over other aspects of the origin of the European Community.
Was he a great intellectual? Monnet never went to university so we have no way to make proper assessment. Was he a great learner? His biographer, Francois Duchene says he was 'little attracted to books, he left school at sixteen.' (Jean Monnet p30). His father told him not to read books. Was he an expert in coal and steel? Hardly. His family business was cognac and he was a cognac salesman. Was he an expert in finance? At one stage he was a banker but he lost his fortune in a crash.
What then were his talents? Paul Reuter, an international lawyer who worked for Schuman at the Foreign Ministry as deputy jurisconsult, had this to say: 'he was small and stocky ... and sometimes had a sly smile. I have seen him wrapping people round his little finger, seducing them. He could do that.' (Jean Monnet, p24). He was therefore a great manipulator, keen to persuade. As Monnet might or might not know -- he gives little clue in his Memoirs, since he calls Reuter a university professor -- a jurisconsult is a top lawyer at the Foreign Ministry and as a lawyer can plead the case of France before international courts dealing with treaties. He is paid to have discernment.
On 20 February 1978 the then Commission President Roy Jenkins went to meet with Jean Monnet, who was then 89. Jenkins describes Monnet as 'remarkably sharp' in his published diaries. Jenkins gives every indication that he also was seduced by Monnet. It would seem that many people including successive Commission have been seduced and waylaid by him too. They devoted all the Community's propaganda power to shoring up the Monnet myth.
So what great illumination did Monnet have about the treaty that Schuman lacked? Schuman spoke at length in many speeches in French, German and English about the great innovation of the Treaty of Paris, Europe's first Community. He described the democratic bases of the Community. He signed with the other Founding Fathers the Great Charter of the Community, that redefined Europe's history from war to peace, from nationalism to international cooperation, from dictatorship to democracy.
During the whole period of Monnet's presidency of the High Authority there is no evidence that he published this great document. It said that the supranational principle was the foundation stone of the new Europe.
Nor did he publish the correct version of the Schuman Declaration. He published his own version cutting out all Schuman's introduction that put it in a historic and geopolitical context.
Schuman said a great new innovation, 'a scientific discovery' lay behind all of this new opportunity for peace and prosperity. It was the supranational principle. What did Monnet think of this, how did he analyse it and what did he say about it? Simply this. 'I did not fancy the word (supranational) then and I have never liked it.' That seems the height of incompetence and willful ignorance.
It might be a smart or glib remark for someone to make in a bistro with a glass of brandy in his hand. It is hardly fitting coming from someone who was employed by the public tax-payer to defend the principle of supranational democracy.
The public should begin to analyse whether this part of the work of Monnet is the work of a charlatan or a con artist. It is much like someone who is secretary general of NATO saying I do not really believe in defence or the military. It is rather like a supreme court judge saying I do not believe in the rule of law, do not know what the term means and never liked the idea as far as I grasp it.
What did Monnet think of his fellow Commissioners? There were two Germans, a Luxembourger, a Belgian, two Italians, and another Frenchman with a lifetime in the steel industry management. They included very experienced people, lawyers, diplomats, trade unionists, and other experts in the coal and steel industries. Indeed they covered all the experience and expertise that Monnet lacked.
Were they any better than Schuman? This is what Jenkins records. 'The German members of the Commission -- and indeed those of the other nations -- were pretty useless.'
I am afraid that this would probably be the opinion of M. Monnet of the present and past Commissioners -- in fact it could well be his opinion on everyone else -- except of course M. Monnet.
Are you up to the task?
If you doubt, what do you do? You check a reference book. But are they reliable? Take this comment which has found its way from the Memoirs of former Commission President Roy Jenkins into such reference books as the Penguin Companion to the European Union.
- `Schuman did not really understand the Treaty which bore his name.'
Or do you think it is possibly true? Can you be sure and defend your opinion?
Firstly, it seems rather extraordinary that anyone would make such a claim. The European Community is one of the most successful ventures in history. The author of the remark, X, quoted by Jenkins says the EU's originator, Schuman, did not understand what he was doing. Secondly, it is probably more astounding that someone somewhere believed this comment whoever made it. Did they have evidence? None is given. Does this mean that that Jenkins and the reference book's author were wise judges or parrots? All we can say is that they do not treat the reader as having any intelligence because they expect us to accept it purely on their own reputation. What is their reputation? Beyond that we have to suspend judgement on the facts for the moment.
The first rule is that we should have material evidence and logic for our opinions. We should not take any critic at face value. We should examine his credentials but more importantly we should examine the logic and facts first, without getting involved in personalities or opinions, whether a reference book, a Commission president or the original source of the quotation, X. Secondly we should then examine the motivation of the person, X, making the remarks.
The public accept a lot of advertising, propaganda and distortions without reflection. Many clever, well paid people fashioned them in a way to make people swallow them without thought. What a reader should ask is: What is the motivation of this critic and the purpose does he want to achieve? What critic would level such a obvious slander against someone who was considered one of the greatest experts on international treaties?
Let us assume that Roy Jenkins has reported the criticism correctly. This should be checked against other parts of his books. Let us get to the substance of the remark.
So what treaty is the critic is addressing? Schuman's name is associated with so many. The critic betrays his background and also lack of knowledge. No one treaty actually bears Schuman's name. So we must question whether the critic is a proven expert. Was he really familiar with diplomacy and treaty-making?
Schuman was involved in most of the key treaties that are still the democratic foundation of modern Germany, the foundation of modern Europe and trans-Atlantic relations. The understanding and wisdom of these agreements shows his expertise in the matter of treaty writing. Treaties were not only the exclusive prerogative of the Foreign Minister but Schuman as an international lawyer with three decades of experience, was a great specialist.
Does the statement agree with impartial judges? An American diplomatic historian of the US State Department wrote Schuman ‘derived great intellectual delight in the subtleties of international agreement’. Any such postwar treaty also entailed political risks. An effective treaty-writer had to be both an expert lawyer and expert politician. The international negotiations to create the Council of Europe had taken a great deal of energy and time. There is hardly a lawyer one could name in the postwar period that was more expert in treaties, so this criticism seems on any ground, bizarre.
Let us assume that the critic, X, refers to the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty, not the Statutes of London, the European Convention of Human Rights or the Treaty of Washington that created NATO or the numerous others.
We come to specifics. Was it a matter about the technical industry, coking quality, iron ore trade and other details of processing of coal and steel? Did Schuman not understand new innovations and rolling mills? Was he ignorant about coal and steel cartels? That would require someone with enormous knowledge and experience to say that Schuman was inadequate in this department.
Schuman had been a member of the French Parliament for around four decades. He was elected without fail every election for his constituency of Thionville. This city of Lorraine is known as France's city of steel. The area was rich in iron ore but poor in the right sort of coal. It had to be imported mainly from the German Ruhr area. Schuman knew the ins and outs of the trade and also how the German iron, steel and coal barons had over the centuries manipulated and controlled the market against French interests.
Schuman was well aware that various wars with France were largely over asserting primacy for this main sector of the industrial revolution and the modern economy. In the postwar years Schuman had been continuously involved in Allied discussions about German steel production in all its ramifications. In his youth he had spent a great deal of time in Germany, received his education there, gained a Doctorate in Law with the highest honours, and had a large network of German friends. Monnet did not know the language, the commerce, politics or the people.
There was probably no politician in France who knew more about the technical processes of steel making than Schuman. His long speech in Brussels in 1949, well before Monnet had anything to do with the Schuman Declaration, shows his vast encyclopedic knowledge of both coal and steel techniques and hot political issues.
Was it, according to this critic, in the area of European Finance in the treaty that Schuman was so disastrously ignorant? Schuman had as Minister of Finance and Prime Minister achieved what many politicians considered impossible -- tackling simultaneously rampant inflation and balancing the books, both of government accounts and trade balance. In the interwar period he was considered one of Europe's great experts in international finance.
So who is this acerbic critic who says that Schuman did not understand the treaty that bore his name? So secondly, we should analyse the critic himself carefully.
Let's now start asking more personal questions. Who was this genius who far outclassed this intellectual, democratic and political accomplishments of Prime Minister Schuman? Was the critic more experienced in national finance? Did he have a greater political record? Schuman greatly desired that he would become a professor of the subject he had studied all his life -- the history of international and constitutional law.
He was well qualified for such a post, but he had devoted his life to practical work rather than ivory tower expositions. Schuman had been largely responsible both for the Lex Schuman, a consolidation of numerous laws and the civil, criminal and administrative codes that re-united Alsace and Lorraine after the First World War. This code, the Lex Schuman, could be described as the greatest act of legal unification in modern times till then. Did our critic mean this body of law that was named after Schuman? Or was he ignorant of it? Schuman had also been instrumental in the treaties of NATO, the Council of Europe, the Convention of Human Rights and of course the European Community.
The latter was based on a remarkable new innovation in the history of international law called supranational democracy. This was based on a deep analysis of political and moral philosophy as well as a life long study of how in history constitutions from the time of the Greek city states fail.
So if this critic was correct then to find the errors and mistakes of Schuman, he must have an intellect that far outclassed him and a critical sense. He must have political experience greater than a man who had twice been Prime Minister of France. One would have thought so.
Who was he? None other than Jean Monnet. What were his qualifications? He had never been elected to any democratic office. He knew very little about coal and steel. He inherited a brandy firm of Monnet and Co. His lacks when it came to understanding the coal and steel sector are clear from the time he was an administrator of the French economic plan. (This showed he had little grasp of the geopolitical position of the sectors and the key elements in it.)
Did Jean Monnet really understand the treaty of which he was supposed by de Gaulle to have been the inspirer? That epithet 'inspirer' started as a Gaullist slander and later found its way into sycophantic books and biographies.
What was Monnet's background and interest? One of the most in-depth studies of the period was accomplished by historian Georgette Elgey. What did she say about Monnet after interviewing him and his colleagues?
Monnet 'did not possess the faintest understanding of international law.'
Did he then learn on the job? Monnet's own career would indicate he knew little about the working of the treaty because he did not last long as a president of the first Commission, called the High Authority. That whole experience lasted two years nine month at the Commission. Is this period really long enough for Monnet to be able to make up his opinion? Schuman talked about long-term processes, such as that for Europe's national democracies that already took a thousand years.
For Monnet when he was responsible for aspects of the treaty from 10 Aug 1952 to 1 June 1955, he was obviously not concentrating on his job. His mind was elsewhere. During that time he resigned a couple of times but withdrew his first resignation so that his period there might have been rather shorter. He hardly had his mind on the treaty. And he died well before he could see the effects that Schuman predicted such as the re-unification of Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
A clear discrepancy is apparent with Monnet's story and the legend he and his friends constructed for him. For someone who claimed to be the inspirer too, it is obvious that this is false because if the first Community were his work he would have stayed longer. He stayed long enough with the high salary he set himself to clear his old debts. Then he left, presumably on a good pension. Monnet was known to make false claims over other aspects of the origin of the European Community.
Was he a great intellectual? Monnet never went to university so we have no way to make proper assessment. Was he a great learner? His biographer, Francois Duchene says he was 'little attracted to books, he left school at sixteen.' (Jean Monnet p30). His father told him not to read books. Was he an expert in coal and steel? Hardly. His family business was cognac and he was a cognac salesman. Was he an expert in finance? At one stage he was a banker but he lost his fortune in a crash.
What then were his talents? Paul Reuter, an international lawyer who worked for Schuman at the Foreign Ministry as deputy jurisconsult, had this to say: 'he was small and stocky ... and sometimes had a sly smile. I have seen him wrapping people round his little finger, seducing them. He could do that.' (Jean Monnet, p24). He was therefore a great manipulator, keen to persuade. As Monnet might or might not know -- he gives little clue in his Memoirs, since he calls Reuter a university professor -- a jurisconsult is a top lawyer at the Foreign Ministry and as a lawyer can plead the case of France before international courts dealing with treaties. He is paid to have discernment.
On 20 February 1978 the then Commission President Roy Jenkins went to meet with Jean Monnet, who was then 89. Jenkins describes Monnet as 'remarkably sharp' in his published diaries. Jenkins gives every indication that he also was seduced by Monnet. It would seem that many people including successive Commission have been seduced and waylaid by him too. They devoted all the Community's propaganda power to shoring up the Monnet myth.
So what great illumination did Monnet have about the treaty that Schuman lacked? Schuman spoke at length in many speeches in French, German and English about the great innovation of the Treaty of Paris, Europe's first Community. He described the democratic bases of the Community. He signed with the other Founding Fathers the Great Charter of the Community, that redefined Europe's history from war to peace, from nationalism to international cooperation, from dictatorship to democracy.
During the whole period of Monnet's presidency of the High Authority there is no evidence that he published this great document. It said that the supranational principle was the foundation stone of the new Europe.
Nor did he publish the correct version of the Schuman Declaration. He published his own version cutting out all Schuman's introduction that put it in a historic and geopolitical context.
Schuman said a great new innovation, 'a scientific discovery' lay behind all of this new opportunity for peace and prosperity. It was the supranational principle. What did Monnet think of this, how did he analyse it and what did he say about it? Simply this. 'I did not fancy the word (supranational) then and I have never liked it.' That seems the height of incompetence and willful ignorance.
It might be a smart or glib remark for someone to make in a bistro with a glass of brandy in his hand. It is hardly fitting coming from someone who was employed by the public tax-payer to defend the principle of supranational democracy.
The public should begin to analyse whether this part of the work of Monnet is the work of a charlatan or a con artist. It is much like someone who is secretary general of NATO saying I do not really believe in defence or the military. It is rather like a supreme court judge saying I do not believe in the rule of law, do not know what the term means and never liked the idea as far as I grasp it.
What did Monnet think of his fellow Commissioners? There were two Germans, a Luxembourger, a Belgian, two Italians, and another Frenchman with a lifetime in the steel industry management. They included very experienced people, lawyers, diplomats, trade unionists, and other experts in the coal and steel industries. Indeed they covered all the experience and expertise that Monnet lacked.
Were they any better than Schuman? This is what Jenkins records. 'The German members of the Commission -- and indeed those of the other nations -- were pretty useless.'
I am afraid that this would probably be the opinion of M. Monnet of the present and past Commissioners -- in fact it could well be his opinion on everyone else -- except of course M. Monnet.
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:
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 .
I replied as following on Friday, 25 March 2011, 1:04 am
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
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.
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.The attached letter, dated 11 March, said
Please rest assured that you will get a reply within the deadline indicated in the attached letter.
Yours etc
Thank you for your letter to Director General Claus H Sorensen which has received our fullest attention.Emphasis added.
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
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 textsOn Monday 28 March 2011 I wrote the following to the European Ombudsman with copies to Mr Barroso and DG Communication
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,
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 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
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.
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 :
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?
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
- financial crises,
- possible unauthorized borrowing of billions,
- to cover decades of corrupt practice,
- the Euro crumbling,
- revolt across the southern Mediterranean,
- the desire to increase the number of seats in the European Parliament
- while preventing fair elections,
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 ProjectDear Mr Sørensen and Commissioners,
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
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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.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.
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.
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.
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