‘Europe is like a bicycle, it falls down if it does not move on’

The above sentence belongs to the founder of the EU, the Belgian Paul H. Spaak. The picture that was portrayed on Sunday in the EU Parliament brought to my mind this sentence first.

The high increase of overwhelming nationalist parties along with the extreme rightist’s nature of Islamophobism both become prominent in locomotive countries of EU like France and baffled the center which argued the idea of Europe. Moreover, not only France but also England as well as Germany achieved significant breakthroughs. They turned upside down the balance in the EU parliament. Furthermore, as the chronic problem of Europeans, but in fact what must be read as a political estrangement, which is the greatest argument of Europe, that the more the democratic participation is fostered the more unwanted results become and portray quite an ironic situation.

For those who argue that Europe is a model of civilization or who desire to see it that way beyond merely a geographical location or an economic organization and political project, the election results are turning into an annoying nightmare. No matter how annoying it is, by looking into it as a proposed European idea from the cultural background for a model, its historical experience and social forms, it can be noticed that there is an engineering aspect of it which determines the shape of its prospect future. Until now, a romanticized European identity was established by retracting to its roots in the past the prospect future that it was going to be based on while a super international structure was to be founded.

Idealized as a civilization project, the EU

While the idealized common values and history are being constructed for the EU as a civilization project, certain aspects that were ignored and suppressed and certain dynamics that could explain sufficiently as to why the Europeans could not gather throughout the history were overlooked. Perhaps the emerging picture of the EU elections is related to this dynamism and of not desiring to recall.

The situation was alerting that what becomes prominent as designating the ‘extreme rightist rise’ through xenophobia was missing and leading two problems to occur. One of these was the capturing notion of nationalism in Europe, the other was the desiccation of this river nourishing this civilization that is economic congestion.

Indeed, the EU is not simply an economic mechanism but the truth is that it contains a kind of vital dynamism and the implementation of all the universal values and norms that has a dazzling scene. The problem was not how to liven the norms of EU civilization, as long as its technical supremacy and economic prosperity continued.

Everyone who observes the western society well how through the economic constraint, the fact that prosperity which was desired to be upheld in all costs and had been used since the age of colonialism, the deformation of consumption habits, Europeans began to dislike even little restrictions in their daily life and resembled to non western societies which they underestimated and even became wild from time to time. The desiccation of the river might trample on the romanticized European values and the civilization project all of a sudden.

Their extreme right wing and xenophobic tendencies in the hard times are in fact the primitive unrevealing of their ever-vibrant nationalism in their historical roots that captures their free-will. All of humanity has sufficiently witnessed the outcome of the nationalism that captured Europeans. What appears now as xenophobia and Islamophobism is simply a conversion of a primitive nationalism into a modern political form.

Contrary to the common belief, the nationalism of Europeans do not present a threat only to foreigners, immigrants or Muslims, but at the same and even more strongly is leading themselves into a polarizing mentality against each other. Europeans feel supremacy towards each other with nationalist motives and feel hate against foreigners and especially Muslims. The difference between the two is this: they can commonly move against foreigners as they recall their European identity through ‘the other’. Despite all their dissimilarities, this indicates their common attitude regarding the non-western societies of Europe in history. Europeans produced nationalism as a kind of modern ideology in history. It is more a standpoint against each other and such is more dangerous and destructive to them.

The fact that manifests in EU elections is that the self-defensive reaction of every single state in the union which lies in the EU union as a super-nation structure in the first plan. The next step after this is to give rise to ethnic and regional nationalism so that it can become a political determiner.

Both not to spark the flames of internal nationalism and overcome the economic congestion depends on Europe to overcome a common enemy.

The EU founder who resembles EU to a bicycle is quite right. He seems to have admitted that Europeans are obligated to have such prosperity and income level. The non-toppled bicycle phenomenon has to uphold this prosperity and lifestyle in order to avoid any kind of political and military chaos that can afflict a catastrophe on humanity.

Those who represent the EU mindset know well that if they show concern to every state or every single state then there will be no meaning for Europe’s civil project or any attraction for its global arguments. In this critical period through the ‘new wave’ or new imperialism or will they be content with what they have lived in the past with nostalgia. This will determine the topic. Let us wait and see what the future brings to us.

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