“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. As we prepare to mark the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings, is Europe’s collective memory getting a little rusty? Few alive today can now personally remember the horrors of the Second World War. Are we in danger of forgetting the lessons of the 20th century and, as the philosopher George Santayana warned, making the same mistakes all over again?
On the one hand, far-right political parties failed to stage a breakthrough in the recent European Parliament elections. On the other hand, however, perhaps the “breakthrough” has already happened; so-called “national populists” are already in government in several EU countries (including Italy and, until recently, Austria). In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party topped the polls. In Spain, the far-right Vox party came from nowhere to claim more than 10% of the vote during the EU elections.
It’s not just the far-right; across Europe, the political centre is crumbling. The many perceived failings of the liberal world order after the 2008 financial crisis have legitimatised failed old ideologies on both the left and right. Furthermore, in a world where truth is relative to our political beliefs, how can shared memory exist?
What do our readers think? We had a comment sent in by Nate arguing that, in some parts of Europe, people still have nostalgia (or ‘Ostalgie’) for the ‘good old days’ under Communism. If that’s true then have Europeans, on both the left and the right, really come to terms with their past?
To get a reaction, we put Nate’s comment to Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford. How would he respond?
Nate, I’m sure Europeans are struggling to come to terms with their past. There are two problems: one is forgetting how bad it was, and the other is misinterpreting what happened. And we have both problems with the Communist past and the fascist past. So, actually, facing up to our own past (and also the colonial past) is, I think, a really important part of making a better Europe for tomorrow.
To get another perspective, we put the same comment to Susi Dennison, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and director of ECFR’s European Power programme. How would she respond?
Has Europe failed to come to terms with its history? Have we forgotten how bad it was? Do we sometimes misrepresent what actually happened? Let us know your thoughts and comments in the form below and we’ll take them to policymakers and experts for their reactions!
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It’s history isn’t the problem….it’s the future that it’s failing to grasp.
Has Europe failed to come to terms with its history?
This question is geared at persuading the indigenous population to flagellate themselves in order to repent for ‘historical politicians’ international decisions now creating embarrassment. And of course the tax payer must pay by having ‘less’ of everything they fought and worked for under force. They are clever, I’ll give them that.
History as gone it’s in the past , today & the future is what matters plus common sense and not mindless control & conditioning with dump fuck-wit rules and regulations, a little bit of savvy , common sense & a free spirit to open ones mind to a fruitful life 🌈🌎👋 the world is rolling cos it round , not Flat
We will never stand for fascisme anymore!!!!!!! Then why do you let the biggest fascisme that ever existed on the face of the earth invade europe???🐒💨💨💨💨💨💨💨
U mean the fact that we brought covilization to a large part of the world. That we abolished canibalism child sacrifices, slavery, and so on ? No we seem to have forgot all that
Johan – don’t forget to mention at what price : slavery, ban on native culture and religion, segregation etc. etc….. You think colonialism was a good thing, a fair and just way of treating People ?
I would disagree, having come from a part of the world where we had civilization until the British started to act as overlords and created a parallel system for their own economy.
“U” didn’t bring civilization. You destroyed a history of several people, treated them like animals, disdained their future and left them in chaos. In Belgium and in the Netherlands, there were human zoos! What kind of “civilized” people treat other humans like animals? What allowed apartheid if it wasn’t a barbaric system of racism?
Volckaert – colonialsim has its many mistakes and atrocities but reducing it to these mistakes and atrocities is as criminal as only enhancing its civilisational goals and consequences.
Paul – I didn’t reduce it , I merely countederd the 100% positive view of Johan
Road with Europe only brings misery!!!
Europa has failed
The EU, since its creation, is a vassalization to the American banks, English banks … It is necessary to leave the EU as soon as possible
What history, the real or the fake masonic “history”?
History is not apple picking.
Pls stop EU project
yes if we talk about politics corruption
Has Europe failed to come to terms with its history?
The sickening event in this question lies in what we are seeing altered in our historial event movies, or, made for television products as they suggest they are revealing our past as it was. For example the common practice is to now alter the racial make up of the people in each historical play or story. Such as, in a Shakespeare play, onto having a large sampling of racial mixes that were not prevalent or indeed written as part of traditional books echoing the historical make up of the day. It’s frightening how the facts are being changed before our eyes. Pre war Russia come to mind.
Just over this weekend they showed on TV a movie of the book, Vanity Fair. As a person who knows the story well, these changes of characters and races from a staunchly British historical nature to the insincere production it is, was a deliberate move to mislead citizens in a grotesque caricature of the original story and times.
Long before Hollywood, William Shakespeare wrote historical plays to flatter the Tudor court; Richard III’s reputation has never entirely recovered. Vanity Fair, originally published as a serial in 1847-48, was itself written as a period piece, set in the early 19th century and now changed out of all proportion. A dreadful betrayal of the authors work and imagination.
This move by those who wish to distort has also been injected for TV commercials. If you came for a visit to the UK you would believe you had stopped over in Africa or India on the way here. They are predominantly made up of ethnic families or people you do not associate with a majority white British population. We are told by our migration watch organisations that the population of our country is 80% white. Whereas TV commercials tell us 80% of our peoples are ethnic non white.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe2YFPKzfnc
Today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1s5Ub8SXxc
Now I wonder why it is so unrepresentative of our present day UK? Why the advertising organisations want to pretend the country is only representative of London. As if London is the entire standardisation of Britain. It’s similar to representing the murder rate across the UK as being equal to London as that place no longer the ambiance of the UK in general. Not to mention how that particular circumstance has become a daily war zone in head counts. Not at how it is across our nation. Unless, of course, you stay in the capital without visiting the rest we have to offer.
So, for sure, the UK has and is failing to come to terms with our history. Those in the know are altering the reality of our past and replacing it with a present that also is not representative of who or what we are. In other words, peddling lies to confuse and imprint fantasy, as fact.
And what do you suggest you are going to do about it? Anything?
alas, many forgot … or rather deny the fact, that history repeats itself again.
We have not forgotten the past ,we just do not see the way mistakes of the past occur today , plus we don’t have common vision as Eu countries/governments and Eu citizens
Unfortunately that history repeats itself again. Why? Because we’re letting it happen!
Xenophobic is a meaningless term. Stop importing anti-semitism. You always leave that part out when speaking of its rise.
No one has forgotten the past, how could they it’s used as a cudgel daily to politically brow beat any and all who oppose the open borders globalist agenda.
Anyone has forgotten the caliphate of Cordoba, in the southern part of today Spain?
Antisemitic views and incidents today mainly come from the far-left, and from immigrant communities.
The EU is, on the contrary, all too eager to say problems and conflicts belong to the past and totally ignores the very current campaigns of hatred and war boiling in its SouthEastern borders. Worrying about us being xenophobic as we are faced ourselves with bullying and disdain does not do anyone any favors. Cue: Erdogan’s Islamic agenda and besiegement of Cypriot and Greek borders. Dear EU, Erdogan’s Turkey is a very different kind of neighbour from Sweden, Ireland or Belgium. Stop treating us like Czechoslovakia in 1937, everyone lived to regret that.
EU is a failure, in many ways.