Well. As a Brit an English chick and a European ....I am absolutely de-fucking-lighted that what I consider much of the rest of Europe is back in the fold where it belongs *smiles*
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The realisation that the two european civil wars .....
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I am glad to hear the wars characterised in that way. I have always considered that the wars we have fought in Europe have been brother against brother cousin warring cousin. ( in our ruling class's case literally )
Our histories are so heavily intertwined as to be one. You only have to look at how our languages and cultures have influenced each other over the centuries
Poland in particular I am happy to see back in the European mainstream.
I just wish......really really wish the British Government and the national media could have been a little less fucking churlish about the whole thing. As far as I am concerned we should be breaking out the fatted calf and welcoming back our brothers and sisters.
As to whether it will or can work. I would like to think so. Of course it would require that prominent members such as my country would stop sabotaging it with their own selfish and politically cowardly agendas.
And the NATO thing....Thats one way of looking at it. If you choose to punctuate European consolidation at the end of WW2. Personally I see it as a much longer process. The area I live in was once an independant kingdom which regularly went to war or skirmished across the borders with it's neighbouring country. Long after "England" was unified under one king the area I live in was proud of its independance and resntful of "English" rule.
The idea that Yorkshire could erupt into fighting which spills across the pennines and sees streams of refugees fleeing to the south.....Or that the men of Galloway could ravage the Lands to their south and send thousands of slaves back for sale in Norway or Flanders......seems strange to the modern eye.
At various times Europe has danced to a German tune in the Holy Roman days....and French tune in the days of Gallic expanse...running through the lot is the blood of Scandinavia ....And I havent even taken into account the Roman world.
We're a family and we have been squabbling amongst ourselves for centuries.
Early attempt at European Union?