[Comment] Two giants from the past: A lesson for the present
20.10.2006 – 09:25 CET | By Peter Sain ley Berry

EUObserver, Belgium
Oct 20 2006

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT – A very long time ago, in circumstances now
lost in the mists of time, I acquired a few first edition volumes of
Voltaire’s collected works, printed in 1756. I have before me now the
thirteenth volume – part of his general history – and it is entitled,
appropriately enough, ‘State of Europe.’

What is remarkable is how little the fundamental characteristics and
spirit of the nations he writes about have changed in the intervening
two and a half centuries. If ever you want a lucid demonstration of
‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,’ then M. Voltaire is
your man.

Take Russia, for instance, which he describes as an emerging nation.

He writes of its power – not yet threatening to Europe – of its
resources, mostly derived from plunder, but above all of the absolutist
nature of its government, the reservation to its authorities of most
trade and commerce and hence the poverty of its citizens.

It strikes me that this is a strikingly topical view of the Russian
state and one that would not be out of place when Russia’s increasingly
authoritarian President Putin sits down with the European Union
politburo of 27 in Finland on 20 October.

The EU would like to change Russia’s stance – on energy in particular –
as well as encouraging it to be nicer to the Georgians. Fat chance!

Putin’s boots are firmly caked with the mud of history. We must deal
with Russia as she is.

It surprises me that we do not do more to honour the great European
thinkers of the past. A European Voltaire day perhaps, when we could
celebrate this best of all possible Continents. Something, anyway,
more than the odd name on a street map where such giants are forced
to rub shoulders with obscure nineteenth century lawyers.

Armenia and Voltaire But one way in which Voltaire is most certainly
not being honoured is in the quite ridiculous law being enacted
by French legislators seeking to outlaw disavowal of the so-called
Armenian genocide of 1915. Voltaire’s dictum ‘though I dislike what
you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ has clearly
been forgotten by the National Assembly.

What makes it even worse, of course, is that this is a cynical
measure. The French have no particular interest in the Armenians – if
they had they might not have waited 90 years before intervening. No,
this law is designed to make it harder on the Turks as they pursue
their rocky and uneven path towards EU accession, to which France is
fundamentally opposed.

Despite their 250 years, the pages of my Voltaire history are still
in quite excellent condition. They turned up in a London attic and
I have always wondered about their provenance. Who brought them to
London and why the attic? Were they the property of some emigré,
short of a bob or two, and sold to pay gambling debts?

In my more fanciful moments I even think they may have belonged to
Talleyrand, the grandfather of modern diplomacy, who escaped the
‘Terror’ of the French Revolution by the skin of his teeth, removing
to London on a commission to research – of all unlikely things –
weights and measures. In London he sold his library to pay his way.

Almost certainly it would have included a collected edition of
Voltaire.

Talleyrand is not held in high esteem by the French, nor for some
unaccountable reason by the Belgians, though he did as much to
bring Belgium into existence as anyone. The French hold him to be
irredeemably evil and corrupt, even by French standards.

This is a great pity for modern diplomacy – surely not currently the
western world’s strongest suit – could learn from his techniques. For
evidence of his genius you need look no further than the borders
of France themselves, which were considerable extended by the
revolutionary wars, and then, at his instigation and despite France’s
utter defeat, legitimised by treaty.

Imagine if, in 1945, German negotiators had not only retained
Pomerania, Silesia and East Prussia, but the Sudetenland as well,
and you have a measure of his diplomatic achievement. Or maybe, had
he been working for Argentina in 1982, he might have negotiated the
retention of South Georgia as a gesture of good will.

Seeing through the Hallucinations But to revert to the
present, Mr Barroso, President of the Commission, gave a
most excellent and statesmanlike speech in London this week
outlining why Britain should use the EU as a lever to pursue her
own strategic interests. Intellectually it was well-founded and
unassailable. Accurately, if somewhat cheekily, he called it ‘Seeing
through the Hallucinations.’

By coincidence I had listened to a very similar discourse, just three
days previously, from Lord Howe who, as Sir Geoffrey Howe, was Mrs
Thatcher’s foreign secretary from 1983 to 1989. His title was more
prosaic: ‘Re-creating Britain’s Foreign Policy.’

The British view of Europe and the European view of Britain came
to identical conclusions, indeed were couched almost in the same
language. What then is the problem between Britain and the rest of
the European Union?

It is this: while a third of Britons follow this unassailable logic,
another third refuse to be so beguiled and for reasons of history
the refuseniks carry the undecideds with them.

I fear it was ever thus; may always be thus. Britain, like Russia,
remains in spirit detached and enigmatic, suspicious of dancing to
any Continental tune.

Wordsworth – the English poet – might write about the French Revolution
‘Bliss was it in that very dawn to be alive.’ But the popular reality
– as Talleyrand found on his first diplomatic visit to London –
was that the Revolution was equated with contagion.

People turned their backs and went away muttering.

They are still muttering. It is that hallucination, that fear of
contagion, that is at the root of the problem that Britain has with
Europe today. It cuts through the intellectual case for closeness like
a hot knife through butter. It prompted the British Foreign Secretary
this week to dismiss the European constitution – and presumably the
ideas that lie behind it – as a ‘grandiose failed project.’

It is interesting to speculate how Talleyrand might have approached
the British problem – or the Russian problem for that matter. Maybe
he would advise that we should start by treating those nations as we
find them, as history has left them, and not as we might fondly want
them to be or fondly imagine they may become.

This has consequences for policy. Talleyrand had read his Voltaire
even if his editions were not perhaps mine.

The author is editor of EuropaWorld

–Boundary_(ID_hxU/9obqa+mhXnGCN0KzeA )–
From: Baghdasarian