Thursday

Europe 2012 ?

Europe. What do we think of it at once? A cultural diversity on a small continent? About the major sights like the Eiffel tower in Paris, the Big Ben in London, the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin, the Collosseum in Rome or the Grachten in Amsterdam? The great heritage of famous thinkers like Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Goethe, Schiller, Vermeer, van Gogh, Max Weber? Well, that would actually be a good thing. Unfortunately our leaders and carriers of political positions are currently drawing people's attention almost violently towards themselves with headlines which are not really undermining the belief that they should be in charge of leading our countries. It was already sad to see that some minister's doctorate degrees hasdbeen reached by cheating and that our political elite is struggling with the English language. As that is not already enough we have been embarassed by the leader of the Italian Club who made himself more popular with blow-job affairs than serious state affairs in order to solve the national financial household of his country.
After realizing significant gain of right wing parties in the Netherlands and in France we had to observe that a Dutch politician is publicly discriminating citizens from Non-Western countries and being idolized by a sick-in his head Nordic who was responsible for a massacre with almost 100 dead people. The French president was mentioning the "Kaercher" in order to get the city cleaned out.
The great wars in Europe should have taught them that this is more than foolish and definitely not working out!!
Belgium as one of the founding fathers of the European Union did not manage to form a government until only recently. Its financial situation remains fragile but they are not moving away from its tax-paradies state, especially for Dutch people who live and enjoy advantages of luxury life in Belgium and have a sorted work life in the Netherlands.
Furthermore, the British PM is distancing himself and his country from the EU without taking the consquences well into account (imagine China decides to throw "some" GBP on the market.....), Germany's president made himself distrustworthy by strange prìvate loans and threatenting affairs, and in Spain the unemployment rate has reached 21%.

It is about time to change something, I guess.
We have the capabilities to rescue Europe financially, unite it and agree on and stick to common values and make compromises. It is maybe also time that the generation of legislation should change and taken over by our generation. We need a wind of change, a feeling for the future, of innovation and sustainability.
The only question is how can we get this done and progressed? If we would now spend a quarter of our time watching the Voice of Holland, Pop idol, and Germany's Next topmodel or Champions Leage rather on thinking about our future and help to develop action plans for that, we would already have a first step and a good chance.
Politics, political programs and topics have to be (more) accessable and less complicated. We have to integrate "the future" maybe more into our daily lives, in schools and youth programs. Teenagers know everything about Lady Gaga and the Twilight movies, but do they also know what it means that Denmark is stepping out of Schengen and puts up their borders again? I am not blaming them but if someone to blame it would be the older generations? The European Union who is not undertaking enough effort to advertise itself and their advantages?
Nevertheless, we can look at Europe and say "poor Europe" or we can choose not to. We can stand up against it and take action.
Maybe we can start with convincing our politicians to do serious state business (again?) and our Southern member states that going into pension with the age of 55 is a little outdated, That outsourcing to Asia only makes Asia rich, not us. That keeping production here, and the quality high - than "made in Europe" will remain a quality-label, also and maybe especially for Asians. If standard of wealth and income is rising further there, they might come to outsource their production to Europe and tadaaa the (economically) good times are coming back again.
It is certainly not solving all problems, but a first step is made. And when thinking about Europe people start remembering a prospering continent with a rich cultural heritage, able to remember the beauty of its diversity in people, language, landscape, history, customs, and great thinkers who once lead us to what we are today.

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