Detail
from the 2nd century Portonaccio sarcophagus, representing a battle
between Romans and Germans.
Italian
philosopher Giorgio Agamben has revived the idea of a union of
Southern European countries, a proposal first launched by another
philosopher, Alexandre Kojève, just after World War II. This "Latin
Empire" could act as a counter weight to the dominant role
played by Germany in the European Union.
In
1945, Alexandre Kojève, a philosopher who was also a high-level
French civil servant, wrote an essay called The
Latin Empire: Outline of a doctrine for French policy.
This essay [in fact a memo to the head of the Provisional Government,
General Charles de Gaulle] is so topical that it is still of great
interest today.
Showing
amazing foresight, Kojève maintained that Germany would soon become
Europe's main economic powerhouse and that France would be reduced to
a secondary power within Western Europe. He also lucidly predicted
the end of nation states that had, until then, determined European
history. As the modern state had emerged with the decline of feudal
political formations and the emergence of nation states, so the
nation state would inevitably cede the way to political formations,
which he called "empires", that would transcend national
borders.
These
empires could not be based, Kojève argued, on abstract units that
were indifferent to genuine cultural, lifestyle and religious ties.
Empires – like the "Anglo-Saxon Empire" (United States
and United Kingdom) and the Soviet Empire which he could see for
himself at the time — had to be "transnational political units
but that were formed by kindred nations".
This
is why Kojève proposed that France should play a leading role in a
"Latin Empire" that would economically and politically
united, with the consent of the Catholic Church whose traditions it
would inherit, the three major nations whose languages are derived
from Latin (France, Spain and Italy), while at the same time opening
up to the Mediterranean nations. According to Kojève, Protestant
Germany, which would soon become the richest and most powerful
European nation (which it did, in fact, become) would inevitably be
swayed by its extra-European tendencies and turn towards the
Anglo-Saxon Empire — a configuration in which France and the Latin
nations would remain a more or less foreign body, obviously reduced
to the peripheral role of a satellite.
Today,
now that the European Union has been formed by ignoring the concrete
cultural links that exist between nations, it might be useful – and
urgent – to revive Kojève's proposal. What he forecast has turned
out to be true. This Europe that strives to exist on a strictly
economic basis, abandoning all true affinities between lifestyles,
culture and religion, has repeatedly shown its weaknesses, especially
at the economic level.
The
EU's so-called unity is beginning to crack and one can see to what it
has been reduced: the imposition on the poorest majority of the
interests of the richest minority. And most of the time, these
interests coincide with those of a single nation, which nothing in
recent history should encourage us to see as exemplary. Not only is
there no sense in asking a Greek or an Italian to live like a German
but even if this were possible, it would lead to the destruction of a
cultural heritage that exists as a way of life. A political unit that
prefers to ignore lifestyles is not only condemned not to last, but,
as Europe has eloquently shown, it cannot even establish itself as
such.
If
we do not want Europe to inevitably disintegrate as many signs seem
to indicate it is, it would be appropriate to ask ourselves, without
delay, how the European Constitution (which is not a constitution
under public law, but rather an agreement between states, either not
submitted to a popular vote or – as in France – flatly rejected
[by 54.67 per cent of French voters]) can be reconfigured anew.
We
could, thus, attempt to turn political reality into something similar
to what Kojève called a "Latin Empire".
26
March 2013, Libération,
Paris.
