From: tahonen@katk.Helsinki.FI (Timo Ahonen)
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human,soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.celtic,eunet.politics,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Separation vs. integration (Was Re: The European Community Blackmailed by Greece)
Date: 20 Jul 92 13:23:59 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki, Computing Centre

In article <1992Jul17.150801.12855@news.nd.edu> ulick@angelico.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford) writes:

>Good point, by the way.  Ethnic or nationalistic purity is never along
>straight lines.  In BH the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims (do they have 
>a better name?) are intermingled throughout the whole area.  In
>Moldova there are large numbers of Russians.  Part of Italy, taken
>from Austria after WWI, still speaks German.  It is interesting that
>while the EC approaches greater integfration and cooperation, 
>former Eastern countires are rushing to break up, just because they
>think they can solve their problems by ridding themselves of their
>former masters.  In a few years after severe economic decine, I 
>expect Slovakia will try and rejoin Bohemia once they realise how
>much they were subsidized from there, several former Soviet 
>rebublics will try to rejoin Russia.  The fueding will make it
>harder for Yugoslavia to ever mend its wounds.  But it is intersting
>that while western Europe is becoming more integrated, Eastern
>Europe is splitting into fractured parts that have never in their
>history been nations. 
              --------
Surely you actually meant states. Slovaks, Slovenes, Czecks, etc. are most 
definitely nations, which now have wanted to have a state of their own for 
their respective nations. Every state has been independent for the first 
time once.

Are serious about your claims that after a few years Slovaks will want to 
rejoin with Czecks and the "Soviet Union" will reform from the present CIS 
states? You make it sound like economy is and has been the only reason for 
the indenpendence of the new states, and if it fails there's no reason for 
the continuation of the independence. I'd take it as an insult to the newly-
independent nations. According to your logic Eire should never have 
separated from Britain. Should she now rejoin the UK?

That the present political developments in Western Europe and in "Eastern" 
Europe seem so contradicting is due to the different political histories of 
the areas in question. The communist era stopped the development in 
"Eastern" Europe and suppressed the nationalistic feelings of the nations 
there in the name of 'proletarian brotherhood' and 'the Soviet people', 
while at the same time in Western Europe old feuds were forgotten and the 
nation-states and multi-national states of the West started mutual co-
operation and integration. The ex-communist states have missed this gradual 
development of the Western Europe, which itself has taken now over 40 years. 
You cannot just expect that after the same length of suppression, now in the 
midst of poverty and national re-discovery those nations would be 
immediately ready for the same kind of integration and mutual trust as in 
the West. To put it bluntly, the ex-communist nations are behind the West 
European nations in their political development (which doesn't mean that 
West Europeans would have got very far either), and it's going to take time 
to catch up with 40 years' worth of it. However, the example of the peaceful 
splitting of the in itself artificial state of Czecho-Slovakia seems to 
indicate that at least they are well into catching up with us.

Timo Ahonen               *  To do is to be              - Socrates  *
University of Helsinki    *  To be is to do              - Sartre    *
Finland                   *  Do be do be do              - Sinatra   *
Timo.Ahonen@Helsinki.FI   *  Be do do be do do be do do  - Silencers *