“ Yes or no to the referendum. Our readers have the last word” is the banner headline in LA CROIX (11/05) which, after having variously commented in previous numbers on the debate going on in France on whether the European Constitutional Treaty should be approved or rejected, decided to leave space for the paper’s readers. “ The readers of ‘La Croix’ comments the paper in the editorial that introduced the pages devoted to readers’ letters are passionate about Europe, that’s no surprise, and about the draft Constitution. They have taken stock of the terms of the referendum and often write with fervour. Some will vote ‘no’ because the text seems to them too complicated, because Europe is travelling too fast and a ‘pause’ would seem to them salutary, or because they think this Constitution is too kind to liberalism. Others and currently the majority of the readers writing to the paper defend this draft Constitution: essentially so as not to jeopardize European integration, but also so as not to isolate France, to resist the American influence, and last but not least because this text makes a further contribution to the protection of human rights and respect for life“. In the same paper the editor Bruno Frappat signs an editorial “ The return of danger“, in which he comments on the events in Red Square in Moscow in recent days, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the victory over Nazism. “ Red flags over Red Square, Chinese textile products ready to swamp the West … – exclaims Frappat Red peril, exhumed from the memories of the past? Yellow peril, re-emerging from century to century, as a familiar but also untameable dragon?“. Frappat shifts the focus of attention to the political aspects: “ Russia, China: the future of the world will also depend on them. Europe, the USA and India know that“. And he adds: “ The almost Soviet-style parades of the Kremlin to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Nazi defeat will remain an example of the consummate art with which propaganda machines make use of the past to serve the interests of the present“. Various reactions can be found in the German press to the inauguration of the memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Berlin. “ The history of the birth of this memorial to the Holocaust has for a long time been accompanied by the fear lest it represent an act of oblivion, and be so understood. This fear seems today to be unfounded. For each generation has to come to terms with the Holocaust if it wants to know how the inconceivable could have happened“, writes Matthias Arning in the Franfkurter Rundschau (11/5). “ Mass killing as an objective of the State marked the end of politics“, observes Patrick Bahners in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (12/5). “ One may consider the city built in the city by Eisenman as a monster city, as image of a State that was no longer polis. Germany without the Jews: not city of the dead but dead city“. On the idea of dedicating a mausoleum to each of the ethnic and social groups that were the victims of Nazism, Ernst Cramer comments as follows in Die Welt (11/5): “ the separation of the victims into various categories was an astute invention of the Nazis […] The National-Socialist State began with the separation of the various groups of victims. Why now, 60 years since the fall of the regime, should we continue along the same road? Why, in democratic Germany, was it not possible to reach agreement on a mausoleum for all the victims of the Nazi delirium? There is no answer to this question. But it ought not to detract from our gratitude for the fact that now at least we have this mausoleum“. The summit between Russia and the European Union, according to an editorial published in the Spanish daily El Paìs of 11/5, “yesterday plotted the way forward to a Greater Europe”: “The accord signed in Moscow defines the steps to be followed” to “create four areas of cooperation: in the economic field, and in the areas of freedom and justice, external security and culture”. “Europe will not be constructed in peace and freedom without incorporating a profoundly changed Russia in this great space”, says the editorial in the paper. The Abc of 10/5 reflects on the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, and argues that “there are many reasons why the cordiality between Putin and the representatives of the Western democracies, especially Bush, must be reflected by something more than the amiability of a joint commemoration. The experience of opposing blocs, power zones, regional conflicts and armed tensions ought to discourage any retroactive temptation and give way to multilateral cooperation based on the extension of democracy and human rights. The best way to celebrate anniversaries like these is to ensure that the events that gave rise to them may never be repeated”. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1388 N.ro relativo : 37 Data pubblicazione : 13/05/05
