The lessons of the past” “” “

In the terrible crisis that has just struck us, Europe could send out a positive message to the world that she has long dominated and for which she bears so great a responsibility. But Europe can do so only with humility, without presenting herself with the presumption of someone who wants to give lessons and assert a superiority of civilization, a concept on which discussion could continue at length. The humility it needs is that of a continent that knows it bears its own responsibilities, that has nourished its own terrorist regimes, from the Terreur of the French Revolution to Nazi Germany and the Bolshevik Soviet Union; that has so far failed to eradicate its own internal forms of terrorism; and that has practised the bombardment of civilian populations just to terrorise them: we think of Guernica, a small Basque town bombarded for no conceivable military reason during the Spanish Civil War, an episode whose sheer intensity of horror Pablo Picasso was able to translate into paint and which anticipates the images that arrived from New York on 11 September. We think, too of Coventry and Dresden. By bearing in mind the lessons of the past, Europe can tackle the problems of the present with greater lucidity, without forgetting her own weaknesses. And if she does so, her message will be all the stronger. Indeed, Europe has the capacity to launch a triple message. First, the message of peace, because for almost sixty years Europe has succeeded in establishing peace in the continent, and this means that war is not an inevitable destiny. The message of peace comes from the Franco-German reconciliation, an event of exceptional importance, which has succeeded in transforming the antagonisms of the European peoples into a common destiny. It has thus been demonstrated that, in spite of centuries of hostility and bloody wars, it is possible by an act of political will to say “no” to the tragedy of history and advance with determination along a new path. This message was further reinforced by the fall of the Communist regimes, by the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, without civil wars and, in spite of the Balkan wars, by the birth of regimes based on civil concord and democracy. Second, the message of open arms, of hospitality, of dialogue, of tolerance. Even though problems are not lacking, and reactions of intolerance are being expressed in certain areas, Europe, long a continent of emigration, has developed into one of immigration, into a land that offers a home to countless desperate people, into a land of liberty. Third, the message of solidarity: social solidarity, regional solidarity, a sensibility to the sufferings of others: the social economy of the market and the realization of the principle of subsidiarity have permitted, admittedly with difficulty, but with some success, the achievement of greater equality among men. International peace, civil peace, social peace: these are the balances, imperfect, of course, but real, which Europe has attained after all the trials and tribulations of history. These are the resources she could propose to the world today. But she would do so all the better if she could give all her strength to the political will especially in three fields: first, in working for a real European political union, which would give greater weight to Europe, ever more united at the economic level, but politically divided; second, in promoting an ethical dimension of international relations and the search for peace everywhere: the Middle East has been experiencing war for over half a century! This situation is unacceptable for the spirit; and third, particularly in this moment in which so much discussion is being devoted to the concept of the just war, in defining the just peace, based on attention to balanced development in the world, on respect for planetary resources, and on the concerted fight against poverty. This expresses a political need that does not leave the way to the exclusive law of the market but that contributes to the emergence of a international political, social and economic justice, as Pius XII dreamt of in his Radio Message of Christmas 1944. In this way Europe may help to diffuse a certain ideal of humanity…