I usually try to stay away from declaring my political views in my blog, on Facebook, Twitter, or interacting with other people when they express theirs on a social media platform. I prefer to express my views through my works of fiction. It is a more involving and committed way to show my true colours.
But, lately I’ve listened to some educated, intelligent people, who have expressed a view that for me it is bewildering.
The subject was “Should Europe stay united or is UE a mistake?”
How can educated people think that a united Europe it’s a mistake? That all those fifty countries fitting in half of the US should be left alone to fend for themselves and progress alone towards a future among the stars, in a world where totalitarian giants like Russia or China grow bigger, richer and meaner by the year. In a world where mad dictators threat with nuclear war, making the race to the stars ever more pressing.
I know a lot of Europeans are afraid that in the process all those fifty little countries will lose their cultural identities. Their specific traditions and histories. But I don’t think that should be the case and I don’t believe it will happen.
But only talking about these aspects means we’re thinking small. Means we’re only thinking about our immediate needs and our pride. Means we’re still tied down by history instead of looking to the future. We need to consider where humankind would be in a few centuries.
For the long run though, we have to be aware that our future is among the stars. There are two possible scenarios:
- Everybody for themselves — a plague of nations racing for the closest resources, carrying into space their petty rivalries and egotistic notions of what’s best for mankind. Starting wars that become more and more devastating.
- A united Earth reaching to the stars with combined resources and ideals, establishing a healthy human presence in space.
Do you really see a Serbian colony on a planet, still feeling resentments for the XXth century wars it lost? Or a Turkish solar system forbidding the presence of any non-Muslim in their colonies? Or for that matter a Vatican planet controlling all Christians across the galaxy?
I don’t.
All the small nations have no means to go to the stars and only the few strong ones will conquer everything up there. And each will try to conquer even more, keeping the other strong ones away, very much like how it happens now on Earth. Serbia will have no chance of ever colonizing anything. Or Portugal, Bulgaria, Albania, Denmark, Belgium and so on. So, in the end, why wouldn’t they all desire to unite, grow together and fly together?
So in the long run, if we plan not for the next ten to twenty years, but for the next two hundred years, the world will be better with a completely united Europe, and a strong partnership between UE, US and Canada. Maybe then, seeing how strong and fast these three allies will reach the stars, maybe then Russia and China will cast aside their dictators and wish for a better world.
And I know, all this brings another loaded subject—globalization.