Re: Vive l'Europe

Andy Walker wrote:
Lou Ravi wrote:
[...] It is only with the British that I find a difference. They
are very happy to be here, as one should be in this beautiful place,
but I never get the impression that they feel 'chez soi', at home in
continental Europe as the other nationalities seem to do.

So, you talk to some continental Europeans, and they seem to be
at home in continental Europe, and then you talk to some
non-continental Europeans, and they don't? Who would have thought it?

There is no reason other than psychological for them to be different. Of
coure there is hostroy and the fact that Britain is an island but it is
not in the sense of politics or even culture that I meant it, but just
in everyday things, the way they behave as tourists,in restaurants and
bars etc. The language they use is the common second one for most
tourists I see if they don't speak French, for the British it is their
first, that should help but doesn't seem to much. In short they are
diffident and become almost childlike sometimes.


I suspect that you underestimate the cultural differences that
have to be overcome. Some people have the self-confidence to breeze
in to any situation and take part like natives; most don't. It's not
part of normal UK culture to drop in casually to a restaurant for
lunch, chat to strangers in a foreign language, and have a full meal
culminating in cheese and wine. I'm happy to do it *now*, but my
first couple of holidays in France were slightly awkward. Most of us
have quite limited French, which doesn't help.

As I say, my message wasn't particulalry about their behaviour in
restaurants it was more an introduction to the difference I notice in
their level of ease with their surroundings. (BTW, they do usually
manage the full meal with wine, and a lot of the latter, and seem very
happy that they can). They are not normal ones of course but nor are
they for other visitors however it always seems to me (who loves people
watching) that they are the most 'lost'. This being said, if they happen
to be the ones on the next table with whom I strike up a conversation
(usually by offering help if i see that they're struggling with
something) they are always happy to talk sometimes very glad to do so
and be able to find out somethign or other that has perplexed them since
they arrived. So it isn't that the British are stand-offish or snobbish
when they are here on holiday just a little more 'lost' as I say, which
is a pity.

I think you might see something very like your experience in
reverse if a French family found themselves in an English pub, with no
real idea how to get food or what to drink, with limited English [and
few bar staff with decent French], and with everyone else seemingly at
ease. Indeed, I've occasionally had to help tourists with very much
this sort of problem.

Yes I agree up to a point but the big difference is that almost anywhere
thse days, and particulalry so in a tourist region such as here where I
live, finding someone who speaks English isn't hard. Three out of four
ordinary waiters in my local bar get by well enough in English, one very
well, so I would have thought that if anything English speakers would
have an easier time of it in France than French in the UK.

[...]
The experience, once again, made me think about the attitude to
Europe in the UK, (and here). There seems to be something that you
haven't understood, the object of the EU, the assembling of peoples
with a common and wonderful culture who have had stupid wars for
millenia who can now put their energies into useful things.

Yes, sure. Motherhood, apple-pie.

Better to aim for things in life that to sit back and say "nothing can
be done"".

Of course the
organisation is full of crap, most organisations are, especially if
they are as big and diverse as those of the EU.

The big difference is that the UK is one of the few countries
paying for all this. The EU can be as corrupt as it likes if it costs
us nothing and doesn't really affect us.

Every organisation has costs and if you are in it you are affected by
it. This is perhaps the major problem, many ordinary people in the UK do
not adhere to the EU idea, in great part because they are woefully
uneducated on the matter and anti-EU sentiment is kept up by
'newspapers' with straight banana stories, but also, of course, because
of the history between the island and the continent. But what people
seem to forget, or ignore, is that the continental countries also have a
history between themselves with bloody wars and great enmities built up
over centuries. They've decided to put all that in the past, have
succeeded and moved on, the British seem to have trouble doing so, as
witnessed by the continuing presense of WWII in British culture.

Small wonder that it's
popular with the Irish [at least until recently], and with other
countries who are being paid to belong to the club.

They aren't being paid to be members of the club, the club is bringing
their standard of living up to the level one should expect in a
developed country and developed continent. Thus the entire union be
stronger still both internally and in its relations with the world. The
contributions to the EU are much the same as taxes. If you're rich you
pay more, if you have reasons for deductions you get them, if you fall
blow a certain level you are assisted.

But don't throw away the baby
with the bathwater.

Well, that's the danger. Personally, I'm a europhile when it
comes to "do I like to belong to the club, and to travel to France
from time to time?", but a eurosceptic when it comes to the actual
institution. If we could get rid of "Brussels", I'd be happy on all
counts. But we can't; so we are being influenced by all manner of
people who are either completely faceless and unknown in the UK, or
else known but not to their advantage [the Kinnocks, Blairs,
Barrosos, etc., of this world].

I agree that there is quite a lot of cleaning up to do, corruption,
fiddles, waste. The rapid enlargement of recent years, with some pretty
difficult countries to handle has tended to add to this. But the fact is
perfectly recognised which is precisely why a constitution was proposed.
It was rejected, quite rightly IMO though I'm in favour of a
constitution, because it tried to do two things in the same document,
set out the basic rights in and goals of the EU but also cross the Ts
and dot the Is on all sorts of rules and regulations and orgaznise the
thing a bit better. This part has been separated to become ore or less
the Lisbon treaty, the first part has been forgotten for the moment.
The Lisbon treaty is meant to bring clarification and organisationof the
EU sprawl, its a technical document not a philosophical one really, not
a constitution. As you point out, there is a lot that is wrong with the
EU but IMO there is far more that is right. It is up to member countries
and members to each do what they can to decrease the former and increase
the latter.



.

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