Europe Has Yet to Learn from America

It is rarely seen that a community is able to meditate upon itself and upon its own wounds without transforming its memory into a weapon. The way America won the battle within and the way it defeated its monsters by choosing Obama as a clear need for change – on itself rather than on the rest of the world – is the lesson of November 4th 2008 for Europe. At the moment, the greatest mistake we could make would be to say, just as in September 2001, “We are all Americans!”

Now, when America begins talking about itself, it is our turn to say “We are all Europeans!” We too dream of unity, but somehow we take our time turning it into reality. We too are craving for a change which doesn’t estrange us from our roots, but brings us closer to them. It is both a cultural and political dream, just as it is for Obama.

With Obama, history is changing, as it tells the story of an African-American who, within a single generation after the end of the U.S. apartheid, has become president. However, this time it is about the freedom of all: in his speech, on victory day, the new American president spoke at the same time to the poor, the old, the rich, the white, the Hispanics, the Asians, the homosexuals, the handicapped. Such strong praise brought to diversity would not remain without echo in Europe, which is also turning into a melting pot of races and different lifestyles. A place where the challenge is to unite them without taking away their hope and right to speak their minds. For more than a decade, we have been looking for one common root, one colour, with the illusion of stopping the decline this way. Italy, more than others, has something to learn from “The Obama lesson:” phrases like the ones we have been hearing for a while, about gypsies or muslims, will appear as simply indecent to Barack and Michelle Obama, at the White House.

Another important lesson is the political one. One of Obama’s slogans, inserted into the crucial speech about races in March in Philadelphia sounded like this: “America has a solid constitution, but it is not a complete union.” Identical words were used in 1992 in Maastricht in Europe, when it was announced that Europe was going from a community to a “Tighter and tighter Union.” We also have to learn how to get from a process in motion to a complete form.

The relations between America and Europe will be fruitful providing the two dreams will continue to grow in our countries, taking as example the American “catharsis,” but also the work of our founding fathers. The European Union’s answer to the decline will take longer to come than the one of the United States. The power of the “right” prevailing the right of power is one of its ground rules. The madness of greatness is that we know our disasters better than the Americans do.  Obama knows Europe too little, therefore it is urgent that the initiative comes from us. However, it will not be simple: it is easier to make yourself understood by a president who emphasizes the U.S. decline rather than who is mending it. But we can do it, if we would have our own catharsis. That is, if we don’t limit ourselves to being the wide open mouth, dazzled by the American majesty. As Pessoa says: “Everything is worth it, if the soul is big enough. God gave the sea the danger and the abysm, but it is in it that the sky is reflected in.”