We Europeans need to travel many kilometres in the years to come to get to know each other’s countries – and perhaps just as far in our heads and hearts.
I was born shortly after the end of the Second World War. My father trained officers for the British army in languages, including Russian. Russia had become the enemy, and most of my friends were the sons of soldiers. I learned to recognize different Soviet armoured vehicles and aircraft. I dreamed of joining the army. Then as a young man, I recall travelling to Berlin through East Germany, through the motorway corridor, and seeing the Berlin Wall for the first time. I can clearly remember thinking to myself, ‘This cannot last for ever, but I will not live long enough to see it go.’ And I was wrong. I remember a phone call from a friend in Berlin – he had been up all night dancing on the wall and knocking holes in it. I have lived to see one of the massive changes of history.
I owe a lot to France and to French friends. They helped me on my journey from an insular Englishman towards becoming a European. Their culture and their language, their perspectives, taught me to look a little differently at myself and my proud island’s history. The battlefields of Verdun gave me some understanding of France’s losses, the Maginot Line gave insights into their fear of Germany and their determination never again to suffer the same slaughter. Many visits to friends in Alsace and Lorraine gave me some understanding of the miracle of the post-war reconciliation between France and Germany.
Now I have just spent ten days in Ukraine, near Kiev, at a European gathering of Initiatives of Change. It was called a ‘Saeima’ – the Latvian word for a community gathering. It was a stretching of the heart, and a realization that my French mentors had only helped me to become a West European. My thinking and my heart was blocked by the Wall, by the Iron Curtain running from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The community of Europe is more than the European Union.
Now I need to start a new apprenticeship, with new mentors: Kostya, Anna, Katya. The physical barriers that divided our continent have gone, but now we must work on the barriers of the mind, create a new geography of the heart. The mid-point of Europe, on some calculations, is close to the Polish-Ukrainian border. This community-building is and will be a two-way process. The Ukrainian team planning our conference were of world class competence and efficiency, though they were struggling with the difficult heritage of the Communist past. We were lodged in the former Communist splendour of a sanatorium built for senior party people – nothing was too good for the servants of the people!
The challenge is slightly scary, and very challenging. We Europeans need to travel many miles, many kilometres, in the years to come, to get to know each other’s countries – and perhaps just as far in our heads and hearts.
NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.
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