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| Subject: Yes indeed... the French do tend to do the Wrong Thing for the Right Reasons... | |
Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 23:31:56 11/22/04 Mon In reply to: Roberdin 's message, "I can just imagine the French pushing through a bill to defend their liberty by outlawing religious and cultural symbols in Europe and banning the use of the English language..." on 23:21:28 11/22/04 Mon [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 00:05:40 11/23/04 Tue It is becoming clear that English is the only practical lingua franca for the European Union. I have heard it used in the Euro 'Parliament' by people of various nationalities. I like to tell the story of how, in India, I met a Hispanophone Columbian guy and two Portuguese girls - and they could only communicate in English! The Mediterranean countries and the new members from Eastern Europe seem to have no problem with this. Their motivation to play a role in Europe is entirely based on practical self-interest, and not the paranoiac fear of cultural decay which motivates France, Germany, the Low Countries and Scandinavia. The Franco-German axis is going to have a real fight on its hands if it tries to exclude English as the de facto primary language in Europe, because the other members simply will not understand why: it makes sense, so why not use it? QED. They just can't understand that the Franco-German European Dream is based not on practicality but on fear: the fear of decline, of irrelevance, of marginalisation. It is also based on embitteredness: their ideas, their values, their politics, their aspirations, have been held up to competition with the English-speaking world and have been shown to be unworkable, dysfunctional, self-destructive, obsolete and uncompetitive. But if history has taught us anything, it is that wounded animals are the most dangerous. If they go down (which they certainly will), they are determined to take us with them. Their pride will allow for nothing less. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |