ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE, WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL, WEDNESDAY, 20TH APRIL
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE, WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL, WEDNESDAY, 20TH APRIL, 2005 “GROWING UP IN EUROPE”
Introduction
[Cardinal Murphy O’Connor, Monsignor Langham, Ambassador O Ceallaigh, distinguished guests and friends]:
When I was growing up in Belfast one of the most dismissive things you could say to someone else or have said to you was “Oh, for God’s sake, grow up!”. So Cardinal Murphy O’Connor’s invitation to give a talk entitled “Growing up in Europe” as part of a series with the theme “Faith in Europe” had a tantalising and ambiguous edge to it which I look forward to exploring with you for the next hour or so. What does “growing up” mean in a political context? Is it about us growing up, or Europe growing up, or both?
Of course, I made the mistake of saying ‘yes’ to the Cardinal’s invitation and he then had to go to the bother of organising a Vatican Conclave so that he would have the best of excuses to avoid having to listen to tonight’s lecture. His efforts failed. We welcome him home and offer to Pope Benedict XVI our good wishes and prayers.
The Catholic Church has been through an emotional time with the illness and death of Pope John Paul II and the overwhelming outpouring of sadness and affection which came from around the world and from every faith and perspective. I had the honour to lead the Irish delegation at the funeral of the Pope and to sit among representatives of many nations, some of whom have serious, unresolved problems with one another. They streamed to Rome to pay respect to a man who had paid respect to them and, while no treaties were signed that day, nor conflicts ended, there was at least a new bridge to each other of that one, shared memory and in that memory there lingers a flicker of hope for our chaotic humanity. With such diversity and so many people present in Rome it could have been chaos, but because the gathering came in love for John Paul, if not for each other, there was a noble civility about it, like a squabbling and estranged family gathered around the deathbed of a loving father, in whose love for them they might possibly find the spark of a rekindled love for each other.
This coming together of the nations and the religions was not only a tribute to John Paul II’s conduct of his ministry, it was in keeping with the vision of the Second Vatican Council. The first paragraph of “Lumen Gentium”, “The Light of the Nations”, describes the church as a “sacrament of unity among all men”. Let us pray this evening that the successor of John Paul II will use his powerful Ministry to further the cause of Christian and human unity and respect for diversity. He will need our prayers - never have the shoes of the fisherman looked so large.
Summary in three main points
I have cited the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the life and work of John Paul II as an introduction to my reflections this evening, not simply because of the contemporary news focus on them, but because there is in them a point of reference and a source of encouragement for the things I want to say. I will pursue three lines of argument.
First, we should give ourselves credit for what has been achieved in Europe – for the Europe of Reconciliation that has emerged since the Second World War. As I said when I addressed the European Parliament eighteen months ago, “if the war graves of Europe could speak they would tell us we are living a miracle.”
Second, the Europe of Reconciliation is not an isolated historical development. It forms part of a worldwide trajectory towards a different political culture where democracy and human rights are embedded and the dignity of the individual asserted and vindicated.
Third, the Europe we want to see is in an early stage of development. No-one has given us a guarantee for the future. I will suggest some elements of risk that we need to bear in mind as we travel into that future.
As I embark on the wonderful privilege of addressing a great audience in a famous cathedral, my mind goes back to a short story by P.G. Wodehouse called “The Great Sermon Handicap”. The story is about young men who are placing bets on the length of the sermons in all the local churches. It’s certainly one way of garnering youthful interest in church attendance and, for any of you who are up to the same tricks, I can assure you that I have not discussed race-fixing with Jean Vanier, Bob Geldof, Timothy Radcliffe or Chris Patten!
The Europe of Reconciliation
The question of Europe requires of us a number of important judgements.
Is the coming together of the nations of Europe a random thing, dictated by self-interest and money? Is it just one more phase in an endless cycle marked by the rise and fall of great powers? Or is there a valid view according to which European reconciliation should be seen as having a particular significance – as providential? Should the European Union be understood as a kind of growing up?
Underlying these questions are even more basic questions about political life. Does history have a purpose? Are we justified in seeking a pattern of meaning in our political history?
I have accepted this invitation because I do see a very particular significance in European unity and reconciliation. For the vast majority of Europeans, to be born in today’s Europe, the Europe of 2005, offers the opportunity of a fuller self-understanding and much better prospects than to have been born in 1905, or when I was born in 1951, just after two appalling world wars which robbed millions of youngsters of the chance to grow up at all and cast long shadows of unfathomable sorrow over those who survived. In the last half-century, new political parameters have been defined and forces of reconciliation have been set free by the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, we have witnessed the beginning of the end of cultural divisions that have manifested themselves in different ways ever since the Romans drew their frontier along the Rhine and the Danube. Our habits, assumptions and expectations are quite different to the habits, assumptions and expectations of a hundred years ago or even twenty years ago so rapid is the pace of change.
Ireland is, of course, a famous example of a country that has been changed for the better by our membership of the European Union. The Union underpins all the other factors that have contributed to our economic revival. The values and institutions of the European Union have contributed to the framework for peace represented by the Good Friday Agreement. History will show that the first attempt at a settlement in Northern Ireland, between 1972 and 1973, coincided with Britain and Ireland “entering Europe”. Our self-confidence, our music and our literature, the very face of our society – all have been transformed by the reconnection of Ireland to Europe.
Of course, each Member State has its own story to tell. France and Germany have overcome one of the most damaging rivalries in history and in doing so have set an example to the world. For Spain, Greece, and Portugal, Europe was a factor in the ending of dictatorships. For the new member States from Eastern Europe, the homecoming has been as remarkable as for Ireland. What a tremendous thing it is, in the light of history, for people to set out from Poland in their hundreds of thousands for the Pope’s funeral, cross frontiers without impediment, and find a warm welcome in the streets and squares of the Eternal City! For Italy, the signing ceremony of the European Constitution and the funeral of John Paul II prove that even after two thousand years, all roads lead to Rome!
I see these changes not as chance occurrences but as the result of leadership given and choices made. Yes, we do seek to live by different values than in the past. Yes, we do propose a different ‘anthropology’ – a different understanding of how politics helps to form the cultural identity of men and women. This evening I am talking about the overall change that has been nurtured in Europe since the end of the Second World War.
A peaceful globalisation
It is important to recognise that we in the European Union are not alone in searching for a better path. If Europe remains true to its new self, we will form part of an historical trajectory towards 'government for the people’ and political communities that respect objective human values and live in peace with one another.
Mahatma Gandhi’s famous “talisman” was that in every step he took, he should be accountable to the poorest person in India. Gandhi was the first person to insist that democracy can be made to work by the poor and those who do not enjoy the benefit of literacy and property ownership. Gandhi’s legacy is alive, as was evident when the 700 million voters of India changed their government in 2004.
Europe and India are the two largest democratic societies in the world. What has happened in our continent and South Asia has its counterpart at a global level.
In the nineteenth century, in the officers’ messes, country houses, and gentlemen’s clubs of the so-called civilised world, the elites of society held to opinions on women’s rights, workers’ rights, racial theory and religious exclusivity that today would be seen as bizarre in any student canteen. Governments had great difficulty shaking off the idea that contracts for the ownership of slaves should be honoured in civil law. That is why the United States had its Civil War, the first of the great wars of attrition.
We are fortunate to have acquired in the twentieth century a new perspective on the ‘truth about man’. Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights we know how to insist that ‘the Sabbath exists for man, not man for the Sabbath’. No interest of state can override fundamental rights of conscience or fundamental rights to the fulfilment of basic needs. From now on, since the Universal Declaration and the UN Charter, we have the moral confidence to judge all civilisations by a humanistic criterion. As the third millennium begins, we do not need to hold things together by making idols of the names of our individual countries or empires. We are not afraid of truth, beauty, and love in the public space.
The first astronauts gave us a physical perspective to correspond to the moral perspective of the Universal Declaration. Taking pictures of our globe from a distance, as the song goes, the astronauts offered us a new way of seeing ourselves. This twentieth century icon of our floating globe, so tiny in the great spaces of the universe, prompts us to accept responsibility for our environment. It prompts us to seek a more unified understanding of human history. The premise of such a unified history is our vulnerability. The building blocks of such a history are continents and centuries – even millennia.
The third millennium will test whether mankind is capable, in the interests of our own survival, of a different quality of civilisation. The continent of Europe is the original motor of globalisation and the source of both the democratic ideal and our modern conception of the rights of man. In terms of cultural tradition, Europe is the most Christianised of all the continents. A great deal is at stake for mankind in the success of the Europe of Reconciliation for, make no mistake about it, founding treaties about steel and coal were built on the human gifts of forgiveness, of transcendence of bitterness, of friendship-building among the most resentful enemies, of consensus-building out of the ruins of conflict. Somewhere in the debris of the dismal first half of twentieth century Europe, a group of men and women consciously decided to try love and not hate, to put into radical action the great commandment to love one another. Hate had been tried. Its diabolical consequences were painfully transparent. Through the nightmare, rare relief had come from individual and collective acts of heroism and courage, decency and unselfishness, generosity and sacrifice. The founders of the Union believed in the unrevealed strength of the human spirit not its manifest weakness. They believed that we were capable of creating a better world and they set out to prove it. The success of our reconciled Europe has converted many with very troubled pasts, Bulgaria and Romania, Croatia and Turkey, to seek to be part of the vision. Parts of the Balkans still teeter uncertainly on the brink of conflict. They too face the choice of peace and prosperity or war and misery.
Elements of risk
I have suggested how fortunate we are that that ‘Europe’ was conceived in the aftermath of the two World Wars. I have suggested that our Europe is not an only child, but has cousins and other relatives in the post-War world. I want now to bring the troubling news. Europe is an infant still - a robust infant, but nevertheless an infant. Therefore, it is in need of care, nourishment and protection if it is to reach proper maturity, if it is both to grow up and to act grown-up.
It is appropriate to look at some of the risks we face, some of the elements of turbulence that make it difficult for the Europe of Reconciliation to live up to its vocation.
Making the long-term case for Europe
The first risk I want to identify – and I know it is a hard saying – is that of a superficial analysis of our economic situation. Have we become too accustomed to the idea of Europe as a provider of purely economic benefits?
I am thinking of questions like these - do we sufficiently recognise that cohesion and stability within the Union are achieved sometimes at a price, the price of investing in our common programmes? Do we sufficiently understand that consensus and fair trade at the international level are also bought at a price? Are we prepared to recognise that economic buoyancy, as currently measured, is not always guaranteed?
The psychological complication is that membership of the European Union has coincided for most of us with a clear transformation for the better of our economic life. The new member States aspire to similar progress. We need to hold two ideas in mind simultaneously. First, the scale of the European Union makes it the best available platform for economic growth, and growth can enable us to do some very worthwhile things. But second, economic growth is by no means the sole test of the European Union.
The European Constitution describes the core values of the Union as:
“founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities…”
Our commitment to a common future and to respecting these values will remain whether in good or less favourable times. It is in no-one’s interest for expectations of short-term gain to become so entrenched that the long-term common good of Europe and her children plays little part in the debate. That would be to enter into dangerous territory. Is it in anyone’s interest to undermine European reconciliation or collapse the mechanisms of European cooperation because of some pressure of the moment or some secondary disagreement? To allow this to happen would certainly not be a sign of growing up.
I am saying, in other words, that our understanding of Europe should rely less on short-term arguments than on the broad-based and long-term ‘structural’ case – economic, political, and cultural – for coming together in the historic voluntary partnership of sovereign states that is European Union.
Respect for difference
Europe is home to many political perspectives, many cultures, many traditions and heritages. We speak many languages. We accommodate religious differences. Most of Europe’s member states are secular states though others, like here in England, have established churches but they have all come through the crucible of change, forged by histories in which religious conflict formed a not inconsiderable part. We are a very long way from those revolutionary days in the 1790s when the political-religious structure of the day was succinctly articulated by King George III when he said (1798), ‘No country can be governed where there is more than one established religion: the others may be tolerated but that cannot extend further than leave to perform their religious duties according to the tenets of their church for which indulgence they cannot have any share in the government of the state.’.
Today throughout Europe every citizen is entitled to share in the government of the state and in full civic life regardless of religious belief, not because of governmental indulgence, but by an acknowledged birthright that is antecedent to and morally superior to any law, any system that would attempt to deny it.
Ancient Roman legions and modern markets are monuments to the standardisation that often goes with power. The Europe of Reconciliation is not naïve about the need to organise. But our vocation as Europeans, both within the Union and in relation to our neighbours, is to acknowledge diversity and arrive at stable, cooperative relationships through working the common ground. We reject the either/or thinking of the zero sum game. Our institutions are complex and balanced. They square circles. We have rehabilitated the notions of coalition and compromise and, as John Hume would say, we are prepared to shed our sweat together in order to forge trust. We are learning the strength that comes from working together instead of accepting the wastefulness that comes from working against one another or simply ignoring one another.
Too often in the past, political power has been tempted to fall back on the utilitarian principle that the end justifies the means. An important aspect of growing up in Europe is to turn this around and allow the quality of the means we choose to provide the justification of the ends. Every time we react to a provocation with restraint, every time we say of our opponent that, if he is not a hundred percent right, he may be ten or twenty per cent right, we are creating the space out of which a civilisation of love – that phrase that Cardinal Hume always used – can continue to grow.
I would go so far as to say that respect for difference constitutes the European method. It has taken our continent a long time to learn that in situations of conflict or mutual contradiction, all of us carry a burden imposed by circumstances and must help one another cast off that burden.
If respect for difference is the European badge, we must be very concerned indeed about the manifestations in our midst of racism and intolerance. Such incidents are the points at which the European fabric can begin to unravel. They bring us back to Europe’s original sin. They remind us that the contemptuous classification of peoples was the shibboleth, the monstrous lie, at the root of both the slave trade and the holocaust.
I cannot offer a policy prescription in this area but offer some thoughts. Our educational systems should openly address the challenges of a multi-faceted culture. We should look for both symbolic and practical ways to affirm the solidarity of different groups in our society while encouraging the widest possible, comfortable, social integration, an integration that does not demand the obliteration of identity or culture but which lives easily with multiple tracks running through one human life. We should be reminded of the shared history and values of the great Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Islam and Christianity and of the great wisdom and principles of the many other world faith systems, each of which opens to us a particular perspective on life, on death and on faith, each of which holds its own unique part of the immense jigsaw puzzle which is humankind’s relationship with existence and with God. We should work towards a European consensus on immigration. We should avoid defining the relationship between Christianity and Islam in geopolitical terms. We should recognise in racism one more warning sign regarding what has been called the “atomisation” of modern society, a subject to which I will return in a moment.
The need for historical reference points
It is a necessary condition of growing up that we learn from our mistakes. ‘To be human is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often,’ said Cardinal Newman. But change of itself is not enough for we are just as capable of changing for the worse as for the better and the process of growing up insists that we should get better, wiser, less capricious, more resilient. For change to mean ‘growing up’, we need to see how changes, including setbacks and our responses to setbacks, lead us forward along a path.
The Risen Christ had wounds when He appeared to Thomas. Perhaps it is true too that our culture needs to carry the evidence of our wounds into the future if we are to continue to learn from our mistakes.
In two World Wars, we looked into the abyss. We saw that social organisation and technological skill had reached the point where mankind was capable of destroying not only everything we believe in but even the very world we live in. In the late 1940s, people of vision said ‘never again’ and began to draw the necessary conclusions. Unfortunately amnesia sets in quickly and there is a very real possibility that we will lose this historical memory, this essential preface to the modern European story. As new glib voices dilute or gloss that memory, it is worth remembering the voices of those who were victims of that historic, endemic culture of unhealthy national rivalries with their ugly assertions of cultural or ethnic or political superiority. As we try to seedbed a new culture of reconciliation and respect, the protective scaffolding around this new, fragile construct is our ever-fresh and humbling memory of those depths to which humanity has so often descended and the historical reference points which teach us about the dark side of power, passion and patriotism.
Solidarity towards other peoples
I turn now to a fourth condition for the safeguarding of the European ideal - we will only discover a true and rooted European identity in openness and solidarity towards other peoples. It is a paradox of our time that political communities which in the past never lacked energy to sustain conflict and war often have difficulty mobilising themselves for engagement with today’s global agenda, particularly the agenda of poverty and disease eradication.
The world is getting smaller. Satellite television, the Internet and e-commerce point to the most salient feature of the information and communications revolution, namely the permeability of traditional boundaries. The sheer volume and variety of connections that are now possible represent a qualitative difference as compared to the connections of the past. That is why we tend to say ‘integration’ when we describe globalisation today. Twenty years ago, or even ten years ago, we might have used the word ‘interdependence’.
The main economic significance of the digital revolution is the speed and scale of activity that now becomes possible, and its low cost. This has accelerated long-term trends. The global market was already growing exponentially for a number of reasons, including the welfare state, population growth, the opening of markets since World War Two, the end of the Cold War and the consequent spread of a particular model of economic and social development. From 1950 to 2000, world production increased by a factor of 5 and the volume of merchandise trade multiplied by a factor of about 20. Developments in China and India are likely to ensure that this trend continues.
At the same time, since 1950, the number of people in the world has more than doubled. Then it was 2.5 billion. Soon it will be 7 billion. We know that the exponential rate of increase will continue for some time more, raising issues of water and fuel scarcity, global warming, and migration from poorer countries to richer countries.
These long-term trends are brought about largely by factors over which governments do not always exercise immediate control. However, with so much happening, so much raw force in play, it is not surprising that there are concerns over widening inequality, the emergence of new concentrations of power, and the possible loss of democratic control.
For me, the statistics about preventable deaths and preventable disease among infants and small children in the third world are a sharp reality-check when the praises are chanted of market-driven globalisation. The culture of solidarity which cements the European Union, the twinning of interests, the sharing of prosperity is, and ultimately should always be, a solidarity which embraces the entire human family in particular in all its most pitiful conditions. A prosperity built on their poverty is no great badge of honour and neither is a prosperity which overlooks their poverty. The forces of globalisation from which have come and will come so many benefits to us Europeans must also be subject to a wider accountability in which we acknowledge and help to vindicate the rights of those whose lives are mired in the poverty, disease, corruption and ignorance which characterise the experience of the vast majority of those with whom we share this little planet. Their reliance on our honesty and integrity is even more profound than their reliance on our generosity and our aid. Self-evidently the European Union can play a worthy part in rendering the forces of globalisation more accountable to the peoples of the United Nations and in giving leadership in the politics and practice of effective global solidarity.
Addressing the atomisation of society
I come now to a fifth and final angle on safeguarding the Europe of Reconciliation, namely - if I may borrow a phrase - the pursuit of happiness. The measurement of happiness as opposed to freedom of choice is an emerging field in economics. What is the advantage of a higher income if the quality of life experienced day-to-day is eroded by the pressures and problems that a very busy consumer culture of individual achievement often produces?
For all our newfound individual confidence, enhanced education and opportunity there are plenty of indicators of deep-seated unhappiness and plenty of indicators of stresses within families – enough to challenge our easy assumptions that healthy economic indicators will, without more of something else, bring a smile to every face.
And there are many other indicators of unhappiness in Europe today - the widespread voter apathy and cynicism about politics, the declining birth rate, the suicide rate among the young and the elderly, the abuse of mood-enhancing drugs whether lawful alcohol or unlawful drugs, the random acts of violence, including racist violence, the road rage and football rage, the atomisation of society in which many thousands of children’s playtimes with parents depends on interventions by lawyers and courts, the Europe where many of the elderly live lives of quiet loneliness.
You are right if you are thinking many another generations faced worse and each pays a price for its own priorities and yes, we have our good news to tell. We are beginning to open up to the wonder of the abilities of the disabled, to the crying needs of carers, to the wasted talents of early school leavers. Our world is full of second chances, of new, insistent voices telling us their story, setting out their ambitions, driving us on to deal with each other more humanly, more lovingly, more carefully. Yes - you are also right that if the generations had a choice of which generation they would be born into, many of those who have gone before us would join the queue for our generation, for our times, for with all their ups and all their downs these are indeed the best of times for a greater number of people. But all around us are the signs of work to be done, of jobs not yet completed, of men, women and children, who feel like mere spectators at this feast of plenty.
The signs of our times are full of contradictions. How do we respond to them? Do we live only for ourselves and for the moment or do we continue the work of Europe’s founding fathers by resolutely articulating and advocating a vision of a world where the meeting point of politics, economics, culture, and religion converges in a world of equals who treat each other and their planet with a resounding respect that forms a gift of intelligent, caring stewardship to the generations yet to come?
That friendship is possible between people of vast differences within the EU is wonderfully reassuring but, make no mistake, it doesn’t happen by doing nothing - it only happens when one human being decides to bridge the chasm by reaching out a hand, risking rejection but taking the risk in the hope of revealing the smiling “yesness” that has always been there in the heart of the estranged other.
We are blessed to grow up in today’s Europe and to watch the discipline of friendship reveal to us, Europe’s children, for the very first time our true potential, our yesness to each other and our power for good when we work respectfully together. As someone once so wisely said - the best is yet to come.
Thank you.