After the armistice centenary celebrations, Macron is hosting some kind of talking shop about ‘peace’ for his fellow European leaders. Wisely, Trump has decided not to attend. (He’s already done his bit for European peace by extorting from Macron a verbal acknowledgement that Europe should do more for its own defence. We’ll see whether that amounts to anything in practice.)
The chattering classes love the saying that generals prepare to fight the last war, not the next one. Sadly, they rarely ask whether they themselves are trying to avoid the last war, not the next one. After 1918, many western leaders tried so very hard to avoid WWI that they greatly helped Hitler bring about the very different WWII. (The UK had a pacifist prime minister and pacifist leader of the opposition during Adolf’s first three years.) Now Merkel and co. are trying to avoid yesterday’s wars by enforcing ‘hate speech’ laws on every questioner of the PC consensus they can mischaracterise as a blond blue-eyed lover of the nordic race. Even if we did not know how Weimar Germany’s similar use of similar laws worked out, it would still be a great way to avoid the problems of the past by encouraging the problems of the future.
This is what worries me. The whole European establishment is, for quite understandable and indeed noble reasons, hell-bent on avoiding a repeat of WW2. The problem is the world has changed. And I see the actions of the establishment, the EU in particular (the stifling of free speech, the insistence of driving through ever closer union at any cost, etc.), as laying the foundations of the next conflict. It would be an irony indeed if the organisation supposedly set up to stop war in Europe turns out to be, if not the cause, then certainly the catalyst, of the next great European conflagration.
President Macron says he is a patriot not a nationalist – that nationalists use dishonourable means to further the interests of their country, thus betraying the noble ideals of their country. And THERE IS some worth in that distinction.
However, there is a problem – and the problem is that President Macron is NOT a patriot. Does he stand up for the independence of France? NO HE DOES NOT – President Macron is actually (like Mrs May) a stooge of the European Union.
Does President Macron even stand up for Freedom of Speech – for the vision of Voltaire, “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend TO THE DEATH your right to say it”. Try attacking Islam publically in France – and see how much President Macron stands for Freedom of Speech.
Niall is correct – the true patriot in Paris was the much attacked President Donald Trump, and he was quite right NOT to attend the demented “peace meeting” of President Macron.