For context, I'm an American; I've read a bit of history, and I have a very American perspective on the last two world wars; Like most people my age, both of my grandfathers fought in world war two, and like most people, I place more emotional weight on stories told me by family members than accounts written by people on the other side, so my view of European politics is biased in a certain direction, and I don't have a lot of experience with Europe; I re-read this and what I write does sound a little bit racist to my eye; I hope that my question is taken more in the spirit of an ignorant person asking a question about another culture, rather than as a racist remark.
From here, it looks like Germany is now slowly getting, through economic means, what they were prevented from getting through military means during the last two world wars. I mean, sure, this is a hell of a lot nicer than fighting a war of that magnitude; I'm very thankful that I've never been in a situation where another human was seriously trying to kill me (and I've never been in a situation where I needed to kill another human, which, from what I hear, can often be more stressful and mentally damaging than being in a situation where someone else is trying to kill you, assuming you survive.) but... it just seems weird to me that the European community would let Germany reunite, then that they would almost voluntarily place them at the head of the European government.
How do Europeans feel about this? I mean, is my view of "give me the courts and the money supply, let the rabble have the rest" just not shared by most Europeans?
Is there a fear in Europe that Germany is taking over? I certainly haven't seen any of that in media coverage; but I would guess there would be some reluctance to express such feelings out of fear of appearing nationalistic or racist. (Of course, I'm aware that Europe is big; I imagine people in France and Italy, for example, have rather different feelings towards German dominance.)
I see a lot of admiration towards Germany because they recovered after 2 world wars + the fall of the Berlin Wall. On the whole Germans are hard-working and ingenious people and you can't help admiring them for that.
Quite the contrary, people in the European Union hope that Germany will bail out everybody. In my opinion this is unlikely and if I were a German citizen I would not agree to have myself and my family indebted because of the EU ... however I hope that they'll understand that together we are stronger.
The EU is already the biggest economy in the world and if it survives this crisis it will also be the strongest for years to come.
"They're doing economically what they failed to do by force" is an often repeated statement by many people here in Portugal, at least amongst left-leaning people (I live in one of the few municipalities where the Communist party wins consistently, and I interact a lot with educated but poorly paid people - actors, musicians, etc - so my views are probably biased).
Europe, especially Margret Thatcher in Britain were very against German Unification... but in the end Unification was a victory for captitalism or communism... which was an important at the time.
France (Mitterand) told Khöl (Germany) it wasn't the right time, maybe in ten years, to reunite or to tear the wall down. But it happened because there were already holes in Bulgaria the previous summer. Unification is more the symbol of the communism falldown than a capitalist victory.
Actually that was my political economy 101 course credo I took in uni.
Okay, mine sounds a bit racist too. Well, actually I think it really does a lot. But I don't really care about what nation is what and stuff, because it all depends on the person doing shit and stuff. Also people are mostly thinking pretty global these days, especially here. So I guess we can assume that especially people on Hacker News don't really waste their energy on such stupid things.
It's basically what I get from the media and stuff. You know.... whatever country you live in. They want to tell you that you are great, should be proud and only talk about other's problems. So usually it's best to watch foreign medias to get a good (or pessimistic) view on your country.
Actually. Sorry, if that sounds plain, but from my perspective the bigger fear is that the US or China are taking over.
Maybe it helps to see Europe more like the states, just still more decentralized. I never really thought about this. In fact this comparison comes from a now US citizen.
Of course Germany and France (as well as UK, but they don't really care too much about the EU anyway) are like two strong US states. There may be so rivalry, but with EU and stuff they have the same goals.
It isn't like people in US think that some state is going to take over, right?
And one doesn't really have to fear much, if it isn't by means of war.
I am not from France, so no idea, how exactly they feel, but you have to keep in mind that the "constitution" of the EU basically grants everyone very equal voting rights. In fact smaller countries would have gotten even more votes if they hadn't killed it off.
There also is no dictator, not even someone in sight. From a democratic point of view Europe's distribution of power is far more even that for example what you see in the US, especially with the recent laws. There is no single person in Europe that has as much privileges as the US president for example.
Lets pretend Germany would really take the lead and stuff making Europe one big Germany this wouldn't really harm anyone.
So that's why people here are more afraid of a state like the US, which invests way more money (and I speak about percentage) into military than every other nation and which also has a lot of power with IWF, world bank (which aren't even really governmental/democratic) and where they have pretty strong nationalism, etc.
Now, nobody really fears the US and stuff. Actually the opposite is partly true. They see how the US struggles with debts, old infrastructure, loosing power to China, etc.
What I want to say with all of this is that things like that are more likely to go on in people's heads.
And I know this sounded kinda bad, but I actually heard the "US is struggling with own problems and soon isn't a world power anymore. That's why they do war and tell others about how to do their economy" quite often lately. Just a few days ago they even showed on the news how all the infrastructure built in sixties makes problems in the US. I guess it was kinda exaggerated, but it sounded like it is a poor country. What I want to say with this is that countries are really, really complex. You can't really say general things about them, cause every time you try to you actually say something that's wrong.
So, maybe there are lots of people fearing Germany and I just don't see them. The only thing I can say is that whenever they show the heads of Germany and France they at least pretend to not have any problems with each other and they do it really well.
Even if that wasn't a clear answer I hope that helped a bit. Basically the only thing that people worry about currently are Greece, Spain and Italy. Maybe it even is too much. They'd be doing well, if there was no worry. They "just" have the problem of everyone worrying, so they don't get any loans, people pull their money from these countries and this creates troubles and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
To come back to the topic a bit. It's pretty much what all these rating agencies do. They say: This country may have troubles to pay back their debts, which causes them to have high interests and so it actually becomes true.
As long as the EU union is governed in a democratic way (as it is now) there is no serious fear that we (the rest of EU) would be the political slaves of Germany. Economically speaking, the eastern half of Europe (Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland + the 3 Baltic states) is nearly in economic slavery to the French, German, Austrian, Dutch and Swedish financial elites already. So what was in danger to be lost is already lost for the losers. On the other hand, the French and the Germans are negotiating rather well their interests (Greece !) and as long as this negotiation is not stuck, there will be no need for another war in Europe. I live in France now and there is no real fear here of anything (militarily speaking) cause they keep their Nukes warm and ready :D.
>I live in France now and there is no real fear here of anything (militarily speaking) cause they keep their Nukes warm and ready :D.
That made me chuckle. Yeah. France? My impression is that sometimes you are not so different from America as people think.
Oh yeah, speaking of nukes, last time I checked /everyone/ was stepping back from (civilian) nuclear power after the Japanese disaster. I know in the past France has been pretty dramatically pro-nuke; has this changed?
From here, it looks like Germany is now slowly getting, through economic means, what they were prevented from getting through military means during the last two world wars. I mean, sure, this is a hell of a lot nicer than fighting a war of that magnitude; I'm very thankful that I've never been in a situation where another human was seriously trying to kill me (and I've never been in a situation where I needed to kill another human, which, from what I hear, can often be more stressful and mentally damaging than being in a situation where someone else is trying to kill you, assuming you survive.) but... it just seems weird to me that the European community would let Germany reunite, then that they would almost voluntarily place them at the head of the European government.
How do Europeans feel about this? I mean, is my view of "give me the courts and the money supply, let the rabble have the rest" just not shared by most Europeans?
Is there a fear in Europe that Germany is taking over? I certainly haven't seen any of that in media coverage; but I would guess there would be some reluctance to express such feelings out of fear of appearing nationalistic or racist. (Of course, I'm aware that Europe is big; I imagine people in France and Italy, for example, have rather different feelings towards German dominance.)