New-Age-Center

By: Eddie Howden
Introduction

Bismarck’s remarked that Europe was a mere geographical notion. "Europe has never existed" he claimed, "One has genuinely to create Europe"

Edmund Burke in 1796 claimed, "No European can be a complete exile in any part of Europe."

Whichever way you might think, the fact remains that European civilization has dominated the globe from the Neanderthal man up to landing on the moon. The question the modern European asks today is: “ If I am European, what does this mean?”

From a corporate perspective the same question may be asked: “ If a company has a European culture, what am I saying of it’s values and traditions?”

History

In ancient Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in bull form and taken to the island of Crete, where she gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon

Later Europa stood for mainland Greece, and by 500 BC it’s meaning had been extended to lands to the north.

It is said that the history of Europe can be divided into four era’s:

First Period – Roman Empire

Roman domination of the area is geographically not close to the Europe of today

The Roman Empire differed from the modern Europe of nation states in that it was unified under a single authority. This authority was implemented by force but maintained in a benevolent fashion.

For many centuries, between the frontier of Rhine and Danube and the edges of the Maghreb, from Gibraltar to Palmyra, peace reigned.

The various ways of worship were considered by the inhabitants to be equally true.

Second Period - Christendom

After the Empire fell into decay, there followed centuries in which there was no entity, which could be considered as Europe.

When the European idea revived, its was born out of the fight for survival against the engulfing tide of Muslim invasion.

Charlemagne, who became king of the Franks in 768, drove the Muslims back into the Pyrenees,

The coronation of Charlemagne in 800 was the beginning of the medieval European empire. In a poem of 802, Charlemagne was saluted as Pater Europae.

Charlemagne published a series of ordinances, in which he espoused the importance of impartial justice without bribery, of the protection of the poor and widows, and keeping one’s sworn word. Historically the idea of Europe and the notion of rule as informed or controlled by a higher ethic were interwoven from Charlemagne’s time.

The division of Christendom due to the Reformation in the 1520’s sounded the end for the Holy Roman Empire. It was not theology that was the predominant force in the break-up of Europe’s religious unity. Rather, it was the ambition and avarice of kings and popes, and the growth of nationalist feeling resentful of international control

Third Period – European Nation States

In 1751 Voltaire defined Europe as:

“A kind of great republic divided into several states, some monarchical, the others mixed, but all corresponding with one another. They all have

The same principle of public law and politics, unknown in

other parts of the world.”

In the 1770s Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote, "There are no longer Frenchmen Germans and Spaniards, or even English, but only Europeans,"

During the modern period Europe was as much a common battlefield as a common culture. The history of Europe between 1648 and 1945 is in great part a history of wars between European nation states - wars whose operation, if directed from Europe, often spilled over into other continents

Fourth Period – From WWII

At the end of WWII, in 1946, T.S. Eliot, in a broadcast talk to Germany, asked whether, in spite of all past hostility, there were certain common features which made it possible to speak of a European culture. He replied:

“The dominant force in creating a common culture between peoples each of which has its distinct culture, is religion... I am not so much concerned with the communion of Christian believers today; I am talking about the common tradition of Christianity, which has made Europe what it is, and about the common cultural elements, which this common Christianity has brought with it. If Asia were converted to Christianity tomorrow, it would not thereby become a part of Europe. It is in Christianity that our arts have developed; it is in Christianity that the laws of Europe have been rooted. It is against a background of Christianity that all our thought has significance. An individual European may not believe that the Christian Faith is true, and yet what he says, and makes, and does, will all spring out of his heritage of Christian culture and depend upon that culture for its meaning. Only a Christian culture could have produced a Voltaire or a Nietzsche.”

"To our Christian heritage" Eliot continued, "we owe many things beside religious faith. Through it we trace the evolution of our arts, through it we have our conception of Roman Law which has done so much to shape the

Western World, through it we have our conceptions of private and public morality. And through it we have our common standards of literature, in the literature of Greece and Rome. The Western world has its unity in this heritage, in Christianity and in the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome, and Israel, from which owing to two thousand years of Christianity.

Today

Europe has espoused Christian beliefs since the time of Charlemagne. I believe it is in these basic human values that the modern day European must rediscover his soul. He must combine the best elements of the past, the peaceful, religious tolerance of the Roman Empire; the supranational appeal courts of Christendom, the powerful cultures of the modern age, to create a new beginning.

The wording agreed on for the Preamble of the European Constitution (TCE) refers to religion only in its acknowledgement that the Constitution draws ‘inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, the values of which, still present in its heritage, have embedded within the life of society the central role of the human person and his or her inviolable and inalienable rights’

Common values as stated in Articles I-1 and I-2 of the TCM, the Union is open to all European States that respect the member states' common values, namely:

* Human dignity

* Freedom

* Democracy

* Equality

* The rule of law

* Respect for human rights

* Minority rights

* Free market

Member states also declare that the following principles prevail in their society:

* Pluralism

* Non-discrimination

* Tolerance

* Justice

* Solidarity

* Equality of the sexes

Surely these are values, which Europe was built on since Christendom in the Middle Ages. Given this historical context, it is ironical that the European political leaders did not have the courage to give an explicit reference to Europe’s Christian history in this document.

What does Corporate Europe look like

Corporate Europe is what its people are. To find meaning in a company environment, we must seek meaning in our own lives first. This will create a soul for the organization we work for. As the European struggles to find a new page in his story book, so corporate Europe will lag behind until it’s employees define themselves anew.

Conclusion

Peter Hans Kolvenbach was asked about the relation of a possible new European constitution and Christianity (September 25, 2003). He replied,

“As the Holy Father has said, either Europe is Christian or there is no Europe. I feel that this statement is irrefutable. If the Christian meaning that has inspired European art, literature and philosophy were suppressed, we would be left with empty hands.”

To abandon this tradition that is grounded in the dignity of each individual in a divine creation, and replace it with a state that depends only on cold reason, as Machiavelli’s ‘lo Stato’ proclaims

“For the first time in absolute history there arose a purely secular state, which abandoned and placed to the side the divine guarantee and standard of the political element. The religious view is now considered as a mythological vision of the world. The modern mind declares that God himself is a private affair, who takes no part in the public life or the community function of forming values.”

Would indeed be sad. What gives Europe her soul is her heritage. Few will argue that her heritage has deep roots in the values and ethics of the Christian faith. The European of today must find this history within himself. Thereafter he will come to know who he is. A being sculpted by generations of men and women who believed that a higher Being was in control of their destiny and would lead them to a life of meaning and peace.

This, I believe, is what it means to be European!