Old Europe
The expression " Das alte Europa " ( English Old Europe ) is Germany's word of the year 2003. It was used on January 22nd, 2003 by the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at a press conference of the US Department of Defense . Many people understood the term as a derogatory term for those European countries that refused to participate in the Iraq war of 2003 and / or expressed themselves critically.
However, it is also conceivable that Rumsfeld only wanted to make a temporal distinction between the European allies of the USA in the past decades and the European allies of the USA today. According to this interpretation z. B. Germany and France are both part of old and new Europe, while z. B. Poland would only be part of the new Europe as it sent troops to Iraq to support the US .
He replied verbatim to the comment of reporter John Shovelan that the traditional European allies of the US - France, Germany and Great Britain - more than 70% of the population were opposed to a war in Iraq:
“You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I dont. I think that's old Europe. "
“When you think of Europe, you think of Germany and France. Not me. I think that's old Europe. "
Shortly afterwards he described Germany and France (or the politics of their heads of government) as a "problem". Finally, in early February 2003, he claimed that Germany, Cuba and Libya were the only countries that categorically opposed a possible war in Iraq under all circumstances. Even if there were in truth other states who at the time had the same stance on a possible Iraq war, the claim was correct in that these states actually categorically rejected a possible Iraq war. However, this was understood by many to mean that he put Germany on the same level as undemocratic dictatorships that violate human rights .
In the German public, the expression “Old Europe” immediately met with a grateful reception and a strong echo with an ironic undertone. In the weeks and months that followed, old Europe developed into a catchphrase that was sometimes used with pride and with reference to an allegedly moral position. In addition, it also served to distinguish the Western European countries from the Central Eastern European countries, which for various reasons supported the war course of the USA to a greater or lesser extent. Critics saw this attitude as an expression of a certain arrogance towards the states of Eastern and Central Eastern Europe.
Old Europe was already part of a dirty vocabulary 150 years earlier . The Communist Manifesto began Karl Marx in 1848 with a polemical sweeping blow to the, in his opinion, mentally and socially backward, reactionary Europe of restoration :
“A ghost is haunting Europe - the ghost of communism . All the powers of old Europe have allied themselves in a holy hunt against this ghost, the Pope and the Tsar , Metternich and Guizot , French radicals and German police officers. "
The American author Djuna Barnes also wrote in her 1936 novel Nightwood ( German Nachtgewächs , 1959):
“His embarrassment took the form of an obsession; he called it old Europe: it was about aristocracy, nobility, ruling houses. When he spoke of titles, he switched on pauses: one before, one after the name. He knew that diffusion was his only contact, and he used it with perseverance and detailed expertise. With the furious zeal of the fanatic, he hounded his own lack of equality to death by putting the bones of long-forgotten imperial courts back together - as is well known, only those who are long remembered can lay claim to long oblivion - [...] "
Web links
- William Pfaff, "Old Europe" and Bush's America ("The International Herald Tribune", March 31, 2003)
Individual evidence
- ^ Transcript " Secretary Rumsfeld Briefs at the Foreign Press Center ( Memento September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )". Department of Defense, January 22, 2003.