|
|
The group of 30 writers, historians and Nobel laureates declared in a manifesto published in several newspapers, including the Guardian, that Europe as an idea was “coming apart before our eyes”.
“We must now will Europe or perish beneath the waves of populism,” the document reads. “We must rediscover political voluntarism or accept that resentment, hatred and their cortege of sad passions will surround and submerge us.”
They write of their regret that Europe has been “abandoned from across the Channel” – an oblique reference to the drawn-out Brexit process that has arguably brought Anglo-European relations to their lowest point since the second world war.
And they say that unless efforts are made to combat a rising tide of populism, the EU elections will be “the most calamitous that we have ever known: victory for the wreckers; disgrace for those who still believe in the legacy of Erasmus, Dante, Goethe, and Comenius; disdain for intelligence and culture; explosions of xenophobia and antisemitism; disaster”.
“Abandoned from across the Channel and from across the Atlantic by the two great allies who in the previous century saved it twice from suicide; vulnerable to the increasingly overt manipulations of the master of the Kremlin, Europe as an idea, as will and representation, is coming apart before our eyes,” the text reads.
The 800-word paean was drafted by the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. Signatories included the novelists Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie, the historian Simon Schama and the Nobel prize laureates Svetlana Alexievitch, Herta Müller, Orhan Pamuk and Elfriede Jelinek.
Rushdie told the Guardian: “Europe is in greater danger now than at any time in the last 70 years, and if one believes in that idea it’s time to stand up and be counted.
“In the UK, I hope parliament may yet have the courage to call for a second referendum. That could rescue the country from the calamity of Brexit and go a long way towards rescuing the EU as well.” [...]