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| Europe Longs to Rebuild Its Empires |
The love for the legacy of the Holy Roman Empire is the inspiration of past and future dictatorships.
Without outside intervention, Europe today would likely be ruled by some form of dictatorship. But that doesn’t stop European leaders from drawing inspiration from their history. What inspired European leaders in the past is inspiring them again. Politicians in the European Union to local administrators are reviving the legacy of the Holy Roman Empire.
“The idea of empire as an organizing form of politics is enjoying a rehabilitation in Brussels, pushed by the court philosophers at the Justus Lipsius HQ, and picked up avidly by exponents of a muscular ‘sovereign Europe’ to match China and America,” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote for the Telegraph on June 15.
Think tanks and academics are pointing to the Habsburg-led Holy Roman Empire as a model the EU should follow. Dutch writer Caroline de Gruyter makes this case in her much-referenced 2022 book Beter wordt het niet: Een reis door het Habsburgse Rijk en de Europese Unie (It Doesn’t Get Any Better: A Journey Through the Habsburg Empire and the European Union). It was also translated into French with the title, Monde d’hier, monde de demain (Yesterday’s World, Tomorrow’s World), and into German: Das Habsburgerreich—Inspiration für Europa? (The Habsburg Empire—Inspiration for Europe?)
Of course, looking at the Habsburg Empire as a model of stability isn’t the same as calling for the resurrection of the Inquisition that killed heretics, Muslims, Jews and others. Praising the empire’s form of government is also not the same as praising its violent episodes of warfare. But one ought to ask: Can you have one without the other?
Part of the relative stability the empire brought was through the use of violence. Some even now believe that this aspect of empire needs to be revived. That’s why de Gruyter’s colleague, Luuk van Middelaar, argued that the EU should embrace the “heroic civilizing mission.” He said, “Anyone who thinks that good may impose itself on the world without struggle or the use of power is mistaken. That may require an army—a Napoleon.”
A Cultural Revival
This nostalgia for Europe’s past is not a coincidence. In 2018, the EU started a new project to remember the Continent’s “cultural heritage.” That year, over 6.2 million people took part in more than 11,700 organized events across 37 countries, each celebrating the “European Year of Cultural Heritage.” Thousands of similar events have been hosted since.
In 2017, former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg responded to the refugee crisis by calling for the revival of Europeans’ love for history and culture. “When we are not ready to love our culture, then others will start to define our culture,” he said. “And it can’t be our goal to leave that what grew over centuries and is seen in the church towers, which is seen in the club culture, which is grown in a Christian-Jewish Western society, to others that come in to us.”
Read more:
https://www.thetrumpet.com/27766-europe-longs-to-rebuild-its-empires.
