{"id":5241,"date":"2018-11-11T03:05:08","date_gmt":"2018-11-11T11:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=5241"},"modified":"2018-11-11T03:35:10","modified_gmt":"2018-11-11T11:35:10","slug":"5241","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=5241","title":{"rendered":"Can Europe\u2019s Liberal Order Survive as the Memory of War Fades?, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0By Katrin Bennhold, London, Berlin, Nov. 11, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rev. Joseph Musser\u2019s family has always lived in the region of Alsace, but not always in the same country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium is the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world. Nearly 8,400 of roughly 12,000 soldiers buried there remain unidentified.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Credit<\/span>Tomas Munita for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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His grandfather fought for the Germans in World War I, and his father for the French in World War II. Today, no one is fighting anymore. His great-niece lives in France but works in Germany, crossing the border her ancestors died fighting over without even noticing it.<\/p>\n

It is this era of peace and borderless prosperity that champions of the European Union consider the bloc\u2019s singular achievement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe foundation of the European Union is the memory of war,\u201d said the Reverend Musser, 72. \u201cBut that memory is fading.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On Sunday, as dozens of world leaders gather in Paris to mark the centenary of the armistice that ended World War I, the chain of memory that binds Mr. Musser\u2019s family \u2014 and all of Europe \u2014 is growing brittle.<\/p>\n

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A migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. Europeans have been shaped by a decade-long financial crisis, an influx of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, and a sense that the promise of a united Europe was not delivering.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Mauricio Lima for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The anniversary comes amid a feeling of gloom and insecurity as the old demons of chauvinism and ethnic division are again spreading across the Continent. And as memory turns into history, one question looms large: Can we learn from history without having lived it ourselves?<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of their cataclysmic wars, Europeans banded together in shared determination to subdue the forces of nationalism and ethnic hatred with a vision of a European Union. It is no coincidence that the bloc placed part of its institutional headquarters in Alsace\u2019s capital, Strasbourg.<\/p>\n

But today, its younger generations have no memory of industrialized slaughter. Instead, their consciousness has been shaped by a decade-long financial crisis, an influx of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, and a sense that the promise of a united Europe is not delivering. To some it feels that Europe\u2019s bloody last century might as well be the Stone Age.Yet World War I killed more than 16 million soldiers and civilians, and its legacies continue to shape Europe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2018\u2018The war to end all wars\u2019\u2019 set the scene for an even more devastating conflict and the barbarism of genocide. Winston Churchill, Britain\u2019s legendary wartime leader, thought of 1914-1945 as one long war.<\/p>\n

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A model of the River Clyde, a British ship that took part in the World War I landings in Gallipoli, Turkey.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Tomas Munita for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThose who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it,\u201d he said in 1948.<\/p>\n

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, whose decision to welcome more than a million migrants to Germany in 2015 first became a symbol of a liberal European order, then a rallying cry for a resurgent far-right, said the jury is still out on whether Europe will heed the lessons of its past.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now live in a time in which the eyewitnesses of this terrible period of German history are dying,\u201d she said of World War II. \u201cIn this phase, it will be decided whether we have really learned from history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the last World War I veteran died in 2012. And the number of those who experienced World War II and the Holocaust is rapidly shrinking, too.<\/p>\n

Politicians are apt to use history selectively when it suits them. But the history in this case is ominous.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Now as then, Europe\u2019s political center is weak and the fringes are radicalizing. Nationalism, laced with ethnic hatred, has been gaining momentum. Populists sit in several European governments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n