Eastern Europe – Integral Part of Europe. Retrospective into the Future

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    • Presentation speakers
      • Gerhard Eichweber, Silva Plan / Value Group, Switzerland

    Abstract:

    Geographically continental Europe is very clearly defined: From Cape North to the SouthernTips of Spain, Italy and Greece – and from Ireland in the West to the Ural… And culturally, the same holds true: Beyond all diversity, there is a strong common denominator uniting the ethnicities and their cultural riches in a bracket clearly recognised by Europeans when meeting outside that common ground. As elsewhere, history has left its strong marks in the cultural and political diversity of Europe. Borders have shifted cutting apart families, peoples and cultures while forcing them together in different settings and imposing languages along with sets of rules. Traumata were the rule, everywhere. And they live forth in prejudice – thus opening the doors for misleading paradigms. In the past, Westerners have been invited by leaders to populate and help build Eastern Europe. For the duration of the Cold War, Eastern Europe was in part deprived of its own cultural riches deeply rooted in manyfold types of diversity. In the same time, similar egalitarian forces and trends deprived Western European peoples and regions of their conscience of roots. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the forces milking Western Europe, but not succeeding in entirely repressing it and deprieving it of its strengths,, wiped away resistances on both sides. Swiftly, Western oligarchies installed and financed oligarchies and political leaders in the East, while achieving the weakening of the European Union through premature enlargement prior to the thus halted process of political union. Ever since, the European concept of harvesting on cultural diversity for common prosperity and peace, materialised in terms such as “EU-Regio” and “Interregio” etc. apparently has been undermijned and financially reduced into a fig-leaf, while egalitarian and merely quantitative “convergence” criteria are enforced upon all. Moreover, with reducing everything to numbers, an erroneous and counterproductive paradigm of finance overruling and sabotaging what meanwhile has been called “real economy” is the main tool of repressing European countries and their self determination together and in peaceful with their neighbors. Europe, and its perception in the world, thus, remains increasingly far behind its potentials. And thus also its role in the world as example of hitherto unknown long standing peace. Examples of better and much more effective and efficient measures to revive local and national economies, and Europe’s strength, are hardly mentioned or camouflaged by disinformation. An example is the successful turnaround of the Spanish Basque Country after reaching Autonomy. Also, criticism and critical comparison of ill developments in Latin america and, in its extremes, Asian arthrocities like those of Pol Pot in Cambodia provide ample material for reflection and analysis of ill developments and the misleading paradigms these arte based upon. The paper provides a bracket and ample material for discussion by mentioning previous papers touching the various aspects of the role of qualitative diversiity in the various areas of science, life and for the prosperity of individuals and societies and for Europe as a whole. Presenting an outlook into the scenarios of different policies and actions, the author pleads for for cognitive opennenss in determining what is, under different contexts and boundary conditions, truly responsible and, thus, sustainable. For all of Europe. And for the world.