Back the Future? – What is Europe for in the 21st Century?

0:00Craving the coffee flavor you love, but without the caffeine, Kachava's got you covered with their newest coffee flavor. This all-in-one nutrition shake delivers bold, authentic flavor, crafted from premium, decaffeinated Brazilian beans, with 25 grams of protein, six grams of fiber, greens, and so much more. Treat yourself to the flavor and nutrition your body craves. Go to kachava.com and use code fitness. New customers get 15% off their first order. That's K-A-C-H-A-V-A.com code fitness. Welcome to the bunker news without the nonsense. I'm Alex von Tonselman. When we talk about Europe, what do we mean? Are we discussing a geographical place, a political union, a shared history, or even a shared culture? Throughout its history, Europe has constantly been defined and redefined by its people,

1:01and it's also been buffeted by forces from outside, as well as in. That's in sharp relief today with the Russian invasion of Ukraine entering its fourth year, and the United States proving an inconstant ally over Greenland, possibly even a belligerent. From some viewpoints, Europe might seem to be in crisis. From others, it's more closely unified than at many points in history, with close political, diplomatic, military, and economic cooperation between much of the continent. Any alliance can fall apart, but sometimes under pressure, they become much stronger. The last year has given a boost to Vladimir Putin's favored concept of how the world should work. The United States, Russia, and China each exercising authority in its separate sphere. That would carve Europe up again into East and West, similar to its division during the Cold War. But there are signs Europe is fighting back, and coming to understand what it needs to do to remain independent and free. So do we need to think again about what Europe means,

2:03and what we have historically got wrong about it? To discuss these questions and more, I'm joined by Professor Sir Roderick Beaton, author of Europe and New History. Roderick, thank you so much for joining me on the bunker. Well, thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure. Well, let's start, you know, kind of where we are now. In the aftermath of the Second World War and the decline of the British Empire, Europe formed a union. Now that union is in question, not just after Brexit, which we'll come to, but with Russian aggression from the East and the United States doing whatever the heck it's doing in the West. What is Europe today, and what does it stand for? Well, I mean, what Europe is, to my mind, is the sum total of two and a half thousand years of recorded history. And thanks to written records, you know, we know what people in this part of the world have been doing and thinking, who have provided a continuous record from ancient Greek to ancient Latin, you know, right through to today. And I think one of the things we can learn from that is that the people who have lived on this promontory that sticks out from the great land

3:06mass of Asia behind it into the seas. The people who have lived in this promontory have always in one way or another thought of themselves as something distinctive. What that something is is constantly in flux and equally where the boundaries of that promontory in geography lie has just as much been in flux. Because Europe is surrounded by sea on three sides, but the fourth side, the one that's contested at the moment towards Asia, it's a good wide open and it always has been. And looking at that shape of Europe today, does that sort of geography and those echoes of history that you've talked about, does that form European identity today, do you think? Well, that's the basis of it. To my mind, you know, the identity is based on, it's a geographical space, but not a fixed one. It's an accumulation of historical experience, knowledge, activity, culture. Today, I think we can say fairly uncontroversially that European identity

4:09crystallizes around three basic values. One is the rule of law. The second is the recognition of human rights, that is, of the status and the importance of every living human individual and thirdly democracy. And actually, personally, myself looking at the history of Europe, I would put them in that order. Because democracy is actually quite a, well, it's an early cover. The ancient Greeks had famously invented it two and a half thousand years ago, but it didn't, it didn't work terribly well in the ancient world. It didn't stick around. Well, it stuck around quite a long time, but it was always controversial and then it disappeared for a good two thousand years. And really, there was very little democracy in modern Europe until 1918. So you could say that democracy has always been a bit kind of, you know, a bit kind of on the edge. It's controversial in Europe. But the second one, what we now call human rights, I think one can, I mean, they have rather precise and now legal definitions, but they can be traced back to a longer evolution of ideas about the human person, about human identity, which begin with the

5:12ancient Greeks, the discovery of philosophy and of the individual. And the fact, you know, we each individually experience the world in which we live. And that philosophical understanding was given a huge extension development by the arrival of Christianity, which really enormously, you know, the Christian idea that, you know, every individual is endowed with a soul by God. And therefore, every, you know, every individual is at least in theory, both equal and infinitely precious. Now, I mean, the history of Christianity doesn't necessarily bear that out in practice, but it's part of the theory. And therefore part of the inheritance of modern Europe. But for me, probably the most important of all is the rule of law, because that is fundamental today. And it's fundamental to all the European democracies to much of what we call the West, though dare I say with a huge question mark over our great ally, the United States of America. But the rule of law

6:13and the idea that every individual is equal before a legal system that is drawn up by, by fellow humans and literally written in stone in the old, in the very old days, you know, that idea goes back to the ancient Greeks. It's bringing out to those ideas you talked about about those shared values. Let's talk about the idea of creating Europe as a united political entity. Now, of course, this is something that grew out of the Second World War. And you actually call the two world wars, effectively forms of Europe-wide civil war. What happened in the aftermath of those wars, do you think, to prompt this sort of this idea that unity might be a new thing to try? I mean, I'm not the first person to argue that the two world wars were civil wars. And I remember, actually, it was a student in Cambridge. I remember the great professor of comparative literature, George Steiner. He was the first person I remember who, you know, I was shocked, you know, the Second World War, civil war. And that idea has always stayed with me since. But certainly,

7:13if you look at Europe as a whole, as I insist on doing in my book, then there's no other way of seeing those wars. It's European continent, simply tearing itself apart. And because the consequences of these two world wars, one upon the other, was so devastating, it was the, in the fallout, who was putting together the pieces after that, that all of these things that we were talking about just now really, really came together. But I think it's more two things. I mean, one, that connection of things, that rule of law and human rights and democracy, you can trace those as central values back to the 18th century. And I would argue that the enlightenment of the 18th century is really the basis for the dominant collective identity of Europe today. But the other thing was that in the context of the time, they were really quite new as a way of actually organizing things. And they were, you know, the exact opposite of what the Nazis had tried to do during the Second World War. And of course, the first world war again, I mean, it was about the

8:18attempt to impose, well, among other things, it was an attempt to impose autocracy on people who didn't want to be ruled in that way. So the alternative, why do we all come back together as one happy family? I mean, that idea has been around since at least the 17th century. It's had a very jacked history, but we're still doing our best. And there's an old kind of idea that actually this possibility of some sort of political union in the 20th century, at least, you know, whether it's the European community, economic community, the European union, and so on, is a mechanism to contain Germany, you know, which of course, if we go back to those wars, was seen as really, you know, the starting point for those huge fractures. On the other hand, we certainly have talked about figures like Conrad Adenau, the Chancellor of West Germany, were very key in creating European unity as we know it. How do you think this balance of power has played out in Europe? Ever since the Second World War, there's been this huge tension or a

9:19movement, if you like, to draw Europe together, to heal the rifts of the past, to create something bigger and better. And there's also been a harking back, a kind of atavistic looking back over the shoulder. And good heavens, we have enough of it in this country. I mean, just how much of even younger generations today, they're still brought up on the Second World War, and the heroics are fighting against the, you know, the hunt, the German Nazis and so on. You know, can't we get over that? And a lot of modern European politics has still been about the jockeying proposition between one nation and another. But if you look at the geopolitical world of the 21st century, I mean, that's just so old hat. There is no hope for Europe, if it continues, to kind of each nation, each state fighting its own corner. And many of these nations and many of these states are not even very old anyway. Europeans have a far longer tradition of, you know, they're always fought amongst themselves, but they've also had a far longer tradition of belonging to the same

10:20broad culture than they have of, you know, the current map of Europe, which really begins in as recently as 1918. And also, there seems to be a political entity that is to some people very attractive. I mean, despite Brexit, of course, the borders of political Europe seem to be expanding, particularly kind of Balkan and Baltic countries being keen to kind of get closer to Europe. And of course, you know, the question of Ukraine, can Europe do you think incorporate more and more countries like these? I mean, obviously there might be limits at some point, you know, but how much of that is a kind of cultural, political, economic challenge and how much is an opportunity? Yes, I mean, one of the things that fascinated me during the 90s and the 2000s, while these things were happening, was that at the very same time that countries like Yugoslavia were breaking apart, and there was such a strong backlash, particularly in Britain, you know, against the developing European Union. But everybody who was outside of that union were banking on the doors. They wanted

11:21to get in. It was only the insiders. It was, you know, asked on the inside who really complained about it. You know, there's a paradox that I've never really got to the bottom of it, you know, in Yugoslavia, former Yugoslavia, for best part of 10 years in the 90s, you know, people killed one another, the horrific massacres and so on, for what they call, you know, what they called ethnic self-determination. But every one of those eight, I think it is, successful states that came out of the break up of Yugoslavia, half of them are in the European Union, and the other half are banking on the door desperate to get in. So you know, sooner break free of one kind of larger state, then you suddenly want to give away that sovereignty again in order to be part of them, even bigger one. And I think actually probably those East Europeans were onto something at the time that we in the West were a bit too complacent to realize, because those people had always been closer to Russia. And the risk that, you know, the Russians actually might just take the opportunity to see how before moving again, that risk is always there. So the idea of building up the European Union

12:26as a bulwark against Russia is something a way of, for those people who are defining themselves in a way that is different from, you know, the Russian political system, as it isn't in a given time, that I think is a very important, you know, resource for them. Now the EU is hardly the first attempt of some sort of European Union issues you've just hinted. I mean, you know, you couldn't, and you do in the book look at all sorts of other movements, say, you know, the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon, the concert of Europe, which we should explain to listeners is not the Eurovision song contest, it's actually, it's a diplomat agreement that came out of the Congress of Vienna. And what's so difficult about bringing the concert together, given that there are shared values? Well, if I could answer that one, you know, wouldn't it be nice to have a continent, a united continent? It'd be so much better than a book, but the best I could be was to write a book about it. But what do you think? I mean, there are clearly these, there is an urge. There is an urge. At the end of the book. Indeed. And at the end of the book, I mean, I do just a

13:27little bit in a bit that I actually, I added just before the final, final proofs went to press. And I said, actually, in early 2026, you know, is it possible that actually Europeans in the face of the might of Russia, the United States, China could actually agree to sink their differences, draw on the common resources that they have that unite them over two and a half thousand years, and actually become motivated by the same kind of collective impulse as generated the huge momentum towards nations and nationalism in the 19th of the 20th centuries. And I did dare to suggest, you know, if that could happen, it wouldn't be the giant superstate that, you know, you're a skeptics dread, and great, it's kind of bogeyman. What about something more like a super nation? And what might be wrong with that? You know, couldn't we do something like that? Sounds quite nice. I mean, you say in the book that skepticism or rejection of today's European institutions can't do away with Europe itself. Now, obviously not geographically, but actually the

14:31idea of Europe, I think is what you're really getting out there beyond just the sort of geographical entity. I'm afraid we must talk about it. Is Brexit something of historical significance, do you think, or is it just one more eddie in the inevitable flow of European integration, disintegration that goes on throughout modern history? What do I think about Brexit? It's probably actually too early to say. I think it, I actually think it has damaged Europe as a whole in the sensitivities. It's certainly damaged the European Union. It's served the obvious political interests of Putin's Russia. And more increasingly evidently, the commercial struck geopolitical interests of America as we see it today. I mean, there's no accident that, you know, the current president of America was allowed opponent of the European Union and allowed proponent of Brexit. So it has been in the interests of some outside powers to weaken Europe in that way. But has

15:31Europe been weakened? Well, you know, one thing we can see is that no other state has shown any signs of wishing to leave the European Union. And I mean, the EU now has an awkward squat that is a great deal, more awkward even than we have. But even the worst of them, you know, they're not actually threatening to leave. It's very hard to tell how this will go. Sometimes, I mean, I even wonder, which is nothing to do with Brexit really, but maybe, you know, are the institutions of the EU, which move at kind of dinosaur pace, as we know, are these actually going to be the basis of a kind of future supernation that I was talking about just now? Could it be that actually other factors are going to come into play? I mean, I'm very struck that 10 years ago, you know, it was us and them. Europe was somewhere else. Now, every day and every paper, you know, right wing, whatever, you know, we're talking about the defence of Europe. And proudly, you know,

16:32Britain is proposing to play a leading part in that. Hang on, you know, is this Europe we left? What were we thinking of? But I just, you know, maybe it's not quite that same Europe. And it may be that through those defence agreements, through other unsholy things like, you know, restoring youth movement, the Erasmus programme, enabling young people to move and travel and study. Maybe there's a kind of, you know, a popular ground swell, actually, to bring Europe together. With its two juicy beef patties and three slices of melted cheese topped with tangy big arch sauce, the big arch is what happens when you start making a McDonald's burger and never stop. The big arch, the most McDonald's McDonald's burger yet for a limited time. Let's look at another controversial issue, which, you know, is perhaps a divisive issue in Europe. Immigration, you've already touched on this, about migration, that historically,

17:33Europe's actually always had a highly geographically and socially mobile population, you know, in some ways, measurably more than in a lot of the rest of the world. Is Europe now a kind of more diverse place than ever, or has it always been like this? Or do you think people are actually kind of digging in more to a kind of more fixed concept of what being European is? Well, the fixed concept we had in its most stark and horrifying version in the 1930s. Of course. Where the German Nazis declared that, you know, there was such a thing as an Aryan race and that people who did not belong to that Aryan race were genetically, biologically inferior. Now, the science, or rather pseudo science behind that belongs actually to the 19th century, but it had already been pretty thoroughly exploded by the time of Hitler. And, you know, nobody believes the word of it. Now, the relation between genetic inheritance and the acquisition of culture, the way people change and develop as they move around the world,

18:36is far better understood now. And nobody seriously believes there is such a thing as a sort of originary, indigenous European race. And there couldn't be because, you know, humans have all been Africa. So we're all immigrants. And probably the first Europeans actually were the Andertals. Ever since the Andertals, movements of people have come into Europe, mainly by land and to a small extent by sea, mainly from the east, they've come into Europe, they've settled, they've made some kind of accommodation with those who were there before. And all these races, if you want to call them that, all these groups of people, the cultures they brought with them, they met and they mingle the inter-bred. And if you like, you know, Europeans as a whole are an inter-makeship. And that, you know, that was even before European started exploring and then conquering, you know, a lot of the rest of the world. And, you know, as I write in the book, you know, after we went out to explore and conquer, et cetera, quite understandably and inevitably,

19:37the rest of the world came to us too. So yes, we are more culturally, and I suppose, you know, racially, genetically diverse than we ever were. But you asked about immigration. And, you know, let's not get immigration wrong. First thing is we're all immigrants. So there's nothing new about immigration. And the other thing about immigration today is that whether it's small boats across the channel or bigger boats across the Mediterranean, compared to the migrations that we know about in historical time and further back in prehistory, the numbers as a proportion of the total already here are minjusku. I mean, this is, it's a tiny problem. You know, it exists. It's happening. It requires some kind of response. But compared to what happened in history, it's tiny. Where there is an issue, and we don't, I think, know how to respond to it, it's not about people moving. It's about their culture. We know from archaeology and from written records and from,

20:37you know, the whole story of conversion to Christianity, for example, all the people who moved into Europe over these millennia, they became European. That is, they adopted a way of life. And the set of values that went with it that were already there before them. You know, exactly what these were. We're different at different times for a long time. It was becoming Christians. Today, I would argue it's not about Christianity. It's about those values we were talking about earlier. So the rule of law, human rights, democracy. So historically, it would appear that, you know, no matter how many millions even come into Europe, provided they're happy to buy into that system, that way of thinking, they ought to be welcome and become as good Europeans as European as any. And just like those before them, they are the side of that. They think of themselves as Europeans. Well, I think there is an issue, and it's certainly being politically manipulated at the moment, is it true that there are communities within our broadest European society where people actively resist becoming European? You know,

21:44you think of jihadist cells. You know, we discovered in 2005 that there were actually people who had grown up in Luton, I think it was, you know, who had prepared to blow themselves up in the cause of jihad. So to that extent, they were rejecting their British and European identity. So if there's a problem, it seemed to me it's that problem. It's reaching those people who've come to Europe, who may resist or may not want to acculturate to European values. And to what extent that is a problem, I just don't know. And might we not equally say there's just as much, if not possibly, more of a problem, with people who are European for many centuries back who are kind of joining a far right, but also rejects those values that you talk about of the rule of law, human rights and democracy, that actually there's quite a big rejection of that on me. Should we say the kind of white nationalists and, you know, European far right and terrorist

22:46fringes as well? Absolutely, no. I mean, we know when I heard that speech by the American Vice President a year ago, I'm talking about European values being subverted and it lost its soul and so on. And that rather shocking document that came out of the White House back in December laying down the law of what the Americans currently think Europe ought to be. You know, my first thought is, well, actually some of the worst offenders, some of the most un-European people, people we, you know, we really could do without it away. Alas, those who turn against their very own values and, you know, are reverting to some of the, you know, whether they realize it or not, they're reverting to some of the atavistic, exclusionist views of the past. And I think there's really no place for that way of that kind of racist thinking in the world of the 21st century. Now, when we're looking to the future, what are the important lessons you think we can take

23:47from this, you know, storied, complicated, back and forth European past to handle what looks now like a, you know, a pretty uncertain future to a lot of people. Well, it is an uncertain future. And, you know, I started writing this book within days of the Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine. You know, I've been thinking about it for a while, but, you know, suddenly that really brought it all together. And I thought, right, that's where this story starts. And indeed, that is where my book starts in 24th of February 2022. And, you know, I've only very recently finished it. And that war is still going on. In a way, the whole book that I was writing during the Ukrainian war is my attempt to reconfigure a sense of who we are as Europeans, what we can draw from two and a half thousand years of our shared history that will precisely help us to understand and to make preparations for a newly emerging world in which it really does. As you say, look, as though Europe is going to have to stand on its own

24:50two feet. And indeed, it's high time. High time it did. It has done in the past. It surely can do again. But, you know, we all as Europeans, and whoever, wherever they are, wants to buy into this broader idea of Europe, they really, you know, now is the time to take stock of who we are, how we got there. And I'd like to think that my book is at least an attempt to help people along that way. What gives you hope? I'm an optimist. And I actually ended my book by saying, various terrible things could happen. We could be broken up by outside powers. I drew a comparison between the ancient Greek city states, which are always fighting among themselves, tying in little polities, but they were fighting among themselves. And so they got swallowed up by others, others bigger than themselves. That could so easily happen to the nation states of modern, modern Europe. But you look at the history, look at the long story of the past, look what happened before, you know, the Greeks were attacked from across the sea by the Persians from Asia,

25:54they pushed them back. 100 years after, 150 years after that, a Greek leader went the other way and conquered the whole Persian Empire. Who could have imagined that might have happened? It was David and Goliath. But, you know, David, not only, you know, he got the bad guy, but he actually conquered the whole, he turned into the new Goliath. And, you know, in the same way, the way that Christianity from, you know, it's obscure, small beginnings in Judea, just in one Roman province, and he'd outside Europe altogether, came to give not just a world religion, but a whole way of organizing society and politics that really defined Europe for almost 2000 years. So, to my mind, history is about unintended consequences. It's about the unexpected history to my mind is full of surprises. So, to that extent, yes, I'm optimistic. Professor Roderick Beaton, thank you so much for joining me on the bunker. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. And do tell the listeners, just give them a quick reminder of the book. My pleasure to do so, yes, the book is called Europe, a new

26:55history is published by Alan Lane Penguin, and it is our hope available in every good book shop. It's an incredibly good read. Thank you so much. And there is a buy link for the book in these show notes. Now, here at the bunker, we want to keep giving you information that keeps you in the loop and well informed. So, if you like what we do and want us to keep going, why not back us on Patreon? For as little as three quid a month, you'll get all our episodes first and add free, as well as access to our exclusive merchandise. Thank you very much for listening. I'm Alex Fontansell, and reporting from the bunker. The bunker was written and presented by Alex Fontansell. It was produced by Paul Masters' group editor, Andrew Harrison, and Sophie Clarke. The managing editor was Jacob Jarvis. Audio production was by Simon Williams, art by James Parrott, and music by Kenny Dickinson. The bunker is a Paul Masters production.