DAY 220 - ALL ONE: 19.8 MILES (37,600 STEPS)

29 November, 2011

Le pont de l’Europe (The Bridge of Europe across the Rhine connecting Strasbourg, France and Kehl, Germany)

19.8 miles (Total: 2177 miles) –37,600 steps (Total: 4,663,001 steps)

There is a debate within analysis of international relations, as to what is the best lens through which to view peoples and nations—is it political, political economic, social (cultural/religious), socio-economic or is it geo-political (politics and the economics are defined by the geographic space which the subject occupies).

Don’t go to switch the kettle on at this point, stick with me a little longer if you can……

You see we like to believe that the world is divided up into certain tribes.  That each tribe is unique. That tribes can be good and bad. That the success of certain tribes can be explained by their intrinsic values and aptitudes. That each successful tribe believes that if only every other tribe would have their values and aptitudes, then peace and prosperity would be assured. I have to say that my experience of this walk from Greece, through the Balkans and now into France and Germany suggests that, to use a technical term, this is ‘complete bunkum’.

All tribes are a human construct that serve the prejudice of the people and the interests of their leaders. All people are the same and have simply adapted to the environment they have found themselves in and that our institutions, values and aptitudes owe themselves to our experience of history and that our experience of history is shaped by our geographic environment.   Let me explain a little…..

Why is it that Switzerland has produced scores of successful downhill skiers and Saudi Arabia hasn’t? Why is it that Saudi Arabia is a global centre for the petroleum industry and not the hydro-electric industry and in Switzerland it is the other way around? Why is it that Britain excelled at shipbuilding and navigation of the oceans and Switzerland did not?  Keep going if you wish, but I really happened upon this point in two parts:

First, when I travelled through the Balkans I was invariably told as I was about to leave the territory of one tribe, that I would need to take care when entering the territory of the neighbouring tribe, because “they couldn’t be trusted,” “I would be mugged,” “they would be hostile” and they were “terrible drivers.” I walked through six countries in the Balkans and, to be quite frank, I couldn’t tell the difference: I received wonderful welcomes from Bosniak Muslims, Catholic Croatians, Orthodox Serbians and Romany gypsies, which is stretching the point because most of the time I didn’t have a clue what their background was, they were just fellow human beings and the vast majority responded kindly to a stranger whose background they did not know and a few not so. I witnessed no difference in the quality of driving, though there was difference in the quality of the roads. I felt no more or less at risk in Tirana or Mostar, than I did in Rome or Geneva. Sure people dressed differently, the buildings were different and so were the designs of clothes, but people were the same.

Now does this mean that the people who warned me of the traits of their neighbours lacked intelligence or morality?  No, they just lacked the experience of encountering people from that community. Divided communities allow people to build up grotesque caricatures of their neighbours unchallenged by human experience; consider East and West Belfast, East and West Jerusalem.  However, there is hope; consider East and West Berlin, when the wall came down so did the fear and prejudice.

Am I saying there are no differences at all?  Of course not, but these are not national or ethnic or racial or economic, these are familial. Just as on any given street or in any given school you might find that the ‘Smiths were good at sport,’ ‘the Macgregors were good at maths, and ‘the Kelly’s were good at music’ these are simply a reflection of a physical or mental aptitude or talent, but we wouldn’t think of claiming that one familial pre-disposition in one area made it superior to others. Everyone has a talent for something and that the only tragedy is that in many homes and schools that talent remains undiscovered because people have spent so much time concentrating on the talents of others, that they haven’t got round to discovering the talents they do have.

Second, when I walked across the north of Italy from Trieste to Milan, I was struck how prosperous this part of the world was and how it had been a favoured region for exploration, innovation, art and culture for at least a thousand years. I then looked at the landscape—vast fertile plains irrigated by abundant supplies of fresh water from the Dolomites and the Alps. Venice and Trieste were fantastic ports tucked well away from potential invaders at the top of the Adriatic, requiring navigation of the thousands of Dalmatian islands to be reached. Behind them the Alps and the Dolomites provided a natural ‘gated community’ in which people could live and prosper. So you had perfect conditions for production of goods and perfect outlets for the trade of goods. Shock—northern Italy becomes one of the wealthiest places on the planet and intellectuals, artists and merchants flock to it so that they can flourish in a secure and free environment, but had Southern Sudan had found itself with such a favourable and fertile environment then of course it would have flourished too.

An orphan adopted at birth from one of the poorest communities on the planet and put into a secure and loving home in Oxfordshire where they attend a world class prep-school, top public school might just end up attending an Oxbridge college and securing a materially successful career in the professions and an orphan adopted from Oxfordshire and raised in one of the poorest communities on the planet, may not.

My conclusion is therefore that people are the same, defined only by the relative success with which they have managed to adapt to the environment in which they have found themselves and how that geography has shaped their history. That people want to believe that their success, or lack of it, is a result of their values, or their neighbours lack of them, their strength, their political leaders and their divine favour are led astray by Darwin’s belief that there higher and lower orders of human beings which has been exploited by racists, aristocrats and religious authorities as they seek to galvanise popular support.

No we are all the same and our value and worth comes not from the fact that we may be a member of one family or another, one nation or another, one religion or another.  No our value and worth are because we are human. That is why the democracy of the Greeks went with the grain of humanity because it recognised for the first time that leaders should not be ‘appointed by the gods’, but elected by the people. That is why we are all equal before the law and we stand before it not as representatives of a gender, race, or nation, but as individuals subject to the law and at the same time responsible through democracy for making the law. That is why the early followers of Jesus were so radical and so right when they declared that there was ‘no male or female, no Jew of Greek, no slave or free’ (Gal: 3:28)—we are all one.

So I arrive on the  Le pont de l’Europe the point between Strasbourg and Kehl and stand with one foot in France and the other in Germany. The view of Europe from the Bridge of Europe is very different than that which I had experienced growing up in the in the north east of England. From there, Europe seemed very remote and slightly pointless, more irritating than inspiring.  Well here we go again – could it just be that if the fault line of Europe which had cost millions of lives ran down the middle of the Tyne rather than the Rhine, I might take a slightly different view? Why? If geography had meant that my home town had changed nationality four times in a hundred years and with appalling violence and loss of life, I may just think that the current arrangement where there is free movement and integration of peoples across the Rhine and between the German and French nations, is one which works pretty well; it keeps the peace which maintains prosperity.

Of course, prosperity is the key.  If that magic glue disappears from Europe, then there may be a different story to tell. So when German and French leaders gathered in Strasbourg this week to flesh out a game plan for keeping Europe a float, they were galvanised in their considerations by the fact that they knew what failure could mean for this city and their nations. In the UK we should not sneer at that because we know exactly the same to be true in Northern Ireland and that why we willingly plough billions into the province to keep it from retreating behind the bombs and bullets of the terrorists. We should extend the same courtesy, understanding and support to other members of our European family and respect that geography means that the European institutions we mock from the other side of the channel don’t look quite so ridiculous viewed from the other side of the Rhine.

Well, what do I know?

Answer, a little more than I did a year ago.