When philosophical reflection on man and nature began in ancient Greece, one of the aspects that occupied the attention of philosophers was life in society and the peculiarities of the political organization of human communities.. Likewise, the fact that they were doomed to continuous conflicts, either internal or with respect to other communities, drew attention.. At the same time, a desire was recognized in man to live in peace, a situation that could only be enjoyed exceptionally.. In Roman mythology, the two-faced god Janus represented, among other things, this impossible-to-solve dilemma: he was invoked at the start of a war and invited to dwell among the Romans for as long as it lasted, keeping the doors of his temple open, that were closed once the war ended.
Cervantes also warned us about the paradoxical condition of human nature in Don Quixote, when he compared the friendship between Rocinante and Sancho Dapple with that of humans: “There is no friend for a friend: reeds become spears.”. Al Mutanabbi, the greatest Arab poet of all time, had already written in the 10th century about reeds and spears, in a much more pessimistic way due to the ineluctability of his judgment: “Every time a reed grows / man puts on its tip an iron”. Every invention also has a perverse use, tending to ensure the control of others for their own benefit, ultimately resorting to violence if necessary.. Any promise of progress was thus questioned by the evolution of the destructive uses that the new technologies also brought with them.. The history of Humanity can be read as a constant succession of violent behaviors exercised by the majority towards the minority, in increasingly serious and destructive forms until culminating in war.. There are numerous examples of how those who made up the minority, once in power, proceeded to inflict on the subjugated the same treatment as they suffered in their day..
The violent spiral met its historical apotheosis in World War II. The world was close to the abyss of self-destruction, and from that awareness were born some of the institutions that have tried to reverse the violent tendency of Humanity: the United Nations, whose founding charter proscribed war, unless it was authorized by the Council of Security or acting in legitimate defense; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the institutionalization of interreligious dialogue. In Europe, the first responsible and main war scene of the Second World War, initiatives were adopted that would radically change the historical dynamics on the continent: the Council of Europe and, above all, the European Economic Community, transformed into the European Union in 1993.
I do not want to nor can I appear Eurocentric. Our continent has given ample evidence throughout its history of excelling in violent actions. Which is all the more surprising since its double heritage, Greco-Roman and Christian, presaged a radical change by virtue of its second element: in front of the iron in the cane, the offering of the second cheek; against the warrior ethic, the one inspired by the beatitudes. But, let's face it, Europe did not live up to the demands imposed by its Christian inspiration. The official status of the Christian religion according to the Nicene dogma by Emperor Theodosius I launched a process that would lead to making warrior saints. For every Francis of Assisi there were 100 Torquemadas. And the evangelization of the rest of the world was accompanied by abuse and violence. But let's put things in perspective: other civilizations have not offered edifying examples as a whole either, although, of course, individual examples worthy of imitation have abounded, as in Europe..
And it is that the irrepressible trend in pursuit of power over others, including violence to achieve it, is something inherent in our nature. I speak indistinctly of men and women, recognizing that it has been men who bear the main responsibility for this violent bias in our history, and that the incorporation of women into the public sphere after the Second World War has transformed the situation. But we must not become complacent and think that feminism alone will reverse the trend: there is more that unites than differentiates men and women, who also make up society in equal parts.. The key is to establish a system of controls and counterweights (checks and balances) in any instance of power, but mainly in political power, which avoids authoritarian drifts in which the worst of human nature comes out..
Europe offers in its history some interesting examples. For example, the Holy Roman Empire established a complex governance full of checks and balances: that of the electing princes against the Emperor, or that of the Pope and the Imperial Church against the Emperor and the secular lords, or, in its last centuries, two courts competent for the entire imperial territory. The Republic of Venice also established a complex institutional system in which different institutions, independent of each other, mutually limited each other.. It is no coincidence that both had known a long life, a millennium in the case of the Holy Empire and something more in the case of Venice.. The nation states that killed one and the other were, for a time, the best antidote to the preponderance of one over the rest.. The so-called balance of powers, the cornerstone of British diplomacy on the continent, sums up this principle well, which broke significantly with Napoleon Bonaparte, and definitively with Hitler..
Never, in the political history of Humanity, has there been a “so benign empire”, to use the expression used by Ropert Kaplan in his book Adriatic, as the European Union: imperial in its dimension, but benign due to the multiple constraints it incorporates to prevent the power of a few. And here it is necessary to mention not only the institutional complexity of the EU, which leads non-European leaders to lament for not having a single telephone number to call, but also, and mainly, the Member States that make it up. These are an essential part of the institutional framework of the EU, which did not come to overcome them, but to eliminate the edges of unbridled competition, to establish positive competition or emulation. The principle of subsidiarity is, for these purposes, as important as that of the primacy of Community law.
We thought that with the European Union we had found the ultimate triaca of perpetual peace: not only had we banished war as a method of dispute resolution from its bosom, but the formula could be exported to the rest of humanity. It led by example: the way in which the European Union related to third States was through trade and cooperation agreements. It also encouraged regional unions, with the incentive to sign agreements with the whole rather than with the unit. At the same time, a culture of universal respect for human rights was promoted and the strength of civil society among its partners was strengthened.. They acted from the conviction that the interrelation through the creation of a network of shared interests would end up creating urbi et orbi the conditions for perpetual peace to take root everywhere.. And, in its immediate neighbourhood, the prospect of accession, as in the Western Balkans or the countries bordering the Black Sea, had the potential to transform the dynamics at play..
We Europeans are living in a time of loss of innocence, for at least three reasons. Firstly, the European Union has failed in its attempt to export its model of peaceful cooperation to the southern neighbourhood.. In part, due to its own mistakes or, rather, those of some of its Member States, which maintain intact powers in matters of security and defense: the fiasco of the Iraq war, and the interventions in Libya and Syria, have not brought more stability and prosperity, but on the contrary. And partly because within the Arab-Muslim world an ideology was born, that of jihadism, with which it is impossible to find common ground, making any negotiating approach sterile..
Second, the war in Ukraine has shown us that armies and weapons will remain vital for defensive purposes, as long as other actors continue to embrace violence and war as a means to resolve differences..
And, finally, because jihadism and the Russian threat are joined by the Sino-American rivalry that emerged from the strength of China. The combination of these three elements has spelled the end of the peace dividend that brought the end of the Cold War.. Not only will it have to increase the defense spending of the Member States – it is already doing so – but the EU itself has begun to finance it from its budget, something that until recently seemed unthinkable.
Juno is back in the news. The more realistic aspiration has become that the doors of their temple will be closed for as long as possible and that, in the long run, Humanity will succeed in shutting them forever, a goal that has not been achieved for the time being.
*Juan González-Barba Pera is ambassador of Spain to Croatia.
