|
|
|
Map of Africa Map of Europe Map of Middle East |
Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/03
Different Concepts, Different Approaches, Prospects for Building a Common Language
June 2002
Abstract
What prevails in Europe today is a culture of peace and co-operation. This state of affairs is relatively new in its history. It is the product, first, of the objective conditions for peace and co-operation that emerged after the Second World War and, second, of the Western victory at the end of the Cold War. The killings and destruction of the Second World War made European nationalism collapse. The overwhelming threat from the Soviet Union was key in triggering European integration and establishing an intra-European state of democratic peace. Finally, the victorious end of the Cold War is now allowing for integration and democratic peace to be strengthened and enlarged by the inclusion of the European East in that process.
This culture of peace has succeeded in Europe not because of its inner rationality or an inner European cultural propensity to develop such culture. Nor did it because of the handfuls of idealists and liberals who supported it. Its success has definitely took advantage of the factors just mentioned about, especially from European “prophets”. However, it was made possible essentially by the emergence of favourable environmental conditions, i.e. an economic, social, cultural, and political context fitting with the development of a culture of peace.
