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Comment by blocked_again | Hacker News Reader

India does this already. With 3x more population and probably has much more diversity and cultural differences than EU.

India and USA are often cites as examples of federations than EU should look to implement but that comparison is not valid.

The US were a blank page, with roughly the same crowd starting with the same common goal and aspirations. Europe comes with 15centuries of nationlike structures and history. Latin and AngloSaxons have very different approaches on life and work (particularly visible in the “PIGS” recent controversy...).

As someone said, you cant make the european omelette with nations hard boiled eggs.

The mere facts that the euro bank notes has zero european symbol (because they couldnt find one) speaks for itself. So they put bridges and windows... India has Gandhi.

Both India and the US also had their bloody moments to make it happen, in the Partition (and then Bangladesh Liberation War) and Civil War respectively.

True, but there have been many attempts to create Europe in the past, the 3rd Reich being one of them, Napoleon, and others before. Europhiles dont like that reminder but people at the time used the same rethoric of “building the great Europe”, “nations are too old etc”, I can give you references of actual political figures of the 30s and 40s who had that speech and led their country to collaboration with the nazis in the name of “Europe”.

> I can give you references of actual political figures of the 30s and 40s who had that speech and led their country to collaboration with the nazis in the name of “Europe”.

I would love to (interested in the topic)

Check out a guy called Laval in france, leader of collaboration, with his famous speech “i wish germany’s victory”.

First national exhibition hosted by the Vichy government during occupation: “la France europeenne”. Showing maps of future europe, where nation-states would have disappeared.

French far-right at the time was also calling England, “the enemy of europe”, for instance on a book from M. Déat, another politica leader from the 40s.

I think those comparisons are unhelpful. The idea of closer integrity in Europe is not what is unsavoury in those examples, it is the manner in which it was attempted. The EU is an attempt at democratic and mutually agreed union, celebrating differences. Napoleon and the third reich were conquest, bloodshed and forced change.

I think that's partly parent's point: that integration between disparate cultures has mostly been (and maybe can only be) accomplished with force and bloodshed, however high minded the ideals might seem to its drivers.

And in contrast, this thread's point: that attempts to unify disparate cultures via democracy and mutual agreement, celebrating differences, have difficulties and failures when constituents decide to abandon good faith.

Agreed, but it's not like europe was all nation-centric politics before. Europe was divided into provinces within empires. Ottoman, Russian, Austro Hungarian... most of Europe was part of a multinational empire, most of the time.

The idea that nation states are old, and multinationalism is new is fallacious. It's only post WWII that borders, political control, and ethnic homogeneity are strongly national... Yugoslavia being the most recent example.

> Latin and AngloSaxons have very different approaches

"Anglo-Saxons" are not part of the federation anymore, and stuff like "PIGS" is simply casual racism. Do Northern European countries have a casual-racism problem? Very much so. Would that stop a federation from working in the long run? I doubt it very much. Otherwise Texas and New Jersey would have parted ways a long time ago.

By that logic India and Pakistan should also merge.

No your logic was it's not possible to have a country with so much diversity. I just showed a counter example.

I know very little about history of India or the culture, but I guarantee you that creating such entity would result in a civil war, demonstrated throughout European history.

Yeah. I also don't think it's probably a good idea for the EU to become a country. Countries have a lot more power, autonomy etc which states lack. I think the current system of EU is pretty good.

You are comparing uncomparable, the population of India and EU are composed of very different people with different mindsets, expectations, opinions. Indians are generally much more docile (spent 6 months backpacking all around that place, it is really different in this regard).

Also, comparing diversity is tricky - natives from Lappland have 0 in common with say Greek or Spaniards. Same would go for india's extremes, its rather impossible to say who is more different (personally I would still say Europe, since ways of life are almost the same if you look on India east, south, north, west, very similar cuisine etc... not so much in Europe).

We have proven track of how it doesn't work here in Europe, no need to spin another set of wars to re-confirm it.

Also, India sees quite a bit of domestic terrorism in its eastern parts exactly due to mindsets like yours. Not something we like to see here in Europe.

I never said EU should become a country. I just showed an example of a country with more population and more or less the same diversity which made it work. Obviously there are pros and cons with both approaches. And I think EU is better off the way it is now.

Indian content has a very long history of common governance in the region and very few opportunities for clear cut delineation. A few, but not many.

The world's second largest standing army that can be called to crush insurgencies also helps.

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