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Markus Soeder, Turkey, and the
Search for European Identity
"...The European Union is the de facto revivification of
the Roman Empire; no matter how one is ready to accept it and perceive it,
whatever Europe's historical references may be, the Eastern Roman Empire, the
Western Roman Empire, Justinian's Empire of Reconquista, Octavian's Empire
(still with some strong democratic features) or to Theodosius' Christian Empire
of Tyranny and Genocide, the European Union is the revivified Roman Empire.
The European Union relates to the Eastern Roman and the
Ottoman traditions of Nova Roma / Constantinople / Istanbul, to the Russian
tsarist ideals of Third Rome, and to the legends of the Holy Roman Empire of
the German Nation.
As all these imperial formations sought to resuscitate
the Universalist Dream of Alexander, the Macedonian Empire remains the ultimate
European point of reference to the Ancient Mediterranean world: all the Greeks,
except the Lacedemonian Spartans, were united under the non-Greek, Macedonian
scepter of the great conqueror, who was full of contempt for the mean, tiny
cities – states of the execrable, individualistic Greek microcosm of Athens,
Thebes, Argos, Corinth, and Sparta.
Imperium and Democracy can coexist.
A European Imperial Educational and Cultural reference
to Alexander does not consist in a threat for the Democratic Ideals and
Principles elaborated by modern European philosophers and intellectuals over
the past three centuries.
It would be a dramatic confusion to interpret the term
'imperial' as 'undemocratic' or 'totalitarian', although – it is true –
throughout many historical periods 'imperial' became synonym of the
'absolutist' and the 'cruel'.
At its original connotation, the 'imperial' does not
contradict but it rather corresponds to the Humanist ideals that were
elaborated in Renaissance Europe.
Imperium signifies ultimate peace, one country
encompassing a great number of communities and peoples sharing the same rights
and bearing the same responsibilities, all living in peace, one country with
citizens of varied origins and beliefs who all enjoy progress and prosperity
without borders separating one from another and generating wars and conflicts.
Drop Athens; Search for Persepolis, Jerusalem, Thebes,
Assyria, and Nineveh!
A Universal European Union, stretched from the Atlantic
to Tigris river, to Caucasus mountains, and – why not – to Vladivostok in the
northeastern confines of Asia would be the splendid materialization of the most
daring Vision of Alexander the Great.
As such it would lead us to the origins of his dream,
back to the Achaemenid Empire of Iran, when Cyrus the Great (Alexander kneeled
before his tomb at Pasargadae) was viewed as Messianic model by Deutero-Isaiah.
A Universal Europe will ultimately look to Sargonid
Assyria, when Sargon of Assyria (722 – 705 BCE) accepted in Nineveh the
preaching of Jonah and his great grandson Assurbanipal who was viewed by Esdras
as 'Great and Just'. On the other hand, Alexander had acceptted Assurbanipal as
the unsurpassed model of imperial and strategist achievement)
Similarly with the three
cases of Assurbanipal, Cyrus, and Alexander, and contrarily to the various
cases of the Epigones (the Seleucids, the Ptolemies and the Attalids), the
Romans, the Eastern Romans, and the Ottomans on one side and the Arsacid
Parthians, the Sassanid Persians, the Umayyad and the Abbasid dynasties, and
the Safevid Persians (under whom the Middle East was always divided), the
Ultimate European Union - as an accomplished Eurasian Empire - would consist in
a supreme universal achievement and would certainly incorporate the remaining
parts of the Middle East within its borders....”
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