Their History And The Lack Of Trust example essay topic

It appears that one of the greater obstacles keeping Europe, specifically Russia, from uniting is that Europeans seem to have a difficult time overlooking blemishes in their pasts. For example, people still question, current Russian President, Vladimir Putin's past in the KGB. Many Russians, along with other countries as well, question Putin's "soul" and character due to his involvement in the KGB many years before (Myers). If citizens within a country cannot come to terms with a person's past, how can forty individual countries be expected to overcome the negative events between one another in their pasts? This is just one example that shows how a country's past, whether a specific war or president, can impede Europe from unification. If people cannot get over another country's dark past, or remove a grudge from 5 centuries before, how do people expect them to unite to a single European Union?

I do not believe that we can expect that to happen easily, if at all, when multiple tragic histories exist in almost every country. According to Judt, many older Western Europeans would prefer to just forget about the past, wish that the negative events would just disappear, even though they hold no responsibility for what happened. He also mentioned that in a lot of aspects, Western Europe was reconstructed off of private and public denial. But Eastern Europe struggles from having too much of a memory and using the tragic events as weapons against one another.

For most ex-communist countries, their wars were civil, which makes it difficult because even after the war is fought and someone is the victor, the enemy still remains (Judt 171). Even though Russia is conforming to an unofficial "European standard" today, meaning democracy and a market economy, a lot of other countries do not willingly accepting them due to fear of the past repeating itself (essentially lack of trust in the Russian people). There continues to be a lack of trust between the various countries in Europe. There are many political and economic similarities between the European countries, but it appears that history is keeping Russia, and the rest of Europe, from uniting due to the lack of trust that history has created for the world.

A great statement by President Vladimir Putin of Russia, "We continue to quarrel about issues that still seem to us to be important but fail to see the new, real threats of today. We continue to live by the old system of values. We talk about partnership, but in practice we have not yet learned to trust each other-and without that atmosphere of trust, a united Greater Europe cannot exist" (Walker). As much as I would like for Europe to be united, and Russia to be a part of that unification, I just don't think it is going to happen as easily as everyone wants it to.

Since there is so much history in and between these various countries, it seems that their history, and the lack of trust it causes, is the obstacle that will keep them from unity. No matter what Russia says or does to be the ideal for the European Union, the fear of the past will keep the European Union from accepting Russia. Furthermore, this is only one side of the puzzle, the political / economic side. The social aspect of unification lies in the hands of the citizens, whether they will trust one another and let history just be history.

Bibliography

Davies, Norman. Europe: A History. Course Packet Judt, Tony. The Past is Another Country. Course Packet Myer, Steven Lee. Putin's Democratic Present Fights His KB Past. Nytimes. com 10/9/03 Walker, Martin. The New Russia Takes Shape. web.