As an American who has been living in Germany for almost 30 years, I think more about the EU, and how it needs a different myth to keep itself together. The author has her personal history of Yugoslavia, I see the better role model in the founding myth of federal Germany. The way German states even today retain their identities, even if some of these states did not exist before the foundation of the Federal Republic. But the real roots lie in the 1848 revolution, where the idea of a Germany was the idea of a government of the citizens, not of the counts and dukes and kings.
Aw, geez, now I’ve lost my train of thought. Ah, there it is.
I guess what I’m getting at is the idea of “we Europeans” is still a young idea. Europe is still coming to grips with what Benjamin Franklin once said: “we must all hang together, or we will all hang separately.”
