«Breaking News» Band of intellectuals say liberal values face a challenge 'not seen since the 1930s'

A group of leading intellectuals from 21 countries have said that liberal values in Europe face a challenge 'not seen since the 1930s' as the UK heads towards Brexit.

In a manifesto published in several newspapers, the 30 intellectuals including award-winning novelist Ian McEwan, stated that Europe is at risk of 'perishing beneath the waves of populism'.

The signatories bemoaned the Brexit process, saying that Europe has been 'abandoned from across the Channel'. 

Thirty intellectuals including award-winning novelist Ian McEwan signed the document

The letter comes amid rising tension across Europe, with protests raging in France, Germany in the midst of far right tensions and immigration placing a huge strain on the continent.

The 800-word document was drafted by the French Marxist philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. 

English historian Simon Schama was among the high profile names to back the document. 

'Hence this invitation to join in a new surge': Full manifesto from 30 pro-Europe intellectuals 

The idea of Europe is in peril.

From all sides there are criticisms, insults and desertions from the cause.

'Enough of 'building Europe'!' is the cry. Let's reconnect instead with our 'national soul'! Let's rediscover our 'lost identity'! This is the agenda shared by the populist forces washing over the continent. Never mind that abstractions such as 'soul' and 'identity' often exist only in the imagination of demagogues.

Europe is being attacked by false prophets who are drunk on resentment, and delirious at their opportunity to seize the limelight. It has been abandoned by the two great allies who in the previous century twice saved it from suicide; one across the Channel and the other across the Atlantic. The continent is vulnerable to the increasingly brazen meddling by the occupant of the Kremlin. Europe as an idea is falling apart before our eyes.

This is the noxious climate in which Europe's parliamentary elections will take place in May. Unless something changes; unless something comes along to turn back the rising, swelling, insistent tide; unless a new spirit of resistance emerges, these elections promise to be the most calamitous that we have known. They will give a victory to the wreckers. For those who still believe in the legacy of Erasmus, Dante, Goethe and Comenius there will be only ignominious defeat. A politics of disdain for intelligence and culture will have triumphed. There will be explosions of xenophobia and antisemitism. Disaster will have befallen us.

We, the undersigned, are among those who refuse to resign themselves to this looming catastrophe.

We count ourselves among the European patriots (a group more numerous than is commonly thought, but that is often too quiet and too resigned), who understand what is at stake here. Three-quarters of a century after the defeat of fascism and 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall there is a new battle for civilisation.

Our faith is in the great idea that we inherited, which we believe to have been the one force powerful enough to lift Europe's peoples above themselves and their warring past. We believe it remains the one force today virtuous enough to ward off the new signs of totalitarianism that drag in their wake the old miseries of the dark ages. What is at stake forbids us from giving up.

Hence this invitation to join in a new surge.

Hence this appeal to action on the eve of an election that we refuse to abandon to the gravediggers of the European idea.

Hence this exhortation to carry once more the torch of a Europe that, despite its mistakes, its lapses, and its occasional acts of cowardice, remains a beacon for every free man and woman on the planet.

Our generation got it wrong. Like Garibaldi's followers in the 19th century, who repeated, like a mantra, 'Italia se farà da sè' (Italy will make herself by herself), we believed that the continent would come together on its own, without our needing to fight for it, or to work for it. This, we told ourselves, was 'the direction of history'.

We must make a clean break with that old conviction. We don't have a choice. We must now fight for the idea of Europe or see it perish beneath the waves of populism.

In response to the nationalist and identitarian onslaught, we must rediscover the spirit of activism or accept that resentment and hatred will surround and submerge us. Urgently, we need to sound the alarm against these arsonists of soul and spirit who, from Paris to Rome, with stops along the way in Barcelona, Budapest, Dresden, Vienna and Warsaw, want to make a bonfire of our freedoms.

In this strange defeat of 'Europe' that looms on the horizon; this new crisis of the European conscience that promises to tear down everything that made our societies great, honourable, and prosperous, there is a challenge greater than any since the 1930s: a challenge to liberal democracy and its values.

• Copyright: Libération/Bernard-Henri Lévy. Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Elfriede Jelinek and Orhan Pamuk are novelists. Bernard-Henri Lévy is a philosopher

Salman Rushdie was also a signatory. He told The Guardian : 'Europe is in greater danger now than at any time in the last 70 years, and if one believes in that idea it's time to stand up and be counted.

'In the UK, I hope parliament may yet have the courage to call for a second referendum. That could rescue the country from the calamity of Brexit and go a long way towards rescuing the EU as well.'

McEwan told The Guardian that he was 'very pessimistic' about Brexit, but hopeful the 'zeitgeist' would turn.

Demonstrator waves the French flag onto a burning barricade on the Champs-Elysees avenue

Protestors hold placards during an anti-government demonstration called by the Yellow Vests

In May's EU elections, possibly the first without the UK, a rise in populism is predicted.  

Nationalism and far-right sentiments are on the rise across Europe with Italy's Matteo Salvini serving as the deputy Prime Minister and German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemning the rise of far-right protests. 

'Populism and nationalism are strengthening in all of our countries,' Merkel told media after signing a friendship pact with France in an attempt to strengthen European bonds. 

Merkel even mooted at a 'European army'.  

Salvini is also in the midst of a ruling stating that he can face trial for 'illegally confining' people rescued at sea aboard an Italian coastguard ship, keeping them on board the ship for six days and not allowing them to enter Italy. 

Pro-Brexit demonstrators protest outside the houses of parliament on the 15th of January

Protesters gather outside the UK parliament as politicians prepare to vote on Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement with the EU

Salman Rushdie, a British Indian novelist told the Guardian that Europe is in great danger

'We must now fight for the idea of Europe or see it perish beneath the waves of populism,' read the manifesto. 

'In response to the nationalist and identitarian onslaught, we must rediscover the spirit of activism or accept that resentment and hatred will surround and submerge us. Urgently, we need to sound the alarm against these arsonists of soul and spirit.' 

Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, shares a view in direct contrast to the recently published document, saying the elections are a chance to bid farewell 'to liberal democracy'. 

Whilst the document made no hard plans against the feared effect, the signatories said 'three-quarters of a century after the defeat of fascism and 30 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, a new battle for civilisation is under way'.

The document warned of the rise of nationalism like seen in Italy under Matteo Salvini (left) and in Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orban

A man holds a placard depictingSalvini, Trump and Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, reading 'Homophobes, Racists, sexists, All guilty' as members and supporters of the Italian opposition Democratic Party (PD) gather for a protest

The list of signatories in full is: Vassilis Alexakis, Svetlana Alexievitch, Anne Applebaum, Jens Christian Grøndahl, David Grossman, Agnès Heller, Elfriede Jelinek, Ismaïl Kadaré, György Konrád, Milan Kundera, Bernard-Henri Lévy, António Lobo Antunes, Claudio Magris, Ian McEwan, Herta Müller, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Orhan Pamuk, Rob Riemen, Salman Rushdie, Fernando Savater, Roberto Saviano, Eugenio Scalfari, Simon Schama, Peter Schneider, Abdulah Sidran, Leïla Slimani, Colm Tóibín, Mario Vargas Llosa, Adam Michnik and Adam Zagajewski.

 

 

 

 

 

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Main photo article A group of leading intellectuals from 21 countries have said that liberal values in Europe face a challenge ‘not seen since the 1930s’ as the UK heads towards Brexit.
In a manifesto published in several newspapers, the 30 intellectuals including award-winning novelist Ian McEwan,...

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