Wild facts about Europe
ISOSU: Hannes Hanke
Issue date: 3/3/08 Section: Forum
Europe is crazy! Crazy. Why, you may ask now? There are plenty of good and positive reasons.
First of all, look at other continents like Australia, South America or Africa. If you look at a world map, you can clearly see the borders of these continents and you get a feeling of how big they are. But how big is Europe actually? If you were to ask this question to people from different European countries, you would get as many different answers as people you had asked. Sure, Europe is bounded in the North, South and West through oceans and seas, but what about the East? There are many textbook definitions of how far Europe reaches. Does it, for example, include Russia? I think there is no answer to this question, but the more important fact is that Europe is growing - and fast.
More and more countries are joining the European Union. Former communistic countries are now part of the Union, and you can travel from Portugal's Atlantic coast to the Baltic States. Twenty years ago, nobody would have thought this might be possible some day. This is another reason Europe is crazy: its history.
Unfortunately, Europe has a cruel history, but in the recent past, it overcame more and more borders. It always starts off with the disappearance of physical borders, like the Berlin Wall. And then something interesting happens: slowly (it often takes a long time), the borders in the mind disappear. These days, Catholics talk to Protestants again in Northern Ireland, Spanish people to Basques, German to Polish and the British to the French people. They all not only identify themselves as people of their country, but also as Europeans.
What fascinates me personally about Europe is the fact you can travel only 100 miles sometimes and end up in a totally different country. The people there often speak a totally different language from you and a have a different culture. And this is something I really appreciate about Europe. You can travel from Paris to London within three hours; it is in fact a very short distance compared to American travel standards, but you will experience a totally different way of life.
First of all, look at other continents like Australia, South America or Africa. If you look at a world map, you can clearly see the borders of these continents and you get a feeling of how big they are. But how big is Europe actually? If you were to ask this question to people from different European countries, you would get as many different answers as people you had asked. Sure, Europe is bounded in the North, South and West through oceans and seas, but what about the East? There are many textbook definitions of how far Europe reaches. Does it, for example, include Russia? I think there is no answer to this question, but the more important fact is that Europe is growing - and fast.
More and more countries are joining the European Union. Former communistic countries are now part of the Union, and you can travel from Portugal's Atlantic coast to the Baltic States. Twenty years ago, nobody would have thought this might be possible some day. This is another reason Europe is crazy: its history.
Unfortunately, Europe has a cruel history, but in the recent past, it overcame more and more borders. It always starts off with the disappearance of physical borders, like the Berlin Wall. And then something interesting happens: slowly (it often takes a long time), the borders in the mind disappear. These days, Catholics talk to Protestants again in Northern Ireland, Spanish people to Basques, German to Polish and the British to the French people. They all not only identify themselves as people of their country, but also as Europeans.
What fascinates me personally about Europe is the fact you can travel only 100 miles sometimes and end up in a totally different country. The people there often speak a totally different language from you and a have a different culture. And this is something I really appreciate about Europe. You can travel from Paris to London within three hours; it is in fact a very short distance compared to American travel standards, but you will experience a totally different way of life.
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