Honest to God, it’s not an April Fool. My friend Junk, as Jean-Claude Juncker likes me to call him, refuses to discriminate against the other 11 months too.
Leave Junk in the company of friends and a bottle of single malt (more than one bottle if the friends have some too), and he can come off the wall on any day of every year.
Responding to President Trump’s understated affection for the EU, President Junk demanded instant love. And if that’s not forthcoming, as Junk fears it won’t be, he threatened to break the US apart – or at least work towards such an outcome.
Specifically, he singled out Texas and Ohio as prime candidates for secession. The idea is interesting, but one wonders if Junk has fully considered the practicalities involved.
When I lived in Texas, I did meet some locals whose thirst for independence hadn’t been quenched. Most of them were the type who said things like “if y’all’s heart ain’t in Texas, get y’all’s ass out”, drove pickup trucks with deer antlers on the roof and a rifle rack in the back, wore silver buckles on their belts, Stetsons on their heads and spurs on their cowboy boots.
They also professed to hate the Yankees, while their views on race were rather pre-war (the Civil War, that is). A typical exchange went along the lines of: “Are y’all a Yankee?” “No, I’m from Russia.” “D’y’all have niggers there?”
Sometimes those chaps exhibited linguistic curiosity by asking “Did y’all speak German at home?” At first I thought that recurrent question was posed in jest, before realising that it wasn’t. At that point the didactic part of my nature would kick in, and I’d start mumbling: “Er… well… we did sometimes. But most of the time we spoke Russian.”
Perhaps in theory the rednecks could form the fifth column, applying secessionist pressure from the inside, while Junk did the same from the outside. In practice, however, I doubt they’d welcome his mediation in their eternal conflict with the Yankees. They wouldn’t see Junk as a good ole boy, would they?
Other than relying on sedition, Junk’s options in Texas would be limited, especially since the good ole boys are in the minority everywhere, except perhaps on the boards of major oil companies. He could try to offer Texans a cut-price deal to enter the EU, but one suspects he wouldn’t find many takers. The Texans would probably feel that this ‘furriner’ is only after their ‘awl’.
But at least Texas was a sovereign republic until 1846, so one could say it has form as far as independence is concerned. By contrast, Ohio joined the Union in 1803 and to the best of my knowledge has never since shown any appetite for splitting away. So Junk would have even more of an uphill struggle fomenting sedition there.
However, considering that Ohio boasts the ugliest cities in the US (which is saying a lot in a country that doesn’t apply aesthetic principles to urban planning and architecture), one suspects Junk’s drive for its secession would resonate among other states. Worth a try, Junk, but I wouldn’t hold your breath in the hope of success.
However, I’m proud of the standard of statesman rising to the top in the EU. In a way I’m even sorry we’re leaving – what shall we do for amusement if Junk and his ilk no longer talk to or about us?
Proceeding from levity to gravity, Junk’s drunken delirium is an echo of the Eurocrats’ persistent effort to seek legitimacy by drawing parallels between themselves and other composite political entities, such as the Holy Roman Empire or, bizarrely, the USA.
Such parallels are invariably spurious, reflecting the general intellectual paucity of that wicked pan-European contrivance. This is exemplified by Junk, whose brain couldn’t have been up to much even before it got pickled in single malt.
The Holy Roman Empire was a loose federation of principalities brought together by one powerful adhesive: Christianity. In that sense it was indeed both holy and Roman – and not neither, as Voltaire quipped with his typically facile wit.
National particularism didn’t exist then, certainly not sufficient to exert enough pull to keep those atoms within the same molecule. But while Europeans didn’t feel an overpowering sense of identity as, say, Franks, Gauls or Iberians, they certainly felt one as Christians. This was their factor of homogeneity.
What’s the EU equivalent? Desire for 6-week holidays?
The EU operates in a world created by the Enlightenment and dominated by nationalist pressures – something Charlemagne didn’t have to contend with. So, while factors of homogeneity are in short supply, those of cleaving self-determination along national lines are strong, if kept quiet for now. The slightest push, and the whole rotten structure may explode into a red mist.
If parallels with the Carolingian empire are spurious, Junk’s implied parallel with the United States is simply mad, possibly produced by insipient delirium tremens (this suggests a good title for a Junk biopic: DT, the Extra-Terrestrial).
Different as Texans may be from Ohioans, they are nowhere near as different as, say, Swedes are from Greeks, Spaniards from Belgians or any of them from Germans. The USA is a culturally, linguistically, socially and politically homogeneous entity, while Europe isn’t. Even Junk must realise this, at least while he’s still on his first bottle.
Moreover, the USA is old-fashioned in a perverse sort of way, in that it’s brought together not by ethnic commonality but by a clearly definable metaphysical idea, that of Americanism. Even those who, like me, have misgivings about it, can’t deny its gravitational power. Now does Junk think that a Greek and a Dutchman feel a strong kinship because they both subscribe to the European idea?
If he seeks more accurate parallels, he can find the EU’s antecedents in Germany, both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the earlier period, Prussia used the proto-EU model of the Zollverein either to bribe or to force other German principalities under its sway.
Later, Hitler created a pan-European federation dominated by Germany and sharing natural resources, laws, single currency, foreign policy, united multi-national army under German command and economic policy. The parallels with the EU, while not wholly exact, are surely more evident than those between the EU and anything else.
In conclusion, I’d like to wish Junk a very happy April Fool’s Day. It’s your day, Junk, so here’s to you, my boozy friend.
Juncker is a ridiculous man, but I wouldn’t be so skeptical about some secession occurring at some point in the U.S. And notwithstanding your characterization of potential secession supporters in Texas, there are many wise and educated supporters of secession in the States. There are also organizations that discuss the idea (like The Abbeville Institute), and some that outright support it (like the Southern National Congress and the Second Vermont Republic). At their core, the sections of the States aren’t so homogenous, and those differences are lately becoming greater points of conflict in public life here. You are correct that our so-called leaders believe we are defined and united by an abstraction, but there are a significant number of folks, especially here in the South, whose priorities are kith and kin, state, and region.
Most states have no desire for independence, but each state could certainly could survive, and most could thrive as an independent state, or smaller federations of states (as opposed to our current centralized, unwieldy monstrosity). For some of us here, it is a goal to bring the discussion of a different way for the States into the public sphere again.
Having lived in Texas for 10 years, I know you’re right. I also happen to think that the wrong side, and above all the wrong principle, won the Civil War (I write about this at length in my book Democracy as a Neocon Trick).