East & West: Mr Hitchens, you have called the European Union “a continuation of German by other means”. How did it come to this?
Peter Hitchens: It was always its purpose. The ‘preventing peace’ claim it ceaselessly makes is an admission of this. Germany, by nature of its size, position and wealth, is bound to dominate Western Europe, a way had to be found of managing this without further violence.
E&W: If this is the case, why were some countries willing to give up their sovereignty?
PH: Because Germany had repeatedly proved that, if it wished, it could violently dissolve their sovereignty at any time.
E&W: After all, when the European Community was first conceived, it was a joint French-German project, and Germany at the time, that it is to say the Federal Republic of Germany, was an amputated country.
PH: But it was clear to anyone of intelligence and knowledge that it would rapidly recover from this state.
E&W: Why is the European Union so obsessed about Ukraine? Why was Ukraine so important to the EU? What was the European Union hoping to get from Ukraine?
PH: Because Ukraine has been an essential economic and strategic target of German foreign policy for a century. Indeed, it was the key battleground of both the world wars. Look up my many references to this on my blogs, especially using the keywords ‘Zbigniew Brzezinski’and Brest-Litovsk.
E&W: Speaking of Ukraine, journalist Andrew Wilson, speaking of the Maidan revolution, wrote that it was refreshing to see that in a time of disappointment towards the EU, some people were ready to pay with their lives for European values. Now integration into European institions and NATO has become practically the sole strategic goal of the country. What is your answer to those young romantic souls in Ukraine who are ready to sacrifice everything they have just to join the EU?
PH: Are they? I thought they were Ukrainian nationalists, and admirers of Stepan Bandera, who you might look up with some profit.
E&W: In my student years, I was excited about the idea of a being a “citizen of Europe”. After having lived in another European (and very different from my own) country for almost 10 years, I have come to doubt the possibility of creating European citizens. Do you think a really unified Europe would make sense in different circumstances?
PH: I am perfectly happy to see continental Europe attempt a closer union than the existing EU, though I doubt it can be made to work without a common language. Most of its existing nations have not been that successful, so why not try something different? I just do not wish to be part of it.
E&W: Why did the forces of cultural revolution come to win in Western societies? What is the motive behind the attack on the traditional role of men and women and the family?
PH: Because there was no sustained or organised or indeed convinced opposition to them. Where would you find Christian conservatives prominent in our culture? The post-Christian culture triumphed because Christian culture died (the First World War killed it, as I have said not above 1000 times) . The ‘traditional’role of men and women required more unselfishness and self-sacrifice than most people are prepared to endure, these days.
E&W: And finally, what is, in our opinion, the way out of crisis for Europe?
PH: I doubt that there is one. Europe became great because it was a Christian continent, and it lives on the moral capital, of trust and order, which it inherited from that era. But it cannot last forever.
E&W: Bonus question by a reader from the US: “What’s the reason of the persistence of the cult of Churchill in the UK?”
PH: It is a pseudo-religion, based on our inability to admit that we no longer matter as a country or to accept that WW2 left us bankrupt and irrelevant.
E&W: Thank you for the interview, Mr Hitchens, it was a great honour.
Peter Hitchens is regular writer for the Mail the Sunday. He is the author of several books like The Abolition of Britain, The Rage Against God and The War We Never Fought. You can read his blog here.
EAST AND WEST 