• fishpen0@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    There is no way that I as a Dane would agree to become a citizen of United Europe where I lose my identity and history as a Dane and now have to build some new identity with other Europeans. We have many things in common, but we are not the same. […] It was forced and it was damaging to these countries’ identities.

    This is an interesting line of arguments that parallels much of the rhetoric that came out of many British during Brexit. They felt the EU had started to dissolve their identity and was forcing policy that was bad for them that they had no representation in. Whether or not they were correct, or making those arguments in good faith, it once again points back to the line being quite blurry

    I made a similar line of questioning recently in the anarchy Lemmy, after disagreeing to how anarchists usually approach why community is better than government. “when is a community so large it is no longer a community and it is a state” I think your focus on cultural identity is interesting given they use the same line of arguments to define community vs government. I also wonder if that line of thinking is dangerously close to the kind of thinking that creates isolationism and xenophobia.

    • Nangijala@feddit.dk
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      2 days ago

      Respectfully, I disagree with your reasoning. At no point have I said European countries want nothing to do with one another, just that we want to keep our own identity and sovereignty.

      You are making a bunch of assumptions while completely ignoring the fact that European countries have the EU.

      We are not isolationist nor are we xenophobic. We just want to keep our countries as they are.

      It’s kinda like accusing someone of being anti apartment complex if they say no to move out of their family home that they have lived in for generations, and get an apartment in the complex instead. “Oh, maybe you’re racist because there might be people of different ethnicities in the complex? Or maybe you just hate having neighbours and want to isolate yourself from everybody in your silly little house?”

      Or maybe I just have a greater emotional attachment to the house that was built by my great grandfather and I feel more at home in the house I have upkept and renovated myself than some apartment complex where every apartment has the same layout and there are rules as to how much I can modify mine.

      Doesn’t mean that apartment complexes are a bad thing. Not at all. But if you already have a house with a garden that is yours and that you have a history with, why on earth would you want to give that up for an apartment in a complex that you don’t have any attachment to?

      The only reason something like the US has worked out is because people willingly agreed to the setup and willingly left their old countries to build up something new.

      Had the native Americans had the means to defend their lands, then I’m sure there would have been no US and instead a continent with old, independent countries that would hold on to their own traditions and cultures. There may have been a union similar to the EU, but that is not the same as them agreeing to become one big country. That is just collaboration and trying to have some agreements in place that ensures peace and trade between nations. The exact opposite of isolationism and xenophobia.