George,

Mr. Sewell is entitled to have his own political opinion about the American election, but what really gets me mad is when people dispense misinformation. If he's going to make certain statements about the European Union, he should be better informed about it so as not to embarrass himself as a Republican (I think I'd be correct in assuming that he's a registered Republican).

Mr. Sewell should probably be informed that Gorge W. Bush has been for the expansion of the European Union. Bush even wants Turkey to join (more on that later). If you don't believe me, you can check the State Department Website.

I'm sick of people like Mr. Sewell who think they can make judgments about Europeans and their way of life with probably little or no contact at all with them. If he had ever been to Europe (outside of the tourist traps, that is), he would know that most Europeans aren't bourgeois pansies who sit around “sipping wine” looking down their noses at America. Most Europeans I know love America, but simply disagree with certain aspects of US foreign policy, which they are entitled to do as people of free and sovereign nations with their own interests. Europeans have ordinary jobs and lives. They eat with their families more than we do. Small business owners talk with you and are interested in finding out how you're doing. Most guys play soccer, work on their cars or motorcycles, watch formula one racing and soccer on TV, go fishing with a six pack of beer (you can drink beer in public without being bothered over there) and hang out with their buddies at the bar on weekends. If you don't believe me, Mr. Sewell, you can go there and find out for yourself.

The European Union is not a “United States of Europe” that some would have you mistakenly believe. It's more like a “Confederate States of Europe." There is a rotating presidency (every 6 months the president is selected from a different member state and he has no real power) and a Parliament that does little more than enact legislation concerning trade agreements and pollution standards. The EU is even more hodge-podge that the Confederate States would have been: They can't agree on a uniform foreign policy, there is no tax harmonization, educational standards and degree standards aren't harmonized (meaning getting a medical degree in one country doesn't necessarily allow you to practice medicine in another), and the list goes on.

There also has been little population resettlement outside of the regions where their native language is spoken. The idea that the European Union will eventually homogenize Europe is given way more credit than it deserves. I lived right on the border between France and Germany in a French town called Sarreguemines (or Saargemünd in German). People come and go between the two countries as they wish, yet French and Germans tend to stick with their own kind. Even Germans who have moved across the border into France (due to lower taxes and a cheaper cost of living) socialize mostly with Germans and prefer to do the bulk of their shopping across the border. Once you cross the border, you know you've crossed the border. You notice an immediate difference in mannerisms, mentality and most especially, language. The signs are bi-lingual only within a few meters of the border, and that's it. Once in Germany, you're expected to speak German – French (and even English) won't do you much good – even close to the border. The EU countries all have their own languages and cultures that they're not willing to give up or change simply because they're in some kind of economic union. You even have countries such as Belgium with clear ethnic and linguistic boundaries within the country itself which have existed for hundreds of years and show no signs of changing. The Europeans are too chauvinistic about their respective cultures and languages to ever come close to a forming a fully homogenized continent.

The European Union is not a “super-socialist” “multicultural experiment” as Mr. Sewell mistakenly believes. It was a project conceived initially by Robert Schumann to facilitate free trade and encourage foreign investment between member states, as well as a way to help maintain peace on a continent that had been frequently ravaged by war. Encouraging free trade across borders generally tends to be more heavily advocated by fiscal conservatives, no? The radical left-wing tree-hugging hippies are the ones who are against free trade, remember? Schumann hoped that creating trade agreements between France and Germany would prevent future wars between the two nations (France and Germany went to war with each other three times between 1870 and 1945, creating much devastation and needless to say harm to the economies of both nations). The European Union began with a coal and steel pact between France and Germany in the 1950's. Since then, the Union has expanded to include 25 current members, 12 of which share the same currency, the Euro. The Euro has facilitated commerce and foreign investment between these 12 participating member states, given that time and money no longer need to be wasted in exchanging currencies every time you cross a border (this has greatly simplified things for the smaller nations such as Luxembourg, quite obviously). Just imagine having to change currency every time you went to North Carolina or Maryland. Just imagine the harm on interstate commerce.

The Bush administration enthusiastically lauded the European Union's admission of ten new members on May 1st, 2004. The majority of these countries lived under Soviet oppression until just 13 years ago, and the transition to a capitalist economy has not been an easy one. Membership in the EU is expected to foster the economies of these countries. The US has spent a large amount of money in aid to the former Soviet bloc countries, and now that these countries are in the EU, the majority of the financial aid they will receive will come from Brussels, Belgium (the seat of the EU), and not Washington, D.C., the USA or American taxpayers.

The Bush administration also wants Turkey – a Muslim nation most of which is not geographically in Europe but in Asia Minor – to become a member of the European Union as soon as possible. Many say it would be good for international business. Turkey's economy – at least in the western part of the country – has been doing well in recent years and a lot of new businesses have been springing up. Turkey has also been moving towards a more democratic government. Turkey has needed to make a lot of democratic reforms in order to be considered for admission to the European Union. These reforms include improvements in the defense of human rights, equality of the sexes and tolerance of ethnic minorities (including the Kurds).

The Bush administration wants Turkey to join the EU as soon as possible. However, there is a lot opposition and resentment towards Bush's position concerning Turkey's adhesion to the EU amongst the current member states. Although Turkey has undertaken a lot of democratic reforms, many European nations don't feel they have taken enough, especially concerning Ankara's (capital of Turkey) relations with the Kurds. Many Europeans also worry about letting a Muslim nation – which many times in the past invaded continental Europe – into a club of nations dominated by the Christian tradition. Some argue that there are already enough problems with the Muslims who already live in Europe (almost 10 % of France is now Muslim) and to invite more in at this time would create even more social problems than already exist. If Turkey were to join, it would the most populous member of the European Union, thus giving it the largest number of seats in the European Parliament. Turkey's inclusion would also push the borders of the EU back to Armenia, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and many governments of the current member states are doubtful of Turkey's ability to effectively guard its borders with these countries. And while the western part of the country is doing rather well economically, the majority of the eastern part of the country still lives in abject poverty. If Europe were to open its doors to Turkey, some argue, the Kurds would flood onto continental Europe in droves. One Frenchman put it to me this way: How would Americans feel if Mexico were a Muslim nation about to become the 51st state?

Perhaps, some Europeans argue, Bush thinks that if Turkey were to join the EU, other Muslim nations would follow Turkey's lead into democracy, creating a sort of domino effect in the Muslim world. There are Europeans who believe that a democratic Turkey in the EU would hardly encourage the rest of the Muslim world to democratize. Some are resentful of Bush wanting to place what they see as the “burden” of Turkey on the shoulders of the European Union simply to advance his plan to democratize the Muslim World.

In any case, Turkey is not yet a candidate for admission to the EU, and the debate will continue for years to come on whether or not to even allow it to become a candidate.

Mr. Sewell, I don't know where you got your viewpoints on Europe, but after spending almost three years of my life there living, studying, working, traveling – interacting with Europeans on a daily basis – I know you're perception of Europe and Europeans is quite far from reality. If you want to call me a fancy-pants know-it-all elitist, you most certainly are entitled to that OPINION (and there's a huge difference between fact and opinion), but that would be pretty far from reality, too. I'm not ashamed of wanting to educate myself and wanting to see and experience the world for myself and forming my own opinions based on personal experience, not what some politician or television or radio media personality tells me I should think.

I don't blame people like Mr. Sewell for not knowing much about what goes on outside of his little corner of the world. I'll bet he doesn't even care. But don't go around propagating half-baked rumors about a continent I'm pretty sure you've never even visited (and if you were in the military for a while and got stationed in Germany that doesn't really count - you could survive without ever really leaving the base or having social contact with Germans if you wanted to. I've been to see a cousin who works on a base near Bitburg ). I know the global travel thing was not as common or as affordable for the previous generation as it is for mine. But if you're stuck Stateside, you need to realize that the news media here is biased (even the conservative radio talk show hosts bitch about it), and if you want to have a clearer picture of what's going on in the world, it's better to get your news from several different sources – even foreign sources if you can get them with subtitles – in order to cancel out the biases between the media outlets. Listening to someone who agrees with your own opinions isn't going to give you a clearer picture of what's going on in the world outside your little corner of the US. It's just going to reinforce your own subjective opinions, and subjectivity is not reality.

Just last night I saw a documentary on the siege of Najaf by Gregoire Deniau on TV5 (for those who have digital cable). It is mostly in French, but they have English subtitles, and the French are pretty good when it comes to real-to-life documentaries (just remember the two French brothers who documented the firefighters on September 11th, one of whom filmed the collapse of one of the towers from the inside). You can get a real sense of what it was like to be there in Najaf during the recent siege. You see rebels getting shot and killed, Al-Sadr's supporters jumping around inside the mausoleum, a homeless and bewildered family living in a bombed-out structure begging for food from the filmmaker, commentary by rebels and American troops – REAL extreme reality TV, all uncensored. What do we get on the Iraq War here in the US? Occasionally we see a picture of a car on fire and about three seconds of people running in the streets and shouting, but nothing that even comes close to giving you a sense of what's really going on over there in-country.

Any questions and comments are welcome, Mr. Sewell.

- Joseph Cheek (electronic mail, September 5, 2004)