I think the objection the poem makes is to the misuse of the Kreisau
circle's resistance to Hitler to "consecrate the liberties of Maastricht".
It isn't that Maastricht = Hitlerism, but that the wider project of the
Kreisau circle - a projection of what Europe might become after the war was
ended - was very different from the projections of the planners of the New
Europe. The latter is a commercial entity, primarily - a "Europe" in which
much of what constituted "the European" in former ages (Grotius, Comenius,
Ficino) is forgotten or derided (according to Hill). The Kreisau circle had
other ideas, maybe or maybe not better ideas (they were members of the
German ruling classes, and I think rather conservative).

I don't think Hill's comparing the New Europe to the Nazi regime, but he's
right to point out that the Kreisauers would have had problems with the
former as well as the latter - that there are "wild reasons of the state"
enow in the actions of NATO and the US to make a straightforward distinction
between these and the power-politics of Hitlerism difficult to maintain. To
adopt the terms of T. H. White, "might equals right" in the new Europe as
well as in the old.

But Hill certainly isn't a paranoiac Europhobe banging on about Brussels as
if it were an instrument of German domination by other means; what he
dislikes about the new Europe is its refusal to learn the lessons of the
past, not its supposed identity with "the most evil regime the world has
ever known".

- Dom

----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Francis" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2000 10:59 PM
Subject: Re: Review of Geoffrey Hill's "Canaan" submitted to Amazon.com


> I haven't read 'De Jure Belli ac Pacis', Dom - I did *hear* Hill read it
at
> the Royal Festival Hall shortly after the book came out and I thought, I
> know there's a lot wrong with the EU, but is he seriously comparing it to
> Hitler? That's what put me off getting the book. It's easy to arouse our
> indignation against the most evil regime the world has ever known, but
what
> exactly is his grudge against the *new* Europe? And how can he justify
> making a connection between the two? Your review doesn't make clear.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Matthew



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%