Wednesday 23 February 2011

The Prospect of Prussia

The latest Prospect may contain James Purnell's call for Labour to endorse the Coalition's Blairite schools and health policies; time was when Labour proscribed and expelled parties within the party. But it also contains, more or less, this letter from me in response to a previous article:

Not as a political cause or entity, but as a shared culture and heritage, a common sense of Prussianness across all the areas forming part of that Kingdom during its 1871-1918 heyday would be no bad thing at all, but rather a significant force for peace and stability across Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Poland and Russia.

The best Prussian values were not only noble in themselves, but informed the first Welfare State, both they and it being significant forces for unity between Teutons and Slavs, and between Catholic and Protestant parts of Europe.

An insistent and concerted witness to that whole heritage, which notably spawned the attempt to assassinate Hitler, on the part of provinces, municipalities and communities could only be to the benefit of Europe, and of the world, as a whole.

6 comments:

  1. You should be writing articles for Prospect, not letters to it.

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  2. Good points. The free market fanatics don't call Otto von Bismarck an "evil socialist" for nothing. Frankly, I'd take Bismarck over many of today's neoliberal leaders.

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  3. But that was only ever online, subscribers only.

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  4. That's the world now.

    Anyway, on topic, please.

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  5. Vintage Lindsay, reaching everyone who matters, few though they are. Sorry, off topic.

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