Last time the media (and everyone else) in Portugal never explained properly to the public what the treaty meant. We didn't get to voting, because our brilliant politicos never arrived to a question good enough for the Constitutional Court to pass. But had we voted I believe the No would have won.
Time and again, the main issued raised against the Constitution project was that it didn't made reference to the Christian roots of our culture and law... Vencit omnia veritas.
The EU as a technocratic creation is of little interest to people, and many voters are too young to remember the idealistic context from which the EU was born. The fact that it has enabled 60 years of peaceful and prosperous co-existence is taken for granted, and there is little vision or understanding of how the EU might help its members to address the global challenges ahead.
The opposition is made up largely of nutters - religious, business and nationalistic, who appeal to a "pure", "neutral" and "independent" Ireland that never was and never will be. There is a growing sense that the world is becoming a very big and frightening place - with wars, famines, and catastrophes around every corner - and that the EU is becoming a bureaucratic monster remote from the fears and feeling of real people.
And the Treaty has become emblematic of that complexity that people find difficult to understand. However when the drafters did try to produce a clear and simple constitution it was rejected partly for irrelevant domestic reasons, and partly because there is no clear and simple vision that all share and can aspire to.
Perhaps the charter of fundamental rights comes closest - to an inspirational document that people can sign up to, but the EU itself is made up primarily of member states rather than citizens, and thus its internal workings are perceived as too complex for many citizens to comprehend. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
Christianity has proven time and time again that it has no legitimate role in a government by the people, of the people and for the people, and the treaties are based on this fact.
- Jake Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam
They see a constitution as expressing their "identity" and want it to reflect their "values". They want "Europe" to be recognised as predominantly Christian in much the same way as they see many Middle Eastern States self-identifying as Islamic - without necessarily thinking this through or wanting to explicitly exclude non-Christians from the EU. It may also be as much a cultural as a religious self-identification as most of these same people would support the right of religious freedom within an EU defined as predominantly culturally Christian, or originating from Christian realm.
The great danger of including any reference to Christianity in the "constitution" is that it becomes a Trojan horse from which all sorts of conservative agendas can be launched, not to mention the offense it would cause to many non-Christians. However a clause acknowledging the Christian, Social Democratic, Egalitarian and Enlightenment origins of many Europeans but placing no restriction on how the EU might evolve might have reduced the perceived "technocratic" and secular (= anti-religious - to those conservatives) nature of the EU.
The reality, of course, is that the EU is in transition with many people still with strong religious beliefs, and many more ranging from indifferent to strongly hostile to all religion. The cleanest break is to say simply that the EU project simply isn't about religion or even specific cultural expression or belief at all but merely a means of bringing together vast numbers of people of very different beliefs - many of whom have immigrated to Europe and do not share in historic European traditions and conflicts. However that still leaves the problem of how to encourage a more active engagement of a far wider range of citizenry with the EU as something which represents their ideals and their future.
There is almost no discussion of the founding ideals of the EU in the Irish Referendum debate. Everything has been reduced to the narrowest possible definitions of national self interest. We do need to articulate a more unifying narrative which focuses on what the EU brings to the party, how the EU is more than, and greater than the sum of its parts, and essential to meeting the larger global challenges facing all Europeans.
Thus looking backwards to disputed cultural/religious heritages is not the answer, but neither is the narrow nationalistic debate we are currently having. Luis de Sousa's comments point the need to create that larger popular narrative that the vast majority of Europeans can relate to and be inspired by - otherwise the debate will continue to be framed negatively by the religious, nationalistic, and business bigots who want the EU shaped in their interest.
The EU made a significant contribution to the resolution of the N.I. Troubles, but the debate on the Lisbon Treaty makes no reference to this. Why not? Because the pluralistic, tolerant, and inclusive vision which is at the heart of the EU is not adequately articulated in the Treaty. Ultimately the EU will die if it comes to be seen as simply the creature of the technocrats - we have to articulate an alternative vision which the vast majority of Europeans can identify with - in the same way as the vast majority of people in Ireland, North and south, have bought into the inclusive vision of Ireland articulated by the Good Friday Agreement. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
Claiming these to be Christian values is about as credible and historically justified as Shell and Exxon mobile claiming to be in the business of sustainable energy. When the oil corporations do that, we call it greenwashing and generally consider it dishonest. I don't see why we should cut the theology corporations any more slack.
That is not to say that Christianity has not played a role in the formation and unification of Europe. But if we are going to list all the major influences on contemporary European culture and politics, then colonialism, imperialism and militarism belong there even more than Christianity. After all, militaristic imperialism and colonialism fuelled the Great Wars in the first half of the last century - wars that were arguably the most direct reason for the establishment of the Union.
But I don't think that any of us would want to write militant imperialism into our constitution.
