Europe! Europe! Europe!
By ROGER COHEN
NYT
BRUSSELS — Not since the Berlin Wall came down had there been such impassioned cries of “Europe! Europe! Europe!” The fact that the chant came on British soil, was inspired by an Ulsterman and paid tribute to a Scot only made the display more extraordinary.
The occasion, of course, was the narrow European Ryder Cup golf victory over the United States, clinched in the last match by Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland, a cool customer chosen to play last by his Scottish-born captain, Colin Montgomerie. Frenzied waving of the blue-and-gold European Union flag, usually seen wilting behind some dutiful E.U. minister, completed the bizarre tableau.
“It was hilarious for us,” Olivier Chastel, the acting Belgian secretary for European affairs, told me. “We in continental Europe tend to think our friends across the Channel have a rather particular view of European integration.” “Particular” here means hostile.
Europe! Europe! Europe! Well, yes, there is something funny about it. European patriotism is a near oxymoron these days — unless somebody is gripping a 5-iron. You can laugh or cry.
(More here.)
NYT
BRUSSELS — Not since the Berlin Wall came down had there been such impassioned cries of “Europe! Europe! Europe!” The fact that the chant came on British soil, was inspired by an Ulsterman and paid tribute to a Scot only made the display more extraordinary.
The occasion, of course, was the narrow European Ryder Cup golf victory over the United States, clinched in the last match by Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland, a cool customer chosen to play last by his Scottish-born captain, Colin Montgomerie. Frenzied waving of the blue-and-gold European Union flag, usually seen wilting behind some dutiful E.U. minister, completed the bizarre tableau.
“It was hilarious for us,” Olivier Chastel, the acting Belgian secretary for European affairs, told me. “We in continental Europe tend to think our friends across the Channel have a rather particular view of European integration.” “Particular” here means hostile.
Europe! Europe! Europe! Well, yes, there is something funny about it. European patriotism is a near oxymoron these days — unless somebody is gripping a 5-iron. You can laugh or cry.
(More here.)
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