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Free World by Timothy Garton Ash
- Abstract
On February 15, 2003, a month prior to the American intervention in Iraq, massive antiwar demonstrations took place all over Western Europe. They were held not just in Berlin and Paris but also in London, Madrid, and Rome, capitals of nations whose leaders supported Washington in its effort to topple Saddam Hussein.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former Socialist finance minister of France, saw in this day of anti-American protest the birth date of a new European nation. Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas, the continent’s two most prominent philosophers, issued a joint statement concurring in Strauss-Kahn’s judgment and outlining six elements that in their view set the new European identity apart from America’s. These included a strict adherence to secularism, state intervention to “correct” the market and buffer society from capitalism, the overcoming of national sovereignty, and the replacement of this now-outmoded arrangement by an international legal order.
About the Author
Francis Fukuyama is professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
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