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EU Integration: Whose Integration?

It is interesting to see how on its more than one decade year old, the European Union still finds it hard, or I might say ‘struggling’, with the concept of “widening vs. deepening”. This is the real dilemma that the EU still has to face.

Meanwhile it wants to be somewhat “United States of Europe” by expanding its membership from 6 to 10 to 15 and now 25, the harder to create one common position, especially on the highly political issues. Iraqi’s war, referrendum of Constitution, and the latest Iranian Nuclear issues prove it all.

The theory said that we cannot separate Foreign Policy from Security Policy. Basically foreign policy is created to secure national interests, and the security policy is created to defend national interests from “foreign attack”. That’s the main idea behind the creation of CFSP. The appointment of Dr. Solana as the EU’s ‘Foreign Minister’ showed us how the EU wants to play its role in the global fora as the counter-balance to US hegemony by creating the foreign and security policy decision-making institution. But EU forgot that, behind its vast structure, lies 25 member countries, 25 different national interests, 400 millions different people with their own comfort zones. For example, France is best known as the loyal supporter of the European integration, but not the Frenchmen. The referrendum proved it.

Travelling Without Moving

The title of this article, Travelling Without Moving, was taken from the Jamiroquai’s album released in 1996. Why I choose this phrase as the title of my new article? Here’s the story.

 

 

 

One fine day, like usual, I was trapped in the middle of long line of cars somewhere in Jakarta, and I’ve got nothing to do about it, so I listened to the radio and there was a phone conversation between the announcer and a lady. The topic is about memorable places that you’ve experienced.

 

 

 

I didn’t notice nor follow all the conversation, but then the announcer asked the lady, “So, what is your hobby?”. The lady on the other side answered, “Travelling”. “Really? You mean to the exotic places, like those backpackers?”, said the announcer.

 

“Hmmm, not really. I like to go to the shopping mall or just hanging out with my colleagues afterwork on Friday night”.

 

 

 

What the…? Travelling and window shopping are two different things!! Travelling in this context means that you have to make a journey, a quite long one, to find new experience. I’m not talking about making an 80 kilometres journey a day to catch your workplace. That’s what I do everyday, and still I didn’t call myself a “traveller”! How come she can call herself “traveller” if all she can do is just walking three hundred metres around the corner of her office to buy a cold cup of mocca frappucino in Starbucks and spend her salary on Mango sack dress?

 

 

 

It’s not that I don’t like that kind of lifestyle. I watch movies at cinema once a week, buy Rockport shoes because they just fit my feet, and wear Oakley glasses to protect my eyes from that harmful uv light. But I will not consider myself as a “traveller” if I never been to Poso Lake, watch people from Nias Island jump over a 2,5 m rock lively, take pictures next to the skulls of the dead in Torajanese graveyard –or gravecave, and feed the orang-utans in Bukit Barisan mountain directly from my own hands.

 

 

 

That’s the problem of today’s people. The hectic citylife, the consumerism that all the TV stations offer, and misleading in basic education teaching system lead us to become a “one place” person, a person who doesn’t have the curiosity of Indonesia’s cultural differences, a person who always thinks that pizza is much tastier than blakutak (I bet not many people know what “blakutak” is), and a person who doesn’t even know on what island Gorontalo is.

http://an69a.blogspot.com

If you tolerate this then your children will be next...

The future teaches you to be alone the present to be afraid and cold
'so if i can shoot rabbits then i can shoot fascists'
Bullets for your brain today but we'll forget it all again
Monuments put from pen to paper turns me into a gutless wonder
Gravity keeps my head down or is it maybe shame
At being so young and being so vain
Holes in your head today but i'm a pacifist
I've walked la ramblas but not with real intent
'and on the streets tonight - an old man plays
With newspaper cuttings of his glory days'

And if you tolerate this then your children will be next

Mad Season...

I feel stupid - but I know it won't last for long
I've been guessing - I coulda been guessin' wrong
You don't know me now
I kinda thought that you should somehow
Does that whole mad season got ya down

I feel stupid but it's something that comes and goes
I've been changin' - think it's funny how now one knows
We don't talk about - the little things that we do without
When that whole mad season comes around

So why ya gotta stand there
Looking like the answer now
It seems to me - you'd come around
I need you now
Do you think you can cope
You figured me out - I'm lost and I'm hopeless
Bleeding and broken - though I've never spoken
I come undone - in this mad season

I feel stupid - but I think I been catchin' on
I feel ugly - but I know I still turn you on
You seem colder now, torn apart, angry, turned around
Will that whole mad season knock you down

So are you gonna stand there
Are you gonna help me out
we need to be together now - I need you now
Do you think you can cope
You figured me out - I'm lost and I'm hopeless
I'm Bleeding and broken - though I've never spoken
I come undone - in this mad season

Now I'm cryin' - isn't that what you want
I'm tryin' to live my life on my own
But I won't
At times - I do believe I am strong
So someone tell me why, why, why
Do I, I, I feel stupid
And I came undone
And I came undone

I need you now
Do you think you can cope
You figured me out - I'm lost and I'm hopeless
Bleeding and broken - though I've never spoken

I need you now
Do you think you can cope
You figured me out - I'm a child and I'm hopeless
Bleeding and broken - though I've never spoken
I come undone - in this mad season

In this mad season
There's been a mad season
Been a mad season

Anonymous said...

"There are three principles in a man's being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say."