Dear European Union
I’ve never been afraid to admit when I am wrong. I haven’t had to be, because I’m usually not
wrong ;) When I am wrong, though, I can be quite spectacularly so…
So many years ago that it feels like a different
lifetime, I had a relationship (who that was with doesn’t matter, and you don’t
need the person’s name – even now I wouldn’t want to cause them pain) which, if I’m honest, worried me a little even
while it was happening. It worried some of my friends a lot more than that, and
some of them were brave enough to tell me so.
But I was ensnared; I had built a relatively comfortable life (or so I
thought) and I was terrified of what I might lose if I ‘took steps’ to end that
relationship. I figured I could change the other person’s controlling behaviour,
and bring logic and compassion to their world view (which lacked both of those
things).
In hindsight it turns out that not ‘getting the hell out’
was one of the most expensive and damaging decisions I have ever made – or failed
to make. It cost me health, money and friends.
The first friends to go (not of their own accord, the person I was with
engineered their disposal) were the ones who had my best interests at heart.
OK, maybe I wouldn’t be where I am now (which is a place
I like a lot, and wouldn’t change) but, had I taken a decision based on an ‘unclouded’
view of where I was all those years ago much pain would have been avoided.
And now to current affairs...
A few short weeks ago, many of my friends voted for us to
leave you. I was stunned, disappointed, and afraid of what might happen.
Despite being concerned about many of what I perceived as your ‘flaws’ I really
thought I could change you, and that I was better off in your arms.
In relationship terms, we’ve told you we are leaving and
we have started to pack our bags but we haven’t divvied up the CDs yet and not
even begun to talk about access to the kids once we have gone our separate ways.
But you’re already telling us, and the rest of the world, that you’re gonna
make us pay for leaving you. Not necessarily
because you want us to suffer, but you want to make it clear to the other
people you’re in a relationship with that leaving will hurt. This is the first
clue to me that I may have been wrong.
You know, that’s not how love is supposed to work. Folk are supposed to stay together because of
the joy that brings, not because of the fear of the spite and pain that going
their separate ways might entail. Hearing you talk of how you’re going to make ‘an
example’ of us has opened my eyes to your insecurity, and made me realize that
perhaps the relationship I thought we had wasn’t as cozy as I’d believed. It’s already put some distance between us,
and that’s helping me see your behaviour in a different way.
The immediate ‘disasters’ that were foretold if we were
to decide to split have spectacularly failed to materialize. If anything, I’m
already a little bit better off. This is
the second clue that I may have been wrong.
I can see, just as happened so many years ago, your
attempts to make some of our friends who are also in a relationship with you
turn against us. You’re trying to line up France and Germany in particular who,
along with ourselves have effectively financed your behaviour for all these
years. What do they gain from
mistreating us? Nothing. So if you have your way, you are the only
winner – everyone else loses. The third
clue, and a hard one to miss, I’d say.
The funny thing is that if you stop being so spiteful
then you’ll see that you and we could both be better off in an amicable
divorce, where we can still be friends. But I don’t think you’ll ever see that,
because it would need you to change your ways, and drastically.
And now, let’s see how you’re treating Ireland, and Apple
Corporation. They haven’t actually done
anything that is ‘wrong’ – in the eyes of the law (law which *you* made). But
nevertheless you don’t like what they *have* done. Whose fault is that? Theirs, for doing nothing wrong, or yours,
for failing to set out how you wanted them to behave? Now that you’ve decided they’ve pissed you
off, you want to make them both pay, and pay so much that the cost will echo
through history. Your hubris is astounding.
This is the straw which broke the camel’s back as far as
I am concerned. The scales are lifted
from my eyes. I now see you very differently, European Union, to how I did just
a few short weeks ago. You’re a jealous,
twisted, illogical and self serving character, aren’t you? The only interest you have at heart are your
own, and you will rewrite history or
even the laws of nature to see to it that you come out on top. It matters not
the slightest to you who has fed or nurtured you in all these years – if it
suits you to turn on them and devour them, like a praying mantis to her mate,
then nothing on earth will stop you. You are no lover, you are a succubus.
The irony of my ‘road to Damascus’ moment isn’t lost on
me, as so many people flee their own literal or figurative war-torn Damascus in
the hope of a safer, better life in Europe. Perhaps their hopes and fears, their
energy, their relief in escaping a known devil, this ‘new blood’ will satiate your vampiric
tendencies, if only for a short time.
But you and I? We
are done, my former love. I will walk away, and not look back. No fear of
turning to a pillar of stone for me, just a sadness in the realization that a
relationship I held dear was rotten to the core, and at the same time a lightness of heart that things can only get better now. Others, soon, will come to realize
the same and, in time, I think you will go the way of Ozymandias, and I don’t want
to see the maggots boiling from the eyes of the half-sunk, shattered visage
that will be all that remains…
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