The subject is EU

For some, the European Union is where the future of democracy is at. Others see it as an impossible tangle of many languages and red tape. A...

For some, the European Union is where the future of democracy is at. Others see it as an impossible tangle of many languages and red tape. Ahead of the referendum in France on Sunday, debate on the European project billowed in the British press. A referendum on the new European constitution is on the cards in Britain as well.

The continent of Europe looks somewhat like 18th century India before the British took over, Linda Colley, professor of history at Princeton University, wrote in the Guardian 8216;8216;8230;full of petty kingdoms obsessed with their own affairs, frequently at odds with each other and seemingly unwilling and unable to unite or react effectively in the face of massive changes and threats from without.8217;8217; She felt the EU cause might be better served now if the peoples of Europe are constantly reminded of the rise of the big states, China and India. Because it will drive home 8216;8216;8230; that little Englandism or little Scotlandism, or whatever is not a feasible option.8217;8217; The argument is, and it is one that is increasingly being made by those promoting a united Europe, that Europe must realise the necessity of arriving at collective strategies to deal with a world in which the centre of gravity may be shifting in demographic, economic, cultural terms 8212; away from the west to India and China.

The Guardian published Colley8217;s comments last week as part of a dialogue between key thinkers on Europe. The discussion framed the sprawl and complexity of a debate so often reduced to emotive positions for and against EU.

Many Europhiles are also wary of a take-it-or-leave-it stance on the 450-page constitution which would bind 25 countries under one flag; dislike of the document appears to straddle the pro- and anti- divide. Many Eurosceptics are only queasy about being shepherded into the new order by the 8216;8216;EU8217;s grand viziers8217;8217;, the 8216;8216;bloody minded Brussels elite8217;8217; which 8216;8216;dishes out rules and regulations with total indifference to the millions of people they affect8217;8217;. They would be happier with a more democratic process that allows more freedom to pick and choose among the political initiatives for closer integration.

On the eve of the French referendum, the consensus was that regardless of the verdict, the idea of Europe requires an act of rescue. A new vision, perhaps, and some imaginative politics to carry it through. The more practical suggested a rebranding. Or simply a shift of the EU headquarters out of Brussels. As one participant in the Guardian debate asked: 8216;8216;Why not move it somewhere cool, like Barcelona, where everyone wants to go?8217;8217;

Bad news week

Just as the agonising on the use of anonymous sources in news reports was building up, the plot lurched back to an issue more grave.

It began with a report Newsweek published in its May 9 issue. It said that US officials had confirmed the claim of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay that a guard had flushed a Koran down a toilet; the story was based on an anonymous source. Violence erupted, particularly in Afghanistan, that left 16 people dead; the Pentagon declared war on the magazine as a representative of the 8216;8216;liberal media8217;8217;; Newsweek retracted the story after mere apology was deemed inadequate. And the US media generally brimmed over with comment and analysis on journalistic ethics, and specifically the place of anonymous sources in newsgathering.

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Then, last week, for the first time the Pentagon confirmed mistreatment of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay. On Thursday, they said that investigators have identified five incidents of military guards and an interrogator 8216;8216;mishandling8217;8217; the Koran, two of them 8216;8216;very likely accidental8217;8217; and three 8216;8216;very likely8217;8217; deliberate.

8216;8216;Shut it down. Just shut it down8217;8217;, wrote columnist Thomas Friedman in the New York Times of the POW camp at Guantanamo Bay see his full article on this page. Other commentators are speaking up and an issue that has been largely been left unattended in the US press may be gaining centrestage. It has to do with America8217;s treatment of its prisoners and how that treatment corrodes both the morality and the efficacy of Washington8217;s war-on-terrorism in the world. 8216;8216;Guantanamo Bay is becoming the anti-Statue of Liberty8217;8217;, said Friedman.

On that day

On May 27, at about 4 in the afternoon, when Guardian correspondent Victor Anant walked into the Indian prime minister8217;s house, his first instinct was not to look at Nehru, but at the people milling around him. After five minutes, he looked and was struck by what he saw: 8216;8216;No, the face was not waxen8230; No, the face was not that of an old man8230; In death as in life this was a face, not of repose, but of eager, impatient discovery8217;8217;.

Fear, he reported, was the dominant feeling that day. Last week, the Guardian dipped into its archives to retrieve the report and posted it on its website on the anniversary of that day in 1964 when India was plunged into the dreaded 8216;8216;after Nehru8217;8217; era.