By: Florie Merritt, Student in Paris
This is what I will say when people ask me from where I hail
when I return to France this coming September. I am European, and I come from
Europe. I subscribe to the values that the European Union was founded on:
freedom, solidarity, equality and unity. I believe fervently in the union that
has resulted in the longest period of peacetime across the continent in its
history. I am European.
This vote that has pulled the rug from beneath the feet of
those who identify as both British and European has disgraced our country. A
country which already had so many concessions in the union, such as not being
part of Schengen and the rejection of the Euro as the standard currency. A
country which twice came to the aid of its European allies and fought for the
right to peace and friendship between nations that it has now callously
rejected.
What terrible hubris has brought Britain – for it is no
longer great, and when it was it had leached much of that greatness from other
nations for its own gain – to reject a union that has enabled such rapid growth
and prosperity to a small, post-colonialising kingdom is remarkable. The inane
belief that the United Kingdom still holds power in the world in the way it
once did as the largest empire in history comes very much from the archaic
institutions that run this country. Conditioned to feel inferior to a family
simply because of their bloodline, kept in awe of aristocratic Oxbridge
graduates and allowing them to run the nation, taught to believe the lies
spewed by Murdoch-owned media, the British people have spent their lives
subscribing to a particular form of quiet indoctrination. Britain First. Rule
Britannia. Take Our Country Back. God Save the Queen. The majority of the
nation don’t seem to have noticed that Britain no longer holds any power that
has not been afforded to it through history. When those powers are willfully
rejected, Britain’s power collapses.
But I am British no longer. By a circumstance of birth,
perhaps; but by choice, by belief, I am European. I reject the idea that
Britain is or ever has been glorious – to me, massacre and pillaging are not
the tools of a good world power – and I reject that by a margin of 4% I must be
stripped of my European citizenship. When I woke up on the morning of 24th
June, I felt like I had been robbed. More than that, I felt like my whole
generation had been robbed. The world suddenly looked darker and smaller, the
metaphorical walls shooting up around the country casting a shadow so long it
seems ceaseless. During the debates, every time I heard a Leave campaigner talk
about their grandchildren and how they were voting for them I thought: they
will not thank you. It feels callous to resent people you have spent your whole
life loving, but in what to the world must seem like a selfish move one
generation has decided to decimate another. Never in British history has the
older generation done something so final to restrict the future of the younger.
It is, to many, an unforgivable crime.
Those who can will most likely flee over the coming years of
financial ruin, political irrelevance and social turmoil. The vote for Brexit
has seemingly legitimised the xenophobic and racist in the population, as
hundreds of incidents of blatant discrimination have been reported against
anyone not white or not born here within four days of the result. As a student
of French history I see horrifying similarities between Britain today and
France during the turbulent 1930s, a time that ultimately led to the rise of
the Vichy regime during the Occupation. Prejudice and scapegoating have seeped
like a poison into an increasingly agitated Britain, and this vote is the first
decisive step down a path where ugliness seems almost inevitable. To escape
that uncertain future, many of the well-educated will leave British shores for
good. Some will likely make their way to the union their country has just
rejected.
But for those without the skills required to live and work
in Europe when free movement has been lost, when the British like all non-EU
foreigners are required to prove their value to live under its protective
shield, leaving Britain will be a great challenge. With a recession barreling
towards us like a train sans brakes, high unemployment figures and an increase
in poverty seem inexorable. The ironic tragedy of this vote is that it will
cause people to want to leave, but because of this vote many will lose the
right to.
I am European. I study in France, my father is Irish, and
most of all I believe in the European Union. Britain has voted to cast aside all
protections and benefits of this union for the great unknown, but the other 27
countries remain. The challenge for them now – and for us, every young European
out there – is to work together to build upon the foundations of the union to
create something strong and fair for every citizen. By voting Leave Britain has
chosen to remove itself from this future of European progress and allies being
able to come to each other’s aid when necessary. It is Britain’s great loss,
quite possibly its greatest loss in history, but after what is likely to be a
difficult period of European instability it may well serve to be Europe’s gain.
If the Brexit vote causes the EU to rally together, bury hatchets that should
have long-since been in the ground and come together to reform and promote what
they do for the good of every European citizen, we could quite possibly see
Europe quash the growing threat of fascism and head towards a brighter future.
This is what I will fight for. Ultimately one can’t know the
future, but as this vote has shown it is within the power of each and every
person to shape it. That is democracy. After the secession of Britain it should
now be our ambition to help heal and strengthen the union that has given us so
much and promises a future of possibility.
I am European, and I will fight for the right to be.
I am European. You can't take that from me
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