M.D. Nalapat
MANIPUR, India, July 15 (UPI) --
"East is east, and west is west, and ne'er the twain shall meet."
Rudyard Kipling's words appear to be the motto of the leaders of Europe, who
are trying to insulate themselves from Asia.
The European Union is attempting to
create a political community by uniting the different peoples of Europe. Rather
than import human talent from wherever it is plentiful -- South India and East
Asia, for example -- the core of the EU, France and Germany, are pouring lavish
resources into attempting to make the people of former Soviet satellites
leapfrog away from their statist past to the era of modern economies.
However, this "Look only at
Europeans" policy may boomerang on the West, especially because Eastern
Europe is demanding the same social infrastructure as the West has, a wish that
would, if fulfilled drain even West European countries of their international
competitiveness because of the huge financial costs involved. This will be
especially harmful in a context where the "Made in Europe" label is
losing its premium.
Genetically, even discounting the
prevalent theory that the 6 billion human beings on the planet evolved from a
handful of prehistoric human beings in Africa, the reality is that social
conditioning and education can make productive the people of any part of the
world. Rather than retard progress, an admixture of ethnicities has -- most
visibly in the case of the United States -- resulted in an increase in
productivity rather than the degeneration feared by Adolf Hitler, Jean-Marie Le
Pen and Enoch Powell.
