Europe in 21st century

currently rereading excerpts of Tony Judt book on Postwar_ A history of Europe since 1945. judt wrote considering what Europeans had done to one another in the first half of the 20th century,the forging of a transnational union was rather remarkable. it was less predictable in Europes emergence in the dawnof the 21st century as a paragon of the international virtues:a community of values and a system of interstate relations held up by Europeans and non Europeans as an examplar for all to emulate.whether Europe would survive the challenges of the coming century,would depend a lot on how Europeans responded to non Europeans in their mudst and at their borders. 170 years ago at dawn of the nationalist era,german poet Heinrich Heine drew a distinction between two sorts of collective sentiment. ( Germans were ordered to be patriots and we became patriots,for we do everything our ruler ordered us to do.it is not the same emotion as those in France. a frenchmans patriotism means that his heart is warmed,and with this warmth it stretches and expands so that his love doesnt merely embrace his closest relative,but all of France,the whole of the civilised world.a germans patriotism means that his heart contracts,and he no longer wants to vecome a citizen of the world,a European but only a provincial German. America would have the biggest army and China would make more and cheaper goods.but neither America nor China had a serviceable model to propose for universal emulation. in tribute to Merkel,we see a world leader rising above narrow nationalism to embrace multilateralism and civilized dialogue to resolve differences.Putin respected her calm leadership,her reliable,stable and consistent policy in contrast to impetuous,infantile behaviour of a melodramatic head of state. Andrew Sheng in his article on Think Asian wrote an article in praise of her contributions to world stability without the fanfare of news hungry heads of state.so women leaders like Helen Clark,Jacinta Ardern,Indira Gandhi,Benazir Bhutto shows that women can bring about a less divisive approach to power and embrace differences to enrich rather than exploit.Thank you to Angela Merkel for principled ethic of upholding freedom and human rights as a universal value when others are spinning the truth and subverting justice to serve their own agendas.danke