With a broadside at the democratic deficits of European institutions, prize winner Hans Magnus Enzensberger lived up to his hard hitting reputation. <\/p>\n
Fellow German thinker J\u00fcrgen Habermas once said, that Enzensberger has his \u00bbnose in the air,\u00ab by which he meant an acute sense of trends in the present time and epoch. At the Sonning Prize ceremony in the Ceremonial Hall at the University of Copenhagen Tuesday, Enzensberger was true to his form.<\/p>\n
The Brussels bureaucracy is an authority that claims to want the best for us, he said.<\/p>\n
\u00bbBut instead it sees us as helpless minors without consent, as subjects that have to be convinced,\u00ab he said in his acceptance speech – a biting satire against the attempts by eurocrats to sidetrack a better European democracy.<\/p>\n
\u00bbEvery criticism of European institutions is conceived by these people as somehow anti-European,\u00ab Enzensberger said. It reminded him of the discourse of McCarthyism in the United States where all criticism was labelled Un-American.<\/p>\n
Europeans can proudly look back at more than six decades without major wars, and the modern freedom from travelling restrictions within the EU has been an immense boon to personal freedom, Hans Magnus Enzensberger allowed.<\/p>\n
But led by the Council of Ministers and the EU Commission, European institutions consistently lead a secretive, cabinet-style of politics where all decisions are made behind closed doors. Only experts can find their way through the EU jungle of institutions. <\/p>\n
\u00bbTo the executive arm of government this is a state of paradise,\u00ab he said.<\/p>\n
A paradise where any call for bringing a policy up for referendum sends Eurocrats into a state of panic.<\/p>\n
Citing philosopher Odo Marquard, Enzensberger said that European institutions live up to a twisted version of an old dictum.<\/p>\n
\u00bbIt is not about changing the world, but about beautifying it.\u00ab<\/p>\n
As a thinker Enzensberger is not only known for his biting irony. Also his poetry, itself a reflection and criticism of social life and affairs, was praised at the ceremony, which included an ‘a capella’ choir and the presence of several key government ministers and literary celebrities. <\/p>\n
His poem \u2018Prozession\u2019 was made into a haunting, multi-layered whispering by the chamber choir Camerata \u2013 while another poem \u2018Mund\u2019 was mouthed, and almost tasted, in the choir\u2019s subtle rendering of Bent Lorentzen\u2019s setting of Enzensberger’s poems to music.<\/p>\n
University of Copenhagen Rector Ralf Hemmingsen started the ceremony by praising Enzensberger for his \u00bbunavoidable criticism of the institutions of society\u00ab.<\/p>\n
Keynote speaker, the literature professor emeritus Thomas Bredsdorff, pointed to Enzensberger’s recent analysis of the European historical roots of Islamic terror, including his concept of \u2018the radical loser\u2019.<\/p>\n
miy@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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