Greek mythology goes that Europe was a stunningly beautiful young goddess
bathing naked on the shores of Asia Minore, when Zeus' eyes fell on her.
He left his office on Capitol Hill (which then was Mt. Olympus) and
deceitfully changing his aspect into a bull abducted the young stagaire
through the sea to Greece where he made love to her.
Needless to say that his behaviour was well applauded by the free Greek
citizens and nobody took offence in his repeatedly adulterous actions
throughout the centuries. So yes, Europe is only an appendix to Asia,
but a quite sensual one. This made it in our opinion (the Europeans)so
different to the rest of the world, that we like the idea of being a
continent apart.
Later there were some minorities though who thought that the idea of living
on a continent which was born out of adulterous sin (Zeus was married)was
absolutely unbearable and unmoral to them. They finally heard of a newly
discovered land beyond the Ocean and decided to leave Europe. There,
north of the Rio Grande they pursued a dream of founding a Puritan society
where girls are not allowed to bath naked in the sea and where the
inhabitants of their Capitol Hill are publically screened on unmoral sexual
behaviour. They called the morally and ethically cleansed part of the
continent: United States of America, and printed ( so that nobody ever
forgets), a watchfull eye on their money bills.
People in Europe did never quite understood their obsession with sex, drinks and
tobacco etc. and often asked themselves, why by Zeus they had even tried to
shape their capital following the patterns (and names!) of classical European
architecture, when they were not willing to let the classical hellenistic,
or even the Renaissance spirit, who had created it, live in it.
Even one of the strongest supporters of the building of a United Europe and
friend of the United States, the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl cannot make
head or tail of it. He declared today ( one week before the general
elections) that what is done to Clinton "makes him vomit".


T.K.Eppen
Network of European Museums and Archives
Avenue de la Couronne 412
1050 Brussels