So there you are, having worked your way through an enormous crowd only to find yourself turning your back on your final prize, the Mona Lisa. Rather then allowing ourselves an extraordinary moment that might transcend into something inspiring and spiritual, we scramble to document us being there. When the act of capturing the experience has become more important than the experience itself. Painted by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, acquired by the French King Francis I to be admired by an apparent Greek reporter and the rest of the world. How more diverse can one get? It is precisely that cultural diversity that constitutes Europe and unites us as human beings and the world at large. To be European involves confronting the past with all its horrors, as well as the European surplus of beauty (wasn’t it Churchill who once remarked ‘The Balkans produce more history than they can consume’). And to think as a European means to acknowledge the varied differences in Europe and even be proud of it. Because it is ultimately what distinguishes us from the rest of the world and gives us our common identity. After all, as the motto of the EU goes: ‘United in diversity’.
