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| Long-time WPCT member Bryan Saunders has penned this masterly analysis of the History of Islam and its reality in present times, an article which will prompt discussion and some controversy: please do react! We commend it to you | ||
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Particularly active WPCT member John Fleet hailing from Cornwall has sent us this letter 
It is with very great sadness that I
have to report the death of Dr Otto von Habsburg, son of the
last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, who died in his sleep on Monday
4 July.
Otto von Habsburg was ninty-seven
and as a boy of four and newly Crown Prince of the then empire
walked with his parents at the funeral in 1916 of Franz-Joseph,
Emperor since 1848. Collectively the lives of his great-uncle
and himself covered a vast panorama of European history, and
after 1919 Dr von Habsburg was to see the collapse of the old
order of central and eastern European affairs, the uncertainties
and stresses of the 1920s and 30s, the Second World War and it
sequels, and the emergence of the new Europe within which he
became an active participant as a member of the European
Parliament and elsewhere, his work for the Paneuropa movement
being an example.
He foresaw the dangers of Nazism
which he despised and sought hard to avert the German annexation
of Austria in 1938. In this he was unsuccessful, as were his
hopes for a post-war Austria that would embrace the traditions
to which he held dear. But the European idealism remained and in
1979 he was elected to the European Parliament and continued
there for many years, becoming in time its senior member. He
joined what was then the Parliamentary Intergroup for Minority
Languages and Cultures [now the Intergroup for Traditional
Minorities, National Communities and Languages] with which CERES
has a long working association. It was due to this association
that he heard of our work and very kindly invited me to meet him
in his Strasbourg Parliamentary office. He wanted to know at
first-hand about Cornwall and what we did, and the meeting led
on to many years of support and encouragement for our work and
activities. The fact that I was invited to speak about Cornwall
to a Paneuropa international conference in Bavaria stemmed from
this support.
I last met him in the Palais de
l'Europe at Strasbourg, when the European Parliament shared
accomodation with the Council of Europe. It was agreed that we
should meet by the main debating chamber - he was then well into
his eighties and I watched him coming across the extensive
ante-chamber concourse as though he was a young man. He raised
his arms in warm greeting, and we sat and discussed relevant
events. When we rose to say our farewells he said "Now, if
there is anything, anything at all that I can do, YOU ARE TO LET
ME KNOW". It was a Royal Command, and was heeded. He added
"There is much to do". These were his final spoken
words to me, and they remained vivid, so much so that I have
adopted them as those who know me will readily appreciate. They
are a legacy to me of an outstanding European whom it was a very
great privilege to know.
We continued in touch and
corresponded from time to time, and he always wrote with
Christmas and New Year greetings, letters that were full of his
belief in Europe and its continuing ideals. Latterly strong
hopes were expressed for understandings between the Christian
west and the Muslim east, hopes that one day we may see realised.
For many years the Habsburgs were
denied access to lands of the former Empire, Austria included.
Happily restrictions were lifted in more recent times, and it is
good to know that Otto von Habsburg was able to make returns. It
is good too that he lived to see his father - the short-reigning
Emperor Karl - beatified by the Church, and that he was able to
attend the ceremonies in Rome during which this was confirmed.
It is good also to know the London
press responded promptly to news of his death, and I draw
attention to the full-page obituary and photograph in "The
Times" for 5 July.
A lasting regret is that I was never
able to lure him to Cornwall. I tried hard!
Lowena dhys,
John
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