New site, new possibilities.
Welcome to the new version of our magazine site, european-lifestyle.net.
We’ve been around for a while, but due to other commitments never really achieved the vision we were aiming for. There’s still work to do so please bare with us as we remove the scaffolding from the site over the next few weeks and forgive us when things break. We’re only human and will get things resolved as quickly as possible.
I guess the most obvious question on your mind is what are we doing? Well despite the troubled times we live in as greed has threatened to upset our economies, despite the often euro-sceptic line the right wing media may project, and despite the ignorance of a vocal minority often pushing and believing half truths and historical fallacies, we still believe there’s something good to shout about when it comes to our common home, Europe. From the island of Iceland to the mountains of Georgia. From the snow covered islands of Norway to the sunny islands of the Mediterranean. We are all Europeans.
We have a long and troubled history and the European Project is a long way from the dreams after the last world war, but we’re getting there. Never forget that the aspirations of European and indeed Universal unity and peace are fundamentally decent. No war, no divisions of race, colour or religion. The desire to accept that no matter which part of this continent we live upon and within we are all European and share a common heritage, art, music and past. The desire to put away the foolishness of war based on imaginary racial distinctions is a value which we should all aspire too. Does it matter the shape of someone’s facial features? Does it matter the colour of their skin? Does it matter the religious affiliation? Does it matter their native language? Not really.
What does matter is that we all come together to celebrate our common desires and have tolerance for the free thoughts of others without religious or political persecution as a result.
There are some people who still like to promote the old fashioned and destructive ideas of them and us. Some people who like think that they are different enough to be separate from the rest of us. And sadly they are often in positions where the voices can be heard the loudest. Shouting an alternative message of isolationists, little islanders, and when great wealth in materials and money is available they use their influence to promote the idea that we are all better off separated from each other in anything but trade. Those are the visions of the 19th and 20th century. Those are the visions of division which Schumann and others sought to remove from our collective imaginations after the continent’s largest slaughter of people which ever happened. Sadly not everyone has been convinced and we must all work hard to bring them along with us. Europe and the European dream is about more than politics, the EU and the single market. It’s about the vision of a single European family. United in our appreciation and love of all that is common to us. Not an assimaltion into a single state, but a commonwealth of common standards and heritage.
This site is here to celebrate all that our European lifestyle has to offer. Recipes, travel, technology, news, music, and literature. We may be a small flag pitched on the Internet but from small acorns, mighty trees grow so hopefully we make this a site something we can be proud of.
So we reach out to you and ask you to join in. If you can write a few lines on a story you wish to get published, please send it over. If you can comment on a story, please do. If you can contribute in any way, get in touch!
Let’s have some fun!
– The Editor