Europe connoisseur Hendrik Vos is a great admirer of Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, for whom a beatification process is underway. He hopes to help this process by recognizing a miracle, namely how he emerged unscathed from a car accident. But this is beside the point, because the Vatican is investigating the matter with complete discretion.
What do you see?
Hendrik Vos • I see a lot: the light of the sun early in the morning, people strolling around or hard at work, the steam of coffee on a terrace, the ladybug that has woken up too early, gray rubbish on a landfill or stunning architecture. It’s not just a matter of seeing, it’s also smelling, feeling, listening. I cycle and run a lot, but I never do it with earphones. I want to be aware of what is happening around me. I have a hard time with intense stimuli and can be overwhelmed by great fatigue, but in the end curiosity always wins out.
What do you talk about a lot?
Professionally, I talk a lot about the unification of Europe. I speak to students, but I also give lectures and I am currently touring with a theater performance, together with the Dutch cellist Frans Grapperhaus, directed by Filip Standaert.
I didn’t know much about the European Union when I became a professor. I had colleagues who were involved in local, national and international politics. Europe was left, and that’s how it ended up with me. I wasn’t very happy at first because it seemed boring and lame. But I gradually became fascinated by it. How do you work together on this continent, where we had the habit of bashing each other’s heads on the battlefield with great regularity? How does such a union arise in which all kinds of countries, with different languages, backgrounds and interests, increasingly join forces? In retrospect it all seems so obvious, but in reality it could always turn differently.
Making history is always human work and chance often plays a role, a stroke of luck, an unexpected turn of events.
I think it is a hopeful thought, because it means that we still have the future in our hands and are not doomed to crash somewhere. While improvising, tinkering and sometimes tinkering, we continue to work on this intriguing project.
Why are you hesitating?
I doubt a lot and often. I used to admire people with strong and unwavering principles, who would fight to the death for their beliefs. I have gradually discovered that this is dangerous. Most issues can also be viewed from another angle that is not necessarily ridiculous, inferior or wrong. Anyone who is very convinced of their own right has usually not made the effort to look at things differently. At the same time, I don’t want to put everything into perspective.
There are quite a few things that I do not want to doubt, such as the importance of human dignity and the rule of law.
That is a pedestal on which we build our society. I want to fight for that.
What are you worried about?
The polarization in society and how some politicians add fuel to the fire because they think they can win over voters by being authoritarian, brutal or mocking, by pretending that they alone are absolutely right and suggesting that their opponents are enemies with a dark agenda. Of course there are differences of opinion when it comes to how we organize our society and how we best tackle the challenges and what deserves the greatest priority. That’s how it should be in a democracy. And then we will have a civil debate with each other. We take into account fundamental values, what science tells us and the fact that others sometimes have different sensitivities. With a little empathy, we look for a solution together and build bridges. That’s how it should be. But it often doesn’t work out that way. Quite a few politicians do the opposite and try to pit people against each other. That is worrying, because it destroys the foundation of democracy.
What are you afraid of?
Indifference, lack of gentleness and lack of empathy in society scare me. Sometimes it has to do with getting used to injustice. Look at the way refugees are treated, or migrants in general. It is a very difficult topic, there are tensions and no one says that it is easy to make a society with a lot of diversity work well. But a problem has never been solved by burying one’s head in the sand. There is a lot of misery around us and we try to keep it out of the picture by building walls and pushing back boats and dehumanizing migrants, so that clubbing doesn’t seem so bad. I’m afraid we’re getting used to this and losing our outrage.
Where is your faith?
No idea. I’m not looking for it either. I don’t feel the urge to understand, explain or explain everything, and therefore not to use a passe-partout like God for it. There are many things that I cannot grasp clearly and that have an aura of mystery about them. How friendship works, or love, why you can be overwhelmed by fear or beauty, how a song or a painting or a collection of words can drag me to tears. Why I feel heavy at one moment and weightless at the next. I find it hard to believe that it’s all just a matter of some chemicals bubbling and foaming in my head. I think there is more to it, but I don’t necessarily have to figure it out.
Who or what are you looking for?
I am often looking for the right words. I am a columnist The standard, and it is a struggle to get a text properly on paper, with the words that express exactly what I want to say, with the right color and the right sound. But even outside my professional life I often spend a long time looking for the right words. That’s why I sometimes remain silent for a long time, because once something has been said, I can no longer deny it. But if I manage to put something into words exactly the way I want it, then that can make me very happy.
Discover Schuman’s podcast The Miracle.
