A new promotional banner for the Nobel Peace Prize-winning European Union contains the old communist hammer and sickle alongside religious symbols.
It was presented by the self-styled socio-economic rights group Europe4all and reportedly hangs in the European Commission.
The banner’s slogan says, “We can all share the same star,” and the hammer and sickle appear four times, while the Christian cross appears only three times.
British journalist and conservative Europe Parliament member Daniel Hannan spoke out against the new banner Friday morning.
“For three generations, the badge of the Soviet revolution meant poverty, slavery, torture and death,” he wrote in the Telegraph.
“It adorned the caps of the chekas who came in the night. It opened and closed the propaganda films which hid the famines. It advertised the people’s courts where victims of purges and show-trials were condemned. It fluttered over the re-education camps and the gulags. For hundreds of millions of Europeans, it was a symbol of foreign occupation,” Hannan continued.
“Hungary, Lithuania and Moldova have banned its use, and various former communist countries want it to be treated in the same way as Nazi insignia.”
A National Review blogger noted that if the same banner had included a swastika, it would have rightly been disowned and torn down.
At a time with the future of European Union seems so uncertain, Polish and Baltic leaders are calling for more integration.
“They need to remember, however, that not all those now building a Greater Europe read history in quite the same way as they do,” writes Andrew Stuttaford.
Europe4all’s website maintains that “another Europe is possible.” Amongst its core issues are socio-economic rights, sustainable environment, peace and security, and anti-discrimination.
The website preaches a collectivist, participatory Europe.
“The Europe that we want is founded on the primacy of the rights of all and on the fundamental principle of direct participation by the citizens in public and collective decision-making,” Europe4all’s about section says.
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