On Monday, like millions of others across the world, I watched as Notre Dame cathedral was consumed by flames. I’m not French, nor Catholic, but I still felt incredibly sad as I watched her burn. “How can I be so sad?” I said to my friend who lives in Paris, as “I’m not even Parisian!”. “You don’t have to be Parisian to be sad,” he replied, and he is right.
I have visited Notre Dame only once when I first visited Paris. I still remember how beautiful it was, marvelling at the art, statues of the saints and the building itself whilst the priest led a service and his French bounced and echoed off the walls. I remember thinking ‘look at what humanity can do’.
Notre Dame represents everything I love about the world: art, history, culture, spirituality and human achievement. This is partly why, like so many others, I was upset. I also felt something else though. Since Brexit and even before that, there has always been an identity debate raging in Britain. Are we British or European? Can we be both or does one have to supersede another? I am a firm believer that we can be both. I’ve always felt like a world citizen and also European. Many of the philosophers, writers, artists that have influenced my outlook have been from the continent. Even so, I’ve also struggled to put a definition on what it is to “be European”. Notre Dame in flames, especially seeing the spire fall, gave me that definition even if not with words.
Notre Dame is a testament, not just to Paris, France and its marvellous history but also to our entire continent. The cathedral has survived many of Europe’s worst times and has stood strong through it all. The religious wars of the Reformation, the carnage of the French Revolution, the chaos of the Paris Commune, two world wars, including the Nazi occupation of France. Throughout it all, Notre Dame has stood strong, scarred, sometimes battered and bruised, but unquestionably alive.
In that same vein, so has our continent. Europeans, all of us, whether you are British, French, German, Belgian, Italian, Polish or anything else, have been through so much together. We have been enemies and friends, lovers and haters, but Europe survived all of these dark times only to come out after the Second World War finally as one continent and people, having managed to forge a European identity in the fires of war. We have this identity, along with our national ones, that continents like Africa and Latin America have had for centuries. Our own conception of a continental identity is really long overdue.
All of Europe, and the world, should join France in mourning Notre Dame because she belongs to the world. I couldn’t help thinking that the moving videos of Parisians in tears, singing Ave Maria as they watched her burn was a repayment of their debt to the cathedral that had watched over their city for almost a thousand years.
I also think that her burning is a wake up call for us. Once again, Europe is in turmoil, nationalism, division, and hatred once more threaten our unity and like the cathedral before the fire, Europe is showing cracks. Her ravaging by the flames represents the current, symbolic flames of ignorance and hate creeping their way over Europe again. We must do our utmost to hold Europe together and remain united in the face of these new challenges, less Europe should catch aflame and go up in smoke as well.
Notre Dame is our continent and the world as a whole in miniature. It is a prime example of what we can achieve when we put our differences aside and all work together as human beings – we can create beautiful things that last down the ages. To be European is therefore not just to adhere to shared values, but also to survive, to be accepting of others from around the world, to in spite of all our diverse differences, and cultures, to stand as one and to recognise that we all hail from this beautiful continent, and planet. We should think of Notre Dame de Paris as Notre Dame de l’Europe and, more than that, Notre Dame du Monde - our lady of the world.
Let us extend our hands in friendship and solidarity to France, share in its grief and also in its reconstruction of the beautiful building, just as we must reconstruct our continent, our world and ourselves from time to time. Notre Dame has survived all of the turmoil I wrote about above; she’ll live this time as well.
Let’s hope we can say the same for Europe.