Europa! Europa!

For Sunday, we decided to have class shortly after breakfast. It was comfortably informal and brought many of the politicized issues regarding women, military conflict in jihad, and scholarship in Islam from past readings to the forefront of the class. In the course of our discussions we touched on a myriad of topics ranging from female sexual liberation and emancipation in dress to analogous misconceptions on Islam in the negative publicity extremists such as David Koresh produced about Adventism. Once we fully reviewed our reading material and sat down for a quick lunch at a local cafeteria, we paid a visit to the European Union Parliament here in Brussels.

This “parlamentarium” near the actual EU legislature happens to be a museum offering a spectacular timeline of modern European history spanning the formative years of this “United States of Europe” idea. Another fascinating exhibit in the parlamentarium was an actual simulator of the European members of parliament (MPs) voting process among the various international parties. I was amazed at how orderly, efficient, and cooperative this entire government system functions even with serious linguistic and political differences. I felt a sense of grandeur was captured in how this shared vision of a European community among millions of people spanning an entire continent emerged from the rubble of a terrible pair of wars. I thought if anything this museum triumphantly showcased the truth that humanity can be great because of our wealth of diversity and not despite of it.    

            Afterward our class took the metro to the Atomium, a large iron crystal shaped structure constructed for the April 17, 1958 World Exposition Fair in Brussels. Designed by the engineer-architect Andre Waterkeyn to feature nine large iron and steel spheres, the Atomium represented a sense of optimism toward science in the modern world. Although the crowds were unbearable at times with the long wait to use the elevator to reach the restaurant on top, the Atomium left me with the same sense of wonder that it imparted on its first visitors. Iron gave birth to steel, and its role has been invaluable in our push towards mass industrialization. In the imagination where iron and steel have been emancipated from the drive toward war and destruction, there is a wonderful picture of a rich, leisured, glittering, antiseptic world of white concrete and steel. Alongside space travel, it fills you with a sense of nostalgia toward this now seemingly naïve belief in collective human scientific and technical progress.