Euro design - join the debate
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Who has made a profound influence on the European culture? Since Ole has encouraged all babelbloggers to suggest some person or monument representing Europe, who could appear on Euro notes, I tried to think about it as well. Money... There's only a discussion about them when they are new. I remember how after the Lithuanian independence very beautiful bank notes were introduced.
This currency was called "talonas", a stupid name for currency, because in Lithuanian it means "ticket". People would refer to them as "vagnorkė", deriving this name from the surname of the prime minister at that time. In fact, that's the keyword I used to find the picture of them on google.
Actually, thinking of money didn't suggest me any personalities who would represent Europe. I tried thinking of persons instead. Who has made a profound influence on the European culture? For some unknown reason the image of Anne Frank popped up in my mind. Why? I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired of elderly men being always the symbols of Europe, various nations and what not. A.F., a member of a transnational European minority, could have been born anywhere and probably ended up having to experience the same horrors in most countries that are now in the EU at the time she lived. What is important in relation to the discussion on influential Europeans, I think that it was while reading her diary that many teenagers across the EU have felt: "no teenager in this world should experience this, ever!" After all, the EU is a project created after WW2, a set of "never again!" promises. It's often through A.F.'s diary that some teenagers are socialised into the culture of "all different - all equal", and get their first lessons of zero tolerance to the structures, institutions and practices which make "a teenager just like me" to go through such a nightmare.
That's as much as I was thinking about people representing Europe. Yet I'm not sure if images of personalities with such a fate could sit comfortably in our pockets :/