Let’s say I were to project into the future a quintipolar world – one in which there were five primary centers of military and economic power (what we today call “superpowers”). Those powers would be the United States of America, the European Union, China, Russia, and India.
In drawing an iconographic image of that world, I could represent the USA with an eagle. Russia is a bear, of course, and China is a dragon. It’s an easy call to go along with this theme by representing India with an elephant. But what animal (either mythical or real) would I use to represent Europe?
A boring ring of twelve gold stars isn’t the same kind of icon as the other four, which are animal figures. It’s not nearly as interesting, and it breaks up the animal-icon theme.
My first thought is a lion. England’s traditional animal icon is King Richard’s gold lion. The Czech Republic is a white lion with two tails. Lions are associated with Sweden, Finland, Bulgaria, Denmark, and Norway, too. Problem is, there haven’t been lions in Europe for more than two thousand years since the Romans hunted European lions to extinction.
Eagles are popular, too, especially east of the Rhine and north of the Danube; you find eagles symbolizing or appearing on coats of arms for Germany, Poland, Czech, Austria, and Hungary. But I can’t use an eagle, because I’ve already used it for the USA.
So now I’m guessing the right symbol could be a griffin – a mythical beast that is half lion, half eagle. Of course, that’s too similar to St. Mark’s lion, the symbol of Venice, so anyone who has a rivalry with Italy – and lots of Italians who might prefer, say, the Roman she-wolf – will also not like this.
Now, there’s a whole host of other national symbols – animal and otherwise – that compete with the various lions and eagles. There are bulls, roosters, horses, owls, and rams all over Europe. Other countries are a little bit more challenging. Ireland’s symbols are a cloverleaf and a harp. France is either the fleur-de-lis or Marianne – Marianne may be the sexiest national symbol on the Continent, but she’s not an animal and she certainly doesn’t represent all of Europe. And because the theme is animals, Europa herself is not a good choice. Neither is Europa’s lover Zeus, disguised as a white bull, since Zeus himself is not the symbol of Europe.
The real problem is that the EU is so modern, technocratic, new, and dull that it simply hasn’t yet evolved its own set of symbols. So maybe the only really accurate symbol is that boring circle of stars.
So, is Europe a lion, a griffin, or what?
