Dr. Cristina Vanberghen

China, in Xi’an, at a railway station so ordinary that nobody would ever think to write about it, a ticket clerk paused for a moment and told me: “Be careful, the water is hot.” I showed my passport many times. And honestly, I preferred that inconvenience to the alternative of never showing a passport but constantly looking over my shoulder in the street. Grand speeches about freedom mean little if people do not feel safe in their daily lives. I love Europe far too much to pretend that everything is fine. We spend endless hours debating the future, drafting strategies, and discussing values, while too often neglecting the simple things that make a society work: attention, responsibility, order, and basic civic trust. Europe needs to regain its sense of direction. It really does.

621,758 views