IS THERE A EUROPEAN IDENTITY

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IS THERE A EUROPEAN IDENTITY?

• Mike Johnson
• Manchester Metropolitan University
• UK

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Fundamental questions

• What is Europe?,
• Who is European?
• What are the boundaries of Europe?
• Political Europe?
• EUrope?

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Origins? 1 - Legend

• Kidnapping of Europa, daughter of the king of the
  Phoenicians, by Zeus, King of the Greek gods.
• Kept on Crete so legend associated with Minoan
  civilization, Greece and Greek democracy.

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Origins?2 -Science

• Ancient Mesopotamian language, Akkadian,
• acu means rising and erebu means entering
• Words thought to relate to sun moving East to
  West
• Acu becomes Asia and erebu Europe.

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Association with Greece

• Sixth century BC Athens epitomy of civilisation.
  
• Defining characteristic government by democracy.
  
• Free-citizens not gods, kings or priests
  governed Greek city-states.

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Free-citizen

• Male Greek aristocrat
• Not Greek (free or not) - barbarians, outsiders
  who did not participate in democracy and (or as
  they) did not speak Greek.

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Legacies of Greece.

• Government of the people, by the people, for the
  people through process of debate in environment
  of culture and seeking after truth not
  certainty by religion or kingship or dictatorship.

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Romans

• Addition of
• Law, military organisation and administration
• Communication
• Diversity

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Diversity

• See to it Romans that every head is bowed but
  spare the conquered when youve crushed the
  proud!

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Christendom

• Constantine saw Christianity as unifying force
  for Empire.
• Christians saw Roman administration and
  communications as perfect vehicle for spreading
  the faith.
• Empire could use the Church to assert its power
  over the people
• Church could use the Empire as a vehicle for the
  Word of God.

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Christendom

• Rome becomes spiritual capital of Europe
• Source of another negative-definer not-Islam.

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Reformation

• Individuals able to attain knowledge, even of
  God, through own endeavours.
• Overpowering of church by the Scientific
  Revolution.
• Individuals could read, discuss and test
  conclusions against properties of the world they
  lived in.

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Europeans as reasoning beings

• Concepts of individual freedom of thought
  attached to democracy and effective
  administration within a cultured environment
  where the arts are not only valued but used as
  the basis for living.

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Question

• Why have we spent so much time fighting each
  other?

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Political grouping

• Two ways
• People in an area can declare themselves to be a
  nation or
• Conscious political effort by others to build a
  new state.

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Current developments

• European Coal and Steel Community
• European Economic Community
• European Community
• European Union
• Enlargement to East

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Results?

• With each enlargement one or more of the
  characteristics that determine feeling of
  nationhood are lost.
• Forced back onto the functions of a nation-state
  rather than its more fundamental dynamics.
• Common-people have underlying feeling,
  folk-memory, collective unconscious that
  something distinguishes them from
  non-Europeans.

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Idea of Europe

• European characteristics
• democracy,
• rule of law,
• humanism,
• individual human rights and
• market economy.

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European Treaties

• Institutionalisation of Europe
• Identification with liberal humanism, civil
  rights, freedom of thought, belief expression and
  association, with equality and the rule of law,
  with social responsibility and finally with
  pluralist and participatory democracy

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Minority-ethnic-groups

• Folk-history comes from a very different basis
• Move away from a value-laden ideal to a wider
  vision of Europe embracing the principles of
  progress, development, emancipation, liberation
  and enlightenment.

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However

• Inevitably tensions when principles appear to
  exclude minorities or where minorities appear to
  exclude either themselves or, worse, their
  members.

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Social Europe three questions

• Whose cultures combine to create a European
  culture?
• Whose histories?
• What about the forgotten cultures and histories
  in Europe.

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Total merging fantasy

• Identification of group shown in manner
  appropriate to wider group
• Must be reasonable response to demands of
  situation
• Conditional on wider group accepting reasons for
  identification.
• Not remove the signs of identification with that
  group.

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Can we can answer the question?

• European identity has a very strong commitment to
  the individual, a commitment to social cohesion
  and solidarity, a state that is neither too
  strong nor too weak, respect for human rights,
  tolerance and the rule of law. It must have as a
  basic premise that people are treated equally.

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Answer 2?

• European identity is based on the common cultural
  heritage and a common cultural experience that
  allows for the establishment of a family of
  cultures.

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Answer 3?

• Constructing Europe so construct the European
  Identity also
• Someone who sees him/herself and/or is seen by
  others as belonging to Europe, whose life takes
  place in Europe and who is, indeed therefore, a
  native of Europe.

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Answer 3 ? (cont)

• Europe has never existed. It is not the addition
  of sovereign nations met together in councils
  that makes an entity of them. One must genuinely
  create Europe.
• Jean Monet, 1950

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Our contribution

• This course challenges directly any idea that
  Europe consists of white Christian nations.

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European Identity a process not a destination.

• Must contain recognition of difference within and
  between individuals.
• Must accept diversity - not impose one way of
  thinking or acting on others.
• Must embrace a concept of citizenship balancing
  rights and duties and the responsibility to be
  involved.

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Finally

• European must not become detached from the world
  outside Europe.
• Must not take the easy way out by defining him or
  herself as not-other.

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Finally

• May be that Global Citizenship can become
  reality.
• Arguments marshalled here apply to that concept
  also.
• Currently issues and complexities involved
  suggest to me that trying to conceive of what
  might constitute a Global Identity not
  profitable.

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You may well think otherwise.

• As a good, fully-paid-up European, I fully
  respect, and may even admire, your aspirations
  and wish you well with them.
• Keep me informed of progress.