EUROPEANS are suffering an identity crisis.
The preoccupation with ''nation-building'' and the drive for a common identity for a continent of more than 800 million citizens was questioned at a recent Conference on European Identity at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.
The conference was part of the lead-up to a declaration on European identity early next year.
Ambassador Jiri Grusa, the representative for the Czech Republic in Austria, warned that when identity was talked up too much, it revealed two uncomfortable truths: That one is behind the times, and that one wants to be different
When one talks about one's identity, one is either unhappy with one's 'self' or scared of losing it,' he said.
'One also adopts a loud, declamatory tone, since one necessarily claims all the good qualities for oneself and one's own group. 'In other words, identity is ideological.'
Ambassador Grusa said European history had shown more than any other continent, the danger of clinging to a singular and irreducible identity.
And he warned against the growing trend within the European Union of trying to build a common political identity.
'European unions have always been based on a predestined, self-elected nation, which has tried to set up appropriate state-political structures.
'History has put all these 'unions' through its mill. The USSR, Yugoslavia and even, to some extent, Czechoslovakia are the latest examples.
'And now the EU is starting to raise the question of identity.' The Ambassador believes moves to create a new sense of 'us', and state structures to match, is essentially a backward one.
He explained: 'It involves stressing existential differences - in the name of freedom, et cetera.
'But we have seen that most of those who start by proclaiming freedom as their goal end by reducing it radically.'
Professor Franz-Lothar Altmann of the German Institute of International Politics and Security in Berlin, said the US was a good example of building a nation of multiple identities.
Ambassador Grusa agreed, saying Americans had asked a far more radical question than 'who are we?' - they asked instead: 'What is a human being?'
The US found its identity through inclusion, he said, while Europe's attempt to do the same was foiled by exclusion rituals.
'In Europe, the question of identity invariably turned into a wrangle over the pre-eminence of the current top-dog nation.'
Ambassador Grusa noted that the European 'family-album is crammed full of conflicting images'.
'And so European identity should probably start with forgetting - or a carefully-structured process of remembering.'
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/analysis/story/0,1870,38530,00.html?

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2001

Answers

Interesting article and raises the question in my simple mind, why "leaders" are determined to forge an FTAA.. Do the common folk want this??.. Is there enough common consensus in all the societies to make this a functional society??
One of the mantras of business consultants i worked with, was that to change paradigms, one had to undergo a "breakdown" to achieve a "breakthrough"..
It occurs to me that we are quite far along in the "nation state" breakdown process..Europe is the most obvious example to me, but maybe it's just because i'm outside.
Yet here we have The FTAA as a precursor to an amalgamation in the Western Hemisphere, and our leaders proclaiming democracy..

'But we have seen that most of those who start by proclaiming freedom as their goal end by reducing it radically

Just a mind dump..

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2001