Invisible Symposium (Chapter I.)

INVISIBLE SYMPOSIUM

Moderator:

The British historian Eric Hobsbawm defined the last century as the “short century.” The 20^th century, he said, lasted about 75 years: from the start of World War I to the fall of communism. But in the last months of 1989, things in Europe were changing so fast that it was impossible to understand the events that were bringing the 20^th century to an end, let alone to record them. One of the few attempts to do so was made by the editors of Granta magazine, who on Christmas eve, 1989, asked a number of writers to reflect on the dramatic changes taking place in Eastern and Central Europe. The results appeared in a special Granta supplement called “The State of Europe,” to which Mircea Dinescu, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Jurek Becker, Isaiah Berlin, Andrei Sinyavsky, Czeslaw Milosz, Stephen Spender, Ivan Klima and others contributed very different, often opposing views about the consequences of the fall of communism for the future of Europe. Now that the new century is well underway, and we have been living for some years in the political and cultural space of post-communism as well as the European Union, we decided to bring together another generation of writers and intellectuals to ask who we are, how we are doing and where we are heading as Europeans.

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I would to begin the Invisible Symposium by asking the participants to be prognosticators. I would like you all to look into the future and tell me:

Is the experiment of the European Union going to work, in your view? Who will be the major beneficiaries of this experiment, and why? Who will experience the most loss, and what kind of loss?

Mr. Nadas, if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear your views on this question first, and then we’ll open it up to the rest.

Peter Nadas:

The Union experiment has no alternatives, but I think we have run out of guarantees for its success. The scientific, technological and methodological knowledge that Europe has accumulated so far is not to be underestimated. In the short term, it will be primarily India and China who will benefit from this. But in the long run, the poorest of the world will lose out first, then the environment itself, and eventually everybody.

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Mart Valjataga:

This experiment is more or less a working reality now. From my point of view the major beneficiaries are Europeans as consumers, litigators, entrepreneurs, tourists etc., while the major losers are Europeans as democratic citizens and political participants. This is because the political decision-making is shifting to a transnational level and to unelected executives.

Jorg Lau:

But what exactly is this “experiment” you refer to? Do we even know what it's about? There is no real debate about this at the moment. A unified, free common market, the biggest all over the world? The European social model? An alternative foreign policy agenda to the U.S? State subsidies for opera houses, theaters and writers? Those who have in the past profited from the European welfare state model are already suffering losses as Europe is – slowly – adapting to globalization, enlargement, open markets, mass migration, and so on. It's more than a loss of social security benefits. It is a loss of orientation and sense of purpose. This is why you can find a lot of resentment inside Europe against the way things are moving in Brussels—not only against the Constitution, but against everything with a European label, actually.

Dusan Mitana:

Yes, unfortunately, it sometimes seems that the bureaucrats from Brussels are the major beneficiaries of the European Union experiment.

I am not fascinated by the European Union and the idea of integration as a chimera of the Holy Roman Empire and the German Nation at the beginning of ninth century. From this point of view I belong more to the Eurosceptics or Eurorealists. I would also place myself alongside British conservatives or French Gaullists with their vision of mutually co-operating nations: unity in diversity and multiculturalism. Macro-centralization balanced with micro-regionalization. This aim is at least viable, whereas it is impossible to rely on the assumption that once Euro-Moloch is formed, Central Government will generously decide to surrender part of its powers to national local governments. In the worst case, the EU experiment will become an unsuccessful attempt to rebuild the Babylonian tower, and the biggest cultural loss will be the “cultural memory” of small nations.

Mitja Velikonja:

I’d rather speak of Europe as a whole than only of the European Union. I firmly believe that Europeanism is already working – not because of the main creators and promotors of the ’European idea’, but in spite of them. The Yugoslav example from a few decades ago speaks for itself: Yugoslavism really worked not as an ideological tirade and compulsory political plan, originated by the political elites, but in the fields that were out of control of the regime – in mass culture, youth cultures, leisure time, family ties, friendships etc.. Likewise, Europeanism as a truly multicultural and impartial project can not simply and arbitrarily be imposed ’from above’; rather, it needs time to grow up ’from below’. As to the question of who will be ’the winners’ and ’the losers’ in ’United Europe’: unfortunately it seems that European integration – as it is conceived now – does not and can not abolish the existing economic and political differences and divisions in Europe itself, or between Europe and the Third World. That is to say: the rich remain rich, the poor are still poor, and outsiders are far behind. Smaller countries, cultures and languages are the most vulnerable. I’ll explain this with an anecdote: This year’s all-European cultural project was something called ’Cafe d’Europe’. The core issue for discussion was “the diversity and colorful nature of the EU.” The poster that was used to promote the project and the concept featured a pile of books with the names of all the different European languages on their spines. Well, guess what? The name for “Slovene” was written wrong: ’Slovenčina’ instead of ‘Slovenščina’. A small, but symptomatic example of neglecting local specifics in spite of all the lip service paid to equality and respect for cultural and linguistic particularities. I seriously doubt that the name of a major European language would have been misspelled.

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Vittorio Zucconi:

That just proves that it is the European bureaucracy which has not caught up with reality, not visa versa. The experiment itself has worked, in spite of bureaucracy, and in spite of all the apparent setbacks and political second thoughts. The youth of Europe take for granted the absolute freedom of moving, studying, marrying and living in any of the member states, and there is no turning back from that. Traveling from Palermo to Berlin to watch a soccer game with the same currency in their wallet, or from Dublin to Barcelona to pursue college courses is as natural for the new generation of Europeans as it for US residents to commute from Boston to NY for business. A war between Germany and the UK or between France and Spain is as inconceivable today as a new war between Virginia and Pennsylvania. The resurgence of regionalisms, tribalisms and localisms--the so-called “identity issue”-- is the paradoxical proof of how profound, and therefore how frightening for some, the Europeanisation of the new generations is.

Agnes Heller:

I’d like to follow up on that. Since democratic countries do not wage wars against one another, the European Union is going to work as a European Empire, which consists of several independent, yet not entirely sovereign national or multinational states. On this level all Europeans will be beneficiaries. Open borders benefit young people above all, by offering more opportunities and diminishing ethnic differences rooted in traditional ways of life. Yet one can observe some kind of fatigue, a certain amount of cynicism in Europe. This might help to maintain internal peace, but it could also contribute to the erosion of values and become dangerous for Europe, if European pluralistic ways of life need to be defended and require sacrifice.

Metin Arditi:

Most of us seem to agree that the European Union is already working at the economic level, and from that perspective, there is no obligation to have winners and losers. An efficient economic system can generate winners only. The magnitude of the gains will vary from participant to participant, and from year to year, but as of today, both rich countries and new members are clearly benefiting from the Union.

Marek Tamm:

I also don’t think that the future of the EU should be evaluated in terms of “winners” and “losers”. The EU is after all a collective project which demands contributions from everyone and offers something to everyone. We shouldn’t “essentialize” the EU: it’s not a Ding an sich whose destiny is completely unpredictable. The success or failure of the EU is very much in our hands and depends of our decisions. Until now, the European construction has progressed rather well; I’m optimistic about its future.

Leonidas Donskis:

I hope the experiment will work, but I see difficulties ahead. It will be difficult for the major European powers to give up part of their former influence and prestige for the sake of European solidarity, reciprocity, and cohesion. At this point, it is easy to anticipate some tensions between the big nations and the small nations in the process of the enlargement and the rise of the EU. Much depends on how the EU will develop. Will it be the exclusive British, German, and French club with some minor actors attached, or will it be the Europe of equal nations? The major beneficiaries of the latter--that is, the best- case scenario--would be the small nations of Europe which have long suffered under the duress of oppression and political dependence. The most loss will be on the side of those who are still inclined to see Europe as naturally dominated and orchestrated by the big nations. The change of political roles and the redistribution of power and prestige will not be easy. It never is.

Marieke Sanders-ten Holte:

But this is where we are, and there is no way back. Globalisation and international problems are crying out for cross- border solutions. Terrorism, environmental problems, international crime… these things don’t just stop at the border. They can only be solved by close cooperation between the member states. This is not new. We should not forget that the forming of the European Union has always been a slow process, a balancing between diversity and integration. Looking at history, even before the start of the European Union, Europe was the result of a “learning by doing” process that took place over many centuries, with many different alliances. But what is lacking at present is a serious debate on European identity, on the shared cultural background and our cultural heritage. These aspects are hardly taken into account at all. And neither are the other pillars of community building: education and democracy. Only since the Maastricht Treaty (1992) will you find a paragraph on culture. And only recently have culture and cultural heritage been recognized in the Constitutional Treaty as basic principles for the Union. I think that until people in the Union realize that Europe is more than a single economic market—that Europe is also a community of values and culture—real integration will not work. Who will be the winners? Peace, stability, and economic prosperity are already benefiting an ever-growing part of the Union. And the loser? Language could be the loser if the EU does not take proper measures.

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Helene Cixous:

As my grandmother from Osnabrück, as my mother Eve Klein, I have been waiting for this experiment for more than a hundred years. I’m patient enough to believe it. The word “Union” will have to be loosened up: there is no union without a little interior separation. In other words, each must give up a share of sovereignty and find a compromise between sharing and maintaining. To be done case by case.

Who will be its beneficiary? All those who since forever have been devoted to the work on the self that tends to exceed its own frontiers. All those who want to cultivate the hospitable dimension, curiosity, complication, welcome, renewal.

Socially, politically, to make Europe means to redefine the concepts of State, humanity, international law, the market, freedom with regard to the powers in place, freedom of opinion. The urgency: to respond to the crises of “the end of work” produced by globalization. There is less and less room for workers. They are the internal exiles. Never have there been so many men and women deprived of a working future as there are today. European strategies with and for workers must be elaborated.

One ought to invent the verb “to Europe.” To you rope, the good rope: the one that ties but does not strangle.