Registered: Jul 2000
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As a european, I read this piece and think that the arguments he put forwards on the issue of european identity are extermely persuasive. What do you think of it? A US perspective would be welcomed.

By Timothy Garton Ash.

Ash is a fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. A longer version of this article appears in the current 'New York Review of Books'

Identities are defined not just by what you are for and who you are with, but above all by who or what you are against, or what you feel is against you. This is often an outright enemy, but it may just be a great rival – the other team, so to speak. In the jargon of identity studies, it is the Other. The deepest question posed to Europe by this continuing "war against terrorism" is: who or what is Europe's Other?

During the Cold War, the answer was plain. Europe's Other was the threat from the Communist "East". There were other Others, too: Europe's own bloody past was a kind of historical Other, the United States a very important rival for Gaullists of all countries. But this was the main one.

Since the end of the Cold War, Europe has been a continent in search of its Other. In the last decade, many on the European left saw the Other in the United States. Europe was to be defined as the not-America. Europe would preserve a different and more "social" model of democratic capitalism, even in an era of globalisation. Europe would be a counterweight to the crude, brash, only-surviving-superpower, with its misguided policy in the Middle East, its lamentable record on aid to the Third World, and a general tendency to throw its weight around.

This view has not simply disappeared after 11 September. Indeed, there has been a lot of criticism of the US during the war, and many Europeans argue that 11 September shows the need for a more sophisticated, multilateral approach to a complex, naughty world. But it is more difficult to define yourself primarily against America at a time when America and Europe seem to be under attack, as part of one Western, Christian or post-Christian, materialist, decadent civilisation. In that attack, Osama bin Laden thrusts upon Europe the prospect of another Other, at once very new and the oldest of them all. For "Europe" was originally defined as a conscious entity in the conflict with the Islamic world. The first political usage of the term comes in the eighth and ninth centuries, as the followers of the Prophet – the "infidels", in Christian parlance – are thrusting, by force of arms linked to a faith that we would now call fanatical, into the underbelly of Europe. "Europe" begins its continuous history as a political concept in the 14th and 15th centuries, first as synonym for, then as successor to, the Crusaders' notion of Christendom – and once again, its Other is plainly the Arab-Islamic world.

There is a real temptation to revive that ancient European bogey. One European leader has spectacularly succumbed to the temptation. The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, told journalists we should have confidence in the superiority of our culture. "The West," he said, "given the superiority of its values, is bound to occidentalise and conquer people. It has done it with the Communist world and part of the Islamic world, but unfortunately a part of the Islamic world is 1,400 years behind." Mr Berlusconi made the remarks after a breakfast with Vladimir Putin. In a volcanic essay, thejournalist Oriana Fallaci added "We might as well admit it. Our churches and cathedrals are more beautiful than their mosques.' And she described Arab immigration to Italy as "a secret invasion"'. Is it an accident that these two voices come from Rome, the centre of Western Christendom?

However, this is not just about Western Christendom. President Putin's remarkable strategic response to 11 September, immediately and wholeheartedly positioning Russia with Europe and the West, is justified ideologically by an implicit claim that the world of Eastern Christendom, of Orthodoxy, stands on the front line against Islamic and "Asiatic" barbarism (typified for Mr Putin by Chechen and Afghan "terrorists").

Most European leaders and intellectuals of course reject this polemical (re)construction of our identity. Even if some claim of cultural superiority were justified – and the record of European barbarism in the 20th century should make us humble in that regard – it would be madness for Europe to embrace this rhetoric. The whole West is already at risk of alienating Muslims throughout the world in what George Bush once ill-advisedly called our "crusade".

This would be particularly dangerous for Europe, which sits just a few miles north and west of a diverse, frustrated, and in large parts impoverished Islamic and Arab world, in what Europeans used to call the Near East, in North Africa, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Above all, it would be suicidal for a continent in which as many as 20 million Muslims already live.

Although London and a few other English cities have their share of Islamic radicals, most British Muslims seem reasonably at home in British society. It is important that we should help them become more so. The Turkish communities in Germany are less well integrated. A senior German politician said Germany had more extremist teachers of Islam than Turkey did.

And a few weeks ago, in a working-class quarter of Madrid, I spoke to a illegal immigrant, aged 23, from Morocco, called Yacine. Yacine came to Spain hidden under a bus. He does not have the papers to get a job, so he lives by stealing. Did he think the Western response to 11 September was directed against Islam? "Yes, it's an attack on Islam." Many of his relatives, he added, "think the Jews will have a part in the attack – and so do I."

Muslims in Europe will not be reassured simply by President Bush or Tony Blair pronouncing, as fresh-baked Koranic scholars, that Osama bin Laden's message is a perversion of Islam. As the French writer Olivier Roy has argued, we need a much deeper reflection on what it means to talk of European Muslims or "European Islam". The very notion challenges deep assumptions about Europe as post-Christendom that one often glimpses beneath the elevated rhetoric of European unification. We must therefore hope that this latest new-old Other is immediately put back in its box, and the lid firmly closed – although some Muslims will suspect that Mr Berlusconi was merely saying what Europeans really think. Meanwhile, the Russian Other is largely gone, especially if Mr Mr putin continues his pro-Western course. The American Other remains a candidate, but one that looks rather out of place in the post-11 September world. In the end, it will never fit the bill, for these are not, in fact, two separate civilisations, but one, albeit containing a wide spectrum of social, economic, and political models, ranging from the American Right to the French Left. And there is no other Other in sight.

Thus the task for those who believe, as I do, in a project called "Europe", is to build a strong, positive European identity, one that binds people emotionally to a set of institutions, without the help of a clear and present Other. The "war against terrorism" clarifies that task, but also complicates it. For the time being, I must conclude that this is yet another defining moment at which Europe declines to be defined.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: my mother's bloody womb
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hm. i can see his perspective, and it is well thought out and intelligently presented. but to say that europe is lacking in definition for want of an "other", an enemy of sorts, is ridiculous. yes, i understand the concept, that what you dislike defines you as much as what you like. but in the context of a group of countries, that theory really doesn't apply well. personally, i think that europe's lack of any major enemies, or "others", is a sign of a continuous positive evolvement of civilization. to not have enemies is a good thing, not something to be listed as a fallacy.

my .02

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Registered: Jul 2000
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true that the 'Others' argument is something that lives within the academic world of identity studies. What I think he is trying to say though is that Europe has started to reach at which its own identity is in flux, and that perhaps, if there was an 'Other' we might be abole to find our way again. I think hes also making a comment on the nature of the project that he and myself call 'Europe' in that establishing a collective identity for over 15 nation states with diffreent languages is a major problem facing the whole of my continent. I think it has alot to do with what I like to call 'positive balkanisation', ie the idea that Europe as an entity is balkanised but not in the destructive negative way like the actual Balkans. Many idenitities merging into one collective. What that collective is is yet to be defined and on this I agree with him.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Spooky
true that the 'Others' argument is something that lives within the academic world of identity studies. What I think he is trying to say though is that Europe has started to reach at which its own identity is in flux, and that perhaps, if there was an 'Other' we might be abole to find our way again.

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quote:

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Originally posted by morgana
i just don't believe you need an opposite to define yourself.

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Registered: Sep 2000
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I think the author's thesis of defining one's own group as distinct from the "other" is actually pretty valid. I'm not entirely certain that the "other" in question is the US any more so than East Asia or Russia, necessarily, but the thesis is credible to me.

One thing I'm beginning to wonder about is the "Balkanization" issue to which Sp00ky referred. I'm not European, so I can't comment directly on the issue, but the numbers I'm reading are beginning to make it sound like the idea of a "United Europe" is bigger with the policymakers and elites than with the public as a whole, and that even to the extent that the public supports the IDEA of a united Europe, they may not actually be willing to think of the other members of their new polity as tribesmen.

The following figures are from Abigail Thernstrom's book America in Black and White, specifically the table, "Majority Dislike for Ethnic Minorities in European Nations, 1991: Percent with 'Unfavorable' Attitudes toward the Principal Domestic Minority in Their Country." As such, the numbers are old; I am curious as to how valid they still are.

Percentage of Americans who say they dislike African Americans: 13 percent. By contrast...

21 percent of the British say they dislike the Irish.
22 percent of Spaniards say they dislike Catalans.
30 percent of Lithuanians say they dislike the Poles.
42 percent of the French say they dislike North Africans.
45 percent of West Germans say they dislike Turks.
54 percent of East Germans dislike the Poles.

These numbers reflect feelings of the majority population towards each nation's principal minority. Balkanization, it seems, isn't just for Balkans any more.

Are these numbers accurate representations of current reality, or have things shifted since 1991? And do these undercurrents of animosity call into question the genuineness of public sentiment in favor of European union? I'd like to hear European perspectives on this.

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Well I would dispute the figures, although I cannot find any off hand. I would be intersted to know what the actual questions asked were to define those figures though. You know, like is perosnal animosity the same as being willing to discriminate abritrarily.

Also, none of those figures take into account the ethnic minorities of those countries. Britian for example, as the largest sub-conitnent population outside of the sub-continent in the world (in terms of % to total population at least). ie.

54 percent of East Germans dislike the Poles.
Does this include immigrant second generation poles of ethnic origin?

BTW I utterly dispute the figures for the British. The Irish are not IMO an ethnic minority. The are white male caucasians. Hardly very different from your average euroepan really.

On the issue of balkanistaion. As I mentiuoned I call it positive balkanisation in Europe, because I think its not a negative reaction. I think its a positive reaction tot he difficulties in producing a working political model that expresses fully both the national identity of member states and also expresses a distinct european identity. The whole point of Europe is not to go down the road that the USA went down, and also because it would be very difficult too, in that we do not want to have an overiding identity. The european identity must express the diversity of Europe and its cultures. A collective identity for diverse and distict national identities.

This is not however I think a policy issue, or a matter of government. This is something that will come from the world of academia, it will be from here I think that an idea of euroepan identity will come. It may even be that the idea of euroepan identity wil be different dependent on each member state. For example, the german idea of idenitity of europe will more than likely stem from the original inception of the project and the need to solidfy franco-german relations over Alsace-Lorraine, I think the same will be true for the French. In comparison the British notion of idenitty will be mroe geared towards trade and partnership in capitalism.Spain will be about subsidies becasue they are scronugers (cyncical joke). But you get where I am coming from on this.


On the issue of Europe as a whole, and the Union. I think that again, it depends on the question you ask as to what the asnwer will be about the whole european project. Almost everyone is in favour of a european free trading area, the sticking points always come down to the minuet details of particular policy. For example, Britian has alwasy had a problem with the idea of a European Defence inititative. The failed EDC plan of 57 failed because of British tooing and froing.

I think that the introduction of the euro in January (ie the introduction of the physcial currency) into the Eurozone will change alot of attitudes also. Especially I think in the UK, where we are not introducing it yet. Most major stores here are planning to accept it as currency.

quote:

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the numbers I'm reading are beginning to make it sound like the idea of a "United Europe" is bigger with the policymakers and elites than with the public as a whole

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Denver
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Well Spooky asked me to take a look at this thread and give my views, and well my view tends to be that you folks make me feel damned ignorant and stupid.

I think the historical Europe vs the Middle East is a good point to bring up. I understand bInary opposition, but I really don't see the need for the whole East/West conflict. I find it ignorant. Wouldn't it be better rather than looking for an 'other' to look for 'others' as in others to exchange ideas and culture with, preferably on an equal basis? I don't know, I'm just rambling here, I'm no student of world politics so I haven't got any real perspective on most of this and why I usually keep my mouth shut.
I'd also add that the numbers Chips posted are bad, and yet good, because I'd be willing to bet if you'd done the same research 40 years earlier, the percentages would have been higher, so maybe there is hope for us yet.

-m

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