De Gids. Jaargang 160

[p. XXVIII]

English abstract

Stephan Sanders
Europe before the year zero

Until recently, Europe was a subject primarily dealt with by others, luckily; policy-makers, politicians - especially that new breed of Euro-politicians - and professional Euro-watchers. Until 1989, it was abundantly clear for most people that Europe didn't hold quite as much excitement as the Kremlin or China. Kipling's stately slogan seemed to hold true for Europe as well: ‘West is West, and East is East, and never the twain shall meet.’

Of course, there were writers and intellectuals like Enzensberger and Kundera, who persistently concerned themselves with the European idea; this was interesting and mildly exotic, because, as unsuspected artists, they were engaging themselves in a field that was seen as preeminently unartistic. This was the world of import duties and percentage agreements, rather than one of ideas and concepts. In other words, work that could very well be left to bureaucrats.

The year 1989 changed this notion: Europe found itself suddenly confronted with a dream come true, ‘an answered prayer’, as Truman Capote would have put it. Everyone had been paying lip-service to that dream, noone had reckoned with the possibility of it coming true, and the initial euphoria was followed by a reaction of alarm: When should which Europe become one, and how big was the rush?

Were the old Western European agreements still valid, or did this new situation call for a revised vision, in which the political and psychological changes had to be taken into account?

The changes of 1989 may be characterized as tersed revolutions: the iron curtain was lifted bit by bit, country by country. Things were stirring in Hungary, things were stirring even more in East-Germany somewhat later, and before anyone noticed, a radical change had taken place in old Czechoslovakia. The torch was passed on and became ever brighter.

The discussions on Europe after 1989 show a similar development, albeit with less spectacular and dramatic consequences. Country after country has started reflecting upon its European role, and the limitations that this role implies upon national and innate character. Doubt becomes scepticism, and scepticism is contagious. Great-Britain caught it first and consequently infected Denmark, which passed on the virus to France, etcetera.

The European idea has started to come to life, and with its steady growth the situation becomes less and less clearcut. At long last, even the Netherlands - one of the more docile children in the European class - seems to get its share: patent views on Europe are formulated by people who aren't Euro-scholars, who are not even in Europe's pay. Laymen join in the conversations, undermining the peace and quiet of policy-makers and planners.

In fact, what we see in these countries is a clash of two different vocabularies: one language is that of politicians and civil servants, that have occupied themselves with European unification for a longer period of time. Their vocabulary consists of words like agreements, terms and time limits. The other language is less professional and, at the same time, more fundamental. Writers, artists, academics and journalists are trying to incorporate the European idea, sometimes heedless of the necessary jargon and of the agreements already made.

While a serious debate appears to be possible at last, the outcome of this debate seems to become more and more unpredictable. There are more questions, and above all more participants, who feel totally justified in getting involved in the topic.

The two languages meet and are forced to blend, as streams of hot and cold water. The swirls and eddies that are created are not only a result of this blending, but also of a more subtle mutual disturbance: contacts are made, translations abound.

‘Smugglers’ was the title of the symposium organized by the City of Amsterdam and ‘De Balie’ Foundation in the last week of March 1997. For three days, a dozen artists and intellectuals discussed a future Europe, in the broadest sense. By political standards, discussions on this topic have a way of becoming too broad. The debate was extensive,

[p. XXIX]

without directly resulting in a policy. History became an important part of the debate without it resulting in a blueprint for the present. At the same time, Europe appeared to have become a household name, for architects as well as philosophers. The European theme appeared to have been imperceptibly annexed by people who, ten or fifteen years ago, would have simply shrugged their shoulders.

The participants were all inhabitants of the European inland, but some spoke with surprising accents that included Indian, Canadian and even South-African, which is to prove once more that the European sphere of influence does not stop at its outside borders.

Even in areas where you would find neither electric trams nor coffeeshops, people appear to speak fluent European. Or, as the Canadian-British author Michael Ignatieff put it: the success of a number of ideas that have originated in Europe is illustrated by the fact that they are valid all over the world.

As soon as Europe speaks about itself, it also speaks for and about others. European expansion has caused borders to be crossed: now that Europe tries to determine its inside borders, it becomes apparent how little these borders meant in the past.

This explains why the guest speakers in the debate especially focused on Europe's past, even more so because this past seems to lack attention in today's period of Storm and Stress. All too easily, policy-makers speak as if an imaginary year zero could be established (either ‘Maastricht’, or ‘Amsterdam’, or the introduction of the Euro), after which the past would be erased and only a glorious future could be expected.

It does not do to simply denounce the era before the Euro as the pleistocene. Did the idea of unification not come into existence just after World War ii, as an historic attempt to realize Kant's dream of ‘eternal peace’? Those were grand and ambitious plans, that laid the groundwork for all those practical and concrete measures that were taken afterwards.

The notion of Europe did not start with introducing travelling allowance for Euro-MP's, but with an immodest and improper idea, that in today's European discussion almost sounds unwordly.

The uncomfortable European heritage is that of racial superiority, that leads to both colonial subjection as well as to the Holocaust. Michael Ignatieff was honest enough to acknowledge that Europe after 1945 explicitly distanced itself from racial superiority claims, and replaced those claims with a much more innocent sounding theory of ‘ethnicity’ and ‘cultural difference’. But even this wellmeant ‘purism’ has not been able to prevent the tragedy of Bosnia, as writer Slobodan Blagojević from former Yugoslavia and his Belgian colleague Monika van Paemel pointed out. On the contrary: racial war seems merely to have been substituted by ‘ethnic cleansing’.

With concern to its colonial past, South-African artists Marlene Dumas and Gavin Jantjes reflected that Europe tends to re-type the dark pages in its history, replacing them with new and enthusiastic plans. The history of the former colonies, however, forms an integral part of the history of Europe, and the same holds true for the inhabitants of the former colonies who now live in Europe. They fear that one day they will suddenly be declared ‘non-European’, as if ancient ties that have developed through the ages can be cut with a simple decree.

Jantjes as well as Dumas are (post)modern artists who spent their childhood in Cape Town, but who, in a way, already worked in Europe long before they moved to this contiment: the Europe of modernity, the artistic example that they felt connected with, as did their colleagues in Bombay, Bangkok and Cairo.

If Europe defines its borders, does the work of Salman Rushdie lie within or just outside? Exactly how geographical can one think, where cultural or political heritage is concerned?

The subject is not merely that of a dividing line, which decides on what is and what is not Europe (how European can Turkey be or become?). Much more fundamental is the notion of human rights, this originally European philosophy, that has succesfully been exported and applied to regions far outside the European borders.

It is exactly this universal nature of human rights which makes it painful to limit unification to a strictly demarcated part of the globe. For too long, and too intensively, Europe has been minding the rest of the world; it would be wrong to suddenly become timid.

The European colonies, once separated from the mother continent by the oceans, have already become ‘internal colonies’ long ago. North-Africans are part of France, if only because so many of them live in Paris. The city of Berlin has the third highest Turkish population in the world, including Turkey. Bijlmermeer is undeniably Amsterdam, as much as it is undeniably Surinamese.

Is it possible to construct a European identity that does justice to the historical ties that exist between Belgium and Zaire, between the Netherlands and the Antilles, and between Great Britain and Pakistan?

According to the British sociologist Paul Gilroy and the Dutch anthropologist Peter van der Veer, this appears to be the litmus test. They ask themselves how Europe can justify its future, if the actions and ideas from the past are not being seriously taken into account.

The other two major European triumphs, that of democracy and that of the welfare state, lead to a reversed argument: is it possible to realize a welfare state on a continental level, a state is inhabited by 350 million people that speak 15 languages, or does an extreme form of co-operation like this require more than just a formalistic social contract? Solidarity perhaps, or as Dutchman Paul Scheffer and Belgian Geert van Istendael chose to put it: a national identity?

All too often, European unification is presented with the

[p. XXX]

image of a moving train, that cannot be stopped anymore. This image implies an urgent invitation to board this train as soon as possible, even when you know that this train doesn't have an emergency brake. More than fifty years since World War ii, this image is not merely an extremely wretched metaphor, it is also an undemocratic one: the inhabitants are on the verge of being left behind on the platform so that Europe can realize its goal, its obsession. As Indian-Dutch architect Ashok Bhalotra put it: Europe strives for a Utopia that has to be feasible, measurable and tangible. The concept of trial and error is lost in the presentation of Europe as a fait accompli, a ready-made idea that we simply have to swallow, like a bitter medicine.

Europe once started with an idea, and an idea has to be chewed on. Even an old world is served with annotations; that these annotations show skepsis, rather than wonder, should only be deemed proper.

Chris Keulemans
A Classic Clash

In the living-room of Theatre De Balie, the Smugglers were very comfortable. They tried to find their place, knowing they would be condemned to each other's presence for a period of three days. After each conversation, they would change positions, go outside for a stroll or study their notes. Then, they would find a seat again, on the sofa, or at the reading-table, while in the foreground Stephan Sanders and Anil Ramdas were leading the discussions on Europe, its black pages and blind spots. It was hot. Gavin Jantjes was sitting straight, his shirt sleeves rolled up, looking slender, serene and ageless. Paul Gilroy, the sociologist with dreadlocks down to his bottom, listened in silence, expressionless. Only when the conversation touched upon the Christian tradition of guilt, he took the small microphone that was standing on the table. He had a hard time finding that guilt, he said softly but very clearly, now that frozen stowaways were falling from the landing gears of aeroplanes. Beside him a muted television set was tuned in to cnn. Recurring images of Kabila marching into Kisangani, a radiant Juliette Binoche holding her Oscar, and boys in Jerusalem throwing bricks. Slobodan Blagojević hid behind newspapers and a big bowl of fruit. He kept to himself and his bananas. Marlene Dumas crouched in a small chair and listened with closed eyes to what was taking place underneath and beyond the conversation. Her face reacted quickly and cheerfully to the incidence of light, clothes, slips of the tongue. European bureaucracy was far away and not missed at all. There was a feeling of vigilant attentiveness. The Smugglers started to interfere with the others and interrupted each other impatiently. Peter van de Veer, the tall Frisian sitting in the back of the room, raised his hand. No-one noticed. He could not contain himself any longer, he had to react to Ignatieff's human rights. He jumped forward and struck a violent chord on the piano. He immediately had everyone's attention.

After two days, however, they had to evacuate the livingroom. They moved into the harsh light of Faculty Hall on Spui. There, they would meet four people that are involved with European unification from the practical perspective of policy-making and cultural politics. These four people were to join the Smugglers in answering the following question: how do these ideas work out in the European political arena? However, the result appeared to be quite the opposite. It was a classical, merciless confrontation of two separate worlds.

Moderator Simon Mundy set the tone. As founder and vice-chairman of the European Forum for the Arts and Heritage, a European lobby for the arts, Mundy occupies himself mainly with negotiating between culture and politics. He had attended this conference with steadily increasing irritation. In his view the criticism of Europe was too negative, too destructive, useless for any scenario of the future. He merely restated the thoughts of the Smugglers in his starchy aristocratic British accent, and didn't care to say anything else. The task of responding he left to Jessica Larive.

As a result, it fell to Larive, the liberal Euro-politician with culture and economy in her portfolio, to speak for Politics. She represented the European Union all by herself, and did so with flair, with perky one-liners, undaunted, and therefore rather reckless. At this moment, Larive said, Europe is the strongest economical force in the world. That position has an impact on democracy outside its own borders. Trade agreements with Turkey and Iran can only be made after human right conditions have been met. It is up to the European Parliament to monitor that. It is all the more frustrating that Europe can't seem to manage its internal state of democracy. Behind closed doors in Brussels, fifteen Ministers for Foreign Affairs decide upon 30 percent of the national legislation of the member states: it reminds Larive of the situation of Bulgary in the 1950's. In her opinion, Europe is not ready to open its doors to welcome Turkey, Finland and Poland into the Union. The Union is undemocratic and uncontrollable. The media remain distant, and the politicians remain anonymous. The result is unfamiliarity with and fear of the Union with the public. Larive, therefore, urges artists and intellectuals to put away their skepticism, become familiar with Europe, get organized and make themselves be heard, in the same way that European women and European farmers make themselves heard. Stop reminiscing about the past and jump on that moving train of work and peace that is the European Union!

At that moment, from the bench normally reserved for promotors of a doctor's degree, an uproar is heard. The Smugglers, packed together on the right-hand side of the stage, start to rebel. At first they had confined themselves

[p. XXXI]

merely to hissing impatiently and making conspiratory jokes. But now, they collectively jump on Jessica Larive, ‘Mme. Politics.’ One after the other, they grab the microphone.

Ramdas roars: Turkey not allowed into the Union on account of its human rights? Nonsense! The only reason is Europe's fear of Islam. And, Blagojević icily inquires, why then is the fascist state of Croatia allowed into the European Council? Larive's condemnation of the ‘anti-European gut feeling’ is derided by Sanders and Bhalotra; they taste the patronizing charactre of that expression, implicating that they are merely being naive and badly informed. They refuse to succumb to the moral blackmail they detect in Larive's call to join colours. Their skepticism has nothing to do with a ‘gut feeling.’ It is a rational resistance, based on everything Europe has brought about over the last centuries in the name of Christianity and Enlightenment, within and outside of its own borders.

Gavin Jantjes too reacts with venom. Artists have been organizing themselves for ages. He has been writing papers and recommendations to the European Parliament for ten years. On the right of citizenship for minorities, on the treatment of blacks at the European borders, on the cultural differences that exist at the highest institutional levels. He is still waiting for answers.

Perhaps it is Paul Scheffer who most efficiently puts into words the outrage that now binds the Smugglers. Their criticism is being denounced as merely based on fear and ignorance, without regards for the arguments that underlie that criticism. It is exactly this refusal to debate the arguments which proves the absence of a cultural basis to the European Parliament. The Union is nothing more than a trading community. Its parliament offers a phantom democracy. And Scheffer humbly declines the invitation to participate.

The atmosphere in Faculty Hall now is that of disintegration. Some leave the hall indignantly, the sound of people hissing is omnipresent. At that point, Kathinka Dittrich and Felix Rottenberg are invited to join the debate. Both are veterans in the field of polemics between culture and politics. The reproaches are exact mirror images, Rottenberg points out sharply. The discourse is characterized by a mutual intolerance. On one side sits the politician who wields power and responsibility, on the basis of which he is judged come election time. On the other side sits the intellectual who has time for reflections and who doesn't have to take chances. These are, and will remain, closed circuits. Dittrich is milder in her judgement: one circuit creates the conditions under which the other can thrive.

However, the gap remains. Politics today only focuses on the moving train: the rules, the structure, the order. The Union is irreversible, in the first and last instance for economical reasons. Not for moral reasons. These have gone since Bosnia, as Ignatieff pointed out. For the disinterested intellectual who doesn't hold any shares nor cherishes any ambition to represent the people, there is therefore no reason left to participate or engage himself in debate. Perhaps he indeed woke too late. But now he is awake and what he sees is not very attractive. His specific moral and aesthetic qualities are not called upon. Even the intellectual who seeks influence for reasons of vanity finds himself almost cut short.

There only remains the possibility not to see the Union as something attractive, but as a duty. An unsalaried and ungrateful civic duty, which is impossible to refuse. So, not fewer of these conferences, however skeptical and noncommittal, but more. Every month, in the capitals of Europe, at a fixed time and place, with agendas on which the knowledge of rules and regulations steadily increases, while at the same time the criticism gradually loses its sharp edges. Until Europe becomes a rational, humane, modest and civilized Union. So utterly civilized that the artist will finally lose his patience, jump towards the piano and hammer out a whole series of exuberant, violent chords.