Beware of the European Frankenstein...
Slavenka Drakulic
Who is Afraid of Europe?
Opening Speech for the 14th European Meeting of Cultural Journals Politics and Cultures in Europe: New Visions, New Divisions
Vienna, November 9th 2000
I live in Sweden, Croatia and Austria. Europe is my home. I remember when, a couple of years ago, the checkpoint at the border crossing between Austria and Italy was abandoned and we were passing the border near Klagenfurt, barely believing that we were not going to be stopped by the police. But there was no police, only empty booths. What a great feeling of relief it was! Especially because I remembered the strange sensation when I crossed the newly erected border post between Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 for the first time. Being an Eastern European, I also know how it feels standing in line at the airport checkpoint that says "non-EU citizens", or sometimes just bluntly "Others".
Living on both sides of real and imagined European borders and crossing them back and forth all the time, I have to say that only a year ago I believed in the project of constructing a united Europe much more than I do today. But of course, that was before the elections in Austria, in Norway and Switzerland or in the city of Antwerp, before the referendum on the Euro in Denmark - or incidents such as the one in Malaga where a mob, mobilized by a neo-Nazi web site, chased Moroccan workers for three whole days. The list of disturbing events all over Europe is much longer. It is as if there is suddenly a pattern of a different Europe emerging in front of my eyes, and when I look at it, it gives me goosebumps. It is not a deja vu because I belong to a generation that did not experience fascism, but I can see growing xenophobia, nationalism and racism everywhere. Moreover, because of where I come from, I can tell when the fear of the Other becomes something one must start to take into account. And I just wonder if these are isolated incidents or are perhaps already signs that the project of European integration is in danger of losing its momentum?
I was born after WW II and grew up on a sleepy continent divided by the "iron curtain", dwelling in the shadow of a possible nuclear war. As school kids, we would practice what we had to do in the case of such an attack. We learned to recognize its characteristics by heart: first a mushroom cloud would appear on the horizon, followed by a blast of heat and ashes. You should hide behind any barrier, pull the gas mask over your face and under no circumstances drink water (the bit with the water was particularly strongly impressed upon us and I always wondered why). Although only children, we understood that these preparations would give us little protection if such a horror as described in our textbooks would happen. Still, we practiced dutifully. It did not help us. When the next war, the war in the Balkans erupted much later, we were taken by surprise. Little did we know in the late
fifties that the war we would witness would be a local one, limited and of small intensity - the war that would catch us totally unprepared.
My generation grew up with the idea that such a war, with genocide, concentration camps and forced resettlement of entire populations is simply impossible after WWII. Europe had learned its lesson, the history teachers told us, and such horrors could not take place any longer. Today, after the war in my country and in Bosnia and Kosovo, I no longer believe that Europe has learned that lesson. But perhaps I am wrong. After all the last war happened not quite in Europe, but in the Balkans. Are the Balkans Europe? Today it seems so, although tomorrow it could be decided differently. But if this is so, what then is Europe and where does it end?
Back then, in my school days, even that was somehow clearer. Europe was where the Soviet Union was not. The big political changes during the last ten years blurred that childish certainty. The Europe of today is no longer a question of geopolitics and defined borders to the East, not even of economic
unity - but more of attitudes, definitions, institutions, of a certain mental landscape. There is no longer any "iron curtain" to make definitions easier.
During the last ten years the peoples of Europe witnessed the collapse of communism and the disappearance of the common enemy, the speeding up of
the integration process within the EU, its planned enlargement into the East as well as the war in the Balkans. At the same time the globalization process
seems to engulf the entire world. But these changes happened too fast for people to comprehend them, to grasp them fully. They reacted as people
always react to the unknown, with a feeling of uncertainty and fear. While the known world is dissolving in front of their eyes, the new one that is taking
shape is not yet comprehensive. What is Europe really and how far can it spread eastwards whilst still remaining Europe? Is Turkey Europe? In that
case, what about Russia?
These are not abstract questions. The bottom line here is how these changes will influence the life of Europeans, their work, income, education,
language and so on. More and more people have the feeling of losing the possibility to control their own lives. A feeling of anxiety undermines their
confidence in the world around them and their sense of certainty. This anxiety is vague, to be sure. But although it is not entirely identified or specified,
often not even recognized as such, it is out there, palpable, measurable in opinion polls, referendums, election results, articulated as doubts about the
necessity of a common currency, of integration and enlargement, or about free circulation of a working force. That is to say, as vague as it is, this anxiety
is already having effects on the political life of some countries and might perhaps soon bring substantial changes to the political landscape of Europe.
The mechanism of exploiting fear is simple and well known. As an individual, you may feel lost and confused, swept away by the speed and magnitude
of historical events. Suddenly, there is somebody offering you shelter, a feeling of belonging, a guarantee of security. We are of the same blood, we
belong to the same territory, our people first, so goes the rhetoric. To scared ears it is soothing to hear old-fashion words like blood, soil, territory, us,
them. Hearing that, you feel stronger, you are no longer alone, confronted with the Others - with too many immigrants, Muslims, Turks, refugees,
Africans, asylum seekers, Gypsies or too much big bureaucracy that wants to rule your life from Brussels. Once you have found the pleasure of
belonging, Others don't frighten you any longer. From the fear of the unknown to the creation of the "known" enemy, it sometimes takes only a small
step. It doesn't need much more than that vague sense of anxiety, plus a political leader who will know how to exploit it. The media will do the rest.
[snip]
eurozine.com |
