Har återigen haft svårt med bloggningen under en tid eftersom jag varit på en konferens på Cypern, också detta en delad plats av vår planet. Sedan den grekiska statskuppen och efterföljande turkiska invasionen för 37 år sedan delas Cypern i två delar och avskiljs genom en mur. Huvudstaden Nicosia är delad i två, vilket fick de tyska och de palestinska mötesdeltagarna att känna såväl historiska som nutida vingslag. I den norra, fattigare delen råder ockupation och man har utropat den Turkiska Republiken Norra Cypern, i den södra, välmående EU-medlemmen styr grekcyprioterna. I båda delarna verkar de stora folklagren vilja lämna groll bakom sig och leva tillsammans, men ledningarna är mindre intresserade. En folkomröstning om en plan för samgående som lades fram av Kofi Annan förra året slutade med "ja" bland turkcyprioterna och "nej" bland grekcyprioterna efter att politiker och präster där argumenterat hårt mot.
Jag var på plats för att tillsammans med politiker, affärsmän och akademiker från Europa, USA och Mellanöstern träffa företrädare för båda sidor, FN samt under tre dagar diskutera "understanding ourselves" i förhållande till Mellanöstern. Mot bakgrund av den kommande
boken fick jag, tillsammans med en turkisk kemalist och en italiensk akademiker, hålla i introduktionen. Nedan har jag klistrat in den icke-rättade versionen av denna inledning:
Understanding ourselves.”This monumental continent, that embraces the Earth’s most beautiful environments, where the culture reached it’s peak, and where we can enjoy a mild and moderate climate, is home for all the western worlds big and genuine people. It bears the birth of the Christian faith and the civilized etiquette. It is the birthplace of all ancient and modern culture, art, philosophy and science.”
The words are historical, the quote unforgettable. It was the keystone in the speech that Winston Churchill held for the university of Zurich 1946 and formed the start of the important organisation for human rights, the Council of Europe.
Human beings tend to believe that there part of the world has certain core values that are better, more evolved or purer than others. Applied on the national scale this belief is called nationalism, applied on Europe, or the western civilisation, it’s most often welcomed as a truth. In our every-day history making we tell ourselves that Europe has this kind of core values that are tolerant to others, liberal to each other and – when practiced on a global scale – peaceful and just.
I will not say that this is only a euro-nationalistic facade, because it is not. Economic development and human dignity is most often connected to each other and therefore some of the most humanistic and liberal countries are found in Europe. But, also here there are phenomena, morality or even laws that for some of us seems to be not at all tolerant or liberal. At least five countries in the European Union forbids abortion, one also forbids divorce. Manifestation of homosexual love is in many countries hazardous, and one EU-country is, as we speak, preparing a law that forbids openly gay people to work in certain parts of the public sector. In all European countries you will find national minorities that are often treated as lower class citizens. Out of Europe’s twelve million Romas, fore millions live in what UN defines as deep poverty or undue hardship. The European Jewish community suffers, in some countries more than others, from harsh anti-Semitism. Indigenous people in different European countries, such as my own, can bear witness of hard repression. Immigrants and refugees that live in our countries are being exposed to discrimination on the working market and to violence of right wing extremists. If any of these minorities where to speak about the “core values” of Europe and western civilisation I’m quite certain that they wouldn’t speak about tolerance and liberal values more as possible a varnish.
The British historian Timothy Garton Ash has put it like this: “No continent has in geographical sense been worse defined and in inner sense more divided and in historical sense more chaotic. However, no continent has accomplished as many plans for unification.” We are part of such a plan. The understanding of the European Union, it’s methods and impacts, are basic if we want to understand ourselves. But, is it a unification that has succeeded? Has it been proving Garton Ash wrong as he continues: “the problem is that the plans for unification that has been peaceful has never been realized, while those who been launched never have been peaceful.”
Understanding ourselves. The need for such a topic in our conference proofs the difficulties of defining a European, or “western”, identity at all. If you want to regard Europe of today and look through the promises in dinner speeches and policy papers you will find an Europe that strongly differs from the one presented as a unified common market not only of trade but also of ideals, values and dreams – you’ll find a part of the world as divided in cultural terms, moral standards and political matters as anyone else.
A common European debate doesn’t exist, neither does common European press or common European discussions. The participation in European elections are low and civil movements has as hard to form on a all-European level as it has in Russia or any other weak or new democracy. More often than not representatives in the EU decision making bodies vote after national interests than after ideological understandings. Or, as the British vice prime minister John Prescott explained it on a meeting for national parliamentarians, the only thing that separates one European politician from another are if he argues for his national interest or if he argues for his national interest but hides it under “EU-mambo-jambo-language”.
This has been the truth, repeated often by political scientists and historians as Garton Ash, until now. Suddenly we have a debate all over Europe where the arguments are the same, the combatants look alike and the only thing that differs are the languages spoken. And that is the debate about how to deal with the Islamic world and the Muslims within Europe. It is a debate about headscarves, about integration, about fundamentalism and about Turkey’s application for membership within the union. I’m afraid that it is not a coincidence that the first all-European debate is one that defines “us” in contradiction to “the others”. It’s done in the same way as once the nations forming the union created it’s national unity.
Without any common core values connected to the understanding of Europe and Europeans, only our actions are left to define “us”. Europe is defined by what Europe do, and has done. The discrimination whit in Europe, the problems with integration within the European countries as well as within the European Union and the contrasts and conflicts between ethnic and other groups in Europe defines the picture of Europe and Europeans abroad. The caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, for example, underlines a belief among many Muslims in Islamic countries that Europe is developing a severe phobia against Islam and Muslims. Even though the drawings were misused for political purposes in many countries most Muslims understood that they were not politically sanctioned and that the principles of freedom of speech and press depends on the fact that nothing published in free papers is given formal approval from political powers. The demonstrations against the drawings that frightened many Europeans only gathered small numbers out of the people of the concerned countries. The violent troublemakers were even less. That doesn’t mean that other Muslims, within our without Europe, didn’t get the same idea of an Islamophobic Europe. They did. In the same ways that Jews all over the world, wrong or right, see anti-Semitism in Europe, in European press and in the European debate, they saw, and see, Islamophobia. And they fear violence, discrimination and domination. The political support, in Denmark and Italy for example, for the caricature created a fear that also these consequences would get political support. Our actions create the picture of us.
The European history, and the actions we’ve been undertaking during the last centuries, also defines “us”, sets the mental image of “us” and is necessary for us to understand ourselves. The dark history of our continent includes wars, even more wars, genocide and colonisation. This last phenomenon, in my speech incarnated by Mr. Churchill, has forever created the impression within other countries that everything that Europe is undertaking is done for our own benefit of to dominate other parts of the world. A continent that has, frankly, looted, murdered and exploited big parts of the globe has – if it wants to be regarded as an equal – small possibilities to work together with or even support other countries without creating the feeling that we’re once again interfering in others development and conflicts. When the Iraqi government now are on collision course with the U.S. because of the massacres in Iraqi villages, they are also on collision course towards Europe. The colonial behaviour in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East strengthens the image among the people living there, and there relatives living here, that the colonial period is not over.
Can we blame them? Europe, its growth, its infrastructure and its development is dependent on oil. Not to see this as a component in the European relations with the rest of the world is to be blind. Oil dependency can not fully explain the different countries approach to the invasion of Iraq, for example, but it gives clear hints to why many countries were in favour of the invasion and has troops in the Middle East, as well to why other European governments protested.
The oil dependency is in conflict with the official position towards the Middle East and the Arabian world. True democracy in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Oriental – or for that matter South American – countries would create a pressure to use the oil and other natural resources to the national benefit for the local citizens. That would raise the price of the oil for us.
The European work for a Palestinian democracy, where the union has worked together with things such as aid, know-how and support, contrasts to the military interventions as it differs in method, purpose and result. While Iraq is in-stabile because of fanatism, hatred and agony towards the invasion, the Palestine society is labile because of poverty and occupation, but can still show up clear democratic gains. This creates among many Muslims in the Middle East a more positive image of Europe. While there own leaders mostly use the cause of the Palestinians for there own sake, Europe is doing something to help them. It is not wrong to support, or even to protest against human rights violation and lack of democracy or equality, even though our colonial history makes it hard. In the end – our action defines us.
It is impossible to have one image of Europe today or one understanding of what is us. First of all, “us” differs from country to country, from group to group and person to person. Secondly, Europe develops in different directions. On one hand we have conflicts, discrimination, Islamophobia and prejudices. On the other hand we have the will of global democratisation, to support and of plurality.
It is also a well known fact that Europe’s leaders is on collision with is citizens. The constitutional treaty was rejected in two referendums, the governments that were involved in the Iraq war are being punished by it’s voters and protests against discrimination and segregation is growing in different countries. We might have different views on why this is happening, on whether the citizens are more or less open-minded to the rest of the world than there leaders, but I strongly believe that the longing for peace, humanism and tolerance among Europeans can make a basis for a understanding of ourselves to welcome a future with more rather than less cooperation and exchanges between people and culture.
It is up to you, and me, in the group discussions to draw conclusions, but if I’m aloud to sum what I tried to say up in three disparate points it would be:
1. There is no consistent “ourselves”, Europe is divided, complex and lack a bridge between it’s understanding of it’s values and it’s practice.
2. This creates a reality where Europe isn’t understood, by it’s citizens or by the rest of the world, as the bearer of certain good values but defined by it’s actions – historical and undertaken in this very moment.
3. Europe’s elite and it’s citizens are on a collision course. Wrongly understood the Europeans is rejecting cooperation within the continent and the exchanges that comes with globalisation. Rightly used the protests against wars, unions and un-equality makes base for the values we want to understand as European. It is impossible to save those things we want to see as European, such as the democratic rights, the freedom of speech and belief, the human rights and the rule of law, by limit it. If we listen carefully, maybe that’s what the protesters are saying as well.
