[red.:] Our writers are working hard on the first articles of this academic year. The first pieces will be published soon. For now, we delved into our history, and found one of the first articles ever published in the DEBAT magazine. It was written by Annemiek Wortman in 1992. We think the article is still very relevant, and we hope you do too. Enjoy!
Could the East meet the West? On the initiative of the Polish Study Association for Sociologists of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, students from all over Europe were brought together for a week to contemplate this very pressing issue. Indeed, against the background of the beautiful medieval Kraków, an exchange of ideas took place between East and West. Especially in the underground pubs, of which there are plenty in the old centre of Kraków, Germans and Serbs, Lithuanians, Brits and Fins were able to integrate seamlessly. During their discussions about that one and whole Europe, the differences between East and West became painfully evident.
The epitome of mutual misunderstanding was reached in the discussion that followed the presentation of a confident Cambridge student. After she had made it abundantly clear that electoral thresholds and compulsory voting would have to be introduced in order to stabilize and legitimize Eastern European parliaments, all hell broke loose, so to speak. Some Eastern European students could not wrap their heads around that something (so) democratic as voting could be made obligatory! The fact that failure to respond to a summons could also be punished with fines meant that, for some Eastern Europeans, this really crossed the line of what was acceptable. Because this would imply that the poorer voters, who cannot afford fines, would lose the right to not vote.
Mosaic
However, the totally different backgrounds and perspectives of the participating students made the first ‘all-European’ student conference a success. Brought together in small themed workgroups, the Eastern and Western visions on the changing Europe were brought up and discussed within legal, historical, or social scientific perspectives. And of course the Anglo-Saxon vision, because Brits are specialised outsiders. The mosaic of ideas that resulted from this contributed to mapping out the complex European reality. A reality that is mainly characterised by diversity. Above all, it is just fun to speculate about the future of Europe, whatever that will look like.
The guise of the Europe of the future was the main topic of my very broad workgroup: “The idea of one Europe and new forms of European integration; Chance and challenge of escaping from communism”.
European Identity
The Baltic states for example are, according to our collective cultural-historical consciousness, unmistakably European. However, it remains to be seen which of the other states that were once part of the former Soviet Union can claim that status. The student from Kyiv is the only one in the group that counts Ukraine as Europe. However, where the line should be drawn is unclear, and the criteria that should be used remain implicit. When it comes to economics, Europe remains the Twelve, or should we say Eleven now? They are having a hard enough time with each other and are not waiting on an Eastern European burden. All disaster scenarios with escalating nationalism and mass migration might evoke Western European interest, according to this workgroup.
The German Peter Seel, working at the Goethe Institute in Kraków, was one of the invitees who reflected on the theme of the congress based on his professional experience. In his search for the essence of European identity, Snel also concludes that Europe in fact only exists in economic terms. An identity cannot be found in the past, but is created through a process of negotiation.Now that Europe defines itself in economic terms in relation to the other world powers, it is becoming an economic world power itself, and globalization is a fact. The mass, who are per definition scared for change according to Seel, flee to regionalism and isolation (or: nationalism). The globalisation continues however, now already as life style image, and thus, Seer says, as reality.
Still, the cultural differences, even between countries in Western Europe, are big. This was also evident during the conference: with the English you can chatter, and with the Germans hold a conversation.
Globalisation as a trend, economics as an identity and nationalism as a looming danger. It is a nice summary of what had been discussed during the week in Kraków. Could the East meet the West? Inevitably. Only time will tell how peaceful that meeting will be.
Photo by TheAndrasBarta via https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/03/17/23/00/europe-1264062_1280.jpg
