Fuzzy Signals

Identity Crisis?

There was a time when I was fascinated with the European project, so much so that I spent a year writing about it for my undergraduate thesis. My fascination started with the observation that we were seeing twin and potentially contradictory forces going on: economic integration and ethnic or political fragmentation—the EU being the best example of this phenomenon.

Today, now living in Europe, my fascination is more muted. Like most people outside of evangelized Europhiles, I'm ambivalent. My opinions ossilitate with my shifting perceptual moods, varying depending on which lens I chose to see this through. From a Long View, for instance, and on the surface level the EU project and its recent expansion is unquestionably optimistic, a bold experiment in governance and human organization. But closer in, and perhaps deeper down—unarticulated and fermenting in people's hearts and minds— there are some major uncertainties.

I think this recent article captures some of these discontents. "Europe comes together in fear and trepidation" by Dominique Moïsi, International Herald Tribune (Friday, April 30, 2004.)

"In 2004, the European Union is much less secure about itself, and about the quality and future of its model. Deep down, the EU has greater doubts than before about the ability of the new Europeans to "learn" from the old.

In fact, Europe, old as well as new, is in the midst of a deep identity crisis. How can we be secure about what we are bringing, when we no longer know what we are? We do not know where our continent ends. Is Turkey in Europe or not? The question goes to the heart of our identity debate. Is Europe about the value of geography or about the geography of values? Turkey is clearly not in Europe, but that must be balanced against the risk of saying no to the only example of a modern, democratic and secular Islam.

More than ever, we ignore our institutional future. We can no longer be sure than we shall have a constitution ratified by all, with a preamble encompassing all the values we are so proud of. And we do not know - especially with the war in Iraq and our fundamental divisions with respect to Washington and the future of trans-Atlantic relations - whether we can have a common foreign and security policy.

Even if we ignore our geography and our institutional and diplomatic future, we know too well the depressing state of our demography, which makes of us - in contrast to that other West, the United States - an aging continent, with a need to integrate others, who most likely are not going to be Europeans.

We realize also the decline of the European ideal. Europe may have become a growing and expanding reality, from the euro to the Schengen Accords, but it is less and less an enthusiastic dream, a project that can mobilize us. Even among us, in the old West, one can perceive signs of regression in the form of a re-nationalization, if not a retribalization of political exchanges.

We must avoid any form of arrogance when we confront the question of what we will bring to the new members, but we should also refrain from too negative an assessment of ourselves."

 
Well put, I thought. I actually saw Moïsi recently at an INSEAD lecture for an executive development course. I left early to finish some work. He wasn't as impressive as he is here, just hyperbolically descriptive— too wrapped up in the immediacy of daily incidences and negative indicators pointing to the Global Disorder scenario. Indeed, getting the right balance in perspective is always the hardest part. I thought in these pages, however, he got it about right.

Posted by nicole at May 3, 2004 10:49 AM