The Borders in Europe-seminar highlights
Think Tank e2 participated in "The Borders in Europe" seminar held on December 1st, 2009. The seminar was structured as follows: Keynote address "Borders in Europe- the Shadow of History" by Professor Emeritus Kristian Gerner of Lund University, after which two panel discussions were held. The first one was titled "Memory-Where we come from" and the second "Prospect- Where we want to go". The panel discussion, in which the audience also participated, was moderated by Director Catherine Fieschi of Counterpoint, the British Council´s think tank.
The panelists for the first discussion were CEO Mikko Fritze, Professor Emeritus Kristian Gerner, Professor Seppo Hentilä, Docent Heikki Mikkeli. The second panel was composed of Journalist Olli Kivinen, Author Albyn Leah Hall, and Journalist Ozan Sunar.
When probing into the essence of things, what is key is that the right questions are asked. As an overview of some of the excellent key questions asked and discussed at this seminar, below is author Albyn Leah Hall´s introductory address of the second panel discussion.
You, Me, and the Other by Author Albyn Leah Hall
My corner shop is run by an Indian man called Mr. Ghani. An observant Muslim, he has lived in London half his life. Yet when I buy my Saturday papers from him, we don’t discuss Europe or England or even London. We discuss Arsenal, the football team we both support. For those of you who don’t know, Arsenal is an English club run by a Frenchman, has only one or two English players (in contrast to the majority of French and African players) and its home is a stadium called the Emirates (sponsored by the Emirates airline ). So is this affinity - this club we belong to - an English experience? Is it a London one, a European one, an international one? Which community do I share with Mr Ghani - a lovely man with whom I haven’t, in all likelihood, much else in common?
As a novelist and psychotherapist, my interest is in narrative. What stories do we tell about ourselves and why? What do we say about who we are, where we are from and where would we like to go? What does it mean to be a man or a woman, gay or straight, Christian or Muslim, Turkish or Finnish? What, for the purposes of today, does it mean to be European?
Is Mr. Ghani European? As a Londoner and member of the EU, he may say so. But as a devout Muslim, he may be vilified by so called “native” Britons. Which brings me to another contentious point: is Britain herself European or rather- how European is she? (and incidentally, why is she a ‘she?’)
When I was invited to this conference, my father, who lives in Los Angeles, said “as an American who’s lived in Europe for twenty-five years, you’re certainly qualified to talk about it!” I had to tell him that while Americans see England as distinctly European, England doesn’t traditionally seen herself that way at all. “Europe” has often been ‘over there’ the “continent,” and by varying degrees exotic or ‘foreign:’ the birthplace of Nazism and Stalinism as well as the Enlightenment, great food, existentialism, reckless drivers, Beethoven. Our suspicion of Europe has been diluted over the past decade due to budget travel, the EU, and a much improved culinary movement in Britain, though even now, there is some confusion as to precisely how European we’d like to be or which parts of Europe we’d like to identify with.
Though it sounds obvious, it’s easy to forget that any “We” is made up of “I’s.” . I am a woman, a decent writer, a bad fiddle player, a therapist, an Arsenal supporter. I am part of various communities: (London, North London, my friends, my family, my professional networks.) At different times, I find solace in these groups (strengthening my sense of Self, or the I) or belittled by them (undermining my sense of Self or the I) These groups lie within bigger groups (cities, countries, nations.) Millions of others inhabit these groups, yet no two of us would agree, precisely, on what these groups consist of, of where the borders lie, or of what it means to belong to them.
And yet, even as I use the word ‘we’ I am confused as to where I fit into this particular “we.” As a dual citizen of America and Britain, which is really my home? If it is in America, then might I feel, in some odd way, more European than my English friends? As a small child, I knew my great-grandmother, a Yiddish speaking Jew driven by pogroms from the Ukraine, but does that make her a refugee from Europe or a quintessentially American immigrant from the Old Country?
Of course, a substantial part of the American experience is to be of the “Old Country,” whether this be the shtetl in Eastern Europe or an Ireland blighted by famine. Currently, Ireland’s own relationship to Europe is confusing. During the Celtic Tiger boom, she was a happy beneficiary of the EU, giving her a sense of further separation from her old nemesis, England. Since her economic collapse, she is wary of Europe, as we see from her initial NO to the Lisbon treaty; a fear that Ireland will lose her “Irishness,” or, among the old Catholic right, a paranoia about the introduction of abortion and contraception. “Europe” – once a benevolent parent state - has now become the oppressive patriarch.
To be human – to be Irish, or Indian, or European - is to be complex, fluid, and contradictory. Yet we are not at ease with our complexity. We like to know what club we belong to, and who belongs to the rival club. Mental illness was at a low during the troubles in Northern Ireland, because people felt they knew who the ally and enemy was. Likewise, pensioners in Britain hark back to the blitz, airbrushing out the horrors, because this is the last time they felt so British.
Taking this further, we may consolidate our club - or Nation - through the persecution of a group we deem inferior . This relates to what psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva called “the abject other:” Those parts of myself I cannot tolerate I project onto you; for instance, I hate and fear feelings of ‘blackness’ within myself; I then revile you for being black. Hitler’s appeal in Germany was a consummate example; an opportunity to project the damaged esteem of a nation onto convenient scapegoats. (To paraphrase psychologist Alice Miller; every time a Nazi sent a Jewish child to her death he was killing a part of himself.)
On the other hand, we live in fear of losing parts of ourselves: youth, memory, money, love, hair, innocence. The idea of a united Europe, for instance, creates much anxiety that one’s unique ‘culture’ may be whitewashed into a generic superstate. Yet when does the preservation of ‘culture’ become a form of xenophobia? Years ago, I interviewed the far right British National Party who, while mourning loss of English ‘culture,’ couldn’t quite define what it was, all the while agreeing that they enjoy Vindaloo more than fish and chips. A good friend of mine, a black Londoner, points to her own face and says: “If this face doesn’t look English, you need to re-define what ‘English’ looks like.’
Benedict Anderson writes: “Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falseness or genuineness, but by the manner in which they are imagined.” We can’t escape communities. They are part of our stories, the contexts we give ourselves. Europe is such a vast narrative that to try to define it feels overwhelming to the point of paralysis.
Back
The panelists for the first discussion were CEO Mikko Fritze, Professor Emeritus Kristian Gerner, Professor Seppo Hentilä, Docent Heikki Mikkeli. The second panel was composed of Journalist Olli Kivinen, Author Albyn Leah Hall, and Journalist Ozan Sunar.
When probing into the essence of things, what is key is that the right questions are asked. As an overview of some of the excellent key questions asked and discussed at this seminar, below is author Albyn Leah Hall´s introductory address of the second panel discussion.
You, Me, and the Other by Author Albyn Leah Hall
My corner shop is run by an Indian man called Mr. Ghani. An observant Muslim, he has lived in London half his life. Yet when I buy my Saturday papers from him, we don’t discuss Europe or England or even London. We discuss Arsenal, the football team we both support. For those of you who don’t know, Arsenal is an English club run by a Frenchman, has only one or two English players (in contrast to the majority of French and African players) and its home is a stadium called the Emirates (sponsored by the Emirates airline ). So is this affinity - this club we belong to - an English experience? Is it a London one, a European one, an international one? Which community do I share with Mr Ghani - a lovely man with whom I haven’t, in all likelihood, much else in common?
As a novelist and psychotherapist, my interest is in narrative. What stories do we tell about ourselves and why? What do we say about who we are, where we are from and where would we like to go? What does it mean to be a man or a woman, gay or straight, Christian or Muslim, Turkish or Finnish? What, for the purposes of today, does it mean to be European?
Is Mr. Ghani European? As a Londoner and member of the EU, he may say so. But as a devout Muslim, he may be vilified by so called “native” Britons. Which brings me to another contentious point: is Britain herself European or rather- how European is she? (and incidentally, why is she a ‘she?’)
When I was invited to this conference, my father, who lives in Los Angeles, said “as an American who’s lived in Europe for twenty-five years, you’re certainly qualified to talk about it!” I had to tell him that while Americans see England as distinctly European, England doesn’t traditionally seen herself that way at all. “Europe” has often been ‘over there’ the “continent,” and by varying degrees exotic or ‘foreign:’ the birthplace of Nazism and Stalinism as well as the Enlightenment, great food, existentialism, reckless drivers, Beethoven. Our suspicion of Europe has been diluted over the past decade due to budget travel, the EU, and a much improved culinary movement in Britain, though even now, there is some confusion as to precisely how European we’d like to be or which parts of Europe we’d like to identify with.
Though it sounds obvious, it’s easy to forget that any “We” is made up of “I’s.” . I am a woman, a decent writer, a bad fiddle player, a therapist, an Arsenal supporter. I am part of various communities: (London, North London, my friends, my family, my professional networks.) At different times, I find solace in these groups (strengthening my sense of Self, or the I) or belittled by them (undermining my sense of Self or the I) These groups lie within bigger groups (cities, countries, nations.) Millions of others inhabit these groups, yet no two of us would agree, precisely, on what these groups consist of, of where the borders lie, or of what it means to belong to them.
And yet, even as I use the word ‘we’ I am confused as to where I fit into this particular “we.” As a dual citizen of America and Britain, which is really my home? If it is in America, then might I feel, in some odd way, more European than my English friends? As a small child, I knew my great-grandmother, a Yiddish speaking Jew driven by pogroms from the Ukraine, but does that make her a refugee from Europe or a quintessentially American immigrant from the Old Country?
Of course, a substantial part of the American experience is to be of the “Old Country,” whether this be the shtetl in Eastern Europe or an Ireland blighted by famine. Currently, Ireland’s own relationship to Europe is confusing. During the Celtic Tiger boom, she was a happy beneficiary of the EU, giving her a sense of further separation from her old nemesis, England. Since her economic collapse, she is wary of Europe, as we see from her initial NO to the Lisbon treaty; a fear that Ireland will lose her “Irishness,” or, among the old Catholic right, a paranoia about the introduction of abortion and contraception. “Europe” – once a benevolent parent state - has now become the oppressive patriarch.
To be human – to be Irish, or Indian, or European - is to be complex, fluid, and contradictory. Yet we are not at ease with our complexity. We like to know what club we belong to, and who belongs to the rival club. Mental illness was at a low during the troubles in Northern Ireland, because people felt they knew who the ally and enemy was. Likewise, pensioners in Britain hark back to the blitz, airbrushing out the horrors, because this is the last time they felt so British.
Taking this further, we may consolidate our club - or Nation - through the persecution of a group we deem inferior . This relates to what psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva called “the abject other:” Those parts of myself I cannot tolerate I project onto you; for instance, I hate and fear feelings of ‘blackness’ within myself; I then revile you for being black. Hitler’s appeal in Germany was a consummate example; an opportunity to project the damaged esteem of a nation onto convenient scapegoats. (To paraphrase psychologist Alice Miller; every time a Nazi sent a Jewish child to her death he was killing a part of himself.)
On the other hand, we live in fear of losing parts of ourselves: youth, memory, money, love, hair, innocence. The idea of a united Europe, for instance, creates much anxiety that one’s unique ‘culture’ may be whitewashed into a generic superstate. Yet when does the preservation of ‘culture’ become a form of xenophobia? Years ago, I interviewed the far right British National Party who, while mourning loss of English ‘culture,’ couldn’t quite define what it was, all the while agreeing that they enjoy Vindaloo more than fish and chips. A good friend of mine, a black Londoner, points to her own face and says: “If this face doesn’t look English, you need to re-define what ‘English’ looks like.’
Benedict Anderson writes: “Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falseness or genuineness, but by the manner in which they are imagined.” We can’t escape communities. They are part of our stories, the contexts we give ourselves. Europe is such a vast narrative that to try to define it feels overwhelming to the point of paralysis.