D’une autre Europe
In this work, the historian Jean-Yves Potel takes us on a journey to a central Europe which he has travelled at length, for instance having served as cultural adviser to the French Embassy in Warsaw and then as representative of the Shoah Memorial in Poland. It takes the form of a series of meetings, conversations, personal statements and portraits, reflecting the aspirations, frustrations and fears of this “other Europe” (our translation throughout). The backdrop is a world that is more uncertain than ever, following the “extreme violence” of the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
The world has certainly changed since 24 February 2020. “What do these new times mean? Where are they taking us? Against the backdrop of a similar atmosphere, Sigmund Freud was asked similar questions about what he called the ‘discontents of civilisation’. In it, he detected that humanity has a profound aspiration to suffering. This is certainly something to think about. There is no shortage of historical parallels pointing us in the direction of this ‘self-destructive impulses’ that Freud believed counters the life drive or Eros (…). Some people believe that this new era is marked by an inexorable tendency towards collective suicide. The war in Ukraine, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic as the far right and populism proliferates in Europe and throughout the world, is redistributing the data of our existence, fostering insecurity and uncertainty. Our relationship with the world is changing. The pandemic confirmed our blasé attitude, if not actual indifference, towards the destruction of the planet: actual war, ever closer, is destabilising the international equilibria and its economic and social consequences will affect the whole world: as for the electoral performances of authoritarian and xenophobic objects, they have given France the shame of being one of the countries with the most powerful far-right electorates”, the author writes in his introduction to the work.
“Inside the European Union, relations between peoples and States show contradictory interferences that are as much to do with the long-term past as local political traditions and the radical transformations set in train since 1989 by democratically elected governments”, Potel stresses, adding that “the fall of the Iron Curtain intensified mutual relationships in all areas. While the freedom of movement tops the list of the most appreciated aspects of the new order, this did not come about by chance. Indeed, the tendency towards withdrawal, xenophobic hate, bringing back internal borders and tightening up others, all peppered with anti-terrorist sauce, are producing disastrous effects on the collective consciousness and imagination”. However, although the “European Union too often gives the impression of not having much to offer to counter of the sovereignist craze”, “it is vital that the EU does not exhaust what it has to offer”.
“Democracy suffers under globalisation, which accentuates inequalities and increases the number of people who no longer count, a number which we wrongly consider to be negligible. And most importantly, it transforms democracy into a form that is devoid of content, like an Easter egg. It no longer exists anywhere other than at the level of the central State. Economic decisions on which everybody’s standard of living depend are being made in the movement of global financial capital. This explains the weakness, if not collapse, of democracy”, the spokesperson of Solidarność, Karol Modzelewski, stated in a 2017 interview with the author. He goes on to state that “opinions are crystallising around the matter of whether to defend or reject democracy. Supporters of the PiS party feel rejected by democracy. They believe that it is responsible for the degradation of their existence (…). I have no idea where we are going. It is certain that this gulf is now running through all social strata, which is a very serious problem. It has something of a cultural divide between two universes that no longer have a common language or any possible means of communication. It is as if we are no longer the same nation. A gulf divides us, divides families, groups of friends or former friends. Neither concepts nor values seem able to plug it. We stand before a society that is genuinely in crisis, that is deeply ill. I do not believe that we are the only ones. There are similar phenomena in all other European countries”.
“Going back, 25 years on, to read the speeches by [Czech former dissident then president Vaclav Havel], we can assess the illusions. These ideas came across like the expression of an impossible dream, which inspired crowds in Prague, Berlin, Budapest or Warsaw in 1989, but which have long since deserted the corridors of Brussels, Paris or London”, writes Potel. He continues by saying that “Europeans have chiefly concerned themselves with the setting in place, following the Single Act adopted in 1986, of a large market, then of economic and monetary union, with German omnipotence as the principal worry. Today, we have forgotten about the first reactions of François Mitterrand or Margaret Thatcher the fall of the Berlin the Wall. They were expressing not so much joy at the collapse of totalitarianism as fears of a reunified Germany (…). At the same time, new powers were emerging, freeing themselves from the empires and blocs that were coming apart, trying to rise to prominence in their own region or beyond it. Whatever the reality of the danger was, the 1990s led to a chaotic reorganisation of the world and military actions (or non-actions) that culminated in disaster: Iraq, Yugoslavia, Rwanda and countless others. 9/11, the terrorist attack in 2001 that struck at the heart of the American superpower, was the result of this turbulent decade and opened a new multi-polar era that Europe does not know how to make the most of.’ There is no end to its suffering from its inability to find its place in the world’, [French politician] Bertrand Badie tells us. The alliances between European states have continued to be defined by national egotisms, economic and military power play within the EU and, consequently, the stability of past compromises and the balance between what is referred to as ‘enlargement and deepening’ has been mismanaged. In response to the ‘globalisation shock’, the states, always ready to share the dividends of growth, declined to ‘co-manage losses’, particularly in 2008 and during the Greek crisis. ‘The EU was unable to evolve from association to solidarity’”.
Following a poignant statement by Sevdje Ahmeti from a personal perspective about the war and life for women in Kosovo and a transcription of two interviews (1997 1998) between the author and the Czech intellectual Antonin Liehm, the book discusses the “Jewish renewal” in the democratic Poland of the post-communist years, in which we hear from psychologist Konstantin Gebert. Having been asked by the author “what does a Jewish intellectual living in Poland today have to say about the chaos of the world? We are drawing towards the end of summer 2014 and the signs are not good, with wars in Gaza, Iraq/Syria and eastern Ukraine”, the latter replies: “it is immensely complicated, it is going in all directions, and it is not clear that we even know what is going on. I will not go into that analysis, although I do note that in Poland, as in the rest of Europe, there is an emergent new anti-Semitism under cover of anti-Zionism – a disguise that we have got to know very well since 1968. We have had two demonstrations in front of the Israeli embassy this summer in connection with the war in Gaza. One was organised by neo-Nazi groups, with slogans like ‘We are not asking for forgiveness for Jedwabne’ (massacre of several hundred Jewish people in 1941: Ed), which could mean either that we are not responsible – the Germans alone were guilty – or that there is nothing to apologise for, as killing Yids is perfectly acceptable behaviour. There was also another slogan that was even clearer: ‘We are going to make you into soap’. The second protest, held by left-wing parties that condemned the anti-Semitic slogans of the former, said things like ‘Warsaw, Gaza, it’s the same fight’, but not a word about rockets launched by Hamas. That was not enough for me. They are mainly affected by what is going on close to home, in Ukraine. But I fear that in Poland, supporters of Hamas are starting to outnumber supporters of Israel”.
As if making a premonition, Konstantin Gebert adds: “but generally, I would say that the 25 years since the Berlin Wall came down will be seen as one of the greatest periods of European history. Of Poland’s history, certainly. But now it is all over. We are walking into a discouraging future. Wars are becoming an element of European reality once again. The fact that it has taken Europe so long to understand what is at stake with these, that we were unable to avoid them, but that is an incomprehensible nonsense to me, after Bosnia and its 120,000 dead. Bosnia and Croatia proved to us that war would continue to be a fully paid-up citizen of Europe. What is likely to happen in the near future is not encouraging. I believe that we will be living against a backdrop of violence of the kind to which we are not accustomed and the European reaction is not going to be pretty”.
The author also offers us numerous portraits of writers such as the Hungarian Imre Kertész or Tadeusz Kantor of Poland. There is also a chapter on three women novelists: Christa Wolf of Germany, Gabriela Adamesteanu, a Romanian, and Sofia Oksanen, who is Finnish,/Estonian. The conclusion drawn from their novels – respectively “City of Angels”, “Provisional” and “When the Doubts Disappeared” – “the fight with the memory of the 20th century (…) does not shape us. Quite the reverse; in its public (collective) and intimate (family) form, this memory will become a source of destruction. It hounds us and we must fight it if we want to build a moral conscience. And sometimes, we need to call oblivion to the rescue”. (Olivier Jehin)
Jean-Yves Potel. D’une autre Europe – Dire, écrire et agir en Europe centrale (available in French only). Circé. ISBN: 978-2-8424-2461-9. 394 pages. €27,00
D’une civilisation française
The Revue générale devotes its latest issue to an unlikely object of desire to many Belgians, particularly the French-speaking members of the population, who are sometimes seduced by a form of complex. But what are we talking about, exactly, when we discuss this “French civilisation” which we are struggling to define and which is not above criticism over the vehicles by which it exercised its influence in the 19th and 20th centuries? Because, as Renaud Denuit points out, the word “civilisation” does not make its appearance in written French until the late 17th century, derived from the verb “civiliser” (to civilise) (1568), and would coin the terms “civilisable” and “civilisateur” (civilising), with their strong colonial and racist connotations, in the 19th. It is also a word that can be illustrated in a form of messianism laying claim to the universal. Unlike the German word Kultur, which is principally to the “profound identity of a people” moved by the same spirit (Geist), and allowing them, to certain extent, to attain self-awareness and constitute a social body (Hegel).
As always, the Revue générale offers us a broad range of texts, which are not all concerned with “French civilisation”. I would like to refer to two of these. Firstly, a short but excellent text by the editor, Frédéric Saenen, on the word “système” (system), the “magic word of impoverished thinking”. Secondly, and more particularly, the interview between Christopher Gérard and senior naval officer Raphaël Chauvancy.
When asked about the three main lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, the latter replied by saying that “Europe likes to see itself as a New Jerusalem, freed from the weight of history, a shining beacon and a global ideal, but invulnerable to the chaos of the world. It looks with condescending pity upon the people still in thrall to the caprices of Clio. However, men remain and cities embrace at its borders, on the same soil as the major battles of the Second World War, which it thought it would never see again. History never stops and the only people to get out of it are the defeated. The Ukrainians are paying for the lesson with great bravery, but at a very high price. Have their western neighbours really learnt the lesson or will it take another shock for it to hit home?”
“The second lesson is that it is very dangerous to rely on others for one’s own security. Western Europe has spent too long basking in the comfort of the American protectorate. But Americans are taxpayers like everyone else and do not want to squander their savings, or spill the blood of their children, unless they are directly under threat. When push comes to shove with a Russia thirsty for revenge, they will remember that they have the Atlantic to protect them and they will feel that containing the Russian bear is perhaps not as much their business as that of the Europeans. Strategic autonomy is not a luxury, it is an urgent imperative”, Chauvancy adds. He goes on to conclude: “at the end of the day, the war will not be limited to the blood-filled trenches of Donbass. We have seen Russia instrumentalise the weapon of migration to weaken Europe and the weapon of information to promote polarisation and the risks of dislocation in Europe. The great economic and financial game is playing out globally. Authoritarian regimes, religious fundamentalism and the so-called ‘woke’ subversive movements represent a clash between their ideological models and the ideas of democracy and freedom. Mercenaries are flocking to Africa while new foreign military bases are setting up shop there. The war in Ukraine is therefore simply one aspect of global competition. In other words, of permanent war. The notion of peace can now be consigned to history”. No beating about the bush there! (OJ)
Frédéric Saenen (edited by). D’une civilisation française (available in French only). Revue générale no. 2024/1, March 2024. ISBN: 978-2-3906-1448-7. 254 pages. €27,00