D’où nous venons
“From my vantage point at the crossroads of two cultures, two languages, I have never found a French equivalent of the German word Heimat”, writes Géraldine Schwarz at the start of this lengthy historical fresco running to nearly 500 pages. And she is right, as “chez soi” refers to a dimension of identity, both local and regional, a dimension of the French word “pays” (country) in the 18th-century meaning of the word, which France has spent more than two centuries trying to obliterate, remove, destroy. To our way of thinking, therefore, this word is particularly well chosen to evoke cultural differences in Europe, the measureless wealth they represent and the huge difficulties in comprehension they bring with them.
Drawing on the roots of romanticism, if not pointing out that it is in itself one of its roots, the concept of Heimat holds “enormous poetic and affective power” (our translation throughout). It “tells the tale of the emotional and sensual links we forge with landscapes, flavours, rituals, a dialect”, she reiterates, stressing that it is something acquired during the first part of our existence and which will throughout it invoke “memories of childhood [or] the first turbulence of adolescence”. Because the concept of Heimat is more than just where you live; it gets under your skin. For better and for worse. A source of nostalgia (a French term used somewhat euphemistically in this context) for anyone who strays too far from it or for too long – referred to as Heimweh – that can also become a source of confinement, inward-looking attitudes and xenophobia. This leads to becoming manipulated by far-right parties, as the AFD and others of its ilk never miss an opportunity to do.
“Europe does not replace this attachment to the land we grew up on”, Schwarz points out, “but it can be a second Heimat, the result of a choice, the choice to live in accordance with the values and lifestyle handed down by a history that connects Europeans to each other”. As attractive as this idea is, it unfortunately comes up against two major obstacles: firstly, the scale and diversity of the Union, which makes it extremely difficult to relate to and, secondly, the concept of choice, which is difficult to reconcile with one that is more a reflection of a state of integration. You do not choose your Heimat, you are born there, you grow up there or you live there for long enough to develop a deep connection to it.
For all that, the Franco-German journalist quite correctly stresses that Europe is “built on the foundation of thousands of years of history, made up of light and shade, which structured – and continues to structure – our social and moral standards, concepts, our institutions, our mindset and our practices”. “Transnational institutions and symbols are no more than empty shells if the Europeans lack of awareness of this common foundation, without which a collective project cannot be built”, Schwarz writes, going on to add, quite rightly, that “ignorance of this past leaves the field open for distractions and historical revisionism, aiding the cause of national and sectarian ideologies”.
“The further back in history we go, the clearer the coherence of the European history seems, compared to the limited framework of national history, which is a fabrication of the 19th century. Ever since antiquity, borders have continually changed, territories have merged and split apart; ever-fluctuating entities where religious beliefs, practices and languages have become intertwined”, the author writes, adding that she has set out to “disentangle the links between countries, peoples and events” in this historical saga covering more than 2000 years and using a transnational and multi-disciplinary approach. This essay, despite a few approximations and a couple of mistakes, offers a highly interesting “History of the Europeans”.
Structured in triptych format, the first part of the work is given over to Christianity, stressing the considerable influence the faith has had in all areas, but also the extent to which it has structured institutions, law and power relations. An offshoot of Judaism, Christianity has fundamentally shaped our system of values, the author points out, going on to stress that it has also been “instrumentalised to justify wars, the enslavement of non-European peoples, the oppression of women, scientists, Jews, those believed to be heretics”. At the same time, it has also produced the opposite: “humanism, the abolition of slavery, solidarity, human rights and a wealth of artistic and intellectual heritage ”.
In the second part, which looks at capitalism, the author tells the story of how, “in 1602, under the initiative of six major cities in the Netherlands, several shipping companies merged as the Dutch East India Company, the VOC, which obtained a government monopoly on trade in Asia”. “The idea was inspired by the English, who had created the East India company two years earlier, the difference being that the capital of the VOC is 10 times higher, at 6.5 million guilders, or the equivalent of 64 tonnes of gold. This raising of capital was made possible by a major capitalist innovation: the public limited or joint-stock company. This format allows anybody to participate in the financing of the VOC at an amount of their own choosing, which opens up the circle of investors, traditionally the preserve of wealthy merchants and financiers, to the less affluent and thus attracts more capital”, Schwarz explains. She goes on to tell how Jan Pieterszoon Coen successfully established a Dutch monopoly on the entire Asian spice trade. Neither the Portuguese nor the English could stand up to the might of the VOC, which owned 15,000 vessels in the mid-17th century, all fitted out like warships, Schwarz explains. In 1621, Jan Pieterszoon Coen “ordered his men to massacre and reduce to slavery almost every one of the 15,000 inhabitants of Banda Island, part of the Moluku Islands, to punish them for having continued to supply the English with their local treasure, the nutmeg”, she states, adding that the Dutch naval officer went so far as to prohibit nutmeg trees from being planted anywhere other than Banda. He repeated the exercise with the clove, which was reserved for the island of Ambon alone, thereby firming the VOC’s grip on quantities of cloves available on the market and, therefore, prices.
This was not the Europeans’ only form of subjugation of people who lived in far-flung places; along with triangular trade, the slave trade and keeping slaves, mankind was reduced to a commodity. “In total, between 12 and 13 million Africans were sent to the Americas, including 5.84 million by the Portuguese, 3.25 million by the British, 1.38 million by the French, 1.06 million by the Spanish, 554,000 by the Dutch, 111,000 by the Danes and 2000 by the Swedish. Around 1.5 million of them died during their journey”, Schwarz sums up.
This trade-related capitalism would in time be joined by industrial capitalism, discussed by the author in the form of the industrial revolution, with references to John Adam Smith, Riccardo, Marx, Keynes, Hayek and Friedmann.
The third part, which is given over to freedom, starts with the emergence of Athenian democracy in the sixth century BC, still very limited. Schwarz writes “Plato found the regime to be particularly unstable and unjust, allowing nobody the place they deserved”. She continues: “treating human beings as equals does not do justice to the best and carries the risk of the city ending up being governed by the ignorant or by populists, he laments. In the name of freedom, anybody can say and do whatever they want, hold political office without having the skills to do so and can take the floor to talk nonsense, express opinions that are in no way based on facts. Plato draws a distinction between two types of freedom: the right kind, which stands up against illegitimate constraints put in place by a tyrant or a foreign power, and the wrong kind, which stands up against the legitimate authority of ‘the best’. By delegitimising knowledge and skills and making authority impossible, this kind of freedom leads to chaos, the philosopher warns. Unsettled, the population can be easily seduced by a tyrant who, on the pretext of re-establishing order, imposes his own domination. This warning still holds good today”.
Schwarz notes in passing that while Napoleon bequeathed to the French the “memory of having once dominated Europe, which will always stroke a certain kind of nationalistic ego”, “his megalomania cost nearly 3 million French and European soldiers their lives – an unprecedented level prior to the total wars of the 20th century – and led to outrageous requisitions of goods, food and tax in the occupied countries”.
And yet Hegel, who witnessed the Emperor riding through Jena, described it as a “wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it”. In his political philosophy, Hegel argues that freedom is “a power of work independent of the will of individuals, an ‘absolute spirit’ that leads history”. In spite of the semblance of irrationality characterising the history of humanity, he explains, a path has been traced out by this spirit of freedom that always ends up overcoming the obstacles put in its path by humans. Freedom cannot be brought about other than by violence, the philosopher argued, as it is always rejected in a world that is the opposite of the absolute it represents. But this spirit knows how to make use of human passion to impose itself upon humans. For instance, Napoleon was unquestionably motivated by base ambitions, such as a hunger for power, Hegel stresses, but his passion was put to use in service of a principle higher than he.
“The revolutions of 1848 have gone down in history as a failure. However, they were completely unprecedented: for the first time, Europeans rose up simultaneously to ask for the same thing, or very nearly”, Schwarz goes on to note, adding that “the problem is that right in front of them, they found other Europeans with just as much solidarity, but calling for the opposite: to preserve the ancient order. The spontaneity and fraternity of the insurgents could not stand up to the well-trained command structures of the powers that be. Even so, some things gained in the early days of the insurrection have been retained: universal suffrage for all men and the abolition of slavery in France, a Constitution in Prussia, Austria and Denmark, the abolition of serfdom in the Austrian Empire and the proclamation of a nation state in Switzerland”.
The United Kingdom abolished slavery in 1833, followed by Sweden in 1847 and France in 1848; the Netherlands joined the fold in 1862 and Portugal in 1869. However, this abolition would give way to a new form of colonial exploitation based on pillaging Africa, the author points out, before moving onto the totalitarianism and two world wars of the 20th century.
“Rising from the ashes of war and oppression, the European dream has held many of its promises. And yet the EU is struggling to confuse its own citizens, to the extent that it sometimes fosters nationalism, the opposite of what it aims to. Having lived for decades under the yoke of the Soviet empire, certain countries of Eastern Europe have rediscovered their national pride and now disdain to adopt certain EU standards in the field of law and freedoms, whilst enjoying its financial assistance. This shot in the arm for national sentiment has also reached the West, culminating with the effective withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU in 2021”, Schwarz writes, going on to conclude that “for many citizens, the feeling of belonging to Europe is real, but still vague. Becoming aware of our common history and understanding how much each country owes to the others, in Europe and beyond, may in many regards revitalise the faith of the people in a common project”. (Olivier Jehin)
Géraldine Schwarz. D’où nous venons – Ce qui nous unit, ce qui nous divise (available in French only). Flammarion. ISBN: 978-2-0804-4281-9. 492 pages. €23,90