Europe is not just an idea
I recently stumbled across the following Telegram post, and I thought I’d share it:
In this third and final special post related to the essence of the current EU Parliamentary election, Italian historian and thinker Ernesto Galli Della Loggia explains that technocracy and experts will not be enough to hold the Union together.
He believes that all politicians need to learn how to speak to the soul of the voters and nations. Dr. Galli Della Loggia emphasizes that the European elites wrongly believed that the Union’s technical achievements “were enough to take root and legitimize themselves in the conscience of their citizens.”
The most read Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera published this essay.
Europe is not just an idea
Ernesto Galli Della Loggia
What kind of Europe will we be voting for today and tomorrow? Let’s steer away from discussing identity, as it is a term that should always be handled carefully. Instead, let’s talk about differences. Even in the present day, being European primarily means being born and having spent most of one’s life in an environment defined by certain differences from all the other regions inhabited by non-European populations. A well-known Polish historian, Krzysztof Pomian, once compiled a list of these distinct characteristics.
Below are seven environmental, visual, and sound characteristics typical of Europe:
1) The presence of crosses on buildings, in cemeteries, along city streets, at crossroads, or on the edges of roads in the countryside.
2) A city plan and architecture featuring common features such as a central square.
3) An alphabet is presented in three variants, distinguished from Chinese ideographic writing and the Arabic alphabet.
4) A high density of images in public spaces and private homes.
5) Frequency of human figure representations, both male and female, among these images.
6) The ringing of bells.
7) The dense presence of Greek, Roman, or medieval vestiges in the area, such as standing buildings, ruins, or preserved objects in museums.
In addition, Europe possesses distinct characteristics that set it apart from neighboring cultural regions. Throughout Europe, the organization of time is based on a seven-day week, with Sunday established as a public holiday and common celebrations such as Christmas and Easter. Furthermore, all Europeans historically drew from the Jewish-Christian legacy, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome. The continent shares a unified tradition of visual arts, literature, political doctrines, and basic legal norms and does not enforce any dietary restrictions.
Today, Europe is notable for its secularism, signifying the separation of politics from religion and citizenship from any religious affiliation. Additionally, the status of women in Europe stands out, as European laws do not recognize polygamous marriage. Women are not secluded in gymnasiums or harems and are not compelled to conceal their faces or hair. Notably, women have consistently held prominent roles in European cultural and political life. (…)
In reality, European political integration has suffered due to the lack of emphasis on the shared historical identity. The Union has not taken steps to highlight and strengthen the common roots throughout the continent. It has failed to develop policies that consider the specific variations and expressions of these roots in different countries and their relevance to the present and future. While quick to celebrate differences in others, Europe has, in a sense, neglected its own.
Thus, it has been forgotten that nothing new can live if it cannot refer to something old. Europe has chosen to present itself with the face of its heritage, but of its more universal and abstract heritage, placed, so to speak, outside of time and space. It has chosen to put its identity essentially in the firmament of principles — peace, justice, human rights — aimed without distinction at all, and therefore, by their nature, necessarily abstract and oriented exclusively to the present and the future.
But in politics, you must know how to speak to the soul. Europe has forgotten the warning of a great European, Stefan Zweig, who, in the years between the two wars, wrote that if we do not speak to the “heart” and “blood” of Europeans, the battle against nationalism will inevitably be lost by moment — he added — that “never in history has change come from the intellectual sphere alone or reflection alone.”
Instead, the European elites ended up believing precisely this: that the great principles and concrete advantages ensured by the Union were enough to take root and legitimize themselves in the conscience of their citizens. But no body politic has ever been held together by these things alone. In reality, the presence of national pasts is much broader and more important than the European institutions have been willing to believe. Therefore, if something solid must arise with the name of Europe and destiny reserves such a future for our continent, then this can only occur on the legacy of history: only in this will it find its complete legitimacy and the promise of fulfillment.
These excerpts are from article published by Corriere Della Sera on June 8, 2024. Translation by TheO.