FORTRESS EUROPE?
I must confess to a certain suspicion about the project of EC union, or, more precisely, its ideological justifications. My suspicions arise from the following questions. Do people in the EC feel a sense of belonging to a 'common European home'? Given that national and ethnic loyalties are undergoing resurgences, what force might prompt people to define themselves as 'European', rather than (or even as well as) German, Scottish, Basque or whatever? What practical relevance does the notion of a 'European' identity have for people who seem to be increasingly defining themselves in terms of smaller and smaller geographical and population units? One answer to these questions has been provided by the writer Caryl Phillips:
"Europe... is trying to forge a new unity through trade, despite the divisions at the heart of European consciousness, as squabbling tribes stare at each other across national boundaries...[Europe] still looks askance at 'strangers' as they alone reinforce a sense of self. Ultimately, the one certainty for Europe is that she knows a 'nigger' when she sees one: she should - they were a figment of her imagination, a product of her creative mind."
The danger which Phillips identifies is that 'European' identity will be manufactured by reference to what it is not, that in order to legitimise a drive for unity which is essentially based on economic motives a cloak of 'European' fellow feeling will be woven from the fabric of xenophobia.
There is a danger that the EC will be encouraged to subscribe to an image of itself as a white, Christian citadel, sometimes repulsing invading pagan hordes (mainly Muslims) and other times sallying forth into the world on a supposedly civilising mission (more precisely, to defend 'its' resources). Absurd as this image is, it is nonetheless cultivated by references to Europe's Judaeo-Christian ethos, its roots in Roman and Greek civilisations, its proud legacy of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment (rather than the Inquisition and colonialism) etc. What such references commonly omit is the enormous contributions to European progress and prosperity made by Muslim philosophers and astronomers, Arab traders, the exploited people of Europe's colonies (including the victims of the Slave Trade), and many others whose descendants are rarely now accepted as truly 'European'. These ommissions reinforce the tendency to define 'Europe' in xenophobic and racist terms.
This is not an idle debate - officially sanctioned ideologies which define certain (mainly non-white) people as 'foreigners' who do not belong in 'Europe' help to create the conditions in which neo-nazi political parties can attain credibility, and in which violent attacks against 'outsiders' are seen by the perpetrators as no more than 'taking the law into their own hands'. They also legitimise policies which seek to exclude those who do not 'belong'. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the current debates about immigration and asylum policies in the EC.
by Andy Storey, Dublin
The contribution above is drawn from 'Fortress Europe': Issues confronting migrants and refugees, a paper presented by the author at the 6th annual Ilscae conference, June 1992. Andy Storey works for the Catholic development agency Trocaire in Ireland. Contact: Andy Storey, 169 Booterstown Avenue, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Tel: +353/1/2885385, Fax: +353/1/2883577.