Can Europe successfully unite its people?
...s in the cultural field, which in turn stemmed from the poor state of their communications technologies. However this is not longer a fact, now the mass communication has an enormous influence and should be able to help create a nation-state. Smith adds, it is located in ‘the patterns of European culture” and ‘ in traditions like Roman law, Greek philosophy and science, Hebraic ethics and Christian theology, as well as their Renaissance and Enlightenment successors’. These traditions have permeated the European continent to create a ‘European Culture-area. What is striking about these remarks is their similarity to official EU discourses on ‘European culture’. Smith concludes that, unlike the European Union officials, despite these unifying elements, any attempt to create a supra-national community in Europe is unlikely to succeed on the social and cultural levels. The problem according to the European Union is that Europeans are not enough aware of the common cultural values and shared European heritage, thus “ action is needed in the cultural section to make people more aware of their European identity in anticipation of the creation of a European cultural area. Quoting Soledad Garcia and Wallace,” If a European identity could be established and its elements clearly identify, the institutions of the European community would have a much stronger point of reference from which to gather loyalty from its citizens and build up a much needed legitimacy. So EU policy makers do believe in the existents of a common European culture. The 1996 European Commission First report on the Consideration of Cultural Aspects in European Community Action listed it clearly up ‘cultural policy must make a contribution to strengthening an to expanding the “European model of society build on a set of values common to all European societies.” ’ The European Union spend a lot of money on workshops to clarify what the characteristics of European culture and identity consist of. However this was for EU policy-makers and supporters, but you need to promote this “feeling” to the European citizen. To repeat Tom Nairn ‘it is in the masses – not simply European elites, politicians and intellectuals- who must be “invited into history” before a new collective memory can be engendered and a new historical consciousness created.’ History is of course essential to the formation of a nation. So to make a united Europe, Europe needs a common history. EU historiography represents the last three thousand of years of European history as a kind of moral success story: a gradual ‘coming together in the shape of the European Community and its institutions. This is very positive for the European Union, the idea that European cultural unity is founded upon a shared ancient civilisation is attractive to the architects of political integration and clearly informs much of their campaigning work. The problem with such a notion as Pieterse states ‘what is being recycled a “European culture” is nineteenth century elite imperial myth formation. Europe is being Europeanised, and not the rest of the world. However EU politicians and image-makers continue to draw on ‘classical’ images in their quest to identify the essential elements of European culture, and show little sensitivity towards post-colonial criticism of Western Orientalism. Hobsbawn and Ranger talk about the ‘invention of European traditions. Invented traditions meaning ‘which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviours’ by implying ‘continuity with the past’. Hobsbawn and Ranger acknowledged three different types of invented tradition first, ‘those establishing or symbolising social cohesion or the membership of groups, real or artificial communities’; second, ‘those establishing or legitimising institutions’ and the last one, ‘those whose main purpose was socialisation, the inculcation of beliefs, value systems and conventions of behaviour’. The European leaders have also tried to invent Europe throughout culture. ‘They tried to create new symbols to represent Europe, furthermore to ‘Europeanise’ higher education through the rewriting of history and finally the identification of women as specific targets for EU culture-building activities’ The EU also took initiatives in several areas such as education and training programmes and even audio-visual policy, with a ‘truly European multilingual television channel. In 1984 Television Without Frontiers Directive spelt out clearly the perceived link between cultural identity and integration: Information is decisive, perhaps the most decisive, factor in European unification…European unification will only be achieved if Europeans want it. Europeans will only develop if Europeans are adequately informed. At present, information via the mass media is controlled at national level. The other initiatives they took were, making a European Academy of Science ‘to highlight the achievements of European Science and the originality of European civilization in all its wealth and diversity’, a Euro-lottery and the formation of European sports teams. However this was not enough, the commission argued that the ‘people’s of Europe also needed a set of new symbols. To echo the Commission: ‘Symbols play a key role in consciousness-raising but there is also a need to make up its European identity, of our cultural unity with all its diversity of expression, and of the historical ties which link the nations of Europe’ . This quote means actually that Europeans do not have the consciousness of their European heritage and identity and the Commission tried to help them out. One of the new symbols is the EU emblem and flag. The emblem consists of 12 golden stars on a blue background, twelve is a symbolic number representing perfection. It is also, the number of months in a year and the number of hours shown on a clock face. The circle is, among other things, a symbol of unity. So the European flag was born, representing the ideal of unity among the peoples of Europe. . The Commission also proposed the creation of a harmonised European passport, driving licence and car number-plates and a European Anthem, taken from the fourth movement of Beethoven’s ninth symphony, the ‘Ode to Joy’. Not only a flag and an anthem belong to the new ‘culture’ of Europe, but also European celebratory calendrial markers, such as ‘European Weeks’, European Culture Months, and A European year, such as the European year of Cinema. The political aim behind these iniatives was ambitious: to reconfigure the symbols ordering of time, space, information, education and the media in order to reflect the “European dimension” and the presence of European Community institutions. These nation-building measures were designed to enhance European consciousness and ‘Europeanise’ the cultural sector. Although these iniatives have been quite successful, others weren’t. The ‘Euro’ is an economic success, but is still not embraced with a war feeling by the European citizens. A lo...