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Cross-Cultural Identities and European Networks: Transnational subcultures and political tendencies in Europe by Thanos Contargyris

Introduction

The Workshop "Cross-Cultural Identities" is a practical examination of certain ideas about European integration. These things can be discussed in terms of 'evaluations' at different levels, including the practical perception of someone participating in ongoing programmes in which, for instance, DIALOGOS is currently engaged in, such as SMILE, BEACON or ARTICULATE.

This has to be seen in the following context: the logic of approaching European questions and what financial modalities prevail out of the perspective of the European Commission. Thus the relationship between various people within certain networks as well as between different kinds of networks within one larger programme such as DELTA can be reflected upon in terms of possible linkages and weaknesses. The awareness for possible cross-cultural identities can become a possible theme to re-evaluate European integration under aspects like professional sub-cultures transcending national borders or the creation of a common language (with special reference points) despite cultural differences. This kind of evaluation must be based on comparable terms as developed, methodologically speaking, in respect of 'cultural diversity'. These points can be put in a form of a thesis.

1. Working within networks, with multi-cultural terms

Professional culture(s) is (are) a practical outcome of economic competition reinforced sometimes by European initiatives. The latter are implemented to promote integration through networking professional people. These new professional cultures have become by now a characteristic of modern life. They transcend national and/or cultural borders. Their language is a specific jargon which is to be understood like a signal for the existence of a transnational 'subculture' (that is, of planners, computer experts, banking specialists, etc.).This raises then the important question: is this a specific European or rather a world-wide phenomena? The language(s) spoken within these sub-cultures are brought about by experiences, but also by needs to communicate within these networks. They rest on the development of common terms while effort is made to respect the cultural specifities of the respective members or all participants.

Of interest is that European interdisciplinary terms show often that they are stronger than nationally based cultural terms when it comes to bringing about collective work. The work undertaken to facilitate cultural exchanges in Europe can be beneficial in finding ways to deal with the problem of communication of multidisciplinary terms. This issue is of utmost importance for the future of culture, arts and science because it is in these fields that a big part of any innovation comes about through multidisciplinary (multicultural?) work.

One further point has to be made here. Company culture and professional culture are a deviation of culture defining identities to oppose forces from outside, that is the non-initiated. They are intolerant by nature. They have their roots in economic competition, not in European policy.

2. Culture of Decision Making

The culture of decision makers in the European Union should be a theme for discussion. Usually, it is said that politicians along with academics differ in their language, levels of concern, abilities to interact etc. from that of 'common' people (in reference to 'theory of people'). In real terms, a more subtle analysis of decision making processes and the involvement of political and economic actors in that process could be done. In other words, reference to 'politicians being up there, people down here' must be questioned. Usually it leads to rejecting the political world as a whole on a dangerous demagogic basis. I do not agree with that kind of approach. I would prefer to relate discussions on 'Le Politique' to the existing gap with 'la politique'.

In other words, the following political situation needs to be faced: the failure of ideologies, the absence of alternative reference models of ethics in politics, provokes the resurgence of national antagonisms and a 'rational' hate. It affects politics and diplomacy, even to the point of paralysing European concerted actions in a lot of fields (i.e. Yugoslavia).

The question is, can culture help to resist this trend? Does a European culture exist or not? Or a 'Europe of Cultures'? Is there another alternative for cultures in Europe than nationalism? What are the transnational dimensions of culture? Is the cross-cultural approach of culture needed for making the European Union a cultural and political entity? Are regional cultures an instrument to weaken national coherence in order to facilitate stronger transnational European power? On which cultural basis could then this transnational power legitimate itself in the fight for power with national powers?

A first answer is that the European Commission is just an administration and as any national administration submitted to political pressures; at the same time, the question of head of state is raising the question of the non-existence of Unified Political Power. A prerequisite for the existence of this unified political power is the existence of European political parties which address to the people as such, outside the forum of European Parliament. Then a presidential election for a European head of state would make sense. This is, however, in contradiction with the political basis (national and regional) of European MPs, who could have been (and could be in the future) those in a position to provoke this change in their parties.

3. Intellectuals and Information Technology

Here the main questions are the following:

4. Dominance of the English language

The dominance of the English language can be attributed to the American culture and the technocratic Euro-English of decision makers. A separate theme is in fact the problem of reduction of the richness of expressions and creativity of European cultures. Certainly, it is important to understand how technology affects culture(s). This is reinforced by the fact that those cultures being affected by technologies is mastered by people not enough culturally conscious, that is, people who do not have enough respect for culture.

The fact that English is so widely used, that cannot be attributed solely to the wide usage of computer based information networks; it has to do with a lot more, including a cultural support system making usage of English in reference to technology that much easier or compatible with what everyone else is doing and using. Education and training as form of mediating between specific, unique and own language and this Euro-English becomes then an important 'nexus' of common understanding in Europe. In relation to the likelihood that through information technology one language, one specific technical oriented techno-culture can dominate, two questions can be added:

  1. What is the contribution of technologies to training if limited to train English speaking people located in places where access to training is not a problem?
  2. It is quite different if the content is culturally and linguistically adopted to train people speaking minority languages in remote regions - what policy should be adopted?

5. The role of France in Europe and its specific relationship to Germany

The Franco-German condominium or the democratic multinational federation of Europe has to have some base; only in that sense is France and the special Franco-German relationship a starting point for integration efforts. It has a historical and a 'common sense' legitimization. Certainly, it can be used to define political perspectives by which problems and inherent conflicts in the European Union can be overcome. Interesting to note is that France and Germany have different political models; while the former is based on a presidential model, the latter has implemented a federal model. The question is can Europe be constructed out of two models? But there are other, similar cases leading to the same question: there is the Spanish example or even better the Belgium one.

In fact, an analysis of 'cultural identity' and 'political identity' in Spain and Belgium can tell us more how this question of integration will be managed by the European Union, while Yugoslavia could teach us a lot about which errors are to be avoided.

6. European Identity

The European integration process relies in part on work programmes initiated by the European Commission. They form particular kinds of networks which are acting as laboratories to see how different cultures can be brought together and what this can produce. This is perceived as 'la raison d'κtre': the reason for Europeans to be enthusiastic about Europe. However, there is a crucial limitation in that kind of identity formation process, that is via practical experiences made among other places not only in Brussels or Strasbourg, but in other places within the networks which have been created within Europe so far. The imagine of being European prevails almost solely among the professionals engaged in that transnational subculture and does not reach nor involve common people at local level. In other words, the diffusion of the idea of Europe will depend in future a great deal more on the success of bringing work projects much closer in alignment with people at their 'common sense' level.

7. Philosophy

This pertains to the perception of not only European reality, but of any other kind of reality whether now to be experienced within one's own culture or outside. While the subjective viewpoint would say everything depends upon oneself, one's lived subjectivity, there is the objective one maintaining that truth in relation to perception of reality is still something else than just lived through experiences ('le vecu' - Sartre). The latter goes really hand in hand with doubt, greater insecurity, lack of full knowledge about reality or as the saying goes, 'the outer world'. How we tend to relate the two together, that seems to form really the world in which we live in, but cannot experience fully. Thus it is a matter of relating to this larger sense of reality either creatively or else with feelings of insecurity. It is up to us to develop out of this our philosophies, in order to keep our cultures open, that is, perceptive of the initiatives of others.

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