On the Foreign European Cover Image

DER FREMDE EUROPÄER 
On the Foreign European

Author(s): Cristian Schuster
Subject(s): Cultural Essay, Political Essay, Societal Essay
Published by: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai
Keywords: European identity; stranger; globalization; systems theory; Europe; urbanity

Summary/Abstract: Hannah Arendt once stated, with regret, that with the founding of the state of Israel the Jewish people lost their identity based on millennia of being “the stranger”. In a similar way, I think that, after centuries of being strangers – but not foreigners! – to each other, our European special identity is endangered by the European construction. Far from being an opponent of the unification process, I believe that this endeavor should not be understood as an attempt to create (or recreate) a European cultural identity in change of the old national identities. Following the example of the urban way of life, we have to estrange each other further, as social groups and nations, to provide the cultural, ideological, political diversity needed by the functional mechanisms of the Union.  

  • Issue Year: 53/2008
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 73-82
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: German