author: Aymeric de Lamotte
translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise
"Protecting the European way of life", a first step towards a grounded Europe?
FIGAROVOX / TRIBUNE - "Protecting our European way of life" will be on the agenda of the EU Commissioner for Migration, Ursula von der Leyen said. The Belgian lawyer Aymeric de Lamotte welcomes this decision and reminds us that remaining hospitable should not prevent the preservation of our civilization.
Belgian lawyer and politician Aymeric de Lamotte frequently publishes articles in various Belgian newspapers.
Last Tuesday, the newly elected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the creation of a European Commissioner for the "protection of our European way of life" which naturally integrates migration issues. This decision has led some MPs to protest and to anathematize the president. Unfortunately, the pressure is likely to grow given the complacency of some media until the entry into office of the new Commission.
Taking into account our European way of life undermines the dogma of a displaced Europe.
I invite her not to give in to these protests, and to stay the course. Certainly, the job title is not the happiest - the term civilization would have been more appropriate - but it's a first step in the right direction. Indeed, taking into account our European way of life undermines the dogma of a displaced Europe that has prevailed until now. It is a crack in the abstract universal of the technocratic vulgate. A fault only, not a fragmentation, because Ursula von der Leyen, to calm the intensity of the fire, refers to the "values" of Article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty - Rule of law, justice, tolerance, equality, freedom, democracy - whose only sin might be their generalizability. This article could be repeated identically in any other treaty, on any other continent.
The problem is not the evocation, in itself, of the universalist ideal, which Europe has undeniably forged over the centuries, but to purposely deprive it of all substance: its history, its culture, its heritage, and its geography. "We abandon history for values, identity for the universal," writes the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, taking up the formula of the German sociologist Ulrich Beck: "Substantial emptiness, radical openness." Now, the European way of life reminds us of a very particular content that fits into a time and a place. Equal human dignity derives in particular from the Christian heritage of Europe, the critical spirit and the logos come from ancient Greece and were taken over by the Enlightenment, and finally our institutions and our legal corpus date from the Roman era. Taking from that, we must dare to define ourselves, and thus let go of the obsession with the disembodied individual and the eternal feeling of guilt that Europe drags around like a ball and chain.
Our historical and geographical proximity has enabled the shaping of a way of being in the world very much our own, which has born fruit thanks to advances in civilization, namely liberal democracy with the separation of powers, the religious confined to the private sector, equality between the sexes, but also the artistic trends and traditions that have criss-crossed Europe.
Europeans have a fairly common conception of the Beautiful, the Just, the True, because they have gradually become civilized together.
Thus, we naturally resonate with cultural references from Stockholm to Athens and from Lisbon to Moscow, while we remain strangers to the exoticism of an Inca statue or a Papuan shield. The culinary and clothing dimensions contain differences of degree - specificities of a country, a region - but not a difference of nature - the tagliatelle al ragù of Bologna and the sausage of Frankfurt do not throw us into an unknown taste universe. Europeans have a fairly common conception of the Beautiful, the Just, the True, because they have gradually become civilized together. In their "Paris Declaration. A Europe in which we can believe. ", twelve intellectuals including Rémi Brague, Chantal Delsol and Pierre Manent distinguish between what they consider to be the" false Europe ", precursor of a universal community, and "true Europe", carnal, rooted, which does not forget its origins. The authors start their manifesto in these terms: "Europe belongs to us and we belong to Europe. These lands are our home, we have no other. The reasons we cherish Europe are beyond our ability to explain or justify that fidelity. It's a matter of common stories, hopes and loves. It is a matter of customs, periods of joy and pain. It is a matter of exciting experiences of reconciliation, and promises of a shared future. The landscapes and events of Europe send us their own meanings, which do not belong to others. Our house is a place where the objects are familiar to us and in which we recognize ourselves, whatever the distance that removes us from it. Europe is our civilization, for us precious and irreplaceable. "
That being said, it is surprising to note that, in many minds, the link between the "European way of life" and "migration" remains misplaced, even distasteful. Of course, it is necessary to speak about this with tact and nuance, but it is undeniable that the intensity of migratory flows in recent decades coupled with a lack of integration in the European host countries leads to a "partition" of the territory, to use the expression of Francois Hollande. The use of the word "partition" is adequate because precisely the "way of life" of those who join us does not always agree harmoniously with the "European way of life". Fatal because immigration, mainly from the Islamic world, has a "way of life" - cultural, religious and clothing referents - very different. "Partition", which is a direct consequence of the application of a communitarian policy for decades, is also emerging more and more clearly, for example, between the neighborhoods that make up, roughly speaking, the north-west of Brussels and those of the South -east. In parts of the Belgian capital, the "European way of life" has completely disappeared. It is difficult to go for a glass of wine with a female friend surrounded by men in djellaba who smoke narghile on the terrace of many tea rooms - for the simple and adequate reason that they do not there sell alcohol. People who roam the markets of Molenbeek do not have the same "way of life" as those who frequent the markets of affluent neighborhoods of south-east Brussels. When the subject is broached, this is recognized in almost all private conversations, even if it is unseemly to mention it publicly.
Valuing openess to immigration must also be balanced with the desire for historical continuity for Europeans.
Thus, while some have referred to "a political mistake" on the part of Ursula von der Leyen, it is, conversely, a justified measure aimed at addressing the legitimate concerns of millions of European voters who have turned away in recent years from public discourse. One of them being the obvious "cultural dispossession", and thus the "dispossession of a shared way of life". It can only be salutary to wish to protect our European way of life, as it is threatened. It is not threatened by individuals as such or by "an invasion of Muslim barbarians" as ecologist MEP Philippe Lamberts reports, trying to make fun of Ursula von der Leyen, but by decades of inaction and political blindness in immigration control and integration. Taking back control of our immigration policy, however, does not mean breaking with the secular pact that Europe has sealed with the value of hospitality for those in need. But the value of hospitality must also deal with the desire for historical continuity that legitimately inhabits many of our fellow European citizens. Ursula von der Leyen is now at a crossroads: either she chooses to continue the "false Europe", or she arms herself with courage and renews with the "real Europe", the only one that can give a future to our common project and make the Old Continent shine again on the world stage.
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