Do I Belong? Reflections from Europe

321 Pages·2017·2.95 MB·English

by  Antony Lerman (ed.)

Do I Belong?

Do I Belong?
Reflections from Europe
Edited by Antony Lerman
First published 2017 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Antony Lerman 2017
The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors
of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 9995 9 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 9994 2 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7868 0099 2 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0101 2 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0100 5 EPUB eBook
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Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America
Contents
Foreword vii
Gertraud Borea d’Olmo
Introduction 1
Antony Lerman
1. Europe’s Problem with Otherness 11
Zia Haider Rahman
2. When Do You Eat Lunch? 25
Isolde Charim
3. The Missing Link? Building Solidarity among
Black Europeans 40
Rob Berkeley
4. From the European Puzzle to a Puzzled Europe 54
Marion Demossier
5. The Bird’s Religion 70
Şeyda Emek
6. The Constructed European 84
Catherine Fieschi
7. Guilty Pleasure 101
Lars Ebert
8. A World of Difference 116
Brian Klug
9. A Never-Ending Story: My Belonging Journey 131
Viola Raheb
10. The Paris 2015 Attacks and the Eclipse of Senses
of Belonging in Europe 144
Umut Bozkurt
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do i belong?
11. Home and Homelessness in Europe 161
Göran Rosenberg
12. The Undiscovered Continent 178
Doron Rabinovici
13. Growing Up under Different Skies 193
Diana Pinto
14. The Profound and Ambivalent Nature of Belonging
in the EU 207
Montserrat Guibernau
15. Questioning Belonging in the Post-Diasporic Museum 223
Hanno Loewy
16. The Accidental European 241
Nira Yuval-Davis
17. Belonging to the Contact Zone 254
Nora Sternfeld
18. The Unfinished Business of Our Own Belongings 270
Antony Lerman
Notes on Contributors 287
Acknowledgements 293
Index 295
vi
Foreword
In June 2012 the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue
in Vienna hosted the first of a series of seminars on the missing
sense of togetherness and belonging in Europe, which we named
the Vienna Conversations. As a think tank specializing in bringing
together intellectuals, politicians, academics and civil society
activists for confidential discussions on difficult social and political
problems, focusing particularly on the European arena, this seemed
like an obvious matter for the Kreisky Forum to take up.
The proposal for these open-ended conversations, which had no
predetermined agenda, emerged from discussions I had with fellow
partners. The problematic was set out in a paper, ‘In search of the
missing other’, written by Dr Diana Pinto, and sent to a diverse
range of people, from across the continent, who we thought would
have something vital to contribute.
Over three years, meeting in the former home of the late Austrian
chancellor, Bruno Kreisky, in Vienna, we covered the issue from
many angles in lively, informed, challenging, collegiate, as well as
sometimes contentious debates. There was much we agreed upon,
but significant differences also surfaced. In the letter of invitation
to participate in the discussions we wrote that we thought of this
‘all-Europe debate as a book’, but in a metaphorical sense. There
was no pre-planned scheme to produce one. However, the phrase
has proved prescient: when the discussions seemed to reach some
kind of natural end in early 2015, thoughts turned to producing
something that would be a permanent reflection of what turned
out to be the key theme. And so a proposal was made to produce
a book of original, personal essays on belonging in Europe, which
found favour with everyone. We asked one of our participants, an
experienced editor, Antony Lerman, to commission the essays and
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do i belong?
edit the volume. Eighteen months later, with Pluto Press as our
publishers, the project came to fruition.
Without the personal involvement and support of Patricia
Kahane neither the Vienna Conversations nor this book of essays
would have seen the light of day. Thanks are also due to our insti-
tutional sponsors.
The Forum is also indebted to all those who participated in the
Conversations. Most came from across Europe and brought their
diverse range of professional expertise and personal experience to
bear on the subjects discussed. A few came from beyond Europe,
and their external perspective proved valuable in ensuring that
the discussions took into account the relevance of the continent’s
internal wrestling with issues of belonging and difference for the
wider world.
While the publication of this rich, diverse and absorbing
collection of essays marks the formal end to the Vienna Conver-
sations, it is also the opening of a new conversation with a wider
public about how people can live together in difference in Europe.
At the time of writing, the challenges to the future viability of the
European project seem to become more severe by the day. It is the
Kreisky Forum’s hope that a more realistic and sensitive under-
standing of the multifaceted nature of belonging, which these
essays provide, will contribute to discussions across the continent
as to how to meet these challenges.
Gertraud Borea d’Olmo
Secretary General
Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue
viii
Introduction
Antony Lerman
No single reason can explain why, in June 2016, British voters
decided in favour of leaving the European Union, just as there was
no sole motive driving Americans to elect Donald J. Trump to the
presidency of the United States in November. But one factor looms
very large in both cases: the appeal of promises (or rather threats)
made to exclude millions of ‘undesirables’ from belonging to the
national community.
First in line would be those characterized as ‘intruders’:
immigrants, migrants, asylum seekers, refugees – call them what
you will – who allegedly take the jobs that should be preserved for
‘native’ workers and ‘dilute’ national identity and culture. Feared,
hated, demonized and dehumanized, these seekers after home can
no longer be allowed entry in such ‘destabilizing’ numbers; some
insist that there simply should be no more ‘foreign’ additions to
the population. Next come Muslims and possibly other ‘suspect’
religious, ethnic or cultural groups who must be placed under
radically increased surveillance, and therefore ever more decisively
alienated from society, out of fears that they support terrorism
and are disloyal to the state. Then diverse groups would be turned
into internal enemies or outsiders by severe limitations placed on
some fundamental human rights such as freedom of expression,
a woman’s right to choose, speaking truth to power and choice of
personal sexual orientation. Even if such measures were not always
fully articulated by the principal figures in the Trump and Brexit
campaigns, the subtext was always clear: You are not welcome. You
do not belong here.
The impulse to reject inclusivity may well begin with the natural
propensity of human beings to see society/human relations in
terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’. But while the exclusivist urge was once held
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