The Past is a Foreign Country
Civitas, 22 October 2009
The twentieth anniversary of 1989 reveals more the cacophonous quality of Europe rather than its balanced unity. In recent months Europe has been confronted with a chorus of master-narratives about its recent past: the ‘triumph of liberal democracy’, ‘Westernization’, or ‘liberalization’, especially of European thought – following perhaps the example set by the turn of dissidents in Eastern Europe to liberalism. However, as with most efforts at collective self-congratulation, historical validity is usually the victim. Europe needs to start telling the truth about itself, especially when it comes to the politics of memory. Firstly, the release in September of Foreign and Commonwealth Office documents relating to British policy towards German reunification during 1989-90, caused controversy in the British national press exposing Margaret Thatcher as the principle opponent among European leaders of a unified Germany.
The German reaction to the release of these papers, for example, not only aimed to expose Thatcher as something of an antediluvian, out of step with the optimism born of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also as a little Englander hostile to European integration. If ideas had a parentage, Thatcher has been seen as the mother of Conservative attitudes toward Europe. Missing from this argument however is a key factor: historical context. That is to say that what must be recognized is Thatcher’s close relationship with Gorbachev at the time of his reforms. Indeed, Thatcher herself had the political mentality of a latter-day Metternich arguing that a balance of power in Europe is what really matters. She even convened a meeting at her club, Chequers, to ask the question: ‘How dangerous are the Germans?’.
Yet really, what most European leaders wont acknowledge is the fact that uncertainty about Europe’s future after the fall of the Berlin wall was not an opinion exclusively held by Mrs Thatcher. Both Mitterand and Gorbachev had their own reservations about German unification. It is this complete lack of accepting uncomfortable truths that makes the EU the target of so much criticism. Indeed, even amongst Eastern European intellectuals today, there is a hint of cynicism at the way things have turned out. Martin Simecka, a leading Slovak dissident during the 1980s, recently wrote that the dissident generation of the 1970s and 1980s produced a body of work unprecedented in central European history. Yet it is precisely the monumentality of this generation’s legacy that prevents the interpretation of the communist past going beyond self-diagnosis. Simecka goes on to assert:
‘It seems to me that the past twenty years of debate all point to one thing: that we are still not free. All of us who lived at least part of our adult lives under communism have been marked by the past to the extent that we may never be able to discuss it in the language of a natural, free world. We may be able to distinguish between the courageous from the cowardly and victims from culprits, but not between those who are free and those who are not. The category of a free human being simply did not exist under the communist regime. Defiance, resistance or attempts to live a parallel life outside the system may have represented signs of longing for freedom but they did not represent freedom itself. This is why we can and we should bear witness and many deserve admiration and respect for their courage. Yet this does not entitle us to claim that we can interpret this part of history in a free and unbiased way. We are all like patients who self-diagnose and prescribe their own treatment.’
This narrative of 1989 is however missing in the officiated version provided by the European Commission. Indeed, European statesman themselves are proud to offer grandiloquent visions of what Europe should look like but find it difficult to tell different stories of the European experience. Different versions of Europe’s history could be Europe’s strength, yet the reliance on a history of unmediated progress will only filibuster attempts at reconciling different voices in the European Union. Whilst visions are important for Europe, one is reminded of Helmut Schmidt’s famous comment that anyone who has visions should go to a doctor. If anything, it is self-diagnosis that Europe requires, not self-congratulation.
Ahmed Mehdi