A letter about the way forward for our continent to my fellow European swingers

Pricey Lana Bastašić, Kamel Daoud, Drago Jančar, Oksana Zabuzhko,

How surreal, and thrilling, to write down a letter about Europe to 4 individuals I’ve by no means met earlier than. There are few points that trigger as many misunderstandings as Europe. So this feels a bit like getting into a swingers’ membership for the primary time. Europe has been the topic of many metaphors, so why not this one? A swingers’ membership.

In any case, Europe should already be near our coronary heart – or shut sufficient, a minimum of – since all of us agreed to take part in a discussion board about Europe and the Way forward for Democracy. You don’t must be a cynic to sigh discreetly and ask your self: Once more? Is it Groundhog Day? Though we differ in age and background I assume that you’ve all participated in sufficient panels the place the individuals needed to speak about kind of this subject.

The fragility of liberal democracy is a given. It’s potential that liberal democracy is now a bit extra fragile than it was in, say, 1990, however it has all the time been fragile. As to the query of how endangered and fragile liberal democracy is, that’s all the time additionally a matter of time and place. I say this as a reluctant universalist. In spite of everything, the early nineties had been additionally the period of the battle in Yugoslavia, one which has largely disappeared from the collective unconscious, a minimum of outdoors the previous Yugoslavia. In Sarajevo in 1993 the fragility of democracy should have felt completely different than in Paris, London or Milan.

Susan Sontag in Sarajevo

As you all know, in 1993 Susan Sontag went to Sarajevo, a metropolis beneath siege at the moment, to direct Ready for Godot. She wrote that she had been to Sarajevo earlier than and that the individuals there had instructed her: “We’re a part of Europe. We’re the individuals in former Yugoslavia who stand for European values: secularism, spiritual tolerance, and multi-ethnicity. How can the remainder of Europe let this occur to us?”

Sontag had replied that “Europe is and all the time has been as a lot a spot of barbarism as a spot of civilization”. Sadly, “they didn’t wish to hear. Now, a couple of months later, nobody would dispute such an announcement.”

The German thinker Theodor Adorno said that barbarism is inscribed inside the precept of civilisation. We are able to focus on what precisely Adorno meant, however we are able to additionally merely conclude that each one civilisations will want barbarians, outdoors the gates or contained in the group, as a way to distinguish themselves from the still-uncivilised.

I’m not in any respect a staunch conservative however I’m uncertain that we people can stay with out an enemy, that it’s potential to form a collective id with out actual enemies or fantasies about perceived enemies.

I additionally wonder if thirty years after Sontag’s journey to Sarajevo we nonetheless can declare that secularism, spiritual tolerance, and multi-ethnicity are European values. If not, I might counsel that we not lament for too lengthy. Actuality didn’t meet our expectations, Europe might have disenchanted us. However let’s transfer on. 

I additionally wonder if thirty years after Sontag’s journey to Sarajevo we nonetheless can declare that secularism, spiritual tolerance, and multi-ethnicity are European values

Disappointment in regards to the current is as frequent because the glorification of an nearly all the time legendary previous. The flip aspect of that coin is the tendency to see the previous – ideally one’s personal previous – as a sequence of crimes and misdemeanours that should be prosecuted. I’m very a lot in favour – who isn’t? – of historic evaluation that’s as meticulous and unbiased as potential. In fact, a impartial historic evaluation will not be potential, however nonetheless. 

The tendency to see historical past as an train in prosecution is the enemy of understanding and evaluation. There are occasions after we can’t keep away from prosecution of the previous as a way to right a state of affairs within the current. However, with out denying that there are victims and perpetrators, it’s clear {that a} gray zone of acts exists the place morality and the alternatives individuals make usually are not all the time clear. 

The donkeys in Europe

I’m not certain how I might behave within the excessive circumstances of battle or persecution. Ever since I reached the conclusion that I’m a mean sinner – I’m not spiritual in any respect however the phrases “common sinner” summarise the gray zone neatly – my expectations of myself in these circumstances usually are not very excessive.

A good friend of mine tells me each time we have now dinner {that a} sinner wants a future and a saint wants a previous. I hope that we agree that all of us want a future. The query is, what sort of future do we’d like? And for whom? Ought to we embrace different animals in our ideas and plans? Are the donkeys in Europe additionally Europeans?

The German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller wrote: Deutschland? Aber wo liegt es? Ich weiß das Land nicht zu finden; / Wo das gelehrte beginnt, hört das politische auf. (“Germany? However the place is it? I do not know the place to search out the nation; / The place the realized begins, the political ends”.) I promise that from right here on I’ll cease dropping names. However can we practise the artwork of dialog with out dropping any names? For one motive or one other, I’ve all the time had a weak spot for Germany. Though I moved from Amsterdam to New York in 1995, I might like to turn into a German later in life, no matter being a German means or entails. At a minimal, holding a German passport. Or is there one thing extra to it?

Anyhow, Schiller’s query applies simply as nicely to Europe. Germany has discovered its borders, in the interim a minimum of, however Europe remains to be busy discovering the place it ends. The British wished to be Europeans hors concours, and now lots of them are a bit disenchanted about this standing. The British have been ridiculed sufficient, and the British are masters in self-ridicule. Honour to whom honour is due.

Is Europe the historical past of Europe? Is there a typical historical past? How a lot historical past do we’d like as a way to form our future? Do we’d like one other utopia? Or, having turn into sadder and wiser after so many failed utopias, ought to we attempt to discover some happiness in imperfection?

Prisoners of historical past

It’s not advisable to turn into a prisoner of historical past, or a prisoner of the myths and legends so usually related to the telling of historical past. It’s when conservatism and traditionalism permit themselves to turn into prisoners that their ugliest and most illiberal outgrowths begin to take form.

The potential for escape: to me that is an essence of what it means to be a mortal, a human being, no matter you wish to name it. Escape is feasible, typically unavoidable; typically the escapee might be applauded, at different instances the escape artist might be labelled a coward, however that’s much less essential to me.

If I wish to defend liberal democracy, and I imagine I do (whether or not I wish to die for it’s a entire different query), to me that entails having the ability to stay with individuals who haven’t any admiration in any respect for this political system. 

Europe can be a longing, a promised land within the distance. The second you set foot within the promised land, you neglect in regards to the promise

I don’t imagine that decency implies that you will need to wish to defend liberal democracy. That may be an utter lack of creativeness and it could be in opposition to the spirit of freedom. I’m not even certain that we’re speaking about the identical factor after we use the phrases “liberal democracy.”

It’s haughty to imagine that as a result of we’re authors – to call one of many smaller frequent demeanors that bind us – we should subscribe to the identical opinions, that we should have a set of beliefs that binds us.

Stay with individuals who wish to kill me

To me, liberal democracy requires that I can stay along with people who find themselves obsessed with issues that I despise, that I may even have dinner with them. In a barely exaggerated method which means I can stay along with individuals who wish to kill me. So long as they chorus from doing so, I’ve no explicit downside with their needs. They’re entitled to their fantasies and their hobbies, so long as they respect the legislation. And that’s for me one other attribute of liberal democracy, that I can really feel protected by the legislation, that there isn’t any have to take the legislation in my very own palms or a have to bribe policemen, judges and prosecutors.

I may also stay along with individuals who have political beliefs that I deem harmful, disgusting and possibly immoral. No central authority tells us what to assume and what not, who to admire and who to not admire, who to imagine and who to not imagine. That’s the system I’m speaking about.

By transferring to New York, I turned a European. It’s in all probability simpler to be a European when you don’t stay in Europe.

Europe can be a longing, a promised land within the distance. The second you set foot within the promised land, you neglect in regards to the promise.

Evidently, there are too many temptations. The darkness is there. Some thinker – I promised you, no extra name-dropping – stated that freedom is uncanny.

However temptation will not be the identical as an authority with a secret police and a military to implement a set of beliefs upon its residents. We could also be residing beneath the yoke of commercialism – and sure, does the novel have a cost-effective future, or ought to we exclude cash from the equation as soon as and for all in order that the artist solely wants a rich patron? – however that’s not the identical as a brutal regime. Simply consider Iran.

If I imagine that I’m a missionary whose job it’s to transform others to observe me in my beliefs, in my world view, my struggles, my concepts about justice, then I might not be taking freedom significantly. A novelist might have a worldview (he in all probability does), and he usually makes use of his worldview to seduce readers to the world by way of his eyes. However that’s not the identical because the act of actively changing somebody. 

The offending novelist

My discontent about so many discussions with a few of my contemporaries, a few of my greatest mates, is that they can not cease changing different individuals. Do the proper factor. Imagine the proper factor. Say the proper factor. I didn’t turn into a novelist to stay the life or mental lifetime of a boy scout.

Is Europe greater than mere geography? Whether it is extra than simply geography, then how will we outline that surplus? Can we agree on values with out making them so generic that it’s evident that they’ve been formulated as a way to not offend anybody?

The novelist has all the time been there to offend individuals, however not only for the sake of offence.

I count on the novelist to work laborious to be as sincere as potential. Honesty and agreeability don’t all the time go collectively nicely.

On the one hand I might like to please, as a result of I might like to be remembered additionally as a part-time charmer. Alternatively, I don’t wish to betray our career.

The individuals who invited us, the individuals who pay us, our readers, won’t just like the issues we have now to say. If the more severe involves the worst, we are able to all the time apologise.

I look ahead to seeing you in Amsterdam.

Be nicely,  Arnon Grunberg

This letter is among the “Letters on Democracy”, a venture of the 4th Discussion board on European Tradition happening in June 2023 in Amsterdam. Organised by De Balie, the Discussion board focuses on the which means and way forward for democracy in Europe, bringing collectively artists, activists and intellectuals to discover democracy as a cultural slightly than a political expression.

For the Letters on Democracy, 5 writers envision the way forward for Europe in a series of 5 letters initiated by Arnon Grunberg. The writers – Arnon Grunberg, Drago Jančar, Lana Bastašić, Oksana Zabuzhko and Kamel Daoud – come collectively in the course of the Discussion board, in a dialog in regards to the Europe that lies forward of us and the function of the author in it.