‘Europe: a generation to generation beautiful idea’ ?
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Written by Gerrit van den Berg
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Thursday, 15 December 2005
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“The European Union is not a community and in the current form it can never be an example for the world”. The American sociologist and founder of the communitarian movement, Amatai Etzioni (76), who visited the Netherlands last week, is firm in his conclusions. ‘A community means that there are shared core values and bonds of affection. Only by a true moral dialogue you can achieve this.’ The well known philosopher and sociologist, invited by the Dutch Prime Minister J.P. Balkenende at the conference ‘Europe: a beautiful idea’, presented some striking advices for Europe.
 • Europe
“Since the rise of nationalism there has not been one single successful supranational community. There were many attempts, but none succeeded. The only thing we got is some trade cooperation”. According to Etzioni, who is also a professor at The George Washington University, there has been no success in growing above nationalism because all attempts started at the wrong economic footing.‘To achieve a true community you need to have moral dialogues ’, he added. Etzioni made a specific suggestion for the EU to become more than an economic cooperation and to achieve the shared values and bonds of affection that form a real community, and the suggestion was to : ‘Take a truly important European topic and have the target of : “one year from now we would have a referendum on this topic .It would have to be an EU-wide vote – not country by country – and it would have to be binding for the Commission and the European Parliament. And most importantly of it is that: “It would be a year of dialogues.” For Etzioni the crucial part of the referendum is the moral debates that would be held all over the EU. ‘I would suggest to have a dialogue about how to handle immigration from outside the EU. This is a topic that concerns everybody and it is truly European since immigrants who enter the EU can move freely within the EU’. Because of all the debates during the year before a specific referendum people would feel more attached to the EU. Bonds of affection and shared values would develop during the process. ‘Ultimately you would create a shared culture, a shared moral culture’, the sociologist thinks. A community in this sense looks much like a nation state. But would that level of commitment really be the aim? According to Etzioni the nation state will not disappear when Europe follows its advice. ‘Essentially it doesn’t mean replacing the nations but creating a new level of community, together with the national community.’ To achieve a real community you need the members of the EU to be the same in some respects. ‘Every time you would ask me to create a sociological bond I would increase the homogeneity and deepen the democracy of the community at the same time.’ This leads Etzioni to plea for stopping the growth of the EU for at least ten years. In his vision it will be impossible to deepen the European cooperation as long as new members come in. ‘Trying to bring in democratic reforms like majority rule in a heterogenic community is sociologic explosive.’ According to Etzioni, adding Turkey to the European mix even makes it more impossible to cooperate. ‘Only countries that want a weak EU, like Britain and the US are strongly in favour of Turkish accession.’ • Immigration
‘No society can exist without shared core values. Multiculturalists who think otherwise are not only empirically but most important morally wrong.’ Etzioni reacts furious on the suggestion that everybody is entitled to their own values and that therefore nobody should judge each other. ‘Ultimately these ideas lead to crazy conclusions. Last week I read a case of a brother killing his sister in Berlin because she damaged the family honour. According to my values this would be absolutely not acceptable but according to his values it is no problem.’ Since no adherent of the multicultural vision would go so far to say this is allowed, Etzioni argues that even they agree on some shared values. ‘Of course we don’t have to agree on everything.’ Members of one nation can pray to different gods, read the bible or the Koran. People can speak a second language or feel affection towards another country. But there are some basic values that everybody should agree on. If there is no agreement on these basic values it’s a guarantee for major conflict.’ According to the American sociologist a nation is a community built up from smaller communities. This nation has a few core values on which everybody should agree. ‘You can never use violence against other people. Torture is unacceptable, just like murder and threatening people. You always respect the freedom of speech. These human rights are very important, but also respect for democracy. And above all respect for the laws of the land’. According to Etzioni some tolerant countries such as the Netherlands have denied that part of the Muslim community doesn’t accept the core values of the society. Therefore the heterogeneity in values has grown leads to a unstable community. Immigrants were never asked to take over the Dutch values on the moment they became Dutch. It’s not anymore a common sense to expect from immigrants the same things you expect from your own children, argues Etzioni. ‘A child born in the Netherlands, with Dutch parents and grandparents, is still expected to learn correct Dutch. It is demanded – not asked but demanded – that the child goes to school. She or he has to learn something about Dutch culture, literature and history. The child is also being taught to follow the law and the existing rules of behaviour. Why wouldn’t you ask the same thing from an immigrant who comes here to improve his or her life?’, Etzioni argues. Immigrants should take over the values and the language of the society they want to become member of before they gain their new nationality. It’s hard to solve the problems in the Netherlands and other European countries that have been lax on immigrants because there is a community that doesn’t have the same values. ‘You have a large immigrant community and a big part of the second generation of immigrants who do not accept the norms and values of the Dutch society.’ According to Etzioni , societies should demand from every immigrant that he or she would accept the values of the society where they moved into. ‘Now the progress will be very slowly. One thing is that you should deport everybody who doesn’t accept the values of the community he or she lives in. A second, and very important issue, is that you must reach out. Make educational efforts and help these people to adapt. Only then you can slowly change the problem.’ • Megalogue
According to Etzioni most of the shared values that make a community works are handed down from generation to generation. It is however possible that new shared values are developed or that existing ones are changed. This happens by intense moral dialogues. These large scale and often emotional debates Etzioni calls megalogues. ‘We see these dialogues happening every day all over the place. In the US we have one on gay marriage and another on the death penalty. We even had a very highly debated worldwide moral dialogue on the invasion of Iraq. The result was a widely shared understanding that it was wrong to invade Iraq.’ According to the sociologist the dialogues are held on every level. ‘A real moral dialogue is not just debated on the opinion pages of newspapers. These are normally real hot-topics. Everybody in society who is informed and is free to share its opinion debate these issues. People talk about it in coffee shops, in their cars and by the water cooler at their work. The debate is on debating shows and indeed in the newspapers. It’s the talk of the day.’ Ultimately these dialogues will lead to a new shared moral understanding. ‘Nine times of ten it does’, Etzioni argues. It’s possible to start a moral dialogue, but it is quite difficult.’ Etzioni has a few ideas on how to start these dialogues. One is public listening another is to have a commission of distinguished citizenship investigate a topic. Public leaders can have a very special position in this, Etzioni argues. ‘The Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende did a very good job in starting a moral dialogue on norms and values in Dutch society. A real debate is going on right now, including the question if he should have started this debate at all.’ But there are no guaranteed ways to start a debate. Etzioni tried himself several times and only a few time it led to a moral discussion. ‘Public leaders have an extra edge but Clinton tried to start a debate on race and it didn’t work. There is no sociological recipe for starting a dialogue.’ Moral debates are not only necessary on a national but also on a worldwide level. ‘The discussion on Iraq and the Kyoto protocol are being held internationally. And they are real moral debates. In the case of Kyoto the debate is how big our responsibility is towards mother earth and towards the next generations who will live on this earth.’ Through these dialogues the world will one day have shared moral values. ‘And then’, the old sociologist says with a smile ‘we will have a real international community.’ Gerrit van den BergAmsterdam (The Netherlands){moscomment}
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 21 December 2005 )
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La deuxième rencontre du cycle
“LA DEMOCRATIE EN DANGER”,
consacrée à la Justice en Europe
Le lundi 13 septembre
de 19h30 à 22h00
Salons de l’Aveyron
17 Rue de l'Aubrac
75012 Paris
 A l’heure où les discours et les mesures sécuritaires et judiciaires se durcissent dans nombreux pays européens, où l’on sait les atteintes aux droits les plus élémentaires et aux principes fondamentaux des simples citoyens, quels traitements sont réservés à ceux qui tiennent les pouvoirs politiques, financiers, économiques entre leurs mains? Une conférence-débat organisée dans le cadre du cycle La démocratie en danger par Les Amis de Beppe Grillo à Paris et le NewropMag.
Intervenants: les députés européens Luigi De Magistris, Sonia Alfano et Rosario Crocetta ; Harald Greib, vice-président de Newropeans en charge des affaires des institutions européennes ; Eric Alt, magistrat, membre de l’association MEDEL (magistrats européens pour la démocratie et les libertés) et de l’association Anticor, et Corinne Lepage, députée européenne et ex Ministre de l’environnement, engagée dans la lutte contre la corruption politique et financière.
Parmi les sujets de discussion:
- L'infiltration des organisations criminelles et le vide législatif relatif en Europe
- Les récentes dépénalisations des crimes financiers et économiques en Italie, en France et leur traitement au sein des institutions européennes
- Présomption d'innocence ou de culpabilité? L'exemple de la “loi bâillon” sur les écoutes téléphoniques qui viole les recommandations de l’OSCE concernant l’emploi de sources et de matériels nécessaires aux investigations journalistiques au service de la démocratie.
Contacts:
Micaela Bracciaferri, Coordinatrice “Les Amis de Beppe Grillo à Paris »
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Marianne Ranke-Cormier, Rédactrice en chef du NewropMag
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