S E M I KO L O N - EgernInc

s i d e [ 3 4 ]
M i k k e l T h o r u p
særlige erfaring ud af Europa og ud af
den europæiske læringsproces. Jan-Werner
Müller bemærker:
“Habermas showed a marked lack of
interest in the East German revolution.
He somewhat dismissively called the East
German and the East European revolutions
nachholend, i.e. revolutions to catch up with
the West and the ideas of 1789. Habermas
emphasized that ‘the catching up revolution
does not throw any new light on our old
problems’.” (Müller 2000, 109)
Det gør det særligt interessant, at Habermas
siger: “The Europe of today grew out
of the experiences of the totalitarian
regime of the twentieth century and from
Holocaust” (Habermas & Derrida 2003);
dvs fra erfaringen med ét totalitært regime,
det nazistiske, og ikke med det andet, det
kommunistiske. Slavoj Žižek kommenterer:
“… in order to characterize the demise of
the Socialist regimes in 1990, Habermas
coined the term ‘catch-up revolution’:
the West (Western liberal democracy)
has nothing to learn from the Eastern
European Communist experience, since
in 1990, these countries simply caught up
with the social development of the Western
liberal-democratic regimes. Habermas
thereby writes off this experience as
simply accidental, denying any fundamental
structural relationship between Western
democracy and the rise of ‘totalitarianism’ –
any notion that ‘totalitarianism’ is a symptom
of the inner tensions of the democratic
project itself ” (Žižek 2002, 299).
Europa bliver effektivt til Vesteuropa – og
endda reduceret til Tyskland, Frankrig og
Benelux-landene (Lucke 2004, 54). En
tilsvarende reduktion kan observeres, når vi
ser på, hvordan Europas værdier bestemmes.
Buttiglioni-sagen (hvor en italiensk
kommissær blev afvist pga sine reaktionære
synspunkter) viste for sydeuropæiske
katolikker, at EU er nordeuropæiskprotestantisk
i sine ekspliciterede værdisæt.
Når Habermas eller Castells skal forklare,
hvad der er fælleseuropæisk, så reducerer
de effektivt Europa til de nordeuropæiske
velfærdsstater (Habermas 2001, 19-21;
Castells 2000a, chap. 5; Castells 2000b;
Castells 2004; Kaube 2005, 56).
Europa viser sig paradoksalt nok
at blive model for verden i den samme
bevægelse, som reducerer den til stadig
mindre.
Litteratur
Blair, Tony (2001): ‘Speech at the Labour party
conference. October 2, 2001’, http://politics.
guardian.co.uk/labourconference2001/
story/0,1220,561985,00.html
Castells, Manuel (1997): The Information Age: The Power
of Identity, Oxford: Blackwell
Castells, Manuel (2000a): The Information Age: End of
Millennium, Oxford: Blackwell
Castells, Manuel (2000b): ’Att bygga en europeisk
identitet’, Ord & Bild, no. 6, pp. 14-19
Castells, Manuel (2000c). The Information Age: The
Network Society, Oxford: Blackwell
Castells, Manuel (2004): ‘European unification in the
era of the network state’, December 11, www.
opendemocracynet
Chandler, David (2002): From Kosovo to Kabul. Human
Rights and International Intervention, London &
Sterling, Pluto Press