Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

Common Memory
and European Identity 1
31
Bronisław Geremek
Quarrels over words, both in political debates and in life, express
genuine tensions. The word ‘enlargement’ appeared in European
discourse fairly late in the day. It could not have been applied to
the European Community during its formation, or to the Cold War
world, divided into two rigid blocs in the post-Yalta order. Originally,
France and Germany joined forces in the common management
of coal and steel to eradicate the roots of the major conflicts
of our modern era by committing themselves to reconciliation. Reconciliation
is not a word used innocently; it refers to centuries of
hostility, jealousy and hatred. The lists of the dead on display in
French town halls, the cemeteries in both countries, and works of
literature in both languages create seemingly insurmountable barriers
of memory. Yet the Franco-German alliance was forged
through the political will of the French not to repeat the mistake of
Versailles and through the sense of culpability of the Germans.
Should we see these events of 1950 as a way of turning away from
the past and looking to the future or of trying to overcome history?
When the Marseillaise was sung by Gaullist and Communist MPs
together in the French National Assembly a few years later, following
the vote to reject the creation of the European Defence Community,
we might have been led to think that it was merely an illusion
that history had been overcome. But the Treaties of Rome in 1957,
establishing the European Community a year after the Soviet army
had crushed the Hungarian uprising, expressed a political will to
1 This article was published earlier under the name “Existe-t-il une conscience
européenne?” in the Robert Laffont publication “Notre avenir d’Europe” (July,
2008), edited by Michel Rocard and Nicole Gnesotto.
Professor Bronisław Geremek, born on March 6, 1932 in Warsaw, died in
a car accident on July 13, 2008. He was a Polish social historian and politician.
His academic work focused mainly on the history of culture and
medieval society. His scholarly achievements include numerous articles,
as well as ten books. In August, 1980, he became one of the advisers of
the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarność, working closely
with Lech Wałęsa. From 1997 until 2000, Geremek served as Poland's
Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 2004, he was elected as a member of the
European Parliament.