European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

122 EUROPEAN IDENTITY. INDIVIDUAL, GROUP AND SOCIETYPhysics and Chemistry as well as a historian. The poem was writtenwhen the idea of the global village was still far away. I also noticed themention of two movements, divergence and convergence. The formercould be understood from the standpoint of nature (what differentiatesus and often separates us) and the latter from the standpoint ofcitizenship (the shaping that makes us responsible and generouscitizens of the same city).We acknowledge ourselves in an effort to shape an identity thatcan transmit the best each individual, each unique man and woman,carries within oneself and contributes to the group and to society. Weare convinced that this construction is the great educational challengeof our time.Paradoxes of our time and placeWe live in an epoch which is full of meanings, including the turn ofthe century and the millennium. We have also been a part of the 20 thcentury, which inherited the optimism that characterised the IndustrialRevolution and scientific positivism and which, however, witnessed theknown (and yet to be known) global horrors, bequeathing the newcentury a generalised feeling of scepticism and mistrust. We inhabit aplace —spatial, cultural and symbolic— which is a part of the so-calledWestern World: Europe, upon which we are now reflecting from thestandpoint of its identity.In this time and place we continually come up against the mostdisconcerting paradoxes. Here are just some of them:—We live in a welfare state model a great part of humanity aspiresto. However, this model is ferocious, not only for those who liveoutside of it but also for those of us who suffer from its inhumanepace and for the increasing number of socially excluded groups itgenerates.—We have access to fast and global information and we arewitnessing a scientific and technological development processthat had never been previously experienced. However, solitude isa growing phenomenon in our cities and very often we feelincapable of solving the problems of our daily lives.—We define ourselves as a «community of values» 2 and we declarethat «freedom, peace, the dignity of mankind, equality and social2Charter of European Identity. October 1995.