European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

138 EUROPEAN IDENTITY. INDIVIDUAL, GROUP AND SOCIETYbuild a European identity that can be attractively integrated into thepersonal identities of Europeans. It will partly be the identity of diversity(of languages, traditions, etc.). However, diversity only unites when it islinked to common bonds. The feeling of sharing common roots (Greco-Roman, Christian —according to the way that will be specified lateron—, human rights, etc.) will have to be promoted. We will also needto rework on the collective historical subject without distorting it sothat a European narrative identity emerges assembling all our nationalhistories (so bloodstained by fights yet open to a future of cooperation)together . A narrative critically aware of the scope of our interventionin the world so that we can jointly promote a future of internationaljustice, etc. Nationalisms ambiguously contribute certain materials toachieve all this. The task consists on considering them with flexibility,partly intertwining those nationalisms and partly exceeding them intheir tendency towards exclusion and in some manifestations of theirsingularity. All in all, the construction of European identity is no somuch a question of overcoming nationalisms as of integrating themthrough their transformation.Fundamentalisms and European IdentityFundamentalism is a phenomenon characterised by its reaction tomodernity. A modernity that tries to separate politics and religion, topush the latter into the private corner; a modernity which asserts thatpersonal freedom takes priority over the truth coming from any authorityand that the common minimal normative referent must have a secularfoundation. Some specific sectors of society, especially in Catholiccontexts, have responded to this modernity with the fundamentalistapproach. Such approach proposes maintaining the integrity of tradition.What this means is the following: 1) a return to the symbiosis of politicsand religion: the ecclesiastical authority offers the real view of the world;it indicates what should be done —in the personal and public spheres—and the State demands it domineeringly obtaining legitimacy in return;2) the truthful representation of national religious tradition —which isseen more as a deposit that has to be preserved and transmitted, than asa process (fanaticism)— is dogmatically self-assumed; 3) belief that onehas the right to impose that tradition in an authoritarian way, eventhrough the use of violence, since there is no right to make mistakes andthe only mistake is distancing oneself from it (“holy intolerance”).If there are fundamentalist forces in Europe, they will all go againstthe European identity proposal that has just been defined, because at