European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

196 EUROPEAN IDENTITY. INDIVIDUAL, GROUP AND SOCIETYare lately limited to the fact that the history of European identity —itspast, present and future— becomes present normally whilst promotingit. I will now refer to it.The past of European Identity and the determining factorsof its acquisitionWhen I referred to the formal conditions for the acquisition of asocial identities, I mentioned the processes of cultural creation, prerequisitesfor the shaping and outlining of identities to be communicableand understandable, as well as to their insertion into animplicit map of identity relationships established according to aparticular viewpoint (kinship, profession, power, etc.).In the case of European identity, these cultural processes that arepre-required for it to be easily understood cannot be consideredcomplete, which would indeed introduce extra difficulties for“Europeanness” education. However, most importantly, the culturalprocesses have been presided by certain basic interests, intentions orperspectives which hinder, rather than favour, the comprehension ofthe map of relationships in which European identity is to be located inorder for it to be rightfully understood.Indeed, if we try to come up with some sort of semiotic history of“Europeanness”, the first thing we find is the Greek creation of a viewof the world which distinguished three areas or regions in it: Asia, tothe East of the Aegean sea; Africa, situated on the South; and Europe,on the West. The lack of geographical precision of this division matterslittle; what is important is the fact that it was made and used as anorientation guide for traders and, soon afterwards, for the military. Apartition of the world space is designed in order for it to be dominated.From the semiotic point of view, we would say that the isotopiaunderlying this partition has to do with ownership of the land.This did not change with the rise of the Roman Empire and thesubsequent process of romanization, even though at this stage thedimensions attributed to Europe were different and larger. When the15 th and 16 th centuries brought forth a widening of the vision of thespaces of the world, the perspective of commercial and militarydomination presided, with much greater effectiveness than in theGreek origins, the way of understanding the partition of the world andEurope´s position within it. Being European surreptitiously meantbelonging to the world of the dominant.The semiotics of Europeanness hardly changed in the 17 th centurywith the emergence of the idea of progress or, slightly later, with the