European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

58 EUROPEAN IDENTITY. INDIVIDUAL, GROUP AND SOCIETYthere is no doubt that for some of us unbridled competition, the carvingup of the social fabric, economic insecurity as a consequence of thescarcity of jobs, pensions, globalization and change also scare some ofus; the effect of such fear has been the lending of credibility todeclarations in favour of making our freedoms subordinate to publicorder. So, if we are to consider terrorism as a problem that needs to besolved, or if we regard immigration as the phenomenon that it is, weend up thinking of them as threats which have a determining effect onpolicy, and security becomes the supreme value governing legislation.The response to terrorism which we employed until recently, and theresponse that our governments are now trying to apply to immigration,would result in an aggiornata version of an emergency police state.Europe is closing its doors. A totalitarian state at the market’s beck andcall, exploitation compris, on the one hand, and an emergency policestate on the other.Such a ridiculous obsession with security —which puts social disintegrationin the same bag as elements quite distinct from it— has adoubly negative effect. On the one hand, our attention is drawn awayfrom the fact that privatization of public services, the central placeoccupied by free competition and salvation of the individual as part of aneo-liberal discourse have not only made public space —which is afterall the only space in which we are all equals— disappear, and that thesame has also happened to the idea of the common good and generalinterest. On the other hand, concerns over security have ended upstrengthening right-wing populist movements which destabilizeEuropean democracies such as Italy (the Forza Italia Silvio Berlusconi -Allianza Nationale - Legha Norte coalition, April 2001), Denmark (theVenstre - Dänische Volkspartei coalition, November 2001), France (FrontNational, April 2002), the Netherlands (Pim Fortuyn List, May 2002) andPortugal (2002). Today, as before, it ought not to be a question ofsacrificing rights and freedoms in the name of economic initiatives orsecurity; instead, to paraphrase Kant and Hobbes, it should be aquestion of achieving equality in terms of security and freedom in thepublic arena, in which we should all be equal as citizens. In other words,we should all enjoy the same levels of freedom and security irrespectiveof our financial situation or social class.So, if on the one hand we are to be called upon to defendfreedom, then on the other hand, and to at least the same extent, wemust take common concerns seriously and explain to people of all agegroups the inadequacy of measures such as political and economicprotectionism, reactionism behind national or European borders, andputting ourselves in the hands of extreme right-wing governments or