Panel — Byzantium at our Borders in the 21st century: the Future of Europe

Would we have needed a different past to have a different future? What would be the consequences if “recognition of Europe’s Christian heritage” is inserted into the constitution.

Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Patrick J. Gyger, Nicholas Whyte, Harry Turtledove, Keith Brooke

• PJG — SF museum of Europe

• I don’t think that we could have got here any other way
• looking at Europe from across the water — it’s a different scale — complaining about the distance to Brussels — I’m looking at cultures compressed into a v small scale
• smallness defines us and defines how we feel — are boundaries wiggly or straight: it tells you how the country was formed
• the only boundary in Europe that makes sense on linguistic, cultural, whatever grounds is that between England and France — all the rest are the ebb and flow of various empires
• more people voted on Big Brother than in the European elections
• how much of the history we learn in school is real — Trafalgar, Waterloo — how can we have a united Europe if we all have different histories?
• lots of small countries bickering — like spoiled courtiers knifing each other in the back — as power shifts
• what I think of as being English, and what others think, are v different things
• we ought to “recognise the Christian heritage”, because it exists, but I don’t want it written in, because it excludes many people now, and ignores other important heritages: Jewish, Islamic, …
• national history gets used by politicians — buttons can be pushed — not history in any sense an historian would understand
• Yugoslavia — saw the messes of the whole country replaying themselves — is there no way off this wheel?
• prejudices remain, but nowhere near as important
  • don’t need to take Sun/Mirror seriously — but Daily Mail readers think it is a serious paper
• changing linguistic regime in Europe
  • Canadian approach — “bilingual” — include a paragraph in a bad version of the other language
  • European — speak own, pretend to understand other
  • Swiss — 4 languages — use English as a common language to unite us in an artificial way
• JCG — Arabesk trilogy — liberal strand of Islam, does exist now, but not nearly as strong as it was 70 years ago — came out of two photos from 1905, one in Croydon, one in Turkey, almost identical — only difference was religion — middle class families with nearly everything else in common
• Nazis make wonderful villains — were really really evil, and they really really lost
  • alternatives: victory, or three cornered standoff
  • WWII breaking out over Sudetenland — a year earlier, with Poland on Germany’s side
• if Germany won WWI — wouldn’t have run out all scientists under the Kaiser — would have got bomb first
• war against terrorism
• votes on European constitution — turning away from Federal Europe
  • French no vote — it was a rejection of the the constitution, not of the Union — just wanted a different one — 200 pages! — should be three pages, a few points — nothing written by 300 people that couldn’t be written better by three
• UK pulled in two directions — Europe: proximity, history — North America: history, linguistic
  • European feeling increasing, because of feeling less in common with US — so Europe needs to be stronger
• what does it mean to “feel European”? politically? culturally? …?
  • rest of Europe is investing in English speaking culture
  • in Scotland, tradition to view England as the enemy, tradition of looking to Europe — Auld Alliance
• I come from Belfast, which is the only place people call themselves British before anything else
• I’m Norwegian, European — the EU is trying to steal my identity
• Ryan Air, Easy Jet — have changed our view of Europe
• what will happen in Europe with Turkey is like US+Mexico
• in LA, two of the three radio stations are Spanish speaking — the US is not monolingual
• in the 19th century, it made a lot of sense for a cultural or linguistic body to be a nation — we need to tease out the relationship between culture, nation, government — separate church and state, maybe need to separate state and culture – same currency and road signs, but own cultures
• I’d feel more European if Europe didn’t define itself as “not American”
• Brits are more likely to have relatives in India/Pakistan than in Canada/Australia
• I was at a wedding in deepest Hampshire — huge big Irish/Bengali affair — that was my cousin, marrying an Englishman
• welcome Turkey in Europe, for getting over the Christian heritage
• Byzantium — orthodox Christianity + Greek language — could do what you wanted, but stay a local bum
• Islamic Spain — three religions existing side by side
• US is a patchwork of cultures — Europe could keep local cultures, doesn’t need to be homogenised