Conclusion

towards post-national citizenship

Amy E. Varela

pp. 156-163

in: Gérard Delanty, Inventing Europe, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1995

Abstract

The aim of this book has not been to demonstrate that the idea of Europe is an idea with negative implications. I do not wish to suggest that it should be abandoned as a cultural concept. It is in many senses a collective concept for unclear ideas, not all of which should be rejected. The general thrust of the argument has been that there are many "Europes' and that the one that has become predominant today is very much one of exclusion and not inclusion. I have stressed the importance of looking at the idea of Europe from a global point of view. The idea of Europe that I have attempted to deconstruct is one that is focused on the notion of unity and one for which modernisation is the model. After surveying the idea of Europe through the centuries it is not difficult to conclude that there is little new in the world that is emerging today: the Europe of our time is not one that has relinquished the age-old pursuit of enemies. The "little" Europe of the Cold War era is over and so are the illusions and luxuries it afforded. It is no longer exclusively a question of West versus East but of North versus South. A new and greater Europe is being born in what is becoming a major confrontation between Europe and the rest of the world amidst the rise of a racist malaise of xenophobic nationalism. White bourgeois nationalism has found new outlets in populist political rhetoric.