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Porthos

Cultural Continuum in Europe

I found that it is hard to divide cultures and peoples simply according to artificial boundaries based on poltical barriers. I have found that one region is more similar to its closest neighbor, and less so than the next closest neighbor, and so on. For instance, I think France as a whole is very much like Northern Italy, while most of Spain is very much like southern Italy. I think Alsace-Lorraine is in many ways, more like the German Rhine valley than it is like Rome. Southern Germany is much more like Austria and Switzerland than it is like the Netherlands, while northern Germany is very similar to Holland, and not as similar to a place like Austria. New England is very much like Canada, while the U.S. southwest is in many ways, more like Mexico than it is like Canada.
Uriel

How do you know? When have you been to these places?
Porthos

Uriel wrote:
How do you know? When have you been to these places?


IDK? How do you know what Bangkok generally looks like, and the language people speak there? Have you been there?
Uriel

I don't. I hear they speak Thai, but that doesn't mean I know how they fit in with their neighbors...
Benjamin [inactive]

Josh — I basically agree with you that there is a continuum in Europe which crosses political boundaries. I tend to see that the Northern Netherlands have something in common with the Southern Netherlands, which have something in common with Flanders, which has something in common with Wallonia, which has something in common with the parts of France nearest to Belgium (Nord-pas-de-Calais, Picardie, Champagne) etc. etc. Likewise, I definitely find Bavaria to be more similar to Austria than to Northern Germany.

I find Brussels to be a fantastic example of this — it's mostly French-speaking, but it looks mainly like a Northern European city, the food is of a largely Northern European style, and people drink mainly beer in 'pubs' that are quite similar to those found in Britain or Germany. (Belgium is a fantastic country by the way — I love it!)

However, this sort of view will be received differently by different Europeans. In some European countries, such as France, the unity of the country as a whole is often seen as fundamental. In other European countries, people will usually identify more to a smaller region or social group, with overall unity as a country being less important.
KSa

Benjamin wrote:
In other European countries, people will usually identify more to a smaller region or social group, with overall unity as a country being less important.


This is how the strong supporters of regionalization within the EU would like to see Europe: with marginalization of countries and stress put on the regions. This is wishful thinking and Europe is still mostly devided along political rather than cultural or ethnic boundaries.
Uriel

It probably works better in some countries than others. But I have a hard time picturing anything other than a country working in any practical sense. One of the reasons I've always been pretty skeptical of the UN. But if you think you can make the EU work as advertised, by all means, carry on. I know it's a work in progress, and all the ins and outs haven't been settled yet.
Loic

There might be a cultural continuum that spans across the continent, but there are reasons why Alsatians, say, still feel more French than German at the end of the day. In this day and age, it is almost a throwback to a distant past when people of the same race and culture were categorised together. It was for this very reason that Hitler demanded the annexation of Sudetenland and later, Austria. The same reason prevails in explaining the rationale behind the acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine by the newly formed German Empire under the auspices of von Bismarck.

The modern state continues to hold sway over her citizens because they are bounded together by shared values and beliefs. The Alsatian might be culturally closer to the Plattdeutsch speaker across the border but I'd dare say that his values and tacit assumptions are still aligned more with his French compatriots from Corsica, Picard, Brittany or Provence.

In Europe, at least, border divisions along ethnic and cultural lines have been largely established since WWII. We are not talking about multiethnic states anymore such as the defunct Austro-Hungarian empire where a medley of nationalities mingle but never mix. Most Central and Eastern European countries are relatively homogeneous.

As for the most talked about country of this forum, France, I'd say that the country has always seen people who speak the French language as being from the same 'ethnic tribe'. Even Alsace has been French from the 1600s onwards. Nice and Savoy was and still is a francophone region. It was for this reason that Napoleon III negotiated with the House of Savoy for the acquisition of this region from Piedmont.
fab

Quote:
found that it is hard to divide cultures and peoples simply according to artificial boundaries based on poltical barriers. I have found that one region is more similar to its closest neighbor, and less so than the next closest neighbor, and so on. For instance, I think France as a whole is very much like Northern Italy, while most of Spain is very much like southern Italy. I think Alsace-Lorraine is in many ways, more like the German Rhine valley than it is like Rome. Southern Germany is much more like Austria and Switzerland than it is like the Netherlands, while northern Germany is very similar to Holland, and not as similar to a place like Austria. New England is very much like Canada, while the U.S. southwest is in many ways, more like Mexico than it is like Canada.


Actually what you make here is a geographical categorisation. You don't really talk about cultures and people, but about the general "ambiance", which is, superficially a continuum. Climate generally don't change from one continent to the other (and so the food products), and sometimes the traditional architecture which is adapted to the climate (for exemple, in the northern half France the Roman-style roof of "tuiles-canal" with 25° roofs have been replaced slowly by plate-tiles (blue ardoises in the west) with 45° roofs because more adapted to the wetter climates, as well as in Alps Spanish mountains or Atlantic coast).
But on the other side, types of foods, or kinds of architectures which were born in some specific climatic regions (so geographic), have been spread to other places, even if is was not really natural at the beguining. For exemple, the Romans have brought grapes (a fruit of aclimated for mediterranean warm regions) in all their empire in some regions suwh as northern France of Rhine Valley where it was not natural. If we whatch the north wine culture limit in Europe we see that it follows quite the limits of the roman empire, were this product have a become traditional product for centuries.

So history can accentuate the "pure geographic" continuum in some places, on certain subject. Politics and languages did the rest to shape and unify the cultures.

This way, there is an "ambiance" continuum between Greece and Turquey, but, in the same time there is a cultural gasp on religion and language (some will even say different "civilisations")

This is basically how I see things, as more or less geographical continuum, but with accidents due to history, which make that one country falls in one or another different culture.



Quote:
I find Brussels to be a fantastic example of this — it's mostly French-speaking, but it looks mainly like a Northern European city, the food is of a largely Northern European style, and people drink mainly beer in 'pubs' that are quite similar to those found in Britain or Germany. (Belgium is a fantastic country by the way — I love it!)


You're right, Brussels is an interesting city, I discovered it quite recently in fact, I think it is one of the rare true bilingual capitals of Europe.
Brussels is were the Wallon culture meets the Flemish one, and more generally were latin and germanic culture touch themselves, even if the general ambiance, in food, architecture is predominantly northern, the predominant language French...

Its in-beetween position is also geographic, in the center of western Europe, in the heart most densely populated core ot it.
It is not an coincidence if it was shosen as the main capital of the UE (the others Luxembourg and Strasbourg, have also, by the way a similar "in-between" position)


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Benjamin [inactive]

Quote:
I think it is one of the rare true bilingual capitals of Europe.

Except that it isn't really, because it's about 90% French-speaking and almost everything is conducted in French there. I don't really find it to be any more bilingual than Cardiff.
fab

Oui, c'est vrai pour Bruxelles-capitale ou les francophones sont environs 90%, mais il ne faut pas oublier que cette region est une enclave au milieu de la Belgique néerlandophone, seulement située à quelques kilometres du centre-ville. Tout dans la région Bruxelles-capitale est ecrit dans les deux languages, ce qui n'est pas le cas ni en Flandres (ou tout n'est écrit qu'en Flamand), ni en Wallonie (ou tout n'est écrit qu'en Français).

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruxelles#Statut_linguistique
Loic

It doesn't matter if bilingual signs are the norm in Brussels if everyday conversations are mostly conducted in French. Bilingualism might just be the surface display of the city, but scratch underneath the veneer and the myth that every Bruxellois is equally comfortable in French and Dutch fades into oblivion.

If I were to walk into a shop and I greet the shopkeeper with a lusty 'Goedendag', would he screw up his face in bemusement? What are the chances of meeting someone who speaks fluent Dutch in Brussels?

I am not saying that Dutch speakers do not exist. I am speaking about the odds of bumping into a neerlandophone.
Benjamin [inactive]

loic wrote:
If I were to walk into a shop and I greet the shopkeeper with a lusty 'Goedendag', would he screw up his face in bemusement? What are the chances of meeting someone who speaks fluent Dutch in Brussels?

You do hear people speaking Dutch in Brussels, but as I say, it's only about 10%. For obvious reasons, I've never tried speaking Dutch in Brussels -- it just wouldn't seem sensible, as the de facto language there is essentially French.

The only European capital city which I would describe as genuinely multilingual would be Luxembourg.
Fredrik

I absolutely agree with you Porthos that a continuum is a very good way of describing Europe. That's what I love to observe when I travel in Europe: That each region is a little different and that even each village is a little step away from one zone towards another.

But let's not forget, as some of you point out, that there are varying degrees of difference between the different regions:
- National
- Linguistical
- Political
- Religious
- Cultural
- Way of life
- Prosperity
- Etc.
Sometines one or more of these apply, sometimes almost all of them. The change from German Baden to French Alsace is very gentle, while the change from Norwegian Finnmark to the Russian Kola Peninsula is abysmal.

And, as loic points out, one must not forget the centrifugal force of the national metropolises. Although it looks and feels like Denmark, German Schleswig-Holstein is not de facto Danish, culturally and political, because more arms tie it to Berlin than to Copenhagen.

loic wrote:
Quote:
There might be a cultural continuum that spans across the continent, but there are reasons why Alsatians, say, still feel more French than German at the end of the day. In this day and age, it is almost a throwback to a distant past when people of the same race and culture were categorised together. It was for this very reason that Hitler demanded the annexation of Sudetenland and later, Austria. The same reason prevails in explaining the rationale behind the acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine by the newly formed German Empire under the auspices of von Bismarck.

I see your point about the re-emergence of the one people - one state tendency, but it works a bit different in modern Europe: When Alsatians distance themselves from France, they are not seen as German for that reason, but as Alsatians: (more or less) Alemannic-speaking French citizens. (Alsatians traditionally have a rather pronounced self-consciousness, different from both their French and Swabian = German neighbours.)

And the principle of national self-determination should also mean that each region should be free to democratically choose wether it wants to be independent or transfer to another country. What was wrong about the Austrian Anschluss in 1938 was that Hitler didn't wait for the result of the plebiscite, but marched in first, instead of following the noble and democratic example of Northern Schleswig's transfer to Denmark in 1920.
Of course problems arise when enclaves, like the parts of Sudetenland that were German islands in a Czech sea, want to join another country. Then the question boils down to wether national and regional self-determination also applies to villages?
Loic

I hold a rather Jacobin point of view towards the nation state. It should be strong and should command the national loyalty of every corner of the country. Regionalism is a good thing insofar as the preservation of local customs and languages are concerned, but when people start feeling a special sort of ethnic bond or affinity with people of a neighbouring country, we're treading on dangerous territory here.

For one, we'd be giving European citizens of non European ancestry carte blanche to readily identify themselves with their 'mother countries'. It'd impede their rate of assimilation. It'd encourage them to believe that they can never be fully accepted in their European countries of adoption.

Let's not try to overly complicate matters by telling say, Alsatians that they have plenty of things in common with contemporary Germany or exhorting the good citizens of Schleswig to embrace their 'Danishness'. This is simply a recipe for political disaster and might actually signal the demise of a nation-state.

European countries are going down the path of multiculturalism. I feel that the constant harping of this cultural continuum would only alienate the relatively recent newcomers. Far better to have a centripetal influence rather than a centrifugal one which would only result in an identity crisis as well as lay the ground for a clash of civilisations.
Fredrik

Hmm, very interesting what you write there, loic. Your views are clearly influenced by your Singaporean sbackground, while mine are of course rather typical of Europe, where we lately have been thaught that less emphasis on the nation state could have prevented WW2: If the inhabitants of Alsace and Baden had felt just as much allegience to each other as to their respective capitals and thus refused to fight against each other, WW2 would not have happened.

I agree with you that sometimes regionalism seems rather artificial, a product of unemployed scholars re-launching some half-forgotten patois and leading a desillusioned populace in search for EU funds. Recently I read in a book about Nordic borders and border regions, that most of the members of the Danish minority in Schleswig don't speak Danish at home, they just "feel" Danish, some of them exclusively in German! That is when you may ask why they should get recognized minority rights, which the far larger Turkish minority in Germany doesn't have.

The answer is of course that the Danes have lived in one defined area, Schleswig, since times immemorial. So far minority status in Europe has mostly been geographically limited, but when some nations recognize Gypsies / Roma as national minorities (at least Germany has, I think), then there is an opening for non-geographical minorities, a tendency that seems troublesome to me too.
(To some extent this has already happened in Norway. Every Norwegian who is Sami or can claim some Sami ancestry can vote in the elections for the Sami parliament, which is an official advisory body for all Sami matters in the whole of Norway. In practice its attention is mainly focused on the three northern provinces, where it co-exists with the regular provincial assemblies.)

I guess the Nordic countries have always been rather Jacobin, as they have striven to develop a strong identification with the state in their populations. But it has been done through the national ideas of Grundtvig, that only a just and including state that gives equal opportunities and secures the material wellbeing of its citizens can count on their loyalty. The goal of Nordic statehood has been that all citizens feel that they have part in the state.

The way I see it, regionalism is often about material ressources. In many European countries, like Germany and Norway, there has been traditional concensus that all citizens must be secured the same minimum living standards, e.g. through social benefits. In Germany the debate about federalism is about wether greater inter-German differences should be accepted. Should all Germans be guaranteed the same social benefits or should it be accepted that Bavarians can claim much higher social benefits than the citizens of poor Mecklenburg-Vorpommern?
Although Norway traditionally has been a very unified country, there is an ongoing debate about more powers to the regions. Again the underlying conflict is economic: As most of Norway's revenue (from oil, fishing and fish farming) comes from the West Coast and the North, more regional power would mean that more money would stay in the west and the north instead of subsidizing Oslo and the East.

As for your worries about the cultural continuum idea as a barrier, loic, I see your point, but the idea of the cultural continuum also means acknowledging that the southernmost regions of Europe have strong ties to Africa and Asia and that there thus is no "clash of civilisations" along Europe's borders.

The fundamental question is, I think: What constitutes a minority worthy of self-determination? What if Marseille got a Muslim majority that declared independence from France and proclaimed the Islamic City Republic of Marseille? Or even declared Marseille to be the northernmost city of Algeria?
Intriguing thoughts...
Loic

I like your point about 'unemployed scholars'. It made me laugh quite a bit. It is the same for intellectuals and some types of writers whom I consider to be basically unemployed or at the very least, under-employed. Too much free time on their hands leads fertile minds astray.

I remembered studying the wars of German unification and how the first war was waged by Prussia against Denmark over the twin duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. So Schleswig has been wholly germanised now? Ethnically, is there a clear and discernible distinction between Schleswig Danes and Danes from the Jutland peninsular?

Minority privileges and other forms of affirmative action are just the babbles of politicians. I disagree with the fact that a long settled community with regional roots seeped in antiquity should be bestowed privileges that give them an unfair advantage over the rest. Venerability, in many cases, is not synonymous with authenticity.

I do not think that there is a gentle continuum between southern Europe and northern Africa. There is a connection, but the contrast as one moves from say, Andalusia to Morocco, is probably starker than swimming across the Bosphorus and landing in Asiatic Turkey. One of the strongest homogenising factors of Europe was the role which Christianity played. Sure, St Augustine of Hippo came from North Africa, but Christianity was extinguished in that region by the time Charlemagne was born.

You are right about my background colouring my perceptions. Almost everyone here is an immigrant, even the so-called native Malays as the majority of their forebears came from either the Malaysian peninsular or the Indonesian islands. For a long time, the Chinese here continued to owe their allegiance to China while the Indians were emotionally attached to their hamlets and towns. Communal integration is the only solution to such a complicated problem.

Let's talk about the hypothetical muslim city of Marseille which suddenly decided to switch allegiance overnight. It won't happen: why would they want to be part of a poor and impoverished country that lies thousands of kilometres across the Mediterrenean sea? We have been concentrating on cultural identity so far. What about one's sense of economic identity?
Uriel

Quote:
while mine are of course rather typical of Europe, where we lately have been thaught that less emphasis on the nation state could have prevented WW2


It's practically a mantra with you Europeans. I get tired of hearing it!

It's definitely not how WW2 is taught in US schools, where the blame is largely put on the harsh measures implemented against Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, coupled with the double whammy of onerous reparation payments plus the Great Depression, that simply paved the way for the rise of Hitler and his cult of personality, who then hijacked the notion of nationalism as means of building up the popular base he needed in order to mobilize the country to serve his megalomania. It's not nationalism itself that is a bad thing; he just exploited it in order to achieve his own larger goals.

But as loic says, it is just as likely to be a positive, unifying force. Nationalism itself is as neutral a vehicle of identity as any other, being linguistics, ethnicity, social strata, etc. There is nothing inherently evil about it.
KSa

Fredrik wrote:
Hmm, very interesting what you write there, loic. Your views are clearly influenced by your Singaporean sbackground, while mine are of course rather typical of Europe, where we lately have been thaught that less emphasis on the nation state could have prevented WW2:


No. Of course I heard that the western education system, dominated by the leftish, tries to force this stand-point but it is not true. The source of this misunderstanding stems from the confusion of patriotism and nationalism. I mean that some people want to identify patriotism and nationalism or at least claim that patriotism is the first step to nationalism. They forget that patriotism is highly connected to right-wing, conservative and traditional outlook while the fascist Mussolini’s party developed from the left-wing, socialist party. Don’t forget that NSDAP did have “socialist” word in its name.
From my point of view, the fact that before WWII Poland put much emphasis on nation made my country fight bravely in the defensive war in September 39, then organize the biggest resistance movement in the whole Europe (Home Army), help other nations (France, GB) to fight against Germans (for example in Narvik) and never betray!!!. This was because they had this strong feeling of justice and willing to oppose the evil. This feeling was mainly shaped by the patriotic values they received from their parents, school etc.
André in Zuid-Afrika

Uriel wrote:
Quote:
while mine are of course rather typical of Europe, where we lately have been thaught that less emphasis on the nation state could have prevented WW2


It's practically a mantra with you Europeans. I get tired of hearing it!

It's definitely not how WW2 is taught in US schools, where the blame is largely put on the harsh measures implemented against Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, coupled with the double whammy of onerous reparation payments plus the Great Depression, that simply paved the way for the rise of Hitler and his cult of personality, who then hijacked the notion of nationalism as means of building up the popular base he needed in order to mobilize the country to serve his megalomania. It's not nationalism itself that is a bad thing; he just exploited it in order to achieve his own larger goals.

But as loic says, it is just as likely to be a positive, unifying force. Nationalism itself is as neutral a vehicle of identity as any other, being linguistics, ethnicity, social strata, etc. There is nothing inherently evil about it.


Agree totally. That's how the history of WWII is taught in SA schools as well, and certainly how I perceive it from my own reading. If Germany was a fairly prosperous state by the thirties, Hitler would have remained a minor politician, regarded as a freak by most Germans, and WWII would never have happened. But in their misery he offered them something. Many historians today believe that, if the Anglo Boer War never happened, leaving the Afrikaners/Boers largely impoverished, apartheid (which was a result of nationalism gone bad) would never have happened.
KSa

Uriel and André:

I don’t quite agree with you. Nationalism is not completely neutral because it is self-orientated (as opposed to patriotism). Of course it doesn’t have to lead to the distortion we have talked about.
Fredrik

I totally agree with you that (healthy) nationalism was not the cause of WW2, but that the things you list caused it (Although I think that perhaps Americans place too much importance on Hitler alone. He didn't do it all alone...)

But although only a unified front could stop and defeat Nazi Germany, I will still maintain that with less excessive nationalism WW2 and perhaps especially WW1 could have been prevented. If people (especially in Germany) had remembered that a nation is only an imagined community which people maintain as a way of organizing themselves, then perhaps the inhabitants of Germany's border regions would have realized the meaninglessness of killing their neighbours. But because everybody was afraid of being termed unpatriotic and cowardly, everybody obeyed the insane orders from their capitals (in WW1) and from Berlin (in WW2) and went out to slaughter their neighbours.

In Norway there were bitter internal conflicts in the 1930s about politics, religion, language, alcohol etc. and some conservatives had fascist leanings, because they were very afraid of the Communists, some of whom argued armed revolution á la Russia. But when Germany invaded in 1940 almost everybody (with some notable exceptions, e.g. Quisling), from Soviet-supporting Communists to right-wing Conservatives
united in a common stance against the Nazis. Not necessarily because they considered the kingdom of Norway from Lindesnes to the Borth Cape to be the ultimate goal of history and a unit destined for eternity, but because they considered the political system of Norway to be best fitted to their needs and worth fighting for. I guess most other nations in Europe felt the same way.

And that is of course healthy nationalism: To defend your home and a system you have faith in, not because some mad generals have ordered you to do so out of mere patriotism.

loic:
My point about the unemployed scholars was not meant to be wholesale ridiculing of all regionalism, only of those projects where it seems very superfiscial. Basically, I like regionalism as long as it preserves local particularities and empowers minorities who have been viewed with suspicion and disdain in the past.

In Europe there is perhaps a stronger sense than elsewhere of how local inhabitants "own" their region, something which is most outspoken in federal countries like Germany (where there even is a Bavarian citizenship!) and Switzerland, where local municipalities have the right to vote about whether immigrant applicants should get citizenship in their municipality.

Yes, Schleswig has been almost totally Germanicised now. There is still is a Danish minority of 50.000, but lots of them don't speak Danish at home, but learn it in school. On the west coast there are also 10.000 speakers of North Frisian. The Danes and the Frisians are represented in the state parliament in Kiel with their own party, SSW, which is exempt from the general German 5% hurdle. Last year the SSW came very close to be able to decide Schleswig-Holstein's government due to a parliamentarian deadlock. The attempt failed, but produced some outbursts of anti-Danishness.

There are also 10.000 - 15.000 Germans living north of the border in Denmark. They proved to be very disloyal during the war and collaborated en masse with the Nazis.

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