Download Keynote: Eastern Europe as “New Old Environment”

Keynote:
Eastern Europe as “New
Old Environment”
Wolfgang Petritsch
Austrian Ambassador to the United Nations Office, Geneva, Switzerland
and former High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (19992002)
I am honoured to have this opportunity to address such a distinguished group of experts,
researchers and practitioners alike, who, according to IAPS’ Mission Statement are in the
business of facilitating “communication among those concerned with relationships between people and their physical environment.” Your invitation, however, presented me
with something of a dilemma: as I am an expert in neither physical nor environmental
matters, I wanted both to clearly understand these terms and to respond to you in substance on matters related to my expertise. My questions included, what does environment, more specifically “physical environment,” mean in the context of this gathering?
And what could I as a diplomat and former crisis manager in the Balkans contribute?
Defining “environment”
When I consulted the World Wide Web I found a long list of definitions, ranging from the
obvious to the far-fetched. You might be interested to know, for example, that:
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in biology, environment means everything that may directly affect the metabolism or behaviour of a living organism or species, including light, air, water, soil;
in architecture, ergonomics, and work safety, it is – according to my www
encyclopaedia – the ensemble of elements of a room or building that affect the
well-being and efficiency of its occupants;
in computer sciences, it generally means data, processes or devices, although not
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explicitly named as parameters of a computation, which may nevertheless affect
its result;
in a non-technical, non-science context, such as politics – it also has a meaning.
There it refers to the natural environment, that part of the natural world deemed
valuable or important by human beings – for whatever reason. It is in this sense,
where I may be able to make the most sense.
When the organizers of this congress invited me for this keynote, they did not expect
me to talk about the physical environment in the way you deal with this issue. Where they
may have thought I can “add value” is by addressing the “political environment,” if you
will, in Eastern Europe – and the fundamental changes triggered by the end of the EastWest conflict, the implosion of one hemispheric power, the end of the bi-polar world and
the ensuing re-unification of Europe.
East versus West
If you think that the term “environment” is far from exact, wait until you hear about the
vexing definitions and meanings of the term “Eastern Europe,” where geography and
prejudice happily mix. Until 1989, the beginning of the end of the cold war, the terms
“East” and “West” seemed to refer to clearly defined separate entities, invariably referred
to as “blocs”. It was communist dictatorship “there” and liberal democracy “here”; the
individual versus the collective – with the concept of freedom and social responsibility
taking centre stage. A Manichean world-view, rooted in the reality of a Europe still at war
with itself – albeit mostly a cold one. This was the defining feature of what was back then
called the East-West conflict.
The perception of Eastern Europe as the “negative other,” to borrow a phrase from
psychology, was greatly exacerbated and compounded by the political, military and ideological dominance of the region by the Soviet Union. This strict dualism of two “blocs”
clearly missed the complexities and built-in contradictions of Eastern Europe. The “real”
and, consequently far more complex and diverse environment of the peoples of Eastern
Europe living in their “bloc,” seemed somehow oddly excluded from this view.
Take the case of Yugoslavia – Tito’s multi-ethnic yet Slav-dominated state, or that of
Albania under its particularly xenophobic dictatorship, take Romania’s version of national-communism, or Hungary’s “goulash communism”. Most of these east-bloc countries had their own versions of widely varying brands of more or less oppressive governance. In the West these differences were often ignored or, at best, used for their tactical
value in efforts to weaken overall Soviet influence. For many in the West, they were
simply all the same, but above all they were all “East”. This construction of “the other” is
a constant feature of European politics and culture – in a way it is an apt illustration of
what Samuel Huntington so wrongly termed the “clash of civilisations”.
The invention of the East
A brief look into the origins of the term “Eastern Europe” is indeed instructive. The
expression “Eastern Europe,” if not the concept, is of fairly recent coinage. Historically,
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Europe was divided on a North-South axis, with the southern, Mediterranean states and
the northern Atlantic and Scandinavian/Baltic states as the main actors in European history. The term “Eastern Europe” first arose in the 18th or rather 19th century. It was used
even then to describe a region that has fallen behind the rest of Europe economically and
socially. Also, it was seen as a region where autocratic governments, serfdom and the
oppressive rule of might persisted, long after those concepts had faded away or were
eliminated by popular force in the West. Enlightenment and bourgeois revolutions did
not, except in small doses, reach these parts of our continent.
To be sure, borders were porous even then when it came to the flow of new political
concepts and philosophical ideas. Thus, not all of Eastern Europe – particularly not the
cities – fit this stereotype of backwardness. Here the concept of Central Europe – in its
specific iteration as “Mitteleuropa” – comes in – as Milan Kundera, Vaclav Havel, György
Konrad, Andrzej Stasiuk and Erhard Busek have envisioned it. If you do not want to be
called “East” but are geographically and culturally not fully “west” – like Austria and its
neighbours to the east, north and south – then why not settle for “central”. To be in the
middle made good sense, particularly during the cold war.
Centre and diversity
The enlargement of the European Union in May 2004 will undoubtedly strengthen the
notion of a culturally determined “geopolitical centre” of Europe, including those parts
of the continent, that as recently as the Second World War were indeed “central” to the
evolution of modern Europe. Let me be clear: This latest enlargement of the European
Union – misleadingly called “eastward expansion” (“East” again) – will fundamentally
affect the mental map of Europe.
Some euro-optimists even suggest that “East” and “West” will never be the same
again. Whether this will indeed be the case, remains to be seen. However, this enlargement may well succeed in rearranging the continent, reinstating the centre to its rightful historic relevance. No small thing after the long and bloody era of European civil
wars.
There is yet another side to it: This latest enlargement of the European Union to 25
countries with a population of more than 450 million further enhances the Union’s diversity of languages, cultures and ethnicities. Diversity as the main feature of the integrating
Europe has been strengthened. Will this reinvigorate the drive towards more unity as
well?
For the first time in modern Europe the Slavic element, an integral part of European
history, is included in the ongoing process of forging a continent at peace with itself. Call
it “old,” call it “new” – Europe is producing a real transformation of its historically embattled territory. The at times shallow slogan of “diversity in unity” has gained new resonance. Talking about “old” and “new”, much of Europe has ties to both the East and the
West. While all of the countries were influenced, even formed, by Judeo-Christian traditions, many countries in the region that we call Eastern Europe, also maintained relations
with neighbours further east and south-east, stretching as far as into the wider Middle
East and Central Asia. The Mongols in Russia, to name a not so obvious example, the
Ottoman Empire and Islam in Southeast Europe and Spain, were forceful and at times
productive influences on the European landscape.
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Turkey as “new old East”
Let’s take the example of modern Turkey. By the end of this year under the leadership of
the Dutch EU-Presidency the 25 will decide on Ankara’s application for membership. To
be more precise, European leaders will have to set a date for the commencement of negotiations about Turkey’s accession to the European Union. The “oriental question” –“orient” being the expression for “East” in a bygone era – pops up with renewed vigour.
Geography is destiny, indeed … and material for a heated and controversial discussion
about the outer borders of Europe, about how, literally, to define Europe.
Where does Europe end? In Cyprus and Malta to the south? Does it include Kaliningrad
or the Ukraine to the east and Moldova to the southeast? Or does it somehow stretch to
the borders of Iraq, Iran and the restless Caucasus region? I am afraid we have to admit
that there are no easy and ready-made answers. Ultimately, Europe simply defies any
geographic definition.
Let’s continue with the Turkish example: Considerable stretches of Europe were once
– not so long ago – dominated by the Turkish-Ottoman Empire. The remnants of this
magnificent empire are still visible and occasionally alive in Bosnia and in some of its
neighbouring territories of ex-Yugoslavia, as well as in Albania, Bulgaria and Greece.
Today’s Turkey is – since the times of the Atatürk revolution – in many ways a successful
example of a secular Muslim society – albeit with its military leadership still wielding
considerable influence on political matters. Not to be forgotten, Turkey is already in the
Western security camp as a member of NATO. In short, Turkey is an important strategic
and political European ally in the volatile borderlands of the Middle East. Thus the decision of the European leaders this coming December is arguably the most daunting challenge ever faced by the Union. It will, in all likelihood, determine the future shape and
institutional make-up of the Union. At the same time, it will further challenge the elusive
concept of “European identity” at a time when this enlarged Europe is much less sure of
itself than at the end of the Cold War, some fifteen years ago.
Europe – a western identity?
The original vision of Europe as a model of modernity, democracy and reconciliation,
sprang from the partnership between France and Germany, successfully expanding in the
course of thirty years to the southern, northern and central parts of the continent. Today,
this vision of a “western” united Europe is undergoing a dramatic make-over. In the
process, this breeds uncertainty, since it goes to the heart of our identity debate.
“Is Europe about the value of geography or about the geography of values?” asks Dominique Moisi, the eminent French scholar of international relations (International Herald
Tribune, 2004-04-30). This latest expansion of the European Union already poses challenges of an unprecedented nature. Economic realities and the sheer scale of this politically
driven enlargement by themselves are the source of great challenges and opportunities.
Let’s not forget: Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War the
promise of membership in the European Union has been the single greatest incentive for
societal transformation and economic reform throughout Eastern Europe.
The historic re-alignment represented by this series of events has positively affected
age-old conflicts. Hungary and Romania, for example, have put longstanding territorial
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disputes on the back burner, and the Russian minority in Latvia has Brussels to thank for
its rights. One unfortunate exception to Europe’s masterful use of its leverage is Cyprus,
where Greek Cypriots are being allowed to join the Union before making peace with
their Turkish Cypriot neighbours.
These examples of European “soft power” and persuasion at work are of particular
importance and relevance for those countries still outside the Union.
Encountering “Herzoslovakia”
Let me thus move to geographically undisputed European territory but to a place that
over the last decade has added a sense of geopolitical urgency to the matter – the Balkans.
To introduce you to the idiosyncrasies of this battered region, let me quote the celebrated
mystery writer Agatha Christie, who, in her best selling novel “The Secret of Chimneys”
(first published in 1925) introduces the Prime Minister of the fictitious state of
“Herzoslovakia” as follows: He is – according to the novel – “(t)he greatest Statesman of
Modern Times. The biggest Villain unhung. The point of view all depends on which newspaper you take in.” The author then gives the following characterisation of “Herzoslovakia”:
“It’s one of the Balkan states … Principal rivers, unknown. Principal mountains, also unknown, but fairly numerous ... Capital, Ekarest ... Population, chiefly brigands ... Hobby,
assassinating Kings and having Revolutions … Altogether a very likely spot.”
So much for the stereotype, a stereotype that since the 1920s has not much changed.
Quite the opposite is true. The wars of the nineties on the territory of the former Yugoslavia seemed to have confirmed and even reinforced the negative image of this part of
Europe, which is not just considered “East” – as in East bloc – but even worse.
There is rarely another geographical name in Europe which over time has become the
synonym for bloody conflict, civil unrest, brutal ethnic cleansing, weak and fractious
states, and economic backwardness as is the case with the Balkans. This image problem
is, by the way, one of the greatest obstacles for swift changes. To be called “Balkans”
seems to be worse than being called “East”. The conflict in the former Yugoslavia is
invariably characterized as “ethnic,” in spite of the fact, that most of its inhabitants are
ethnic Slavs (with the notable exception of the Albanians in Kosovo and the Hungarians
in Vojvodina).
If we were to identify “immutable differences” between the peoples – a rather deceptive concept to get at the root-causes of this conflict, I admit – if we thus look for potential causes of the conflicts in the Balkans, then the defining features are rather distinct,
such as religious and cultural traditions in a historically non-democratic environment.
(Let me hasten to add, that these distinctions are no greater in the Balkans than in many
other parts of Europe.).
The former Yugoslavia was the place where the very concepts of “East” and “West”
collided; where, as a consequence of bad – terribly bad – leadership, the socio-economic
crisis of modernity turned bloody. We need to recall that Yugoslavia was not the only
former communist country that fell apart. War thus was not unavoidable, however, and
neither is it inherently “Balkan” or “Eastern” either. Think of Czechoslovakia, where a
“velvet revolution” eventually led to two states – without bloodshed. The relatively peaceful
dissolution of the Soviet Union is yet another case in point, demonstrating that the collapse of states does not necessarily have to lead to chaos, civil strife and war.
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Lessons to be learned
Since my subject is old/new Eastern Europe, permit me to focus on some lessons from
the conflicts in ex-Yugoslavia, lessons that the international community as the principal
interventionist actor there, should take to heart.
The Western Balkans – as the EU now calls the region of former Yugoslavia, minus
Slovenia, plus Albania – has evolved into a laboratory for the fundamental change of
traditional foreign policy defined by the principle of state sovereignty, which is being
morphed into something Robert Cooper calls the “post-modern state” where international and regional instruments, treaties, conventions gradually replace outdated balanceof-power arrangements. A new and highly complex set of political, economic and security interdependence is in the making. The European Union is such a post-modern “something”. We don’t know yet, what exactly it will be in the end. We only know that it will
not be just another super nation state like the U.S. This should come as good news to
the troubled and weak states and territories of the Western Balkans. Their eventual
integration into this kind of Union will undoubtedly alleviate some of their inherent
problems.
Internationally, the so-called humanitarian interventions of the nineties in the Balkans
– in Bosnia in 1995 and in Kosovo in 1999 – provide the foil of reflection, and controversy, for all the later military interventions, including those in Afghanistan and most
recently in Iraq. There, the basic concepts of sovereignty and human rights seem to collide head-on.
It is quite remarkable that at the recently held Annual Conference of the American
Society of International Law, a speaker referred to the cases of Kosovo and Iraq as “the
biggest elephants in the field”. Indeed, Kosovo 1999 was the first such case, where the
International Community intervened militarily, without UN-authorization, based purely
on the perception of an imminent and already very real humanitarian catastrophe.
Four years after the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in view of its
much criticized failure to stop the killing there, the international community above all
feared being accused of failing to prevent yet another genocidal massacre, this time in
Kosovo. “Srebrenica” – the Bosnian site of the largest mass killings in Europe after World
War II and the synonym for international inertia – loomed large on the horizon.
Slow transformation into stability
Since the military interventions – justified on humanitarian grounds – much has happened in the Balkans, most of it positive. Let me remind you in this context, that after
having effectively prevented yet another ethnically motivated conflict in Macedonia, the
overall situation in the Balkans has moved decisively into the post-war era. To be sure, the
realities on the ground still present a shaky and volatile situation for many years to come.
Thus reconstruction and reconciliation of these war-torn societies, the continued assistance of the Europeans in state and institution building (with the benevolent support of
the US, the onetime main actor in the Balkans) will remain the key features of the Balkans
for some time to come. But the delayed transformation of the Balkans – delayed by
conflict and wars – needs more time and perseverance – it needs above all a real road map
and a political commitment reminiscent of the US Marshall Plan after World War II.
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There are, however, no quick and easy solutions; rarely a short cut, when it comes to
healing the wounds of a war – a civil war in particular. Post-war reconstruction, the
functioning of democratic institutions – the thorny road from communist bureaucracy to
a modern civil service – the establishment of the rule of law, “human security” instead of
the traditional military security.
These challenges all afford a broad civic awareness that political accountability and
institutional transparency are the only way to reduce inherent corruption and cronyism –
the cancer in every body politic – to a bearable minimum.
Even more complex: This transformation to liberal democracy cannot be successful
without a profound shift in human attitudes. That it can be done, was so aptly demonstrated by the new EU-members. Many of them have, within a short period of time,
rendered the unproductive distinction between “East” and “West” virtually obsolete.
As for the Balkans, the countries of the region preparing for accession, need to tap
into the wealth of recent practical experience gained by the new EU-members with the
mechanics of European integration. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro,
Albania but also Kosovo can profit enormously from their neighbours’ recent European
endeavours. The very real contributions of the new members of the European Union to a
successful accession of the remaining countries from ex-Yugoslavia and beyond, into this
“new” Europe, not dominated by stale east-west patterns, is indispensable, indeed. I am
convinced that countries of South East Europe – including those from the former Balkans
battle grounds – have the potential to swiftly follow their northern neighbours. Bulgaria
and Romania are about to finalize their accession negotiations with Brussels; Croatia, no
doubt, will follow in due course.
What we need to avoid in this new Europe is the – already quite real – threat of new
divisions, along social and economic fault lines we all believe we bridged years ago.
Only if this new and united Europe reinvents itself as a social union, transcending the
mere market logic and embracing diversity and solidarity – only then will the experiment
of a whole and peaceful Europe eventually become reality.