Forum Aberdeen: ‘My Culture, Your Politics’
Simon Mundy
There are competing trends in Europe — perhaps they have always been there but for a while they were ameliorated by prosperity, whereas now a decade of stagnant incomes and political incompetence has allowed the competition to become seriously damaging.
The competing mindsets occupy four heads; technocratic integrationists, liberal multilateralists, conservative nationalists, and regional separatists. Each has a strong and appealing narrative of progress or security. Each beguiles its followers by linking itself to cultural expression or justification.
For roughly the last forty years the European Community has developed into the European Union based on an operating consensus between the first three of those narrative forces, able to bury their differences beneath a blanket of economic progress and a generation’s retreat from war and fascism. It has suited the regional separatists (those with nations but no state) too, as they have been able to inch forward their ambitions through devolution within the EU’s structures without threatening the integrity and therefore without stimulating the opposition of the large Member States.
That consensus is now falling apart, its basic contradictions exposed by financial strain and the fury of disappointed and bewildered citizens. The technocrats are blamed for sticking to failed economic instruments and for imposing solutions that seem to lock most people into deprivation while protecting bankers and the super rich. The liberal multilateralists are regarded as soft and deluded idealists too weak to stand up to outsiders. The regional separatists are arguing that, while they feel well-served by some of the EU’s structures, those of the large traditional states are anachronistic and too imperial in an interdependent world.
Against these three groups, and feeding on frustrations, are the conservative nationalists. They base their appeal on the notion of sovereignty — by which they mean the supremacy of the nation states put together through dynastic monarchies and adventurous bureaucrats between 1550 and 1890. These states have adopted the trappings of cultural majorities to validate their boundaries — language, food, dress, stories of settlement and victory, shared catalogues of great predecessors — and added to them flags and anthems. The regional separatists have done the same but with grievance over defeat replacing the stories of victory.
The emotion generated by such cultural loyalties is probably the most potent force in politics. Each of these loyalties has a symbol and a narrative, mostly fictional or at best selective, to go with it — combining nostalgia with a personal and tribal history that defies change and correction. Any attempt to question the narrative’s veracity or to suggest that it might be a barrier to progress is met with visceral fury, either verbal or physical.
Cultural loyalty is claimed as the province of conservative nationalists. In the sense that it is used as a badge of obstruction it is — yet those in the other political groups view their culture with affection and respect too. Valuing the achievements of past generations, supporting the institutions that care for the artefacts and memories of those achievements, and backing the cultural activity of the present, is a positive virtue in any society.
In most societies the number of conservative nationalists seems to be around 45%, with about 30% of people on each side of the political divide prepared to defend their cause to the exclusion of the other using any means at their disposal. The first appeal of each though, is to affirmation through cultural expression. This is where many contemporary artists usually divide from cultural heritage champions — questioning the assumptions of both extremes (and incurring the wrath of both).
At present there are several countries where conservative nationalists have either gained a majority or are in a position to dominate: Turkey, Hungary, Poland, the United States, Slovakia and Russia among them. Others are on a knife edge: Ukraine, Austria, England, Croatia and Finland, for example. Some have rejected that path after a scare — France, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands — but could easily slip the other way in the next electoral cycle. Some, led by Turkey and Russia, have already descended into despotism. Hungary and Poland have leaders with aspirations in that direction, openly challenging the liberal values of the EU and Council of Europe.
Civilised human values of tolerance, free expression and compassion are probably under greater threat across the northern hemisphere than at any time since 1945. Divisive views are deeply and passionately held — splitting communities, families and places of work. The divide takes different forms in each country (in Britain it has congealed into Brexiteers vs. Remainers) but it is destructive and dangerous.
The debate at Forum Aberdeen brings together present and former politicians, artists, journalists, academics and students to discuss these trends — and suggest how both the culture and the politics can be steered away from disaster.
Simon Mundy is a writer, festival director and policy adviser who, for the last three decades, has operated in Wales, London and Brussels. However he will now be found in the far north of Scotland fighting to remain a European. He has written more than 20 books (including poetry and novels). He has chaired or been a board member of many arts organisations, was a co-founder of Culture Action Europe, and acts as an adviser to UNESCO, the Council of Europe and the European Festivals Association. He is a Permanent Fellow of Felix Meritis, Amsterdam.
