Sabine Buchwald
European Angst
What is ‘European Angst’? Is it the extension of ‘German Angst’ to a whole continent? The latter term is often used disparagingly to describe the German tendency to problematise, weigh up and hesitate, especially when reasons for this seem slight and insignificant. But European Angst has nothing to do with stereotypical overscrupulousness. It is a mass of powerful emotions which transcend national borders and therefore seemed a fitting title for a conference which was to address disturbing developments, including populism, extremism and Euroscepticism.
When preparations started in spring 2016, the initiators of the conference, Susanne Höhn, Regional Director of the Goethe-Institut for Southwest Europe, and Cristina Nord, Director of Cultural Programming for Southwest Europe, at the Goethe-Institut in Brussels could scarcely have anticipated some of the political events of that year: neither the decision of the British people to vote for a Brexit nor the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. But even then they felt the disquiet at the heart of the EU, which gave reasons for concern about the European peace project. The fear that populist parties such as the AfD in Germany, the Front National in France or UKIP in Britain could, with their growing influence, challenge the bases of our community and cast doubt on our shared values has become even stronger over the last few months. Their popularity continues to rise. We only need to look at Poland and Hungary to find another example of Europe’s foundations being shaken. During two intensive conference days on 6 and 7 December, the participants at the BOZAR art and cultural centre in Brussels addressed this anxiety. They asked questions about the causes, found answers and even developed some hopeful approaches for the future.
Interest in the event was enormous. Although the conference took place in midweek during the run-up to Christmas, 1,500 members of the public as well as 50 journalists had registered to attend. With the topics picked for the four panel discussions and the selection of the panellists the organisers had, it seemed, struck a chord. Interviews with the prominent guests had been much in demand even before the start of the conference, and enquiries came from as far away as China. The experts not only came from different countries and backgrounds and brought knowledge from a range of disciplines, but also complemented each other, often entertainingly, with their different temperaments. Next to the energetically gesticulating Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, for example, the Turkish-British writer Elif Shafak seemed like an icon of calm dispassion. She stressed several times that she empathised with the fear that many people felt but called on the audience not to allow it to become the leitmotif.
The sociologist and writer Paul Scheffer from the Netherlands presented well-founded arguments in his discussion with Firas Alshater, a Berlin-based Syrian with a popular channel on YouTube, who shared his own experience as a migrant. Sonia Seymour Mikich, editor-in-chief of the German TV channel Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), and Łukasz Warzecha, a Polish journalist who works for conservative we
