Cultural Diversity as Integral to National Identity: The Case of “Middle Europe”
Nowicki, Joanna
Cultural Diversity as Integral to National Identity: The Case of “Middle Europe” - 2008.
55
The recently redrawn map of the European continent has again raised the issue of relationships with “the Others,” which lies at the heart of the debate on democracy. Consequently, the question of cultural belonging needs to be put in different terms. Could “Middle Europe,” instead of the “backward” periphery of a western area that has always seen itself as the center, actually foreshadow the problems that the European continent will need to face in the future? Has its painful and long experience of a disagreement between political and cultural frontiers not prepared it for the multicultural, multi-denominational and multilinguistic reality of the future? Has it not devised a model of tolerance that allowed what we now call “cultural rights” to emerge? Has History not forced it to reflect on the very real risk of the death of a civilization and its language, and on the measures that cultural survival requires?
Cultural Diversity as Integral to National Identity: The Case of “Middle Europe” - 2008.
55
The recently redrawn map of the European continent has again raised the issue of relationships with “the Others,” which lies at the heart of the debate on democracy. Consequently, the question of cultural belonging needs to be put in different terms. Could “Middle Europe,” instead of the “backward” periphery of a western area that has always seen itself as the center, actually foreshadow the problems that the European continent will need to face in the future? Has its painful and long experience of a disagreement between political and cultural frontiers not prepared it for the multicultural, multi-denominational and multilinguistic reality of the future? Has it not devised a model of tolerance that allowed what we now call “cultural rights” to emerge? Has History not forced it to reflect on the very real risk of the death of a civilization and its language, and on the measures that cultural survival requires?
Réseaux sociaux