the world as it’s seen by (the EU): a contextualisation of geopolitics from the certain perspective
lecture performance & installation was presented by Denis Maksimov in December 2015 in Marres House for Contemporary Culture (Maastricht, NL) and in February 2016 in de Brakke Grond Cultural Center (Amsterdam, NL)
The end of the Second World War (WWII) signified the beginning of the new
era for the Europe and the world. Just over 60 years ago the continent was
laying in ruins - material, ideological and moral. Our grandparents worked
hard to rebuild the beauty of our cities. It was the age of profound reflection
and outstanding, unprecedented changes in our societies. Slowly and steadily,
we consciously decided to abandon the ‘realpolitik’ and nationalism in favour
of multiculturalism and integration.
It is not easy path in the geopolitical environment. Yalta agreements on the post-War world order were designed by the winners with the United Nations as the mediating institution in it’s centre. We hoped it will work much better than in did in the end. The Cold War turned Europe into ideological chessboard, the battlefield of capitalism and socialism. It’s hard to assess how much resources were wasted in this seemingly endless battle.
The collapse of the Soviet Union economic model brought us into the current age of the ultra-capitalism. The supremacy of the United States over the economic and cultural discourse brought us consumer-driven materialism, that we have never wanted to absolutise. But as Europe was rebuilt with American credits, we had no choice. Since then we have been trying to balance the cultural supremacy of Hollywood and financial domination of the Wall Street, offer alternatives for more balanced model of the global political order. We recognise: we were not that successful so far. Our decision was to lead by example: to demonstrate to the whole world, that economically driven process of comprehensive integration between so many and so different cultures, speaking dozens of languages countries is not only possible, but demonstrates the way forward. Not only for Europe - for the humanity, which faced difficult task of co-habitation. We have launched the most successful and outstanding project of multidimensional integration that humanity had ever seen: the European Union. We placed the principles of universalism and humanism in it’s core. So many wished we would fail, both internally and externally. So many still actively scheme and plot against our success, try to ridicule our achievements. They want us to feel alienated, ostracised and totally alone - but we are certain that our strategy of leading by example will crash all these doubts about us in light of our outstanding achievements, that first and foremost are driven by humane curiosity and desire to unveil our potential for self-realisation.
After the lessons of the the WWII, we pushed for diplomatic, conciliatory approach in every matter that requires collective decision. We have been called and insulted as ‘soft boners’, ’indecisive cowards’ (not only by ill- wishers, but by those who consider us their partners as well) for our conviction against any sort of aggression, that might have the slightest possibility of sparkling conflict. Maybe we are too slow, but we prefer to be rather accurate and avoid making mistakes with possibility of terrible consequences. We had survived through 1914-1918 and 1941-1945, we know what eagle-headedness and testosterone-driven emotions can cost to a society.
We haven’t forgotten our history and faults. We fully recognise our colonial history, we feel ashamed for it and as anyone who did something nasty in the past naturally try to avoid talking too much about the subject. Don’t judge us too hard for this: we don’t avoid the subject, but you surely can imagine yourself the complexity of the issue in our memory. It is widely researched, analysed and discussed in our societies at all the levels: from popular media to academia. And it will be continued until we will come up with the certain plan of compensating the damage we did, as we have been trying with the humanitarian and development aid.
It is not easy for us internally as well. We pay very high price for sticking to the core values of the Enlightenment and prepared to sacrifice even more if it’s needed. The barbarianism is not objectified or impersonated by someone specific - it actually exists in every one of us. ‘Jihad’ in Islam, despite what interpretation you might hear from Marine le Pen or Geert Wilders and similar individuals (who are entitled for their own opinion, but not for their own facts), doesn’t mean desire to kill ‘non-believers’. ‘Jihad’ means fighting your own demons and cleansing your mind and soul from disastrous darkness. This is something we might as well learn from the new cultures, that we are happy to accommodate in the extended family of based on the post-nationalist, multicultural values.
We might end up being martyrs of the civilisational decay, like the late Rome or the Ancient Greece just before the Roman conquest. We still need to figure out what do with the crises of the concept of inheritance and private property, as inequality will only rise if we won’t do something about it on the very fundamental level. We still hope that Hegel wasn’t absolutely right about history always repeating itself in vicious circles. We are committed to do anything in our power to avoid the repetition of horrific mistakes (that we have ourselves made repeatedly before) by us and all the other actors on the geopolitical field.