Wolfgang Palaver
Europe and Enmity: How Christianity can contribute to a positive Identity
The title of our panel is “Europe: The Land Opposite.” Different speakers will
contribute a variety of perspectives on this question. Let me begin with a short
reflection on Europe and enmity and how Christianity can possibly contribute to a
positive identity of our continent.
1. Parochial Altruism and Closed Societies: Political Patterns Stemming from
the Scapegoat Mechanism
Recent anthropological research has shown how much throughout history human
solidarity has relied most often on enmity against outside groups. Altruism inside
human groups seems to go almost always along with a parochial preference for
insiders over outsiders. Enmity against outside groups is one of humanity's strongest
forces to foster solidarity. Samuel Bowles, an economist heading the “Behavioral
Sciences Program” at the Santa Fe Institute and also teaching economics in Siena
concluded recently in an article in Nature that “generosity and solidarity towards
one’s own may have emerged only in combination with hostility towards outsiders”
(Bowles 2008, 326). Also the title of this articles – “Conflict: Altruism's Midwife” –
clearly articulates a strong relationship between solidarity inside groups and enmity
between groups. Bowles and his collaborators studied the synergy between
“parochialism” meaning “favouring ethnic, racial or other insiders over outsiders” and
“altruism” that is “conferring benefits on others at a cost to oneself”. With the help of
computer simulations creating artificial histories of early human development Bowles
and his team found out that parochialism and altruism tend to join hands. He refers to
examples from the early period of human history to illustrate his thesis not forgetting,
however, that parochial altruism is not just something that explains the past of
humanity but is a pattern that is still with us:
“Thus, in ancestral humans, evolutionary pressures favoured cooperative
institutions among group members as well as conflict with other groups. These
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were complemented by individual dispositions of solidarity and generosity
towards one’s own, and suspicion and hostility towards others. This potent
combination of group and individual attributes is as characteristic of the
contemporary welfare state in a system of heavily armed and competing
nations — in short, modern nationalism — as it was among our ancestors.”
(Bowles 2008, 327)
Bowles' research shows strong parallels to anthropological insights gained
with the help of René Girard's mimetic theory. We just have to focus on all too well
known patterns of political enmity stemming from the scapegoat mechanism. In
rituals we can find the necessary link between the political friend-enmity distinction
and the scapegoat mechanism. The political builds upon the ritual channelling of
internal violence toward the external world, whereas in the scapegoat mechanism a
member of the group itself is killed. Rituals already tended to sacrifice foreigners. The
political prolongs the ritual focus on the foreigner and takes a friend-enemy
relationship between two different groups as an always already given starting point.
Besides Girard, we can also refer to Henri Bergson’s important book The Two
Sources of Morality and Religion which described the closed societies at the
beginning of human civilization as being characterized by parochial altruism.
According to Bergson, the natural pattern of early human communities “required that
the group be closely united, but that between group and group there should be virtual
hostility” (Bergson 1935, 44). Closed societies are characterized by an internal
solidarity that is strengthened by enmity to the outside. These closed societies are
fostered by a static religion emerging as a form of “natural religion” at the beginning
of human civilization. Seen from the perspective of mimetic theory it seems to be
clear that static religion is identical with the violent sacred enveloping closed societies
in the beginning of humanity. The closure of tribal communities “is achieved through
constant recourse to the expulsion of the Other” (Girard 2004, 89), be it an internal
scapegoat or an outside enemy.
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2. Europe and Enmity
The biblical revelation, especially Christianity, has broken with the archaic past and
has undermined the political patterns stemming from it. In the biblical Revelation we
can discover one of the most important sources of the open society. According to
Bergson, “there seems to be no doubt that … the passage from the closed to the
open, is due to Christianity” (Bergson 1935, 61). It would, however, be highly naïve to
assume that Christianity’s influence resulted in a linear progression towards the open
society. Historical Christianity is not a completely dynamic religion without any
remnants of static religion but, according to Bergson, a “mixed religion” in which
pagan patterns still play a role although they have been slowly transformed by
mysticism (Bergson 1935, 183). We can first realize this fact in the term
“parochialism” itself which stems from the Latin term for parish – parochialis meaning
“relating to an ecclesiastical district” (The New Oxford American Dictionary) – and
which is therefore not alien to historical Christianity at all. The term parochialism
derives from a narrow or limited attitude as it can sometimes be found in certain small
Christian parishes and others small communities too, of course.1
A striking example for how much historical Christianity was still based on
friend-enemy-patterns delivers a quick view on the development of European identity.
The first political usage of the term “Europe” in the eighth and ninth centuries, for
instance, was linked to the conflict with the Islamic world. Especially famous is the
Battle of Tours – also known as Battle of Poitiers – in 732 where Charles Martel
defeated Muslim forces preventing therefore the expansion of Muslim power into the
north-western part of Europe. The victors of this Battle were called “Europenses”
overcoming prevailing particularisms at this time (Lewis 2008, 172-173). The same is
true for the time of the Crusades. In the Middle ages there were three clearly
recognized enemies contributing to Europe’s identity: „Insolentia Saracenorum,
schisma Graecorum et sevitia Tartarorum” – the arrogant Saracens, the schismatic
Greeks in Byzantium, and the terrible Tartars (Geremek 1996, 92). Later, in sixteenth
century, the Turks appeared as a new enemy or scapegoat helping to foster
European identity. Denis de Rougemont, an author very positively mentioned in
Girard’s first book, summarized this period in European history in a chapter entitled
1
There are, of course, also large forms of parochialism. Benjamin Barber understands the
new universalism of today as a form of American parochialism. See Barber (1996).
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“The Turk as Bogeyman” (Rougemont 1968, 88-91). The British historian Timothy
Garton Ash summarized the constitution of European identity against a Muslim other
in an insightful article in 2001:
“‘Europe’ was originally defined as a conscious entity in the conflict with the
Islamic world. The first political usage of the term comes in the eighth and
ninth centuries, as the descendants of the Prophet—the ‘infidels,’ in Christian
parlance—are thrusting, by force of arms linked to a faith that we would now
call fanatical, into the underbelly of Europe. ‘Europe’ begins its continuous
history as a political concept in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, first as
synonym for, then as successor to, the Crusaders’ notion of Christendom—
and once again, its Other is plainly the Arab-Islamic world.” (Ash 2001; cf.
Geremek 1996; Harle 2000, 67f)
Samuel Bowles too, refers to Europe’s birth in the fight against the Muslim world by
presenting to us the view of an Islamic soldier in the time of the Crusades:
“The making of Europe as we know it thus paradoxically owes something to
the exploits of ‘animals possessing the virtues of courage and fighting, but
nothing else’ in the words of a twelfth-century Islamic soldier-scholar who lost
his home and family to the Crusaders.” (Bowles 2008, 327)
Carl Schmitt pointed to the long enduring enmity between Christianity and Islam to
reject a political interpretation of Jesus’ command to love the enemy:
“Never in the thousand-year struggle between Christians and Moslems did it
occur to a Christian to surrender rather than defend Europe out of love toward
the Saracens or Turks. The enemy in the political sense need not be hated
personally, and in the private sphere only does it make sense to love one's
enemy, i.e., one's adversary.” (Schmitt 2007, 29)
This pattern is still with us in contemporary Europe. In 2001 Ash described Europe as
being in search of a new other against which it could identify itself. The United States
and the Islamic world were possible candidates at that time. The political left tried to
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understand Europe over against the United States (especially against George W.
Bush) whereas politicians like Vladimir Putin – at that time President of the Russian
Federation – and the Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi focused on an emerging enmity
against the Muslim world. Ash himself expressed his hope that Europe will be able to
create a positive identity without an outside other:
“The task for those who believe, as I do, in a project called ‘Europe’ is to build
a strong, positive European identity, one that binds people emotionally to a set
of institutions, without the help of a clear and present Other.” (Ash 2001)
Taking parochial altruism seriously, however, means to understand that it is
very difficult and often nearly impossible to create a political identity without a
common enemy. In countries like Austria we can observe today how Muslim migrants
have become a common enemy for those you claim a strong Austrian identity.
Populist xenophobia often combined with Islamophobia has become one of the
concepts of the enemy in post-Cold War Europe (Niethammer 2000, 531; Casanova
2009, 61-62; Taylor 2010). All these examples show us that the Biblical revelation
has not yet overcome humanity’s reliance on parochial altruism. This age-old pattern
is still with us even though it has been weakened and is no longer really able to
create a stable political order.
3. The Need for a New Saintliness: Europe’s Obligation to Seek Unity in the
World without Erasing Differences
Parochial altruism is not the default pattern to which humanity is bound forever. It is
not rooted in a violent ontology that governs the whole cosmos but just a pattern that
developed as the most likely way how human beings have lived socially from the
early beginnings on. And even we today are still struggling with remnants of this
pattern. From a theological point of view, parochial altruism is an offspring of original
sin and not of divine creation. Also Samuel Bowles ends his article with a clear
rejection of a fatalistic attitude that does not recognize possibilities to overcome
parochialisms:
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“Even if I am right that a parochial form of altruism is part of the human legacy,
it need not be our fate.” (Bowles 2008, 327)
As positive examples he mentions “the widespread support in many countries for aid
to the people of poor nations” and also the election of Barack Obama in 2008.
Furthermore, he refers also to an interesting example from European history:
“The intellectual, political and even military collaboration of Muslims, Christians
and Jews that occurred in parts of Islamic Spain a millennium ago, even as the
First Crusade pitted Christian against Muslim in the eastern Mediterranean.”
This example shows how Muslims were able to foster tolerance. We can also find a
similar Christian example at about the same time. The Norman Christians in Sicily
that replaced Muslim rulers in 1074 were also able to create a climate of tolerance
and respect. Muslims called the Norman rulers the “turbaned kings” because they
quickly became Arabized and “premier patrons of Arabic culture” (Menocal 2003,
121). Frederick II, who was emperor of Sicily, holy Roman Emperor, and king of
Jerusalem, is an outstanding example in this line of Norman rulers. It was, for
instance, his support that made translations of the work of Averroes and Maimonides
into Latin possible (Menocal 2003, 193).
If we look for Christian sources towards universalism we find outstanding
examples in the gospels. Jesus’ recommendation to love our enemies in his Sermon
on the Mount or his parable of the Good Samaritan show how deeply Christianity
undermines traditional forms of closed societies with its dependence on enmity. Let
us focus a little bit closer on the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:30-35). From
an age-old political perspective the parable of the Samaritan is dangerously
subversive. It was “utterly destructive of ordinary decency, of what had, until then,
been understood as ethical behaviour” (Illich/Cayley 2005, 51). According to Ivan
Illich, a catholic priest and social critic, the only way to understand this parable today
is “to imagine the Samaritan as a Palestinian ministering to a wounded Jew”
(Illich/Cayley 2005, 50) or to even sharpen this point a Hamas fighter helping an
Israeli soldier. This story marks a significant break with all forms of ethics that are
based on a special care of one’s own family, group or race.
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“This deeply threatens the traditional basis for ethics, which was always an
ethnos, a historically given ‘we’ which precedes any pronunciation of the word
‘I.’” (Illich/Cayley 2005, 47)
Jesus brings a new form of love into the world that undermines and exceeds all
traditional understandings of it. Illich comes in such insights close to mimetic theory
and its insight into the Biblical overcoming of the scapegoat mechanism. The ethnos
of a group gives way to individuality and universalism as soon as the scapegoat
mechanism is uncovered.
According to Bergson, Jesus is the key example of the individual mysticism of
the dynamic religion that opens the path towards the open society. He of course is in
continuity with the prophetic tradition in Judaism. Like the people of Israel who treat
the aliens favorably because they were themselves aliens in Egypt2 also early
Christians understood themselves as sojourning foreigners in this world whose
citizenship is not earthly but in heaven (Phil 3:20). Like the Israelites in Egypt
Christians are resident aliens (Hauerwas/Willimon 1989). Most interestingly the
Greek term that was used to describe this situation was paroikia3 meaning sojourning
or the life of a resident alien. We can find an example for this attitude in the New
Testament:
“If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to
their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile [paroikia].” (1
Peter 1:17)4
Now we recognize the Greek term that led to the Latin term for parish and later to the
term parochialism. The attitude of early Christians was not parochial in the modern
meaning of this term but these small groups understood themselves as resident
2
Lev 19:33-34: “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.
The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the
alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” Cf. Ex
22:20; Cohen (1995), 147.
3
1) a dwelling near or with one 2) a sojourning, dwelling in a strange land 3) metaph. the life
of a man here on earth is likened to a sojourning. para-: beside, subsidiary; oikos: dwelling.
4
See also the First Letter of Clemens to the Corinthians and the important Epistle to
Diognetus: “They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they
share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is
to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.” (5:5) Cf.
Agamben (2011), 53.
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aliens that do not completely identify with any earthly political entity. For this reason
these small groups were able to open up towards universality. They do not need an
opponent to win their own identity against him. These small groups are catholic in the
best sense of this term. According to the modern Church Father Henri de Lubac,
Catholicism is “the only reality that involves by its existence no opposition. It is
therefore the very opposite of a ‘closed society’.” (Lubac 1988, 298)
Only by deviating from its roots in revelation turned historical Christianity
towards a narrow type of parochialism. The French philosopher and mystic Simone
Weil realized this dangerous development in her critical engagement with the
Catholic Church. In a letter from 1942 she remarked that many Christians attached
themselves to the Church “as to an earthly country” (Weil 2001, 49). This was,
according to Weil, a betrayal of Jesus’ “completely universal love” (Weil 2001, 50).
Saints like Saint Francis, however, did not succumb to this temptation. He and similar
saints shared implicitly Jesus’ universality. Our world of today, however, forces us to
move even beyond this implicit universality to a fuller embrace of it:
“We are living in times that have no precedent, and in our present situation
universality, which could formerly be implicit, has to be fully explicit. It has to
permeate our language and the whole of our way of life. Today it is not nearly
enough merely to be a saint, but we must have the saintliness demanded by
the present moment, a new saintliness, itself also without precedent.” (Weil
2001, 51)
I agree with Weil’s plea for this new saintliness. We can discover it in Europe at its
best. In 2001 Chiara Lubich, an Italian Catholic who founded the Focolare
Movement, addressed in Innsbruck the convention “1000 cities for Europe” with a talk
on “The spirit of brotherhood in politics, key to the unity of Europe and of the world”.
Close to Weil she also focused on important saints in Europe who contributed to the
unity of our continent. Besides Saint Francis and saints like Benedict of Nursia, Cyril
and Methodius, Brigid of Sweden, Catherine of Siena and many others she also
mentioned the fathers of the European Union:
“Sanctity is at the roots of Europe: and it means not only the Europe that the
history created for us but also the Europe we construct today to which attest
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some of the fathers of the united Europe: Robert Schuman, Alcide De Gasperi
and impeccable Adenauer. For the former two the canonisation process has
already begun, which testifies to the full sanctity incorporating religious and
civic virtues required in the profession of a politician.”
Lubich concluded her talk by emphasizing Europe’s vocation to contribute to the unity
of the world:
“The vocation of Europe lies in this universal brotherhood which creates unity
while maintaining the distinctions.”
It is this task that will hopefully shape Europe’s identity without the need of an outside
enemy. I especially hope that Europe will overcome the current temptation to define
itself over against Islam. In one of her very last essays from 1943, dealing with the
problem of colonialism, Simone Weil reflected also on the future of Europe which she
understood as standing between America and the East. According to Weil, Europe
must not loos its oriental roots if it wants to fulfil its global role. As an example to
understand her claim she refers us to Charles de Foucauld, a saint whose imitation of
pious Muslims led him back to Christ. Weil viewed him as a “symbol of the coming
renaissance” (Weil 1962, 208):
“He was brought back to piety, and thus to Christ, by a sort of emulation that
was awoken in him by the spectacle of Arab piety.”
10
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