Lorenzo Marsili, Festival organiser
Monday 19th of March marks an important step in the creation of an active European citizenry.
In the beautiful neo-classical setting of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, over two hundred people gathered for the inaugural lecture of the London Festival of Europe, to be delivered by Zygmunt Bauman. The difference with the majority of other events attempting to raise interest in the European project was stark and clear to all. A diverse public with a large presence of young people, a relaxed and informal atmosphere, frank and yet visionary opening statements.
This Festival as a political act; it is a political act precisely for not being born out of governmental initiative but out of enthusiasm and a clearly felt need to reclaim the field of intellectual discourse for civil society and public engagement. Antonio Gramsci most compellingly drew the line connecting cultural production, the role of the intellectual and political praxis. In this regard, we like to see the Festival as the opening up of a new space, as the blossoming of possibility and hence as the basis for action.
This country, so distinguished by its pragmatism and historical advocacy of rationality, now peculiarly finds itself amidst a haze of irrational scepticism. A Festival that spans art and politics, philosophy and ecology, is a Festival that appeals to a wide and diverse audience. It is to such an audience that we pose the question of Europe.
Zygmunt Bauman, over the course of his lecture, has compellingly reminded us that Europe is called to play a fundamental role in the near future; that of global pacifier. In a world increasingly torn by sectarian violence and unilateral action, in a world where military might is upheld as the meter of judgement, the European experience – the experience of violence, the experience of a continent torn to pieces, but also the experience of trans-national cooperation and the pacification of twenty-seven warring states – comes to assume an increasingly important significance.
If a critique is to be levied to a lecture by such a distinguished speaker, and one we so much admire, is the lack of a positive program for Europe that goes beyond the mere contraposition to American unilateralism. Such a project, however, is not to come from any singular mind, any singular policy paper, or any singular foreign office. Such a project is to come out of united minds, the minds of the current European generation who must finally take their future firmly within their own grasp, without differentiation of nationality but with a commonality of aims.
The danger – the danger that at once embodies international irrelevance, cultural decline, and moral hypocrisy – is the slow descent into an essentially suburban Europe. A Europe that retreats from the public agora, a Europe that locks the doors, a Europe open for business but closed for the future.
0 Responses to “A political act”