Olympic Flame

Do you believe that different European nations share a common culture and heritage or is it just another pro-EU "pan-European" agenda on baseless ground?

If the identity is justififed where are its borders?

Im looking forward to see how English people respond to this question.

Thanks.

Hartlepool

Only the English people?

Strange that one OF.

Frith

They share a common heritage in the way Africans and Native Americans share a common heritage so elements that stem from a common heritage will affect a culture at certain points and create the idea of commonality. In fact "culture", as such is a wide concept and can relate to a single tribe or to a collection of tribes over a large area, but the more you differentiate between the tribes and areas the more the cultures diverge until only basic elements from the older threads remain and are persistent. Same for religious heritage. Europe has a common Christian heritage but the variations in sect differ, sometimes widely.

You can't hope to create a "European nation" or nation state in the same way you can't create an African nation or nation state that encompasses the whole of Africa. Even America, as a nation and single country is too divergent to share just a single cultural definition. Some aspects of American culture are common and others differ widely.

It seems unnecessary to try and lump cultures and nations together under some pseudo commonality so similar they can be called "one". Why is this being forced on people? Surely rebellion is the ultimately inevitable outcome of such an enforced collective?

Olympic Flame

Sorry I wanted to say British since this is a British Democarcy Forum but it turned out to be English due to a slip of mind.

It was a random remark. All response are welcomed.

mkpdavies

We share no more or less with Europeans than most other areas of the world.

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Hartlepool

The cultures within the EU and the rest of Europe are many and quite varied,as regards to an EU/European heritage,there is none at all.

The whole of Europe has yet to recognise the terrible European Union expansion plague that will destroy the EU and perhaps bring death to a multitude of it's inhabitants.

Ticking timebomb,tick,tick,tick..........

Aardvark

We have more in common with Australian and New Zealanders of British origin than we do with Albanians (for instance).

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Hartlepool

How very true,hopefully we will all get our countries back together again after we have slain the EU monster which is trying to eat us all alive.

22ANDUK

Of course, we share a lot in 'common'. Our histories are often entwined (most through wars), many of our nation's have been around for hundreds of years so they'll be a lot of links. Our languages have similar routes as do many other things.

But that is not to ay we have enough to unite us under one banner. Certainly any attempts to create a European Identity will be, and are, artificial. We'd also lose more than we'd gain.

We're linked as friends, not family.

gc

I think it depends on how far back you choose to go and still be happy to qualify a link, or what are your criteria for 'commonality'. A nation is primarily the sum of its people, so your question is really about the relationship between 'different' people...

Like the Normans, and indeed the Muscovites, we Anglo-Saxons are descended from the Vikings. But the fact that my heritage is Anglo-Saxon makes me no more or less "European" than a European Jew, an Italian of Moorish descent, or a Slav, in my personal opinion. Others may see it differently. It might ultimately depend on how much one values the concept of "Europeaness". By this I mean that a person who places no value on European heritage might choose do be distanced from it.

Do you have to be white to be "European"? Does changing your passport change your nationality de facto as well as de jure?

I differentiate between "Europeans" and "Africans" in certain contexts, but at what historical point does a group become "assimilated"? Do they merely have to consider themselves assimilated in order to be considered so, or is some sort of majority decision required? Is there a qualifying "period of residence"?

Once we establish a criteria, are persons of a certain colour excluded from the process? Sadly, I suspect they may be in some people's minds.

Without the luxury of slaves to do their work for them, Athenians would not have had the time to indulge their love of politics, and therefore develop the practice of democracy. So one might argue that the Athenians and their African slaves clearly share a common history insofar as each made an indispensible contribution to the development of the Liberal Democratic state that 2500 years after their time became the world standard in political achievement. (I would argue here that Liberal Democracy is a western European innovation.)

I consider myself "European", which is one reason why I argue so strongly against the concept of the European Union - I think the EU is as bad for the continent as a whole, as it is for us (with some qualifications...) I am of a generation that still waves the Union Flag rather than the St George's Cross, but I consider myself English.

Having said that, I have lived on the continent for some years, and every day I feel that I am in the midst of a foreign community. In the USA or Canada, I never once had the feeling of being amongst foreigners, even in the South, or the more cosmopolitan cities of the north, but not for an instant would I consider myself "American". I mention this to make the point that one's own perception might be misconceived, I do actually have far more in common with the average Yank or Canuck (or Aussie or Kiwi) than I do with the people I lived next door to for three years, so how valid is my concept of 'Europeaness'?

Complex question, that one! I think every one of us has his or her own answer. I look forward to reading other people's thoughts on this one, it is something I think about often.

Churchill wrote: "The Empires of the future will be Empires of the mind".