A Continent in Motion: What Conchita Wurst Tells Us About EU Identity

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/what-conchita-wurst-tells-us-about-eu-identity-a-970688.html



Europe has struggled for decades to forge a common identity -- and now the Continent's response to Putin, its battle against Google and the victory of drag queen Conchita Wurst at the Eurovision Song Contest all suggest that shared values are finally emerging.

A Continent in Motion: What Conchita Wurst Tells Us About EU Identity
An Essay By Georg Diez
May 23, 2014 – 03:38 PM

~snip~

The continent is certainly multicultural, if only out of necessity. It has no choice, and it was never anything but multicultural. From the Romans to the Germanic tribes, the Huguenots and the Poles, the continent has always been in motion, although it sometimes seemed to be suffering from vertigo, as historian Philipp Blom noted in his book about Europe before World War I. But his vertigo eventually led to the modern age, between psychoanalysis and Expressionism. Europe has always been a laboratory of the present.

What began then as the discovery of female desire now encounters the unholy troika of resentment: homophobia, anti-feminism and xenophobia.

So what is Europe in 2014? Is it closer to 1913 or 1938? Is it a continent that received its face in 1945 or 1989? And if the postwar era came to an end in the year in which the Berlin Wall was brought down, what began after that?

The Berlin Wall came down 25 years ago. Twenty-five years is an epoch. Were those the European years, and did we simply fail to notice? With America's decline, the attacks of 9/11, the war in Iraq, Guantanamo, Obama's drones and whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations, the West, in the form of the United States, has lost some of its sparkle.

[burrowowl]

1. K&R

[uriel1972]

2. The Eurovision victory...

was good, but the forces of bigotry are closing in on power in many European states. I would not say the battle is over.