|
|
|
|
|
Citizens' perspectives on the future of Transatlantic
Relations
- Discover here the opinions of speakers and partners
of the Miami Congress -
|
Franck
BIANCHERI |
President of Tiesweb, Director for
Studies and Research of Europe 2020 |
 |
|
The Americans of today and of tomorrow
-
Visions of a Newropean
By Franck Biancheri President of
Tiesweb
Director for Studies and Research of Europe 2020
Preface by John Van Oudenaren
Chief, European Division Library of Congress,
Washington DC
page 4
|
1 -2
-3
-4
-5
-6
These trends are dominant and growingly present.
These populations whose political, cultural, economic
influence grows rapidly, carry a vision of the world
where the importance of the transatlantic axis is more
relative. The United-States were conquered/constructed
by Americans from Europe. In 20 years-time, they will
predominantly be in the hands of Americans from America
or Asia. From a Newropean's point of view, this means
that the EU/US relation will be more complex, more fragile
and will require to be founded on new bases in order
to reinforce the historical foundations of a community
of values and culture : something which in the coming
years will be incumbent upon the Europeans and their
descendants in the United States. This key-population,
dominant but declining, must absolutely start thinking
about how to handle these evolutions
rather than cling
to this sense of immutability of the United States (see
next article on the political system).
|
Americans
ethno-geographically more divided
in a European
way, so to speak
|
It has always been possible to identify certain geographical
areas in relation with certain ethnic groups : Scandinavians
in the Middle-West, Afro-Americans in the South
But
in the last few decades, this identification has become
more acute due to the decreasing will of certain groups
to assimilate to the dominant WASP model, sometimes
even rejected (Hispanics and Asians, namely). This tendency
is reinforced by the "politically correct" movement,
which in the end aims at dividing the " minority with
a majority tendency " (non-WASP and white catholic)
into myriads of sub-minorities competing with one another,
and results in legitimating a multitude of identity
claims from which the territorial aspect can not be
excluded a priori. It is striking to hear a "chicanos"
leader explain how the Hispanics of Arizona and New
Mexico managed to build the instruments of their cultural
autonomy through the development of small community
funds, schools, companies, media and universities
exactly like Quebec did it 50 years earlier.
The South-East region of the United-States is also characteristic
of another "very European" phenomenon that does not
correspond to what the Europeans tend to believe : the
true conquest of New-Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California
through a war over Hispanic local populations. A war
of territorial conquest
here is another very European
feature. And here again, as History changes, the demographic
and economic data can bring surprising processes of
questioning of what was taken for granted yesterday
the Europeans know this very well - we shall come
back on this aspect.
But it is certain that one of the important factors
of territorial unification (scarcely populated spaces,
associated to a unique and powerful dominant cultural
model) is fading away with no obvious replacement in
sight.
|
Americans
more diversified than the Europeans, ethnically,
religiously and culturally speaking
|
This may seem paradoxical but it can it be seriously
considered today that, under certain cultural or ethnic
aspects, the Americans are more diverse than the Europeans.
When driving from a "dry-county" in Arkansas (where
reigns a complete prohibition on alcohol, and where
churches are more numerous than shops, a region that
wavers between 17th century-Puritanism and 1920's-prohibition)
to a metropolis like Denver, Las Vegas or New-York;
or when living in a 2000-inhabitant village amidst Wyoming
surrounded by cow-boys and guns, and 300 miles away
from the first 50.000 inhabitant city, a whole range
of cultural, religious and ethic values is experienced.
Behind the radical uniformity, rather oppressing for
a European, of the " material " standard and cheap way
of life (food, cars, equipments of all sorts, TV programmes),
there is an " immaterial " galaxy surprizing by the
scope of its diversity.
In Europe, it is no longer possible (since WWII) to
find such radical expressions of difference (or even
divergence) between the founding values of a modern
society. In the middle of Kansas, it requires an immense
effort to remember that there is "another" world, somewhere
far (Westward or Eastward, the first foreign frontier
is over 10.000 miles away; Southward it is 1.500 miles
away, and Northward
well, it does not even really
exist / In Europe, a frontier is always less than 300
miles away). The Americans of tomorrow bear an extraordinary
diversity that can become explosive if the transition
between Golden-Age-America (which ended in the 60's)
and tomorrow's America is not anticipated today by the
ruling elites
The mix between " geographical insertion " and " growing
ethno-cultural diversity " will result in a radical
questioning of the common unifying fact, if it continues
to be solely handled by the dominant group/model. This
will be increased by the double religious trend which
polarizes society around increasingly diverging groups
: those who continue to consider that God is the only
master America can find for itself (including in the
school programmes); and those who think that God's place
is not at the heart of the political and social system.
|
|
|
|