The (Im)possible Border where is ‘east’ east from?
borders | east coast europe by markus miessen
division unity globalisation identity geography
But what does Europe really mean? And what constitutes its eastern edge? Where is the crucial point at which this construct starts to become? Berlin is east of Paris, Istanbul is east of Berlin, and Beijing is east of Istanbul. Someone in China will go eastwards to travel to the United States. East is the direction in which the Earth rotates about its axis, and therefore the general direction from which the sun appears to rise. By convention, an ordinary terrestrial map is oriented so the right side is East –a convention that dates from the Renaissance. Mediaeval maps often placed the Orient (the East at the top, the source of the verb ‘orient’. Karl Schlögel, the Professor of Eastern European History defined Europe as ‘first and foremost a site, a geographically defined space’. 1 Schlögel argues that debates about Europe usually begin with someone saying that Europe is not just geography, but primarily a system of values. Those values tend to be universal. In the context of the East-West conflict, he explains Eastern European history as one that is being played out between the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where the old empires clashed (that of the Tsar, the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg Monarchy and, fundamentally, the German Empire). Arguably, one of globalisation’s foremost effects is the dissolution of geographical borders. Within the spatial and territorial constraints of the Cold War this was, without doubt, a concern. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, however – a decade, which according to curators Hans Ulrich Obrist and Stephanie Moisdon needs yet to be named – the real borders are economic ones. This, of course, is a very different conversation from most debates that were taking place only two decades ago, when physical borders were the most prominent issue discussed in the context of Eastern Europe. What are the repercussions of the European Union when it comes to decision-making within political systems that until now have been excluded from the Union? The pressure and longing to become part of the club has grown so huge that entire economies are being traded for an entry ticket to the Union. Lithuania, one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, lost their number one export in order to become part of the Schengen zone in 2007. Ignalina nuclear power plant produced Lithuania’s biggest export, electricity. Over the past decade, Lithuania has been negotiating over Ignalina with the EU, which wants it closed. Lingering concern in the EU led to the stipulation that it be closed for EU accession. Under pressure from the EU, the Lithuanians promised to close down Ignalina, regardless of Lithuanian energy and financial experts warning about the closure – as it produces 70 percent of Lithuania’s electrical output. In this context, Lithuanian artists Valdas Ozarinskas and Aida Ceponyte declared that they would show live video footage from the core. This was shown in Copenhagen, but dubbed too controversial and consequently was removed. Today, questions of nationhood are no longer thought through the positions of pure geography. To most, territorial considerations only matter when considering physical movement and/or economic
In June 2008 , during the European Football Championship, Der Spiegel , one of Europe’s largest and most influential weekly magazines reported what they called a ‘sensation’, referring to the result of the football match between Russia and the Netherlands (3 –1), the headline read: ‘the copy wins over the original’. Likewise, Michael Palin’s 2007 TV series New Europe , exploring 20 countries that were once off-limits behind the Iron Curtain, assumes in a Rumsfeldian manner that there is an old one. In 2003, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld used the term to refer to European countries that did not support the invasion of Iraq, specifically France and Germany. In Germany, the term was voted ‘Word of the Year’, because politicians and commentators responded by often using it in an ironic way: it was frequently used to refer to a perceived position of moral integrity. This, of course, is a difficult position: it presupposes righteousness. Such warped European self-evaluation was only accelerated when, in 2007, a survey of public opinion by Gallup International – a coordination centre for polling activities in Europe – portrayed the EU as the only ‘great power’ in the world whose leadership is widely supported.
34 On Site review 22: WAR
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