National identity and the Other: imagining the EU from the Czech Lands

Abstract

National identity is constructed through successive identifications with significant Others. This article discusses the phenomenon of change and continuity in Czech identity. It is focused here on the identification towards the EU, which has become the most significant Other of today in two ways: (a) (change) contributing to overcoming the identity crisis provoked by the drastic changes that occurred between 1989 and 1993 (change of regime, disappearance of the USSR and the break-up of Czechoslovakia), and therefore the subsequent drastic changes in relations with past significant Others: communism, the USSR, and the Slovaks; and (b) (continuity) reaffirming one of the fundamental elements during the national revival in the nineteenth century, democracy, upon which the various identifications towards the EU have been aligned. According to the differing interpretations of what democracy means, and three other criteria of the “levels of Othering,” the EU has been “imagined,” on the one hand, as an entity where Czechs can flourish in their identity and ensure their freedom and democratic values (positive Other), and, on the other, as an “oppressor” entity which portrays democratic deficit, restricts freedom, and threatens Czech national identity (negative Other).

Keywords:

• national identity
• Czech Republic
• EU
• the Other

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Miroslav Hroch, Vladimira Dvořaková, Josef Opatrný, Petra Mešťanková, Blake Faison, Ross Chambers, Florian Bieber and the anonymous reviewers for valuable assistance in previous versions of this article. The usual disclaimers apply.

Notes

For further information about “the saturation of information,” see Gergen, Innerarity.

Daniel Esparza, “Freud y Picasso,” El País 25 May 2006 (22). For more information on the concept of “civilization of the image,” see Richard Kearney.

The term “imagined,” as far as studies of nationalism and national identity are concerned, was popularized by Anderson, where the nation is a “political imagined community.”

See Michlic.

Despite Ladislav Holy (82) emphasizing that this democratic characteristic is related to a myth from the nineteenth century – due to the fact that the Czech experience with democracy was non-existent at that time, and minimal during the twentieth century – it is necessary to say that the Czech Lands have had a rather remarkable history with democracy compared to other smaller European nations.

In future research, another new criterion might be added, or even might be applied in depth to other Others, such as NATO, the US, or Russia. In the present research, I shall have them in mind only as complementary actors of the EU, especially NATO and the US.

According to Gilligan, with respect to the IBSS (International Bibliography of Social Sciences), in 1970, 0.1% of all the literature published in English contained the word “identity”; in 1990 it was 0.4%, and in 1999 it was 0.9%.

What is the difference between identity and personality? For further information on this debate see Sheldon Stryker.

For further information about identity and the Other from a psychoanalytical point of view, see Nasio (Enseñanza 135–65; El Placer 99–104); Chemana (214–18); Dor (90–92).

See Tajfel (Human Groups; Social Identity).

See Esparza and World Tensions, “Interview with Miroslav Hroch,” where several thoughts about Czech identity and the EU can be found.

For example, in today's Czech Republic, the majority of the population share images such as the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 by the Third Reich, because they are repeated year after year in black and white by the mass media, and the majority of these subjects, who were not even born at that time, can imagine it in the same symbolic way – as negative images coming from a negative Other – in the sense that the Third Reich destroyed the freedom, democracy, prosperity and even the existence of their state founded after the First World War. For further information about perceptions of the past and political attitudes of today in the Czech Republic, see Dvořaková and Kunc.

To observe the relationship between identity and imagination, understood as a triadic structure formed by imagination–language–identity, which works as if it were a feedback loop among them, see Esparza (“The other” 57–144).

In 2003, four months before the EU referendum in the Czech Republic, 61% of KSČM voters were against the EU (only 21% for); ODS voters (79%) and KDU-ČSL voters (72%) were for the EU. For further information see Rezková (“Čtyři Měsíce” 2). For other references in relation to the perceptions of and satisfaction with the EU, according to vote preferences, see Chludilová (5); Čadová-Horáková (“Postoje k Evropské” 2).

The EU (European Union) assumed its new name (Union) in the Maastricht summit of December 1991, just when the Soviet Union was about to break up. In this respect part of the USSR's identity (one of the most significant Others of the EU at that time) was devoured symbolically by the new EU, taking part of its name (Union) and one decade later including some of the countries under former soviet influence (the eastern enlargement). For further information about the EU identity crisis since the 1990s, see Esparza (“Reflexiones sobre la Presidencia Checa”).

For example, the “lustrace” law, or the lustration, forbids StB agents and their informants, as well as senior Communist Party officials, members of paramilitary units and intelligence agents, from holding high government posts. Moreover, many teachers who supported the Marxist ideology had to leave their positions at primary or secondary schools, not to mention the universities. Even teachers of the Russian language, the most privileged language between 1948 and 1989, had to learn English if they wanted to continue teaching languages, since this Slavic language, which was associated with the oppressive communist regime, not only became thought of as old fashioned but also was detested by many Czechs.

As an example, see this debate in the English version of the popular Czech journal Přitomnost [New Presence], through the following articles: Jesenská; Klvaňa; Musil; Stroehlein; Struharová.

An in-depth comparison of Havel's and Klaus' beliefs in relation to the EU prior to EU accession can be found in Peter Bugge.

For further information on the references of the 85 speeches, see Esparza (“The Other” 421–26).

<http://old.hrad.cz/president/Havel/speeches/index_uk.html> (Václav Havel); <http://www.hrad.cz/cms/en/prezident_cr/klaus_projevy.shtml> (Václav Klaus).

I took into account only the concept of Europe when it was treated as a whole, not the mere presence of the word Europe. For example, concepts of Central, Northern, Southern or Eastern Europe were not taken into consideration, nor when “Europe” was mentioned, for example, in the name Radio Free Europe, etc. The terms EU and European Union were considered to be synonyms.

“Europe and the World,” Senate, Rome, 4 Apr. 2002.

“Nice Treaty – Step towards a New Europe,” Irish Independent 16 Oct. 2002 <http://old.hrad.cz/president/Havel/speeches/2002/1610_uk.html>.

“Address by President of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, in Reference to the Foreign Policy of the Czech Republic, on the Occasion of a Public Hearing in the Senate of the Czech Republic,” Prague, Wallenstein Palace, 27 Nov. 2001.

New Year's address, 1 Jan. 2002.

With the exception of deep criticism of the EU as far as the Lisbon Strategy was concerned, in which the EU proposed to compete with the US to be the strongest economy by 2010, in spite of emphasizing cooperation between both sides (4 Apr. 2002).

“Notes for the Berlin IIF Speech. Spring Meeting of the Institute of International Finance,” Berlin, 4 June 2003.

Ibid.

“Czech Republic's Transition, European Problems and the Fraser Institute,” 10 Nov. 2004.

“Address Delivered by President Václav Klaus on the Occasion of the 5th Anniversary of the Czech Republic Membership in NATO,” 12 Mar. 2004.

In the following discourse he shows the meaning of the term “EU democratic deficit”: “The recent enlargement of the EU will have a different impact. Because everything will be bigger and more complicated, the inherent failings of the current EU system will increase and will be more visible: both the democratic deficit and the lack of democratic accountability of EU institutions will be more apparent than before; the composition of decision-making procedures will further shift from a democratic type to a hierarchical one; the power of the EU “core” will be strengthened; majority voting instead of unanimity will dominate decision-making in more and more fields; attempts to get rid of existing deviations from the “norm” will lead to more intervention from above; the distance of citizens from the centre of power, from Brussels, will grow; the anonymity in decision-making will increase” (cit. 10 Nov. 2004).

“Address Delivered by President Václav Klaus to the Members of Diplomatic Corps on the Occasion of the Czech National Day,” 28 Oct. 2004.

For further information on the symptoms of la longue durèe in Spanish society (the myth of the two Spains), see Esparza (“Identidad Nacional”; “Imagining”). On the “Hussite Stigma” in Czech society, see Esparza (“El Significado”); Esparza (“Klaus and the Reincarnation of the Hursite Stigma”) or idem, “El Estigma del Corazón de Europa,” El País, 31 Mar. 2009.

“Freedom and Democracy in Contemporary Europe: An Insider's View,” 5 Mar. 2007.

“Address of the President of the Czech Republic Delivered on the Eve of the Accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union,” 30 Apr. 2004.

“Integration or Unification of Europe: Notes for the Berlin Speech,” 20 Nov. 2004.

Cit. 30 Apr. 2004.

For more information on the positions of the main Czech political parties towards the EU, see Esparza and Mestanková; Drulak “The Czech”; Kopecký and Mudde (305–07).

In December 2008, Václav Klaus not only resigned from the honorary presidency of the ODS but also as a member of the party.

2004 electoral programme, 4.

Ibid., 1.

Ibid., 3.

2002 electoral programme, 5.

Ibid.

2004 electoral programme, 4.

2006 electoral programme, 55.

2004 electoral programme, 3.

See the CVVM surveys in Chludilová (5); Rezková (“Čtyři měsíce” 2); Čadová-Horáková (“Postoje k Evropské” 2).

2006 electoral programme, Chapter 8-2.

2004 electoral programme, chapter: “Rozvoj venkova a Zdrave životní prostředí.”

Ibid., chapter: “Solidarita a rovné příležitosti.”

2002 electoral programme, Chapter 5.

2006 electoral programme, chapter “Agriculture and Rural Development.”

Ibid., chapter: “Defence.”

Ibid., chapter: “Foreign Policy.”

See Chludilová (5); Rezková (“Čtyři měsíce” 2); Čadová-Horáková (“Postoje k Evropské” 2).

2002 electoral programme, Chapter 3-C.

2006 electoral programme, Chapter 7.

2002 electoral programme, Chapter 3-C.

2006 electoral programme, Chapter 7.

See Horáková, “Smlouva” (CVVM survey).

See Esparza; “The Other”; Esparza and Mestanková.

The Czechs, understood as an “imagined community.”

This proposal is only applicable to the imagining of EU accession as a historical chapter. The identifications can change. We have seen how the Communist Party changed its attitude once it gained a presence in the European Parliament, and became more participative and active.