OPINION – Terry Newman: The growing importance of community in Europe

17 December 2010

The following opinion article was first published by the European Jewish Press (Belgium) on 16 December 2010:
 

The growing importance of community in Europe

By Terry Newman

The economic crisis of recent years has rocked Europe’s private sector, devastated Europe’s public sector and is changing the social fabric of Europe. The impact of the last few years will leave its mark on Europe’s communal structures in the decades to come, yet few realize the changes that are unfolding each day. How can we utilise these changes to make Europe a safer and more fulfilled continent? The generous pension and social welfare system of Europe is under attack.

The thinning of the demographic pyramid at the crucial lower end means that fewer working people will have to fund more retired people in the coming decades. Government responses have focused on reducing spending elsewhere, increasing taxation and raising the age of retirement, but there is another big change underway. Community based services are expanding into areas that for the past 70 years have been primarily financed and managed by the public sector.

The growing influence of community structures in the coming decades will be further strengthened by the fact that immigrant families are providing much of the positive population growth in Europe. Immigrant families tend to form community structures more readily than other Europeans, because their minority status means that they seek identity and protection as a collective rather than on the individual level.

The financial impact of this change will be enormous. We will see communities managing more and more schools, old age homes, food distribution systems and other social welfare systems. Their budgets will grow in tandem such that billions of dollars will be managed by these community leaders. A recent study estimated that the level of education and health services provided by the Catholic Church in Spain would cost the State over € 18 billion annually.

Yet, there is a huge lack of transparency regarding where funds are coming from and to where they are going. The Charity Commission in the UK does important work in recording charities’ financial reports, but there is still a large deal of opaqueness records these huge capital flows into and throughout Europe. In no other area of the economy would such a situation be allowed to occur.

This is further complicated by the politics of identity. It would be wrong to accuse a European Christian of being a servant of the Vatican, or a European Jew of being a servant of the Israel, or a European Muslim of being a servant of Iran, Turkey or Saudi Arabia. However, it is important that if these countries are investing heavily into European religious communal infrastructure that the rest of the Europe should be aware and that the appropriate mechanisms are in place to monitor such investments.

European communities still live under the shadow of the Second World War. The key lesson that Europeans have absorbed is that nationalism is an inherently dangerous phenomenon. When people stand united behind a flag, an anthem and a shared history they will exclude others and risk turning to fascism. By contrast the lesson that the Americans learned from the Second World War was that if the democratic nations do not have more belief in their way, more strength in their army, and more willingness to sacrifice themselves than their enemies, then ultimately autocracy will prevail.

The European approach has brought Western Europe almost 70 years without war at a cost of less than 1 percent of GDP, a bargain by any standards. But, it has come at a price – an ideological price. Europe has educated nearly three generations the importance of tolerance as the starting point and ultimate goal of European identity. Yet, tolerance cannot be the central axis of one’s identity. Tolerance, as opposed to openness, is a means of allowing difference ideologies to coexist. It is the making space for ‘the other’ rather than defining the ‘I’.

Europeans, like all peoples, still need a narrative for the most basic human questions: Where do I come from? What am I here for? What will happen to me after I die? The European education system has too often failed to address these questions in a positive manner through fear of offending others that disagree. It has too often educated a negative identity of what “I am not” rather than what “I am.” This poses a huge threat to Europe.

Europe needs to develop a positive identity. An identity based on openness to all sources of knowledge. An identity based on respect for reason and logic, the forces that have facilitated the development of science and technology and have changed our continent and entire planet for the better. There should still be space for the faith and mysticism of believers - but open faith. Faith with our eyes and ears open. After all, you might pray before you travel on an aeroplane. Yet, you would never trust your spiritual leader to build one.

Finally, religion needs to be privatised. Religious leaders need to choose between power and influence. For example, in the UK the Church has power through its institutional standing but little influence. By contrast, in the US, the Church has little power but immense influence. The creative forces of competition have forced the religious establishment in the US to respond to the needs of the people or face becoming irrelevant whereas in the UK the Church has been insulated by a protective State and hence become inefficient, out-of-touch and affiliated with a perceived corrupt state. Ironically, the best chance religion has of staying relevant in a liberal democracy is by ceding power to gain influence.

So, as the influence of communities grows in Europe it is imperative that we insist on the transparency of capital flows and that we create a positive European identity that sits alongside a privatised faith. Only through increased transparency and continued dialogue on the positive definitions of our core values can we prevent an ideological vacuum in Europe.

Terry Newman is a business consultant working throughout Europe and the Middle East. Previously he served as Chief of Staff to Lord Janner of Braunstone in the British Parliament. He is a member of the World Jewish Diplomatic Corps.