You are not wrong in your perception that most people here are [ethno-]nationalists. No need to correct you there. But you are wrong in your concept of being "Europeanist".
I'll explain this next, but first let me deal with another thing you said: my ethnic/national identity is
not "sub-European". "Sub-European" implies that, in order to be, it depends on anything Europe, which is far from right as it can be attested throughout history, and because Europe is after all circumstancial.
It is, in fact quite the opposite. Being European does not grant an element of identity, if you are not part of a national/ethnic identity that is in turn identified as "European". Therefore, European is (if something) a sub-identity. Not the other way round.
But let us go back to the idea of being "Europeanist". One should first define what is Europe, an who are the Europeans.
If tomorrow the Iberian Peninsula was placed in the middle of the Atlantic, I would continue being a Spaniard and that's all that matters to me. Of course I'd miss the climate and the waters of our eastern coasts of the Mediterranean. But peace has a price. I wouldn't miss much more, neither north of the Pyrenees nor south of the Strait.
What I'm saying is that my identity would not vary in the least. And yet you think that European is an identity? Well, no. Or at least not in the way you think. It is a political... geopolitical identity. But that does not compare to an ethnic identity.
However, undeniably, as ethnic nationalists one must not forget that, while ethnicity comes as a result of an evolution of a people or peoples, together and in a relative isolation from other groups, the isolation is not total even from before the ethnogenesis of the nation takes place.
What does this mean? Well, it means that the isolation being relative, it is because it is produced inside the boundaries of a more or less defined geographical environment of cultures, which inevitably influence in a greater or lesser degree into yours, at the various moments of this evolution (or, which assimilate influences similar to the ones you do, in different degrees). Eventually an environment in which you interact with these other groups, ethnicities, nations.
So there we have Europe defined. A common geographic environment that provides a space for cultural interaction among different ethnicities, identities, nations. Both historically and in the present moment.
To be Europeanist, or a Pro-Europeanist, implies to realize and to accept this relation, and a will to improve its terms. But if you push it further, if you stretch it beyond its natural limits, you attempt against the preservation, sovereignty and freedom of those very identities that make up the face of Europe and you are therefore not being a Europeanist, but a Pan-Europeanist.
My allegiance to my nation, to my country, to my people is absolute and irrevocable. My allegiance to Europe is relative and reciprocal. What makes me an Europeanist is that I want it to be, ideally, at the best level. Unfortunately this is a chimera and the next alternative, which is not bad at all, is to choose allegiances on individual bases within this environment.
p.s. I've never voted in this poll, it's always looked to me of little substance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lutiferre
One might postulate that the general problem with this poll is that most people here are not Europeanists, but ethno-nationalists. So dealing with Europe as one entity, and talking about Europeans versus non-Europeans, and talking about race, is irrelevant, in a context where people are more concerned with their own sub-European, national, ethnic or meta-ethnic identity (and in many cases, dont care about Europe as a whole, but strictly their own nation or country). The focus of the poll seems to be the very anti-thesis to that, in that it has a Eurocentric orientation.
I dont know to which extent this is true, but I have a feeling its very true, from the discussions I've had here. From the discussions I've had, I also know it isnt true with everybody here, but my guess is mostly. Do correct me if I'm wrong.
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