51
European Identity as the Horizon of Belarusian Imagination
moving borders” really makes us citizens of the world, showing, that any rigid definition
of borders is more often unwillingness and/or inability to see the otherness. All the time
identities find themselves at the crossing of different cultural and other fields, i.e. opened,
discussed, inclusive. This is the sense of internal globalization leading to the arousing of
serious ethical questions as the crisis of legitimation of the national ethics of exclusion is
obvious. Former principles of construction of internal hierarchies of elements or condi-
tions remain open to question.
In this connection it is interesting, especially in the context of the Belarusian iden-
tity, K. Appiah’s interpretation of the relation of cosmopolitanism with patriotism, na-
tionalism, liberalism. His idea that cosmopolitanism does not abolish variety, but, on the
contrary, welcomes it deserves special attention as it follows the principle of liberalism:
“Liberal cosmopolitanism protected by me can be presented as follows: we appreciate
a variety of forms of a social and cultural life of people; we do not want everybody to
become a part of homogeneous global culture; we know, that it also means the existence
of local differences (both
inside of the states, and between them)”
22
.
In this sense cosmo-
politanism does not at all oppose the state or local communities. On the contrary, they
allow to guarantee a cosmopolitan variety of identities if the state and communities are
liberally organized.
Though A.Appadurai believes that today there have come hard times for patriotism,
nevertheless it is still possible to find its new interpretations. Appiah, for example, uses the
concept of “a cosmopolitan patriot”: “A cosmopolitan patriot can accept the possibility of
the existence of the world in which everyone is an implanted cosmopolitan connected
with his own house, with his cultural features, but who can still find pleasure in the ex-
istence of other differing places, being the houses of other differing people”
23
. Habermas
works with the concept of “constitutional patriotism” synthesizing cosmopolitan institu-
tions with the new understanding of national identity.
In view of the aforesaid let us pay attention to the following thesis of Beck: going
through a cosmopolitan crisis means that people worldwide call in question the collec-
tive future as it contradicts the nationally founded memory of the past. It changed the
perspective of identity construction as a desirable future. People lack the memory of the
global past, but at the same time there is the imagination of the collective future as cosmo-
politan society. Beck notes that two types of imagination, namely, national and cosmopol-
itan, are focused on the past and on the future. However, the methodological nationalism
starts with the consequences for the future of the general national past, the imagined past,
while methodological cosmopolitanism starts with the consequences of the present for
the global general future, the imagined future. The future, instead of the past “integrates”
a cosmopolitan epoch
24
. But for all that we face a very important contradiction between
consciousness and action: global understanding of the general collective future does not
include adequate forms of action as the latter are based only on the last, non-global ex-
perience. Continuing Beck’s idea we shall say that the cosmopolitan crisis in its especially
acute form is expressed as the crisis of identity.
52
Grigory Minenkov
Hence, in a political context, one needs to move outside the limits of rigid political
divisions. As for Belarus both the authoritarian power and the old opposition, especially
its “national” wing, still remain within the limits of “methodological nationalism” and it
is not important with what sign. Here lies the source of inconsistency and failure of their
projects to construct identity. Intuitively a new Belarusian opposition which began to
grow and to be organized “from below”, has expressed modern tendencies of politics by
its address to the world, freedom, self-esteem of an individual, not limited by the language
or national frameworks. It is in this quality that it became clear to the world and will
become clearer to mass consciousness that is also intuitively cosmopolitan and open. It
is not surprising that this mindset of the new opposition consciousness turned to be the
force which, despite all obstacles created by the state mass-media, became a source of
destruction of
the brainwashed consciousness
25
.
In general Appiah describes cosmopolitan identity in the following way: “In fact, I
claim, that it is possible to be a cosmopolitan by welcoming a variety of human cultures;
implanted - devoted to one (or several) local society which the individual considers to be
his home; a liberal - convinced of the value of an individual; a patriot - welcoming institu-
tions of the state (or states) in which the individual lives. Cosmopolitanism results from
the same sources which also feed liberalism as it is the variety of forms of people’s lives
that provides the dictionary for the language of an individual choice. Patriotism results
from liberalism because the state persistently creates space within the limits of which
we open opportunities for freedom. For the implanted cosmopolitan all of this is one
whole”
26
. At the same time it is essential to understand Appadurai’s idea that postnational
movements and identities have not yet found ways out beyond the logics of the nation-
state that often leads
them to violent practices
27
.
According to A. Appadurai, with the emergence of the symbolical worlds of the global
cultural industries the sameness of the state, society and national identity is cancelled:
the idea about possible lives cannot be understood exclusively in a national, ethnic or
any other particular sense. Special attention should be concentrated on what is called
today deritorialization which covers not only economic trends but also ethnic groups,
social movements and political formations overcoming specific territorial borders and
identities. Daily imagination of people is not connected not so exclusively with the given
geopolitical space and its cultural identities. Even garbage men live in the garbage of world
community and due to this garbage they are included into the circulation of symbols of
the global cultural industry.
All the aforesaid means, that the concept of civil identity shall be put into the cen-
ter of imagination of the Belarusian identity as the European and cosmopolitan identity.
For the first time the connection of cosmopolitanism with citizenship was established by
Kant who put forward the idea of guarantees of the world citizenship right for everybody.
Civilization will be protected from barbarity only when the core legal relation will operate
globally. But Beck says that here we deal with a paradox. It is believed that the guarantee
of fundamental rights presumes the presence of the nation-state. But how then can one