47
European Identity as the Horizon of Belarusian Imagination
Let us then return to the concept of Abdiralovich according to which life on the bor-
der, fluctuations between the West and the East plus absence of a precise choice make up
the uniqueness of the Belarusian identity. However, it seems to us that the author simpli-
fies the problem to a certain extent. In fact, neither “the West”, nor “the East” represent
anything uniform in reality. They are always constructions determined by time and politi-
cal problems, and one cannot interpret them apart from history. We shall refer to the ideas
of Bhabha again as there cannot be any in advance pre-set cultural qualities rigidly fixed
by tradition, but there is a process of continuous construction, especially in the situations
of historical transformations. The following words of Bhabha refer directly to the situa-
tion of the Belarusian borderland: ““The right” to assign meanings (concerning relations
between the periphery and the authorized authority) is not defined at all by the domina-
tion of tradition; each time it is articulated anew by means of the tradition power display
in the conditions of uncertainty and discrepancy of the life of those “in minority”. The
recognition of everything introduced by tradition is only a partial form of identification.
The invention of traditions is carried out through the past re-structuring and entering
into it of different time related cultural constructions. This process is complicated by the
direct access to primary identity and the “inherited” tradition. Border collisions of cultural
distinctions can both reach a consensus and enter a conflict. They are capable of bringing
turmoil into our definitions of traditional and modern society, of altering the set borders
between the individual and the public, between the high and the low, of challenging the
traditional understanding of development and progress”
15
.
In connection with this we shall address the language of the identity border analysis
developed, first of all, within the framework of postcolonial research. In particular, we
shall talk about concepts of hybridity and hybrid identities. In many respects continuing S.
Holl’s ideas, Bhabha claims that a hybrid strategy or practice opens up the space of coor-
dination in which forces are unequal, but their articulation allows double interpretation.
Coordination makes it possible for an intermediate activity to rise. This activity rejects
binary representation of social antagonism. In other words, it means that such identity
occupies “the third space” between the space of colonizers and the space of the colonized,
i.e. it leads a border existence. It constantly crosses the border, not being anywhere specifi-
cally. Moreover, hybridity is the key to discussions of identity not only because it compli-
cates and thus protects from narrow categorizations but also because it fixates variability
and chance of identities, showing them as a consequence of specific chains of historical
events and ideas. It seems that an adequate development of the European discourses of
Belarus is possible only in this context.
The discourse of hybridity in this case intersects with a multicultural discourse. The
multicultural in a modern cultural and political discourse became “a floating signifier”
the mystery of which is hidden not so much inside it but in its discourse use needed to
identify social processes in which differentiation and condensation occur, apparently, al-
most simultaneously. Transitivity of culture, say, as in the Belarusian situation, opens more
ample opportunities for identity construction. Bhabha believes that attempts to build
48
Grigory Minenkov
closed cultures do not have any perspectives as they lead only to destruction and chaos.
One shall talk about the variety of critical perusal of these or those cultural texts turning
identity construction into a political process. According to Bhabha, the language of criti-
cism is effective “because it overcomes the preset oppositions and opens up the space of
transformation: speaking metaphorically, the space of hybridity where the construction of
a political object as a new one takes place, it meets our political expectations and neces-
sarily transforms the very form of the previous understanding of the political discourse”
16
.
That is why the priority of coordination above denial allows to develop hybrid identity in
a positive direction.
It is also important to consider the limits of application of such a language when
analyzing the Belarusian identity in the European measurement. As I. Bobkov says, when
referring to the problem of the Belarusian identity we discover the presence in the archive
of the European thinking of two strategies: universalization of the unique (the Belarusian
experience is considered to be a part of wider, patrimonial experience) and uniqueliza-
tion of the universal (the Belarusian experience is an incommensurable and incomparable
event). Political-cultural difference of consequences of both strategies is obvious. That is
why we shall agree with Bobkov that, “in today’s conditions in order for the Belarusian
culture to be integral and complete it shall be the culture of the borderland, the culture of
internal differentiation, meetings and transition of different (multidirectional, disputed)
cultural parts”
17
. In this plan liberation of Belarus from colonial consciousness and over-
coming by it of its provinciality are of vital importance.
Consequently, various strategies of Belarus’s joining the horizons of the European
identity are possible. In my opinion, the key strategy is the construction of the modern
Belarusian identity as the cosmopolitan identity. The overlapping in Belarus of various
cultural streams does not make it perspective to exclude any of them; rather it makes it
fruitful to achieve mutual recognition in the form of the cosmopolis construction under
the name of “Belarus” which can become an original model of the cosmopolis “Europe”.
In this case we do not proclaim the exclusiveness or centrality of the Belarusian topos, we
simply establish a real fact.
If earlier cosmopolitanism were viewed more negatively then today it is accepted
much more favorably; this is due to radical social changes and the rise of new identifica-
tion practices. Moreover, it is believed that specifically cosmopolitanism in the modern
fragmented world can become the basis for the coordination of diverse identities as it
hides the principle of primary equality of all people.
Cosmopolitanism as a certain ideology develops during the Age of Enlightenment
relying also on the ancient and Renaissance heritage. The most precise definition in its
classical form as political philosophy was given to the cosmopolitan idea by I. Kant. The
definition was based not on its opposition to nationalism, but on the theories exagger-
ating the role of a national state. To this day the concept of I. Kant remains the most
important philosophical source of modern normative theories of international relations,
including the concepts of a global civil society and transnational public sphere. However,
Dostları ilə paylaş: |