Europe Needs a New Identity by Fareed Zakaria

November 21, 2005 U.S. Edition

Europe Needs a New Identity
Theory and practice diverge sharply. Europeans claim to have given up their old national identities, but have they really?
By Fareed Zakaria

Ten days is a lifetime in the world of journalism thesedays. We've now been through two cycles of commentary on the French riots. The first saw the troubles as part of the broader clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. "Falluja-Sur-Seine?" asked the neoconservative Weekly Standard. The columnist Mark Steyn went further, drawing dark parallels to the Muslim conquest of Europe in the eighth century. But the riots had little to do with Islam. There were no green flags, no crescent signs, no slogans about Palestine, no rhetoric about Islam. The young men interviewed were irreligious and talked about respect, jobs and discrimination, not jihad, suicide and virgins in paradise. The pictures looked more like those of America's race riots in the 1960s than of Fallujah or Ramallah.

The next wave of analysis focused on economics. France has a staggeringly high unemployment rate in its ethnic ghettos, ranging from 15 to 30 percent. It has produced only a few hundred thousand private-sector jobs over the past 25 years, while the United States has generated almost 50 million. But if the chief cause of trouble is unemployment, there are millions of unemployed Frenchmen who are white and of European descent, and they are not rioting. France has a work problem. The country has the shortest number of hours worked per capita in the entire industrialized world.

The average Frenchman works 24 percent fewer hours than in 1970. The average American, by contrast, works 20 percent more. Last year's best seller "Bonjour Paresse" ("Hello Laziness") is a satirical description of the dreary work environment in French companies. ("Rule No. 5: Never accept a position of responsibility for any reason. You'll only have to work harder for what amounts to peanuts.") This cocktail of unemployment, underemployment and stagnation is not an Arab problem, it's a French problem.

France's current crisis is in reality a combination of several factors, including those listed above. But it is fundamentally a problem of national identity. And this is not a peculiarly French problem. Western Europe today has almost as many foreign-born citizens as does the United States. But its countries don't think of themselves as immigrant nations. The centers of society remain tightly knit, insular and largely homogenous.

Theory and practice diverge sharply. Europeans claim to have given up their old national identities, but have they really? France speaks of a republic of values, but scratch beneath the surface and it is a republic of cloistered communities. Other European countries speak of postreligious, postnational identities, but at heart they remain countries where identity is defined by family, community and territory. This is, after all, what so many of us find admirable about Europe. Its communities are rooted in specific places-terroir. People don't move; they give a place a sense of historical continuity. The ties to the land remain deep. But these very traits-seen in those wonderful French movies about the countryside-become deeply oppressive to outsiders struggling to find a place at the table. A recent French study showed that job applicants with "French-sounding names" had 50 times the chance of being interviewed as those with Arab- or African-sounding names.

Solving this problem is a matter of survival for Europe. These "foreigners" are citizens; they have to be integrated. In fact, for Europe to prosper it needs more immigrants. Europe's economies are not quite as sclerotic as people imagine. The biggest cause of its lower growth rate is a lack of immigration. And things are only going to get worse. Put simply, Europe has too many retirees and too few workers. The only real solution to this is some increased immigration. But if immigration ineluctably causes social chaos, Europe is doomed.

What is the solution? Is it is a Frenchman's nightmare-Americanization? In some ways, yes. France and other European countries need to move closer to a national identity based on ideas and values. And they need to take active measures-like affirmative action-to integrate their new minorities. Without affirmative action (in schools, colleges, business, the armed forces), America would not have the sizable black middle class that it does today, which is the most effective balm to the problem of race relations.

One country has moved in that direction, with notable results. Britain has over the past 20 years redefined its identity. In a remarkable discussion in Prospect magazine last April, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown explained his definition of British identity: "A belief in tolerance and liberty, a sense of civic duty, a sense of fair play, a sense of being open to the world." When pushed as to whether these were really in any meaningful sense "British," Brown persisted, saying, "[These are] the ideas that underpin our history. We were talking about liberty and opportunity long before America was established. And America is based on British ideas ... And if you look at British history, then the fact that four nations eventually came together means that Britishness could never be based on ethnic identity."

Britain has not solved this problem. But it is searching for a solution that honors the past, embraces the present and prepares it for the future. One cannot say as much for the rest of Europe.