Seminar on The National Question in Central-Eastern Europe

The Association for the Development of the Romanian Social Forum (AD FSR), with the support and participation of the transform! europe network and of the GUE/NGL Euro Parliamentary Group represented by Ms. Gabi Zimmer MEP, are organizing the Seminar “The National Question in Central-Eastern Europe” from 21 to 22 April 2012 in Bucharest, Romania.

Apparently, people have been questing for their identity, both as individuals and groups, since time immemorial. In turn, the concept of identity has been perceived in a multitude of forms, varying from individual to national, from cultural to religious or political.

It is notorious that the national question in Central-Eastern Europe has caused political, social, economic, cultural and religious clashes ending in social disruption, ethnic hatred, geopolitical fragmentation and, eventually, in wars followed by neo-liberal “regulatory” interventions.

The revival of extreme nationalism, ethnocentrism and chauvinism in Romania after 1989, the falling apart of former Yugoslavia following the Civil War in the 1990s ending in frozen conflicts, the unresolved Hungarian-Romanian ethnic issues in Transylvania, the Romanian-Moldavian-Russian-Ukrainian frozen disputes, the rise of neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, and racism in Hungary, Germany, Austria, and in other Central-Eastern European countries lately, all more than justify the need for such an initiative.

What could be the responses of progressive social and political actors to the challenging questions deriving from the situation sketched above which has been unfolding on the set stage of a failing and ever more aggressive neoliberal European paradigm?

The seminar tackles the controversial issue of the national question in Central-Eastern Europe viewed in a complex interrelated perspective, i.e. as related to the historical-political past (cause-effect relation) and to the European project.

Objectives

The Objectives of the Seminar include (without being limited to):

• providing an appropriate space for the debate of the aforementioned;
•  setting up a strategic study based on the objective analysis of the contradictions existing in Central-Eastern Europe concerning sensitive aspects of the National Question, possibly challenging official approaches;
• opening a new European perspective to real Cultural and Political problems faced by people, in terms of Majority vs. Minority, and their legitimate representatives in this region;
• exploring the possibility of an internationalist platform for cooperation in finding democratic responses to the various frozen and potential conflicts, as well as to national contradictions in the region;
• gradually involving interested actors from other countries such as Greece, the Russian Federation, Turkey, etc, which are either linked with Central-Eastern Europe or/and have their own particular cases in this respect.

Links:

www.forumulsocialroman.ro

www.conferintasocialareunita.ro