ΑΛΛΗΛΕΓΓΥΗ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ: ΕΞΕΛΙΞΕΙΣ ΣΤΟ ΠΕΔΙΟ ΤΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΦΥΓΙΚΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΤΑΣΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΡΟΚΛΗΣΕΙΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ
34 The concept and dimensions of solidarity the most humane of pretexts, including solidarity, a post-critical critique ought to proceed at and develop from a deeper analytical level. Our efforts need to fo- cus more on the political relocation of solidarity as imagined and practiced today. To my understanding, this presupposes upsetting the dominant practices and dis- courses that delimit our political imagination and the locus of politics itself (and of Europe). The distance we have covered so far is indeed great and the conceptual detour of solidarity attempted here aimed not at identifying the etymon , the one and true origin to which solidarity needs to return, but at revealing this distance and unearthing the antagonisms in this development. In the works of Marx, Lassalle, Bernstein and Kautsky, as well as in the later works of Emile Durkheim, the con- cept of brotherhood, for example, is syncretized with that of solidarity, connoting freedom from slavery and paid labour, as well as the alliance against the tyrants. 58 Sixty years earlier, one of the maxims of the French Revolution “ liberté, egalité, fraternité ” claimed for freedom and equality for all men in the context of a uni- versal, global brotherhood that knows no limits, political or national. As we well know, however, these ‘universal’ principles came to be eventually substantiated only within the context of the modern nation state and of interstate relations. This historical development till nowadays seems both tragic and farcical: From the brotherhood of humanity to Napoleon’s code civil , from the solidarity of the Paris Commune to the maxim “Order and Progress” of the Third French Republic, and from that to Pétain’s “Work, Family, Homeland”; eventually, from the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the moral norm, the contempo- rary spirit of human behaviour, of humanitarianism, philanthropy and the politics of mercy and compassion, and then to humanitarian intervention and the Respon- sibility to Protect. 59 Indicative is also the fact that although the Constitution of the United States has included in its provisions the Title of Nobility Clause, it is devoid of any reference to the concept of brotherhood ( fraternité ) or, more understanda- bly, solidarity. In the American Declaration of Independence, similarly, the French slogan is turned into “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. An explicit ref- erence to fraternité may be absent, yet it remains implicit and pertaining to a (male and white) aristocratic elite. 60 58. See in more detail Steinar Stjernø, Solidarity in Europe: The History of an Idea , Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 59. See, for example, David Campbell, “Why fight? Humanitarianism, principles and post- structuralism”, Millennium Journal of International Studies , Vol. 27, No. 3, 1998, pp. 497-521. See also Tonny Brems Knudsen, Humanitarian Intervention: Contemporary Manifestation of an Explosive Doctrine , London: Routledge, 2012. 60. See Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach, “Fraternity, solidarity, and civic friendship”, AMITY: The Journal of Friendship Studies , Vol. 3, No. 1, 2015, pp. 3-18.
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