Essay On European Identity

In the 1930s and 40s Europeans experienced violence and disorder on an unprecedented scale. Although Europe had seen mass social, political, economic, and cultural changes in the past, as with the Enlightenment, the revolutions of the 1860s and 1870s, even going as far back as the Renaissance, never before had Europe experienced such a massive shift in social structure and power dynamics as what resulted from World War II. The destruction of towns and cultural centers, the relocation of groups rigidly defined by ethnicity or nationality, and the reversal of power dynamics and the effect on nationalism changed the way the European defined their identity as a European. The European identity split according to the two postwar experiences of civilians

The next few centuries featured reformations and revolutions that influenced by Renaissance schools of thought. These ideals fostered the creation of the image of the Enlightened European, which lead the stereotype of Europe as a center for progress, culture, and forward thinking. While the accuracy of this image is debatable, it was the image Europeans created for themselves and presented to the world. However, with the events of both World War I and World War II, the idea of the civilized, cultured European was shattered. Europe’s image of a center for learning and cultural activity was destroyed by bombs and fighting on a mass scale. With the bombing of London, once the center for the World’s Fair, the image of the Europeans changed to one of a violent, warlike people, bloodthirsty and savage. A contrasting identity of the helpless European emerged along side the barbarian image. The refugee crisis was well publicized, along with the popular images of GIs handing out rations to starving European children and families, along with the sharp increase in the number of relief organizations devoted to aiding

This European is weak and feeble, and is the European identity developed in countries occupied by outside nations in the postwar period. This is seen in occupied France, with the feminization of French men and the relationships American GIs had with French women. The French felt weak, especially in the emasculation of the French male, and needed an outlet for their anger, which lead to a diluted form of violence towards French women who had affiliated with Nazis. However, these attacks were not violent; they were meant to humiliate and shame as opposed to the retributive violence carried out in other areas where the people identified more with the image of the violent and bloodthirsty