From Sarajevo - the oldest preserved multicultural city in Europe - I went to Prague, which lost its multiculturality by this painful "solution" of the mixed border zones some fifty years ago. Thanks to a guest professorship at the technical University in Vienna I have now the opportunity to discover a new kind of arising contemporary multiculturality. From my experiences, I accumulated in Sarajevo, Prague and Vienna, I will here try to formulate some ideas about the modern multiculturality. The now disappearing inherited multiculturality of Sarajevo seems to be a relic of the past, therefore I will attempt to develop some more modern concepts of multiple identity borders within human mind.
Borders and its perception
Two remarks from my friends in Vienna were important for my own understanding of that city and Austria in general.
To the simple question concerning my own national identity I was unable to give a simple answer. Some people in my country considered my family name as a typical Jewish one - the family name being a usual form of identification there. From a Jewish viewpoint my father was not a Jew, despite our name. His mother, my grandmother, was born in a strong catholic Polish family from northern Bosnia. In order to marry her my grandfather - a rather agnostic Jewish physician - converted to the roman church. On my mother's side the grandfather was Hungarian and his spouse a Croatian protestant - but there too things were not as simple as they seem. In the Hungarian language my mother"s maiden name signify "Turk" - and that was the name given to immigrants from southern regions under Turkish rule. Some Hungarian Jews had the same family name, but he could as well be a Bosnian, Serb or even a genuine Turk. My friends reacted with eh remark that I am essentially a typical Austrian, or that I have at least similar roots like most people from Vienna.
The second remark concerns my Balkan origins. One friend said that the Balkans are not as far from Vienna as it is generally supposed, because the border occurs along the famous Vienese circular road - Gürtel. The other considered that Vienna itself is a Balkan city. Both these images are imprinted by the typical European concept - shared by ourselves from Balkans - that the whole Balkan region is nothing else than a highly problematic border zone. In one simple word this concept implies the large variety of unsolved national questions, that are made extremely complicated by nation-states. The possibility that Vienna encounters problems similar to these border zones was rather a surprise for me.
Borders, as well as their ethnic foundations, are principally a result of the culture. Our cultural circle originated in eastern Mediterranean and eventually spread out over the whole Earth, so it now influences the larger part of humankind. This cultural circle generated a remarkably complex form of culture, that is customarily described as civilisation. Civilisation is a result of urban style of life and its name comes from the Latin word for the city. By its essential characteristic, civilisation is not simply a farther development of culture; it also tends to substitute the pre-urban culture in its original culture, that evolved in its own way. Contrary to civilisation, original culture in its original form. However, the spread of civilisation did not fully replace the original culture. It remains much more simple, even simplistic, and it is not surprising that there is a continual - albeit more latent than openly admitted - conflict between these two styles of culture.
The original, pre-urban culture is based on the extremely strong spirit of a closed group is ruled by the primitive spirit of family clan and of that is - regardless its formal manifestation - based upon the concept of race, ethnic group or nation. In the city a person is considered a complete citizen if she/he accepts and respects the complicated rules of urban life style. One inherits the membership in a pre-urban culture by her/his birth, but the membership in an urban group is the result of a free choice.
Nowadays a rising part of humankind lives in cities and the industrial culture - that produced the actual nation-state - rapidly transforms itself into something we do not know yet how to describe. Moreover, the spread of global communication makes it impossible for human groups to continue to be isolated by nation-state borders. After the disappearance of communism, this evolution is the growing trend and not only in Europe. While the outer borders lose their importance, numerous people feel some apprehension when they have to define their own identity. Lacking precisely defined borders, they are distressed by the question how to defend themselves from the potentially dangerous "others". Within the rising number of big cities there are not clear borders and people search to re-create some new, comprehensible frontiers, as the accustomed backbone of their own identity.
Borders and the identity
In Vienna, as well as in most other big cities, it is extremely difficult to define comprehensible frontiers between "us " and "others". Therefore one can easily conclude that the overall conditions in Vienna are rather similar to these in a problematic zone, for example in the Balkans.
On the other hand, due to the general paranoid communist attitude, Prague had for almost half a century an unequivocal, from the ethnic viewpoint "clean" population. At the time I went there, at the end of 1992, this situation was ending. Some of my Prague friends were delighted that their city developed again the prosperous multiculturality of the first republic and the Austro-Hungarian empire. Numerous others were troubled by the rapid progression of cultural diversity. with more than twenty thousand North Americans, miscellaneous emigrants from former Yugoslavia, numerous immigrant workers from Poland, Ukraine and Vietnam, the national situation changed rapidly. For numerous Prague citizens the question of their own identity became a controversial one, particularly because they suddenly missed the usual clear line between "us" and "others".
Of course,my explanation that we in Sarajevo had a really rich and happy life in a greatly mixed multicultural environment did not persuade my Prague friends. It is certainly not easy to understand that the actual bloodshed in former Yugoslavia is not an inevitable consequence of the urban cultural mix, but the extreme expression of the ancient conflict between two styles of culture - the civilisation and the original pre-urban culture. The conflict did not erupt in our cities and its purpose is not the control over cities - its objective is much more the destruction of urban centres than to gain control over them. The ultimate purpose of the war is the final eradication of these places that reject visible borders between "us" and "others". Under the pretext of liberating Vukovar the city has been destroyed. The same thing happened during more than three years in Sarajevo, and even in the presumably "liberated" Banja Luka, that is the Serbian capital of Bosnia.
This way of destructive "liberation" of cities by nationalists is nothing new in European history. The Nazi movement wanted to re-establish the German national identity by eradicating even the word city - within the Third Reich there was no room for cities, all purified Germans should live in "settlements". In the same spirit, and because the urban environment refuses distinctive borders and creates ambiguous and multiform identities, early Soviet planners invented a particular urban planning practice that was called "de-urbanization".
The Nazi and Soviet rulers, as well as our fervent defenders of national purity, were unable to consider the basic problem of identity without clear limitations. Therefore they all detest the city, where these borders do not even exist. On the contrary, most of my friends consider the city the best place to live. I appreciate very much the possibility to immerse myself in a totally different environment without being forced to cross some frontier - and this is possible only in a truly multicultural city like Vienna. Since I live in Prague there are more and more opportunities for similar experiences. The diversity and tolerance of the city allow numerous people have simultaneously and there to have at the same time more than one basic identity - without becoming schizophrenic. One can feel absolutely Viennese without being forced to abandon her/his ancestral Balkanic, Italian or other identity. One can at the same time feel strongly homosexual or atheist, without any constraint to be less Viennese.
Imposed and elected identity
This way of building one's own multiple identity is certainly not easy. Although we in Europe consider ourselves highly civilised, the majority of us still have a strong need for clear and unequivocal borders and a feeling of belonging to the nation of our forefather. The process of urbanisation was extremely fast and only a minority has been able to cope with all the consequences of individual freedom and responsibility. The old pre-urban culture seems to have such a strong influence on urban people that many have huge difficulties to liberate themselves from the magic of clear and unequivocal identity - imposed identity seems to be more attractive than the effort required to strengthen these multiple identities.
I am convinced that the deliberate choice of identity, free by individual conscience and responsibility, is the modern (or post-modern) world. Within the actual "global village" there are no efficient ways to isolate and defend some group from the multitude and diversity of influences from "others". So we have to learn to live with these numerous intrusions in our most intimate privacy and, if possible, take an advantage of them. It is certainly not a great achievement of civilisation, but it is a marvellous feeling around the Viennese Naschmarkt (flea market) one can choose between the traditional Austrian and Italian, Greek or Turkish food.
If we do not want to smuggle into the "global village" the obsolete and uncivilised customs of strong borders and unique national identity - as it occurs now in former Yugoslavia - we should accept and cultivate the more civilised understanding of a multiple, freely chosen identity.
Prague, March 18, 1996
Krasnogruda nr 8, Sejny 1998, Pogranicze.