Let me cite a voice...

But who is speaking when claiming the right to "our" history and "our" stories? Let me cite a voice, whose right to speak on the topic of both European cinematograph and European politics is indisputable, the Polish moviemaker Krzysztof Za-nussi, who in a lecture originally given at the Ebeltoft European Movie College in Denmark in May 1993 argued that Western Europe is turning its back on the future, just at the moment that the newly liberated countries of Eastern Europe (which from "his" perspective, are "Central Europe") expect to forge a joint future with a cultural community they have belonged to for a thousand years. Just as they are finally taking up their rightful place as Europeans, Western Europe seems to have given up, not only on them, but worse still, on itself. Faced with this loss of faith, Zanussi asked, can the nations of Central Europe, especially Poland and Hungary, infuse a new intellectual and cultural vigor, as they "reform" themselves yet again? 24 The competition for membership and partnership, in times of crisis, nevertheless, tends to take an ultra-conservative turn. Witness how the new (cultural) Europe has a right-wing inflection and a siege or fortress mentality: the Lombard League, Neo-fascists in Central Italy, Jorg Haider in Austria, Le Pen in France, Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, Christians banding together against the "Ottoman" threat, and on the Balkans, (Catholic) Croats fighting (Orthodox) Serbs, while both are also fighting (Muslim) Bosnians. Some commentators have pointed out the parallels between the fragmentation of a once common (high) culture, and what they see as the re-tribalization of the nation states, after the fall of communism and the end of the cold-war bipolar political world order. Not just ex-Yugoslavia or Russia, or the hostility to ethnic minorities in Western Europe but also the identity politics in the US, with the insistence on being more self-aware of one's racial or ethnic or religious identity. Unrealizable, though, to affirm a single national or ethnic identity through the cinematograph: it is more a question of how a country can speak to itself, how it is "spoken" by others, and how the others "inside" speak themselves or ask to be represented. Each national European cinematograph now produces representations of its own others, reflecting and reshaping its own multi-cultural society. In France, there is the cinematograph beur, there are movies about Turkish communities and by Turkish directors in Germany, and Dutch movies about multi-cultural experience are as a rule the ones recognized as most typical for the Netherlands' independent moviemaking sector. That there is a prevalence of the Romeo & Juliet/ WEST SIDE STORY motif in such movies, of families at war and of lovers seeking to bridge the gap, is perhaps an indication of the mythological narratives which are needed to give such experiences their specific resonance and local truth. Zanussi is raising issues that go beyond the question of a European cinematograph: the tasks of creating a (political) Europe, which its populations can recognize as theirs, give assent to and feel loyalty towards, is clearly one that the cinematograph is neither comprehensive of nor perhaps quite the right place for bringing about. And yet Zanussi touches on precisely this point: the possibility of the cinematograph to tell stories that may not amount to collective mythologies, but that are nonetheless comprehensive of resonating beyond national boundaries and linguistic borders. Even if mythologies are not the recipe for a renewed faith in liberal democracy or a critique of the market economy, the question of what can be "shared" in such a future European community is important. Whether the citizens of Poland, France, Denmark or Romania (or the Turkish, Moroccan or Afghan communities in Europe's midst) will, in the decades to come, vote only with their wallets at the supermarket, or also with the stories they watch and tell in the movies or on television. This question is one that the crisis of the European cinematograph in the 1990s at the very least helps to focus on.