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In troubled times, Europe asks: What does being 'European' really mean?

From islanders on the front lines of the refugee crisis, to those living in Europe’s biggest metropolises, to those tucked into rural communities far removed from the politics of their capitals, many feel that the European Union is at a crossroads.

Michal Nielub, a local activist in Slupsk, Poland

Sara Miller Llana/The Christian Science Monitor
Michal Nielub, a local activist in Slupsk, Poland.

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His country, the star pupil of post-communist Europe, elected an ultra conservative, patriotic government that has butted heads with the EU. Some Poles even talk about leaving the bloc they clamored to join.

"Where my grandparents are from is not clear because Poland in the past was in actual Belarus. They were from Kresy [eastern borderlands]. After the war they were deported because our border was changed.

"… I was born in Slupsk. I have lived all my life here. I can say that first of all I am Polish. Second I am from Slupsk. Third I am European. I say this because I am patriotic. I am not nationalist. I want to be clear on that, because I know what the consequences were in the past connected with nationalism.

"... We have to cooperate with the West but they also have to think about our goals, our identity, our national interests. A lot of countries are not satisfied with European Union policy right now. There is a lot of bureaucracy, and they don’t want to participate in that. … Also in Poland, we have strong exit tendencies. I have got a lot of friends, when we are talking about the European Union, they say they want to exit. I’m not sure that is the right way. But I don’t like the bureaucracy, a lot of the regulations, and so on."

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

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“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

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