European Centre for Art, Culture and Science

Monday May 26 2008 / Europe

Paralysed by sense of guilt

According to the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner, Europe has assumed a strange attitude. However much we are against injustice, we often look away where authoritarian regimes and intolerable religions in the former colonies are concerned. This aloofness is the result of a sense of guilt towards what we have caused in the past. However, this now brings about a dangerous and easygoing attitude that betrays our highest ideals, as Bruckner demonstrates in his book The tyranny of penitence (2007). Europe must free itself from its sickly self-accusation and interfere immediately in situations where human rights are violated.

Bruckner will discuss these matters with Jan Pronk (former UN delegate in Darfur and author of the election programme of the PvdA for Europe). Moderator: Mient-Jan Faber (professor Faculty Social Sciences, VU University Amsterdam)

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