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July 08, 2015
International Seminar Lays the Foundation for the “A Europe of Diasporas” Network
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The three-day seminar brought together 40 activists, academics and specialists from 15 countries to compare experiences between the Armenian, Jewish and Roma diasporas in Europe. -
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During the seminar, participants had the opportunity to report on their concerns and aspirations and explore fields in which cooperation may be particularly useful, such as countering hate speech and discrimination.
Seminar brings together members of the Armenian, Jewish and Roma communities to promote the value of diasporas
On June 28, 2015, AGBU Europe, the European Union of Jewish Students and Phiren Amenca jointly launched their groundbreaking project “A Europe of Diasporas” with a three-day seminar in Paris. The event brought together 40 activists, academics and specialists from 15 countries to compare experiences between the Armenian, Jewish and Roma diasporas in Europe.
The “A Europe of Diasporas” network will aim to help develop, affirm and popularize the notion of European diasporas and encourage the idea that identities need not be tied to a territory or to a source of authority to be legitimate and valuable. “We believe the affirmation of diasporas will be important for the rest of society in Europe as well as for the groups concerned. The network also explores opportunities that Europe can provide diasporas and those that diasporas can provide Europe. Together we will seek to develop a practical agenda as a basis for a common dialogue with European institutions,” said Nicolas Tavitian, director of AGBU Europe.
During the seminar, participants had the opportunity to report on their concerns and aspirations and explore fields in which cooperation may be particularly useful, such as countering hate speech and discrimination. They also resolved to cooperate regarding the remembrance and commemoration of genocides, events that have affected all three groups and whose legacies are still perceptible in European society.
The seminar was set against a background of increasingly frequent and violent manifestations of anti-Semitism in Europe, discrimination and hostile public discourse against the Roma and by tensions and international debates over the recent commemorations of the Armenian Genocide.
The seminar also welcomed guest speakers Georges Prevelakis, professor at Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, and Philippe Lazar, editor of the journal Diasporiques, to discuss the diasporic phenomenon and the prospects of diasporas in modern European societies. Prevelakis emphasized the importance of diasporas as networks, their historical role as networks of trust in trade and their resurgence in importance in international companies. Lazar examined the culture of diasporas, arguing that their transnational connectedness is a step toward the breakdown of the barriers that separate individual identities. Lazar went so far as to advocate for the formal recognition of diasporas at the international level. “The minimum now would be to ask the United Nations to extend, what they called in 1945, a principle of ‘self-determination of peoples’ to the right for any ‘people’ to live in diaspora and not only in a nation-state. Such a decision would first allow for creating the basis for a genuine recognition of the right to exist for populations not possessing their own territory, such as the Roma in Europe,” said Lazar.
The next seminar will be held in Budapest in October 2015 and will deal with initiatives related to the discovery and promotion of the contribution of diasporas to the making of Europe. The third seminar in the series—to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria in January 2016—will focus on matters relating to education.
For more information on “A Europe of Diasporas,” please visit http://agbueurope.org/programs/a-europe-of-diasporas/.
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