Training grounds for democracy” “

The process of enlargement marks the “overcoming of an unnatural division” of Europe: so said John Paul II , on the occasion of his historic address to the Italian Parliament. Today, the Pope’s words seem even more prophetic, following the recent summit in Copenhagen, which opened the way to the European Union enlarged to 25 countries. The Pope recurred to the question of the unity of Europe on 8 December, when he invited “all the Europeans to be united, so as to continue to offer hope and trust also to other peoples”. Present at the audience were also the participants of the “2nd Forum of the students of the oldest universities of Europe”, held in Rome from 7 to 10 December, in preparation for the Symposium of the CCEE (Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe) to be held in Rome from 17 to 20 July 2003, on the theme “University and Church in Europe” (cf. SirEurope nos. 30, 34 & 35/2002). Below we present some “thoughts” of the rectors on the process of enlargement now underway in our continent. Poland: integration, not “standardization”. “Today we’re all Europeans”, but “divided into categories: those already integrated, those in the process of being integrated and those on the waiting list”. The point is made by Maria Nowaroska, vice-rector of the University of Krakow, according to whom the universities too must make their contribution to ensure that “European integration is complete: we must not divide the continent, but integrate it. But we must do so on the basis of the consciousness that ‘integration’ does not mean ‘standardization’, but respect for one’s own identity in a spirit of partnership with other nations”. Only thus, according to Nowaroska, can the university become “a training ground for democracy”; as it has been and continues to be for Poland, which has “helped the new generation to learn how to ‘construct’ a democratic state, after regaining our independence in 1989”. Bosnia: “rebuilding bridges”. The famous bridge of Mostar, destroyed by the war, has become the “symbol” of the tragedy in Bosnia: so it is fitting that it should be from Mostar that the appeal is now being made to “reconstruct the system of the universities”, creating “bridges” able to “tackle the changes taking place”. “The relation between culture and globalization – argues Elbisa Ustamujic, rector of the University of Mostar – needs to be put to the test at all levels and in all fields, including that of religion, through a greater opening to dialogue. Ideologies and political cynicism may generate conflicts with tragic consequences, such as genocide: that’s what happened in the two world wars, and also in Bosnia”. Hence the need, in the process of European enlargement, to “formulate unifying criteria that may enable us to rediscover and repropose the universal value of culture, as the vehicle of peace and tolerance”. Slovakia: no to “technological supremacy”. “The transformations taking place in academic life reflect the transformations of the systems of thought in society”, and the “risk” is that of a “technological supremacy” that may compromise “a view of man based on the primacy of ethics over market forces”. Convinced of this is Dusan Mlynarcik, vice-rector of the University of Bratislava, according to whom the enlargement of Europe “must be based on striking the right balance between technological and scientific progress on the one hand and social development based on the primacy of the moral life, on the other”. Austria and Norway: “secularization” and “mobility”. “Secularization”, which “has led to the crisis of the traditional churches” and to a “religion that has almost ‘disappeared’ from the private sphere”, has produced two opposing trends” in contemporary Europe, “divided between the proponents and the opponents” of the phenomenon. That’s the opinion of Paul Zulehner, rector of the University of Vienna. The university’s task is still today, in his view, that of “struggling for freedom and justice”: even in the “affluent societies, in which each person risks becoming superfluous, if he fails to adapt, if he does not know enough, or if he possesses defective genes”. An appeal for “student mobility”, on the other hand, was made by Lucy Smith, vice-rector of the University of Oslo, who considers the projects promoted by the EU in this field “a means of contributing to peace in the world, through dialogue between different cultures”. Maria Michela Nicolais