From Resistance to European Integration
A guide book
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Local paths
Italian Local Path
Disinformation and Fake news dissemination in civic society public debate from Fascit Propaganda to nowadays risks.
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1: From Resistance to European Integration, evaluation on public knoledge and gap analysys at intergenerational level
2: Role of Propaganda and information manipulation between yesterday regime and today democratic context
3: Future prospectives: risks for Eu integration and democratic societies, EU integration as rule of law and democracy guarantee -
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1. Τhe causes that led to the rise of fascism in Europe and the second world war
2. Τhe persecutions against jews, roma and homosexuals
3. Τhe consequences of the war
4. Τhe instability of the democratic regime and dictatorship
5. Τhe return of democracy and the steps of progress -
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1. The Carnation Revolution (1974) as a peaceful democratic transition, ending authoritarian rule and colonial domination
2. The legacy of colonialism and post-colonial migration: the silenced histories of Lusophone African communities and their role in contemporary Portuguese society
3. The role of memory and commemorative practices (e.g. 50th anniversary of the Revolution and Mário Soares centenary) in shaping democratic awareness
4. Unarchiving Democracy: archives and non-Formal education Against racism and the Far Right -
The educational experience of Roma youth from communist times to democracy
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1. Communist Educational Policies and Youth: Indoctrination or Emancipation
2. Marginalization of Roma communities under Romania`s communist regime
3. Roma Youth and the struggle for equality in nowadays Romania
4. Roma educational inclusion -
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- Nazi past and the 3rd generation
- Overcomming totalitaris: the SPÖ in (re-) building democracy
- Telling NS History today
- Fighting fachism since 1945 -
Portuguese Local Path
Unarchiving democracy: Youth, Post-colonial memory and the portuguese democratic path
Greek Local Path
Modern Greek History: From Crisis to Democracy Marginalized Groups, Resistance and Social Change
Austrian Local Path
Trümmerfrauen (women clearing rubble in the early post-war years)
Introduction
Europe has had an incredible career after the end of the Second World War. This success was visible in a decade long period of economic growth, a growing wealth among lower social groups, the equality for women, the rule of human rights, pluralistic, liberal democratic societies, and a concept of overcoming nationalism in forms of areas economics and trade, with the high end of the ever-closer European Union.[1]
Out of 27 EU member states all but one (Sweden) have been under totalitarian regimes, some of them even endured multiple authoritarians, and/or totalitarian regimes like Poland or Rumania others suffered foreign occupation like Denmark or the Baltic states. While this general statement is undoubtedly true, the great diversity of different regimes such as National Socialism, Italian Fascism, Stalinism, or the fascist regimes of the Iberian Peninsula or Greece should not be equated with one another.
This Guidebook is based on the EU-funded FREI[2] project. During the project's duration and beyond, the Guidebook will document the methodology, source material of various media, and key findings from the project's progress.
We have to state that the Guidebook is not and was not intended to be a scientific work. It is a hybrid form of work-in-progress-report, a guide to applying new methodologies and didactics in (school) knowledge transfer and an offer of very eloquent, previously less noticed or partially forgotten sources and narratives in the context of the project subject.
The Guidebooks aims to document the strengths and simultaneous vulnerabilities of our liberal, pluralistic democracies and to discuss strategies for strengthening this form of state organization, especially for and with young people and young adults.
None of the national democracies at focus of FREI has emerged without considerable, often brutal and warlike resistance. Freedom, human rights, and democracy must always be won against strong, deeply rooted forces within societies. In extreme cases such as Germany, Italy, or Austria, it was even the complete military defeat of the totalitarian systems and a controlling occupation that made the reconstruction[3] of democracy possible.
FREI is emphasising the term and model of liberal, pluralistic democracy, as we notice a growing intent in Europe to re-interpret democracy to a mere majority-rule system based on elections and referenda, quite often not fair, free or transparent. It would be beyond the scope of FREI to go deeper in an analysis here, but we just hint to the dead of democracy in the Russian Federation, and the steady process of hollowing out rules and practices liberal, pluralistic democracy within and outside the EU. The cases of Hungary with its illiberal model and Serbia as EU-candidate country in the heart of the continent are among the most alarming.
The progress of the project and the documentation presented here also document the close nexus between human rights, the rule of law, and democracy on the one hand, peace, and welfare of nations, and European integration on the other.
The current status of the European Union[4] as well as of the concept of liberal, pluralistic democracy and been portrait as in danger or even on retreat against new, most rights authoritarian trends[5]. Most recently our societal oder has been described as “in transit”[6]. While the entire concept of “the West” has been negated.[7]
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While European (and US) democracies have clearly shown weaknesses and negative trends in perception of its citoyens and authoritarian concepts have been on the rise throughout the “West”, FREI does not abide in lamenting the decline of democracy or the European idea based on it.
What is interpreted as a weakness in the current debate about liberal, pluralist democracy is at the same time one of its greatest strengths. If it initially appears paradoxically, a more precise analysis of the historical development shows the tremendous radiance of democracy for all those living without freedom. It is equal opportunities, fundamental rights, rule of law, freedom of the individual and therefore of the sciences and arts that reveal the enormous potential of liberal democracies.
How important the freedoms and rights fought for 80, 60, or 40 years ago are today is brilliantly demonstrated by Alexand(e)r Baunov’s recent study[8]. Alexander Baunov talks about how the dictatorships of these three countries tried to prolong their existence and ended, about the differences and similarities of this transition as a result of the peaceful transformation in Spain, the revolutionary events in Portugal and the military adventure in Greece, and about people , thanks to or in spite of which this transition took place. On the example of the fall of the autocracies in Spain, Portugal and Greece, of which Portugal and Greece are subject of our work at FREI, Baunov convincingly demonstrates the potent of the democratic concept. In his study he sees signs of possible influence on the current situation of Russia and a possible way out for the oppressed Russian population. Democracy today does not necessarily have to be described as dying and increasingly meaningless.
FREI demonstrates the history of building rule of law, human rights, liberal democratic democracy and membership in the European Union in their historical sequence for Italy, Austria, Greece, Portugal and Romania. It shows the diversity of systems of oppression and disenfranchisement. It evokes the diversity of forms of resistance and the transitions from dictatorship to freedom and growing democracy. It also documents the uncertainties associated with the change. Finally, the project demonstrates that democracy was built slowly, by many, and against resistance over a long period of time. It also shows how important the engagement of external forces was for the positive outcome of the transition processes in all of the analysed cases.
The guidebook thus provides support for understanding democracies in Europe. It also demonstrates the unity in diversity that characterizes the European Union today. Last but not least, the Guidebook, like the entire FREI project, provides an opportunity to understand the significance of the Union's democratic commitment, both internally and externally. The target group of youth and young adults lives their freedoms, opportunities and rights in the project partner countries and in the entire EU also due to the commitment, sometimes the blood sacrifice, of internal resistance but also of foreign forces.
This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen. Consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union - TITLE I: COMMON PROVISIONS - Article 1.
From Resistance to European Integration, FREI, 101196066 FREI.
The term reconstruction as well as the complete military defeat may not be fully applicable for the case of Italy.
Ivan Krastev, After Europe, Penn University Press, 2017.
Ibid.
Ulrich Menzel, Übergänge, Suhrkamp, Berlin 2023
Naoise MAC SWEENEY The West: A New History of an Old Idea. London: Ebury. 2023
Александр Германович Баунов, Конец режима: как закончились три европейские диктатуры» о падении автократий в Испании, Португалии и Греции во второй половине XX века, (The End of a Regime: How Three European Dictatorships Ended” about the fall of the autocracies in Spain, Portugal and Greece in the second half of the 20th century