Europe's intellectuals need to quit playing the ‘identity game'

JURGEN Habermas is Germany's premier public philosopher. A long-standing friend of Joschka Fischer, the country's foreign minister, he has been the single most important voice in the interminable conflicts about German identity. Now, with a little help from his European friends, he has tried to launch a debate about the ‘rebirth of Europe' in the wake of the war in Iraq.