Isn’t Europe at risk of turning nationalist itself, at the EU level this time?
The notion of the EU as a, theoretically, infinitely extensible space of shared civic values: the rule of law, democracy, human rights, the social market economy.
The idea that the EU could and should be a model for the world was understandably popular in Brussels at the turn of the 21st century.
The euro crisis and 2015 refugee crisis showed the limits of European solidarity — let alone global solidarity.
While the EU has remained open to the east — both to new member states and Ukrainian refugees — it has been firmly shut to its south. Kundnani makes us think about what that difference says.
The idea of European unity as a means of defending its civilisation against the “Other” (Islam, communism, unbridled American capitalism) has a long genesis, going back to the Middle Ages. So does the concomitant idea of Europe’s “civilising mission”.
Charles Emmerson Financial Times 22 August 2023
Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project Paperback – 17 Aug. 2023
by Hans Kundnani (Author)
The best new books on economics
Financial Times 22 August 2023
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