The European Union is a mixture of the organic and artificial, reflecting the cultures and people who have built it and who sustain it and operate it. It has a set of legal and political institutions and mechanisms which have a history, which deserves to be remembered in discussions about the EU’s institutions and culture. David Olosuga, in his 2014 work about the insertion of colonial armies into the Great War of 1914-18, makes the point that the culture and image of Imperial Europe was presented almost in terms of a separate and exceptional realm. Despite the huge damage wrought upon the peoples and civilisations of every other continent, European life and values were considered an apex of human existence, and this model in turn defined the world. This process had multiple ‘dark sides.’ One involved the deprioritisation of the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean basin, the shared Eurasian and Christian heritage of neighbouring cultures, and the develo...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.