Europe

I don’t really have anything poignant to say about the Brussels attacks, I think Varoufakis explained it succinctly in various interviews after Paris and people should revisit that. And people should pay attention to reports from NGOs, volunteers and locals on Greek islands about the transformation of refugee camps into detention centers as the result of an EU deportation deal with the Turkish state. Daesh’s aim is to use terror to undermine the system of open borders between European countries (and thereby destroy Europe). If that wasn't obvious before, it should be by now. But at the same time, Fortress Europe is destroying itself. And then there are the grim economic growth forecasts for European countries in the coming decades and a growing likelihood that Euro-style social infrastructure will crumble.

  

As the mythomoteur of Europe continues to unravel in response to pressure from vast numbers of migrants from resource depleted and war ravaged former colonies who demand the right to a better life, perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is not how we can better emulate our cousins to achieve social transformation. Perhaps we should instead ask why Europe as we have always understood it to be is a fraud. Or whether the continual export of surplus populations for wars and colonization may have made these things more viable in the 20th century than they are now. We could ask why Haiti cannot - ever - offer the same services to its citizens as France. And most of all, we could ask ourselves honestly of the social democratic vision of a gentler capitalism that is reviving the progressive left across Turtle Island: who is it for?