roundup ≠ scrapbook

Blah!

The EU is fucked up. But is leaving the cure? I still think cooperation and solidarity (non-existent at the moment for the most part, especially the powerful part) are better than fragmentation and division (current state of things). A fundamental problem with the Brexit Leave campaign is that it promoted Brexit from an utterly wrong basis which is racist, xenophobic, anti-social, far right populist hate-promoting… and all this in the name of “sovereignty” and “freedom” (please define), while being unable to provide any concrete solution to make the lives of those in the UK better (e.g. against inequality and austerity), or even address the underlying problems with the EU (its undemocratic, neoliberal leadership, its implicit imperialism) which are making life hell for the growing masses of economically and socially marginalised people (are you still marginalised when the majority is “marginalised”?), not only in Europe but also in the “post-colonies” of the East and the South. In or out of the EU, the UK seems likely to be stay on the neoliberal path.

Am I dreaming of a romantic leftist socialist utopia? EU or not EU, what’s lacking is international cooperation and solidarity across state borders, we have enough division and discrimination and xenophobia and borders and militarisation thereof and and and.

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EURexit:

The European Union is remote, racist, imperialist, anti-worker and anti-democratic: It is run by, of, and for the super-rich and their corporations…

Corporate bureaucrats in Brussels working as agents of the big banks and transnationals’ now exert control over every aspect of our lives. Neoliberal policies and practices (austerity, flexible labour markets, low pay, privatisation of public services, eradication of welfare states) dominate the European Commission, European Parliament, European Central Bank, European Court of Justice and a compliant media legitimises the whole conquest.

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There might still be hope, if we demand a democratic refoundation of Europe

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and, Let us be honest about our past and our present if we truly seek to dismantle white supremacy!

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Every logically coherent definition of a cultural identity presumes that other cultures are different but of equal value. If, however, the particular European values are defined as universal humanistic values, that can only mean that other non-European cultures must be considered antihumanistic by nature…

European politics oscillates between imperialism and isolationism – mirroring the particular-universal character of the values that it wants to assert as its own…

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The European psyche is incurably torn between moral superiority and paranoid fear of the other.

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When the question of multiculturalism is discussed on the TV, the visual is inevitably of a street in a European city dominated by passers-by whose skin color differs from that of the “original” European population. This ives the impression that culture here functions de facto as a pseudonym for race. As a result, simply transferring a certain discourse into the visual makes it racist – even if that is not explicitly intended. Thus the dependence of today’s politics on the images with which it operates is obvious.

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If the tradition of European culture and art is understood in its full diversity and internal contradictoriness, the question of who is integrated into this culture or not takes a completely different shape. Those who are ready to see the cultural heritage of Europe in its entirety will notice that it is enormously difficult and almost impossible to escape this legacy and do something genuinely non-European, genuinely alien to European culture. The power of European culture is precisely that it is constantly producing its other. If there is anything at all that is unique in European culture, it is this ability to produce and reproduce not only oneself but also all the possible alternatives to oneself.

Boris Groys, 2008