Ghost of a flea: The concrete is burning

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February 07, 2008

The concrete is burning

Writing for Eurozine, Per Wirtén considers poverty in Europe rendered invisible by European fixations on everything that goes wrong in America.

In terms of the politics of identity, the magnet that binds together the EU more than any other is that of being an alternative to the US. Europe is more peaceable, more enlightened and civilised, more democratic, more egalitarian and without any real problems of poverty, more soft power than hard power, saying yes to market economy but no to market society. The identity construct of the Union rests not on culture and ethnicity, but on the idea of not being the US. Europe sees itself as an anti-America.

In this context, criticism of conditions in America assumes particular significance. It works like a television screen in the living room. Europe soaks up anything critical of the US: books, news items, documentaries and feature films. Our eyes are drawn to the moving pictures. But this seems to mean that we stop seeing our own living room.

Which could just as easily describe Canada's schizophrenic foreign policy, systemic human rights violations by "human rights" commissions, dismal record on carbon emissions and air quality, generational domestic violence in aboriginal communities, nepotist banking and media oligopolies, a second-rate two-tier health care system, tenuous guarantees of freedom of speech and expression particularly in English in Quebec, the vanishing chance of decent employment let alone a proper house for graduates of our ever expanding degree mills, etc. etc. etc. So long as somebody can point a finger south of the border there is no problem at home that cannot be ignored.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at February 7, 2008 05:47 AM

Comments

I think it was best said by a first century Jewish rabbi,

"Hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine eye, and then thou wilt see clearly to cast out the mote out of the eye of thy brother."

Posted by: dpatten at February 7, 2008 03:32 PM