UN’s Ukraine vote shows the racial subtext of global politics
&gt; Ukrainians now strongly identify with “Europe” and “the West”. Unfortunately, these concepts are haunted by the memories of colonialism and racial segregation. Orientalism, as Edward Said put it memorably, “is never far from… the idea of Europe, a collective notion identifying ‘us’ Europeans against all ‘those’ non-Europeans”.<p>It&#x27;s farcical to use the Orient as some kind of contrast to European colonialism and racism, when the Ottomans had one of the largest colonial empires (colonizing large parts of Europe itself!), and the trans-Saharan slave trade imported more black slaves than both Americas [1].<p>But he is correct that, of all empire and colonial forces, only the European ones are haunted by the memories, and amnesiac to their own history of colonial subjugation - at the hands of the Moors, the Ottomans, the Mongols, ... Europe is small, but the parts never colonized by non-Europeans are smaller still. Of course, Said deftly constructed the study of &#x27;Orientalism&#x27; to exclude Oriental colonialism of Europe.<p>&gt; EU’s moves to turn itself into Fortress Europe —by militarising its external borders and maintaining a liberal commitment to the free movement of peoples across internal borders — is not a pretty picture either.<p>Shouldn&#x27;t it be up to Europeans to decide what kind of Europe qualifies as a pretty picture, instead of foreign political studies professors?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;courses.lumenlearning.com&#x2F;atd-tcc-worldciv2&#x2F;chapter&#x2F;transsaharan-slave-trade&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;courses.lumenlearning.com&#x2F;atd-tcc-worldciv2&#x2F;chapter&#x2F;...</a>