The arrogance of the European Union
There is one line connecting all the wannabe visionary, in reality chaotic, ideas of the EU. Be it green deal, ban of petrol cars, promoting liberalism and democracy, human rights and immigration. Behind all these actions that provoke, and rightly so, criticism for being a utopian vision instead of products of a rational thinking is one, big, unspoken idea. Idea that the EU is the world leader and that all the so-called innovations will be sooner or later followed by the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the leaders of the EU do not see the true nature of these actions – absolute arrogance.
The questions we have to ask ourselves here are: Why would the rest of the world follow EU and its initiatives? What can EU offer the world? Many of the European countries have undoubtedly left a great mark in history by creating the colonial empires and bringing the taste of European life to majority of the world. The process of decolonization, however, sparked a movement of hatred and distrust against the former colonial powers as majority of the former colonies never appreciated the improvements the colonialism brought them and they see their forme colonists as oppressors who took their lands, natural resources and in many cases, their culture and identity.
While the oppression of the former colonies is undeniable, there has never been any successful campaign showing them the positives that colonialism brought, resulting in negative view towards former colonists. The EU today is formed by the former colonial superpowers and the rest of the world does not see the distinction between the EU and them as they see the whole Europe as a place where the oppressors came from. The former colonial part of the world will therefore be always cautious to follow the ideas coming from Europe and the EU.
But the colonial past of many members of the EU is not the only reason why EU is not a world's leader anymore. There are still countries that either were not part of the colonial empires at all or countries who benefited it so much that they don't have bad feelings against Europe. Why would not they see EU as a positive example of the future? Let's look at EU by the eyes of the rest of the world. As the world is not united, I will divide it into four parts: The superpowers, Africa, Asia Australia, and America and Australia.
The superpowers group consists of USA, China and Russia. While Russia is becoming outcast of the western world after invading Ukraine, it would be a mistake not to count it amongst superpowers because it still wields great influence around the world. Given the state of affairs Russian found itself in recently, it is obvious why Russians will not look up to the EU. Even once the war is over, the Russian mentality will remain the same for a long time. If Russia wins the war and takes over Ukraine or its parts, the sense of grandiosity in Russians will be boosted and the attacks on the EU, the western civilization, culture and values in general will increase. If Russia looses, the propaganda will blame the west and the hatred towards west which is in the eyes of the Russians represented by EU and US will reach its new peak. No matter the outcome of this war, Russia will not look up to the EU in the near future.
China has no reason to look up the EU either. Similarly to Russia, the Chinese are proud nation aware of its history and the western values are not something they would be willing to accept easily. Moreover the communist party has been increasingly criticising western culture and way of live, in a similar way Russia does it. More importantly, there is nothing the EU can do right now to rival China. China is economically stronger and more independent than EU. Naturally, EU and China need each other as China needs to export their products in order to keep the economy strong but the EU has no real leverage to China as right now, without Chinese and generally Asian products, EU would not survive. China is also investing a lot into more ecological ways of production, and it will be interesting to see if in the future the situation don't switch – EU will be following the Chinese way of ecology. At last China and EU have completely different political systems and point of view on government and human rights with a very little space for a mutual understanding in this matter. Given the cultural differences, Chinese isolationism of some sort, different political system and economical strength of China, I don't see any reason why China should look at EU as a model.
The superpower closest to the EU is without the doubt the USA. Both culturally and politically. I nonetheless don't see a reason why the US should look up at the EU. USA is stronger in all important aspects – economically, militarily and also in terms of general influence on world politics. The only reason the USA might look up to the EU is in case the economical and ecological ideas of the EU prove successful in the long term, but that is unfortunately very questionable. We have to also consider that the EU is a rival of sort to the USA, because both entities want to have the upper hand in being the leader of the „democratic“ world and the US does not want to relinquish its positions.
Having established no superpower has reason to see the EU as a role model, let's look at the other parts of the world starting with Africa. Africa is a continent probably most negatively affected by the post-colonialism issues mentioned at the beginning of this article. The general opinion toward Europe as a whole is influenced by this state of things and while most of the blame lies on population of Africa itself and its unwillingness to learn about government and economy, likelihood of African states looking up to the EU and its ideas is very low. It is being lowered even more by the successful tactics of China and Russia who are buying the favor of many African states by investments into infrastructure and by creating new jobs position. While in the case of Russia it is only a follow up on the doctrine of the USSR and in Chinese case it is a new form of colonialism, we should accept the fact that the struggle for influence over African states is lost for the EU.
Summarizing a whole Asia and its stance towards the EU is not easy as Asia is a very diverse continent with different history and culture, varying from poor overpopulated countries to China as a superpower and India as a potential future superpower. Nevertheless, we should be asking one question: What is the EU doing to promote itself in Asia and how is it helping? There are funds allocated for helping the poorest countries around the world including Asian countries, but it is very uncertain if the beneficiaries of these funds are aware of its origins. Besides that, EU is more visible in criticising the regimes in Asian countries, violation of human rights or destruction of the environment. I don't believe that this is enough to make Asian countries care more deeply about the EU and its visions. Also given the fact that China and India are much closer to the rest of the Asian countries, both geographically and culturally it is more likely that Asia will be tied closer with these two countries than the EU. There is a chance in Japan and South Korea, but these countries are closer to the US and given the historical consequences, it is unlikely they would abandon their ties.
Americas and Australia. I have put these two continents together as history of Australia and history of Americas, North America most importantly, shares a similar traits and they share a similar cultural background (former colonies, native inhabitants being replaced by Europeans). Unlike a lot of Asian and African countries, Americas and Australia have in majority democratic regimes, even though some of them with more or less autocratic tendencies. On the other hand, similarly to Asian countries being close to India and China, countries in Americas are closer to the USA and those not close to the US, such as Venezuela or Cuba will not be close to the EU either as EU is seen as a puppet of the US by US enemies. So we stand again in front of a question, what could EU offer to the countries of Americas and Australia? What would make EU so interesting in their eyes that they would accept the ideas of EU? I cannot find anything. Probably the EU role in this part of the continents is the criticism of environmental policies – be it fracking in the USA and Canada, deforestation of Amazon rainforest, pollution of water sources, etc. Sure, the criticism might be valid in some points, but on the other hand it lacks any positive motivation from the EU side. Countries will not look at EU, accept the criticism and then blindly follow the EU ideas. This is not a realistic expectation.
From my point of view, the only way the EU might become the role model for the world like it wants to be is, if it was accepted as such by some superpower. But given the cultural, historical, economical and governmental differences, this is unlikely to ever happen.
You might ask, why do I call the idea of EU being a role model for the world arrogant. What else would it be? The EU leaders believing, that just because in their heads they lead the example of a democratic world, the rest of the world will follow. But it will not follow because EU is not a role model for the world and in current state of things, it is not even remotely as important as several EU members used to be in the past. This train has passed and no ecological or human rights policies will bring it back. And as long as the EU leaders will not understand the true reality, I call their ideas arrogance.
The questions we have to ask ourselves here are: Why would the rest of the world follow EU and its initiatives? What can EU offer the world? Many of the European countries have undoubtedly left a great mark in history by creating the colonial empires and bringing the taste of European life to majority of the world. The process of decolonization, however, sparked a movement of hatred and distrust against the former colonial powers as majority of the former colonies never appreciated the improvements the colonialism brought them and they see their forme colonists as oppressors who took their lands, natural resources and in many cases, their culture and identity.
While the oppression of the former colonies is undeniable, there has never been any successful campaign showing them the positives that colonialism brought, resulting in negative view towards former colonists. The EU today is formed by the former colonial superpowers and the rest of the world does not see the distinction between the EU and them as they see the whole Europe as a place where the oppressors came from. The former colonial part of the world will therefore be always cautious to follow the ideas coming from Europe and the EU.
But the colonial past of many members of the EU is not the only reason why EU is not a world's leader anymore. There are still countries that either were not part of the colonial empires at all or countries who benefited it so much that they don't have bad feelings against Europe. Why would not they see EU as a positive example of the future? Let's look at EU by the eyes of the rest of the world. As the world is not united, I will divide it into four parts: The superpowers, Africa, Asia Australia, and America and Australia.
The superpowers group consists of USA, China and Russia. While Russia is becoming outcast of the western world after invading Ukraine, it would be a mistake not to count it amongst superpowers because it still wields great influence around the world. Given the state of affairs Russian found itself in recently, it is obvious why Russians will not look up to the EU. Even once the war is over, the Russian mentality will remain the same for a long time. If Russia wins the war and takes over Ukraine or its parts, the sense of grandiosity in Russians will be boosted and the attacks on the EU, the western civilization, culture and values in general will increase. If Russia looses, the propaganda will blame the west and the hatred towards west which is in the eyes of the Russians represented by EU and US will reach its new peak. No matter the outcome of this war, Russia will not look up to the EU in the near future.
China has no reason to look up the EU either. Similarly to Russia, the Chinese are proud nation aware of its history and the western values are not something they would be willing to accept easily. Moreover the communist party has been increasingly criticising western culture and way of live, in a similar way Russia does it. More importantly, there is nothing the EU can do right now to rival China. China is economically stronger and more independent than EU. Naturally, EU and China need each other as China needs to export their products in order to keep the economy strong but the EU has no real leverage to China as right now, without Chinese and generally Asian products, EU would not survive. China is also investing a lot into more ecological ways of production, and it will be interesting to see if in the future the situation don't switch – EU will be following the Chinese way of ecology. At last China and EU have completely different political systems and point of view on government and human rights with a very little space for a mutual understanding in this matter. Given the cultural differences, Chinese isolationism of some sort, different political system and economical strength of China, I don't see any reason why China should look at EU as a model.
The superpower closest to the EU is without the doubt the USA. Both culturally and politically. I nonetheless don't see a reason why the US should look up at the EU. USA is stronger in all important aspects – economically, militarily and also in terms of general influence on world politics. The only reason the USA might look up to the EU is in case the economical and ecological ideas of the EU prove successful in the long term, but that is unfortunately very questionable. We have to also consider that the EU is a rival of sort to the USA, because both entities want to have the upper hand in being the leader of the „democratic“ world and the US does not want to relinquish its positions.
Having established no superpower has reason to see the EU as a role model, let's look at the other parts of the world starting with Africa. Africa is a continent probably most negatively affected by the post-colonialism issues mentioned at the beginning of this article. The general opinion toward Europe as a whole is influenced by this state of things and while most of the blame lies on population of Africa itself and its unwillingness to learn about government and economy, likelihood of African states looking up to the EU and its ideas is very low. It is being lowered even more by the successful tactics of China and Russia who are buying the favor of many African states by investments into infrastructure and by creating new jobs position. While in the case of Russia it is only a follow up on the doctrine of the USSR and in Chinese case it is a new form of colonialism, we should accept the fact that the struggle for influence over African states is lost for the EU.
Summarizing a whole Asia and its stance towards the EU is not easy as Asia is a very diverse continent with different history and culture, varying from poor overpopulated countries to China as a superpower and India as a potential future superpower. Nevertheless, we should be asking one question: What is the EU doing to promote itself in Asia and how is it helping? There are funds allocated for helping the poorest countries around the world including Asian countries, but it is very uncertain if the beneficiaries of these funds are aware of its origins. Besides that, EU is more visible in criticising the regimes in Asian countries, violation of human rights or destruction of the environment. I don't believe that this is enough to make Asian countries care more deeply about the EU and its visions. Also given the fact that China and India are much closer to the rest of the Asian countries, both geographically and culturally it is more likely that Asia will be tied closer with these two countries than the EU. There is a chance in Japan and South Korea, but these countries are closer to the US and given the historical consequences, it is unlikely they would abandon their ties.
Americas and Australia. I have put these two continents together as history of Australia and history of Americas, North America most importantly, shares a similar traits and they share a similar cultural background (former colonies, native inhabitants being replaced by Europeans). Unlike a lot of Asian and African countries, Americas and Australia have in majority democratic regimes, even though some of them with more or less autocratic tendencies. On the other hand, similarly to Asian countries being close to India and China, countries in Americas are closer to the USA and those not close to the US, such as Venezuela or Cuba will not be close to the EU either as EU is seen as a puppet of the US by US enemies. So we stand again in front of a question, what could EU offer to the countries of Americas and Australia? What would make EU so interesting in their eyes that they would accept the ideas of EU? I cannot find anything. Probably the EU role in this part of the continents is the criticism of environmental policies – be it fracking in the USA and Canada, deforestation of Amazon rainforest, pollution of water sources, etc. Sure, the criticism might be valid in some points, but on the other hand it lacks any positive motivation from the EU side. Countries will not look at EU, accept the criticism and then blindly follow the EU ideas. This is not a realistic expectation.
From my point of view, the only way the EU might become the role model for the world like it wants to be is, if it was accepted as such by some superpower. But given the cultural, historical, economical and governmental differences, this is unlikely to ever happen.
You might ask, why do I call the idea of EU being a role model for the world arrogant. What else would it be? The EU leaders believing, that just because in their heads they lead the example of a democratic world, the rest of the world will follow. But it will not follow because EU is not a role model for the world and in current state of things, it is not even remotely as important as several EU members used to be in the past. This train has passed and no ecological or human rights policies will bring it back. And as long as the EU leaders will not understand the true reality, I call their ideas arrogance.
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