Thread by @Mohamad_Forough

Josep Borrell: "Europe is a garden. Most of the rest of the world a jungle. The jungle could invade the garden. The Jungle has a strong growth capacity.'

Dear Mr. @JosepBorrellF
This is the WORST ANALOGY of all time, for the following reasons:
a thread🧵 1/7

Conceptually, "garden" sounds like a euphemism for "civilized" & "jungle" like one for "barbarian". It rings of the 19th century colonial discourse of 'la mission civilisatrice' or 'white man's burden'.

May I introduce you to Walter Benjamin's ideas on "civilization"?

Historically, in recent centuries at least, it's been the "garden" invading/imperialising/colonizing the "jungle".

A very randomly selected case in point: the Spanish "garden" imperialized the Latin American "jungle" and wreaked havoc on it for centuries.

Logically, this analogy doesn't make sense. Jungles are much more permanent, deep-rooted, and everlasting than gardens. Gardens disappear quickly if you abandon them for a week or two. They don't have depth or resilience (which I guess was your point), jungles do.

Diplomatically, this is an extremely offensive analogy because it dissuades countries in the global south ("the jungle") to stand with us in Europe against brutal aggressors such as Putin and the war he has waged on innocent Ukrainians.

Such comments are partly why a lot of developing countries do not side with EU/US condemnations of the 🇷🇺's aggression against Europe. Such seemingly innocuous comments resurrect traumatic memories of global injustice, racism, & colonialism in the "jungle" by the "garden".

Finally, a simple apology always goes a long way, diplomatically and politically. End🧵

p.s. . Here are some thoughts from four intellectual heroes of mine:

Hannah Arendt: on the "jungle" (third world)
Walter Benjamin: on "civilization"
Frantz Fanon: On the remnants of the the empire
Simone Weil (philosopher/French resistance): On the erasure of the past