Thread by @bctallis

This is how it started on 24/02/22.

But it was a day later on 25/02/22, a year ago today, that, thanks to @bbcnickrobinson,
I heard a first signal of hope amid the unfolding horror.

I wondered if, for #Ukraine, it could be different this time ...
🧵1/

https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/1629105631155179521

On 25/02/22 as I was pushing my sleeping daughter in her stroller, listening to @BBCr4today, Nick Robinson spoke from the roof of the hotel where he was holed up in #Kyiv.

And, looking over the city, he said something that stopped me in my tracks.
#Ukraine
2/

@bbcnickrobinson urged listeners to follow his gaze as he looked over this ‘modern, dynamic and vibrant European city’ ...

now, this may not seem like much, but for anyone who has followed #Ukraine for a long time, its significance would have been immediately apparent.

3/

#Ukraine, and its capital, rightly, being presented as a attractive, thriving places

- and being presented as *European*

was a step change in Western media & public discourse about 🇺🇦 which I discuss at length in my book on EU-UA relations & the #EU in #CEE
4/

I worked for the #EU in #Ukraine but quit because I was so disastisfied with the 🇪🇺's short-sighted, self-serving approach that sold Ukrainians & EU citizens short - & were in stark contrast its previous, successful approach to CEE (more in this book)
link.springer.com/book/10.1007/9…
5/

To explore that dissatisfaction - so as to do something about it - I moved into academia & started researching how & why Ukrainians were still shunned & excluded while e.g. Czechs & Poles had been included (even if they still faced de facto hierarchies)
6/

This led me to looking at how, where & why the EU & its member states make borders & what effects this had on how & where different people could move & live - & what this said about EU politics & order, as well as who was considered 'European' & who was not.
After 15 years ...
7/

and much updated, including a full epilogue that brings it all up to date, that research is now published in this book. The quotes above are taken from the epilogue, which builds upon this surprise from @bbcnickrobinson to explore what changed ...



8/

This change is still nascent, but significant. Even taking the anecdotal example from the BBC, this portrayal represents a huge shift from earlier BBC descriptions of #Ukraine (which resonated with other media):
9/

This was one of the many discursive ways with which Central & East Europeans were diminished. Even if Czechs, Poles (Foci of my research) & others have been able to largely overcome there are still problems in that regard too
@edwardlucas @anneapplebaum @TimothyDSnyder
10/

As I show in the book, for Ukrainians, these 'devils which live in Western minds' had a real blocking effect on their aspirations for greater EU integration (which has proved costly for us all but most of all for #Ukraine).
- UA should have been well on EU track & in NATO.
11/

The book also shows how this discursive exclusion was compounded by the forms EU bordering took in & with Ukraine and by practices of bordering & ordering that had an exclusionary identity effect on those considered 'Eastern Europeans' rather than 'EU Europeans'
And yet ...

12/

The #EU & its member stateshad much to potentially draw on should it wish to shift to a more integrative approach. @vonderleyen upended 2 decades of EU policy on Ukraine in 1 sentence on 27/02 - they are one of us & we want them in.
But ...
politico.eu/article/ukrain…
13/

@vonderleyen was instrumental in ensuring that the EU followed through on endorsing Ukraine's candidacy for EU membership but the process was driven by #CEE member states, incl. #Czechia, #Poland #Estonia, #Latvia, #Lithuania & #Slovakia.
14/
geostrategy.org.uk/britains-world…

The UK, US & #CEE led the charge at crucial moments in providing weapons to #Ukraine
- but they have not been alone. Driven by public pressure from the early days, Western European states also swung largely behind Ukraine (even if they could do more!)
jean-jaures.org/publication/le…

This is the change I find particularly significant - & was signalled by @bbcnickrobinson's comment on the roof of his hotel in Kyiv on 25/02/22

- #Ukraine's fight is our fight too. They they are one of us & we want them in. @P_Fiala
politico.eu/article/ukrain…

16/

And its not only CEE state leaders saying that - as #Denmark's PM @Statsmin Mette Frederiksen recently confirmed.

denmark.mfa.gov.ua/en/news/prime-…

17/

The immediate priority must be to follow through on this - give #Ukraine everything is needs to win as fast as possible - & winning means 1991 borders.
But Europeans, including Ukrainians, need a just & durable peace.
That means 🇺🇦 in #EU & #NATO ASAP
But it also means ...
18/

Reviving our democratic societies & the EU's particular & particularly progressive geopolitical vocation to play our part, together with the #US, #UK, #Japan,#SouthKorea & all democracies a in giving democracies a free, viable and hopeful future & facing down authoritarians.
19/

That revival relates to what I have termed #NeoIdealism - pioneered by @ZelenskyyUa @kajakallas @MarinSanna @JanLipavsky @GLandsbergis & others (incl. @vonderleyen & rhetorically @ABaerbock) - which I discuss in the main essay in this book.

amazon.de/-/en/Benjamin-…

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Enlarging to #Ukraine & others willing to make the necessary reforms & be accepted on merit
(with merit based meaning just that, rather than an excuse to go slow, hiding politics behind technocracy as @SwedishPM said in Munich)
But reviving #EU also has other implications
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The intellectual & moral leadership of the EU is currently being provided by those Neo-Idealists mentioned above & others like them. Embracing this #EU revival of creative geopolitics, progressive security & the hope of progress is the best way for Europe to flourish.
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From a position where their EU-European belonging had been long questioned, Ukrainians have shown us all how to be better Europeans, capable of not only defending but renewing our democracies and uncancelling our future.
#NeoIdealism
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It's been great to see Europeans & democrats around the world doing so much to support Ukraine, & to include Ukrainians in new ways. This reflects the hope I dared to feel on 25/02/22
- but now we have to finish the job.
- #Ukraine must win.
bbc.com/news/world-eur…

24/

We should make good on the new hope that we have opened up for #Ukraine in the #EU - & #NATO - but also seize on the example, the inspiration from 🇺🇦for all democracies to enjoy a brighter future.
This new dawn is ours to make, together.
#NeoIdealism