Re: But not only does Amnesty point to the EU's failings on the world stage, it also urges European leaders to put their own house in order.
  As I said, Europe is struggling with the challenge of "domestic colonialism", a tougher challenge than the previous "overseas colonialism"... In the 1960s, under the pressure of Third World anticolonial guerrillas, European powers granted independence to most of their African and Asian colonies. Besides, the capitalist exploitation of third-world commodities and ores no longer necessitated the settling of European workers in Africa, Asia,... en masse. Hence it was convenient for France, Britain, Belgium,... to pull out of their colonies. Europeans came back home while their corporate and financial apparatus remained in place and trade profits kept flowing from African/Asian subsidiaries towards their European parent companies....
  Today, as more and more immigrants from Africa, Turkey and Central Asia keep coming and settling in Europe, native Europeans see their so far lily-white cities turning gradually into the Leopoldvilles, Orans, and Saigons of yore... As a result, Europeans tend, if unconsciously, to reproduce the division of labor and the segregation they used to enforce in their colonies fifty years ago!
  In short, Europe still has to go through its own Civil Rights revolution, following the US experience under JFK and LBJ... Somehow, Malcom X and Rev. M.L. King were American Lumumbas and Ben Bellas --today, the predicament goes the other way: Europe's Lumumbas and Ben Bellas will crop up at home, not overseas. Hint: Message 19646326
  Gus |