BY SOLOMON DIBABA
Addressing the European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, Belgium, on the 13th October 2022, European Union’s High Representative and Security Policy, Josep Borrell made a racist remark noting that “Europe is a garden and the rest of the world is a jungle.”
He also said that the jungle could invade the garden and that the gardeners have to go to the jungle to protect the garden. He added “Europe is a garden. We have built a garden.”
He added, “Aggregate works are the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity, and social cohesion that humankind has been able to build. There are three things together and here bridges may be the representation of the beautiful things intellectual life and well-being. The rest of the world is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it.”
He further said, “But the gardeners will not protect the garden by building walls. A small garden surrounded by high walls in order to prevent the jungle from coming in, it’s not a solution. Because the jungle has a strong growth capacity and the wall will never be high enough in order to protect the garden. The gardeners have to go to the jungle. The Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. The rest of the world will invade us by different ways of means.”
The above remarks notes that “the gardeners should go to the jungle” tends to give freedom to EU to willfully interfere into the internal affairs of the countries of the “jungle” creating a dangerous but unnecessary and unwarranted interference into the internal affairs and the sovereignty of the country.
Responding to the remarks by the EU Chief, Director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova has strongly condemned Borell’s statement, saying that the ‘garden’ of Europe was built by looting the ‘jungle’ of the rest of the world during the colonial regime. She said, “To continue this analogy, the European gardener is in a vegetative state. On a serious note, Europe built that ‘garden’ through the barbaric plundering of the ‘jungle’. Borrell could not have phrased it any better: the world’s most prosperous system, created in Europe, nurtured by roots in colonies which they ruthlessly oppressed.
Here, the author is reminded of and Amharic anecdote which goes jiraffrasugerforasuyechohal, meaning “the wipe resounds a cracking sound while flogging the victim”. Europe which is now suffering from untold drought not recorded over the last 500 years is even trying to politicize on the issue trying to criticize drought stricken countries for their inability to control recurrent droughts across their countries.
Now the point is, was Europe always a garden? How did it come to be what it is today? There are tons of documents and mountain of facts that it was Europe which has under developed the rest of the world through the pillages of colonialism that kicked off after the Berlin Conference of the Scramble for Africa in 1814-1815.
Walter Rodney in his book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 1972” describes how Africa was deliberately exploited and underdeveloped by European colonial regimes. One of his main arguments throughout the book is that Africa developed Europe at the same rate that Europe underdeveloped Africa.
The author of this article is also reminded of his personal notes from readings on the subject in which Pierre Jalee in his book (1969) entitled, “The Third world in world Economy” wrote, “The Third World is stagnating economically. The under developed half of the world has the highest rate of population growth, yet less than 12% of the world’s gross product and the per capita increase is wealth is slower than in the other parts of the world. The political decolonization has done nothing to change the system of Pillage. Evolutionary change has not come to pass in Africa and Asia as it has also failed in Latin America.”
While the grim reality of under development of Africa in particular inmates from the salve trade in which Europe traded with human beings from Africa and the pillage of African resources by unequal trade in the form of commercial revolution which funded the European industrial revolution, Africa was robbed of its resources including its mineral resources and agricultural raw materials. Today however, Josep Borrell refers to Africa in a rather derogatory manner as a “jungle”. Such racist slurs will undoubtedly tarnish the relationship between EU and the rest of the world and is totally incompatible with the diplomatic caliber of the European Union.
While in reality the rest of the world is being invaded by Europe through neo-colonial and treacherous politics, misinformation and destabilization, the EU Chief says that “the rest of the world will invade us by different ways and means”. He is actually referring to the influx of refugees to Europe due to the war in Syria, Libya and conflicts in several African countries which are mostly masterminded by European countries and their politicians who are out to hunt for their neo-colonial national interests.
Over the last two years, the European Union and its officials have conducted a counterproductive propaganda and misrepresentation on Ethiopia over the situation in the northern parts of the country. Ireland has in particular repeatedly meddled into the internal affairs of the country by co-sponsoring a number of anti-Ethiopia sessions at the UNSC and the UNGA. The EU, particularly JosepBorrell was turning every stone at his disposal to ensure that the EU should impose sanctions on Ethiopia.
Speaking of his burning desire to impose sanctions on Ethiopia, he said “December 14,2021The EU’s response to the civil war in Ethiopia was “one of my biggest frustrations” of the year. He said “ the EU had not been able to stop “mass rapes using sexual violence as a war aim, killings and concentration camps based on ethnic belonging,” pointing to the lack of unanimity among EU governments.” He has been echoing terrorist TPLF propaganda with no care to verify farce from the reality.
He attributes all the crimes he mentioned above as a reason for imposing sanctions on Ethiopia while the world is already aware of the fact that fighters of the terrorist TPLF were in alarming rate of rapes, massacres of children, women, the disabled and even monks and sheiks in Afar and Amhara regions.
On October 15, 2022JosepBorrell twitted “Horrified by the reports of continuous violence, including targeting of civilians in Shire, Tigray. Genuine peace efforts do not amount to increasing military offensives nor to provocations. Respecting international law is not an option, it is an obligation for all.”
Here, just like his western counterparts the EU Chief puts a federal government and a terrorist group on equal status and tries to lecture Ethiopia on the on international law that the country has been defending by the blood and flesh of its heroic sons and daughters in effectively keeping peace and stability in Africa. Moreover, He deliberately overlooks a daylight fact that it was the terrorist group that has launched an offensive on the people and government of Ethiopia two months back. It is interesting to carefully assess why he particularly focused on Shire as the ENDF are focused on freeing the “civilians” he mentioned in his twit.
The trend in the EU over “the rest of the world” can isolate the continental organization and isolate it from the rest of the world, particularly its relations with Africa. The EU needs to take into account that Africa is gradually emerging from the era of the “dark continent” into s new era of partnership with the rest of the world.
The EU Chief must take into account that Ethiopia and not even the UN systems and EU, was the first to call for peaceful settlement of the crisis in the northern part of the country as this was primarily a national issue under the prerogatives of the Government of Ethiopia. Ethiopia declared unilateral ceasefire which was time and again abused by the terrorist clique in preparing for three rounds of war on the country. Over the last several weeks the group was mobilizing the entire population inn Tigray to use them as a cannon fodder and to shield its officials from being rounded up by the ENDF.
Undermining the positive developments in Ethiopia and attempting to tarnish the country’s relations with EU countries does not help to solve the problem in the country and providing diplomatic and propaganda support to a terrorist group does not tally with the objectives for which EU itself was founded.
For the EU and other pro terrorist TPLF western powers, interfering into the internal affairs of Ethiopia and waging propaganda war in favor of the terrorist group has become a priority area even when the war between Russia and Ukraine has continued unabated. While it appears that falsehood is reigning over the truth temporarily, the world will soon realize the capacity of the people and government of Ethiopia in effectively handling the internal affairs of the country.
All told, as the ENDF has already freed Amhara and Afar regions from the attack by the terrorist forces, the group has already become irrelevant as the Ethiopian National Defense Forces are already controlling almost all parts of Tigray. Nevertheless, Ethiopia would still wish to resolve the crisis in the northern part of the country for the sake of peace in the country and the Horn of Africa.
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
The Ethiopian Herald October 19/2022
