this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
127 points (90.4% liked)

World News

32291 readers
1013 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that the humankind has been able to build – the three things together. And here, Bruges is maybe a good representation of beautiful things, intellectual life, wellbeing.

The rest of the world – and you know this very well, Federica – is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden." -High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell

Also my point is East Asian countries' proximity to Westernness is very conditional.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.

Notice the important word: Most.

Something makes me think that the use of Most in there instead of all is to include in the garden also other western countries that are indeed democracies, such as Canada, Australia and the US. AND Korea and Japan.

The context here is that garden is a synonym for democracy. And is undeniable that Western countries, while not perfect, have the least flawed democracies out there together with few other countries, such as Korea, Japan and very probably India (despite the later populist rhetoric, which is present in the US and some EU countries as well).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No. Actually, when you have a European calling most of the world a "jungle," they are quite obviously being racist.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I strongly disagree, considering that that are many other countries outside of the EU that are white. The whole American continent is such as example. So race is not the divider here, considering that half of the white population lives outside of the EU.

So either if it related to the government system of those countries, and the word most makes sense, or it would not make sense at all

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

You're being quite ridiculous. Here is the full transcript for anyone who cares. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/european-diplomatic-academy-opening-remarks-high-representative-josep-borrell-inauguration_en

As for you, well, enjoy your racist garden.