Dec 15, 2021
If the European Commission (EC) had to be described in a single word, “technocracy" would come fittingly close. Commissioners and EU civil servants are selected on the basis of subject matter expertise to carry out the thanklessly tiresome tasks of patching together the bloc’s budget, governing the single market and negotiating trade deals on behalf of the 27 member states. Culture wars, on the contrary, are too scrappy, too militant for the EU’s executive arm to get embroiled in. Or are they? The notion that the Great Awokening unfolding across the West since the death of George Floyd on police custody in May last year may have spared the high echelons of the EU's bureaucracy was swiftly dispelled the week of November 28th with a scoop courtesy of Il Giornale. The Italian daily unveiled the Commission’s so-called “Guidelines for Inclusive Communication”, an effort spearheaded by Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli and meant to be binding on all of the Commission’s internal and external communications. The document sought to forbid from use such unwoke expressions as “merry Christmas”, “ladies and gentlemen”, “homosexual" or even “citizen”, deemed offensive to stateless refugees. This week, we explore whether and how wokeness has permeated the European Union with Rodrigo Ballester, a former career Eurocrat now directing the Center for European Studies at Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest, and bestselling French journalist Brice Couturier, who is fresh off publishing Ok Millenials! Puritanism, Victimization, Tdentitarianism, Censorship… A Baby Boomer’s Survey of the Woke Generation’s Founding Myths (2021).
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