Eurowhiteness Av Hans Kundnani

The European Union''s supporters claim it is a unique expression of cosmopolitanism and rejection of racism--after all, the ''European project'' was meant to overcome virulent nationalism. Advocates equate the far right with Euroscepticism, even as far-right ideas increasingly influence the EU itself. Yet the ''idea of Europe'' has a long, problematic history--in the medieval era, it was synonymous with Christianity; more recently, it accompanied the emergence of ''whiteness'' in the context of European colonialism. Hans Kundnani offers an alternative reading of the EU as a vehicle for imperial amnesia. He reveals European integration''s origins as a colonial project, a fact conveniently overlooked in favour of the internal lessons of European history (the Holocaust and Cold War), rather than external lessons around empire. In reality, Kundnani argues, the EU is more about power than peace, eliding civic ideas of Europe with an ethnic and cultural identity. After the Cold War, the EU''s eastern borders softened, but its southern ones hardened. Since the 2015 refugee crisis, notions of whiteness have become more central to European identity--a troubling new turn in Europe''s long civilisational project. It is time to confront the relationship between ideas of Europe and ideas of race.