Pode-se transformar um aquário numa sopa de peixe

Quem nunca perdeu tempo com Leszlek Kolakowski, filósofo polaco, desconhecerá a «Lei da Cornucópia infinita» - assim foi 'baptizada' por ele. Ou saberá, porque lendo John Le Carré e crendo no background intelectual do autor, a dado passo, deparou-se com uma referência à dita. E o que tem isso a ver com o texto aqui editado? Tem porque 'defendeu' ele que 'há um número infinito de explicações para qualquer acontecimento, ilimitado, independentemente do tipo e/ou das circunstâncias.', ou seja, aconteça o que acontecer será explicado. E 'a cornucópia' até serve para explicar e justificar a normalidade anormal! 

À parte a verosimilhança 'da cornucópia' o certo é que há uma anedota russa que calça como luva no texto ínsito - «Sabemos que se pode transformar um aquário numa sopa de peixe. Mas a questão é: consegue-se transformar, de novo, a sopa de peixe num aquário?»

History loves unintended consequences.The latest example is particularly ironic: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to restore the Russian empire by recolonizing Ukraine has opened the door to a postimperial Europe. A Europe, that is, that no longer has any empires dominated by a single people or nation, either on land or across the seas—a situation the continent has never seen before.

Paradoxically, however, to secure this postimperial future and stand up to Russian aggression, the EU must itself take on some of the characteristics of an empire. It must have a sufficient degree of unity, central authority, and effective decision-making to defend the shared interests and values of Europeans. If every single member state has a veto over vital decisions, the union will falter, internally and externally.

Europeans are unaccustomed to looking at themselves through the lens of empire, but doing so can offer an illuminating and disturbing perspective. In fact, the EU itself has a colonial past. As the Swedish scholars Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson have documented, in the 1950s the original architects of what would eventually become the EU regarded member states’ African colonies as an integral part of the European project. Even as European countries prosecuted often brutal wars to defend their colonies, officials spoke glowingly of “Eurafrica,” treating the overseas possessions of countries such as France as belonging to the new European Economic Community. Portugal fought to retain control of Angola and Mozambique into the early 1970s.

The lens of empire is even more revealing when one peers through it at the large part of Europe that, during the Cold War, was behind the Iron Curtain under Soviet or Yugoslav communist rule. The Soviet Union was a continuation of the Russian empire, even though many of its leaders were not ethnic Russians. During and after World War II, it incorporated countries and territories (including the Baltic states and western Ukraine) that had not been part of the Soviet Union before 1939. At the same time, it extended its effective empire to the very center of Europe, including much of what had historically been known as central Germany, restyled as East Germany.

There was, in other words, an inner and an outer Russian empire. The key to understanding both Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the 1980s was to recognize that this was indeed an empire—and an empire in decay. Decolonization of the outer empire followed in uniquely swift and peaceful fashion in 1989 and 1990, but then, even more remarkably, came the disintegration of the inner empire in 1991. This was prompted, as is often the case, by disorder in the imperial center. More unusually, the final blow was delivered by the core imperial nation: Russia. Today, however, Russia is straining to regain control over some of the lands it gave up, thrusting toward the new eastern borders of the West.

GHOSTS OF EMPIRES PAST