Empire

There’s a scene in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” that my progressive acquaintances often compete to post on social media. “What have the Romans ever done for us?” they quote the classic question. Behind their glee lies the assumption that Brussels gives Hungary something that this barbaric backwater doesn’t have (in the Life of Brian, regarding Judea, they list sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system). The joke isn’t bad, the original scene is brilliant in its own way, it has enough power to work even in this analogy.

Yet I have several issues with this approach.

Firstly, they didn’t ask the complementary question, which is implicitly how the scene in the film also starts: what did the Romans take away? There, at the beginning of the secret meeting, Reg starts with: “They’ve taken everything we had, they’ve bled us dry.”

For example, this came to my mind when I read a Bloomberg publicist’s essay a few years ago titled “How Western Capital Colonized Central and Eastern Europe” The essence: as a result of the great European integration, the countries that ended up on the unhappier side of the former Iron Curtain are essentially colonies (for the sake of historical analogy: provinces), or as the publicist quotes Piketty’s definition: “foreign-owned countries”.

Somehow, I can’t be unreservedly happy about this, and I can only welcome any effort that strengthens Hungarian sovereignty and independence. Although according to Bloomberg, this is just a sham struggle, Central and Eastern Europe actually has no choice: “The region’s countries have been open to foreign investors for too long, have lost control over their own economic future to too great an extent to maintain political control over the management of their affairs” – translates one of the opposition’s independent objective media. It’s no accident that I’m referring to this source, because they smuggled into this Hungarian translation a phrase that I couldn’t find in the original article: “The region’s politicians can do two things: settle for a sham rebellion to mislead their very stupid domestic supporters, or seriously turn against the hand that feeds them, which would result in the evaporation of investments feeding their countries’ economies.” So, according to the progressive Hungarian journalist, I am a very stupid supporter of the idea of national sovereignty and independence.   

And this is my other big problem with the contemporization of Monty Python’s joke. It can only be interpreted through a colonial lens, that is, whoever seriously thinks that Hungary gets something from Brussels that it doesn’t have from the outset, is already looking at things from a subordinate position and misunderstands the founding idea of the European Union.

Which is no wonder, because by now even Brussels misunderstands the Union; by changing the European Commission’s role conception (from the guardian of treaties to an independent political actor), and by diluting decision-making within the European Council (instead of unanimity, a modified qualified majority voting procedure), the EU leadership started operating with an imperial logic. I may be very stupid, but I don’t want a new imperial center.

In the first fourteen years of my life, they wanted to carve a “multilaterally developed socialist person” out of me from an imperial center. Now I’m supposed to be a multicultural European. And a second-class one at that.

Romans, go home.

Notes:

Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”: A 1979 British comedy film that satirizes various aspects of religion and politics. The scene referenced is a famous discussion about the benefits of Roman rule.

“Mucsa”: A derogatory term in Hungarian, similar to “backwater” or “provincial place,” often used sarcastically to criticize those who view Hungary as underdeveloped.

Iron Curtain: The ideological and physical boundary dividing Europe into Western and Soviet-influenced Eastern blocs during the Cold War (1945-1991).

Piketty: Likely referring to Thomas Piketty, a French economist known for his work on wealth and income inequality.

EU-specific terminology:

European Commission: The EU’s executive branch.

European Council: The body that defines the EU’s overall political direction and priorities, comprised of the heads of state or governments of the EU member states.

 “Multilaterally developed socialist person”: A concept from the communist era, referring to the ideal citizen the regime aimed to create.

Linguistic notes:

“Romans, go home”: A reference back to the “Life of Brian” film, but also used here as a metaphor for rejecting what the author sees as EU imperialism.