In the Greek myth of Europa, the beautiful Phoenician woman of that name, born in Tyre (now in Lebanon), is abducted and raped by Zeus, perhaps on the island of Crete. Her three brothers go out searching for her, each in a different direction. While searching for Europa Cilix founded Cilicia (now Anatolia); Cadmus founded Thebes in Greece, bringing the alphabet with him, and Phoenix went into North Africa and founded Phoenicia. None of them found Europa.
If we were looking for abducted Europa today, where might we find her? In a refugee camp in Lebanon, close to where she was born? On a dangerous boat traversing the Mediterranean or stuck at the Hungarian border? In Greece, protesting on Syntagma square? Fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine? Or perhaps in Kobane on the border between Turkey and Syria? Or maybe she would be much closer to the centre, in the European capitals, held hostage in the Chancellery in Berlin? In a grey corridor of the European Council building Justus Lipsius in Brussels? So many places to look, so many new cities we could found, so many brothers we would need to send out.
If the European situation in many ways appalls us at the moment – whether it be the dysfunctional and discriminatory policies responsible for creating a refugee/migrant crisis; the increasing poverty gap exacerbated by austerity policies; the exploiting of the financial crisis to perpetuate forms of rent seeking; or Europe’s failure to live up to its promises in Ukraine or elsewhere in the world – we cannot say this European picture is unfamiliar to us.
