| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In February 2012 the European Commission released a video that was intended to promote the idea of European union among younger people. It shows a white woman, dressed in a golden jumpsuit, that is threatened by three men preparing to fight her. First a man, ostensibly from East Asia, jumps down in front of her performing Kung Fu. Then a practitioner of Kalaripayattu, a southern Indian martial art, levitates towards her brandishing a sabre and finally a black man cartwheels in, menacing the woman with Capoeira moves. The woman stays calm, splits into twelve versions of herself to surround the assailants, who then vanish as the twelve women turn into the twelve stars of the EU flag, accompanied by the message "The more we are, the stronger we are". The video, an attempt at viral communication, was retracted a few days after it was released - for obvious reasons. Propagating racialised threats to Europe, it is a thinly veiled attempt at promoting European unity through stoking geopolitical fears of China, India and Brazil, making individuals stand in for whole states. Its message is in tune with what Alexander Murphy diagnoses in his paper: a view of the EU as a supra-state, which is in competition with other states, and the drawing of clear boundaries of who belongs there and who does not.
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