Now, let me be clear — I don’t want to give the impression that only the United States has managed to install incompetence as a prerequisite for political leadership. No, no. We in the EU are equally blessed. This time, instead of our “shotgun-Uschi” Ursula v.d. Leyen, we’ve been treated to her deputy: none other than the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas.
This marvel of modern statesmanship took to the stage at the European Parliament and proceeded to lament, in full rhetorical flourish, that Ireland was able to build prosperity after WWII, while those poor nations behind the Iron Curtain had no such chance. How tragic. And how utterly embarrassing — when you’re the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and apparently skipped the day in school when they covered basic Irish history.
One might suspect that Ms Kallas was just as curious about what she was going to say next as the members of the EU Parliament were. Or, to borrow from Ludwig Thoma: “She was a good lawyer, and otherwise of moderate intelligence.”
But really, what else do you expect from a professional political heiress? Her father nurtured her political career, handed her a party, helped her become Prime Minister, and now — voilà! — she’s our EU foreign policy chief.
Maybe, just maybe, she could’ve had one of the 3,700 employees of the EEAS (the EU’s diplomatic arm) do a quick reality check on the speech before she decided to parade her cluelessness on Irish history in front of the entire Parliament. If she had, she might’ve learned that Ireland’s post-WWII years weren’t exactly a fairytale of prosperity. What they actually endured was a 30-year civil conflict — the direct legacy of British colonialism. Mass repression, persecution, and torture. Whole streets deliberately set ablaze. Entire families violently evicted from their homes. The “internment” of so-called suspects without trial. Death squads, covert operations, assassinations of civilians — and at least 3,532 dead. Not to mention the Ballymurphy massacre in 1971 and Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British paratroopers gunned down unarmed Irish civilians in cold blood.
So yes — Kallas’s little history lesson is less a statement of fact and more a prime example of how the EU has officially adopted the feverish exceptionalism and obsessive anti-Russia narratives of its more paranoid Eastern flank as gospel truth in foreign policy.
God help us.
