The freedom to participate in political life is noticeably restricted. An invisible ideological empire is taking shape, a point raised by PiS MEP Professor Richard Legutko. He criticized the European Parliament for what he described as attempts to influence the history curriculum in Poland.
In the discussion titled “Regional Responses to Neo-Imperialism,” moderated by the President’s adviser Professor Andrzej Zybertowicz, philosopher and MEP Richard Legutko, historian David Engels, and Doctor of Laws Dominic Burbridge participated.
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Professor Zybertowicz: We must look beyond the framework
Zybertowicz noted that from a historical perspective, neo-imperialism can be traced back to the period before World War I.
Yet notable trends have emerged in the last twenty years. The discussion explored methods for describing these trends in a way that goes beyond states and national cultures, urging consideration beyond this narrow frame.
He invited participants to assess how useful the concept of neo-imperialism remains for understanding current phenomena.
In Legutko’s view, the idea of neo-imperialism is highly relevant. He argued that empire represents a higher level of political organization, with the nation state as a foundational level and federation as a voluntary union of diverse political bodies.
What follows, Legutko suggested, is an empire that is typically larger, formed through conquest or subjugation, and governed by varied forms of subordination that do not always rely on force or military means.
Legutko provided several examples and events to illustrate contemporary imperialism in his view.
One example concerns the European Union, where the culture committee of the European Parliament has reportedly harassed Poland’s Minister of Education and Science, Przemysław Czarnak, for about two years over matters related to the history curriculum. Education is not within the EU’s formal remit, yet there is a strong push to subordinate Poland’s education program to a higher political authority.
Legutko stated this clearly.
The invisible realm
According to Legutko, freedom to engage in politics is increasingly restricted in many countries today. The central questions concern how to resist this trend and what drives the rise of such an invisible ideological empire, so influential that even a sovereign power like Britain could appear subordinate to it.
Dominic Burbridge noted that a key EU challenge lies in how much depends on individual people seated in the European Commission.
Their interpretations of treaties are moving toward centralized governance, shifting away from the American model of separation of powers, and steering toward bureaucratic rationalization seen in other major powers, including China.
Engels argued that unification tends to characterize late civilizations.
Discrimination and hierarchies are gradually fading, giving rise to leftist, socialist, and green ideologies as signs of civilizational decline. There is a tendency to erode internal organizational structures during the later stages of a civilization, he said.
– he concluded.
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