ABSTRACT
The Said and Pocock quotations beautifully encapsulate the key concepts I intend to tackle in this work: first, the reification of Eastern Europe as a
civilizing project (task) by the European Union (EU) and North America;
and, second, the reification of its communist legacies as ‘‘unregenerate
Oriental instincts’’ that must be abandoned in this process. Indeed, as many
news reports which anticipated and followed the EU Enlargement on 1 May
2004 imply, Eastern Europe is finally on the road of becoming European by
no longer being communist. This binary belies a disturbing political vision,
which gives little cause for celebration of a ‘‘common’’ EU future – it indicates that Europe continues to be predicated on the idea of conditional
inclusion/exclusion and that any true dialogue between its Western and
Eastern members is impossible. Rather, Eastern Europe, in this latest
attempt to ‘‘modernize’’ and catch up with the ever-elusive Western pros-
perity and civilization, cannot negotiate the rules of the game: it must
satisfy the EU, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank criteria prescribed for achieving ‘‘democracy,’’ ‘‘privatization,’’ ‘‘capitalism,’’
‘‘diversity,’’ ‘‘human rights protection,’’ and many others in order to become
emancipated as ‘‘European.’’
