“To continue without relent to explain what is going on…”

Are we powerless? That’s the whole question. For the short term I am very pessimistic, because the discourse about “refounding” Europe is in the hands of the political and technocratic class. A class that does not at all envisage changing the course that guarantees it the goodwill of the financial markets and which does not want to deeply reform the system of government from which it draws its monopoly of representation. By consequence, the role of opposition is taken by parties and ideologues who seek to destroy the links between the peoples of Europe. It will take a very long march before we arrive at the conjugation and clarification — in the eyes of the majority of citizens, across borders — of the close interdependence between shared sovereignty, transnational democracy, the co-development of regions and nations, and exchange among cultures. We are not at that point, and time is running short. All the more reason —— to continue without relent to explain what is going on.  Etienne Balibar

First published in Libération. 28 June 2016