OVER the weekend, the European Union contingent in the country held its Euro Village festival at Capitol Commons Park in Pasig City, an event that was by all appearances a great success. It certainly was the most fun I’ve had in some time; having the chance to eat foods that usually exist only as memories, practice some very rusty language skills and not be the tallest or whitest person in the crowd for a change was deeply satisfying. All fun aside, the event did leave me with a couple of broader impressions that are worth sharing.

According to its own description on the event’s website, “The Euro Village is a one of its kind, one-stop shop to highlight the best of European Union’s food, products, lifestyle, tourism, culture and languages, and to promote sustainability to a wider Filipino audience in a festive atmosphere. It is also an opportunity to promote people-to-people links and effective dialogue and interaction with local stakeholders and to find ways to work together, too, by emphasizing sustainability in savoir-faire.”

In addition to booths set up by their respective embassies or consulates, or other local groups representing the EU, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Finland, Romania and Ukraine, the festival also included booths from the well-known language schools in Manila, and several “sustainability partners,” Philippine NGOs supported by EU members and pursuing various environmental and socioeconomic improvements.

The first thing I noticed, and perhaps the most important one, is that even though the festival did attract many of the Europeans — and Americans, Canadians and Australians of European descent, since we are all at heart what our blood says we are rather than what our passports say — the large crowd was overwhelmingly Filipino, and mostly young people. That is encouraging, because nothing but good can come from ordinary people having a genuine interest in learning about each other’s cultures, and it was nice to see that the exhibitors were making an effort to reach out in relevant ways. For example, the booth from the Czech Embassy was distributing free copies of Czech literary classics (“Karel apek’s R.U.R,” and a collection of short stories by the likes of Meyrink, Kafka and Petiška) translated into Filipino.

The second thing I noticed was the inclusion of Ukraine, which is obviously not a member of the EU. I was certainly happy to see them — my position on the unprovoked and bloody war being inflicted on them by the fascist Putin regime is well-known — but the not-sosubtle political statement their presence in an EU gathering was hard to miss. Take that, Vlad. And I hope they use the proceeds from the T-shirt and mug I bought to buy something useful, like an artillery round that will land in your bathroom, you hoodlum.

All sarcasm aside, Ukraine’s EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership (the two are not necessarily related) are dicey questions, and for good reason. The irony is that the closer Ukraine comes to successfully ejecting the Russian invaders from their land, the lie that Vladimir Putin was “provoked,” which some pundits who will contort themselves to express their anti-Americanism at every opportunity continue to spread, actually moves a bit closer to being true — although the blame for it still lies solely and squarely with that monster in the Kremlin. Unless Putin and his machinery are utterly destroyed, something a mere “defeat” in Ukraine is unlikely to accomplish, he will remain a constant mortal threat to Ukraine. If Ukraine is then a member of the EU, or of NATO, or both, Putin will then be a mortal threat to the larger community; in other words, “provoked” into the open conflict with the West that everyone before him managed to avoid for more than 70 years. Again, that is a function of Putin’s being a thrift-store Hitler rather than the fault of anyone else, but the end result would be the same.

The moral, although unavoidably destructive choice for the EU and NATO would be to accept Ukraine into the fold, and give Russia the ultimatum that, if it cannot be a good neighbor, the collective will see to it that it is forever rendered incapable of being a bad one. Unfortunately, the prevailing preference in Washington and Brussels, and Paris and London right now seems to be for the incomplete solution of leaving Ukraine in the position of a buffer state, which will ultimately be just as destructive and costly, because there will be no peace until there is no Putin.

In that context,

see that the local EU community decided to take a stand against their leadership’s being wishywashy and actually a bit faithless when it comes to Ukraine, at least in a small way. That might not have been what was intended by inviting the local Ukrainian representation, but it was the impression it left, and I hope it puts the whole lot of Putin’s apologists’ panties in a twist.

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All politics aside, I would hope that the evident success of the Euro Village festival would inspire other foreign communities here in the Philippines to create their own events. Some already do, of course; the British community staged a nice gathering in Bonifacio Global City a few weeks ago, and the Chinese community has an entire holiday. But I suspect that most Filipinos are otherwise unaware just how much of the world is already on their own doorsteps. I would certainly love to visit an “Asean Village,” or a “South Asian Village,” or even an “American Village,” though to be honest it’s a bit hard to imagine that particular subset of the population organizing anything. There are also a surprising number of people here from African countries; putting together a festival that shows Filipinos (and for that matter, a lot of foreigners) that Africa is in fact an entire world of different cultures and nations would, I think, be enthusiastically received.

These initiatives are something that the Department of Tourism could and probably should take an interest in, and find ways to support. At our recent forum, Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco highlighted efforts to increase domestic tourism, and events like these would certainly help.