The European Council on Foreign Relations

Who is the ‘Leader of the XXI century?’

Date: 31st August 2011  |  Author: Nicholas Walton,

Categories: Europe and the world, Wider Europe,
Tags: , hoax, rahmon , tajikistan, ecir, european council on international relations

Terrific news! The European Council on Foreign Relations has apparently decided to award Tajik president Emomali Rahmon "one of the highest ranks of European society in the field of culture and politics - Leader of the XXI century". Not bad eh?

The only problem with this is, of course, that we have done nothing of the sort.

The first we heard about this award for President Rahmon (pictured to the right, standing in an abundant cornfield) was in this article from the Middle East North Africa Financial Network. It noted that the award had been given by an organisation called the European Council on International Relations, which appeared to be operating out of Bucharest.

By the time this appeared on the website of the Tajik embassy to Turkey, the ECIR had become the ECFR. In the text, the supposed head of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Professor Anton Karazha, suggested that "We should cherish not only the reputation of the title, but also the value of our European Council on Foreign Relations, which this year named the second most important institution in international relations in the world." This suggests that this is not just an unfortunate coincidence*, but perhaps something slightly more subversive.

Maybe we should look to learn from this strange episode. Maybe we should be going through suggestions for awarding "one of the highest ranks of European society in the field of culture and politics - Leader of the XXI century". If that means that we prod Europe's politicians into action at a time of real crisis and fairly dismal leadership, then whoever wins will surely be worthy of the award.

* Mistakes do happen in the world of international acronyms. Just ask the European Council on Fatwa Research.