Economic and cultural interdependence between former colonies and metropoles persists in spite of formal autonomy. Through the extraction of raw materials and food by means of cheap labor, European industrial economies in effect remain parasites, benefiting at the expense of postcolonial ones. Colonialism's destabilization of colonized societies has produced an unforeseen legacy: empires have come home in the form of migrants and guest workers from former colonies, disrupting Orientalist and imperial dichotomies between ''home and away.'' As in the colonial period, the metropolitan economy benefits from a labor force reproduced ''offshore'' at minimal cost and denied many social benefits. European states invoke national boundaries, redefinitions of citizenship, and other legal and state structures to keep this industrial workforce vulnerable, subordinated, and on the verge of exclusion.

The culture of imperialism has survived in new guises, betrayed in contemporary xenophobic notions of ''fortress Europe'' and ''Western civilization.'' Renewed embrace of Christendom and the Enlightenment embodies continued Eurocentric arrogance, elitism, and chauvinism. Contemporary emphasis on a common European culture, increasingly reinforced institutionally by the European Union, excludes the non-European world in an implicitly hierarchical and Manichaean dichotomy. Simultaneously it obscures internal diversity and lingering internal marginalizations, such as the Celtic fringe. Continued Franco-German domination of the European Union reproduces imperial relations within Europe that are a millennium old.

Islam has reemerged as an immediate and visible threat in the form of migrants from the colonies and of the collective power of Middle Eastern oil producers. The collapse of one ''evil empire'' in the East has demanded a new Oriental adversary in Islam. Consistent with a thousand years of Orientalism, immigration controls have sought to repulse the enemy at the gates, while prurience about Muslim gender relations--a horrified fascination with ''those poor downtrodden women''--remains a projection of Western sexual fantasies that simultaneously reassures Westerners of their cultural superiority, and the depiction of Muslims as a whole as violent and fanatical ''fundamentalists'' supports the discursive construction of a European self that is free of these qualities.

European landscapes and cultures remain imprinted with imperial aspirations and attainments. From the West India Docks and Jamaica Bridges that mark British commercial estuaries to the Mafeking Streets (named for the siege put down in Mafeking, South Africa, in 1900) and imperial monuments, to the rhododendrons adorning European gardens and the elephants and golliwogs decorating the jam pots and tea packets on European tables, the iconography of empire continues to saturate the physical geography of the metropole. Yet European societies are being transformed and enriched by African, Asian, and Caribbean people and cultures. In 1996 curry surpassed roast beef and Yorkshire pudding as the meal most frequently prepared in British households. The historical experience of empire has thus left Europeans with a common history shared with much of the globe. . . .

Free term papers are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can use our professional writing services to buy a custom written research paper, term paper, or essay on Sociology at affordable price. CustomTermPapers is the best solution for those who seek help in writing term papers, essays, and research papers related to Sociology and other relevant topics.