Teaching the European Union through Kafka's story The Great Wall of China. Nothing New Under the Sun?

This article explores the possibility of teaching current EU dilemmas using Franz Kafka's short story The Great Wall of China as an allegory. It is an attempt to apply the strong political criticism this story implies to the current regime of the European Union. That story was written more than one hundred years ago, before the establishment of the EU. Nevertheless, this didactic exercise illustrates the similarity of relationship between citizens and governments, as well as political challenges and dilemmas, characterizing mainly, but not only, huge empires and international political alliances throughout human history: geographic distance perceived as political remoteness; the advantages and risks underlining mega-projects, uniting masses of people, under a sense of purposefulness; governmental devices to ensure the political stability in large empires or alliances; and the role walls fill in global and local politics.