The Iranian regime – financier of Iraqi insurgency, oppressor of its people and emerging nuclear threat – is the subject of international condemnation from the United States and Europe alike. As a pariah on the axis of evil, it boasts consistent abuse of human rights and a theocratic regime which stifles all political opposition. Add to this its profoundly destabilising effect on the Middle East and the anti-western rhetoric of its leaders and we have a regime that is not supposed to be a friend of our government.

If you are celebrating this year as the bicentennial of an end to slave trading in this country, you are celebrating a false cessation. In our consciousness, the dust which covers the exchange of human life as property also buries the fascinations of ancient wars, witch hunts and the bubonic plague. The two-hundredth anniversary of its abolition is far too late a date to scrape away this forgetful apparition and finely scrutinise the wretched reality underneath. Today, slavery is still thriving and alive beneath the surface.

In 2004, the ranks of the European Union were swelled by the admission of ten largely central European states. In January of 2007 two more countries–Romania and Bulgaria–will accede, bringing membership to twenty seven. In the face of power wielded by a central European government over an unprecedented number of people–and with an expanding body of competencies–questions concerning the reach of its authority have never been more pressing.