“The garden/jungle metaphor arises from an utterly unacceptable colonial mentality which gives the West a right to invade & occupy,” Nasser Kanaani said in a post on his Twitter account on Tuesday.
“That era has long gone. Multipolarity is on the doorstep. EU needs to adopt the realities, otherwise it will continue to decline & fade,” the Iranian spokesman added.
His comments came after the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borell compared Europe to a garden and most of the world to a jungle.
“Europe is a garden. We have built a garden… The rest of the world… is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle. The jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it,” Borrell said in a speech at the European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, Belgium, on Thursday.
“The jungle has a strong growth capacity… walls will never be high enough in order to protect the garden. The gardeners have to go to the jungle, Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.” Borrell said in an analogy that many connect to Europe’s history of colonialism, fascism and genocide.