Thus the Financial Times today next to a photo of the smoldering debris of the downed Malaysia Airlines flight 17 in Ukraine. “Will the words ‘Ich bin Europäer’ ever resonate across the world as strongly as ‘Civis romanus sum’ once did?” asks the newspaper in the byline. A good question, this. The funny thing is that the Latin touches me deeply whereas the German leaves me quite aloof. Deep in my heart, I am still a Roman rather than a European. Which only goes to show what my heart tells me the future holds. But I am nonetheless ashamed at the title of the article in question. The eighty-eight non-Europeans who perished in the rocket attack are nobody’s business, it appears. As a Roman, I am aghast at the newspaper’s crassness, but I understand the question perfectly well. It is practical to boot. Come to think of it, perhaps this was the pro-Russian separatists’ mistake? They, too, would have thought the price for killing some three-hundred Malaysians could not be worth talking about.