< SWITCH ME >
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Photo courtesy of Rosa Vroom
Old woman walks next to a closed road. Behind the scene a truck is collecting lifejackets left on the shore. |
It's Christmas in Lesvos, а Greek island 9 kilometers off the Turkish coast. It's too cold to stay outside. The sea is quiet. Not many boats are expected, but volunteers keep their walkie-talkies on. The tent of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is active, the lighthouse illuminates the coast and at the dirt road surrounding Eftalou beaches there are two American volunteers stopping the cars: 'Volunteers of Lesvos, Welcome to Christmas Eve Services!'
Since Lesvos is part of the route of asylum seekers in Europe, thousands of volunteers have also been arriving at the Greek shores. Spanish firefighters, Israeli lifeguards, Norwegian doctors and nurses, etc., some of them under the umbrella of an NGO, others on their own. Organising themselves just by arrival order, their aid has been providing materials needed for the rescue along the beaches of the North and South of the island. Among these materials, aluminium foil and piles of firewood to beat the cold of the migrants that have just arrived.
Good Reads – From the Language of Physics to the Language of Hate
Written by Frances Jackson |
In the first Good Reads of 2016, former editor Frances Jackson shares a few articles that have got her thinking about Europe over the last few days. Read about contrasting efforts to integrate asylum seekers in Germany and Finland, the publication of a new annotated edition of Mein Kampf, and why the AZERTY keyboard could soon become a thing of the past.
Frances, former Diaphragm / Baby editor
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IN search of a common ground
I suppose it’s inevitable that, in the face such a torrent of depressing news stories and seemingly insurmountable hurdles as is the case with the ongoing refugee crisis, we are drawn to examples of journalism that give us hope for the future. Certainly, I think that is what made Herbi Dreiner’s recent guest post for the Guardian stand out for me. He is part of a team at the University of Bonn that has started putting on physics shows with Arabic explanations to help engage young asylum seekers who are still finding their feet in Germany. I love the simplicity of the idea, its optimism and the way it encourages us to find a shared understanding, rather seeking to emphasise differences and deficiencies.
…the new editorial board. We are excited to introduce Alex from Bulgaria, Isabell from Germany, Justine from France, Sam from the UK and Victoria from France. With five new editors, our board is now complete and everyone is already eagerly working on the upcoming issue for April. But first, we want you to get to know the new faces at E&M.
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| Photo courtesy of Isabell Wutz |
Alex is from Bulgaria, but currently living in Poland. He used to be a pseudo intellectual of sorts, but after a recent cathartic about-face, he recently started to work in a multi-national corporation in Poland. Brought up by a pack of wolves, he despises cars everywhere and is complimented for his zany remarks in inappropriate moments. For him, Europe means ever so titillating waves of post-traumatic chill. Alex decided to become part of E&M to push towards more sincerity in discussing present-day Europe. While working as editor for Diaphragm, a glass of good rum always seems to do the trick.
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| Photo: Chris (Flickr); Licence: CC BY 2.0 |
On behalf of everyone at E&M, we'd like to wish all of our readers and contributors a very happy, healthy and peaceful New Year. Here's hoping 2016 will be a good one for Europe. And don't forget: the new edition of the magazine comes out tomorrow, jam-packed with thought-provoking articles and interviews. Highlights including predictions for the year ahead, a European burger guide and insights into the new political order in Spain. We can't wait to share it with you!
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E&M meets the Wake Up Foundation: how a transnational debate can wake up Europe
Written by Nicoletta EnriaWith Euroscepticism on the rise, what can be done to get Europeans to start debates around constructive criticism about Europe? E&M editor Nicoletta Enria met Paola Buonadonna, director of the Wake Up Europe! campaign run by the Wake Up Foundation for a chat about the challenges of creating a transnational discourse, Brexit and how to create a conversation about together building a Europe we want to see.
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| Photo courtesy of Paola Buonadonna |
E&M: Hello Paola! To begin with can you let us know what the Wake Up Euope! campaign is?
Paola: The whole thrust of the Wake Up Foundation is educational and awareness-raising, the starting point is that there are trends that threaten our way of life that we don’t realize yet. The motion of these tectonic plates is something that we should be aware of now and be talking about now and you know Europe is one part of this.The idea behind Wake Up Europe! is to get people together to start thinking, talking and acting about Europe. It’s an interesting mix, we want to use the Great European Disaster Movie to promote this transnational conversation and this will happen for most of the time online on various channels such as social media. The interesting thing I think about it is that we don’t just want people to download the film and watch it, we want people to organise events so that they can meet face to face with other people and talk about these things. The idea is that it’s the face to face sort of activism of that kind that is slightly missing at the moment. Europe is what the media, politicians , think tanks say and they give you a version of what Europe is about and they interpret and percolate for us how we should look at Europe. Depending on where you live and depending on what’s in the news that can be a very highly skewed or narrow perspective or you’ve got, as my colleague James, calls it, click activism – various petitions websites that send you constant requests for very pointed, limited action. But you sit on your own in your house and you click a button, you are not really connecting in any meaningful way with anybody else. The idea behind this is to use the film to bring people together both physically, face to face, and with an online conversation that continues after they watch the film, we ask them to get back in touch with us, tell us what they thought and tweet throughout with the #WakeUpEurope.
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| Photo: AEGEE |
Do you have a passion for photography and journalism? Do you like getting to know people and discovering their stories? Do you want to find out how people relate to "Europe"? Then why not become a reporter for Faces of Europe!
Faces of Europe is a photoblog launched by the Your Vision for EUrope project, a new project by our partners AEGEE-Europe. Inspired by the famous Humans of New York, the photoblog aims at making Europe more personal and exploring the human diversity of our continent. The organisers want to collect and spread the faces and voices of people from different social, cultural and national backgrounds and to find out what "Europe" means to them.
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| Photo: Barbara Urruspil (Flickr); Licence: Public Domain Mark 1.0 |
What happened last night was, as President Hollande put it in an emotional address to the nation, "une horreur". Our sincerest condolences go out to all those affected.
As the facts become clearer and we try to comprehend the who, the what, the why and the how, it is important to try and remain calm.
Nationalist groups across Europe are already using these terrible attacks as a political tool to whip up support for their cause. In particular, the link has been made between the ongoing refugee situation and the atrocities in the French capital. This is dangerously false – these are quite clearly the kind of violent thugs that people are so desperate to escape from.
The values that E&M stands for – tolerance, multiculturalism, fun – are under threat from both the terrorists behind these attacks and those promoting divisive solutions that only take us backwards. We must stand firm and stick to our ideals.
On an evening which risks tearing Europe apart, E&M prefers to take solace in the magnificent show of solidarity across the continent and beyond. There is much more that we share than which divides us. Let's remember that.
Am I a threat to the German way of life?
Written by Frances Jackson |
| Photo: Peter Alfred Hess; Licence: CC BY 2.0 |
In the face of increasing calls for limits to be placed on EU migrants in her home country, E&M's Frances Jackson, a Brit based in Germany, wonders if she too is a burden on the state.
For the last four years, I have been living in a country that is not my own. I wasn't born here. I didn't grow up speaking the language. And if you stopped me on the street, I probably wouldn't – apart from a provisional UK driving licence that expires in 2017* – even have any proper ID on me, as I worry about losing my passport, so prefer not to carry it around every day.
Don't tell anybody, but I am one of those EU migrants you've heard so much about. I came to Germany – in part, at least – for the cheap higher education and have stayed firmly put since then, going as far as to secure myself a PhD scholarship in the process.
As Europe witnesses the largest wave of mass migration since the end of the Second World War, and anti-foreigner rhetoric continues to rise around us, creeping steadily into the political mainstream, I have been giving a lot of thought to my own status as a sort of "economic migrant". Does my presence pose a threat to the German way of life? Am I putting unsustainable pressure on the country's infrastructure? And if not, why not?
IN -791 DAYS
