Challenges of Europe (fall 2011)

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What is more important, the journey or the destination?

Probably neither of them: the people met along the way are important, much more important.

Their emotions, relationships, broken dreams, visions: slices of life that we, as photojournalists, have the rare opportunity to observe, to feel and share. We are not solely observers, we do not stand aside and simply recount what we see, or at least we shouldn’t. What we try to do is to delve into those lives, to dig into human realities and we simply wouldn´t be able to do so unless accepted and invited to join in.

We all went on a journey to look for our stories: curiosity moved us as well as the urge to learn something else about that immense, yet wonderful diversity that life is.

But what you are about to read are not our stories. They are someone else’s stories that we were given the chance to discover. This magazine was made with fragments of other people’s lives. Within this series of pages is our attempt to understand them, our effort to record what we have seen, heard and experienced.

This magazine is about the people that we met along the way, nothing less, nothing more.

Their stories have fascinated us and perhaps they will be of inspiration for others.

Somehow this magazine is about this: encounters with other people’s lives.

CHALLENGES OF EUROPE

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Jonas Opperskalski treasure hunters 6 Fara Phoebe Zetzsche ...and then came King Alcohol 14 Anna Baeza mermaids 22

Nguyen Nguyen workbound 30 Edgar Melo behind the poverty showcase 38 Stefano Carini till death do us part 46 Xi Bai life on wheels 54 Rafael Brix how to get into the media 62 Vashkor Ahmed living the dream 70 Jan Rosseel we are the ninety nine 78

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treasure hunters

by Jonas Opperskalski

Sunday afternoon, 3pm. Communal house, downtown Aarhus

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t is a typical Danish autumn day – slightly rainy and pretty cold. A small amount of daylight falls through a gallery of large windows. Two guys are seated, cutting vegetables in the big common room of the old house.

The light is already turned on. The sound of the knives slicing cucumbers, peeling carrots and cutting beans is echoed by the walls of the bare room. The rhythm of their slow, but stable movements creates a surreal scenery. It will take time to fill the huge pot on the table.

Every seat at the table is taken. Thirteen people are attending the Sunday night dinner.The huge pot is placed

on a side table. Next to it are two smaller pots, plenty of grilled corncobs, different kinds of bread, three bowls of salads, dressing and a lot of fruits. The smell of boiled beans, carrots and potatoes fill the air. People are laughing and enjoying their gathering. Forks and spoons clink against the plates. The silence of people enjoying their food pervades the room.

It is almost a regular Sunday dinner.

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9:48pm

Seven degrees. 9:30pm. Dinner is done. Time to dive

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aue is waiting in front of the communal house with his bike. He wears a colorful rainproof jacket – 80s style. Neon-blue socks are drawn over his trousers. On his shoulders: an old, green Fjällraven backpack.

The hunt begins. Laue heads towards a supermarket nearby. He won’t enter the shop, instead he goes to the pitchblack backyard. A humid breeze makes the trees around whisper. A lot of the neighbouring appartments lights are still turned on – it’s quite early for a hunt. Most people are enjoying their Sunday evening, a lot of them in front of the TV. Despite the darkness, Laue easily finds his way to the bins of the supermarket. He is used to it.

Nobody seems to be aware of this man in the backyard.

Since he walks his bike, there is a delicate jingling of its spokes. He opens the hatches of the container gently.

The light of his headlamp explores the content carefully and precise. Vegetables, bread, candy, bananas, milk, grapes, avocado... one, two... Laue is already inside the bin. His hands select the usable things very fast.The second bag is almost filled – but: the backdoor of the shop opens, bright light falls through it. It glares.

A silhouette of a young female emerges. She has something in her hands. She is walking slowly, it seems

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to be heavy. As soon as the door shuts, the yard becomes pitchblack again. Footsteps aren’t audible any more – the girl must be very close to the container.

Laue is still in. Something moves in the dark. A scream.

The light of Laue’s headlamp hits her face and makes her dress visible. She shrinks back and starts to shout. For a moment the light hits the box she is carrying. Laue gets out of the bin quickly. She steps back even more. „Get outta here!! I’m gonna call the police, get out! Now!!“ Laue starts to talk to her, precisely but calm: „It’s not even illegal. Why can’t I take it? You have thrown it away already.“ „You’re not allowed to! Go! Now!“ „But can I take at least these two bags?“ „No, you can’t! I’ll call the police!”

Laue leaves with the two bags. It’s the fourth time he has been confronted with this situation since he started to dumpster dive five years ago. He likes confrontation with workers of supermarkets or its owners since he has strong arguments and interest to save valuable food which already has been thrown away.

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I find a lot of things which i had never thought about to buy at the supermarket. Sometimes they turn out really great!

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10:43pm

9:16pm

10:40pm

9:55pm

10:27pm

10:35pm

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One person’s trash is an other one’s treasure.

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Sunday evening, 6:30pm.

Communal house again

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he dinner tonight includes a lot of things which Laue collected within the last couple of days. In the salads are carrots which he found last weekend. The other things were shared with his friends. If he has no use for the food he found he would give it away to people in need.

Laue is one of the divers who find great value in the leftovers of our society – late at night they hunt treasures in the backyards of our cityscapes.

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0:25am

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You never know what you’ll get.You have to be creative with the preparation of the food. It’s a lot of fun, it will never become boring.

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...and then came

King Alcohol

by Fara Phoebe Zetzsche

There are 1.3 million alcohol addicts in Germany.

Because of their disease they can no longer work or participate in political, social or cultural life. Johannes Srugies lives in Haus Langhans, an institution in Berlin for men suffering from alcoholism.

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he warm autumn sun is shining through a window with a crochet drape onto Johannes´ brown face.

He gently strokes his gray beard with his index finger and takes a drag of his cigarette. His bright blue eyes are looking into the void. He sits like that for a few minutes until he takes a big gulp from a glass jug with a pewter lid. It is 9:13 a.m.

Johannes is 59 years old and has been an alcoholic for about 33 years. He lives in Germany’s capital Berlin in the Haus Langhans, a health facility for chronic alcoholics, who due to their psychological and physical healthcondition can no longer live on their own.

Haus Langhans is one of the first institutions of its kind in Berlin. Since 1999 it has joined homeless help and social integration successfully.

Thanks to Haus Langhans twelve men, who would otherwise end up on the street, are being offered a protected living. The institution is a so-called “liquid“ facility. The peculiarity is that the people are allowed to drink alcohol. Nothing strong. Only beer. A maximum of five per day. They have to buy it themselves. The aim is not to force the men to withdraw, but to minimize the consumption of alcohol, to stabilize their health and provide them with a safe living environment.

Three Beers “I spent evenings with my father-in-law in front of the television. He drank his three beers and I drank my three beers. Maybe that was the beginning ... that might very well have been the beginning. I cannot say it that exactly.“ 33 years ago, when he was 26 years old, Johannes began to spend several hours in bars after work every now and then, before going home to his family. He was always aware of the fact that something was wrong with that.

“Somebody, who has three children, is a family father and strolls around in bars is a half schizophrenic, someone once said to me.“ He went anyway. Sometimes out of frustration over a lost job, sometimes in defiance of his wife and at some point just out of habit. Now he lives every day knowing that he has lost his life to alcohol.

“Sometimes it was midnight when I came home from the pub, went straight to bed and had to return to work by 6 a.m. This was not a real marriage. Once

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my wife called and I had not picked up the children from the kindergarten. I was sitting in the pub and had forgotten about it. There was, of course, drama. Which is understandable.“ When he talks about this day his voice becomes shaky and his eyes tear up.After nine years of marriage his wife divorced him and he moved back to live with his mother.

He was never homeless. Seven years later his mother could not take the endless fighting anymore either and a social worker arranged a spot for him in Haus Langhans.

Great Dreams Johannes suffers from Korsakoff´s syndrome which is an amnesia caused by chronic alcoholism. Many inhabitants of the Haus Langhans suffer from this syndrome.

The social workers are confronted with stagnation, because the residents often lack the motivation to change their situation.

Johannes´ day starts at around 8:00 a.m. Usually he does not eat breakfast because drinking takes away his hunger. Afterwards he picks up 2,50 Euros from the office at the Haus Langhans.This is the pocket money he gets every day. He buys Matrix, a package of very cheap cigarillos, and 2 to 3 beers at a supermarket close by.

Sometimes he drinks his first beer in front of the market with some other residents of Haus Langhans, sometimes he goes back to his room. The residents of the house have to fulfill different duties during the week. Johannes likes to take care of the shopping. Around 2 p.m. a social worker tests his blood alcohol level in the office. If it stays under 1.0 he gets 50 cents more. This measure is intended to sensitize him for his alcohol consumption and help to reduce it. In the recent weeks he has been getting the 50 cents every time. He usually spends the evenings watching television. After seeing a thriller or a documentary about history or foreign countries he goes to sleep.

“Great dreams and desires I have no more.“ says Johannes.

King Alcohol „Haus Langhans“ is one out of three „liquid“ health institutions in Berlin. An exact number of these institutions in the whole country is not collected in the german statistics. In the last few years various consumercontrol programs have established help to ensure that

Johannes is 59 years old and has been an alcoholic since the age of 26.

“The quarrels of a drinker are stomach discomfort and occasionally I have withdrawal symptoms. That’s why I’m so rarely attending the alcohol-free trips of the facility because I do not know if I would get through the three days of being traveling.”

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Great dreams and desires I have no more.

Every afternoon the social workers test the blood alcohol level of Johannes and the other residents to help them get a feeling for their alcohol consumption and to reduce it.

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A few times Johannes´ wife tried to motivate him to an alcohol treatment. In vain. After 9 years of marriage she asked for the divorce.

Other than that she had nothing to reproach him.

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Johannes remembers a trip with his three daughters to Eisenach. He laughs cheerfully while talking about it: “Isabelle wanted to ride a donkey to the Wartburg castle... so I played it for her. “ Nowadays he sees them only for their birthdays and at Christmas.

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I would imagine that the body is dead and the soul lingers on.

“I had a lot of interests when I was young but I did not dare to make a career out of it. I was an avid athlete, began to photograph when I was 14 and I read a lot about architecture and mineralogy.”

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homeless assistance facilities start dealing with alcohol in an accepting way. For Johannes this means that he is going to have a safe place to live.

Death is an omnipresent issue in the facility. Johannes has been thinking about where „King Alcohol“, as he calls it, will take him. „Some say it is over when it is over. I actually have the idea that the soul passes after death. I don´t believe that I will slip into another body, as some think, or how it is often shown in series on television. I would imagine that the body is dead and then the soul lingers on. That it will keep on noticing the further developments. But only in pictures, as if one were sleeping and dreaming.

Well, those are my thoughts. Maybe they even aren´t that ludicrous.“

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Âť

The worst thing about living alone? The evenings.

mermaids ageing on their own

The swimming pool is a good place to forget, but also to remember that they are still alive.

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er name is Eva Andersen. Her husband died seven years ago. We chat a little while she gets ready for a hot shower. Eva is one of many women who go to the swimming pool every week as part of a mild exercising routine. We are at a public bath, downtown Aarhus.The air is thick with steam and quiet conversations. Women come and go, tiptoeing like overgrown fairytale mermaids wrapped in white towels. All of them are over 65. Most of them are living on their own.

Outside the dressing room, the instructor is already waiting for them. They parade in their swimsuits and get into the water slowly, measuring every step. Some wear inflatable arm bands, too big for their wrinkled bodies. And some even have their reading glasses on, tucked under the swimming hats.

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by Anna Baeza

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You never get over it, but you have to learn to be alone.

Population is growing old everywhere on the planet, but, because of men’s lower life expectancy, it is usually women who are left to live alone. According to the UN World Population Ageing Report, in the year 2000 there were only 81 men aged 60 or more per 100 women the same age. The gap is expected to grow steadily during the next decades.

Even in developed European countries, life is not easy for most of the women after a certain age. Health and economy are two major issues. Some have never worked before and are forced to live on scarce benefits.

Mobility problems often lead them to isolation, while mental sicknesses are common between them. Yet, at the end of the day, it is loneliness that threatens them most.

The swimming pool is a weekly chance to get out of a routine of domestic pains and overall solitude, especially for those who do not give up on living. Widowhood is by far the most common situation.

A thin, white haired woman, Inger tells me with a soft voice about her husband. He passed away 20 years ago but she thinks about him every single day. “You never get over it”, she says,“but you have to learn to live alone.

In here, I find people in my situation”. The company is

much appreciated. These women have come to know each other well and the moments they share in the water allow them to stay away from empty rooms and everyday silence for a while.

With the future of state pension systems in a critical moment all over Europe, elder women who live alone are likely to see the worst part of it. Their financial situation usually deteriorates after they lost their husbands and for the ones who are still able to work, it is hard to get into the labor market at their age. The situation varies a lot from country to country but, on average, they have received less education than men and therefore encounter more difficulties and prejudices when they look for a job.

“In my case I got lucky, because I worked in the past.

I earn enough to get by but it does not allow me to do any extra things like traveling or buying presents for the family”, says Ester Maria.

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The hardest thing is having to make decisions on your own

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The time I spend with my sons is the most important thing right now

The class goes on for half an hour. After some exercises, they start playing around with balls, enjoying themselves like there is no rheumatism, knee injury or backache anymore. But the scars on their bodies tell a different story. Most of them get to the pool following their doctor’s advice.

“I cannot come next week because I will be having an operation on my shoulder”, says Jytte. Her life is very much determined by her health problems, but she is the perfect example of an active senior citizen. A former lab technician, she retired 4 years ago. Jytte lives in a small apartment by herself, although she has been seeing a friend for quite some time.

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I still prefer to be alone, especially when I have a bad day

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She thinks women are better at aging than men and retirement is, to her, a good time to make new female friends.

And, indeed, they seem to get along well. When the session is over, they pack up their bags, dry their hair and walk out together, animatedly commenting on the events of the week until they separate to reach their respective homes.

The pool is a good place to forget but also to remember that they are alive and that there is still a long way to the nursery home.The state provides a variety of means to keep them active but the real struggle for them is to fight their own minds: stay afloat and not surrender to loneliness.

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Work bound

by Nguyen Nguyen

Given the choice between a life of leisure with little responsibilities and working over 60 hours a week, the decision may seem clear cut to many. For Yu Jian Tian, the second choice seemed the obvious one.

A small reminder of China hangs from the wall in the living room.

Right: Yu, drowsy and reluctant, poses for a portrait

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H

ow long have you been living in Denmark?” I ask my coworker during one of our many brief and impromptu interviews. It has been a busier than usual night at the restaurant. Our work place is called Oishii, a Japanese style sushi restaurant owned by a Chinese immigrant located in the Danish city of Aarhus.Yu and I both work as sushi chefs preparing and putting together rolls and filling the orders for the take-out and dine-in.

We enjoy a quick moment of rest before commencing the clean up of the aftermath produced by the usual rush hour of customers.

“I moved to Sweden two years ago to study Swedish,” he hesitates in an early interview, “but I came to Denmark because it was easier to find a job and earn money.

I have been living in Denmark for almost one year.” We exchange words between moments in and out of the kitchen as we proceed to our individual duties.

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I came to Denmark because it was easier to find a job and earn money.

He spoke in a Chinese accented English better than many of my previous coworkers who had similar backgrounds. Along with English,Yu also speaks two different Chinese languages, one of which he calls “Hong Kong” Chinese and the other is Mandarin. He speaks little if any Danish.

The apartment in which Yu lives is located in Brabrand, a neighborhood area on the outskirts of Aarhus.

He shares the apartment with two other coworkers, his boss, Yang and Yang’s family, which includes his wife and two small girls. Having to arrive at work by 11 a.m. and ending around 10 p.m., the home is relatively quiet asides from a cat and dog that also occupy their home.

Yu sleeps in the living room, on a mattress that is laid atop a table at night to avoid being woken up by the giant roaming German shepherd. When not in use, the mattress is leaned up against the wall, perched on the table until nighttime, when it is needed once again to support a weary body. The apartment reflects the lifestyle of owners who work constantly and spend very little time managing their home. There are possessions such as toys, clothes, and furniture resting against the walls of the living room. With simply no order in which these items are kept nor much sign of their use, the items appear just as abandoned as the house is during the day.

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Yu has a bowl of cereal for breakfast as he gets ready for another 11 hour work day.

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Oishii is open seven days a week and Yu is there for six of them. Before working at Oishii, he had worked at another sushi restaurant in Copenhagen called Hatuba when he first arrived to Denmark in 2010.

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I send some money back, but my goal is to travel.

“Two thumbs up,” Yu answers with a smile on his face after being asked about his impressions of Denmark.

He even jokingly talks about perhaps getting married to a Danish girl with fellow workers as they are seated at a table normally reserved for customers. The group regularly meets after work to share beers and stories of another day at work.

Sipping on a beer, I pose a question to Yu at another one of our impromptu interviews, “Do you send a lot of the money you earn back home?”

“I send some money home, but my goal is to travel.”

Yu responds. His answer is not what one would expect, including myself. He studied in China before moving to Europe, but admits that academics are not his greatest interest and that studying was never one of his strong

Horseplay helps to relieve the stress of working at a restaurant.

The bare skin of his feet has a better grip on the slick metal surface to clean the harder to reach spots.

Top: A usual scene after closing hours.

Left: The staff preps for the busy night to come.

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Yu emerges from the basement, with bag in hand as he prepares to head home.

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suits. He has not been back to China in the two years that has been studying and working in Europe. He seems very excited when mentioning his plans to visit home for the Chinese New Year. He will stay for one or two months, before returning to Denmark to continue his routine of working and saving.

“Three more years of work,” is what Yu believes will be enough to help fund his dreams of traveling around the world for one to two years.

“I don´t plan on working at all during that time,” He states, seemingly unfazed by the amount of work he has remaining in order to reach his goal.

The roommates examine each other after a playful skirmish.

Yu and Bing enjoy a movie, subtitled in Chinese, before going to sleep.

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behind the

poverty showcase

by Edgar Melo

How the experience of living on the streets turned into a profession

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Poverty walks in Denmark is a project to raise awareness for a misery apparently nonexistent. The guides are homeless reintegrated into “normality” or former drug addicts serving as a key to access this underworld. Exposing their lives to our eyes is the way they’ve found to regain their lost dignity and to give a meaning to their life.

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he Aarhus tour starts at the base of the association that organizes the walks in the city. This is where people with any sort of economic deprivation or addiction meet daily. The volunteers offer a meal and a warm place to spend the morning, play pool and to create new relationships. The headquarter is based in an austere building in a secluded corner of the harbor.

In this industrial area, it is hidden away from the gaze of onlookers, where it won’t disturb anyone. One of the guides explains that around fifteen years ago some traders raised the money to displace the old homeless office from downtown.

During one of the walks, Søren, starts to recount the story of his life. He is inhaling the smoke from his cigarette slowly, self-absorbed, with the ease and simplicity of someone who has told that tale a thousand times: “My wife died in my arms, I lost her to heroin. I wanted to quit, but I didn’t know how to do it. I had a sad idea of ​​me and my life. It was driving me crazy, fifteen years of heroin and amphetamines. I went to a clinic for help and I discovered I had HIV.They told me that if I´d follow that way I was going to die soon. I was only twenty-five years old. I thought it was too soon to die.”

His skin and expressions are the proof of his ability to survive. There is not a piece of tragedy in his words. It is life itself that is printing the drama. As he says, “those were very hard times, but I learned to live with it.”

The guides are the intermediaries between two worlds, and the key to enter. All of them once were in the deepest recess of human life, but they managed to leave with the help of social programs like this. Now, they are the essential elements of this project. They spend their energies trying to transform the perception of poverty and humanize it by using their own faces.

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Last spring, Søren, the veteran guide, came to this work and, in some ways, this became his mission: exposing his life and guiding anyone who wanted to, through the hidden landscape of the Danish marginalised. But it was also like going back to his origins, for when he lived in Greenland, his native country, he was also a guide. As such he knew how to talk to people and this was exactly what ​​George Zeuthen – father of the “Poverty Walks” in Aarhus – was looking for when he asked Søren. He also needed someone who knew the homeless and addicts world in depth. Søren had worked with them for the past four years within “Drug addicts union”, another project with excellent results, and a long time ago in the homeless press that he helped to found. The guide escaped, somehow, from that underworld. The roughness on his face bears witness that he was there. His relationship with the marginal community is close, and he is a well respected representative of it.

The Poverty Walk continues through the streets and Søren stops in front of some significant buildings: a school for homeless people, a workshop where they collect and restore furniture; squares, streets or parks where they gather before and afterwards, and religious institutions that provide food or simply a place where to wash. He shows this as it would be a landscape of his native Greenland. In fact, it is the landscape of poverty.

And as in a real natural reserve, Søren guides the group protecting and respecting every detail of the path. Carefully observing poverty but from a secure distance, just as if the people were endangered and fragile beings, an ancient tribe with which he identifies and communicates using subtle gestures.

However, this might sound like a paradox, considering that Denmark is a country with the highest standards of wealth and quality of life (according to several indexes). But still it is necessary to show poverty through a tourist route to its own population to raise awareness of this reality. The walk is anecdotal, in some ways it is much less harsh than you might expect. It is a tourist tour in the strict sense. After the economic crisis unemployment rose. as well as social exclusion. Søren says that “hiding problems is never a solution”. It was a governmental decision not to define a national scale for the minimum edge of poverty to keep it not precise.

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Those were very hard times, but I learned to live with it

Nevertheless they get paid around a thousand krone for each walk, this is not enough and it is not the only income the guides have. But by doing this job, after a life of deprivation from any basic psychological need, trapped in a situation of removal of dignity and self-esteem, they find some meaning by empathising with others. For others it is just about the dignity of having a job, or the consciousness of doing something meaningful.

The Greenlandic guide still remembers the way that people used to look at him in the worst stages of his previous life: “People saw me as a bomb while I was dragging a wagon with all my possessions and lots of plastic bags. Many of them used to get passed me just as if I were not there. In fact, I was not there.”

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»The key

between

two worlds are the guides

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* Poverty guides in order of appearance: Søren (Aarhus), Csaba (Copenhagen), Sussane (A), Per (C) and Martin (A) - also on the cover.

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Till death do us part The sacrifice behind enduring love

by Stefano Carini

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I, Rolando Irene, take thee Bagnis Giuseppe to be my wedded Husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.

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remember the first time that I saw him. He was coming into town on his family’s truck. I was sitting on the balcony in the early summer, and I thought: uhm, what an handsome man. I was seventeen, and I remember how this person struck me instantly. I have never seen him before, he was a stranger and I liked that.

Several years later his mother told me that he went home that day saying that he met a girl who had plaits: it made me happy knowing that he also had noticed me.

It was 1945 and he was volunteering in the Resistance fight. We started dating after he came down the mountain shelters the following year, and we did so for five years. We didn’t spend much time together though: those were other times and life was very different. We met at the ballroom, or for some evening walks but it was impossible to have any intimacy for there were too many curious eyes, and words travelled quickly, always reaching my mother’s ears.

It was hard being a woman then. There was an enormous pressure: marriages were economic choices and social values that no good woman could avoid.

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My story was in a way slightly different: I was going to university, something that not many people had the possibility to do. It wasn’t easy: every morning I was going to Torino by train, with a basket full of trout that I would sell to the restaurants before classes. The money was used to pay my studies. Nevertheless I also wanted to get out of my parents’ house, to become totally independent; more than anything else, though, I really wanted to have my own family. After the war it was hard to find a man with serious intentions, and I guess

that when I found him, I decided he was the right one.

I didn’t think then, I was young, I didn’t understand myself. Now I think back and I see that I was in love with the love, and I wanted my family, my house and my husband. I just went with that, and moved in with my new husband’s family.

At the beginning it was hard and I was very sad. I wasn’t used to living under different rules, and my parents in law were so different from my own. Also, when my first daughter Patrizia was born, I had to drop out

of university. This was a very hard but necessary choice, which made me extremely sad: culture has been my only personal pleasure, something that feeds my soul and keeps me sane and alive.

I felt trapped, so I escaped and ran back to my parents’ house. I was scared and confused, but I remember my father’s words as if it was yesterday: “What the hell are you doing? Of course you can stay, but you know that this is not your place!”

I knew he was right so I went back, and stayed.

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Then Cristiana was also born, and Giuseppe was over the moon for these two girls: they meant the world to him, and of course to me, but I was too busy trying to sort my own feelings out to enjoy their childhood as much as I wanted. He had firm but delicate manners with them, something very unusual for a man of those times.

But I kept feeling unhappy, and often I thought that if only I had the money I would have left. The reality was very different: separations were seen very badly in society. For a woman to get separated meant to ruin the family, and this was not acceptable. A good woman would always keep the family together, no matter what.

This is what I did, and somehow it was also what I wanted: this family, my own family was the most important thing above all. Many years later I realised that two people get together only if there is some kind of affinity, some kind of strong affection. We always had that, but I was too blind to see it, and on a few occasions the difficulties in communication almost took the relationship to an end. I always punished myself for the things I have 50

done and those I haven’t done. I feel bad for my behaviour, and I will probably feel guilty forever.

When the girls grew a little I found the strength to continue my studies in pharmacology, with much sacrifice. Having a degree though was not the reason for me to study: the most important thing was to have the possibility to read and learn new things everyday. But I needed to work: the economic situation in the house was very bad and, with two girls that we wanted to send to university, we needed more money. My mother always made it very clear to me that I needed to get a husband, but more importantly I needed to be independent from any man. I think this was the key in our relationship at the time: we were living together but we had separate lives as well, and we kept to that throughout all of our marriage.

I suffered greatly when my daughters left the house: with them I had what I couldn’t have with my husband – an exchange of ideas to the same cultural and intellectual level - and I would have missed that for many years to come.

Then something very important happened.

In 1972 a peritonitis almost killed my husband. My life has always been ruled by anxiety, but this time the fear and the worries were so deep that I just wanted it to finish. The idea of loosing him was unbearable but I could not cope with his suffering anymore.This was something new for me: for the first time I could clearly feel the strong bond that has kept us together.

Giuseppe’s life has been filled with illnesses and health conditions. But we had in my family some innate urge to care for sick people: sickness has always been accepted and treated with an incredibly sensitive and profound involvement.

And this happened to me when my husband started to show the signs of depression. My reaction has been since then a natural understanding and acceptance of his dark thoughts and deep sadness. It made me worried and upset, but never once I thought about how this could have changed my life. I needed to be on his side, that was my duty and, at that point, after my daughters got married and started their own families, he was my whole family, my whole life.

I rebelled when he had a stroke, five years ago, because he was not reacting to it at all. I felt that I needed him to do more, to fight more. I asked for it but he couldn’t do it, and so I naturally adapted to him. I wanted to help him and I didn’t wish to do anything else.

What did I get in return? The things I have been looking for all of my life: true understanding, freedom, support and very few, but immensely important, words of comfort.

Some people might think that this is not enough, not worth spending a life for. But, you see, I have, within my character, something strong that always helped me going through difficult times: I have hope, and it is the hope that I will get some kind of recognition for what I did, for the way I lead my life. Your grandfather, somehow, has given it to me, and this for me means everything.

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Today my marriage has such deep roots that it seems hard to worm out its secrets.

Maybe it could seem as I am simply fulfilling the duties for a woman of my times, but there is also a very strong affection: the same feelings and the same attraction of many years ago.

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I think that the idea of marriage is a utopia. To live with another person always involves some sort of sacrifice. It´s a matter of realising wether you can overcome the misunderstandings or not. I learnt this many years ago, and made my decision.

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Life on Wheels

by Xi Bai

How life would be when you woke up and found yourself in a wheelchair.

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Playing Rugby in the tournament of National Championship in Denmark Previous page (bottom): eight years after the car accident, the tree still carries the marks

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I remember waking up in the hospital. I saw two of my sisters playing outside in a wheelchair. My mum was beside me, holding my hands and crying.

‘Oh fuck, what just happened?’ I asked.

‘You broke…’ Mum couldn’t finish the sentence but burst into tears and ran out of the room. ‘Say it loud! What’s wrong with me?’ I cried out.

A doctor told me that I had broken my neck and the chances of walking again were very low, although it was not impossible.

Goddamn it! Mum and dad just got to know that I was drunk and driving.

I didn’t think too much about my broken back. I thought that the doctors can easily fix it. But I felt embarrassed, really embarrassed…”

Allan Horn, 27, became completely paralyzed from his chest down eight years ago, due to driving while intoxicated.

Precarious Puberty Allan moved away from home and started at a new college after he broke up with his first love, Louise.

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At parents’ home with family members and friends

“After losing her, I was so sad, confused, hurt and didn’t know how to react. I thought a new place was good for a fresh start.”

Because of Allan’s poor ability in reading and spelling, he was put into a special class with six other students of the same problems. Soon, Allan started visiting bars, drinking, trying drugs and fighting in the streets. “Deep in my heart I knew something was going to happen to me. Cause I knew that my life was not going right.”

On July 5th, 2003, the accident happened, after Allan participated in a friend’s 18th birthday party and kept on partying and drinking for 12 hours continuously.

Allan smashed his car into three trees and the car spun and overturned. He was in coma for the next 30 days and another 30 days in hospital.

Days in Rehab Allan went through the rehabilitation for 80 days, in which he learned to live in a wheelchair.

“I smiled to everyone and tried to be nice. But inside, I was mad and irritated by everything.”

He became aware and frightened about what would 58

happen to him in the future, about friends, family, relationships and his life.

“There was a hell lot of handicaps in the rehab center like me. I hated myself so much at that time, because I was not like they were. I couldn’t see myself in this wheelchair.” But like others, Allan experienced many embarrassing moments for the first time in his life in the place for rehab.

There were fifteen nurses in the place helping the disabled. “There’s a lady. She’s very good looking and lovely – tall, curly brown hair and big boobs. She was coming in and helping me to go to the toilet. She took a glove, came to my back and sat me down. Then put a finger into my ass and spun it around, to take the shit out of my ass.

At that time I was 19. I didn’t have any sense on the ass but I was so embarrassed. I just wanted to cut myself.

Fuck the world! Just kill me! This is not gonna happen to me one more time!”

At the same time Allan was learning from others. He got to know wheelchair Rugby through his friend Allan Jensen, who had been in a wheelchair for 25 years.

Âť

At that time I was 19...

I was so embarrassed and just wanna cut myself

ÂŤ

Visiting an old friend. They had been knowing each other for ten years

Saying goodbye after dating with a friend in Aarhus theather

Talking over the phone and be turned down by Krmila, a girl that he loves

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“You gonna come out to the real world,” Allan Jensen told him and took him to see the game.

“It was great coming out to see eight handicapped people laughing and having fun in the gym, smashing into each other,” said Allan. He and his team from Aarhus won the Danish Rugby Championship in 2011.

Wild Vacation After coming back from the rehab center, Allan got a job from where his father worked, the SolarVanti, a company that produces dehumidifiers fueled by solar energy. “It’s good to have something to get up for in the morning”, Allan says.

During this period, Allan met a new friend, John Smidt. “John is more handicapped than I am. The most handicapped I know. But I fell in love with him the moment I saw him. He’s the happiest man I’ve ever met.”

Soon, Allan and John made a decision to travel Thailand in the spring of 2010. From the first day, they started drinking and went wild.

“We bought the whole place. Everyone knew us as the rich guys from Denmark. We felt like kings. It was crazy. We spent a lot of money, I remembered I was constantly saying, ‘here you go’ ‘here you go’ ‘here you go’! We called about 10 ladies, big boobs, small boobs, yellow, white, and brown. And they were sitting on us, touching us and kissing us. I had sex, for the first time on a wheelchair. I needed a proof, that I can do it.”

Berlin Marathon Coming from the trip, Allan was discovered by a handbiking trainer in Egmont Højskole. After six weeks of training, Allan drove to the Berlin Marathon. “The GPS stopped working and I couldn’t find the place. I arrived late for the starting point.” Allan was unable to compete but he was told that he had the opportunity to start the competition with some runners. He took the chance and he cycled among 60,000 runners.

“My name was on my back. I had the Danish flag.

When I was handbiking, some runners put their hands on my shoulders. The audience was shouting my name: ‘Allan! Allan! Go! Go! Go! Pull! Pull! Pull!’ That was the best thing I ever did for myself,” he concluded.

Allan is now in the Danish Handbiking team and was a 60

participant for the World Championship in 2011.

Allan is ‘ukuelig’ (Danish for indomitable) and focused.

He’s like a floater in water that can never be pushed down,” says Maki, one of Allan’s best friends.

“I never had any assistant helping me. I live alone and do all the things by myself. Cause that’s the way it is. But I have to have the radio on when there’s no other people at home. I can’t stand the silence.”

“I want to have a family but I saw some of my friends in wheelchair had kids after fourty, so that can wait for now.” Allan’s next goal is to win the World Championship with Danish Handbiking team.

Allan in his living room. He bought a house in the forest with the money he got from insurance

Getting ready to handbiking on a Friday afternoon 61

Set up symbolic rituals.

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How to

get into the media

Instead of doing on-site research, journalists are increasingly sticking to what PR stages for them

by Rafael Brix

I

n the media, there is such a thing as a free meal. I discovered it through the website of the Frankfurt Book Fair, and it sounded promising: “On the eve of the fair, we will present the book in Frankfurt. We invite you for a small meal in the Steigenberger Hotel Frankfurter Hof. We’d be pleased to receive your registration via e-mail.”

Horst Koppelstätter, who changed sides from a regional newspaper‘s main editorial office to his own communication agency ten years ago, confirms my registration: “Your magazine looks super. I am glad. See you tomorrow.” I already feel like a trickster who won‘t deliver his duty in this silent contract.

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The trousers I just bought at C&A are a bit too long, but at least they‘re nice and clean. Sneaking discreetly through the five-star hotel, I finally find the roll-up with the logo of the Vodafone Foundation which is obviously paying for all this. Someone is joking that this event is quite unusual, considering that books are usually lossmaking business. But as we will learn later, this book is different anyway. The foundation just chose a publisher and a journalist who was able to present nineteen stories of immigrants. “The continuity in all their stories is that they had role models in their sphere, people who were pushing them”, says David Deißner from the Vodafone Foundation, that is pushing young migrants itself with scholarships for elite universities.

After we all sat down, Deißner welcomes us and introduces the three present subjects of the books. They might be sources of direct quotes for the journalists later. At that point, the most prominent of them, Tarek Al-Wazir from the Hessian Green Party, has already provided his face for a photograph that will later decorate an article in the local newspaper.

Finally, the author reads from his book, but after a while, the waiters start serving. The moderator has to react, so he finalizes this item on the agenda: “For all I care, you could continue reading for hours, but we also want to talk a little.” – “And the soup get‘s cold!”, the author is reading everyone‘s thoughts.

First course: Pumpkin cream soup with

lemongrass and poultry satée “Statistically, there is one Public Relations officer for each journalist in Germany in the meantime”, deduces the specialist magazine journalist in its July issue from recent estimates.

The DJV, one of Germany‘s two big journalist unions, doesn‘t even draw this line. They also subsume PR persons under the term “journalist”, as “both collect information, process them and make them available to a public or segmented public”, how their chairman Michael Konken has put it in an interview for Network Research‘s book Separate worlds? about PR and Journalism. A development that also arrived in the education system. The University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Gelsenkirchen, for example, “has taken the tight interlinking of Public Relations and Journalism in daily life into account” and offers combined studies that “consider-

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ably increase the students‘ competiveness and flexibility on the working market”.

Money issues are always a good argument, and especially in an environment where many editorial departments make freelancers do a large part of the work.

Freelancers who get paid very badly and who can often only survive by working in Public Relations besides.

But money is not the killer argument. “When journalists use unrevised press releases, it is also a sign of a deformed self-conception. They look more on the presumed usability of an information than on the source”, Thomas Schnedler argues in Separate Worlds?.

Second course: Roast corn poulard breast under a mustard-tarragon crust, along with an apple cream sauce served with a potato casserole Next day, 9.30 am at the Penal Institution Frankfurt/ Main. I sneak into another event set up for the press.

Hessen’s federal state ministries of justice and for social affairs, the job centre, the associations of cities and districts and two NGOs announced to sign a contract to show their will to work together on the re-socialisation of prisoners. An act that could have easily been executed in some of their offices or even by e-mail. Instead, these seven very important persons meet on a Thursday morning in a small adjacent building of a prison. When I arrive, the sun is rising over the barbed wire – an image that will later occur in the report of the Hessen’s RTL station. As you can‘t read out a press release in television, their teams have to think about creating images. And the images have to look nice, that‘s part of the own standards. It‘s not a big deal for the judicial officer anyway to lower the sun-blinds taking some light spots off the minister‘s faces. It was also a good idea of the Ministry of Justice‘s press officer to bring a roll-up with their logo, as it is a perfect background for an interview with the minister.

What the viewers won‘t see in television: two thirds of the stackable chairs that have been set up in this very average room stay empty this morning. But the two big German news agencies dpa and dapd followed the invitation, and that is important. In the end, the news about “more help for ex-prisoners” will appear on at least six newspapers, 52 online editions and the two TV stations that came in person.

Take care of the sound.

Help with the complicated names.

Put the information into a press kit.

Provide some coffee in the morning.

Create a nice atmosphere.

Offer a first-hand experience.

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Involve everybody.

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“Are there any more questions, this is not the case. The buffet is usually good, use it.”

Third course: Puff pastry waffle with

pecan nut mousse and pear sorbet While observing journalists in newspapers, radio, television and online editorial offices, researchers from the University of Leipzig found that only 108 minutes per day were used for so called verification and extension research.The proportion of on-site inspection and physical encounters in the research time was 1.4 per cent.

The situation at the dpa news agency is not much better, as another study from the University of Leipzig shows. During one observed week in 2005, more than half of dpa‘s news were based on PR material, and 87 per cent of these had no additional sources. “One could conclude that the German journalist is the last person to be aware of what happens in Germany”, said Tom Schimmeck, a freelance journalist himself, in his speech for an event about the price and value of journalism.

At least I had enough to eat.

Make sure you’re presented in a good light.

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Create a nice atmosphere.

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Living the Dream

by Vashkor Ahmed

Two Bangladeshi commerce graduates migrated to Europe in search for works and a better lifestyle. Unexpectedly they are faced with a tougher employment challenge and unwanted living conditions

I

t was a cold night in Denmark, it was dark. As we were driving through Holmstrupgårdvej in Aarhus we suddenly took a right, and ran into a big broken wooden door which seemed like a way into the forest. The little I could see inside with the car headlights was a junkyard. Then I noticed a trailer and some lit windows at a distance. “This is where they live?” I asked. The owner of the place who drove me from the mosque looked at me and smiled. As I walked past a couple of Romanians and stepped inside a narrow corridor it reminded me of the messy dorm rooms back in Bangladesh. A mixed 70

Zane Alam Polash (left) and Sohel Hassan (right) in the yard of their housing in Aarhus, Denmark.

smell of food, cement, rust and dirty clothes. Right after the entrance there was a toilet and a guy came out.

“Bangladeshi?” I felt the desperation in my voice. “No, Palestine”, and then he pointed me to a half opened door. There I saw the green walls and two guys praying.

time Italy attempts to legalize large numbers of illegal immigrants. Polash took one of these opportunities and found his way in. Hassan made it to Italy a few years after, by illegal trafficking, and later got his papers when the time came.

Zane Alam Polash (28) and Sohel Hassan (31) are two Bangladeshi men who moved from Italy to Denmark seven months ago, and have been living together since.

The first came to Europe more than four years ago with the help of his brother-in-law living in Italy. From time to

Back in Bangladesh they had bachelor degrees, one from accounting and the other from management. But they couldn’t find jobs in those lines. Instead they tried several self invested businesses. “My family is in fisheries, but I never saw much profit in that” said Polash.

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In search for work they migrated to Italy since it was the easiest way into Europe. However, they found Italy crowded with unemployed migrants and finding work was a lot harder than expected.

Polash spent his first seventeen months in Italy without a job. For this time being his brother-in-law and sister supported him. Later he found works at restaurants.

Hassan on the other hand could not find anything for the most part. He started out by illegally selling umbrellas in the streets. At the same time he was connected to Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic organization, where Polash’s sister was also involved: and that is how they met.When Polash was asked by his sister to search for a job for Hassan, he later got Hassan into another restaurant.

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My education is not acknowledged here, and even if I get a degree from Europe why would anybody give me a job instead of giving it to a local?

«

I am a religious Muslim and I had to work at a disco bar! I hated it!

Yet to this date neither of them received work permits in Denmark. They are still paying taxes in Italy with a hope for permanent residences. With papers from Italy they can legally travel to Denmark, but getting a job is another issue. Behind closed doors they started working in a bread factory owned by a Palestine born, who also accommodated them in their current living place.

Immediately after, Hassan heard of another job opportunity in Denmark. Polash says, “When Hassan told me he found work in Denmark and suggested we move there, I did not hesitate. Italy is having an economic downfall and the competition for jobs is too high. I did not see any future in the restaurant business

Unfortunately a month into their work the factory burnt down. For the past five months they have been living without payments. At the same time they are helping to rebuild the factory at a new location, hoping that the owner will help them earn documents to start working legally in Denmark.

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in Italy, and I was afraid of losing my job and facing another long term unemployment. Denmark however is promising with payments and its welfare system. Getting legal documents in Denmark would be the chance of a lifetime!”

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With zero income they spend all their time at home when they are not working at the factory. Since the production stopped there is no income for the factory either. The two men are supported with food supplies from the factory storage. Occasionally they receive financial help from a nearby mosque and also from the owner of the house.

Nearly half of their time in Europe these two men have been unemployed. The savings from a working day vanishes on a day without work. From Bangladesh to Italy to Denmark they migrated with a hope for some better days. They dream of getting back to their home country, start a family and bring them to Europe.To raise the next generation as Europeans will be worth all of this struggle, they believe.

Âť

Life in Europe is not as bright as it appears from Bangladesh, at least not for us.There is always the fear of being without jobs, fear of having a scratch on the records that may cost the chance of being permanent. People back at home think we are having a wonderful time in here but now I know I would be better off in Bangladesh.

ÂŤ

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I lost my position and time in Bangladesh and it may take another decade to fit back in. I don’t even have enough savings to go back and start a business. Also if I cannot maintain the European living standard while I am in Bangladesh then my family and friends will see me as a failure, I don’t think I can take that.I guess at the end of the day what I want is respect. If I ever go back it will be to get married to a respectable woman, and I want to be ready as a respectable European.

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«

Âť

I made a mistake moving to Italy, I made a mistake giving up my job in Italy and coming to Denmark. But if I were given a chance to walk back on those steps, I wouldn’t.

Things change once you start a life in here, you just cannot go back.You are trained with certain lessons that you cannot unlearn.

ÂŤ

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We are We are the ninety nine the ninety

by Jan Rosseel

nine

the occupy movement reached The Hague

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From the riots in Greece to the demonstrations in Spain and New York recently, people are trying to find a way to fight for a better world, one of mutual respect and honesty. After the economic crisis many people have not only lost their job and financial security, they also lost faith in the government. Protesters have taken over the parks and cities worldwide, under the banner of the Occupy movement . Also in The Hague, the political capital of The Netherlands, the call for change is echoing in the night.

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T

he grass, still moist from the heavy rainstorm the previous day, is glistening in the sun as the smell of incense fills the air with a tangy sweetness. Tucked away in a corner of ‘Het Malieveld’, a big grass square in The Hague a handful of tents are pitched to occupy the city following up the example of the Occupy Wall street movement in New York. Some people have been here for a week, sleeping in tents. The field is scattered with banners and slogans. One of the banners says ‘we are the 99%’, a reference to the banners on Occupy Wall street.

‘It is a mixed crowd we have here and everyone is welcome to support our cause. We are here to change the world and we are not leaving unless something has changed.’ The look in his eyes is fierce and the tension in his body is clear as Harry, a middle aged man from The Hague, explains why he is here. ‘I do not let anyone tell me what to do. There are no leaders around here and I am just fine with that.’

Inside one of the bigger tents people are trying to warm themselves to a variety of hot drinks. Some of the tents have been donated by the city to keep people warm at night and provide them with shelter during the cold nights. The cold from the past few days has not crippled the motivation. There is a sense of excitement as people are discussing ways to organize actions.

In the main tent a crowd starts flowing in as food is being served.

‘All the food and has been donated. There is a lot of positive response to what we are doing.’ says Miko, a 27 year old student originally from Papoua New Guinea.

He is happy to be part of this movement and talks about his roots mesmerizingly.

‘I have learned a lot about Shamanism from my family.’

He is wearing a white feather in his long, black hair. His backpack is decorated with an anonymous mask, a mask that has become a symbol for this Occupy movement.

Walking around the field and talking to the people it becomes clear that there are as many different people as there are reasons for them to be here. For many it is a way to ventilate their anger or disbelief in a failed system. For others it is a way to get together and to try to find a way to create the change they are hoping for.

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I believe in it because we are part of it ourselves.

‘Why I am here for?’ Miko asks. ‘I am here because I want to go back to the beginning of society, the time when people really lived together. I notice that my roots are deeply embedded in who I am. Indigenous people have been able to hold on to that for a very long time.’ he says with a smile.

‘We should start small, just like what we see here.

Everything goes back to the community and from there we can build something new, even though I can not say exactly what. I believe in it because we are part of it ourselves. We can have a direct influence on how things are going and on what affects me as a person. I see it as being able to take responsibility for oneself. We live in a society where a lot of decisions are being made for us so people stop taking responsibility. I am not saying that we should reject anything but the balance has to come back.’

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In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.

Alexis de Tocqueville

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I spend about twenty euros a week on paint so I only have forty euros a week left for food.

As the night falls, Diego is getting ready for another night on the field. Diego is a young artist from The Hague, a painter with a vision to change the world, dedicated to this cause but still figuring out how to do it. He sleeps in a tent on the outskirt of the camp, close to the motorway that sounds like an endless breaking of waves.

‘I have been here for almost one week. It has been pretty cold and wet the past few days but that is fine. I live only fifteen minutes away from here so I can always go home and take a shower. If anyone feels like it they can always use my place to freshen up and get some renewed energy to continue the Occupy.’

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This is the revolution that will Âťmake people realise that everyone is a shaman.. ÂŤ .

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Vashkor Ahmed Anna Baeza Xi Bai

Italy www.stefanocarini.com info@stefanocarini.com

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Spain www.edgarmelo.es melocorp@yahoo.es

Nguyen Nguyen

44*

Vietnam/USA nguyen.nguyen@selu.edu

Jonas Opperskalski Jan Rosseel

38.5*

Germany www.rafael-brix.de mail@rafael-brix.de

Stefano Carini Edgar Melo

39.5*

Spain www.annabaeza.com info@annabaeza.com

China natalie.baixi@gmail.com

Rafael Brix

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Bangladesh www.fotovisura.com/user/vashkor vashkor@live.com

Germany www.jonasopperskalski.com info@jonasopperskalski.com

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Belgium www.janrosseel.com janrphoto@gmail.com

Fara Phoebe Zetzsche

Germany www.farazetzsche.de post@farazetzsche.de

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Fall 2011 Chief editors: Jonas Opperskalski, Jan Rosseel. Text editors: Vashkor Ahmed, Rafael Brix, Nguyen Nguyen. Chief Photo editor: Edgar Melo. Assistant Photo Editors: Xi Bai, Fara Phoebe Zetzsche. * The most important tool a photojournalist needs is a good pair of shoes.

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ange tak til Danmarks Medie- og Journalisthøjskole, især til Lars Bertelsen, Henrik Meller, Susanne Sommer og Lone Theils for deres store støtte, tålmodighed, opmuntring, dansk wienerbrød og for at være “supercool” lærere.

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eChallenges of Europe