Eurovisie January 2023

IN THIS

EDITION...

4 - ODE TO UTOPIA ANNA HATZIUS SARRAMONA

7 - TO REVIVE KYIV, LOOK TO ITS YOUTH EMILIA JUCHNO

9 - A HOME UNDER THREAT RENATA RÎMBU

11 - HOME IS WHERE THE TONGUE IS NATHAN DOMON

15 - A HOME, A HOME, WHO CAN FIND US A HOME? STIJN HOOGVOORST

16 - WHAT MAKES A EUROPEAN CITY MORE LIVEABLE? VINCENT LUBACH

18 - MAYBE IT’S MULLINGAR ANNELIE NÍ DHÁLAIGH

20 - FROM HERE, FROM THERE, FROM EVERYWHERE YAEL PLESS

eurovisie

Volume 18 Issue 2 January Editon

Imprint

Editorial office: Kloveniersburgwal 48, room E2.04/2.05, 1012 CX Amsterdam

Editor-in-chief: Órlaith Roe

Editors: Annelie Ní Dhálaigh, Nathan Domon, Julius Sieburgh, Órlaith Roe, Emilia

Juchno, Renata Rîmbu, Irina Petrescu, Yael

Pless, Stijn Hoogvorst, Vincent Lubach, Fernando De Freitas, Anna Hatzius Sarramona.

Design: Irina Petrescu

Editorial

Órlaith Ní Ruaidh

Dear reader,

As we launch ourselves into this new year and brace for whatever it may bring, our writers come bearing meaningful and salient voices. Fresh beginnings beckon, and as we find ourselves tempted to forgo all past endeavours, eagerly stepping into fateful anticipation, we would be remiss to forget our origins. The ‘home’, in all its many manifestations, is where our stories derive from.

In shades of political, societal, poetic, romantic, and climatic, it is both the past and present of today’s problems, solutions, and human character. In one of our most packed editions to date, we have nine articles that explore and probe the home from personal, political, cultural, and poetic interpretations.

Our editors are treading complex waters, but each tackles our question with individuality and a brave creativity. Yael shares with us a deeply personal exploration of forced migration and the adaptable essence of a home, while unravelling the complexities of belonging and movement in the search for her own home. Nathan traverses the linguistics of Europe and our relationship with our mother tongues, exposing the indifference that has allowed English to storm its way to the title of lingua franca.

Stijn tackles a painfully familiar topic for students and Amsterdammers in the form of the housing crisis, and asks what, if any, is the solution? Similarly, the disastrous panic attached to our homes, or lack thereof, comes under fire from Renata in her investigation of responsibility, agency, and incapacitation in the midst of a worsening climate crisis.

As we approach the one-year mark of the war in Ukraine, Emilia platforms the youth of Kyiv, and amidst destruction how the city’s revival can surface and prevail. Anna teases out the European utopia, in all its legalities and nuances, while Vincent delves into the liveability of European cities and weighs them up against the grids and crises of our American counterparts. And if one has ever pondered about the wonders that the town of Mullingar boasts, then allow Annelie to spin you a miraculous (and not entirely factual) tale of her hometown.

For many, the current climate means a loss of security and stability, the destruction of one’s birthplace and the uncertainty of the days that lie ahead. In this issue, we have set out to dissect and explore the limitations of a home and understand the liminal space of where we come from, and where we think we should be going.

As always, it is a pleasure to invite you into the world of our pages. And as this new year awaits us, we are indebted to have the reader by our side.

With gratitude,

Órlaith Ní Ruaidh. Editor-in-Chief.

Children are dreamers. If they had their way, we would live in houses made of candy and bedtime would be banned. As we grow older, we learn that too much sugar leads to cardiovascular disease and eight hours of sleep is a privilege to be cherished. Suddenly it’s all about George Orwell. And what happens to our utopias? ‘Utopian’ becomes synonymous with naïve; it reads as an insult. The Everyone foundation, however, is turning things around by reclaiming utopianism to its advantage. The result is a proposal that has the power to revolutionize the European Union.

It is the end of June in Berlin and a group of high EU officials take the stage of the European House. Among them, Katarina Barley, vice President of the European Parliament, and Anna Lührmann, German representative to the Council. And, as the only non-politician, Ferdinand von Schirach, a former lawyer and one of today’s most successful authors in Germany. In 2021, he published the book Jeder Mensch (in English: Everyone), in which he proposes to add six new articles to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. He argues that, due to the global nature of today’s challenges, they cannot be sufficiently addressed by domestic law, but rather require action on a European level.

Between the EU officials, von Schirach stands out. While Barley and Lührmann, both experienced politicians, come across as if they had practiced their sentences for months, von Schirach gets tangled up in his own words. He breaks up sentences halfway through and chooses a different angle. When he enthusiastically explains the six articles, he makes eye contact with Barley and Lührmann, almost as if engaging in a private conversation.

Five of the proposed articles are substantive in nature. They are intended to offer protection from climate change, misinformation, and inhumane working conditions in supply chains, and to control artificial intelligence and big data. The sixth article is the most ambitious one: it aims to make EU Fundamental Rights enforceable directly before the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). Until now, EU citizens could only file fundamental rights complaints with their domestic courts and hope for referral to the CJEU. Von Schirach’s proposal would make the CJEU directly accessible to every EU citizen.

By June 2022, the project had collected more than 260,000 signatures. A foundation named after the book Everyone has been set up to gain more traction in Germany, as well as in other EU Member States, to which the project quickly expanded. Ferdinand von Schirach and other representatives of the foundation have been invited to present their ideas on TV and radio, at film festivals and university conferences. The project has noticeably struck a chord with EU citizens. But it also came under criticism, especially from the legal field.

Criticisms of Everyone focus less on individual articles – most EU citizens agree on the importance of these issues – instead, the project is criticized for being too unrealistic. In his column in the Spiegel, former judge Thomas Fischer compares it to a student essay on how the world would be a better place. The debate between von Schirach and the EU politicians seems like a clash with reality. For every enthusiastic impulse by von Schirach, there is a well-rehearsed “it’s not that easy”.

Admittedly, at the moment the

project is still far from being realized. An extension of the Charter of Fundamental Rights falls under the Treaty Revision Procedure set out in article 48 TEU. According to the article, the Council can convene a so-called European Convention by simple majority, which would prepare a concrete proposal. Currently, support for a Convention among Members of the Council is low. And even if a majority was reached, the Convention’s proposal would have to be unanimously adopted by all 27 EU Member States, as well as ratified under national law. The more than 250,000 supporters of Everyone are in no way a guarantee of success. After all, the project depends on the requirement of unanimity.

In an interview with Entr’acte magazine, Dr. Bijan Moini, a renowned lawyer and board member of Everyone, differentiates the utopian character of the project into two aspects. On the one hand, the goal of reshaping the Charter of Fundamental Rights can, due to the unanimity requirement, be described as utopian. On the other hand, the legal enforcement of the articles, even after their entry into force, is utopian in the sense that having a right to something is not yet a guarantee that this right will ‘come true’. For example: although the first article of the German constitution declares the inviolability of human dignity, it is still violated every day. Laws exist

“The question is therefore not whether the project is utopian – in fact, the members of the foundation, many of them experienced lawyers, are the first to underline the utopian nature of the proposal.”

Ode to Utopia

On revolutionary ideas and their value outside the candle-lit student kitchen.

Anna Hatzius Sarramona

because humans are prone to breaking them. A society without murders would not need any homicide laws. At the same time, homicide laws certainly do not prevent murder. In this sense, legislation is always utopian, for it merely provides a rulebook for an ideal society. (Ideal, of course, in the opinion of those who made the law.) What Bijan Moini describes as the first utopian aspect, namely the difficulty to revise EU primary law, is what gives Everyone its particularly utopian character. Does this mean that Everyone should steer away from its utopian goals and adopt a more realistic approach? Could a utopia not survive outside of the candle-lit student kitchen?

Oscar Wilde once wrote that progress is the realization of utopias. Interestingly, history shows that human progress was often the result of previous utopias. In a German philosophy podcast, von Schirach points out that major declarations, such as declarations of independence or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, never represented how society was, but rather how people wanted it to be. During the French Revolution, in a time when citizens were everything but free, Lafayette wrote the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen. So if it is necessary to be utopian in order to set progress in motion, why do so many people criticize the utopian character of Everyone and refuse to endorse it?

Utopias require imagination. In Utopia for Realists, Rutger Bregman points out that utopian ideals are lacking because we cannot imagine anything better than what exists. He is not suggesting that we are satisfied with everything in the world. What he is saying is that we do not recognize the systemic root of our dissatisfaction. Systemic problems like poverty are seen as individual pro-

blems. Just as we see the problem in the clothing brand producing under inhumane working conditions rather than acknowledging the errors of a legal system that allows it. Once we recognize a pattern and see the big picture, we can imagine a better EU.

A utopia is by definition distant from current reality. It goes without saying that a campaign without utopia would certainly give a sense of achievement in the short term. However, in the long run, no great change would occur. A campaign without utopia can only provoke change within the frame of the current status quo. It looks at the state of affairs and asks where it is possible to adjust it. A utopian campaign like Everyone, on the other hand, asks what the EU should look like and what must be changed to get there.

Everyone’s utopia is a strong, united Europe with a legal system that protects every citizen from modern challenges. What needs to be changed to achieve this goal is the Charter of Fundamental Rights, its application and the general awareness of these rights. If we understand Everyone less as a project aimed at extending the Charter by six new rights and more as an encouragement to rethink Europe, we will better understand its value. In other words: we must measure the success of Everyone not by the speed with which the six new articles are enacted, but rather by the impetus it gives to the transformation of the EU. For utopia is not a blueprint. It does not give definite answers or solutions, but can, as Bregman puts it, ask the right questions. Everyone encourages EU citizens to wake up their inner child and to think about their utopias. It might not be a house made of candy we dream of, but maybe a city powered by renewable energies.

To Revive Kyiv, Look to its Youth

Emilia Juchno

On the 24th of February, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in what was referred to by the Russian president Vladimir Putin as merely a “special military operation”. Ever since, the world’s utmost attention has been directed at Kyiv (not Kiev, which is the Russian pronunciation of the city’s name), the Ukrainian capital, the heart of Ukraine, and home to the country’s government and military command headquarters. As Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to reside in Kyiv’s presidential palace (Mariinskyi Palace), the obvious importance of the city and its protection lies in its crucial role as a central point for strategic planning and international correspondence. However, before the tragic day of the 24th of February, Kyiv was known for much more than the Battle of Kyiv, the brutal Russian offensive and the courageous defence conducted by the Ukrainians. By 2021, this exhilarating city became increasingly referred to as ”the new Berlin”, while being praised for its creative youth and its exciting, rapidly growing club scene. Today, the memories of pre-war Kyiv serve the young generations not only to remember the cultural legacy of their city but also to envisage the city’s future and how they want to rebuild it from the trauma of the war.

Although Kyiv is at least two thousand years old and a very historical city, it is the success of contemporary Ukrainian artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs that shapes its importance as a European capital today and has drawn me to the conclusion that

rebuilding Ukraine after the war will be about much more than just restoring the physical spaces. Like most capitals, Kyiv is the hub for independent thinking and creative movement in the country.

They find ways of expressing themselves through means that were not so widely available to their parents or grandparents, creating visual arts, music, design, and photography. Since 2006, Kyiv has been home to the Pinchuk Art Centre, one of the largest and most influential centres of contemporary art in Eastern Europe. It was responsible for launching the Curatorial Platform, the first institutional educational programme in the field of art curation in Ukraine. In 2022, three young curators from the Pinchuk Art Centre represented Ukraine at the 59th international art exhibition La Biennale di Venezia in Italy. Two of the curators, Maria Lanko and Lizaveta German, are also founders of an online archive of contemporary Ukrainian art (the Open Archive) and a contemporary art gallery located in the heart of Kyiv (the Naked Room). Both projects reflect the young Ukrainians’ passion for their national art and culture, as well as their desire to reach wider

“The city’s cultural scene is relatively fresh and untrodden, leaving plenty of space for newness and generating a hunger for new experiences amongst young Ukrainians.”

audiences, seeing as the art market in Ukraine is still quite young.

Apart from the exhibition of formal and more traditional art, young people have looked for inspiration and new audiences for their art in the increasingly popular club culture. The combination of Kyiv’s thriving techno culture and underground nightlife together with its affordability and its industrious, dynamic young generation, is precisely what draws people to compare it to Berlin.In 2019, a group of young people from Kyiv opened a mysterious music club in the city, with a name that consists merely of a mathematical symbol which means ”does not exist”. Every season, this secretive club publishes their own magazine available exclusively inside the club, whose location remains, of course, a mys-

tery. Their first edition was devoted entirely to discussing Ukrainian identity and promoting local art - they invited eighteen Ukrainian artists to publish their work in the pages of the magazine. Among them was Polina Karpova, a thirtyyear-old photographer and costume designer, whose biggest inspiration is the post-soviet aesthetic, drawn from the memories of her very own childhood and teenage years. Polina’s work is said to represent the New Sincerity movement, which has been growing increasingly popular around the world, including in Ukraine. Ukrainian New Sincerity is all about post-modernist irony and cynicism, represented through kitsch and parodic imagery and a general aesthetic that draws from things that are not ’beautiful’ in a classic sense of the word - such as the

brutalist soviet blocks visible in many of Polina’s photographs.

It is people like Maria, Lizaveta and Polina, who shape Kyiv’s contemporary cultural scene. Although the war may have temporarily obstructed them from working and sharing their creations, they represent an entire generation of young Ukrainians who are both ingenious and inquisitive, actively looking for ways to express that ingenuity. The images of a vibrant, youthful, flourishing city, home to numerous art-related initiatives, are the ones that must prevail in our memory of Kyiv and serve as a reminder that the spirit of this struggling Ukrainian city will be just as important to preserve as its roads and buildings.

A Home Under Threat A new role for human agency in the context of climate change

Renata Rîmbu

For most people, thinking of home brings feelings of comfort and of the familiar. There is a security and certainty in one’s well-known environment, a consolation of shared memories, relationships and a sense of belonging. What happens when one feels those certainties slipping away? The climate crisis ensures that the planet we call home is becoming no longer identifiable with any of the terms or sensations listed above. The only natural response to a world rapidly changing for the worse? Fear.

These headlines sound frightening – and they should, since we find ourselves in a thoroughly frightening situation. We stop reading and seemingly get on with our day, trying to put it at the back of our minds. Is it working? Can we really turn off our brains and

ignore the negativity? Or are we left with an underlying feeling of anxiety and helplessness that is simply not addressed? Psychologists have coined a new term: eco-anxiety, or “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of next generations”. While it affects people at different intensities, a lingering fear which cannot be ignored forever undoubtedly exists. The sensible response is to turn to our own lives and think of what can be changed – so we recycle, cut down on meat, use a reusable bag for groceries, and tell ourselves that we are doing our best. In the end, one individual alone cannot produce visible change, and it is up to the bigger players and companies to change their behaviours and ways of thinking. Our instincts indicate there is something wrong with such a complacent mindset, though – but what would more on our part look like? Perhaps that is equally scary, because it would mean fully altering our lives and habits. Refusing to fly? Going out into the streets to protest? Becoming activists? These are not convenient, comfortable choices, and they are most definitely not choices for everyone. It seems as if a standstill has been reached. One encouraging perspective, and a potential step in the right direction, is to fully reimagine what we can do as active agents based on a new definition of human agency itself: the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene is a proposed geological period starting from the moment human beings have been capable of altering the environment around them. Rapid technological advancements and population growth meant that humans turned from biological agents, simply being part of and interacting with the environment, into geological agents who are capable of changing and influencing it. The idea of the Anthropocene is prevalent within the environmental humanities and has been famously linked to new definitions of human agency and freedom by Indian historian Dipesh Chakrabarty. What we are capable of producing as humans and our impact reaches a new scale if one takes into account that through our own decisions and increased freedom, we have reached a point where the planet itself is being altered as a result of our actions. Do human agency and freedom then become associated with guilt? Are we carrying the burden of these choices from the past centuries? I would argue that in the context of the climate crisis, the answer is yes. With this new view in mind, it seems like anxiety and fear would only increase and become even more paralysing as a result of our culpability. We are guilty of climate change, and that guilt is doubled by the fear that we are not doing enough to atone for the mistakes of previous generations. Humans as a species are capable of damage on such a large scale – then mere individuals truly are incapable of producing change. However, I wish to argue

“Half of Earth’s glaciers could melt even if key warming goal is met, study says”

“Climate change is leaving African elephants desperate for water”

“2022 was officially the U.K.’s hottest year on record — and human-caused climate change made it 160 times more likely”

that awareness of the idea of the Anthropocene brings the exact opposite: if we are capable of triggering a new geological period, and changing the environment to an incredible degree, this also means that we have the power and agency to put a stop to it. In other words, I propose we reimagine this villainous grandeur and give it new meaning by channelling human agency into positive change.

Easier said than done. We are surrounded by different reactions and alternative solutions: the battle scenes of important people, such as COPs, and the work of activists such as Greta Thunberg, whose courage and influence almost seem too far removed from us – to be admired from a distance. Perhaps that distance is not as far as one might think. Conscious voting, urging governments to take action, signing petitions, donating to environmental causes, investing in renewable energy – these are

all more or less achievable, practical actions which bridge the gap between us and the people making a difference whom we look up to.

It seems like the conclusion is one we have already heard before: live sensible and environmentally-conscious lives, become more active; in other words, keep doing the things we are already doing and struggling with. Nonetheless, perhaps being aware of where our anxiety springs from can help reduce it, or at least make us understand it more. The impact of such conversations should not be ignored either – they encourage the ball to keep rolling. The more we write and talk about climate change, the more it can call to action. Will we ever feel guilt-free? Probably not. Through our guilt, fear, and anxiety, let us try to use the human agency which is on its way to destroying the home around us, and channel it towards collective action.

Home Is Where the Tongue Is On the importance of languages in Europe

Nathan Domon

Only far from home can you fully appreciate the serenity and the tranquillity that flow from the mother tongue. Our first language is a place where the expression of feelings is effortless, unaffected, and sincere. Where eloquence and eccentricity are intuitive, and where authenticity is forged and revealed. A place with the Proustian ability to trigger vivid memories and keep the door to our past open. A place that carries the sound of home, with a hint of nostalgia.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein described language as a city you get to know by moving around it: you know your language like you know dead-end streets, secret alleys, connecting roads, worn-down steps,... It is a place that we have become familiar with over time. But it constitutes a sense of place that is

deeper than location alone. It relates to identity and belonging, relationships and family, shared histories and moments. It is our intimate connection to the world around us, the glue that binds us together, no matter where we are. “My homeland is the French language”, declared the French author Albert Camus, born in Algeria, echoing the words of the Romanian philosopher in exile Emil Cioran: “one does not inhabit a country, but a language.” For people who, by choice or necessity, uproot themselves from their homes, the language can become a temporary refuge, a quiet place to retreat, a sanctuary where the mind speaks freely. “The language remains”, replied laconically Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt when asked about what was left of her pre-war feeling of home. Like the lighthouse in the storm, the language is what keeps alive

the lights of home when we find ourselves adrift without bearings.

As globalisation swept the world, languages have become intrusive relics hindering trade and communication, causing unwelcome friction in the global village. With the spectre of a new Babel, English was quickly established as the only language that mattered globally, from science and business to culture and academia. The more languages, the more English. As such, the existence of a lingua franca facilitating the circulation of people, trade and ideas is not a bad thing; it is useful and necessary. But the pursuit of global interconnection becomes problematic when it means local impoverishment. And alienation from home.

On the Old Continent, this new industrial Esperanto permeates

today every inch of daily life, slowly but steadily mutilating other languages: advertising is full of anglicisms, the syntax is more and more mimicking English grammar, and books are being assimilated into the denatured style of global English. Higher education in English is becoming the norm, and first language proficiency is declining. Global English has become a language killer that works at the expense of other languages. Knowledge of languages other than English is now seen as obsolete, if not a waste of time. Surveys show that while the number of Europeans who say they can speak English is on a constant rise, the number citing French, German or Russian is plunging. The study of foreign languages in secondary schools other than English is in decline everywhere, particularly in the United Kingdom. In plurilingual countries such as Switzerland and Belgium, English is now preferred for communication between the different linguistic regions. This is even more ridiculous in areas with closely related languages, like in Scandinavia, where the custom of two people speaking their native language and still understanding each other is no longer the norm because of the rise of English. The major problem is that language education has lost its original purpose: learning a new language has been reduced to a symbol of personal growth or a way to improve CV, no longer a demonstration of intellectual curiosity or admiration for other cultures.

These trends reflect the slow erosion of the consideration for other languages and cultures in Europe. Studying abroad is no longer about immersing oneself in a culture, a history, and a lifestyle but boosting English credentials for the global job market – in the Netherlands, where higher education is almost exclusively in English, most exchange students cannot even order a coffee in Dutch by the time they graduate.

When it comes to literary translation – the pinnacle of cultural exchanges – most novels are only translated into English or directly from the English version rather than the original language, which leads to an absurd game of Chinese whispers where the translator does not even speak a word of the author’s mother tongue. The foreign bookstore – another crossroad of cultures – is becoming an endangered species – in France, the last German bookstore shut down in 2020. The elite no longer bothers to learn the languages of their neighbours either, as used to be the custom. Attend international panel discussions, art exhibitions, or business conferences, and you will see non-English speakers do their utmost to speak dumbed-down broken English, only saying what they can, not what they want. The demeaning submissive tendency of the elite culminates undoubtedly within the Brussels bubble, where the language of Brexit has become virtually compulsory, despite being the mother tongue of less than 1% of EU citizens. Besides the risk of uniformisation of thought, this capitulation casts doubt on Eurocrats’ ability to represent and understand ordinary Europeans.

on of an inclusive lingua franca, it would be naive to celebrate it as a form of benevolent internationalism including everyone. The linguistic delocalisation benefits the global nomads and the well-educated city-dwellers, but it alienates large parts of local communities who do not find the serenity to speak the language of Shakespeare – this concerns mainly vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, such as unskilled workers, migrants, ethnic minorities, elderly people, and rural communities. For them, the pervasiveness of English foreshadows a grim future where the language may be turned into a weapon of discrimination and exclusion in the job market, higher education, and public institutions. Speak English or die. We should not underestimate the symbolic violence of this linguistic disarray and the disruptions that it will bring. Do we measure the risks when those who do not speak English have become linguistic second-class citizens at home? The Dutch far-right figure Thiery Baudet has built an audience with populist tropes about the “elite’s oikophobia” –the fear of home… As the tragic history of our continent shows, when people feel in exile in their own land, language fetishism can easily fall into the wrong hands and be used for disastrous purposes.

Europe’s language was supposed to be translation: it has now become monolingual. For the blind Europhiles, this linguistic no-man’s land is the price to pay for a united Europe. But while the omnipresence of English may give the impressi-

George Steiner, the quintessential European humanist, warned us that “nothing threatens Europe more radically ‘at the roots’ than the detergent, exponential tide of Anglo-American, and of the uniform values and world-image which that devouring esperanto brings with it… Europe will indeed perish if it does not fight for its languages, local traditions and social autonomies.” By draining our continent of its colours, nuances and quirks, by creating artificial links and cutting off real roots, the rise of English as the only European language may well spoil what we crave the most: a feeling of home.

“Because of indifference and negligence, English, the enlightened despot of the happy globalisation, has become an absolute ruler in Europe, a loudmouth and ruthless monarch that has relegated other languages to the status of quasi-dialect.”

A Home, a Home, Who Can Find Us a Home?

The Amsterdam housing crisis, and what we can do about it. Stijn Hoogvorst

Ahome, a home who can find us a home, a well-known phrase from a news item on the Dutch housing crisis of the 50’s, which captures the same sense of desperation home seekers in Amsterdam felt in 2022. Last summer was one of the most difficult periods to find accommodation in Amsterdam in recent memory. The number of free market sector housing units available was, and still is, at an all-time low, and the number of student housing and social housing units in the city and surrounding areas is completely insufficient. If you qualify for social housing, the waitlist in Amsterdam is 13 years and 17 years in Amstelveen.

Since the Netherlands is Europe’s second-most-urbanized country (after Cyprus), it stands to reason that the high demand for homes in the country’s capital would result in similarly high pricing. However, the housing prices being so elastic, meaning they adjust easily when demand grows, shows that we are dealing with a heavily liberalized and privatized housing market. To find some origins of this heated market, we have to look at policies that were implemented in the 90s. Until then Amsterdam, and the Netherlands, were known for having one of the best public housing systems in the world. Public housing was available for the lower incomes but also for people who have more average incomes such as teachers and nurses. This policy was in place to make sure that housing, which is a fundamental right in the Nether-

lands, was available for all citizens at an affordable price, and that the percentage of income that people spend on housing would not get out of hand.

In the early 90s these policies grew to be a very large expense for the Dutch government and they decided to hand the responsibility of providing social housing to housing co-operations that would operate as a regular company. Due to a lack of regulation and questionable CEOs this led to the co-operations not fulfilling their core task and selling a lot of social housing units to private renting companies. One of the CEOs, who is now serving a jail sentence of 3 years, decided to claim a large portion of the co-operations’ profits. This CEO - later known as the Maserati-man - for buying a Maserati with the profits of the social housing co-operation, is often the main example used when trying to depict the state of social housing over the past 30 years. Since 2015, a new law has been in place to increase regulation, but the housing co-operations now have to deal with a shrunken portfolio and skyrocketed housing and ground prices.

The high buying market prices are the second problem. As a response to the 2008 financial crisis, the Dutch government decided to stimulate real estate purchases with several different incentive policies. On top of that the Ministry of Housing decided to start a campaign to attract foreign investors to invest

in Dutch real estate. These policies led to the recovery of the housing market, but also started an unstoppable increase of housing prices for years on end, leading to it becoming more and more impossible to buy a house and to higher free sector rents. Dutch households now have one of the highest housing expenditures as a percentage of income in the EU, with middle to lower incomes spending more than half of their income on rents or mortgages.

The last origin of the heated housing market is one that is underrepresented in the Dutch housing debate, Dutch people live relatively large. The average amount of square meters per person is 65, in Germany this is 45 for instance, a significant difference. Eurostat published that in Dutch cities 75 percent of people live in houses as opposed to apartments, in Spain and Austria this is not higher than 20 percent. Contributing to this issue, the Amsterdam city council decided a few years ago to install a cap on apartment sharing permits, reducing the options for students as well as other singles to live in a smaller space.

So what can Amsterdam do to turn this housing crisis around? To answer this question we can look at solutions other European cities are resorting to in order to battle their respective housing crises. For the long term, Vienna is the best example. Ever since the second world war ended the city council there has taken matters into their own hands.

Semi-private housing co-operations can loan money from the city council to build affordable housing while they are still committed to certain rules through this loan. They have to be non-profit organizations and are strongly checked and regulated. This way the state does not have to suffer from high costs of building, but simply has an account of lent out funds which will ensure affordable housing that funds itself.

However, setting up such a system takes time and is a difficult process. Therefore short term solutions are also needed. After fierce protests in Berlin in 2020 the city council decided to freeze all rents in the city for 5 years. Unfortunately this was struck down by the federal court the next year as only the federal government could regulate rents. This would therefore have to be regulated on a national level as it functions the same way in the Netherlands.

Lastly, reversing the sharing permit cap law is the most swift solution possible in the current market. With the amount of students in Amsterdam exponentially increasing since Brexit, the demand for shared apartments is higher than ever. International students have relatively more money available on average and significantly contribute to the increasing housing prices. Having more rooms available in the city as opposed to whole apartments would cater to the needs of students and increase the amount of people that can be housed in the existing real estate in the city.

There are several ways in which European cities might be distinguished from other cities across the world. With each nation having its own culture and customs, Europe is a continent with a great deal of diversity. The cities of Europe, which provide a vast range of lifestyles and services, reflect this diversity. Cities like Vienna, Copenhagen, and Zürich make up the top three most liveable cities in the world, and European cities are known for being more liveable. However, the liveability of cities is a complicated phenomenon, and there are significant distinctions between, say, American and European cities. Given that US cities were constructed considerably later when there was much more information about urban planning and liveability, one could question why these cities are not at the top. How do European cities differ from US cities?

First, European cities tend to offer a more comprehensive public transportation system than American cities.

cent of their commutes. The lack of public transportation and the dominance of cars can significantly affect a city’s liveability, as it reduces mobility and limits green alternative options for transportation.

European cities also have a much lower crime rate than US cities. This is attributable to a number of factors, including well-financed social services and police departments, strong community ties, and an emphasis on public safety. The result is that citizens of European cities feel safer walking around their neighbourhoods and can enjoy a higher quality of life. Additionally, the fact that fewer people hold weapons in Europe than in the US greatly contributes to the region’s lower crime rates. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, there were 5.6 gun-related deaths per 100,000 individuals in the US compared to 0.9 in the European Union. In addition, many European cities have substantially higher population densities than US cities, which reduces the likelihood of crime occurring in the first place.

tems. However, none of those is in the top rankings of the most liveable cities. That is because European cities also tend to be more walkable and bike-friendly than American cities. Additionally, many European cities feature pedestrian-friendly streets, with plenty of sidewalks. This makes it easy for residents to get around the city without needing a car. In contrast, many American cities are designed with cars in mind, and there are often fewer sidewalks and bike paths.

These services make it easy for residents to get around the city quickly and conveniently, without the need for a car. In contrast, public transportation in the United States is limited in many places and is often considered unnecessary. This is also due to the fact that Americans rely on their car for up to 76 per-

European cities are also renowned for their culture and history. Many European cities have preserved their old town centres, which feature centuries-old architecture and cobblestone streets. This makes for a unique and interesting experience for visitors and locals alike. In contrast, many US cities lack or have little of this kind of historical or cultural experience as these cities were built much later. On top of that, the glass high-rise buildings which US cities have been famous for can be found anywhere around the world, which reduces the personality of these cities.

Furthermore, many American cities are built on a grid system, which is a type of city where streets intersect at right angles creating a grid. American cities are leading the rankings of cities with perfect grid sys-

Finally, European cities offer a more comprehensive social services system than American cities. This includes access to healthcare, a higher level of education, more generous social safety nets, and other essential services. This is important because it provides citizens with a greater sense of security and wellbeing, as they know that their basic needs will be met. In addition, European cities tend to be more affordable than their American counterparts, with lower costs of living and relatively higher wages. However, many of the larger European cities are currently facing a housing crisis where it has become significantly more expensive and difficult to live in.

In conclusion, one could make the case that European cities are more liveable than the ones in the US due to their extensive public transit systems, lower crime rates, rich cultural and historical heritage, walkability, and easier access to social services. Although European cities are generally regarded as some of the best places to live, it is still important to bear in mind that European cities have different degrees of services for their residents depending on the country or region. Adding to that, there are many other aspects that affect a city’s liveability. Nevertheless, it is clear that cities in Europe provide a great standard of living to their residents that call it their home.

“European cities are home to some of the most advanced public transportation systems in the world and are considered an essential part of the infrastructure of a city, with efficient and reliable services such as subways, buses, trams, and commuter trains.“

Maybe It’s Mullingar

Annelie Ní Dhálaigh

There’s a lot of ways to measure how great a town is. Keep it simple, look at the economy, stupid. Take it a bit further and we can get social. Villager satisfaction, smiles per street, general frolickery. Community involvement is another way to measure it. You could look at how many people are involved in local volunteering. I think many in Ireland would think back to local sport. The success of the local Gaelic football and hurling teams. Local club pride goes deep. That pride gets at the clan level of the Irish, you’re representing your surname then, justifying your role in the town or village. The annual tidy towns contest ranks each village on the basis of cleanliness. That’s no joke in certain towns - the entirety of the local retired can be lost to it. The purpose they once found in their work, now expressed religiously in the organisation of clean ups and flower planting.

What you don’t see is the devilment behind the scenes. There are on the tidy towns committees ultras, diehards. No laughing matter with the likes of Maura and Noreen from Glenties. Glenties won four times in a row, until 1963, when Maura refused to let the entirety of Noreen’s extended family in to listen to John F. Kennedy’s speech on her new radio. The echoes of the schism are still felt today. The town has wasted away, Juliet Roses overgrown by horrifically common daisies, spat-out chewing gum lies dormant. Even the plays written about the village took on a more grim tone. Brian Friel’s ‘Philadelphia Here I Come’, a classic ode to feeling forced to leave your small, backwater town because of awkward relationships with your ex and your father, is based on Glenties. A tome sombre enough to be prescribed reading for the Leaving Cert. Prescribed action for a few too.

No, I wouldn’t rank towns on tidiness at all. Tidy Towns are full of secrets. There’s probably a certain inverse element to the relationship between best and tidiest town. At a point, the tidier a town is, the worse it is to live in. On a night out you fear the wrath of the committee in the event you trod on a daffodil, let alone puke up the pavement. No, the totalitarian state necessary in the pursuit of the Tidy Towns award is not conducive to receiving my Best Town award.

What all metrics miss, is a capacity to calculate wildness. To measure the immeasurable je ne sais quoi of a town and its inhabitants. To measure how likely you are to get punched square in the nose by an enemy’s henchwoman, and still call it your greatest night out. To measure the ratio of teachers to past pupils in any given pub at any given time. To calculate speed times swagger of preteens on electric scooters that have infested the streets, and the heat of the indignant rage of the Mammies that wage Facebook wars on them.

Mullingar is a town of 20,000, in the centre of Ireland. The Royal Canal connects it to Dublin, and loops around the centre of the town. While once exclusively local, it was only half its current size in 1990, the rising Dublin house prices have pushed lower income families out to Mullingar, and Ireland joining the EU brought many Polish and Lithuanian to the shores

“If wildness and unpredictability could be measured, and were taken into account, Mullingar would win the Irish Times’ ‘Best Town to Live in Ireland’ year after year.”

of Lough Ennell and Owel. The local Travelling Community, an ethnic minority in Ireland, have also contributed to the cultural specificity of Mullingar. Their horses, which can often be seen racing alongside cars on the town roads, are the first impression to outsiders that there is a wildness about Mullingar. Those horses wouldn’t win any Tidy (Gentrified) Towns competition.

You might have heard of Mullingar, as the hometown of former One Direction star, Niall Horan. He shows up on occasion, looking majorly out of place - far too tan and significantly too wealthy. In the heyday of One Direction, starstruck, dazed teens could be seen pacing the main street, asking if he was around. In typical Mullingar fashion however, Niall’s father still works at the deli in the local Tesco. The real musical pride of the town though, is Joe Dolan, a singer from the 70’s, whose statue sits in the centre of the town. A photo with this Elvis of Ireland monument is mandatory on a night out. Our other claim to fame is Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, who also grew up on the streets of M-town.

It’s no surprise that such a small town has so many huge successes. The wildness of the town has made Mullingar inhabitants known for being ‘chancers’. A chancer is a person who takes every opportunity they see, without too much regard for risk. O’Leary comparing Lufthansa to “a crack cocaine junkie looking for state aid”, or trying to introduce standing flights would be good examples of how Mullingarians freely speak and act, always on a mission.

The latest mission to captivate Mullingar, and distract from the general objective of mischief, has no doubt been The Fleadh. Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, the annual all-Ireland traditional

music competition (and festival!), was held first in Mullingar in 1951. 2022 was the first year since then that the fleadh has been home. 2023 will be the next, thanks to our efforts. The whole town was uprooted the past few years. Pavements widened, one way system installed. New traffic lights were installed, leading to the Era of Flashing Amber Lights. A golden age in Mullingar history, where traffic flowed through as if by magic. Without some authoritarian light system, with its outdated green/red binary, some symbol of Tidy Townsiasm, us free thinkers ruled for months. While this age remains lamented, our efforts for the fleadh were rewarded. You can smell the money in the town. Smiles are brighter, pockets heavier, there’s even been a dog park built. The Celtic Tiger is revived and well in Mullingar.

The best side of Mullingar can be seen on Christmas Day each year. You can drive out, any time of the morning, before lunch, to the diving boards at Lough Owel. As you walk down from the carpark , across the railway tracks to the lake, freezing, but radiant faces smile at you as they pass. “Ah it’s lovely and warm”, says one, “you’ll feel great once you’re in” says the next. As everyone strips off their Sunday Best, into swimming togs, the plunge, past or pending, is all that matters. It doesn’t matter if your least favourite primary school teacher, or your ex’s new fling are there, it doesn’t matter that you floored yourself on your 11th out of 12 pubs of Christmas the night before. The sting of that icy water, the heart rush, the electricity, the congratulations of people you’ve never met, but are probably related to, maybe it’s Christmas spirit, maybe it’s the remnants of drunkenness, maybe it’s Mullingar.

From here, from there, from everywhere Yael

Some say home is where the heart is, others may define home on a more factual, less emotional level, perhaps based on the house they go to for Christmas every year - begrudgingly or excitedly. One may also feel that home is strictly ancestral, where parents or grandparents are from… But how about those who don’t associate a particular place or country with being their “home”, those whose roots have, in recent generations, been scattered across many areas, wandering, adrift and unsure of where to make their landing? When I glance at my right hand, I see a ring, engraved with three letters. It is proof resting heavy on my hand, reminding me of a history lesson not too far in the past, the story representative of many who lost their homes to tyrannical rule, the ones who forcefully suspended the classic idea of where and what a home is, and never returned to it as it was.

On the index finger of my right hand, I wear a ring that previously belonged to my grandfather’s uncle. Sadly, he did not leave Nazi Germany in time to be spared the horrors of being deported to a concentration camp, while his brother, my great-grandfather, did. The owner of the ring, unlike his wife and daughter, miraculously made it out of the camps alive and went on to attempt to rebuild his life, as best as he could, having endured what he did. On the other hand, my great grandfather decided, like a number of other people who feared for their lives,

Pless

to flee to Peru shortly after the war began. Therefore, my mom was later born in Latin America, despite being of German descent and having no connections to South America. After growing up in Western Europe, spending some years in the United States, and ultimately raising her children back in Europe, this left me and my siblings with the contemplation: Where are we really from? Where is “home”?

Trying to pinpoint our home has become like watching a particularly electrifying game of tennis, where you whip your head back and forth, attempting to make sense of the game - it ends up being rather amusing. Every time we became aware of yet another family member that lived in an unlikely place, more pieces were added to the puzzle. I never really had concrete answers for people who would ask where I am from, why we kids have American passports, were raised in Europe and have parents who speak Spanish like Latinos yet have few other connections to the country they were born in. When I began studying at university and we were asked to introduce ourselves in the first classes, people confidently said their name and where they were from. I always went with the last country I had lived in, seeing as I spent a great deal of time there and identified it as my home in many respects, but it was never a key part of my identity. While this dilemma didn’t keep me up at night, it made me more curious, and led me to do an at-home DNA

testing kit for fun - it turned out that ethnically I am mainly Eastern European, and have an Italian and Scandinavian background, too. Nevertheless, this did not hold much significance because I have no connection to those places either, so they may be my roots, but definitely not my home. There are countless other stories that may not start with the relatively tragic baseline I just outlined, but have other origins that result in equally head-scratching results. Undoubtedly, the kid who grew up living in a different country every two years because of their parents’ work or the quadrilingual one whose mom and dad lived in different countries and therefore spent their semesters ping-ponging back and forth between them have been confronted with a similar dilemma and leads back to the same question - where is home?

When one thinks of the loss of home, in any sense, many would presumably think of the war in Ukraine. By the time the war hits its one-year mark, it will have caused the displacement of roughly eight million Ukrainians. Presumably, a great deal of them will not return to what was initially home for them. The Holocaust, and its inextricable link to World War II, is far from being the only catalyst that has caused countless people to drop everything that was known to them and resulted in a loss of identity, home and safety. The immediate consequences are visible in death, hunger, grief… the longer-term consequences may

appear less severe, yet the ghost of the suffering borne by those before us manifests itself in other ways. Decades from now, when the fire of the war in Ukraine hopes to be extinguished, there will be new generations who question their heritage, their origin and where home truly is. Although this leads to new horizons and new opportunities, and does not need to be taken as wholly bad, it is worth considering the consequences, as everyone interprets things in a way that is personal to them.

If someone feels physically removed from where home is to them, they may choose to keep that connection alive through music, culture, traditions or religion, to name a few. Or, maybe home really is where the heart is, like said in the beginning. More often than not, joyful company can provide a more profound feeling of home

than a place. Others may be primarily focused on the literal sense of a home because in any case the fundamental practice of gratitude can begin with appreciation for our livelihood and having a roof over our heads. Ultimately, I look at the ring on my right index finger and see wisps of history that remind me of where home could have been, where it was for someone else, and inspires me to keep searching for mine, too.

“The true feeling of home cannot be erased - its form is adaptable.”

he ‘home’ as we know it has taken on many life forms by way of various literary representations throughout recent centuries. Jane Austen wrote of the home as the hub of all connections, the seedling for love, and the energetic core of daily activity. Similarly, Louisa May Alcott utilised it as a setting for change and sisterhood, of which many young women still today grow from and develop. F. Scott Fitzgerald presented the home as a milieu of longing for his characters, abounded in ostentatious glamour and romance, but always tragically out of reach.

Indeed, when I speak of the home and its meanings, there are many. The home of family, of domesticity, of love, of life, of death, of secrets, of strife, of isolation, of movement. Emily Brontë’s home, much like the setting of her sole novel Wuthering Heights, was found in the moors, in nature, and in the company of her beloved sister Anne, and within the fantasy worlds they shared and participated in (such as the world of Gondal). In essence, it was both a tangible and imaginative home.

Extract from: Love, We’re Going Home Now (Pablo Neruda) Love, we’re going home now, Where the vines clamber over the trellis:

Even before you, the summer will arrive,

On its honeysuckle feet, in your bedroom.

The influences and crossovers of one’s home-life and surroundings have long played a part in the construction of the home within its literary representations, offering room for analysis, comparison, interpretation, and indeed, an insight into the human qualities and vulnerabilities of the greatest of writers and poets.

Extract from: Lines Written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin (Patrick Kavanagh)

Fantastic light looks through the eyes of bridgesAnd look! a barge comes bringing from Athy

And other far-flung towns mythologies.

O commemorate me with no hero-courageous Tomb - just a canal-bank seat for the passer-by.

In more recent literature, the idea of one’s home and the experience of ‘unbelonging’ has further come into our understanding of home, time, and place. Zadie Smith’s White Teeth traversed the struggles of one’s place at ‘home’ through migration, racism, and a multi-cultural London. Diasporic literature, like Smith’s and Amamanda Adichie’s Americanah, have helped us in understanding the home and its complex and infinite meanings, which are expanding within our current society.

Clearances III (Seamus Heaney)

When all the others were away at Mass

I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.

They broke the silence, let fall one by one

Like solder weeping off the soldering iron: Cold comforts set between us, things to share Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.

And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes

From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside

Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying

And some were responding and some crying

I remembered her head bent towards my head, Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives—

Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

For many great writers, the home has been a solitary thing, one where their reclusiveness flourished along with their stories. The multi-faceted layers of the home, I argue, is captured in its most revealing and inspiring light through time’s greatest poets. In their selectiveness, their preciseness, the home is unmasked as their literary and poetic core.

Extract from: I Learned – at Least – what Home Could Be, #944 (Emily Dickinson)

This seems a Home—

And Home is not—

But what that Place could be—

Afflicts me—as a Setting Sun— Where Dawn—knows how to be—

The poetic passages throughout this article exemplify, while perhaps romanticised, the poetic constructions of home in life, love, and loneliness. Neruda’s home is a blissful romantic love, nomadic, and forever in motion. His home moves where she moves. I am drawn to Kavanagh’s kinship with memorial, his undying loyalty to the Dublin canals, and the grandeur of locality, subtlety, and friendship with his city. With Heaney, while much of his poetry in relation to home is political and amidst a tumultuous backdrop, Clearances is a homely punch to the gut, always successful in moving me with its depiction of deep maternal love and the nature of a home through life and death, the palpable feeling of learning how to say goodbye.

With Dickinson, take what you will. In rhymes and rhythms, her poetry has always stood out to me as wickedly smart and screamingly witty, but there is, like with many others, a deep loneliness. An observational narrative, on the outside forever looking in (or in her case, out her bedroom window). But home, in all its afflicting mannerisms, has made itself known to her. After all, it is what we make of it, in literature, in poetry, and in life.

SES Calendar

ALPHA Winter Gala - 3rd of February 2023

Join us for Alpha’s annual gala on February 3rd from 21:00-1:00. It promises to be a fantastic night of fun and dancing as you sail across the IJ with all of the Study associations in the Faculty of Humanities.

First debate - 8th of February 2023

This Model Historical Security Council will take on the enthralling topic of the Suez Crisis (1956) and allow you to take part in the negotiations between nations that would handle the crisis and bring your own fresh perspective that would alter the course of history

Think Tank II - 9th of February 2023

It is time for the first Think Tank of the year. This is where all our members can share ideas for the upcoming year and where they can give feedback about the introduction period, amongst other things. Do you have some fun plans or some pressing points? Join us in the SES office on Thursday 24th of November at 17:00

Valentine’s Borrel - 14th of February 2023

With the new year well underway and the bars opening again the Event Committee would love to invite you to this year’s Valentine’s Borrel at Amstelhaven. Trying to lighten up the darker winter months, we invite you to come to enjoy special Valentine’s cocktails, share a beer with your friends and perhaps ask out that secret crush.

Career Dinner - 16th of February 2023

The annual Career Dinner will take place on the 16th of February at Madre, a wonderful restaurant located in Jordaan. It is the perfect occasion to discuss with the Special Guests who will join us to share their experience and advice about their professional fields: Law, Culture, History, Economics, East European Studies, and Journalism. eurovisiemag.com