Eurovisie June 2019

eurovisie a publication of the study association for european studies

RE-THINKING KOSOVO

OVERTOURISM - IRISH TRAVELLERS - NOTRE DAME SATANISM - GUISEPPE PORCARO - KOSOVO 2.0 DIVERSITY ENFORCEMENT THROUGH NETFLIX INTERVIEW WITH MICHEL RENTENAAR

www.ses-uva.nl /// june 2019 /// eurovisie@ses-uva.nl

Volume 14, Issue 5 - June 2019

Imprint

Editorial office: Kloveniersburgwal 48, room E2.04/2.05, 1012 CX Amsterdam Editors-in-chief: Nikolai Markov, Anna Boyce Editors: George Bandy, Hanna Blom Jorens Jakovlevs, Jyry Pasanen, Cara Räker, Marthe de Roos Design: Daniël Adam With contributions by: Joep Leerssen

Editorial Nikolai Markov

On a more personal note, this is the last issue that me and Anna are going to bring out for eurovisie as sitting editors in chief. Working creatively as is the case in eurovisie will, simply put, mean that

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you learn how to create. To write, to edit, to read

dragging on; to rejoice in the good weather (if

have done and learned, but also sad about leaving

you make it to where there will be any) and most

the editorial board, we know that we are leaving it

importantly relax. But before we are all released

to the most able board members we could.

he end of the academic year is approa-

and understand what fellow writers are bringing

ching and it is high time for all of us to cut

across, finally helping each other in doing so is a

ourselves some of that slack we have been

beautiful, beautiful process. Happy with what we

into our well-deserved break, we at eurovisie have a last say to this academic year, as we go to chal-

P.S.: But as it is, people go, people come: join

lenge visions and choices in this last issue. Hang

the editorial for the year ahead! Creation needs

on as you read about repenting for your tourism,

creators.

romanticisations of travellers, how Satan enters the struggle for abortion legislation (yes you read

P.P.S.: And some kind advice to go along with it:

that right) and browse through our treating of a

Don’t second-guess yourself. You will learn along

selection of events that might give yet another

the way and you will gain experience. All you need

push to think Europe differently.

to do is to do.

IN THIS EDITION...

3) JYRY PASANEN TOURISM AS MASS DECEPTION 6) ANNA BOYCE MISREPRESENTING MINORITIES IN REALITY TELEVISION 10) MARTHE DE ROOS NOTRE DAME FIRE 13) HANNA BLOM THE TEMPLE OF SATAN AND THE HOLY CHILD 2

16) NIKOLAI MARKOV RESOLUTION, IMAGINATION, SPECULATION - FOR EUROPE 18) CARA RÄKER RE-THINKING KOSOVO 24) JOEP LEERSSEN DIVERSITY ENFORCEMENT BY NETFLIX 26) GEORGE BANDY ASKING OUR ALUMNI

TOURISM AS MASS DECEPTION JYRY PASANEN

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ourism emerged as a mass phenomenon in France after the famous Matignon accords were signed between striking workers and the ‘Popular Front’ government in 1936. In addition to the 40-hour work week and improved salaries, workers gained the right to fifteen days of paid leave per year. In the first year, around 600,000 people went on their first paid holiday. While most people visited their families, hotel owners reportedly complained about a veritable invasion. This kind of language is obviously classist: hotels, like recreational travel, used to be exclusively for wealthier, more respectable people.

There is evidence of “tourism” in the ancient world: Egyptians would travel to Giza to marvel at the (already very old) pyramids, Greeks went to Delphi or to the Olympic Games, and the Romans took bathing holidays. There was a relative increase of ‘tourism’ in the Roman era, linked with the proliferation of roads that made travel easier. However, this “ancient tourism” remained a privilege of the few, as the vast majority of the population could never afford such luxury. This situation would endure until the 20th century and the growth of mass tourism.

One could make the case, that tourism is still a luxury for the privileged few, but in this case the word ‘few’ would do a lot of work: there are now over a billion tourists per year in the world, according to a report by the UN’s World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

The same report finds that tourism and all of its related activities represent 10% of the global GDP. In 2030, the UNWTO estimates that

there will be 1.8 billion tourists globally. The tourism industry is incredibly lucrative, bringing in 1,220 billion euros in revenue in 2016 globally, but not everyone is happy. Workers in the tourism industry complain about low wages and bad conditions, while residents of the cities and towns favoured by tourists are sick of the rise in rent, the noise, and the overall disruption caused by mass tourism. If the environment could talk, it too might voice its displeasure: tourism accounts for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Most of this is from air travel, but other useless things like cruise ships are incredibly polluting too.

Increased travel to areas with fragile environments poses another risk, and, according to the Guardian, tourism is responsible for up to 80% of emissions in small island countries such as the Maldives and Mauritius.

Here is the contradiction of modern tourism: the industry destroys what it promotes. The images of peaceful beaches, turquoise waters and breath-taking mountain peaks are trying to sell us an experience that will become impossible to recreate if enough of us buy it.

The same applies to Amsterdam, Barcelona or any other ‘Global City’: the unique city cultures that attract tourists suffer from the effects of tourism. With rent rising and the primary motivation of municipal policies shifting from ensuring the well-being of citizens to accommodating business, the squares and cafés that used to be centres for the collective and creative lives of citizens are lost to seemingly endless streams of tourists that suffocate the very culture they came to witness. The econo-

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mic historian Karl Polanyi, in his influential work The Great Transformation (1944), wrote about how the capitalist system relies on ‘fictitious commodities’: land labour and money, that are transformed and corrupted in this process of commodification. For Polanyi, in order to make people into labour, the human qualities of self-organisation and autonomy had to be crushed. In a sense, this is what tourism is doing to culture. In tourism advertising, local cultures are manipulated, distilled, and simplified to attract the maximum number of foreign visitors.

Indigenous cultures like that of the Sámi (who live in Lapland, an increasingly popular tourist destination) are described as ‘harmonious’ and ‘in tune with nature’ to tourists who fly there

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with the planes that contribute to the destruction of the traditional Sámi life through climate change. In the discipline of economics, the term ‘consumption’ implies destruction. This is the effect of mass tourism under capitalism: it commodifies, consumes and destroys the most wonderful natural and human environments in search for profit.

Such destruction, as inevitable as it may seem, is not received with open arms. Anti-tourism movements have emerged in places like Barcelona, Venice and Rome. The city of Amsterdam has declared war on illegal hotels, and resorted to putting up rather ugly and imposing posters in de Wallen to remind tourists of fines for

public drinking and littering. The sitting mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau was elected to, among other things, alleviate the problems caused by the tens of millions of tourists that visit the city of 1.6 million every year. For some people Colau’s administration is not doing enough: members of the youth wing of the radical leftwing party CUP have been filmed slashing the tyres of tourist buses and rental bicycles. In addition, many restaurants favoured by tourists have been paint-bombed around Barcelona.

Similar actions have taken place in cities like San Sebastian and Madrid.

remember to be mindful of the people and the nature that is hosting you. Get inspired by the Swedish neologism “flygskam”, or ‘the shame of flying’ that each one of us should feel when boarding a plane. Remember, also, that tourism, like climate change, is a societal issue first, and that feeling bad about flying to your friend’s wedding in Turkey is much less productive than agitating for the construction of a Europe-wide network of high-speed railroads, for example.

And finally, remember that the only real, definitive solution to the problems of mass tourism is the overthrow of capitalism and the decommodification of housing, nature and culture.

So, students, dear colleagues, when you go on your much-deserved summer break, please

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MISREPRESENTING MINORITIES IN REALITY TELEVISION ANNA BOYCE

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rish Travellers are a traditionally itinerant ethnic group living in Ireland and the British Isles.

Their unique culture and language led them to be officially recognised as a minority in Ireland in 2016. Traditionally Irish Travellers form very isolated communities revolving around family and cultural tradition. This isolation has led Irish Travellers to become stigmatised and misunderstood by much of sedentary society, whilst simultaneously being misrepresented in both media and politics. In recent years, forms of new media such as reality television have attempted to use sedentary society’s fascination with the travelling lifestyle as a way to create entertainment under the guise of giving a voice

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to a historically underrepresented community.

The historic isolation of Irish Traveller communities has led them to have little to no access to means of representing themselves to the outside world. Thus they find themselves being represented by hegemonic, sedentary culture.

This has meant Travellers are treated as objects, rarely as subjects. Viewing the Traveller as an object allows the group portraying them to represent them as they see fit, reading and transposing their culture to fit their creative goals.

The rise of reality television, has seen the line

between the real and the imagined become more blurred than ever. In 2011, a British television series came out called Big Fat Gypsy Weddings. This is an example of how the reality of Traveller culture has been twisted and fictionalised by new mainstream media for the entertainment of the masses and shows the danger this can pose for minority groups.

Big Fat Gypsy Weddings follows young women from Irish Traveller communities in both Ireland and the UK as they prepare for their weddings, which are portrayed by the show to be days of extreme extravagance and excess. The show was a resounding success, so much so that it

was renewed for a second season and soon afterwards exported to the US. However, it does not accurately represent Travelling communities. Reality television is a genre of television that claims to offer its viewers an ostensibly real depiction of individuals and issues, effectuating an understanding to the viewer that reality television is indeed based on reality.

Therefore, more so than obviously fictional accounts of Traveller culture, representations of Travellers within this form of media are presumed to be an accurate portrayal. Unfortunately, like many other reality television programmes, this is not the case. The documentary style series distorts the reality of Traveller lifesty-

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le, focusing on, and emphasising elements they believe their viewers will find the most entertaining.

The reality aspect of Big Fat Gypsy Weddings must be questioned from the first thirty second title sequence commencing each episode. The series’ narration, voiced by actress Barbara Flynn announces that “For hundreds of years the Traveller way of life was one of ancient traditions and simple taste. Then their world collided with the 21st Century”.

This commentary is coupled with a sequence of shots showing Travellers in traditional dress, cooking on open fires and sitting outside their decorative caravans. However, these decorative caravans have not been used for year-round living for decades, rather they are often put on display at Traveller events such as the annual Appleby fair.

The programme attempts to portray a clash of cultures between the backward Travellers and modernised sedentary society. This begins with their emphasis on the traditionalism of Traveller culture, immediately inferring its incompatibility with modern life. Flynn continues her attempted anthropological narrative, to claim that the filming crew has gained “unprecedented access to the UK’s most secretive communities”. Channel 4 claims this documentary series is purely observational, allowing the viewer to come to their own conclusions, yet the frequent voiceovers would suggest otherwise.

The idea of pitching the “backward” Travellers against the 21st century

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is a prominent theme throughout the series. In Big Fat Gypsy Weddings this backwardness is stressed through a focus on gender roles within Traveller communities. An analysis of how gender roles are practiced and represented in the programme reveals the expectations that outsiders have of Traveller culture and the hypocrisies these reveal.

The most provocative cultural tradition portrayed on the show, is the practice of grabbing, often denied by members of the Travelling community. Grabbing is when a boy will physically grab a girl he likes the look of, and forces her - sometimes violently - to kiss him. There are brief sequences of this shown in the first and third episode of the first series. Both accounts occur at another Traveller’s wedding, one of the only occasions at which young girls and boys are allowed to mix with one another.

Research into the reaction of online forums to the first series of Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, is useful when trying to understand the reaction of the general public to these practices. Online the practice of grabbing quickly became equated to rape, foot binding and female circumcision, vastly over exaggerating the gravity of the act. People commenting on these online forums pitied the girls in the programme, not only citing the grabbing sequence, but the fact they get married so young and many of them never finish school or have a career of their own. When the lives of these girls

are compared to those of non-Gypsies online, they are set against an assumed economically, intellectually and sexually empowered non-Gypsy woman. It is not taken into consideration that there are plenty of non-Gypsy women who have been subject to similar forms of sexual harassment, have married young and who may not have finished their education. However, instead of adopting an intersectional approach to these issues, the blame for the entirety of the problems portrayed on the show is placed on Traveller culture and its presumed backwardness. Traveller culture is often used as a scapegoat for a number of social, political and economic problems by politicians and media. Here we can see how this rhetoric has infiltrated the public sphere.

Another issue picked up on by online forums, was the sexualisation of young Traveller girls, and the garish and suggestive way that Traveller women often choose to dress. People online were shocked that these girls, who repeatedly emphasised that they would never go out alone with a boy before marriage, let alone engage in any sexual activity, dress in a way that suggests the exact opposite. In 2011, Jan Moir wrote an article for the Daily Mail entitled, “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding claims to celebrate a unique traditional culture: pull the other one, it makes Jordan look classy”. She spends much of the article ridiculing bride to be Sam’s dress, which is the biggest dress on the show so far - complete with fairy lights and mechanical butterflies, before claiming that the young girls

who adopt a similar style of dress for their first communion look like “the can-can chorus line from a munchkin strip club”. This relates to an inherent distinction in the minds of non-Travellers, between the “fake-Gypsies” and the “real-Gypsies”. The girls depicted on the show do not conform to the general public’s expectations of Traveller women, which rather bear likeness to the women shown in the show’s falsified title sequence.

Noir likens the young girls to strippers; similarly other reactions in the media and on online forums described them as “Trashy Travellers” and “chavs”, as opposed to the romantic figure of the “noble Romani”, that exists in their imagination. Irish Traveller women are denied their own identity due to disparity between how they represent themselves, and pre-conceptions that rule the way outsiders expect them to be.

The danger of new forms of media such as reality television is that whilst they appear to be presenting reality, the entertainment of their audiences and the financial windfall this brings is of far more importance than accurately representing their subjects. In the case of Irish Travellers, a group who are isolated from the mainstream and have little means of representing themselves, the problems this poses becomes clear. Representations such as Big Fat Gypsy Weddings monopolise the public image of the Traveller, leaving little space for accurate self-representation.

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MARTHE DE ROOS

NOTRE DAME FIRE CHALLENGES OF SOLIDARITY AND CHARITY DONATIONS

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n the 15th of April 2019, Paris was burning and France was grieving. The Notre Dame, the iconic cathedral of the capital, caught fire. It broke out beneath the roof of the cathedral. By the time it was extinguished, most of the roof was destroyed and the walls and interior were severely damaged. Many works of art and religious relics could be saved, when hundreds of security workers created a human chain. The footage of this incident went viral. In your own living room or at a bar, everyone could witness the cloud of orange flames that formed in the Parisian sky. Next to this horrific fire, something quite significant happened. People from all over the world were reminiscing about their experien-

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ces of Notre Dame. Not only the French, but people from many different backgrounds were posting selfies, blogs and family pictures with Notre Dame on social media. How come millions of people feel connected to this site?

Let us first dive into the history of Notre Dame. Our Lady of Paris is a medieval Catholic cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Construction began in 1160 during the reign of King Louis VII and was completed around 1620.

The spire, buttresses and ornate rose windows are characteristics of the Gothic style.

Over the last eight centuries many adaptions were made, which were necessary because of damage and also negligence, especially during

the French Revolution. The building is considered as one of the oldest and finest examples of medieval Gothic architecture, and is listed as an UNESCO World Heritage site. The cathedral has been of historical significance since its construction. This is the place where Henry VI was crowned King of France in 1431, where Napoleon was made emperor in 1804 and Joan of Arc was beatified in the cathedral in 1909.

Moreover, for more than sixteen centuries, people from all over the world have gathered to pray to the Virgin Mary. At the high altar of the cathedral, there is the statue of Mary cradling Jesus’ body. Furthermore, the building inspired influential writers. The most famous example is Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Thanks to the pretty dark Disney adaption in the form of an animated movie, many children became aquainted with the French cathedral at a young age.

In sum, Notre Dame is of religious, historical, architectural and cultural significance. Some thirteen million people visit the site each year.

Obvious reasons can be pointed at as to why people feel connected to the iconic building: it is part of French heritage and it is considered an important holy site for Catholics. Keep in mind that the fire happened during the Holy Week, the most sacred time in the Christian calendar. Some might remember their trip to Paris and visiting the Notre Dame, and think in perhaps some kind of spiritual way about who they were at that time and where they are now. I remember visiting Paris with my family in 2009, and recalled those memories when looking at a live feed of the fire. The Croatian author Slavenka Drakulic wondered how the loss of a 16th-century old Bridge in Bosnia and Herzegovina affected her much more than a picture of a dead woman. According to her, the loss of a monument makes us reflect on our own mortality: “we expect people to die, we count on our own lives to end. The destruction of a monument to civilization is something

else.” We expect a building to be permanent and we cannot imagine witnessing its destruction. This could be a reason why the fire in Paris shocked so many people.

Twenty-four hours after the fire, nearly 5 million euros were raised on the site of the Foundation du Patrimoine, with the motto plus jamais ça!

The “superrich” of France joined hands and declared they would donate millions of euros to help to rebuild the iconic monument. Amongst them were Francois-Henri Pinault, head of the Kering Group that owns Gucci and Saint Laurent, and Louis Vuitton owner Bernard Arnault.

According to the latest updates, around one billion Euros have been donated. President Emmanuel Macron pledges to rebuild Notre Dame within five years, and “it will be even more beautiful’’. Even the EU president Donald Tusk called for the support of the twenty-eight member states to help and support the reconstruction of Notre Dame. “It is more than just material help,” says Tusk, “Support from other capital European cities will be a sign of solidarity. The EU is connected by more than just the treaties.” Gilles Gressani, president of Groupe d’études geopolitics sees the burning of Notre Dame as a warning for Europeans: “don’t take the wonders you enjoy for granted.” To preserve these European jewels, we do not only need money, but according to Gressani we need a consideration of what we have in common: what it means to be European.

In the meantime, these signs of solidarity and generous donations stirred up anger. The Yellow Vest Movement discredits Macron for giving more attention to the fire than to the social and fiscal injustice they have been protesting against for over five months. Moreover, the donations created a shockwave worldwide. People wondered about what else could be done and changed in the world with this amount of money. Why care for the reconstruction of the cathedral, when thousands

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of homeless people are living in the streets of Paris? What about people who are still starving, in the need of medicines and clean water? Why does the media not contribute this much attention to the situation in Sudan, where uprisings have led to dozens of people being killed, attacked and arrested, reportedly by a government paramilitary group. It is painful to see so clearly that western media prefers to report on western news. The climate campaigner Greta Thunberg hoped that there would be this much support to combat climate change. These are just a few examples of comments that can be found in the aftermath of the fire that started on the roof of Notre Dame. On the contrary, some try to bring some nuance into the debate, that is mostly taken place on the internet.

Who are we to tell other people what they should do with their money? However, this event tells us more about the inequality that we are facing. It shows us that a small group with the biggest amount of money can decide which problems will be solved, since they have the money to try to achieve this. In this case people like Pinault and Arnault prioritize donating their money to the restauration of Notre Dame.

On June 16, the anniversary of the consecration of the cathedral’s alter, Notre Dame will host its first mass since the fire. For security reasons, only a small amount of people were invited to take part in the service. Yet the event will be broadcasted live by French television channel, to “make sure Christians from all over France can participate.�

However, it is questionable to what extent this tragedy will result in solidarity, not only within in the EU but worldwide. It sparked a discussion in which everyone could reflect on the inequality in the world that we live, and what you personally think is important to talk about and donate money to.

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THE TEMPLE OF SATAN AND THE HOLY CHILD HANNA BLOM

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ike a conservative, autonomy-denying dandelion, the debate on abortion and uterus’ ownership has again made it’s way into the US Supreme Court landscape and, evidently, lets its seeds drift across the water to countries like the Netherlands. While it may seem as if this issue was resolved years ago, time turning legislation from states like Alabama and Indiana have apparently boosted the confidence of Dutch pro-lifers to the point where they have started to organize, protest and lobby again. Certainly in the United States

ill-formed arguments relying heavily on Christian faith would hold foot, but not in my secular backyard?

With the right to decide over women’s bodily autonomy being held by the strong hand of catholic lobby, an odd ally for uterus-owners has presented itself in the form of Satan. The Satanic Temple, to be exact. As a response to the ongoing efforts to not necessarily make abortion illegal, but by pushing through as many infantile measurements to effectively

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achieve the same goal, the Satanic Temple has started challenging those rulings on the base of freedom of religion.

The Temple is claiming that, for example, requiring abortion clinics to either cremate or bury fetal remains goes against their ability to express their faith. One of their tenets is that one’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone. They have stated the following: One of The Satanic Temple’s fundamental tenets is the inviolability of one’s body. Members of The Satanic Temple believe that non-viable fetal tissue is part of the woman who carries it, and as such, state impositions of ceremonial requirements dictating its disposal, barring any plausible medical or sanitary concerns, is a violation of TST’s Free Exercise allowing Satanists to contextualize the termination of a pregnancy on their own terms, with deference to their own religious beliefs. As such, TST affirms that this rule violates their religious beliefs and asserts that their members may refuse to adhere.

Modern Satanism is not necessarily politically active. In the West, it mainly knows two branches; the Satanic Temple and the Church of Satan. The Church of Satan by far precedes the Temple, as Anton LaVey founded the Church in 1966 with himself as the high priest. He presented Satanism not as the practice of evil or as the worship of an actual Antichrist, but rather as a kind of ethical egoism. According to LaVey, traditional religions were fundamentally hypocritical and dangerously inhibited the physical tendencies and emotional needs that were vital to human life. His Satanism was atheistic: the opposition between God and Satan represented for him the struggle between hypocrisy and repression on the one hand and indulgence and liberation on the other.

The largest critique the Church of Satan wages against the Satanic Temple is that true Sa-

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tanism ought to be apolitical. The Church of Satan’s neutral stance is based on the concept of “the masses” as the antithesis of the Satanic individuals who stand apart as the “alien elite.”

The masses need to be ruled. Thus, the Church of Satan’s “anti-authoritarianism” is not a rejection of authoritarian policies or tyrannical leadership, rather it is the idea that “true Satanists” will always occupy the upper strata of rulers over the ruled. The Satanic Temple was founded in 2013 to fill the gap for Satanists that the Church had left as it was not organizing politically nor gathering anymore.

Though posing as a legitimate religion, even demanding a statue of Behemoth in Washington DC, the doctrine of the Satanic Temple lies in their egoism. Egoist doctrines are less concerned with the philosophical problem of what the self is than with the common notions of a person and his concerns. They see perfection sought through the furthering of a man’s own welfare and profit—allowing, however, that sometimes he may not know where these lie and must be brought to recognize them.

Political satanism brings about the question of the marriage between the occult and anarchism. Having been thoroughly disappointed by her experiences with student activism when Erica Lagalisse, a Canadian anthropology academic, went to university, she decided she wanted to write her dissertation of the forms of oppression and power structures that are copied within activist movements, and what shape those take on when everyone heavily denies their contribution to racism, sexism and classism. What was supposed to be merely a chapter in her ambitious dissertation, turned into a recently published book; Occult Features of Anarchism, with attention to the Conspiracy of Kings and the Conspiracy of the Peoples.

In it, she explores the phenomenon of urban middle class anarchists, who seek to support indigenous peoples struggling against resource

extraction efforts. She had encountered these anarchists in her own student activism, and noticed them revere the indigenous activists because of their fight against neoliberal capitalism, and the anarchists would be able to use their resources and privilege to help out.

According to Lagalisse, a mid-Western 20-year old anarchist would find great hope in the existence and fight of indigenous groups, because they stood against state and capital, by way of self-government; it was anarchism in reality.

This alliance was mutually beneficial, but anarchism in contact with atheism shows difficulties as it would be an obstacle to identifying with indigenous groups. Therefore, occult features were adopted out of a certain necessity.

In nineteenth century academia, occultism was cast as comforting in anxiety-provoking periods of social change, or, in certain Marxian style, as a product of capitalist alienation. Precisely this anxiety is what is interesting, as the occult becomes a bandaid one might demeaningly refer to as conspiracy theories. However, as Lagalisse likes to clarify; there is no politics without conspiracy, there is only the question of who is conspiring to do what.

“It’s time that petty sanctimonious panderers like Vice President Pence, who signed this law as governor, come to realize that religious liberty means freedom from unreasonable government imposition upon religious opinion and practice — not his own ‘freedom’ to impose a particular religiously-dictated practice upon the electorate whom he serves.”

The Satanic Temple has located a loophole for their social justice politics to have merit within a religion heavy legal system. The separation of church and state does not seem to be on its way and even in countries where it should have been established, we find ourselves repeating history. If all else fails, if they start demanding abortion seekers to go through long registration processes, horrifying informational videos and talks, burials of something that otherwise at some point would have maybe turned into a person, it might be time for Dutch people to turn to Satan too.

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NIKOLAI MARKOV

RESOLUTION, IMAGINATION, SPECULATION

- FOR EUROPE

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n the 18th of April 2019, Guido Snel invited Eurovisie to one of a line of events organised by the European Cultural Foundation and the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies: “Europe: Speculative Fiction Writing”, at De Balie. The line of events was organised in the lead-up to the European elections, under the slogan of ‘Democracy Needs Imagination’. The event itself was carried by Guido Snel, himself a lecturer in our study of European Studies, translator and writer, and Guiseppe Porcaro, head of communications for the European economic think-tank Bruegel, whose novel “Disco Sour” was awarded the Altiero Spinelli prize for Outreach: Spreading Knowledge about Europe. The idea for this event was to create a scenario of speculative

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fiction that would question and challenge the status quo of Europe. The audience participated in drafting out such a scenario, actively shaping a storyline that would entertain as much as express and question problematisations of Europe. I had the chance to interview Giuseppe on his ideas about speculative fiction, why problems of Europe should be explored through such a frame, and how much sense it actually makes to speculate in these times.

When you think Europe, what gives you a greater thrill? To think in dystopian terms, utopian terms - where do you want to head?

What I am thrilled about is using Europe as a background. It is something that first of all, in

terms of background and setting, is underexploited. From the purely artistic perspective, it is also a little bit weird to think that something that is part of our everyday life like that, which we all have some kind of opinion about, is absent from fiction. The other more personal element is that I consider myself, in terms of geographical identity, a European. In that way it is also a device for activism for me. But when I talk about activism for Europe I do not refer to a precise vision, a way I want Europe to be.

It is more about the fact that I would like to see not only more divergent but multiple views on Europe.

Every artist is directed towards an audience.

Do you think that the people of Europe are interested in speculation or resolution?

Where is the difference? Why do you see speculation and resolution as two opposing elements?

Well put the question like that because there is a general feeling in Europe that clarity is lacking. Now when someone says ‘I am here to actually speculate about where this might go, and this is what Europe lives off’, people are going to come to you and ask you ‘OK but what is the end-point? Is it resolution, is it going to help us?’ How do you confront this issue?

I think that speculation is a methodology to discuss resolutions. But, in a certain way, it is not a tool to get solutions. That is why it is extremely important to divide the exercise that one might do while writing fiction and one of actually discussing policies and solutions for problems. There is a connection because fiction can revive your brain on a discussion and rewire your point of view. This is something very interesting because for example if you were writing fiction, you would have to choose a point of view. And often it will happen that

you will have to put your point of view aside and see it from one of the characters that you are creating. It makes you experience another point of view that is not your own. You get a glimpse into what is happening in someone else’s reasoning. Putting yourself in the shoes of someone else is a highly limited endeavour due to our limits as human beings. We only perceive the world through our own eyes. Fiction and speculation are one of the few things that we have to get out of our own mindset somehow.

I will be honest with you, I made this question a bit of a trap, putting resolution and speculation against each other. It would actually be terrible if we only thought of resolution without imagination behind it. All the policies made are there to shape what is going to happen tomorrow right?

Exactly. And also with this resolution per se, what does it mean when you have solved the problem? What is a solution even? Take for example the ‘problem of migration’. You want to solve something that has been going on since the beginnings of human kind?

What do you think should people take up as a point for thinking Europe? I started to have the feeling that people in Europe are getting more and more rigid in their views due to encountering big, serious problems. You say that Europe relies on the multiplicity of views. Do you have a piece of advice for this heated and polarised climate we find ourselves in?

If we increase the imagination of people rather than their rigidity and anger, we can get to a process of improvement of the situation. The populist move that I personally find quite lame is this idea that everything used to be better and now we need a revolution, destroying the system we have. No, it is imagination that can help us shape the system we have from within.

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t takes the bus a little over 9 hours after its departure from Sofia to reach Prishtina.

The first impression its severely dehydrated passengers get of this annual study trip’s third destination is that the road network is considerably underdeveloped. The bus driver circles the round-about several times in an attempt to sneak into the long line of cars which congest the only road leading into the city centre. After the fourth or fifth time, he gives up and attempts to find another way into the city, which ends up on a dirt track leading into the spar-

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sely populated surroundings. Long story short, after another three or four jolly rounds around the roundabout (say this ten times over) the members of the study trip, which was named “ISOPRITI 2019”, finally arrive in Kosovo’s capital with a three-hour delay.

Who would have thought in retrospect that Prishtina would rank as my second favourite destination of this year’s study trip? Istanbul comes in first of course. However, the second place remains impressive considering that this

RE-THINKING KOSOVO: AN INTERVIEW WITH KOSOVO 2.0s DEPUTY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JACK

CARA RÄKER city demonstrates such a drastic lack of sights that ‘the world’s ugliest library’ ranks as one of its top three tourist attractions. It truly is not a pretty city. Despite the world’s ugliest library, Kosovo’s capital can underwhelm with a number of other attractions such as standard post-communist architecture, a Bill Clinton statue and the ‘Newborn’-monument which is an unspectacular arrangement of letters commemorating Kosovo’s independence and symbolizing its re-invention. So if it is not the concrete-block buildings or the vast array of

tourist attractions, what exactly is it that makes Prishtina so memorable?

Allow me to elaborate a bit. Kosovo is now officially just over 10 years old. Even though it has of course existed prior to this. The country declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and only gained full sovereignty in 2012. It is a young nation and quite literally so. According to Politico, 53% of Kosovo’s population is under 25 years old and the average age in Prishtina is 28. When strolling down the city’s main bou-

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levard with its abundance of cafés and street food stalls this is clearly visible in the sheer number of young people sipping on Turkish coffees or devouring roasted corn cobs.

I think that, initially, none of the study trip participants really knew what to make out of the educational activity ‘Kosovo 2.0’ as it was briefly noted in the travel program. The Facebook-page of the news outlet informs the reader of the following: Kosovo 2.0 was established in 2012 as the country’s first blogging platform. Now, 9 years later, the media organization has developed into one of the country’s most influential news platforms. While mainly operating online, Kosovo 2.0 has issued a number of print magazines in the past which aim to capture different angles of contemporary Kosovar society. Issue no. 4, for instance, is simply titled ‘Sex’. The description reads: “LGBT life in Kosovo and the Balkans, Albanian rap music deconstructed, sexual education, intersexuality, gender reassignment surgery in Belgrade, art and sex profiles, an analysis of Europe’s sexual politics […], couples that live together, “coming out” stories from all over the region, having sex while disabled, Prishtina nightlife, and much, much more.“ Much, much more indeed. Kosovo 2.0 offers a unique angle on a society which is commonly depicted as a recovering nation, a nation with high youth unemployment or a nation applying for EU candidacy in international media outlets.

And while all those things may indeed be true, there are so many more layers which make up a country, even if it is as young as Kosovo. At this point, I would like to express my sincere thanks from all of those who have participated in this year’s study trip to Kosovo 2.0 for their time and dedication they put in on a Friday evening to educate us on the magazine, Kosovo and journalism as a whole. For this article, I had the pleasure of interviewing the magazine’s deputy editor-in-chief Jack Butcher. His answers give a

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thoughtful insight into how he has experienced life in Kosovo within the past four years and what it is like to work in a media outlet which is specifically concerned with depicting all the sides, twists and turns inherent to the multitudes of Kosovar society.

What is your specific position at Kosovo 2.0 and how did you get there?

I’m currently deputy editor-in-chief at K2.0, a position that I’ve held since the start of this year. Prior to that, I was managing editor for over three years, but as our magazine has grown in size in recent years we have needed to adapt and create new positions.

I actually started off at K2.0 as a part-time intern back in 2015 after I had come across it while doing a little freelance writing as I was travelling around the region. Kosovo captured my imagination and was the itch I had to scratch, so I returned here for a month, which turned into three, which turned into a year… and before I knew it, it was my home. […]

What is it like to live in Kosovo as a foreigner?

I think it’s always important to remember that everyone experiences places in unique ways, based on their own mindset, experiences and privileges. I am always very conscious of the fact that my experience of living in Kosovo is not the same as that of my friends, my colleagues and particularly those living in other parts of the country outside of Prishtina.

I think a lot of foreigners living in Kosovo — particularly those working for international organizations on grossly disproportionate salaries to the rest of the population — live in some sort of parallel reality and treat the country as their personal playground; you often find an attitude amongst many of these people that they somehow know everything better and they are simply there to impart their ‘Western’

wisdom.

I’ve always tried to avoid having this sort of relationship with the place, although I perhaps inevitably fall into certain traps on occasion. But I always feel that as a foreigner here my primary role should be to listen and to learn — it sounds like a cliché, but even after four years here, I’m still surprised and challenged by things every single day. The more you learn, the more you realize you had no idea in the first place!

In your own words: What is Kosovo 2.0 and what are its main objectives?

K2.0 is an online and print magazine that aims to engage people in critical thought and discussion. We want to move away from the everyday 24/7 news portal approach to the media and really provide quality, reliable and contextualized storytelling.

We always try to challenge estab- lished narratives, offering an alternative angle to deep-rooted societal conservatism. Human rights are at the focus of much of our work and we always strive to put people and their experiences at the very heart of what we do.

These objectives go beyond the words we write and the stories we cover but expand to every element of what we do. For example we have extremely talented photographers/ designers who are always looking to challenge the reader through their unique approach to images, and we also look to innovate in the media forms that we use; this year we’ve launched Kosovo’s first two podcast series, we’re experimenting with multi-format multimedia storytelling and we’ve produced a number of viral videos on social media. […]

When we were first founded back in 2010, K2.0 actually started off as a blogging platform, in order to provide a space for people to express themselves and talk about the issues affecting their lives that are not receiving

the attention they deserve. So, this element of giving a voice to people is in our DNA and is a common thread running through our work to this day.

You translate your content into three languages: Serbian, English and Albanian. Why is that? Which language is read most?

Both Albanian and Serbian are official languages of Kosovo, while English is a kind of de facto official language. The idea initially — which still stands — was that as citizens of the same country, Albanians and Serbs should have access to the same information, and be involved in the same conversations about how Kosovo should look.

There are very few media here, if any, that provide all of their content in both Albanian and Serbian, meaning that Albanians tend to read Albanian media and Serbs tend to read Serb media. The narratives in each are often completely different, so it means people end up living in almost completely parallel realities.

We want to try and bridge that gap, to give people at least the opportunity to share in the same discussions. […]

What image can Kosovo 2.0 convey of the current affairs in the country which other media cannot?

As I mentioned previously, we try to bring something different to Kosovo’s media landscape, particularly when it comes to producing “slow journalism” that is contextualized. As with media elsewhere in the world, stories come and go a-pace here in Kosovo and today’s ‘big news’ is tomorrow’s burek wrapper (or whatever the digital equivalent is!).

There is a proliferation of media ‘portals’ producing quick-fire news stories, often little more than a paragraph or two, with very little — if any — contextualizing information.

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This style of news reporting makes it very easy for politicians and public figures to avoid being held to account for their actions and words and to simply drive whatever media agenda they want.

Our approach allows us to take a step back from all of that, to look at important issues that are marginalized or not making the main headlines about the latest ‘crisis’ — these are often the issues that are actually having a big impact on the day-to-day lives of citizens.

We talk about issues such as domestic violence, education, air pollution or discrimination against minority communities. […]

Under #EU readers of yours can find titles such as “Europe’s sword of Damocles has the potential to change everything” or “The EU continues the tradition of otherizing the Balkans” What is Kosovo’s stance/angle on the Kosovo-EU relationship?

As with any issue, there are nuances and it is not easy to paint a black-and-white picture.

Kosovo has long looked to the European Union as its international future — the EU has invested heavily here and there has essentially been no other realistic option in town. That has almost given the EU some sort of carte blanche to do whatever it likes when it comes to Kosovo.

But somewhere along the way, the EU has also been held up as this mythical solution that is going to solve all of Kosovo’s problems.

The reality, as we can see from the democratic backsliding in places like Hungary, Poland and Croatia, and also in places such as Malta, is that membership of the EU is not some magic wand.

The EU is often held up on a pedestal as the ultimate holy grail — that’s all very well on a macro level, but that does not mean that it should be beyond scrutiny and critique. Its treatment of Kosovo when it comes to liberalizing visas for Kosovar citizens is nothing

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short of shameful — while citizens from all of Kosovo’s neighbours have been able to travel visa-free in the Schengen Zone for years, Kosovars have been left completely isolated despite the EU Commission having long ago confirmed that the country has fulfilled all of its requirements in this regard.

There is also a sense that EU countries have attempted to externalize their issues, particularly when it comes to the migrant crisis. Building barriers and fences, and sending Frontex guards to the Balkans may keep refugees from the eyes of the populations of its own member countries, but it shows a callous disregard both to the individuals who are often trapped in appalling conditions outside of the EU’s borders and to the countries on the ‘periphery’ who are being forced to pick up the EU’s pieces.

It has also become increasingly apparent that EU expansion is not really on the table any more in the current European political climate, especially for countries such as Kosovo who have not even been given an indicative timeline of when they might hope to accede.

The EU needs to, therefore, offer some sort of other positive and realistic vision to Kosovo and the region because otherwise resentment will increase and other geopolitical powers will become a more significant force in the region.

‘A letter on the EU on Europe Day’ is one of your top-trending articles. One quote reads:

‘As I say, you [Europe] came to my country as you pleased. Oppressor or saviour. Of course never in need of an invitation or visa. It was always your choice’ Is that an accurate reflection of the general public’s experience?

I think that the general attitude toward the EU in Kosovo has overwhelmingly been a positive one. I do not recall the exact statistics, but

I believe that polls have consistently shown that Kosovars have the most positive attitude towards the EU compared to any other country in Europe.

There is also significant frustration toward the EU though, particularly its rule of law mission, EULEX, which was given extensive powers in Kosovo following independence in 2008 in areas such as policing and the judiciary. That mission has been pretty unpopular amongst a lot of people who point to significant failings when it comes to issues such as prosecuting senior figures as well as its handling of war crimes cases. EULEX’s reputation has also never really recovered from high profile allegations of corruption within its own ranks.

Despite that criticism, most Kosovars have still viewed the EU as their future, although I would say there has been a perceptible shift in this more recently.

It’s not as though there are many viable alternatives on the table. But with the never-ending saga over visa-liberalization, the likelihood of accession seeming more and more distant, and its fairly inert position as ‘impartial facilitator’ of the long-running dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, the EU seems to have blown a lot of the credit that it had in the bank.

If any of you, after reading this interview, are interested to learn more about Kosovo 2.0 and the beautiful country it represents, you can follow the magazine on Facebook (simply search for Kosovo 2.0) or look them up under www. kosovotwopointzero.com. There is something fundamentally important about supporting ‘slow’ journalism, which truly takes the time to make individuals heard and write the stories overlooked by mainstream media which are forced to jump from one ‘hot topic’ to the next, from one ‘breaking news’ to another.

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JOEP LEERSSEN

DIVERSITY ENFORCEMENT

BY NETFLIX

O

ne of my major struggles is to convince colleagues in the social and political sciences that culture is more than just inconsequential rest-and-recreation, something that people do when they are not doing anything Meaningful. And by Meaningful we mean: stuff that affects state policies, the distribution of power and of wealth, and the control over resources. Like, social and political stuff. Thus, having first reduced the notion of the Meaningful to sociopolitical materiality, my non-Humanities colleagues then exclude culture from what is meaningful because it is not sociopolitically material. How did Sibelius mobilise the Finnish workers? How did Mozart change the course of history, I mean, real history? (i.e., not just musical and cultural history, inconsequential history.)

Ok, so one can point out that there is blatant circular reasoning right there, which can be brought down to the assertion “Whatever I do not choose to study must be unimportant”. But that merely proves that such an approach is dumb; it does not prove that it is wrong. Selah,

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selah, as Bob Marley used to sing: reflect on this. Being stupid and being wrong are not quite the same thing.

So anyway. The Netflix series Now They See Us has galvanised a lot of public opinion; watching it, people tell me, is almost unbearable: the way innocent youngsters were condemned for a murder because they were black and in the wrong place at the wrong time. Against all logic and judicial propriety, in a process driven wholly by blind prejudice. Both stupid and wrong, and a terrible injustice. By now the public prosecutor in this case has resigned from her university position, shamed and ostracised.

By a Netflix series. Diversity Enforcement By Internet Entertainment!

But wait, there’s more. This was not the first time that the miscarriage of justice had been exposed on modern media. The great documentary film maker Ken Burns made his The Central Park Five in 2012, exposing exactly this very same scandal. It did not lead to public outcry then. And the difference between the

2012 documentary and the 2019 drama series may lie in precisely the genre that the two productions move in. What has triggered the audience’s emotions has been the dramatisation of the case: we follow a story as it unfolds, as it is experienced by the protagonists, localised and narrativised through them.

Which goes to show what narrative and drama can do: the audience is made to empathise, to feel the burning injustice rather than to be told about it.

That power of narrative goes back way beyond Uncle Tom’s Cabin (the melodramatic novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe which galvanised the American public against slavery in 1852) or Dickens’s Bleak House (which in the same year 1852 did much to trigger reforms in the English legal system). Nor is the power of narrative limited to melodramatic activism, as in these cases. Science fiction is driving NASA into idiotic missions to Mars, and warning us against Big

Brother and a Brave New World. I could go on.

You KNOW I could, admit it. Literature brings the world home to our gut feelings.

Finally, there is a third reason why culture matters. I call it the scurvy argument. Sailors on long voyages were liable to develop a disease called scurvy, which at some point was miraculously cured when they were given lemon juice to drink. It turned out that scurvy was nothing more than a Vitamin C deficiency. And so the need for Vitamin C was proved, in the negative, by scurvy. Neglect it and then see what you end up with. Now I look at public figures who are both stupid and wrong, and get away with it (until finally someone turns it into a melodrama)… and it strikes me that we are living through a political form of scurvy, brought about by culture deficiency. 40 years of disinvestment in the Humanities, in literacy and foreign languages, are fatally weakening out powers of empathy and criticism.

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE IN COURT

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F

or our final Alumni piece of the year we’ve had the opportunity to interview one of the most recognised Alumni of European Studies, Michel Rentenaar. His career has taken him to all corners of the globe and into many of the defining political moments of the last years, from the breakout of civil war in Yemen to the signing of the Paris Climate Accords.

Michel Rentenaar is a ES graduate of 92’. It is not where he started his studying though.

A few year prior to starting the study he got his first-year diploma in Sociology. He decided the study was not for him and moved to Israel. He worked there for several years as a milkman, whilst encompassing himself with the culture. He had always been interested in the Middle East and International Relations.

When he was 27 he returned to the Netherlands and started (the equivalent then of) European Studies. He majored in History with Hebrew as his support subject. The university did not originally offer Hebrew but after a visit to the eduction committee he was able to convince them and he was allowed to do it. As it was not a language normally offered it was not the normal classroom set up. He went to the professor at home and went through all the bookshelves of Hebrew texts.

During his studies he was the chair of the student union ASVA, through which he got involved with many political activities.

He finished in three years, winning a prize for his thesis to close it off, which he wrote on Dutch Foreign policy towards Israel.

Straight after, he was accepted for the Blue Book internship in DG RELEX (now under the EEAS). It was with a group of other young graduates, mainly from law and history backgrounds. ‘Imagine, it was 1992, peace broke in the middle east, everyone is coming up with new ideas’.

‘I was living with a lot of roommates at the

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ASKING OUR ALUMNI

MICHEL RENTENAAR BY: GEORGE BANDY

time. All got along well though; we even had a agreement over which newspapers we would buy for the apartment. There was an advert in one of the newspapers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through which I found my next job.’ ‘The selection for the ministry was long - many psychological tests, language tests, background checks and so forth’. Michel had always been very keen to gain new languages which helped. At this point he is able to speak eight different ones, including Hebrew and Arabic. ‘Also being a good talker helped.’ ‘When I went for the first interview I had never worn a suit and tie before. I took out my earring I had at the time […] They were looking for a diverse set of candidates - both in backgrounds and genders.’

‘When I first joined it was still very much the three-piece suit sort of type doing the job.

Still following the old perfume route style of diplomacy, where it was all managed through

London, Paris and Rome. They wanted and needed some new types of diplomats for the new situations being faced […] 9/11 was a big change, the focus of the ministry started changing.’ Michel’s first job at the ministry was at a desk in the Hague. He was asked to move to Yemen temporarily to cover a colleague who was sick. ‘At that point civil war just broke out’.

Michel was involved in organising the evacuations of civilians.

There he received a call from the Directorate General asking whether he would fill the position of political advisor for Dutch troops in Iraq.

‘There wasn’t much time to debate over it. A day in fact’. ‘My wife is Palestinian. At the time she was back home for a family celebration.

Due to the war between Israel and Palestine you could not directly call between the two countries. I had to call my sister back in Amsterdam to ask her to call her from there to say to be in front of the computer later on then we could send messages over hotmail chat’.

The next day he was to report to a military airfield for a flight to Cyprus and then on to Southern Iraq by helicopter. ‘There was sandstorm going on as we flew in and our American pilot did not have any maps, so he dropped us just outside of As-Sawamah, around 280 km south-east of Bagdad.’

One of the main tasks there was to rebuild the local government structures in the Al-Muthana that had been destroyed. As-Sawamah was one of the first. He travelled to Bagdad to meet the American Consul. He asked whether they should run elections, to which the reply was ‘absolutely not’. There was a fear an extremist group would win. ‘We had to think of a different way. Instead, we put up posters

all around the city asking the people who they think would be good candidates for the city council. The people could write on the lists by the posters who they thought should take the positions’. ‘During the day nobody went near them, of course worrying about showing their preferences. By the morning though the lists were starting to be filled with names.’ The posters were up for over a week. ‘There were posters for each of the two main factions in the city. Interestingly, when the posters were taken down and the two lists put together - 97 out of the 100 or so were the same. Then all we had to do was select the last few and we had the new city council.’ ‘This model we then copied all over Iraq.’

Michel has worked in multiple positions now at the ministry, more recently being the climate ambassador until 2016. ‘It was very heavy, though the most beautiful job. I remember vividly. The eruption of joy at the signing of the Paris accords, after so long a period of intense negotiations.’

‘I could have done that for one more year but then my kids were 14/15 and I wanted to spend more time with them. […] Every year there’s a posting in Brussels, so I went there for the position of permanent representative of the Netherlands to NATO.’ ‘In 2020 I can be reposted. Not sure yet. It is the beauty of the job though, being about to do different things.’

‘I learned a lot about myself from all of this that I’m more adaptable than I thought I was.

There’s not one path to this kind of career. [ …]

You need to make a brand for yourself and be able to sell who you are and what you can do.’

The KES is the Alumni circle for European Studies. It aims to promote and maintain contacts between alumni. The circle regularly organizes meetings where alumni meet and network. This makes it the perfect place to follow developments in European studies. You can contact the KES through mail: kes-auv@uva.nl

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SES Calendar 26th June - Last Borrel of the Year

The academic year is quickly coming to an end and this not only means saying good-bye to Bushuis, Engel, Dolly’s and the UB for the summer, but also that the Board and committees of 18/19 are currently busy planning their last events for you before stepping down to let some new faces take over. To end the year with a bang we’re heading to Bar Mississippi for one last beer. See the Facebook for more info.

29th - 1st July Hitchhike Weekend

We will be travelling to a secret location, to be announced on the day itself. It’s a race to the finish, with an inspirational bucket list along the way. The couple that wins our competition, will be awarded with an amazing prize! After a day of hitchhiking, we will spend a weekend in a vibrant city! In other words, the perfect way to end your year with some proper banter! Be quick and team up with your best mate/(soon to be) girlfriend and join this exciting weekend! For more info check out http://www.sesuva.nl/hitchhike-weekend-2019/

WANT TO WRITE FOR EUROVISIE? SEND YOUR ARTICLE TO EUROVISIE@SES-UVA.NL

(c) studievereniging europese studies 2019 28