Libertas 34 by Youth Association creACTive

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Literature Literature

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04 Era of the e-reader? 06 wikipedia - behind the scenes 13 pigs in maputo 09 14 movie review: a separation 16 brainstorming: for those who hope for something else 18 tips and trics: mercimek kÖftesi 19 book review: do androids dream 16 of electric sheep? 21 the latin american ‘boom’ 23 calligraphy 18 24 events

Libertas 34 “literature” published july 2012

Era of the e-reader? Sophie Yeoman

4 That sweet, slightly musty smell, as you open the covers of an old book. The white crispness and stiffness of the pages of a new. Those hours spent idly browsing the shelves in a bookstore, looking at your favourite genres, checking if your favourite authors have any new releases, and of course, in your search for something to read, judging many books by their covers. These experiences, familiar to all readers, were a regular part of my life through my childhood, teenage years and going-on-adulthood. I can’t be sure when they started, because I’ve been reading longer than I can remember. But I can tell you exactly when they stopped: Christmas Day, 2011. The day I was given an e-reader. My own e-reader is an Amazon Kindle. I don’t know what model it is - I can tell you it doesn’t have a keyboard (making it newer than some) nor a touch screen (older than others). It does have a wonderfully clear display, easy to use page turner buttons, and has quickly become my baby. It goes with me everywhere, to be read whenever I have a minute of idle time. I haven’t tested out different e-readers, so I won’t attempt to compare mine with others. But in my 20 years I have visited many bookstores and libraries, and read A LOT of books, so I’ll attempt to compare my Kindle with them. Firstly, the ease of access to reading material.

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After being an avid bookworm most of my life, after starting university I’m ashamed to say I read almost nothing not prescribed by my lecturers (and while I’m being honest, often not even that). The choice of a new book to read - the energy to apply myself to its pages - the suspension of imagination required to immerse myself in its reality; all these became too much effort. On those occasions when I did manage all three steps, if the book was a good one, I would devour it within a day, and the process would start over. If I didn’t enjoy the book, it would lurk in my bag, its awkward size and weight an irritating reminder, its contents frustrating and irritating rather than diverting me when I would turn to it at a bus stop or while waiting in a café for a friend. Today, I carry my Kindle in my bag. It weighs a couple hundred grams, lighter than even the thinnest paperback, its slim shape fits neatly into a pocket, and I don’t have to swap it with another object every few days to replenish my reading material. I will be the first to admit that I am lazy. But the Kindle works with my laziness, and still lets me read something easily whenever I wish. Secondly, the ease of access to NEW BOOKS. Capitalised because to a long-time reader, those words are as good as a hit of nicotine to a smoker. Whether books are really new or second-hand is not the issue - the important thing

is that it’s something you haven’t read before. Sometimes favourite books you haven’t read for a long time can evoke the same rush. My Kindle is mostly great for me, because it lets me buy new books on Amazon and have them a few seconds later to read. Recently though I wanted some books by a particular author, and it turned out they were only available as e-books from Barnes and Noble, which markets its own e-reader (the NOOK) and thus doesn’t support e-books for Kindle. Possibly someone more technologically literate than I could work out how to load these e-books on a Kindle, but after gnashing my teeth a little I went and found free pdfs on the internet (without guilt really, because I’d previously borrowed these books from a library, bought them, and sold them to a second hand bookstore thinking I wouldn’t want them again). I took from this experience that no e-reader is perfect. Before buying any particular model, it’s worth researching if the books you know you’ll want to start your library with are available in that model’s shop. Finally, that intangible magic. The feeling of a book. The atmosphere of a bookstore. How does an e-reader compare in these important ways? I admit, I do miss bookstores. Browsing the Amazon store does not compare to Arty Bee’s Bookstore and Unity Books in Wellington. I also feel guilty, knowing that at this time of financial recession independent bookstores are struggling

to survive. To make up for this feeling, I still buy the occasional physical book. Old books, books in foreign languages, and some specialist books are still difficult to find in e-book versions, and books with pictures are just no fun on an e-reader, so I do have an excuse. Despite my love for my e-reader, I think it’s important that independent bookstores survive - these are the places that allow books to find readers. Chain bookstores allow readers to buy popular books cheaply, and online bookstores allow readers to buy almost anything they want - if they can find it. But only independent bookstores let you browse for hours by category, by author, by staff recommendations, by cover, by size, by feel in your hand... This is something that should be protected and supported by all readers, whatever your preferred reading format. Ultimately the choice to use or not an e-reader is yours. I would suggest every reader tries it, if possible, looks at a friend’s one or one in a store, because you might find it’s more pleasant than you think. It’s made me into a reader again. But do some research first if you‘re thinking of buying a model, check out the online bookstores to see which books and authors are available where. And as you download book after book from the internet, don’t forget to support in turn those physical bookstores that have supported your love of reading for so long.

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Behind the scenes text and photos

Ieva Baranova

With 22 million articles Wikipedia is the biggest encyclopaedia in world history. Most of us already take it for granted and do not stop to wonder how it is created and why we receive it for free. Slobodan Jakoski, who started Wikipedia in Macedonian language, describes the functions of the enthusiastic community that stays invisible while keeping this unbelievable project alive.

interview.

7 S.Jakoski (on the left) with a Wikipedia editor from Kazakhstan and Wikipedia founder J.Wales.

Today I read a quote about Wikipedia that I really liked. It goes: “The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work.” I think Wikipedia is something really unique and most people are already very used to using it, but they have a very vague idea – if they ever thought about it – how it actually works. But you must have a truly insider’s view on the biggest encyclopaedia in world history. How did you become a part of it? Well, it was a long, long time ago, I just stumbled upon it in 2005. And I found that there is no Macedonian language edition of Wikipedia, just 5 or 10 articles which are actually written in English, Bulgarian or Serbian. At that time Wikipedia was getting more and more popular, and me and a friend of mine were surprised – how come there is no Macedonian language Wikipedia. Then we noticed the “edit” button, most of the people don’t see it, but it is really that simple – you just click the button and insert information. We started working like crazy, because we were students and we had loads of spare time. We had this theory that if people will see that there are more and more articles, more and more people will come and that it will

work. We had created hundreds of articles, and then somebody saw that something is going on, that the main page has a number of new articles. We also designed the first page of Macedonian Wikipedia. So people started noticing that something is going on and asking “Can I join?” and we said “Of course!” It was a snowball effect of people coming from all sorts of fields like IT folks, mathematicians, engineers, economists. Most of us were really excited about having an online encyclopaedia in Macedonian. At that time actually there wasn’t any encyclopaedia in Macedonian language, both offline and online so this was kind of a pioneer project – we really needed something like this. I guess that was what attracted more and more people to join. The next year we reached 10 000 articles and the media became interested as they realized something important is going on. How important do you think it is to have an active Wikipedia for a small country or language community? Especially nowadays when almost everybody speaks English and the English articles are often more rich and accurate anyway? First of all, probably most of the people do

speak English, but not all of them. Also, you can cover the global topics, just using the English Wikipedia, but as for the topics of local interest you can go really in detail only in the respective language Wikipedia, not in the English one. For example, some of the articles on Macedonian Wikipedia would not pass the so-called notability guidelines in the English Wikipedia. They would consider that this person or event is of local significance and maybe it should be covered only in the Macedonian version. That is the primary reason; the secondary one is the preservation of language. If you don’t do that, you would soon start thinking and writing only in foreign languages, and it is kind of dangerous. One more thing that I did not realize at first, is that Macedonian Wikipedia is being very helpful for translators. Especially for technical or specific English terms, for which there is no Macedonian equivalent, Wikipedia can be used as a reference to see the explanation of the technical terms or processes. I know translators who know the meaning of the term in English, but they are not sure how to translate it in Macedonian so they go to English Wikipedia and check if there is a Wikipedia article about this in Macedonian. You mentioned the professions of people who were joining the Macedonian Wikipedia. So there must be such a thing as Wikipedia authors’ community in which you know each other. How does it work and how do you interact with each other? At first we all just met on the Wikipedia itself, we did not know each other in person. Then we started making wiki-meetings, just to get to know each other in the physical world. Most of them were just casual beer drinking, but also important projects have been discussed and all this helped to build the community of editors. There was stagnation in wiki meet-ups for a while because I guess everybody got tired of meeting and drinking beer. Now we are in sort

interview.

of a renaissance because we have managed to secure a space which is open for day use for hackers, programmers and enthusiasts. There we can meet and work. What kind of projects do you do together? We discuss topics that we cannot discuss on Wikipedia itself because it would involve too much writing. That is important because in the online environment you can get easily misunderstood. We also talk about future plans. In one of these meetings we decided to open an NGO and we did that in 2009. It is called Wikimedia Macedonia. It is important because it created a legal base to our community and we can do bigger projects, also get financing etc. Wikimedia Macedonia has been recognized as an official chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation which owns the Wikipedia project. Now we are being invited to international conferences, like the Chapters Conference in Berlin, or last year’s Wikimania in Israel. We got a place in the global community of Wikipedia. You have got to have some kind of official status and structure otherwise nobody really knows who are the real representatives of a ‘community’. Wikipedia is free and operated by a non-profit charitable organization called Wikimedia Foundation. It all sounds like one big charity, but where does the money to sustain it actually come from? Wikipedia in general is remarkable because I think around 90% of Wikipedia’s funding comes from physical donators, who donate small amounts of money, like 5 or 10 dollars. And there are thousands of these donators who keep the project alive. Maybe you have seen [in Wikipedia] Jimmy Wales and others asking for money, kind of annoying you to help the project, but it is really useful because if the people would refuse this financial support, I guess other means of funding would be required, like advertising, which nobody really wants or big donators who

might try to influence the content. But at the moment do you think that any kind of lobbying can interfere with function of Wikipedia? That’s a tricky subject. So far there has been no alleged case of such influence. I don’t think it is possible because the content as it is now is created by volunteers. And they operate in accordance to several editorial policies, the most important of which is the Neutral Point of View. It is sort of a Wikipedia constitution, I guess even if there is an attempt from some donator to influence the content, editors themselves will not allow this to happen. They will not allow damaging the integrity of the project, even if the Wikimedia Foundation in some way tries to implement it. The foundation itself has been really aware of community power and if there is a big decision, like it was with the SOPA/PIPA protest, it always seeks the approval from the community first. With this protest they were first voting in the English Wikipedia whether we should have this protest, and the consensus, above 90% was to do it. Afterwards the Wikimedia Foundation secured the technical organization of the protest – the blacking out of the page. I guess they have been really careful about not annoying anyone in the community. Could you tell a bit more about this January’s “blackout” of Wikipedia in order to protest against SOPA and PIPA acts? What was it supposed to manifest and do you think it was successful?

The first Wikipedia protest was implemented in the Italian Wikipedia for a slightly different reason. The Italian government tried to propose the so-called ‘Wiretapping act’. The proposed bill would have empowered anyone who believes themselves to have been offended by the content of a publication or website, even if the content were true, to enforce publication of a reply, uneditable and uncommented, in the same place and with equal prominence of the related content, with no right of protest against the requested rewrite or any inaccuracies contained, within 48 hours and without any prior evaluation of the claim by a judge. Failure to comply would have resulted in enormous fines or closing down of entire websites. The Italian Wikipedians saw this as an attempt for censorship and a disruption of the normal functioniong Wikipedia. So they have decided to black out the main page of the Italian Wikipedia, they did not even ask for permission from the foundation. It gathered a lot of attention and proved that Wikipedia, being one of the most visited web pages in every country, has a power to influence. The government immediately backed up from the law and altered it significantly. And this model also inspired the SOPA/PIPA protest. In the United States the situation was somewhat similar but the main issue was copyright and it required website owners to be responsible for every minor copyright infringement. Under the SOPA/PIPA issue, if even a minor copyright issue would be found on any Wikipedia page, the whole Wikipedia could be closed down. So most

of the editors were aware that it would interfere with the normal operation of Wikipedia and they decided to make a statement, quite a powerful one. And they managed to address the issue – I would not say solve it forever, but at least to postpone it, which is important.

Wikipedia realized that it has a power to influence real-world politics. Now the issue is how and when to use this power. Wikipedia in itself is primarily an encyclopaedia so the foundation and the community are cautious not to get too much involved in politics. I guess only those laws and policies that directly affect the functioning of Wikipedia would be supported or opposed, depending on the situation. What is the structure of Wikipedia? After some time of writing, did you get kind of a “promotion”? Well, everybody can edit the content. But there are editors who with time can have... I would not say privileges because they are also equally obligations. I was the first system administrator in the Macedonian Wikipedia. Being a system administrator that allows you to block an editor or to ‘lock’ and protect articles. There are people who want to hurt the project and there are mechanisms to block them. The system administrators can do that and they can also protect the page’s content. For example when there is an edit war – a process in which the content of a page can be changed within seconds and then changed back by somebody else, they can invite the parties to settle their problems in the discussion page. After being a system administrator for a while, you can become a ‘bureaucrat’. Bureaucrats can do everything that a system administrator could plus they can appoint other system administrators and they have a permission to activate certain automatic editors called “bots” to operate in Macedonian Wikipedia, for example. There are other editor levels, as well, depending

interview.

the language edition of Wikipedia, but the system administrators and bureaucrats are the most important. To have all these ‘privileges’ you need to be democratically elected so you cannot get appointed as an administrator without community support. There is always a process of nomination and voting, and some people are also rejected. All this sounds like a full-time job. Wasn’t it very time-consuming? Well, it was. Unfortunately now I don’t have time to do this stuff on Wikipedia, but I do it in Wikimedia Macedonia. And I’m trying to convince other people to do this work. What happens if any disagreements arise in the process of creating the articles? For example if different authors disagree on some facts or terms? Maybe you know an example of such issues being solved in Macedonian Wikipedia? Well, a lot! I will not go into details, but I’m sure you are aware of certain aspects of Macedonian history being controversial, actually all Balkan history. And there are a lot of disagreements among editors about the content. What happens is that administrators try to act as mediators and protect a page in case of an “edit war”, by convincing both parties to find a reasonable solution that would be in alignment with the “neutral point of view” policy. There should not be a problem with this even when there are two opposing views on some aspect – the page should state both views. All views should be represented reasonably and no side should be taken. In addition there is an obligation to cite sources so if you make a claim, you need to back it up with a source otherwise there will be an indication “citation needed”. And all of this is done by the community, that is why it is so important – someone always has to check the material and discuss it on Wikipedia – whether a certain statement is reliable or not. I was involved in one major dispute, it was

in 2005, and it was regarding the article about my ethnic group. We have been called Macedonian Slavs, which is kind of controversial and especially in Macedonia it is completely derogatory. I did not want this to stay like that and we started discussing the issue and it sort of got out of hands, also with many editors coming into discussion. There was a large voting process about how the article should be called. Greeks voted for “Macedonian Slavs”, but Macedonians voted for “Macedonians” and it ended up in kind of a stalemate. Then we went to a mediation process which was very similar to being in a court and being a lawyer. You have to know all the Wikipedia policies. I really became kind of a lawyer because if the article name would stay Macedonian Slavs, every instance of the ethnic group in every Wikipedia article would be Macedonian Slavs and I was afraid that with time the internet would sort of accept my ethnic group as Macedonian Slavs, a name which is nowhere officially recognized, in none official documents it is referred to as such. So all this lasted for about 8 months and it ended by calling

the article “Macedonians (Ethnic group)” and the demand for Ethnic Macedonians to always be distinguished from Ancient Macedonians, Greek Macedonians and Bulgarian Macedonians. The main critics of Wikipedia are widely known – mostly the risk of wrong information being published or even deliberate vandalism since the editor can be anyone. It is also true that Wikipedia has its control mechanisms and filters. Do you think Wikipedia articles are generally reliable? Yes, I think so because several studies especially about articles concerning natural sciences have proven that. But even in controversial issues such as religion, philosophy and ethnicity you can always rely on Wikipedia to offer a neutral point of view. But when I use Wikipedia, if I find a ‘fishy’ information, I always double-check the sources. We have to regard Wikipedia entries as compilations of sources and not to take any information for granted. If you are really

interested in a topic, it would be wrong to only rely on what you read on Wikipedia: do the effort to investigate further. What distinguishes Wikipedia from other encyclopaedias is their authoritative stance of being correct. And it is not true. I have seen ridiculously false factual information in Britannica. So never completely trust the information you see.

What do you see as the main operational problems or threats for Wikipedia’s future? The main concern of the Wikipedia community is that in time there might not be enough editors to maintain the project. More editors are needed not only to add new information but also to improve it and for all the other things that are going on behind the visible end result. The first mission of the Wikipedia foundation and other efforts is to at least maintain the level of editors because if it declines, the amount and the quality of the articles might also decline. Yesterday I heard rumours that the quality of Wikipedia articles is declining, I have to check it but it would be a huge problem if it is true. The only way to influence that is to have more and more editors, more and more volunteers. It is impossible to pay to the editors and at the same time maintain such a large database of information. This is the largest encyclopaedia ever so it would take an entire national budget to fund this project. You mentioned that you have participated in some international Wikipedia conferences. What are they like? It depends on the conference. Wikimania is the largest and most fun Wikipedia conference. I got to meet amazing people who have started their own small community projects. For example South African editors are dealing with issues of how to create Wikipedias in languages with only 50 speakers. They are helping these languages to survive. What is also interesting is horizontal

binding – everyone is equal and nobody thinks he is more important than the other. In my first conference in Gdaņsk, Poland, I met Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and at that moment he was very interested in small communities’ Wikipedias and he interviewed me which was amazing for me. Parts of my speech went to his keynote speech which is the central event of any Wikimania. Other conferences are more formal but they are also interesting. If somebody has the chance to go to Wikimania, they should definitely go. How do you get to know about these conferences? Well, everybody can participate in Wikimania, but you have to pay your own expenses. But Wikimedia foundation gives scholarships to interesting Wikipedians or other people somehow involved in the free knowledge and free software movement. And if you are really active or they see you are working on some project, they can fund your stay. That is how I went there twice. In your opinion, has Wikipedia changed the world? And if yes, how? In my opinion, the most important thing about Wikipedia is that it contested the notion that if you give power to the people everything will end up in chaos. This has been a philosophical issue – Thomas Hobbes believed that there is always a need for kind of a hierarchy because he believed people to be inherently selfish and destructive. Wikipedia proved the opposite. In theory, this kind of project is really a disaster. Nobody has any tangible good or financial reward for their work but they still do that. So maybe that proves that this premise is wrong. Maybe the bulk of humanity is collaborative and constructive – I think Wikipedia proved that. That is a lesson learned, for me.

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Pigs in Maputo Pig cartoons of life in Mozambique

by Iris Yan

for more, every day: pigsinmaputo. blogspot.com/

pigs in maputo.

Movie!

Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin (a separation) Kristel Rebane This is not your everyday movie what you would come across in the movie theaters. It is not your every day subject and storyline what we have used to see in films. This is drama about Muslim family in nowadays Iran. Movie was released over a year ago (March 2011) in Iran, but it remains getting awards and is still played in movie festivals and cinemas all over the world. Movie director and writer Asghar Farhadi says about his film A Separation: “Classical tragedy was the war between good and evil. We wanted evil to be defeated and good to be victorious. But the battle in modern tragedy is between good and good. And no matter which side wins, we’ll still be heartbroken” Movie starts while spouses: Simin (Leila Hatami) and Nader (Peyman Moadi) are in the court, wife wanting to divorce. Divorce request is not satisfied, because of lack of reasons. Woman wants to go to live abroad to get better education for her young daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), but since her husband’s father is suffering from Alzheimer, Nader feels responsibility to take care of his father. Even though wife doesn’t get divorce she is determined to go abroad with her daughter. She will move out back to her parent’s house, until husband will change his mind or until she will get a divorce. Husband needs to hire a person who would take care of his father until

review.

he is at work. Her wife will suggest him a Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a woman who is in financial difficulties. After one conflict and incidents between the husband and a Razieh who is nursing his father big problems will start, where is now involved also Razieh’s husband Hojjat (Shahab Hosseini). Meanwhile Simin was planning to come back and work out their marriage, but after her husband still being stubborn she changes her mind. More problems will start from that between Nader and Simin and between all this conflicts is their daughter what raises a question is it all worth this? The movie won also countless awards what prove that it is a quality film. For example A Separation won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012, becoming the first Iranian film to win the award. It received the Golden Bear for Best Film and the Silver Bears for Best Actress and Best Actor at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, becoming the first Iranian film to win the Golden Bear. It also won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award, a rare occurrence for a foreign language film. Since this is the first Iran movie that I’ve seen I was very positively surprised, because of the amazing actor work and also from the interesting and real story line. I would definitely success this movie to everyone, even if you are not fan of that kind of movies. I’m already planning to watch this director’s other movies, since I am really impressed from that movie.

For the ones who hope for something else Martin Naunov

She took my hand and squeezed it gently. She looked me

all over with her huge, dark, shiny eyes and whispered: “I want to ask you something.” And, I said “Go ahead, ask me whatever you want!”. “Would you want to be my….Ah, I can’t ask you that!” – she said and her face was turning red like a strawberry. “Gooo, ask me!” – I said. “Would you want to be my B?”, the stress fell on B here, and this question turned my cheeks red. I thought she would ask me to be her boyfriend. I mean, I went to trainings where I was taught how to communicate with them, where I can touch them and where I cannot, when I should step in and when I should withdraw… but I was never told how to react when a girl who was forced to have sex with 10 to 15 strangers every single night, and who went through horrors we can’t even imagine, asks me to be her boyfriend. She was a lovely, sweet, young girl who has been raped by her father, sold into sex industry by her mother, and unloved her whole life by those who are supposed to give her unconditional love. She was wounded, but she was healing, and I had the obligation not to interrupt the healing process. “Biology teacher, beef, banana, belly…” – I was trying to come with as many B-words as possible, while struggling with myself of what I should answer when she finally asks me to be her boyfriend, and not make her feel rejected and unloved again. And then, with a low, soft voice she said “Would you want to be my brother?... My big brother?” I was dazed! I lived in a carefree world where when a girl gently squeezes your hand, it means she is infatuated with you…it means she simply wants you to be her boyfriend – not her brother. And this girl, as well as all the other girls

brainstorming.

in the center, only hoped to have a brother. Hoped to have a sister. A family, to love them. All they were asking for is love and respect. These girls, as well as millions of other children, some as young as 4 years old, have been sold as sex slaves and have been beaten, gang raped, starved, mutilated, held at gunpoint and addicted to heavy drugs. They have been physically and emotionally abused into submission. A submission generated from an absolute climate of fear that traffickers create, making it certain that the victims are petrified to try to escape. However, once the victim has escaped or has been rescued, this climate of fear has to immediately be altered to become a climate of hopes. I went to Cambodia striving to give love to those who need it the most! I never thought I will become someone’s bong proh (older brother), nor that I will have 60 more p’ohn srei (younger sisters). Still, that is what happened and I came to realize that, as Marc Brown once said, “Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.” As a brother, I ask you to wholeheartedly respect my sisters. To love them, and show them that their lives are still worth living unaccompanied by shame. We should all begin to see and respect, at least at the most basic level, the humanity of all victims and to urge our countries to stop victimizing the victims and work with them in such a way that clearly shows their dedication to the protecting the equality and dignity of all individuals of Homo sapiens. That would encourage, inspire and empower my sisters and all the victims to keep going, and reach their potential and it would also give them the idea that they are not hopelessly and irreparably broken. And it is only when we have created this climate of hopes, and this space for the trafficking victim to again see themselves as a person and not as a sexual device, whose existence we respect and whose value is inherent, that s/he becomes a survivor. It is only then, that my sisters will become survivors.

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Mercimek Koftesi recipe and photo by Volkan Saritas

malzemeler 1 cup of red lentil 1 lt water 2 cups of ground wheat 2 heads of dry onion 1 Turkish tea glass olive oil 1,5 pepper paste 1 desert spoon black pepper Chili paprika 1 Turkish tea glass hot water 1,5 spoon tomato paste 1 bunch of parsley 6-7 pcs green onions 1,5 desert spoon salt Lettuce or maybe ruccola 2 tomatoes

preparation 1.Wash the red lentil and put on fire in 1 lt of water. Leave the lid a bit open otherwise it spills out. Boil the lentil and leave them juicy enough for the wheat. If all the water is gone, the balls will be dry.

2.Put the wheat on the lentil. Mix and remix later. Keep the lid closed.

3.Cut the dry onions thinly. Fry them in the olive oil. Add the tomato and the pepper paste. Add black pepper and chili paprika. Once fried, add the little glass of water. Boil them.

4.Add this mix into the lentil and wheat mixture. Mix it thoroughly.

5.Chop the parsley, tomatoes and the fresh onions.

Add them into the mix. Add the salt. Knead the mix. Make small balls out of them. You can now serve it in lettuce with fresh lemon drops added.

Tips: Do not dry the lentils when cooking. The wheat has to absorb the juice to soften. If it is still dry, you can add a little boiled waiter to make it soft. The more green, the better it looks. So, parsley and green onions are cool. If you have a very light tomato and pepper paste, it is good to put much if them. Or chili gives good color too. Jo Etvagyat!

tips and trics.

book!

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

a story of the future society Filip Ilievski

Science fiction novels have always been regarded as special. For some people, they’re just a way to kill time, whereas others regard them as a shelter from the cruel reality. There are, however, certain people who can see society through si-fi. Set in 2021, ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ pictures planet Earth a couple of years after the World War Terminal, which has resulted in a complete devastation of the world we know, and extinction of animals because of the radioactive fallout. ‘Emigrate or disintegrate!’ ‘Come to Mars, and get yourself a free android!’ - People are continuously agitated to leave planet Earth and re-start life somewhere in the Galaxy. Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter - he ‘retires’ androids for a certain sum as an employee of the San Francisco Police Department. Happily married, he lives in San Francisco, where as everywhere around the world, the law of entropy and kipple is obeyed. Now, there is this group of 8 brand new Nexus 6 androids, who escaped from Mars because they couldn’t stand the exploitation and slavery up there. Rick must find them and retire them as soon as possible. However, there is a problem - androids are made of human cells and tissues and consist of no metal parts. They can love, hate, feel sad, show empathy, can’t they? And they have already killed once, and won’t hesitate to do that again, if their life is endangered. Rick doesn’t have the slightest idea that his life is going to change completely, if he manages to survive the hunt....... ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ was written in 1968, by one of the most prominent American science fiction writers Phillip K. Dick, known as PKD, a strong believer of the existence of parallel worlds, and greatly condemned violence and war throughout his life. He was keen

review.

on hallucinating and very often used various types of drugs to reach that state. It is believed that parts of this book were written while he was hallucinating. A classic si-fi at first glance, one should thoroughly analyze the world around, and will easily cotton on that this ‘ straightface satire of contemporary society’ hasn’t changed at all, i.e. it shows the perpetually same situation even 40 years later. Greed, violence, egoism, fall of moral values and other vices we have accumulated through our existence, have turned a world of harmony and utopia into one superficial reality and a dystopia. The book raises many ethical and religious issues. Should we play the Creator? How far can we go? Do we need to go that far? What do we believe in? What if there wasn’t anything to be believed in? All these questions are just a drop in the sea that are found behind all the symbols used by PKD. The book also criticizes ‘the creators’ of our time, urging them to take the responsibility for their creations, the same responsibility the have ‘accidently forgotten.’ Set in the duration of only 24 hours, permeated with disappointment, pessimism and moral helplessness, the author shows us the way we are going, and sends one strong and desperate call for us to be saved from ourselves. I strongly recommend this book to everyone, because it shows serious consequences of our perpetual mistakes, and makes everyone reflect on the issues about whether we’ve are heading towards brighter future of development, or to a dark chaos of destruction.

] ! [

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when July

The Latin American

‘Boom’: A quick insight 21 Mauro Giordano

Between

1960 and 1970, Latin American literature experienced a huge and profound transformation which developed into that period called ‘Boom’ (in allusion to the vigour and importance of the decade). From a peripheral standpoint, Hispanic writers (mainly those specializing in novelistic narrative) were able to grant Central and South American literature the fame and reputation that ultimately put it on a par with Europe and North America. There were many reasons that led these writers to build and conceive literature in such new ways. Among them we find the accelerated progress and expansion of cities, the strengthening of the middle class, the unity and brotherhood of Latin American countries and the fresh innovations in means of communication. The historical context was also of great importance: the Cuban Revolution in 1959 was the epitome of the political turmoil that existed in the region. It was the great event that marked the beginning of the Boom, given that from then on, people from around the world would look at Latin America with different eyes. Moreover, it is the source of the radical and revolutionary tone that surfaced

in the texts from that period. During the sixties, Central and South America were regarded as a whole and a shared literature was born. Authors from the different countries constantly exchanged ideas and experiences, even becoming friends. Geographical boundaries were lost and international recognition pertained to the entire portion of the continent. The writers were deeply concerned about the society that surrounded them; therefore the novel triumphed over the other literary genres. This commitment to people and history led to the characterization of the Latin American intellectual, who felt naturally obliged to reflect on paper about the main situations that preoccupied people in the region: exile, dictatorships, civil wars, political revolutions, social fragmentation and even anachronism. All of these themes mainly developed into two different styles: on one hand, we find the ‘historical novel’, which is about the historical progression of a character’s life (especially the ‘dictator novel’ type). In this sub-genre, the figure of the dictator is explored more

abstractly, uncovering the nature of the person in relation to the essence of the regime. On the other hand, we have the novel worked through ‘magical realism’: ‘[It] stretches the boundaries of realism in order to stretch the definition of reality. Magic becomes ordinary, “admitted, accepted, and integrated into the rationality and materiality of literary realism.”

Artistic innovation brought in the use of vernacular language and layering of different vantage points, while time and linear progress were strongly doubted and challenged. Literature and its message were deeply and intimately connected with the political atmosphere of the time, and the promotion of a new era – completely breaking with past standards – made it clear that in certain ways, this literary experience constituted the new vanguard of the 60s and 70s.

Recommended Authors and Books: Mario Vargas Llosa, La fiesta del Chivo (The Feast of the Goat) Juan Rulfo, Pedro Paramo Carlos Fuentes, La muerte de Artemio Cruz (The Death of Artemio Cruz) Julio Cortázar, Rayuela (Hopscotch) Gabriel García Márquez, Cien Años de Soledad (100 Years of Solitude) (Personal recommendation) Miguel Ángel Asturias, Jorge Luis Borges, João Guimarães Rosa, Alejo Carpentier, and Juan Carlos Onetti Other Sources: Randolph D. Pope, ‘La novela hispanoamericana desde 1950 a 1975’

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The Art of Caligraphy Anastazija Dimitrova

photo: michel D’anastasio (flickr)

23 Have you ever wished you have lived in the past? Time when technology wasn’t so advanced and when people knew how to appreciate the beautiful things around them. Back then, art had a different form. Calligraphy is a very old form of art, a word that has no meaning at all for most of the people, but to few it means a lot. To me, only the way this word is pronounced is special. Calligraphy. It gives a feeling as if you are saying something very important, something sophisticated and old-fashioned and so melodic. Calligraphy is a word with Greek origin and literally it means beautiful writing. It’s a form of art that has been very much cherished and admired in the past for many reasons. Above all, in times when all of the books had been handwritten the world had been in need of people who were able to write beautifully. So this is when the virtuosos in calligraphy showed itself. For beautiful writing you don’t need only talent but also big patience. Today we can’t even imagine what kind of skills and nerves you need to write a whole book by hand (for example The Bible) because we are a generation who gets upset if we have to wait for more than five minutes in a queue.

Although calligraphy developed equally in the West and the East, still it had been much more cherished in the eastern region. Arabia was and still is a place where calligraphy is considered to be a very difficult job or hobby and its appreciation is on a much higher level. In the land of China, where the alphabet consists of more than 3.000 signs calligraphy has developed with a much greater speed and the people have paid much more attention to it. The eastern countries still keep the tradition of beautiful hand-writing alive. For them it is a link that connects the past with the present through signs and letters which are being written over and over again for centuries. For western countries things are a bit different. We can even say that the only knowledge the western world has of calligraphy is that “those beautiful, narrow letters which you can find in the font bar on the computer”. So what does this mean? Does it mean that we are not able to carry on the tradition that was so much appreciated in the past by our ancestors or does it mean that we are just too lazy to spend our time writing by hand when we have a computer to do it for us?

] ! [

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where Wincheste when 1st to 8th of July w.hatfair. website http://ww co.uk

24 Heritage Arts Festiv al The annual Heritage Ar ts Festival at Undergrou nd Atlanta is a multidisciplinary fair. It fea tures on-site demonstrations and an impressive outdo or market selling jewellery , clothing and African artefacts, all against the backdrop of gospel, jaz z, nu soul, blues and R&B mu sic.

where Atlanta, GA

, USA

when 4 - 8 July website http://www.heri-

tageartsfestival.org/

Carmen Zurich Opera presents Carmen, the ultimate tale of passion, betrayal and revenge over five nights. Free-spirited gypsy Carmen seduces soldier Don José, leading to his ruin and her murder. Enjoy everything one wants in opera: spectacle, romance, drama and unforgettable melodies.

events!

where when

Z urich, Switzerland 4th of July(various dates)

credits Libertas Team: Daniel Nunes Vladimíra Brávková Dragan Atanasov Kristijan Nikodinovski Scott Pinkster Christine Moore Ivana Galapceva Carolina Santana Evgenia Kostyanaya Marija Gavrilov Marina Danic Rjasnoj

Contributors for this issue: Anastazija Dimitrova Mauro Giordano Filip Ilievski Volkan Saritas Martin Naunov Kristel Rebane Iris Yan Ieva Baranova Sophie Yeoman

All texts published in Libertas represent solely the opinions of their authors, not of the magazine or of its publishers. Libertas and creACTive are not responsible in any way for the contents of the articles, or for the photos published with them.

Have you signed up? Send an empty message to hello@magazinelibertas.com and receive your personal copy of Libertas by e-mail every 5th in the month! Have something to say? Contact us at hello@magazinelibertas.com and read your article in the next edition! about us: Youth Magazine Libertas was founded in September 2009 as a project of Youth Association creACTive. Youth Magazine Libertas aims to be a place where young people from all over the world can share their thoughts and views on topics that matter for them, in this way starting discussions and working as a means of change for the future. Every month, Libertas is published on the 5th, featuring articles about a different main topic and other kinds of articles such as movie, book and music reviews, travel destination, interview and brainstorm.

COver, editorial and back cover photos by Alexandre Fonseca.

Youth Association Creactive