eurovisie a publication of the study association for european studies
NETFLIX, STATE POWER
& LEV TROTSKY MACRON & ECOLOGY - WELCOME TO THE REAL - VENEZUELA - YELLOW VESTS TROTSKY - CAREER DINNER - KIERKEGAARD - THE DECEIT OF CENTRISM ALUMNI INTERVIEW www.ses-uva.nl /// february 2019 /// eurovisie@ses-uva.nl
Volume 14, Issue 3 - February 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: Jean-François Delaporte, Joep Leerssen
Editorial
Nikolai Markov
Y
ellow Vests, Venezuela, the comeback of Trotsky and the fear of the future –all are connected and all come together in this issue of Eurovisie. Take a tour into the shortcomings of the world today and see how we have tried to expose and deal with them from our hum-
IN THIS EDITION...
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Oh wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind? ble positions as writers. Some pieces are there to clarify, others will clearly confuse. But is that not the beauty of dealing with the big things –confusion? Awide variety of topics and approaches to themare offered, helping you, helping us. Enjoy these blossoming times and keep at it!
3) MARTHE DE ROOS THE YELLOW VEST MOVEMENT
17) HANNA BLOM KIERKEGAARDIAN MISERY
6) CARA RÄKER A RECAP ON THE CAREER DINNER
20) ANNA BOYCE VENEZUELA: A NEW COLD WAR?
9) NIKOLAI MARKOV WELCOME TO THE REAL
22) JORENS JAKOVLEVS THE DECEIT OF CENTRISM
11) JYRY PASANEN NETFLIX, STATE POWER & TROTSKY
24) JEAN-FRANÇOIS DELAPORTE MACRON AND ECOLOGY
16) JOEP LEERSSEN GET YOUR KICKS
26) GEORGE BANDY & ALUMNI INTERVIEW
MARTHE DE ROOS
THE YELLOW VEST MOVEMENT:
A NEW FRENCH REVOLUTION?
In the beginning of this year I went on a trip to Bordeaux. Upon arriving we were warned about the weekly gilets jaunes protests that would take place that weekend. The next day we wit-
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n May a petition was started by a woman from the Seine-et-Marne department on the change.org website that after just a few months almost reached a million signatures. Parallelly to this, two men from the same department launched a Facebook event for November 17th to ‘block all roads’ in opposition to the increase of fuel prices. President Macron announced more taxes on fuel starting on the 1st of January in 2019, to combat climate change. During the first protest on November 17th, nearly 300 000 people protested in the streets of France. Motorists started blocking highways by setting up barricades and driving around slowly in large groups of trucks. The protesters wore fluorescent yellow safety vests, which drivers in France are required to have in their vehicle by law. The demonstrations were backed by rural France, where most people are dependent on cars for movement. Two days after the first demonstration, a snowball effect started. A large movement emerged, calling not only for lower fuel taxes, but also for the reintroduction of the solidarity tax on wealth, a minimum wage increase, the implementation of Citizens’ initiative referenda and Macron’s resignation. Students also seized this moment to protest against new education
nessed a large amount of people wearing yellow vests with banners and garbage bins with ‘Macron’ on them - all through an air filled with tear gas. What sparked this mass movement?
reforms. In short, a diverse group of people is protesting for a diverse set of goals. Most of the protests were peaceful, but the demonstration on December 1st became the worst riot Paris has seen in years. Antigovernment demonstrators clashed with security forces. The security forces reacted with tear gas and water cannons. There were protesters involved who destroyed everything that crossed their path. All over Paris shops were damaged and looted, cars were set on fire and the words ‘The yellow vests will triumph’ were written on the Arc de Triomphe. During the protests especially journalists trying to report on the events have been targeted. Some media outlets decided to send a bodyguard with every journalist they sent out on the streets. How is the movement organized? There have been some informal leaders, but the movement is conceived in a leaderless horizontal fashion. They are not associated with a specific political party, and it spreads mostly via social media. Some call it a Facebook movement, due to the reason that they organize their protests mostly via Facebook. Since they are leaderless, it makes it hard for the government to respond to their demands. How does one negotiate with a
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leaderless movement? Since nobody is in charge, no one tries to work on public relations or the content of social media messaging. At the same time no one is taking responsibility for the consequences of the actions of the yellow vests. 1700 demonstrators have been injured, along with 1000 members of the French police forces. The public’s opinion on the actions of the police differ. Some condemn the security forces for their tactics, especially after the French police started to use rubber bullets the size of golf balls against the protestors. During one of the demonstrations in Bordeaux, one of the protesters, Jean-Marc Michaud, was hit in the eye by the rubber projectile fired by the police. His right eye was completely destroyed after this. What is the impact of the protests on the economy? According to the Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, they have hit the economy hard. Especially during the Christmas shopping season, commerce in shops, hotels and restau-
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rants was falling significantly. What about the President? He keeps praising the police on his Twitter account and in his New Year’s address he referred to the Yellow Vests as a ‘hateful mob’. Macron’s opponents call him the ‘President of the Rich’, especially after he ended the wealth tax. Is the movement radicalizing? Or are hooligans disguising themselves as Yellow Vests, but actually just want to cause violent riots and damages costing up to a million euros? Some even claim far-right members are involved in the protests, and that they are the ones trying to challenge the security forces. However, it should be mentioned that the numbers of yellow vests going on the streets is decreasing. Nevertheless, the Yellow Vest movement has also dispersed to other countries. In the Netherlands, there have been protests against prime minister Rutte and the Netherlands’ membership of the European Union. Therefore, they are protesting in Maastricht: the place
where in 1992 the Treaty on European-Union was signed and the European Monetary Union established. On January 27th, a counter-movement appeared in Paris. Thousands of people joined a march in Paris, and were calling themselves Foulards Rouges, the Red Scarves. The founder of the movement states that ‘citizens are being penalized every day by the yellow vests’ methods.’ They are denouncing the ‘insurrectional climate installed by the yellow vests and reject their threats and constant verbal abuse’. The Red Scarves are acknowledging the consequences of the tactics used by the Yellow Vests. They cannot get their kids to school on time, because of the roadblocks and the demonstrations are bad for business. Since this new movement is still developing, it is causing fear that it might lead to a possibly violent confrontation on the streets with the Yellow Vests.
What is the power of this cheap fluorescent yellow vest? It makes it easy for the protestors to make themselves visible on the streets and for pictures to go viral online. When looking back at history, the French are known for taking to the streets to express their anger at the government. Will the Yellow Vest movement win the battle? And what will ‘win’ mean in this context? It is not clear what they exactly want, and it keeps changing over time. The movement has definitely put pressure on the president, and Macron’s popularity is decreasing. They were hoping to benefit from France’s revolutionary tradition and become a new symbol of resistance. Yet the public image of the Yellow Vest is becoming more negative. The violence being used by both sides is alarming. Rumor has it that Yellow Vests trying to negotiate with the government are receiving death threats, whilst at the same time videos are going viral of French ‘‘security’’ forces using excessive violence.
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A RECAP ON THE CAREER DINNER BY CARA RÄKER
INCLUDING INTERVIEWS WITH NOS NIEUWSUUR PRESENTER JEROEN WOLLAARS & EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK ADVISOR ARNE GIESECK
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he annual Career Dinner took place on the 23rd of January. It was a beautiful but frosty night, which was very much felt through the tights, thin button-downs and silk blouses which were interpreted to meet the requirement for semi-formal attire. The restaurant, Westergasterras, is situated in Westerpark right next to a small lake. The entire park was covered in snow, which every visitor had the chance to marvel at, given the restaurant’s plentiful windows. The career committee had managed to gather representatives from six different fields, some of which as high-ranking as Ukranian ambassador H.E. Vsevolod Chensov or Supreme Court Judge Edgar du Perron. Other impressive job descriptions read ‘Executive Director of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee’, Pepijn Gerrits or ‘supervisory officer of various institutions which is the fairly unspecific yet lofty title of economist Rob Becker. I do not think I was the only one who felt a little bit intimidated upon arrival, given that most of us students gathered around the bar while the majority of suit-wearing professionals had grouped together in the elevated dining area. Thanks to the career committee, however, there wasn’t much room to feel overly nervous. Timely at 19:00, we were asked to take our assigned seats. Each of the professionals sat
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with three students. Given that there were two representatives for each category, they had been instructed to switch tables after the main course in order to spend the desert with another table. Let us pause for a minute to appreciate the efforts of the Career Committee. What turned out to be a wonderfully relaxed evening caused the poor committee members a lot of stress behind the scenes. On the day of the dinner not one, but two representatives cancelled last minute and both of them were successfully replaced. Furthermore, the three-course dinner was generally approved by all, with emphasis on the desert: something I would describe as a honey-yoghurt-parfait with speculoos crumbs. Even the vegetarians amongst us were taken care of and on top of that there were two free drinks included in the price. I wonder what Jeroen Wollaars and Peter Kloosterhuis thought of the dinner, given they barely got to eat any of it. Wollaars, anchorman of the NOS Nieuwsuur and Kloosterhuis, head of the NOS event department, found themselves bombarded with a never-ending stream of questions. All concerns for awkward silences and staged conversations were evidently unjustified. When Jeroen Wollaars struggled to attach his name tag after he joined us at our table, he quickly decided to ‘skip the formali-
ties’ and got rid of both the name tag and his blazer altogether. The conversation swiftly moved from the time Wollaars was sent to Oslo in order to report on the Utøya Island Shooting to a catastrophic interview with Hollywood diva Sophia Loren, leaving most of his entrée and main course untouched but us hanging onto his every word. In order to apply what I had just learned about what not to do during an interview from the Sophia-Loren-Story, Wollaars willingly offered to be the victim of the very first interview I ever conducted. 5 OR MORE QUESTIONS FOR... JEROEN WOLLARS Okay, would you please tell me your name and your profession? Yes, my name is Jeroen Wollars and I am the presenter of Nieuwsuur i.e. ‘news-hour’- a Dutch, journalistic television programme. What and where did you study? I studied what’s called ‘the academic for digital communication’ in Utrecht at the Faculty of Communication and Journalism. What’s one thing every aspiring journalist should know? Okay, let’s see…I’ll just start talking and see where it goes. So we’ve talked earlier about how there are no bad questions. And if you have a feeling that there is a question that is difficult, that you’re ashamed of, that you don’t really dare to ask…it’s probably a good question. And attached to this: Don’t be shy, don’t be ashamed, be creative…just don’t be afraid. Yes, to not be afraid, that is my main answer. What’s the best job you’ve ever had to do? (laughs) Well, the best job is the one I have right now, I guess. So you prefer ‘Nieuwsuur’ over being a journalist in Germany, where your worked for the
WDR? Good question! Well, at this point in my life I do. But when I was back in Germany and worked as a correspondent at the height of the refugee crisis, I really wanted to be there. Because at that time, that was the most relevant place you could be, I think, in all of Europe. And the worst job? Having to replace tube lights in a hospital in Rotterdam when I dropped out of high school. I really hated it. Oh, and I also worked at McDonalds once. And the worst job you had related to journalism? Getting up at 3 o’ clock in the morning to drive to Hilversum in order to read the morning newspaper and write a summary for a morning radio show. That was pretty bad at the time. However, not to sound holy or anything, but I also learned a lot. Journalistic skills from the bottom-up so to say. So it wasn’t super bad. At least it wasn’t McDonalds (laughs). If you could change your career-path, what would you change? It took me quite some time to get into internationalisation. You guys must know how rewarding and giving it is to get an international perspective by getting out of your country. So if there was something I had to change, I would have done my first international exchange earlier. Well, thank you so much for the interview. What, these were already five questions?! I think more actually. But I have another oneWhat’s your favourite book? Oh, puh, my favorite book…oh god. You got yourself into this Yes, uhm, that would be…what I am reading at the moment at least is by Timothy Snyder, a
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professor, and it’s called ‘The Road to Unfreedom’. I haven’t finished it yet but it is really my favourite book (laughs). The dinner closed with a small borrel. Inspired by my first ever interview I was eager to get to know professionals from other fields outside of the journalism category. I was lucky enough to speak to Arne Gieseck, representative of the economy category, who came all the way from Frankfurt to attend the dinner. 5 QUESTIONS FOR... ARNE GIESECK Could you please tell me your name and profession? My name is Arne Gieseck, I am an advisor at the European Central Bank and I have been in business-cycle analysis for the past 29 years. What and where did you study? I studied Economics at the Ruhr University in Bochum between 1979 and 1986. And I did my PhD in economics at the University of Essen from 1986 to 1991. What’s one thing every aspiring economist should know? Economics is not a kind of…straight science. Each economist can have a different opinion. It is not how it is in math where 2 + 2 is 4. Interest rates can be argued to be too low or too high and there can be good arguments for both sides. So the answer is always: it depends. That’s important to know. Keeps my job interesting. What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self when you look back at your career? When I look back I think that my career actually resulted from a series of coincidences. I didn’t plan anything. I had no clue what economics was about whatsoever when I embarked
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into economics. I’d say that everything sort of built on very small decisions that turned out to be very important later on, so I can’t really give any advice. That’s actually a very nice thing as well. Sometimes you can’t control everything. Exactly. It just happened. But if you could go back in time, would you change anything about your career? I think I would change my kind of working style. So, instead of working as a lonely wolf all the time, which I have done for a long time, I would work more in a team. I only learned to appreciate the advantages of collaboration a couple of years ago. Doing most of my work in small teams, the way I do it now, has enhanced my productivity a lot. Thank you. And one last question: What’s your top ’recommended read’ for aspiring economists? I would recommend ‘The Little Book of Economic: How the Economy Works in the Real World’ because it covers all the big questions of economics. It’s written by a journalist, Greg Ip, in a very accessible and vivid way. I, for my part, left the dinner at around 23:00 to carefully skitter my way back to the bus through Westerpark’s icy grounds. The evening was overall very successful and left a friend of mine and I, in loss for better words, ‘feeling just kind of content’. Thanks Career Committee!
WELCOME TO
THE REAL
A MURDER OF THE UNIVERSAL Nikolai Markov
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t is not an easy age we live in. It seems as though dreams, once so clear and possible, are leaving us behind for a far more pessimistic future. We are afraid to go on in our lives without finding employment in the profession we desire to follow. We are afraid to be too slow, to get too old, for people around us might be done sooner. We are afraid of our CVs, that they might not be as filled as they should be, and so we chase the extracurricular, next to the over-curricular, the more we do the better for our future – for our future is going to suck. We have to buckle up on time. One thing to give most of us hope is the decision to work something “real”. Not to philosophise for our lives but to realize that if we want to make sure to survive these turbulent times, we need to play it safe. We try to gain entrance to the superstructures that stand for the universal domination of this fear of the future; the superstructures that appear as a steering wheel of vicious times – associations, parties, companies, banks, continental and international unions. So we enter the worlds of economics, law, and international politics, and try to get that piece of paper our souls can rest on for the future we imagine. And if the vision of this future is going to be articulated in pessimism and fear now, our saviour is waiting in face of the universal regulator, who will take all of it away. We do not want to obey but we want
to shape this absolute beast. We want to put our all into these universal regulators, for in the end, it is the best we have got – intersubjective communication, connection and understanding upon which to take action together. The difficulty of this intersubjective dream to materialize is just as clear as our hope in it to become what we desire. A saying that fits here as much as I hate to put it goes ‘Opinions are like noses – everybody has one’. In a way it fits because in order for intersubjective communication to settle onto one common solution, seemingly all people representatively involved need to be involved with their opinions. Yet, this is exactly the trap this formulation suggests. What if the very logical follow-up to ‘Opinions are like noses - everybody has one’ becomes ‘and so what of it? Everyone has one’. What if it becomes a non-thing, something that we know exists but does not need to be reached, just like everyone else’s noses? Superstructural intersubjective coordination does not happen at the “very basis” from which it derives its legitimacy. The noses of people, their opinions, need to be quantified and represented in a graspable domain. There needs to be another mediator that will help represent the move from those noses and opinions towards a functioning intersubjective communication and meaningful issuance of volition within (and onto) a given group.
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Anyone who has tried to settle with their friend-group on where to go out for the night when everyone has different wishes knows how tough mediation can be. The most logical step to take here is to hear everyone’s suggestions out and formulate a collective decision based on how many people are down for what and what not. One might think that this will occur in most of these cases but usually the story turns out differently. In good friendship we have learned that in the end it might not even matter much what the destination at the end of the night will be. Main thing is that we are all together, with our friends. In that case, if the plan were to go out, it will usually take only one person in the group, who has thought of a plan for the night and off you all go. The point here is that to most people, the fundamental need of this exercise has been fulfilled by the fact that all their friends are together in the first place. So the feeling of connection, of unity, of feeling at the right place at the right time altogether becomes pre-emptive. You are with your friends, you are talking, you are listening to music – whatever it is you would fancy to do is fundamentally filled with joy by the fact that you are with your friends. What if we took that very basis of friendship and applied it onto higher levels? Going back to the superstructures that we are trying to ascribe ourselves to for security, can we ascribe the occurrence of pre-emptive confidence and
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joy to taking that very track? To the fact that just by what a given institution symbolizes, we are satisfied with the goal of contributing to it? It would be almost ideal if it were our choice of contribution that actually gave us this feeling of satisfaction but some factors beg to differ a bit more. If we look at the role of these symbols on a greater scale, their meanings are not just being adopted by us. Surely, understanding is the adoption of symbols into our worldview. Yet in this process, we attribute meaning to what we see – the representation. Be it a picture, be it a word, be it an explanation or even an event – they all serve to give an image of the thing they are actually showing. The moment that these symbols enter our conscious vision, they have become equally as much what we make sense of them to be as what they are supposed to be. In other words, representation in itself becomes the establishment of symbolic value. Once we take this slightly confusing step to peal appearance down to function, new mechanisms start to emerge. So what does this confusing step into the kernel if you want, the realization that (inter)subjectivity fundamentally occurs at the level of representation, give us? Well the easy answer is nothing. And yet it is the hardest answer to take. A void that is being filled by means of a metaphysical communication between symbols
and images that were melted into worldviews, beyond symbolisms and beyond representation; unreachable in its nature and unmanipulable with our cognitive means. How often do we listen to feeling? Feeling that it is right, feeling that it is wrong, feeling conflicted etc. Feeling lies at the core of our functioning but too easily has feeling been equated to fleeting emotions. At the bottom of every greater aim lies a very reachable but at the same time inexplicable phenomenon: A desire that drives our modus operandi to always do its thing, whether we eat, work, sleep or repeat. Welcome to The Real; that which is always there, always at work, to be worked with but impossible to be interfered with. It is ‘always in its place: it carries it glued to its heel, ignorant of what might exile it from there.’ Instead
of listening to threat’s advice for fear of the future, it could be much more encouraging to actually understand that, whichever future our symbolic order of things is representing now depends on the sustainment of that momentary order. To keep this order rich in variety and to never have it stop bearing fruit to us, we should abandon the need for subscription and followship to a fixated dream that represents redemption of a fleeting emotion – namely that of anxiety. If we take ourselves seriously in whichever pursuit we will endeavour, we do take the obligation on ourselves to shape and not to follow. Symbols, representations, meanings all change over time. And at the root of it all is actually The Real. The impact onto the Universal has to start with The Real and that is where our understanding of the Universal shall die to always be reborn. Remain free to pursue and rejoice in that change. It is what we are here for.
&LEV TROTSKY
NETFLIX, STATE POWER JYRY PASANEN
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inema and TV have a long history of state influence, including everything from funding to censorship. Hollywood films, such as the blockbuster series Iron Man, Transformers and The Terminator are known to have received funding and support from the US Department of Defence (DoD). In some cases, the influence has gone as far as allowing the DoD to directly edit the script in exchange for military hardware, like the helicopters that were used in the 2001 film Black Hawk Down. According to files obtained by the Independent through the US Freedom of Information Act, more than 800 feature films received support
from the Department of Defence in the years between 1911 and 2017. Since 2005, 900 TVshows, such as Ice Road Truckers and Homeland have received DoD funding. It should come as no surprise then, that Netflix, with its 148 million subscribers, has also become a battleground of international politics, intrigue and manipulation. By this, I do not mean that Marie Kondo is necessarily included in a conspiracy with junk shop owners, or that Orange is the New Black exists for the sole purpose of normalizing the idea of the female prisoner. Rather, what I mean by this, is that state actors have increasingly taken an interest in the content
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available on the platform. State funding in the film industry is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, due to high production costs, most feature films receive some kind of state support. Battleship Potemkin, the 1925 film by visionary film-maker Sergei Eisenstein is considered among the best Russian avant-garde movies ever made, despite being commissioned by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union. The key here is the artistic freedom Eisenstein was afforded, and the transparency in state funding. There is no doubt that the Soviet Government had political objectives in commissioning the film, but in this brief period of artistic freedom in Russia, they did not hide these intentions, or try to censor or otherwise restrict the artists in their work. This period would not last, and before long the forward-looking artistic movement was suffocated by the state doctrine of socialist realism. In today’s Russia, while there is no official artistic doctrine as such, artistic freedom in film is still restricted through state control of media. In the United States, state control is more obscured, but no less powerful, and the global centralisation of film and TV distribution onto online platforms such as Netflix enlarges their information battlefield from the national to the international scene. The show that brought this issue to my attention is called Patriot Act, starring Hasan Minhaj. At a glance, the show seems to follow the typical “comedian doing news” format, but it is now, following an episode critical of Saudi Arabia and its de-facto leader, Mohammed Bin Salman, involved in intrastate conflict. I found out about the show through a YouTube advert, which told me that the Saudi Arabian government had pressured Netflix into removing the aforementioned episode due to its slanderous content. This advert was informative, dramatic and captivating, but it was not selling a product or a service in the strict sense of the
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term. This advert was propaganda, brought to my screen by Turkish state media, TRT World. I found this fascinating. It had been obvious to me for a while that states and other powerful actors influenced media and its content, but now it was happening on my phone, right in my face. Following this Turkey-influenced awakening, I have not looked at Netflix in the uninterested and disaffected manner I used to. Now all I see is subliminal and not-so-subliminal messaging, propaganda and 21st-century warfare. The most obvious examples of such programming are the recently released shows Trotsky, Medal of Honor and Inside the Mossad. These three shows are funded, respectively, by the Russian, US and Israeli governments, and clearly advance the interests of these states. Interestingly, each of these shows take a completely different approach in propaganda, and they can tell us a lot about the societies and political situations that led to their creation. Medal of Honor is quite literally a recruitment tool for the US army. The US Department of Defence has used media for such purposes for a long time. The DoD also fund video games and have even created their own first-person shooter, America’s Army, to increase the rate of enlistment. Medal of Honor is, in typical American fashion, an overly dramatic and cheesy glorification of the ‘achievements’ of so-called war heroes, with an intro sequence that includes extracts of various US President’s “inspirational” war speeches. Inside the Mossad, on the other hand, is a remarkably self-aware propaganda. This documentary series on the Israeli intelligence agency gives us first-hand accounts of the Mossad’s best and worst actions. In the very first episode, the Mossad agents that are interviewed explicitly state that it is a strategy of the Mossad to build up its reputation as an omnipotent killing machine. In the next scenes, the same agents tell us about their unbelievable spy novella-like adventures
and gloat about the terrorists that they have killed. The interviewer might ask a follow-up question in a critical tone, but it seems like the agents are happy to present themselves as uncompromising killers when things go wrong, and as similarly uncompromising and murderous saviours of Israel when things go right. The openness with which the show accepts its place as propaganda for the Mossad is remarkable. Medal of Honour, Trotsky and other such programming, however obviously biased, could never state outright that they are propaganda, but Inside the Mossad does this in the first episode. This gives the show an ominous and creepy tone making it difficult to watch. The same goes for Medal of Honor, although for different reasons: its glorification of warfare and American Imperialism is almost nauseating. Therefore, in the rest of this article, I will focus on the Russian television show Trotsky, as it is the only one I had the strength to finish. A much more compelling, if no less problematic watch, Trotsky is an eight-episode long retelling of Lev Trotsky’s life and his role in the Russian revolution. The show originally aired on Channel 1 for the centenary of the Russian Revolution, on 6 November 2017. Channel 1 and its CEO, Konstantin Ernst, have been instrumental in the attempt to build a new, top-down national culture in Post-Soviet Russia. Trotsky is no different. It is thoroughly revisionist, at times completely ahistorical, in order to create a sense of continuity between the Russia of today and it is tumultuous past, without praising Communism or discrediting “good patriots” like Stalin and Lenin. Importantly, the role of Trotsky is exaggerated: he is portrayed as a foreign-funded Jew, who takes control of the Bolshevik Party and almost single-handedly ‘does’ the October Revolution, against the expressed wishes of Lenin. This portrayal of Trotsky gives us a glimpse of the Putinist
interpretation of the Russian Revolution: it was funded by the Germans and taken over by Jews, and thus it is not ‘authentically Russian’, and therefore bad. Furthermore, by centring Trotsky as the leading revolutionary, Lenin and Stalin are allowed the luxury of being secondary characters. While Lenin is presented as a power-hungry strategist and Stalin a grumpy provincial, Trotsky is a blood-thirsty demon, who wants to forcibly inseminate Russia with the seed of ‘revolution’. The series is framed through a series of flashbacks, as Trotsky recalls his exploits to his future killer, Frank Jackson (the show’s version of Ramon Mercador) in Mexico City, 1940. In one of these flashbacks, Trotsky recounts his meeting with Sigmund Freud. This is where Trotsky gets his obsession with sex and the show its overt and extravagant misogyny. Following this ‘enlightening’ meeting, Trotsky rapes his future wife Natalia Sedova and understands that the same must be done to Russia. Sex and rape are important themes for the show, metaphorically as well as literally. In 1940, we are shown Trotsky’s affair with Frida Kahlo, an early proponent of “free-love”. For a western audience, Kahlo’s openness with sex and the love triangle between Trotsky, Kahlo and her husband Diego Riviera seems fun and playful, but I suspect this was not the intention of the show makers. The polyamory of Frida Kahlo, as well as homosexuality, as portrayed in one of Trotsky’s flashbacks, are depicted in a negative light. Unsurprisingly, the show does not pass the Bechdel test, and there are not many women in the show, unless they are the wives or children of male characters. There are also no female Bolsheviks, despite the crucial role of women in the party and in the revolution as a whole. Personally, I would have loved to see at least an apparition by Alexandra Kollontai, but it is clear that her Marxist Feminism would be far too radical for this show. Indeed, not even Lenin or Trotsky ever say the words ‘Marxism or
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‘Communism’, and the only hint of any link between the Bolsheviks and Karl Marx is his portrait, hung in the offices of the violent secret police, Cheka. Despite the deep misogyny and anti-Semitism of Trotsky, it is an interesting show, in as far as it offers an insight into how the Putin regime portrays the Soviet memory and heritage. While no state celebrations of the centenary of the October Revolution were held, there have been moves to rehabilitate Stalin as a great leader and a patriotic figure. Portrayals of Stalin alongside other “greats” of Russian history have become popular, and despite Khrushchev’s erstwhile attempt at De-Stalinisation, Stalin is still widely revered for defeating the Nazis and winning the “Great Patriotic War”. Similarly, the iconography of Lenin is so deeply intertwined with Russian patriotism, that any official criticism of his persona is made impossible. Trotsky is the ideal culprit, as he was not a “real Russian” (an honour awarded to
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Stalin, despite him being Georgian). The move to erase any mention of Marx, or Communism, also allows the show to portray the Revolution as a mere power-grab with no ideological content. All of this points at an unease among the ruling class: The Soviet Union is now more popular than ever since its collapse among Russians, and conversely, Putin’s popularity is waning. The Soviet Union’s popularity can be explained by imperial nostalgia, and this is exactly why Putin and Channel 1 are trying their best to create this “new national culture”
to link Soviet and Imperial glories with the Federation, and to draw comparisons with Stalin, Ivan the Terrible and Putin. Trotsky is their way of dealing with the difficult subject of communism and revolution, and allowing Russians to be proud of some parts of the Soviet Union while rejecting others. State power and film cannot be separated. However, this should not discourage us from enjoying film and television. Personally, I have found much more enjoyment, perverse as it is, from watching Trotsky from a critical perspective, than I ever did binge-watching some cop show. Watching a series
like Trotsky can tell us a lot about what the state in question wants us to think about them or certain historical events and characters. Despite all this, we should not get too comfortable in allowing Netflix to make money by distributing state propaganda. As the internet follows its trend of centralising media consumption, the choices that Neflix makes in “curating� our content becomes more and more important. Essentially, Netflix can decide to allow some states to influence us more and some less. This is not necessarily a conscious decision by the firm, but I doubt we will ever see a show on Netflix that glorifies the Iranian Secret Police - nor should we.
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JOEP LEERSSEN GET YOUR KICKS
H
einrich Heine lampooned the extreme languor of nineteenth-century Aachen by imagining how the local dogs, bored out of their wits, humbly begged visitors to kick them. “Give us a kick, O noble stranger/ That will perhaps distract us a little”. I got my kick this morning when my mobile phone, in the middle of a particularly complex KillerSudoku game, set off a howl. Alert! Hang on… National Alert!! Some gas in the polders south of Rotterdam had escaped!!! It was harmless!!!! But it smelt funny!!!!!! And if you don’t like the smell, close your doors and windows!!!!!! Good point, that, because the people in the polders south of Rotterdam are known for having all their doors and windows wide open on early February mornings. (It is in fact a known contributor to the rise of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.) The Alert was repeated six minutes later to emphasise how completely harmless and funny-smelling the gas was. Whoo-Boy, that distracted me a little. Twice. So what drove this totally pointless fracas? Some nerdy guy at the NL-Alert switchboard thinking “At Last! I can finally Push That Button!”? – It must have been something like that. I mean, the NL-Alert crew must be as bored as the Aachen street dogs.
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Our public sphere is polluted, more than by funny-smelling polder gas, by exclamation marks and random whizzbangs. Breaking News! There Will Be Wind, and Possibly Even Some Snow! There Will Be Weather! But wait! There is more! Nicki Minaj Has Dissed Rihanna! Donald Trump Has Tweeted Something Offensive! The driving force behind it all, I am beginning to suspect, is boredom. We are boring ourselves to death. Like cocaine pushers on a schoolyard, the media are pushing us the most potent party drug of the decade: OMG. We are all OMG junkies. Anything to distract us out of our boredom. Please, noble stranger, give us a kick. Give us a tweet. Give us a scandal, a crisis. Offend us. Anything to make us feel excited, and part of a situation that is not suffocatingly ordinary (like already having the windows closed). Time to look at that craving. I have argued this before: the “state of exception” is something artificially cultivated to justify a suspension of boring old closed windows – such as the rule of law, the equality of citizens, the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence. It also distracts us from the slow-burning, frog-boiling problems of our time: the obscene, insatiable greed of the Royal Family and other billionaires; the evaporation of privacy; our disinvestment in education and other public utilities; our consumerism that slowly wastes away the earth. Bah! Boh-Ring! Instead we are alertoholics, state-of-exception junkies, addicted to the fleeting rush of the OMG kick.
PRACTICE IN
KIERKEGAARDIAN MISERY As she settles back into Amsterdam life, HANNA BLOM reflects on one of the courses she took during her semester in Copenhagen, Denmark. While Copenhagen was cozy and vibrant, the lack of sunlight and cold weather made it a challenge to continuously keep spirits high. Luckily, one Danish existentialist proved himself to be the right companion for the emotional rollercoaster felt by lost and lonely students abroad.
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ugust in Copenhagen is a hopeful time, as international students arrive on planes and trains galore. They wildly purchase shiny bikes, and bikebaskets, and bikehelmets, and anything else the salesman tells them is necessary in Danish traffic. The sun still comes out, learning the language feels like a reachable goal and everyone around them seems approachable. At this time of new beginnings and adventures, students register for their courses and one of them has grown
to be quite popular among non-Danish students; Søren Kierkegaard and The Challenge of Existence. A philosophy course for philosophy novices focused on the great theological existentialist of Copenhagen. Before students dive into his philosophy, they first get to know his story a bit. His life was riddled with tragedies, starting even before his birth. His father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, grew up in Northern Jutland and while having
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felt forlorn as a young shepherd boy in a rough storm, he had cursed at God. From that moment on he was haunted with this impermissible sin, growing to be an overbearing religious pertinent, morbidly fanatical with this idea that he had deeply offended God. Søren’s mother was Michael’s (late) wife’s maid, who had become pregnant and married Michael shortly after his wife’s death. While his first wife died childless after two years of marriage, the maid, Ane Sørensdatter Lund, had seven children. Michael had managed to move to Copenhagen and even to retire at fourty after having made a good fortune off of property and merchantry. When many of Copenhagen’s wealthy went bankrupt in 1813, Michael did not and somehow this troubled him even more. His dooming childhood sin, the tragedy of his financial security; all of these troubling thoughts weighed on him and were projected onto little Søren, together with an immense pressure to perform excellently in school. Many of his siblings passed away before they turned 30, which was seen as Michael’s doomed legacy carrying on, and Søren did not dare to expect a different fate. He was 17 when his father passed away and mostly shocked to see that he had been able to outlive him. Kierkegaard believed that his normality had been sacrificed on a religious altar, that due to his father’s glooming presence and how he had involved young Søren with all of his inner turmoils, he would now never be able to enjoy marriage, parenthood or a career. When he became engaged to Regina Olsen, after having groomed her for three years until she reached the appropriate age to be wooed, he abruptly called off the engagement. He felt that he did not deserve to be with her. He then started to misbehave and be seen in bad parts of town, in order for Regina not to question God for having caused her this pain. Kierkegaard was mocked nationally by a satirical magazine because of his weak spine and thus stooped posture with
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skinny legs. With his critique of the Danish Lutheran Church he also effectively alienated himself from any friends. There are many more stories like these, because Søren Kierkegaard was a gloomy, gloomy man. These tales are told by the teacher while the students go on an outing through the city past his house, the library where he studied, the street where he collapsed a month before his passing, and finally his grave. As Denmark already starts to grow colder, long before the home countries of international students seem to do, the course has set the stage of plastering this once fun city with Kierkegaards personal tragedies, to then dive into his existentialism. The course starts off with his theory of three stages of existence; the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. When one finds themselves in the aesthetic stage, their choices are based on direct satisfaction and not concerned with morality. The arts and erotics are considered inherent parts of this stage, as the only known evil is boredom. In the ethical stage, one does not act because the action will bring them anything personally beneficial, but because it is good. Amorality then equals immorality. In the religious stage, one makes the decision not to allow the laws and customs of one’s people to be one’s highest norm—not to equate socialization with sanctity and salvation but to be open to a voice of greater authority, namely God’s. Going to parties, justifying expensive pastries and craft beers because they belong to the local cuisine, the general Erasmus pressure to make the most out of this semester and to have fun all the time is effectively shot down by Kierkegaard as a frivolous and empty use of your life. At this point in the course, the amount of time that the sun is out becomes noticeably limited. Recovering from a hangover by staying in bed most of the day equals depriving oneself completely of any vitamine D, unless you have
started to consume that through pills or high tech lights. Fitting in with the fashion forward Copenhagen crowd becomes a challenge due to financial and warmth issues. This is when the course takes on Sickness unto Death. Kierkegaard was intrigued by abnormal states of consciousness, to be able to derive the significance of existence. The Sickness unto Death is despair, the longing for death. The person who despairs, despairs of becoming the self he is, so he wishes to become nothing. He despairs because he cannot consume himself and is thus consumed by a death wish. This death wish is usually unconscious, but different degrees of despair exist. The more conscious, the more intense the despair. During the class discussion of Sickness unto Death, all August-jitters are far gone. A third of the students has left throughout the course, and the remaining seem to have finished their Kierkegaardian transformation. All previous colours and prints have long left the classroom, and what is left is rough denim and thick knitted turtleneck sweaters in dark blues and greys. Sunlight deficient, pale faces stare at the teacher wearingly while he recites “Man is spirit, but what is spirit? Spirit is the self, but what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self.� The teacher consults confused and exhausted students between the breaks. Understanding or not understanding Kierkegaard does not define you, he assures them. We are all still smart.
As students return to their home universities, any winter that is not Scandinavian feels like spring. The sun miraculously comes out everyday and thoughts are clearer, now that their brains are not exposed to excessive amounts of candle fumes. Donning their floor-length wool coats, they have fought and beaten the Nordic winter melancholy and they can decide to either take Kierkegaard with them, or leave him in Copenhagen.
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THE VENEZUELAN PRESIDENTIAL CRISIS
A NEW COLD WAR? ANNA BOYCE
While stories of protest and suffering in Venezuela have become commonplace over the past years, in recent weeks such events seem to have reached their apex. On January 23rd president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, declared himself the interim president of Venezuela, at a celebration of the anniversary of the 1958 coup d’etat that toppled former Venezuelan dictator, Marcos Pérez Jiménez. What has since ensued an international divide between those countries and governments recognising Guaidó as the interim president and those who have chosen to continue backing Nicolás Maduro. Hence, despite the irrepressible hope one may feel at the rapid progression of events in Venezuela, which suggest the country is edging closer day by day to a regime change and the beginning of a new era for its people, one cannot help but fear it runs the risk of becoming a playground for international politics. The European Union and its member states have remained fairly neutral in comparison to the support voiced for Guaidó by the US and its allies in America whilst China and Russia continue to support Maduro.. Although the EU parliament has reluctantly recognised Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president, all
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rhetoric surrounding the situation has primarily focused on the restoration of democracy and freedom, rather than the militant calls to arms issued from Donald Trump’s twitter feed. Britain, France, Germany and Spain all threatened to officially support Guaidó if Maduro failed to call elections within 8 days, which supported the EU’s previous sentiment that the elections leading to his current presidency were fraudulent. The EU does not wield a huge amount of power in Venezuelan affairs, especially when compared to the US. Nonetheless, it is the sheer number of countries becoming embroiled in this crisis that differentiates it from previous crises of the same nature. In 2014, violent protests erupted all over the country against the inflation and shortages that came about as a result of Maduro’s economic policies. The violence with which Maduro reacted to this dissent spurred a wave of concern from the international community, in particular from human rights organisations such as Amnesty International. However, at no point did it seem that Maduro’s government was at risk of falling and it has remained relatively stable, until now. It is undoubtedly the swiftness with
which world powers such as the US and Russia voiced their support for opposition leader Guaidó and Maduro respectively that escalated this crisis to its current state. Relations between the USA and Venezuela have been rocky since the inauguration of Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez. Much of this stemmed from Chavez’s re-assertion of Venezuelan sovereignty over their oil supplies, and his own personal relationship with Fidel Castro which openly undermined the US’s doctrine of isolation concerning Cuba. Since Chavez’s death and the inauguration of Maduro these relations have only worsened. Correspondingly, as Venezuela distanced itself from the US, their relations with Russia became stronger. This relationship has primarily been forged through both military and economic loans, leaving Venezuela hugely indebted to Russia. The interest that these two nations have in Venezuela originates in its abundant oil reserves. Venezuela exports almost half its oil to the US and in turn uses much of the oil dollars made through this exchange to pay off its enormous debt to Russia. Taking this into consideration, recent oil sanctions by the US will effect payments from Venezuela to Russia, putting increasing pressure on their relationship. Thus Venezuela is caught between two huge world powers. It is here that we can see how the US’s immediate unwavering support for Guaidó and potential regime change could be seen as a cause for concern. It is likely that the US’s support for the opposition leader stems not from a longing for the restoration of freedom and democracy in the country, but rather to return Venezuela to their own sphere of influence. Latin American countries understand the impact that US support can have on a political cause better than anyone. Thus US involvement in a potential regime change in Venezuela is concerning for two reasons. The US’s track record in Latin America shows that they are willing
to use violent and militant means in order to achieve their own goals in the region, ones that often benefit themselves more than the country concerned. Secondly if Guaidó accepts US aid, be it military or financial, he will find himself indebted to, and dependent on the US in the future. The US government has stated that ‘All options are on the table’, and whilst this does not mean they will use military power, neither does it deny the possibility. A look into past US involvement in the Latin American states shows us that when US interests are at risk they are willing to use all means necessary in order to ensure these interests are protected. The period at which this was most prevalent was of course the Cold War, where the US went to extreme lengths to prevent communism from spreading to “their backyard”. In the 1980s the US funded a number of terrorist groups in Nicaragua in an attempt to topple the democratically elected ruling, and Soviet funded, Sandinista party. Thus ensued a decade long struggle between the government and the Contra groups, who armed with US money and weapons, made use of terrorist tactics and committed a huge number of human rights violations. So far the military has stood by Maduro and the two opposition leaders remain in political deadlock, however, spectators fear that if this continues Venezuela may be subject to such a civil war, reminiscent of the Cold War era. A peaceful regime change resulting in a re-democratised Venezuela is the outcome most are hoping for, but with Maduro and the military so far refusing Guaidó’s offers of amnesty it is hard to envision how this may come about. Additionally, Maduro’s increasing hostility towards the US, repeatedly accusing them of intrusion into Venezuelan affairs and attempting to bolster a revolution, suggest that he will not go quietly.
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THE DECEIT OF
CENTRISM JORENS JAKOVLEVS
M
ore than two centuries have passed since the American and French revolutions in the late 18th century shook the European world and allowed people to imagine a more emancipated and fairer way to organize our societies. Since then principles such as liberty, equality, civil rights, democracy, free market, freedom of expression, and rule of law, have become integral elements of the most affluent liberal democracies. These ideals are now deeply ingrained in the institutional setup of the European Union and form a key element of the legitimacy of the European project. However, despite the universal contemporary applicability of such ideals and the progress secured through procedural democratic institutions, it would be apocryphal to credit the powers that be for normalizing them. The story of the fight for civil, political, and social rights is one of dissent and disobedience, of revolts and grassroots collective spirit, and indeed one of struggle and bloodshed, often at the hands of the governments. It is an often misunderstood narrative, which, once understood, provides space for imaginative action taken outside the system and undermines the credibility of the invertebrate political center, desperately holding on to the status quo and willing to abandon assumed moral stances and promised long-term goals in the name of stability. In the current day and age, this reactionary movement is represented by what I shall call the liberal establishment – the mainstream political parties that dominate the governments across the developed world. Having abundant representation at the national and supranational levels, traditional centrist forces style
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themselves as the last bastion of progress and stability in the face of increasingly disruptive political landscape. They claim to be the sane counterweight to, supposedly, insane radical politics on the right and left that will lead us into chaos and tyranny. However, as wealth inequality is reaching levels hardly conceivable by Marx himself and humans are literally doing the best they can to destroy our planet, the incremental approach of mainstream liberalism is failing to tackle the great issues of today. It is detrimental to human progress and survival. To ensure a sustainable future for Europe and the world at large, the liberal hegemony must be deconstructed and a new kind of politics ought to emerge. The global political order has been broken for longer than we would dare to admit. Without dwelling too much on the irrelevant past, one only has to explore the developments in the last decade, following the largest financial crisis of all time. Arguably, even the most dedicated supporter of the current order must experience some form of cognitive dissonance when challenged by the harsh realities of European political process. Fiscal austerity, imposed by European governments and transnational actors is presented as the only viable alternative for saving the continent and has undermined the power of European citizens and demonstrated their relative weakness in relation to financial institutions. It has also contributed to a growing sense of exclusion among large swaths of populations, who feel alienated by the increasingly removed policy-making process that relies on bureaucratic authority. The recent advances of the European integration project and dreams of a cohesive union of states now belong to a bygone era, and the future of EU has entered a backward vector. Challenged by the unexpected British decision to leave, the rising right-wing backlash in various member states and the urgent
necessity to find and implement real solutions for containing climate change, the need to seek an alternative to the established political and legal frameworks is becoming more apparent. Despite the various successful advancements in the social sphere that have without a doubt improved our societies and liberated countless people from unfair disadvantages, at large, the center has held on to economic and social dogmas of the 20th century and still sees economics as a game removed from people’s experiences. The liberal lip service given to social and political advancement functions as a Potemkin village, disguising the true workings of the system behind a curtain of civility and ‘proven’ practices. Repeated opinion polls show that European populations are willing to introduce more measures to tackle poverty and exclusion, to rejuvenate the areas left behind by global capital flows and to ensure an adequate standard of living for all European citizens. In fact, the notion of an upcoming era of social citizenship – widening access to welfare, culture and social security – proposed 70 years ago by T. H. Marshall and realized somewhat by European welfare states in the post-war decades, is no longer. The story of a European social model, which assumedly separates it from the rest of the capitalist world is but a myth, never completed and weakened once challenged by inconsistencies in global capital markets. Today, as folks’ riot on the streets of French cities requesting a more equitable social contract; as Hungarian farmers are forced to leave their homes due to lack of livable wage jobs, and as the lack of cohesion between European citizens and governments puts the EU project in jeopardy, the preferred course of action of the democratic center seems to be inaction. Despite the great abundance of wealth that exists in contemporary Europe, initiatives such as universal basic income or common European unemployment benefits are still seen as
unfeasible and unaffordable initiatives. Furthermore, initiatives aimed at reigniting the desolate rural areas and providing greater security to citizens, after the collapse of the European left, have been adopted by right wing nationalist forces who tend to apply them in rather exclusionary terms. Liberal claims of having moral authority too, shatter in the face of liberalism’s track record when it comes to dealing with authoritarian leaders abroad and accelerating the dreadful effects of climate change. Arms exports to despotic interventionist countries like Saudi Arabia have become an integral part of the rich EU members’ export markets while EU’s inability to act as a cohesive force on the international stage makes it a mere middle man. Meanwhile the European hegemon Germany – the symbol of European stability – is gearing up for the completion of another Russian gas pipeline and across the pond, the ever so handsome Justin Trudeau (woke bae) shows no remorse for pushing indigenous Canadians off their land to construct yet another pipeline to boost the lucrative fracking sector. Liberalism offers a compelling narrative of civility and democracy that seems ever so appealing in an era dominated by strong man authoritarians and xenophobic nationalists. Nonetheless, in practice it serves as a quintessentially conservative ideology that benefits the status quo and keeps the door of real change closed. As the world is sinking – literally and figuratively – under the weight of human inaction and fundamental systemic flaws, a new perspective is necessary. The recent faltering of the liberal hegemony has made people realize the possibility of an alternative path forward. The most important thing to do now is to capitalise on this historical moment and turn the scales of power back into the hands of people and to work toward an integrated and fairer Europe.
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MACRON AND THE CROOKED LOGIC OF ECOLOGY
JEAN-FRANÇOIS DELAPORTE
Macron’s attack on the state-owned railway system SNCF and general protests against his neo-liberal agenda. Although members of these movements and other political actors sought to rally these protests under a united banner against Macron, they were not able to create an overarching movement representative of the French population.
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fter actively and less actively keeping an eye on the news of the “Gilets Jaunes” movement and attempting to follow the movement from far as well as I could, it is not the radicality or endurance of the protests which continues to impress me, it is the condescending manner in which French power, personified by Macron, attempts to cling on to the narrative by which its increasingly moving large parts of the French population into poverty. Protests in France are not surprising, they seem to be woven into the nation’s political DNA. The French acquired social rights such as the 8-day working week in 1936s general strike and the resignation of ex-president Charles de Gaulle along with a huge rise in wages during 1968’s general strike encompassing both students and workers. Surprisingly, during the Macron presidency, the demands of different protest groups have not culminated into a larger movement. There were protests against Macron’s labour reform, against his fraternal relationship with Trump, strikes against
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Macron’s ecology minister, Nicolas Hulot, left his cabinet in a flamboyant manner as a response to the French governments’ mediocre promises on the ecological level. But it was Macron’s second botched attempt at ecology through a carbon emissions tax, which sparked the emergence of the “Gilets Jaunes”. Macron’s carbon emissions tax took the French by surprise, as many living in rural areas have no access to modes of transport other than using a car and thus felt the price of their mobility drastically rise. This form of ecology became extremely patronising as firstly, for many years rural Frenchmen and women have seen their public transport options vanish under the many cuts of austerity, while on the other hand they have just seen Macron’s annulation of the wealth tax, looking to attract new ultra-rich investors for the burgeoning “start-up nation”. French citizens thus find themselves asking the question of why society’s poorest should have to bear the planets’ burden. Ecology is a burden to be carried by all of society, not by those
in a situation too precarious to carry it. Macron’s policies seem even more hypocritical, as his focus has not been put on ecology, except when it can be used to patch-up the deficit left by his nefarious neo-liberal reforms. In the current climate of fear, this form of ecology has the potential to feed a much greater fear, the potential to turn climate change from a looming danger about to engulf us all, into another lie with the purpose of popular control by elites. This is due to the fact that its poised as a problem only to be solved by enormous personal sacrifice. On the personal and interpersonal level, for many, it has led ecology to become either an irritating thorn in the eye, through repeatedly being called out for “unecological behaviour”, or as a manner to cleanse one’s consciousness of having any personal responsibility in the impending destruction of our planet. The first applies to those who do not or cannot comply to “ecological behaviour” while the second applies to those people who have taken the necessary steps to have an ecological lifestyle and through this believe to be standing on “the right side of history”, and thus erasing their blame for ecological disaster. Through the way in which ecology is currently presented, it tends to criticise and demand all effort on the consumer side, offers like customer CO2 compensation on train and bus rides, asking citizens to use less water/electricity, to buy electrical and overpriced ecological coffee. This gives wealthier members of society the possibility to cleanse their ecological consciousness through being able to allocate a part of their wealth in order to be eco-friendly, while poorer people who cannot afford to allocate their resources to being eco-friendly then become their scapegoats. This dynamic first creates a false sense of ecology, making it a privilege and secondly, most importantly removes the criticism from those responsible for the ecological crisis we are in and those
which can be made responsible to get us out. What many self-described ecologists, putting emphasis on personal responsibility for climate change and through that those who ascribe to Macron’s ldo not seem to understand is that if we seriously want to stop our world from going down the drain of ecological disaster, it needs massive political willpower on the institutional level, not just for Europeans to stop using plastic straws. It is not going to be the individual action of good Samaritans, which will prevent climate change. 71% of carbon emissions since 1988 have been emitted by 100 companies alone. The responsibility for climate change thus lies with either the major political decision makers who either enabled these companies to pollute, or as much those that still permit them to do so. Although liberal democracy has been struggling with putting a lid on these companies’ polluting behaviour, the only way to limit the polluters’ pollution is through radical legislation or political struggle. As a political struggle, ecology should be fought for in the same way as migrants’ rights, women’s rights or the fight for higher wages. The companies which keep the status quo as unecological and which continue to uphold a situation in which consumers are given the responsibility for an ecological disaster, need to be the ones with fingers pointed at them. Ecology thus needs to be politicised in the same manner other struggles are. Just as the women’s right’s struggle maxime goes: ‘one cannot fight the patriarchy by not being a sexist at home’, one cannot fight for the ecology by feel-good consumption at home. In this regard, the Gilet Jaunes are the ecologists which take a step in the direction of tangible change. Their response to Macron’s unsocial ecology through political struggle has thus been the correct one; so that one day even if our atmosphere is destroyed, the people will have free healthcare to fix their lungs.
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ASKING OUR ALUMNI
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
DEYVID & NATALIA
I
t was recently Masters week at the UvA. In light of this, the interviews for this edition are with two of our Alumni who are currently doing their masters at the UvA to find out what it’s like.
D
eyvid, 22 from Montana, Bulgaria. Currently studying the Msc Political Science: European and External Relations at the UvA. He finished high school in Amsterdam then went straight onto the BA European Studies, which he graduated in July 2018. During the bachelor Deyvid majored in Eastern Europe. He was interested in doing something in the field of international relations from the start, with a focus on the EU’s eastern relations. “It’s good to think about the masters way before, around the second year, as for many you need to have taken specific courses.” For the international relations types masters he was considering, they all needed some background knowledge and statistics. The International Relations minor was very different from the European Studies courses. It talks about everything. From China, to Africa, South America and so on. It reinforced for Deyvid that his main interest was based in Europe - “it’s a good focus as the whole of International relations seemed too broad”. Statistics was the other requirement. It was a eight month course, with the first block being more methodology, and the second more about the application.
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He decided on the European Politics & External Relations track of the Msc Political Science at the the UvA. “It’s something between European Studies and International relations.” He applied around the start of March and got the response in April. The start of the year included a introduction course for the track and a research module. “The conditions like the statistics and some courses in international relations really were important to understand whats going on when you start and how you should do the work.” In the second block is elective courses. Deyvid did Global trade and Collective action & Interest groups. Both courses weren’t solely focused on the EU but placed it in the broader picture. “For all the course you have to write a lot of essays. There’s a lot of reading and since there’s always lots of discussions in class with everyone participating it’s important that you read it all to keep up. “ “I had my first class for the thesis last week. My class is on “European Security Politics”. There’s a group of 10 of us. It’s pretty intense and the readings take some work. We have two months now to fully develop the idea, make the proposal, then do the necessary field work. […] I expected the masters to be challenging, and it is. But if you do what you have to do then you’ll be fine. The teacher are very helpful. First couple of weeks I was like what am I doing. The level was a lot higher than the BA. Lots more theories to take on. I realised I had to give a lot more of myself towards it.” “Europeans Studies has been very helpful
towards it though. I realised not so many know about how the EU actually works so we have an advantage. You realise you know quite a lot already. “ “I’d like to do an Internship after. Always heard a lot about internships and their value - the golden advice was always to do one. I’ve applied for the blue book traineeship. It was a good experience applying. When you apply you pitch yourself to a particular delegation, I’m interested in DG Migration & Home affairs, or the European Anti-Fraud Office.”
N
atalia, 22 from Bratislava, Slovakia. Currently studying LLM International & European Law: European Law. Moved to Amsterdam in 2015 straight after finishing high school. Graduated from the BA European Studies in July 2018. “I found law because of the variety in European Studies. Before starting the BA I thought I would do something in International Relations. I did the Econ/Law class in the first year and really enjoyed the law part. The case law is very broad so there’s many interesting parts it.” The law major made a masters in law look like a good choice. Especially after finding the area of Foreign Relations Law. Natalia enjoyed writing here thesis on the ‘Autonomy of the EU legal order’, specifically relating to the mix agreements conducted by the EU together with the member states. “The field is a good mix between international relations and law.” “I applied for the masters in March-April and heard back by May […] the programme seemed quite broad whilst being specific at the same time. The courses in the first semester were already all set, then from the second semester there is more freedom. The programme is also coordinated in part with the Amsterdam
Centre for European Law and Governance (ACELG), which you’ll see elements of in different courses through lots of real-life simulations and moot courts.” One of the first courses wall called Principles and Foundations of EU Law. “It was a 8 week course, but 12 credits, so it was intense. I already had some ideas about the content though from the courses during the BA.” The course was partly a collaboration with the ACELG and included a simulation on law concerning Brexit. The other course at the time was European Constitutional Law & Fundamental rights. “Such a big course with so much stuff. It was over 2 blocks, and we went into many different areas of EU Law. There was a lot to take in but the teachers were really nice.” In January there are only voluntary classes about thesis research methods. “During that time we were meant to develop our own thesis proposal. Before Christmas we had to pick our preference for an area of research and a supervisor.” At the moment Natalia has courses on EU Foreign Relations Law, European Legal remedies, and Foundations of EU Competition Law. “After this block I just have one course left which is EU Trade & Investment. Just planning on lots of time in the library for the thesis.” “Compared with the BA, I found some of the topics are the same. The law major gives you a really good basis. In the masters you go through the topics quicker though. You can’t skip the reading. The class is also mixed differently. There’s people from many different backgrounds. Some students have just come back to studying after working for a while, and of course some straight from the bachelors.” Natalia is also applying for the Blue Book Traineeship. “I’ve applied to the EEAS, DG Home Affairs & Migration, and Legal Services. In March there are also some some career events coming up in Brussels and in the Hague, so it’s a good opportunity to do some networking.”
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SES Calendar Borrel x PPE - 26th February
To close off February there’s a special borrel with our friends from PPE. Location: Kopstootbar. Check the Facebook event for more details!
Pub Lecture - 7th March
How to approach one of the biggest problems of the 21st Century? Here we discuss the Climate Crisis. Reserve your space now at www.ses-uva.nl/the-climate-crisis/
Family Day - 8th March
Parents asking questions about what you do at university? Give them a sneak peak into all that goes on with a day dedicated to our lovely families. Find out more at http://www.ses-uva.nl/ses-family-day-2019/.
WANT TO WRITE FOR EUROVISIE? SEND YOUR ARTICLE TO EUROVISIE@SES-UVA.NL
(c) studievereniging europese studies 2019
