Trinity Frontier Magazine, Issue 6

POLITICS | CULTURE | TRAVEL

VOL. III ISS. II | MARCH 2019

SKIING AND THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE - OSTALGIE 7 TYPES OF HOSTEL BACKPACKERS - DARK TOURISM IN KRAKÓW AUNG SAN SUU KYI - FRIDAYS FOR FUTURE & more

Message from the editor

Editorial Team

Welcome to the sixth issue of Trinity Frontier. Over the last three years, Trinity Frontier has proven to be a space for students to question the world around us. In times like these, this issue brings forward perspectives and truths that call on us to question and protest things that we may have previously believed to be the “norm”. Whether that is the effects of climate change or the rise of fascism, we cannot continue to turn away. This issue presents to you, articles from across the world, with observations and ideas that will inspire you to see beyond what is shown and hear what hasn’t been said.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Navika Mehta

We hope that you have enjoyed this issue as much as we have enjoyed compiling it, and we welcome your feedback and ideas for the next issue. Personally, I would like to thank all the members of the Trinity Frontier team for their hard work and dedication in ensuring the high standards of this issue. I would also like to thank the writers for being fearlessly creative and immensely insightful. Finally, I would like to sincerely thank Trinity Publications for their constant support, guidance and encouragement, without which, this issue would not have been possible. Editing Frontier has been a pleasure! Over and out.

Happy reading!

Navika, Editor-in-Chief

INTL. RELATIONS & POLITICS: Pierre-Louis Boczmak SOCIETY AND CULTURE: Hannah Yael Rieger TRAVEL: Christian Dunne SECRETARY/TREASURER: Tamaki Marumo PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER: Hannah Yael Rieger COPY EDITOR: Hannah McCarthy ONLINE EDITOR: Kateryna Kursenko LAYOUT & DESIGN: Stacy Wrenn ILLUSTRATIONS: Camille Devaney

This publication is funded partly by DU Trinity Publications Committee.

This Publication claims no special rights or privileges.

All serious complaints may be directed towards chair@trinitypublications.ie or Chair, Trinity Publications, House 6, Trinity College, Dublin 2.

Appeals may be directed to the Press Council of Ireland.

To get involved with Trinity Publications email secretary@trinitypublications.ie or get involved through our social media.

TABLE OF CONTENTS SOCIETY AND CULTURE 2 Dark Tourism in Kraków by Isabella Noonen 4 Ecotourism in Kenya by Victoria Matuschka 6 Skiing and the effects of climate change by Céire Carey 8 Ostalgie: when East German communism became cool by Christian Dunne

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND POLITICS 10 Aung San Suu Kyi - human rights defender or politician? by Navika Mehta 12 Fridays for Future by Hannah Yael Rieger 14 Italy’s tryst with fascism by Liam Frabetti 16 The core issue: the economic geography of Europe by Shona Egan

TRAVEL 18 Untitled photo essay by Stacy Wrenn 20 The seven types of hostel backpackers by Alanna MacNamee 22 A guide to Ukraine by Elana Kiley 24 The descent felt a lot like falling by Dean Hayes

Dark Tourism in Kraków

by Isabella Noonen When I stepped off my train and onto the cold pre-dawn expanse of the Kraków Główny station platform, I couldn’t quite remember what had brought me to the city in the first place. And I mean this quite literally, being as I was in a general state of sleep deprivation, compounded by the early morning haze and the threat of snow that obscured any real sense of Kraków’s landscape. Every listicle, travel blog and itinerary that I had excitedly browsed on the train ride the night before completely escaped me. My concrete plans for my three-day stay began and ended with following Google Maps to my hostel, where I could presumably take a nap of indeterminate length.

After two hours of fitful sleep, a complimentary cup of coffee, and a bagel purchased from one of Kraków’s myriad blue bagel stands, I had recovered the presence of mind to follow the recommended free tour group into the Old Town Square.

Blinking into the surprisingly clear mid-morning sky, I took in the postcard-perfect sight in front of me – St. Mary’s Basilica to my right, the long arches of the Cloth Hall to my left, the town’s Christmas Market in the middle. It was exactly what all the travel guides, photos, and testimonials had promised.

I knew, logically, that Kraków is a modern and urban city Poland’s second largest, with over 700,000 residents within the city limits and more than twice of that in its far-reaching metropolitan area. But in the dozen-odd park-encircled blocks where the medieval walled city once stood, you almost forget that any of Kraków beyond the Old Town exists. As one of the few historical cities in Poland to escape the architectural destruction of the Second World War, Kraków feels like a portal into pre-modern times. I spent the rest of my first day in a comfortable bubble of beautiful architecture, picturesque cafes, a rien-faire-esque sense of

“ Today, academics can contribute to publications like the newly-launched online journal Current Issues in Dark Tourism Research, journalists can milk the topic for think-piece fodder, and the tourism industry can put a catchy name to pre-existing macabre attractions.

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Entrance to Oscar Schindler’s factory. historical whimsy, and all the pierogi I could eat.

When I ventured outside the boundaries of the medieval walls, a very different city awaited. If Kraków’s Old Town wants you to glimpse the past, the surrounding neighbourhoods want to remind you of history far closer to home. Here lie the structures that felt the full destructive impact of the Second World War, with memorials to the tens of thousands of civilian victims and resistance fighters, and markers for the locations of countless tragedies. And here are the dozens of museums housed in historic buildings like Oscar Schindler’s factory, the former Gestapo headquarters, and the Old Synagogue that once served Kraków’s large Jewish population, now dedicated to documenting the life of a city during wartime.

These types of tragic historic tourist attractions pose a delicate balancing act. Are Kraków’s WWII memorials opportunities for education; to learn about the violent occupation and genocidal bigotry that scarred Poland’s history so that we can better confront the rhetoric of fascism in the present? Or are they sites of mere spectacle, inviting people with no personal stake in these tragedies to take selfies and disrespect the victims of unspeakable atrocities?

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The term ‘dark tourism’ was coined in 1996 to describe this sort of practice of travelling to places associated with death and suffering. Dark tourism along with associated phenomena of disaster tourism, war tourism and poverty tourism, has garnered ever-increasing analysis. Today, academics can contribute to publications like the newly-launched online journal ‘Current Issues in Dark Tourism Research’, journalists can milk the topic for think-piece fodder, and the tourism industry can put a catchy name to pre-existing macabre attractions.

“ With all the various events,

locations, and populations involved in each respective tragedy, it is hard to make any sort of generalization regarding the appeal of dark tourism other than that basic shared ‘macabre-ness.’

The label of ‘dark tourism’ has been applied to many different cases. In Roman times, spectators at gladiator fights engaged in a similarly voyeuristic practice. In modern times, a range of sites, including locations of genocide (like Auschwitz-

Birkenau and the Rwandan Genocide Memorial), prisons (Alcatraz, South Africa’s Robben Island Prison Museum, even Dublin’s own Kilmainham Gaol), disaster zones (Chernobyl), and memorial sites (Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, Ground Zero, the site of Princess Diana’s death) have all at some point been considered examples of dark tourism. With all the various events, locations, and populations involved in each respective tragedy, it is hard to make any sort of generalization regarding the appeal of dark tourism other than that basic shared ‘macabre-ness.’

As a student of European history and an outsider with no personal connection to the area, I decided to take an objective path. Not knowing which of Kraków’s dozens of independent tour operations had a record of respect, I went only to the city’s official historical museums. Most of the famous warrelated buildings in Kraków now host exhibits on the Polish resistance, life in the ghetto, political repression, and other features of the war. All these museums certainly constitute a valuable source of revenue for the city, but the extent of the collections makes obvious the importance that Kraków attaches to telling its own history.

Admittedly, even these respectful, educational, civicsponsored museums have issues. The country’s governing Law and Justice Party, after all, doesn’t have the best record for historical honesty, in fact, it recently made headlines for a controversial law that would criminalize attribution of any responsibility to Poland for crimes committed during the Holocaust. Is it morally justified, then, to pay to see any government-sanctioned accounts of the war when the government in question has dubious intentions? It may be up to individual tourists to make that decision for themselves.

The dramatic contrast between the two faces of Kraków - one folkishly Polish, and the other war-torn and warscarred - is impossible to forget, and both should be experienced. But it also serves as a useful reminder to always ask, not only when confronting dark tourism, but in life in general: why is history being presented this way? What message am I being told (or, more accurately, sold)?

Exterior of the Old Synagogue in Kraków.

Isabella Noonen is a JF European Studies student who is enthusiastic about ethical backpacking.

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Ecotourism in Kenya

by Victoria Matuschka

While the world’s population has doubled since the 1970s, the area of wildlife habitat given legal protection has almost tripled during this timeframe, amounting to nearly 15% of the land surface of our planet today. These two concurrent events are no coincidence. Many of the newly protected areas were designed especially to appeal to tourists, giving rise to the ecotourism industry. The ecotourism sector aims to increase public appreciation for wildlife while providing secondary benefits with positive implications for the environment, wildlife species, biodiversity conservation, and socioeconomics. The main priority of ecotourism is to have minimal impact on local wildlife while improving the welfare of local communities.

It is the fastest expanding sector in tourism, growing at 10-15% a year, and has led to huge government-led improvements in the upkeep of protected areas - illustrating a growing public and political interest in the future of wildlife conservation.

Ecotourism can bring economic benefits to local communities. It provides consistent and significant income, even in times of devastating drought, and has contributed to the reduction of the exploitation of natural resources

“ The main priority of ecotourism is to have minimal impact on local wildlife communities while improving the state of wellbeing of local communities. for consumption. It is also proven to reduce poaching. This is because recreationrelated employment can be five times greater than employment in resource exploitation (such as poaching) in the same territory, while gross economic benefits are often more than ten times greater.

Furthermore, it is a hugely important industry for landowners who retain wild animals used in ecotourism on their land. This not only improves the land but also provides an income for members of the service

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and retail industries surrounding protected areas. The tourism industry has also allowed for the development of new medical facilities, clean water sources, new roads, and electricity, creating a higher standard of living for local communities and thus proving to be a long term solution to poverty. Ecotourism helps to maintain the integrity of the environment and biodiversity by providing economic value to both preserving native land and protecting threatened species. Revenue from national parks, as well as safari tours, further contribute to conservation work.

The tourism industry has sparked huge social change throughout Africa. Wildlife is now increasingly considered a valued asset, as growing wildlife populations have become widely associated with higher income, growth in employment, access to more game meat at a household level, and more funds to support rural development.

Poaching has become socially unacceptable because it takes away from the income of the local population. This is a very important step in securing the future of wildlife populations, as human-wildlife relations have long been problematic due to occasional violent encounters between the two.

However, there is a myriad of negative effects of wildlife tourism which also need to be taken into consideration, including an apparent gradual degradation of the environment and the very ecosystems that are supposedly preserved as the tourists’ main attraction. Deforestation, for example, often occurs as a result of the building process of wildlife areas, roads, and the various accommodation needed for tourists, resulting in a loss of native flora and fauna and the fragmentation of pastoral areas. Increased transportation in and out of countries raises the risk of letting in invasive alien species, such as the devastating Famine Weed which has recently been sighted in Kenya. Hunting can also have significant impacts on wildlife. These include short term impacts such as changes in animal physiology and behaviour or reduced quality of food, and long term changes such as increased mortality rates and reduced breeding success. Another significant effect of ecotourism to keep in mind is the inadequate distribution of income. Ecotourism has become a marketing strategy for large corporations, as many of the areas used for ecotourism in Tanzania, parts of Kenya, and other African countries are either protected or owned by tourism corporations.

Local communities rarely see any tangible (economic) benefits from ecotourism in these cases. Two companies in particular - Tanzania Conservation Limited, owned by USbased Thomson Safaris, and Otterlo Business Corporation, a luxury hunting company

SOCIETY & CULTURE

based in UAE - are reported to have evicted and burned the homes of Maasai tribes to use the area for ecotourism.

Tourism in Kenya is an important case study for ecotourism. This country experiences many of both the positive and negative effects of the industry.

Ecotourism provides a large number of jobs for the population, accounting for 15% of the country’s GDP in 2009, with tourist revenues of over KES 73 billion (₏640 million).

With its 65 national parks, Kenya is very attractive to tourists, but a number of socioeconomic and environmental costs come with the economic benefits of tourism. Neo-colonial structures have been found to surround the industry, which greatly disempowers local communities.

the ecosystem, such as prey shortages for certain species, like lions. Leopards, normally day hunters, are now being forced to hunt at night. In addition, the presence of tour vehicles may affect the hunting success of large predators. As of yet, it is unclear whether or not the economic benefits of ecotourism outweigh the environmental, ethical and socioeconomic costs in Kenya. Effective management and constant monitoring are crucial in achieving a tourism industry that can sustain both wildlife populations and community life.

Despite the recent expansion in protected land due to the growing ecotourism industry, 50% of large mammals worldwide are still in decline as a result of habitat loss and overexploitation, among other threats. Anthropogenic needs for growth and development are causing mass destruction to natural habitats. We clearly admire the fascinating wildlife around us, yet we cannot help but destroy their habitats and ecosystems. It is only through a combination of an increased appreciation for wildlife, land protection, and education about the threats that wildlife face, that ecotourism can be used as a catalyst for effective conservation.

The diverse native cultures and languages have been marginalized with the growth of tourism, sparking an increase in social problems such as drug use and addiction. The establishment of conservation and management programs has raised huge environmental awareness and has had major benefits, but the steady decline of wildlife populations and the net loss of biodiversity cannot be ignored. Between 1977 and 1997, the total of all non-migratory species in the Maasai Mara National Reserve dropped by 58%; of these species, the populations of warthog and buffalo have declined by over 80%. Studies have found that land-use change, including increased human settlement, has correlated with a decline in species abundance. Additionally, tourism has been shown to affect animal behaviour so heavily that animal migration has become unpredictable. This may have consequences on

All photographs were taken by the author.

Victoria Matuschka is an SS Zoology student whose research interests include marine conservation and wildlife economics.

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Skiing and the effects of climate change

by CĂŠire Carey Midday Friday, Zermatt.

It is too hot. We have unzipped our heavy ski jackets to breathe and turn our glistening faces away from the sun.

Accomplished Alpine natives whizz past us on the piste, rising veils of powdery snow in the intense white light of the mountains. The rugged line of the chiselled peak flickers.

Finally, we resolve to carry on and make our way down the side of the mountain. Needing the cooling effect of a lemon rivella more than a hot chocolate, we veer our course towards the lodge, lining our skis in a coloured row outside the terrace.

Spring has arrived early and although the early morning pistes would hardly betray its importance, the difference of a degree matters. A one degree difference determines whether or not there will be snow, although this high up it does not reveal its consequences so obviously. The only sign is the light clothing of people in the village. Reports from around the globe of closed ski resorts are worrying not only for skiers but also for the ski tourism industry. The business keeps many small towns going, it prevents the exodus of the young to the cities and boosting the local economy.

Zermatt is made up of a series of family businesses aided by foreign workers coming for the season and often staying long-term. Bea Bruisch is one such expat who has fallen in love with the region and is currently working for her second season in the ski resort. She believes that Zermatt is an exception to the trend that climate change has brought on, and that it will not suffer the same fate that other places have in recent times. Nevertheless, the locals are beginning to feel concerned about the impact of global warming. The five-year-long drought in California, which ended in 2017, unsettled the local ski industry, resulting in the closure of several resorts. Aside from the snow, there were worries

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about the scarcity of safe drinking water.

Empty ski resorts are a startling shock to those who loves the sport.

Zermatt is a protected area. Its snowladen peaks maintain their coverage throughout the year thanks to the high altitude; attracting skiers in the winter months, and climbers in the summer. The resort is known for its long skiing season and extensive pistes, stretching from Switzerland down into Italy. It is one of the few resorts in Europe that guarantees snow every year. The town itself is located at about 1,400 metres above sea level, while the ski runs reach heights of 2,500 metres. It is home to one of the highest gondola stations in the world, where people can truly claim to be on top of Europe. But despite all this, it has not escaped the ravages of extreme weather conditions.

Severe weather conditions last year meant that the residents of Zermatt were snowed in for six days. No one was able to enter or leave the town and helicopters had to be deployed to airlift goods and people. Viviana Cafasso from Azzurra Sport, a local ski shop, claimed that the last time she could remember it snowing as much was in 1999. The area’s infrastructure is designed to accommodate harsh weather conditions, and many villagers barely remember a time when they were last snowed in. Nevertheless, they were glad to see the snow. Although people were not able to leave the town to work even in the next town, Cafasso saw it as somewhat of a relief; without snow, there is no business for ski shops like Azzurra Sport. In stark contrast to that heavy snowfall,

“ There is a universal fear that global warming will lead to the decline of the skiing tradition.

While the demand for skiing conditions still remains high, the supply is expected to suffer with time.

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“ To keep up with this decline, artificial snow has been used for creating smoother and stabler conditions for skiers.

the year before a hazard warning for heat was issued in the region. There were even concerns that carelessly discarded cigarettes could start fires. This year is once again a warm year for locals. The glacier is melting, and some wonder if it is the first sign of major changes that will occur in the area.

Many resorts like Zermatt are now engaged in planning for a future of uncertainty. Investments are pumped into infrastructure to alleviate any potential strains on the running of resorts. According to Christophe Clivaz of the University of Lausanne, however, there is still not enough being done in Zermatt. While many ski areas may be accused of damaging the environment, Zermatt has certainly proceeded with care in its development. One exceptional aspect of the resort is the fact that there are no cars. In the late evenings, as people celebrate carnival in ballooned blue skirts and high spirits, the merrymaking is not disturbed by any rumble of engines.

While horse carriages were used for transportation in the past, licensed electric cars are used nowadays. The townspeople cautiously observe the building of new chalets of glass with views of the Matterhorn, while tourism officials are conscious of the need to step on the breaks and look around to consider other sustainable options. The restaurant on top of the Klein Matterhorn, with a view across Europe from Mont Blanc to the hills of Milan, was built with this in mind. Solar panels on the glass-like facade provide the energy it needs to function.

While Zermatt is fortunate to have many natural resources, water shortages will certainly become a problem to tackle in the future. Temperature fluctuations will lead to changes in snow-cover patterns and affect the water supply. The distinctive look of the Matterhorn mountain is well known along the peak range, where it sits between the Italian and Swiss border. Its body and apex are being affected by fissures that break down rock. It is this effect of heating and cooling that causes rockslides and cracks. Avalanches are now increasingly common and preventative measures have been taken to preempt them through controlled explosions. The loud blasts of planted explosives are not an uncommon sound

in the mountains anymore. Fenced off roads often reroute skiers for their safety on their way down the mountains, while this is being done.

There is a universal fear that global warming will lead to the decline of the skiing tradition. While the demand for skiing conditions still remains high, the supply is expected to suffer with time. To keep up with this decline, artificial snow has been used for creating smoother and stabler conditions for skiers. This facilitates the layering of snow into a foundation that can hold the pressure of the constant flow of weight on the surface. Because Zermatt has low precipitation, it is important to use the right conditions, dry and cold, to prepare the slopes. Around 75% of the 200km of Zermatts’ ski region uses artificial snow or is on glacier grounds. The masses of people that begin to arrive in Zermatt from Christmas onwards expect the idyllic slopes of their memories to weave and wind down the Alps.

That said, Zermatt is not lost without snow and is not yet in any grave danger. The region has a vibrant, year-round tourist trade, pulling in diverse nationalities during their holiday seasons. With trekking, mountain biking and stunning scenery, summers in the bucolic surroundings are ever popular. The skiing season is waved off with the music festival “Zermatt Unplugged” that brings in big acts and big crowds alike. Despite rockslides, avalanches, and warm weather, Zermatt will survive for now. The challenge for Zermatt will be to reinvent itself. Despite the warmth this year, the villagers of Zermatt are optimistic and expect the snow will come again to cool down the air and powder the pinnacles and crests of the Swiss Alps.

All photographs were taken by the author.

Céire Carey is an SF History student who took a ski trip just to write an article for Frontier, she is worried about the environment and believes in food security for all. In her spare time she studies History.

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Ostalgie: when East German communism became cool

by Christian Dunne

‘Just imagine that it is the year 1978 and the Berlin Wall still exists. Erich Honecker would be in power with his really existing socialism. We warmly invite you to the Ostel Hostel Berlin, to a journey back in time to the East Berlin of the seventies and eighties. If you want to experience the living culture of the German Democratic Republic and Berlin from a different angle, then book one of our beautiful rooms.’

So reads the website of ‘Ostel’ (from the German ost, meaning east), a hostel modelled and decorated in a 1970s style to create the impression the visitor is staying in a still-thriving East Germany. With rooms plastered in seventies wallpaper, adorned with portraits of former premier Erich Honecker and decked out with retro furniture and appliances, if the hostel’s goal is to send the guest back in time it pretty much succeeds in doing so.

Ostel is not alone in drawing on Germany’s half-century experiment with socialism for inspiration: it’s part of the broader phenomenon of Ostalgie. Coming from the German words ost (east) and nostalgie (yes, nostalgia), Ostalgie is just that: a collective nostalgia for life in East Germany.

The early 2000s saw the release of archetypal Ostalgie film Good Bye, Lenin!, and, against the backdrop of the collapse of socialism, the film evokes a warmness for life in the GDR, while its main protagonist, A l e x , questions the new lived experience of ordinary people in the reunified capitalist German

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“ Ostalgie is about an idealized version of life in communism and not an earnest historical analysis of the past. nation. Good Bye, Lenin! was a box office hit and, since then, Ostalgie has grown legs.

As well as a gravitation towards the art, architecture and cultural symbols of East Germany - and while Ostalgie remains often ironic in the main - there is also a genuine yearning for the perceived life in the East between 1949 and 1990; people lament the loss of affordable housing, secure jobs and a welldeveloped welfare system. More than anything else, though, East Germany is now, basically, pretty cool.

How can that be? East Germany was, after all, a totalitarian state. Inconveniently for the socialist project, neighbouring West Germany experienced a post-war economic boom to cement the image of the GDR as poor, drab and hopeless.

The East German nation has been described variously as a “homunculus from the Soviet test tube” and a “diplomatic leper”: a kind of failed semi-state, a project doomed to end in abjection. The Trabant car, symbolic of the GDR itself, became a laughed-at emblem of East German failure: notoriously poorly-constructed, thwarted by production shortages and, most significantly, generally quite silly. More jarring, though, was the tragedy of East German life: borders shut, people suppressed, secret Stasi surveillance, torture and insidious psychological harassment. Any state defined by a bulwark of division like the Berlin Wall is not a place to inspire happiness or hope. Are people nostalgic about this?

Predictably, the answer to that is no. But not all historians and theorists subscribe to the idea that totalitarian East Germany was the successor to the Nazi state, or that the idea behind the project was ultimately a bad one. Despite common perceptions, the East - hindered by tightly restrictive postwar reparation payments - oversaw a ‘second German economic miracle,’ and, although not as wealthy as the West, achieved the highest standard of living of any communist country. Similarly, the social welfare system developed in the 1970s drew the state and the people closer together.

Even in the wake of the falling wall and sweeping revolution, the emergent political ideas revolved around a move to a free society, definitely, but also retention of the strong

SOCIETY & CULTURE

social ideals at the core of the East German state.

Either way, East Germans’ attitudes have led to the oft-repeated phrase: es war halt so. That’s just the way it was. The GDR was nothing approaching perfect - regularly tyrannic, often miserable - but nor was it the dreadful caricature many portrayed it to be.

This is, however, verging on irrelevant. Ostalgie is about an idealized version of life under communism and not an earnest historical analysis of the past. To be honest, that’s what makes it so interesting. Why, now, is there a collective nostalgia for life in what turned out to be a failed socialist state? Does it tell us more about what it was like to live in Leipzig in 1974 or the lived experience of Easterners in modern, unified Germany? In Good Bye, Lenin!, Alex’s nostalgia swells when he realises his disillusionment with what has changed since East German collapse, and this hints at the essence of Ostalgie.

Nearly thirty years after reunification, there is disaffection in the former East, and, as seen across all of the West - the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, everywhere - capitalism breeds inequality. Has reunification been exclusively good for East Germans? Is the current sociopolitical project a satisfactory one? Travel was restricted in the GDR, but if you’re a low-wage worker in modern Germany and can’t afford holidays abroad there might not be much practical difference.

“ As well as a gravitation towards the art, architecture and cultural symbols of East Germany, and while Ostalgie remains often ironic in the main, there is also a genuine yearning for the perceived life in the East between 1949 and 1990

View of East Germany from the West, 1983.

But the point has never been a political argument that East Germany was the ideal state; it evidently wasn’t.

And Ostalgie is not really concerned with that. In his book Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher broaches the idea of what he calls “the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it;” and in a climate of disaffection with contemporary politics and society this leads to a complete lack of a sense of future.

Restless in the present and anxious about the future, it is an act of relief to look back to an (idealized) past, and it’s natural to find resonance in the warm notion of a time when things were different and when there was a real alternative. Ostalgie is not a political idea and is only adjacently related to real socialism - it has as much to do with irony as anything else - but it is within this context that Ostalgie in the collective consciousness has thrived. Or, maybe, tragicomic German films, ironic Honecker souvenirs and little Trabi cars are just funny and cool.

Christian Dunne is an SS History student and the Travel Editor, with an interest in the history and culture of European cities.

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Aung San Suu Kyi - human rights defender or politician?

by Navika Mehta This past year has seen a once internationally revered Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi fall in the eyes of the world due to her failure to protect the Rohingya minority.

The persecution of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority based in the Rakhine state bordering Bangladesh, has drastically increased in recent years, being labelled “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra‘ad al-Hussein.

Myanmar, previously known as Burma, is a former British Colony. The Radcliffe line that divided the British - Indian Empire also cut out Burma from Bangladesh at the Rakhine Border. Radcliffe was appointed to draw the line despite having little knowledge of the region and its ethnic groups.

Had the Rohingya ended up in Bangladesh, their fates may have been very different. The Rohingya constituted around 1 million people at the beginning of 2017 and are the descendants of Arab traders. However, according to the Government of Myanmar, they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. They have been continually excluded from various state censuses over the years and have been denied citizenship, making them the largest stateless population in the world today. Policies of exclusion, lawfare, and spaciocide have been used extensively. Lawfare refers to “The abuse of western laws and judicial systems to achieve strategic military or political ends” and involves the “Manipulation of international and national human rights laws to accomplish purposes other than or contrary to, those for which they were originally enacted.” It has been used in a systematic manner by the Myanmar Government to render a once recognised population stateless. Spacio-cide is the “systematic dispossession, occupation and destruction of ethnic groups’ living space”. This has been carried out through forcefully occupying Rohingya land and burning their villages.

In Rakhine state, the Rohingya Independence Force (RIF) was created in 1962 to protest the military coup of the same year. Its demand was to revoke the military’s ban on Muslim organizations like the Rohingya Student’s Union and Rohingya Youth League, but it was unsuccessful. In 1994, the

“ The practice of the erasure of Rohingyas is neither new nor can it be reduced to communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims.

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Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF) announced the creation of an independent Muslim state along the Bangladesh border.

The RPF broke into several factions, one of which was the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) in 1982, but it also splintered and resulted in the creation of the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front (ARIF). Then the RSO and ARIK merged to form the Rohingya National Alliance Organization (ARMO) in 1995, but it also divided into three factions claiming the same name. No other organizations have emerged since then. To counter this, the Tatmadaw (military) targeted Rohingya, and Operation Dragon King Nagamin was launched in 1978 with the purpose of screening the population for foreigners and taking action against illegal immigrants. More than 200,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh as a result of human rights abuses committed during this “screening”. Another round of operations in 1991 forced more than 250,000 people into Bangladesh. Thus, the Rohingya have never really had any effective political leadership.

Essentially, the practice of the erasure of Rohingyas is neither new nor can it be reduced to communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims. The state security forces have always been involved. Over the years, military Generals have used the concept of “national ethnic races”, which claims that Burmese identity is inherited rather than socially constructed.

The Military regime has also claimed that a “single political community” existed in Myanmar prior to British colonialism.

This community was destroyed by the British. This discourse has been widely used by the military to delegitimize several insurgencies across Myanmar. It also reinforced the idea that the Military is the only institution that can rebuild the “single political community” by defeating all the ethnic forces that are fighting for autonomy.

In recent years, Myanmar has undergone a rapid economic and political change that has caused anxieties among the people about the future.

Charismatic monks influence people and believe that Theravada Buddhism needs to be protected and promoted to combat the spread of Islam and that this can only be done by uniting the Buddhist ethnicities.

Moreover, the international pressure to stop the persecution of Rohingyas has been perceived as a threat, with fears that the minority will end u p

INTL. RELATIONS & POLITICS

gaining more power as aid and investment becomes conditional on the rights of minorities. Thus, attacks on Rohingya further reinforce Buddhist nationalism.

Myanmar is a diverse country with many ethnic groups.

Bamar is the majority ethnic group and the majority religion is Buddhism, with Christian and Muslim minorities. Ethnic conflicts after independence in 1948 led to the Military taking control in 1962. The junta ruled for over 50 years until 2015, when Suu Kyi’s party National League of Democracy came into power. Aung San Suu Kyi is the world’s most famous political prisoner; she was under house arrest by the Military regime for almost two decades. She is the daughter of the revolutionary Bamar leader, Bogyoke Aung San, now regarded as the founder of Myanmar. When Suu Kyi returned to Myanmar due to her mother’s failing health, she carried on the legacy of her father to establish Democracy in Myanmar. During her protests, she followed Buddhist principles and nonviolence. Today, her position in the government is State Counsellor.

The government formed under Suu Kyi is still influenced by the military. 25% of Parliamentary seats are reserved for military-appointed officials and any amendment of the constitution requires 75% support. A coup mechanism is in place that enables the National Defense and Security Council to seize power if it unilaterally declares a state of emergency.

Moreover, the three major ministries - Border Control, Home Affairs, and Defence - must only be led by serving military officials, and the military’s budget cannot be questioned in the legislature.

The main criticism against Suu Kyi from the international community is that she is not “speaking out”. While she was in house arrest, all she could actually do was speak in order

“ Speaking up against the military is important but in the current structure of the government, going against the military will endanger democracy in Myanmar, something that Suu Kyi has achieved after a very long and difficult struggle.

Illustration by Camille Devaney

Military on parade, Myanmar. to rally support. Today, as State Counsellor, even with limited powers, she is in a position to shape the future of Myanmar.

Over the last two years, she has slowly begun to change the constitution and fight the military dominance. However, she needs all the support she can get in order to do this. Speaking up against the military is important but in the current structure of the government, going against the military will endanger democracy in Myanmar, something that Suu Kyi has achieved after a very long and difficult struggle. Criticising the military will not only put her supporters in danger but also alienate her from them. The commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Myanmar is the “Supreme Commander”, and he does not take orders from Suu Kyi. The minister of defence is appointed by the Commander in Chief and Home Affairs controls the police force and state apparatus. Going against the military would have disastrous consequences for democracy in Myanmar.

Furthermore, the international community may be victims of confirmation bias; that is, believing that Suu Kyi has uncompromisable morals and can do only good. In the past, she has explicitly stated in several interviews that the Buddhists fear the global rise of Muslim power. The international community chose to ignore clear indications of her political intentions with regard to the Rohingyas.

In conclusion, Aung San Suu Kyi would essentially risk her position and her decades-long struggle if she spoke against the military’s actions against the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

She would win in the eyes of the international community, but lose everything she has fought for. In her own words, “I am just a politician. I am not quite like Margaret Thatcher, no.

But, on the other hand, I am no Mother Teresa, either.”

Navika Mehta is an SS Politics and Economics student and the Editor-in-Chief, whose research interests include the political economy of South Asia and migration trends in Europe.

11

Fridays For Future

by Hannah Yael Rieger In August 2018, 15-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg started a school strike which has now transformed into an international movement known as Fridays For Future, with thousands of students participating around the globe.

Inspired by the March for our Lives, organised by teen activists from Parkland school in Florida, Thunberg decided to stop attending school after the end of the summer holidays.

Instead, she sat outside the Swedish parliament building every day for the three weeks leading up to Sweden’s general elections on 9 September, with a sign reading “Skolstrejk för klimatet” (school strike for the climate).

The summer of 2018 saw Sweden battle extreme heat waves and extensive wildfires and Thunberg wanted to make politicians as well as ordinary citizens aware of what she refers to as the ‘climate crisis’. After the general elections, she continued her climate protest every Friday and has stated that she will continue to do so until the Swedish government reduces carbon emissions as per the 2015 Paris Agreement.

In a talk for TEDxStockholm in November 2018, Thunberg explained how she first heard about climate change when she was just eight years old: “Apparently that was something humans had created by our way of living”. She went on to express her difficulties with understanding how climate change could have such an important impact on the world, and yet very little was said about it on the news or in general conversations. Thunberg has Asperger’s Syndrome and has explained that people on the spectrum tend to see issues as either black or white. She has therefore stated in several interviews that she sees her Asperger’s as a gift rather than a disability, as it has helped open her eyes to the climate crisis and focus on the facts when it comes to this important topic.

In December 2018 Thunberg was invited to speak at the UN Climate Change Conference held in Katowice, Poland, which aimed to negotiate the rights and duties of the nearly 200 individual nations in meeting the targets of the Paris Agreement. Speaking about the summit, Thunberg stated: “What I hope we achieve at this conference is that we realise that we are facing an existential threat. This is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced. First, we have to realise this and then, as fast as possible, do something to stop the emissions and try to save what we can save.”

In her speech, which later went viral online, she also focused on the demand to keep fossil fuels in the ground and on the importance of equity when dealing with the

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“The summer of 2018 saw Sweden battle extreme heat waves and extensive wildfires... climate crisis Thunberg further stated “We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again. We have run out of excuses and we are running out of time. We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not.” Sir David Attenborough, who also spoke at the summit, echoed a similar tone in his speech, warning that without action “the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon”. Following her speech in Katowice, as well as her appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2019, Thunberg faced denigrative comments on Twitter, mainly from men on the right of the political spectrum, focussing on her age, gender and Asperger’s syndrome.

In February 2019 she spoke to the European Economic and Social Committee and demanded that the EU lower their CO2 emissions by 80% by 2030. She has continually argued that the EU’s target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels is “not sufficient to protect the future for children growing up today”.

According to Thunberg, global warming should be kept to what scientists regard as the preferable upper limit of max.

1.5C if the planet is to avoid extreme droughts, floods and the bleaching of corals, as well as extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

Photographs taken by the author at the protest.

INTL. RELATIONS & POLITICS

Thunberg responded on Twitter, saying “Sorry mr @ ScottMorrisonMP. We are unable to comply”. British prime minister Theresa May responded to the strikes with similar arguments to her Australian counterpart, and other European political leaders have also criticised the school strikes that Thunberg was the catalyst for.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, has been chastised for suggesting students would not advocate climate action on their own initiative; going as far as Thunberg’s school strike gained worldwide attention and inspired students to organise and participate in similar strikes. The Guardian reports that by December 2018, more than 20,000 students in at least 270 towns and cities had joined Thunberg in her climate protest by striking from

“The Fridays For Future movement focuses on three main demands: the transition to 100% clean energy, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, and providing help for victims of climate change. school. By February 2019, this number had increased to 26,000 protesters across more than 35 locations in Germany alone, 15,000 across 60 locations in the United Kingdom, 15,000 in 4 Belgian cities, and many more across Europe and across the world, including countries such as Colombia, New Zealand and Uganda. The Fridays For Future movement focuses on three main demands: the transition to 100 per cent clean energy, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, and providing help for victims of climate change.

Along with an insistence on meeting the targets agreed upon in the Paris Agreement, students are demanding for a change in laws in order to lower the voting age to 16 years, hoping to expand the influence of the youth in public elections.

Following the protest’s expansion to Australia, where the centre-right government continues supporting the coal industry despite the unprecedented coral bleaching along the Great Barrier Reef, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison lashed out, yelling ‘What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools’ in response to a question about school students participating in a climate change strike. He went on to declare that students should stay in school and leave politics to those “outside of school”.

to suggest in a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February that the Fridays for Future movement could have been the result of Russian cyber influence. The young activist defended the movement, saying “If you still say that we are wasting valuable lesson time, then let me remind you that our political leaders have wasted decades through denial and inaction.”

All photographs were taken by the author.

Hannah Yael Rieger is a JS Jewish and Islamic Civilizations and Spanish student., and the Public Relations Officer/Society & Culture Editor.

She is a fan of feminism, dark chocolate and Scandinavia.

13

Italy’s tryst with fascism

by Liam Frabetti

After the Second World War, Germany underwent an intensive process of denazification. Judges, civil servants, and politicians who had been members of the Nazi party were excluded from public life. The same cannot be said for postwar Italy. Leading fascists were allowed to retain high ranking positions in the justice system, and some even continued their political careers unperturbed. Fascist ideology and its exponents found a party in which they continued to thrive, albeit with a more moderate tone, called the Italian Social Movement (MSI). Its long-time secretary Giorgio Almirante was an official in the Ministry for Culture and Propaganda of Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic, right until the end of the war.

This continued presence of fascist ideology would resurface in the so-called “years of lead” of Italian history, from the late 60s to the early 80s. Clashes between small paramilitary organisations of the far left and the far right led to a series of explosions and armed reprisals, resulting in the deaths of many innocent bystanders. The various far-right organisations which participated in this conflict championed fascist ideals and, through symbols and rhetoric, kept fascism alive.

One such organisation, called Ordine Nuovo - which split from the MSI in 1955 - engaged in terrorist attacks such as the Piazza Fontana bombing, in which 18 people were killed.

This group was banned in 1973 and charged with attempting to recreate fascism. In the early 80s, a series of initiatives to encourage collaboration between the police and far left and far right elements were successful, and the violence ended.

The next thirty years saw a drop in neo-fascist violence and support. The MSI and its successor parties, currently grouped in Fratelli d’ Italia, adopted a much more moderate tone. But despite the decrease in violence, fascist ideology persisted in the minds of a small minority of the population. Worryingly, in the last couple of years, this minority seems to be getting more vocal and is increasing in size. After the 2015 European migrant crisis led to a massive increase in immigration and as the nationalist wind sweeping across Europe reached Italy, neofascist parties slowly increased their support and politicians adopted more right-wing rhetoric. This has translated into an intense debate on the values and achievements of the Italian resistance movement, which fought against the fascist regime during the Second World War. Many argue that it was a divisive time in Italian history and that partisans committed atrocities against the supporters of the regime. For example, last November, Fratelli d’ Italia proposed changing the dates of Italy’s national holidays, which currently fall on the 25th April and the 2nd June. They commemorate the anniversaries of the liberation from the fascist regime and the first day of the Italian Republic. In the place of these “divisive” dates, the party has proposed the 4th November, the anniversary of the Italian victory over the Austrians in the first world war.

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Another target of the right in recent years has been a song celebrating the Italian resistance against Nazi Germany and the Italian fascist state called “Bella Ciao”. It was sung by partisans during the war and became the song which best represented that struggle after the creation of the Italian Republic. Many politicians and concerned parents have asked for the song to be removed from school curriculums, labelling it too “controversial” and politically charged to be used by state institutions.

Relatively new political parties such as Casapound and Forza Nuova - the former’s symbol bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Nazi flag and the latter being a successor to the more extremist faction of the MSI - have benefited from this increase in revisionist rhetoric. They have grown in popularity, to the extent of carrying out various attacks on political opponents with increasing confidence in the last couple of years. A menacing demonstration was carried out in front of the offices of La Repubblica, the country’s leftleaning newspaper, in December 2017. Around 30 people with masks, smoke bombs, and the flag of Forza Nuova stood outside calling for a boycott of the newspaper and intimidating those who entered. And on the 20th of February last year, around 30 Forza Nuova militants interrupted a current affairs programme on national television demanding more air time to express their views.

It is important to keep in mind that the vote obtained by Forza Nuova and Casapound in the March 2018 elections was less than two per cent, and only around 400,000 Italians cast their vote in their favour. Yet both parties increased their share of the vote, with Casapound’s vote reaching fifteen times what it was in 2013. Their activities increased in size and scope after the March elections. For example, on the 21st of September last year in the southern city of Bari, members of Casapound attacked a group of demonstrators and among them, an MEP, who were protesting against the government’s policies. Because of this attack, thirty members of the local Casapound base are being investigated for demonstrations of a fascist nature and for having used the fascist “squadristi” method of political violence. Then, on the 3rd of November in the northern town of Trieste, 2000 Italians responded to Casapound’s invitation to celebrate the country’s victory in WW1. And finally, on the 7th of January 2019, two reporters were assaulted at an event commemorating all the fascists “murdered on the road to freedom”. The event took place

“On the 7th of January 2019, two reporters were assaulted at an event commemorating all the fascists “murdered on the road to freedom”.

INTL. RELATIONS & POLITICS outside the historical base of MSI and included militants of Forza Nuova. The frequency of these events shows just how open and visible fascism has become in Italy in recent times.

It would be a mistake, however, to list these fringe neo-fascist parties as the only ones to have captured this rising nationalistic and far-right rhetoric and used it to their advantage. The man who has benefited the most from this atmosphere and has managed to mould it into a semi-respectable political force is Italy’s new Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini. Since taking office in June, he has tapped into the revisionist rhetoric of the right, expressing his disapproval at the schools who sing Bella Ciao, and has also threatened to carry out many reforms which would affect ethnic minorities such as Italy’s Roma population and asylum-seeking immigrants, all favourite targets of neofascist groups. He has suggested closing ethnic shops at 9 pm, labelling them the meeting place for drunks and drug dealers. He also toyed with the idea of establishing an extra census for the Roma population to expel those living in Italy without right of residence, stating that he would have to “unfortunately” let the ones with Italian citizenship stay. This move would have no practical benefits, and in the meantime has served only to increase resentment against the Roma population.

His attacks on asylum-seeking immigrants have not only concentrated on criticising the NGOs saving their lives in the Mediterranean, but also on making life difficult for those who have already settled in Italy. For example, In October of last year, Salvini heaped much praise on the mayor of Lodi, a member of Salvini’s party “Lega”, after she effectively banned the children of immigrant families from eating food in the school canteen. This was done by requiring a certificate from these children proving that their parents didn’t own property in their country of origin. These documents are hard to come by in war-torn countries, and it resulted in the exclusion of 200 children from the school canteen.

Salvini’s statements could be seen as part of an image he is attempting to create of himself; that of a strong figure who can restore security to the Italian people (often claiming that he will govern the country for the next twenty years).

In his endeavour to radiate strength, he has started to wear the official jumpers of the state’s security forces. He even went as far as wearing the official police jumper in the Italian parliament, which, in the eyes of many, breached the separation of the state from the security forces. He claims to be wearing these uniforms to show support to the security forces but, as celebrated journalist Roberto Saviano recently noted, his actions have larger implications than that. In the minds of some it serves to signify that by criticising Salvini and his policies, you are inviting trouble, as the police share his views and will not hesitate to act on his behalf. If we look

Graffiti saying ‘Fight against Salvini’ in Palermo. back at Italian history, that is exactly what Benito Mussolini intended when he wore a military uniform. To reinforce this image, Salvini has even quoted Italy’s infamous fascist dictator. On the anniversary of Mussolini’s death, he tweeted one of his famous sayings, “Many enemies, lots of honour” applying it to his own tendency to fire up fierce opposition to his policies. These voluntary or involuntary references to Italy’s fascist age have made him an idol for those who look back at such an age with longing.

In fact, some seem to approve of the similarities between the policies of Salvini’s Lega and Mussolini’s fascist party. “Il Capitano” (in English, “the Captain”) is what he is affectionately called by his most avid supporters; a not so subtle similarity with the commanding name given to Mussolini: “Il Duce” (“the Duke”). People have shown up at Salvini’s rallies dressed in fascist outfits, as occurred at Lega’s national demonstration on the 8th December of last year. One man wearing a jacket with fascist insignia said that the only difference between Salvini’s “Lega” and Mussolini’s fascist party is the name - the ideas are the same. Several people who were interviewed at neo-fascist rallies in the last year, such as the one which takes place annually at Mussolini’s tomb, have approved of Salvini’s policies.

The activities of neo-fascist groups and Salvini’s attempts to mould fascist rhetoric into a political force have not gone unchallenged. Many Italians have organised massive antifascist rallies and have contested Salvini’s policies. This shows that the rise of fascist rhetoric will not necessarily translate into a return to Italy’s fascist past. But with Lega’s support sitting comfortably at between thirty and thirty-five per cent in all recent polls and with little action being taken against parties such as Casapound, it is unlikely that the current opposition will be enough to persuade neo-fascist parties and Salvini to abandon their activities and political propaganda.

Liam Frabetti is an Irish-Italian SF French and History student with a keen interest in Irish and Italian politics.

15

The core issue: the economic geography of Europe

by Shona Egan

“ This core contains just oneEurope is a continent of diversity. The European Project and the 1957 Treaty of Rome saw the beginning of an era of integration, with the ‘finalité politique’ ever-present in the minds of its founding fathers. Since the 50s the EU has experienced unprecedented growth, with six phases of enlargement: from the original EEC 6 to the present 28 member states. European expansion has shifted EU boundaries, not only geographically but economically and politically as well, bringing new trends and dynamics into play.

Europe has seen huge economic growth since the end of WW2. However, growth rates vary widely across member states and regions. Overall, there has been a trend of crosscountry convergence between member states. For example, Ireland entered the EU in 1973 as the poorest country.

Today it is one of the wealthier nations. Meanwhile, regional divergence within individual countries has almost universally been on the increase. A handful of centres have established themselves on the global stage. In contrast, many other regions still stagnate and struggle to attract investment. In

seventh of EU land area and one-third of its population but boasts over half of all EU economic activity Britain, for example, inner London is the wealthiest region in Europe, boasting an average income 3.5 times the EU average. Conversely, most other British regions beyond southeast England have seen a drop in GDP per capita in the last 20 years.

The EU can be divided geographically and economically into three distinct regions: core, intermediate and peripheral. The prosperous core consists of western Germany, northeastern France, the Benelux nations, and southeastern England. This core contains just one-seventh of EU land area and one-third of its population but boasts over half of all EU economic activity. Income, standard of living, employment and investment are all substantially higher in the core. Intermediate regions include Stockholm, Dublin, Rome, Madrid, and Edinburgh. These regions are currently thriving, which is at variance with the peripheral regions that surround them.

Simply put, everywhere else in the EU is peripheral and underperforming when compared to the core. The entry of a further 10 Eastern European member states since 2004 has shifted the balance once again. These more recent additions have led to an east-west economic divide.

David Ricardo’s theory of Comparative Advantage explains how economic actors, nations and in this case regions, often have the ability to produce particular goods and services more efficiently than competitors. This edge is generally brought about by factors such as human and physical capital, natural resources, and technology.

Map focusing in on Europe, specifically Germany.

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For example, Ireland’s highly educated and skilled workforce has attracted investment in both the IT and pharmaceutical sectors to a much larger extent than other regions with lower skilled workers. Developed physical capital and infrastructure give a nation a competitive edge

INTL. RELATIONS & POLITICS

in logistics and connectivity. Natural resources, such as oil in Norway, play a huge role in having a comparative advantage in certain industries. These natural endowments are a major factor when firms decide where to locate.

Climate can also define the industry in certain regions, such as summer tourism along Spain’s coastline, or winter skiing in the French Alps. Technology is a key driver for developed regions growth today but is contained mainly within the EU’s economic core. German engineering technology makes the country a leader in automotive and power engineering; not just within Europe, but globally. Since deeper integration began in the 1950s, the liberalisation of trade and the opening of borders has created new competition for all member states. Forward-looking nations are aware that in order to thrive in this community, specialisation in the sector in which they have a comparative advantage is key. Many worried that Ireland would struggle to specialise upon entry.

However, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and IT have come to the forefront nationally, while other sectors have declined.

Specialisation at a regional and national level within the EU has therefore led to one key trend: Agglomeration.

Agglomeration describes the clustering effect which integration and specialisation have induced across many regions of the EU. Sectoral clustering can be seen in regions such as Canary Wharf in London, home to world-leading financial and legal services companies. Many firms from a sector will co-locate with their peers for reason of synergy.

A ready pool of skilled labour, economies of scale, proximity to their markets and cost linkages all pull firms closer together. EU integration has generated a snowballing effect for agglomeration, where we now see a host of industrial activities contained in core regions at the expense of peripheral regions.

EU regional policy needs to be kept under constant review in order to avoid further regional divergence. Does it really matter if peripheral regions go to the wall as long as core regions continue to prosper? In Ireland, it seems that ‘All roads lead to Dublin’ - but what about the rest of the country.

One-third of the current EU budget is allocated to cohesion policy, and with good reason. Closing the gap between core and peripheral regions is vital to European stability, especially with the additional entry of new member states.

“ EU integration has generated a snowballing effect for agglomeration, where we now see a host of industrial activities contained in core regions at the expense of peripheral regions.

The increasing disparity between regions is not only an economic issue but also impacts on political and social aspects of the Community. The global financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent Eurozone crisis from 2010 onwards saw the roll-out of austerity policies across many struggling countries, in the core and peripheral regions alike. Many argue that this burden of austerity, prolonged for many years following the emergence and peak of the recession in European nations, was a key factor in the simultaneous rise of Euroscepticism. A recent rise in populist politics and radical nationalism within the EU has led to divisions among the Union’s population, both at national and international level.

A sense of disenfranchisement has come to the fore, with perceived inequalities on both sides. One only had to look to Catalonia to see tens of thousands marching in the streets, demanding independence and claiming to be tired of supporting the poorer regions of Spain. Even more dramatically, Euroscepticism in Britain has given way to the infamous Article 50 and BREXIT negotiations and has also shed light on highly contentious issues like migration policy, UK-Irish relations (i.e. the Border issue), questions of identity and a legacy of imperialism.

Is it possible that the future of Europe lies in the balance? It may just be that the era of integration is waning, with ‘disintegration’ gaining momentum. The European Union’s ‘Big 5’ institutions are at the centre of EU politics and decisionmaking – notably, they are all located in the core region too.

The European Council, European Commission, and Council of Ministers are all based in Brussels, while the European Court and Parliament are based in Luxembourg and Strasbourg.

This Core is responsible for devising strategies and responses to unfolding European affairs. To date, the EU has taken a hard line in its response to anti-EU movements across countries.

Negotiations between the UK and the European Commission have been scrupulous, with each party struggling to come to any form of agreement. Throughout the two-year Brexit process, the EU has remained consistent and unified in its stance on the UK’s departure – it cannot afford to allow the basic principles, values and mechanisms that its founding fathers put in place to be undermined, and will not operate on Britain’s terms. Thus, the EU’s response to recent challenges has been a unified, consistent and coherent one. Emphasising that there is strength in unity and its core values will not be compromised. However, this concept of unity must go handin-hand with inclusion.

It is time that the peripheral regions were drawn closer to the heart of Europe. This will be to everyone’s benefit. It is vital to Europe’s future, given that disenfranchisement and a sensation of being ‘forgotten in Brussels’ played a central role in many key EU issues today. Regional policy focused on reducing disparity while maintaining diversity is the need of the hour.

Shona Egan is an SS Economics and Geography student with a passion for sustainable fashion, politics, pastries and coffee.

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Note: problematic political moves are more noticeable on a wet winter’s day Vienna, December 2017, and Paris, December 2018

by Stacy Wrenn

IF YOU GO TO VIENNA // The streets are empty and no staff are present behind the fences blocking your way. They could be for building safety, or they could be for the safety of the far-right politicians whose swearing in ceremony you witnessed antifascists protesting the day before.

Main entrance of the parliament building in Rathausplatz.

Museums and galleries gain greater attraction, and in them you find yourself surrounded by mountains of silver and gold with brief notes explaining how they only used them on special occasions, and that on a daily basis they preferred to use the porcelain. You are then guided through multiple rooms of elaborate porcelain.

Partial display of silverware collection in Hofburg Palace.

The rain forces you to seek shelter in covered walkways rather than stroll through flowerfilled parks full of colour. In such walkways you are confronted with the stark contrast between the grandeur that the architecture exudes, and the economic reality of the city you are passing through.

Neo-baroque arcaded footpath in Rathausplatz.

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IF YOU GO TO PARIS // On a Friday afternoon you will find people from across the city queuing for chawarma before the Jewish patisseries close for Shabbat. Most are post-war establishments, and the memorial to those who helped Jewish families flee during WWII is around the corner - but most people’s minds are on the chawarma.

Kosher bakery and restaurant in Le Marais.

To avoid long waits, the Louvre’s website recommends you get your ticket at the Carousel entrance, which brings you through the Louvre’s designer shopping mall. Libertas looks down at you through the glare of high-quality Christmas lights.

Christmas in the Louvre shopping mall.

Street sign of Rue de Francs-Bourgeois.

In 1415, a noble called le Mazurier offered the Chief Prior of France a huge private mansion with 24 bedrooms to receive 48 poor people.

These people were so poor that they didn’t pay the taxes of the city, and were called francs-bourgeois. You will find it is now one of the trendiest shopping streets in Paris.

All photographs were taken by the author.

Stacy Wrenn is an SS Jewish and Islamic Civilisations student whose research focuses on the EU border regime.

19

The seven types of hostel backpackers

by Alanna MacNamee You’ve made it; the plasticky blue seats of the plane and the wailing of a toddler throughout the entire flight are all a distant memory now. So is the nine euro you handed over, heavy-hearted, to an unsmiling flight attendant for a gin and tonic. You have managed to navigate your way from an airport in the middle of nowhere to something approximating the city centre. Now you are in your hostel, where you will rest your weary bones after long days and nights soaking up the local culture. Despite choosing this one for its ‘truly local nature’, you’re surrounded by the same types of travellers you will find in any hostel, anywhere. I am talking, of course, of the seven types of people you will invariably meet in a Backpacker Hostel.

“ Proudly sporting matching football jerseys and with an aversion to sun cream that will result in a collective, painful redness about the ears and nose, these travel largely in a pack...

The Over-enthusiastic Traveller The over-enthusiastic traveller can be found clutching a dog-eared copy of Lonely Planet or some equally heinous guide book. They wake up not, as you do, at around midday when a hostel worker comes in to strip the beds and unclog the long black hairs that are not yours from the shared shower.

No, the Over-enthusiastic traveller has woken early enough to attend not one but three walking tours, sample the local cuisine at an artisan market and somehow tick off at least four major landmarks before their mid-afternoon aperitif. They will loudly proclaim how wonderful everything is, and they will know how to say ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘I am American, but my ancestors came from here!’ in the local language.

Illustration by Camille Devaney

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The Lads on Tour On the opposite end of the spectrum are The Lads On Tour.

Ah, The Lads. You know them well. You probably went to secondary school with them. Proudly sporting matching football jerseys and with an aversion to sun cream that will result in a collective, painful redness about the ears and nose, they travel largely in packs and tend to accessorise their outfits with a cut-price bottle of local beer. Commonly used phrases include “Pour more, por favor” and “What happens on tour, stays on tour”, and it is likely that their time in the hostel will not pass without a number of unfortunate incidents relating to various bodily fluids. Their favourite destinations include Amsterdam, Bangkok and Barcelona.

The Old Guy As you age, the humble hostel becomes an undesirable place to spend your annual fortnight of freedom from selling your soul to the corporate evils of late capitalism. You opt, instead, for a chi-chi boutique hotel, a chic Airbnb in a cute neighbourhood. But, this holiday upgrade does not happen to quite everyone. No, always, without fail, there will be the old guy in your hostel. A guy who’s not quite got the memo, a guy who sits alongside Dutch teenagers, not understanding their pop culture references and trying to invite himself along to the club that night. He will wear a band t-shirt; Joy Division, perhaps. He will play the guitar and have a beard.

You will feel vaguely guilty for being ageist until he confesses to not understanding the word ‘woke’ and asks you to follow him on Twitter. That, or he will creep you out by attempting to seduce someone who was legitimately born after the release of the first Shrek film.

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Couple Similarly problematic is the couple. Maybe this is just me but my idea of a romantic getaway does not involve sharing a room with sixteen other people, almost as many wet towels, three discarded packets of cool original Doritos and a 70cl bottle of almost-finished vodka. And yet, it must surely be an attractive proposition to some couples, because why else is the annoying couple a staple of every hostel? Why must we be subjected to the nail-biting fear that they are getting intimate behind strategically hung towels and that might just cause an already precarious and fragile bed frame to collapse entirely? Why must this pair sit gazing into one another’s eyes while the rest of us, sad and lonely and eating Pot Noodle for the fourth day in a row, look disconsolately on? Have these people never seen The Holiday? There is time and a place for real and lasting true holiday love. That place is not a hostel in the dodgy part of Bogotá.

The Free Spirit Harem pants. An elephant tattoo. Dreadlocks, perhaps.

Walking barefoot around a hostel of indeterminate cleanliness, amid billowing clouds of marijuana smoke. Oh yes, it’s that mainstay of hostel living, the free spirit. A selfdesignated ‘traveller’, not tourist, who has more than likely set off on an adventure to “find themselves”. The free spirit will pointedly eschew the city’s main tourist attractions, preferring to sit around the hostel all day, occasionally strumming on a beat-up guitar and telling anyone who will listen about their transcendental experience on Ayahuasca.

The male specimen is often something of a Lothario: think Eyal from Love Island.

Good-Looking Foreign Ones By day three of your trip, you are a mess. Your pale Irish skin is cracked and burned. Your hair is struggling without the many styling products you employ back home. The dressy outfits you carefully picked out are at odds with the local preference for understated, casual dressing. You look objectively bad.

The good-looking foreign ones - olive-skinned Italians or healthy-looking Germans - swan around looking effortlessly amazing. You watch, wistfully, from afar as they come back from running around temples in oppressive heat or getting wrecked in a Chupito bar looking equally amazing. You wonder how they manage this in a room with one shower between twelve, a dearth of sockets and just one small, smudged mirror.

The Posh One ‘Community vibe’ aside, the reason so many of us rest our bones in hostels the world over is because we simply don’t have the financial option of staying in a hotel complete with an infinity pool and a well-stocked minibar. However, for the posh one, more often than not, this individual is on a ‘gap yah’, either before or after college, during which they have decided to slum it. The posh one will pretend to be as broke as the rest of us and will adopt a regional accent to try and blend in. They will wear athleisure and Fila trainers and loudly proclaim their love for Jeremy Corbyn, even though their parents voted to leave in the Brexit referendum. A subset of the Posh One is the Basic Bitch Blogger, who will wear a full face of makeup in thirty-degree heat and spend hours in the furthest corner of the hostel, MacBook Air hooked up to the one socket the rest of us have wanted to use for the last hour and a half. You will be full of disdain for her until discovering that this gal has 100k Insta followers.

“ The posh one will pretend to be as broke as the rest of us, and they will adopt a regional accent to try and better blend in. They will wear athleisure and Fila trainers and loudly proclaim their love for Jeremy Corbyn...

So there you have it, a definitive list of the types of people you are likely to encounter the next time you stay in one of the good, the bad or the ugly of the world’s many hostels.

Alanna MacNamee is an SS English student and regular Frontier contributor who enjoys the weird and wonderful side of travel, and appreciates a glass of sangria (or three…)

21

A guide to Ukraine

by Elana Kiley Fresh snow crunched underneath our boots as we trekked through the woods, avoiding the steep and treacherously iced pathway: the Beast From The East was in full force, with temperatures plummeting to -15C at night. But the grumbling fell away from my lips as I crested Castle Hill and gazed, open-mouthed, at the city of Lviv, sprawling below a perfect icy blue sky. Frost rimmed the golden spires of its many churches, glittering in the afternoon sunlight; the silence was broken only by my panting breath and the sound of the Ukrainian flag fluttering in the background.

Lviv is often called the most European city in Ukraine, nestled as it is so close to the Polish border, and having changed hands so many times in its history: from Poland, Lithuania, Austria-Hungary, Poland again, the USSR and finally to an independent Ukraine. Dilapidated, Soviet-era trams shudder past gorgeous and colourful architecture. The old city centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and you could spend days wandering its charming cobblestoned streets; past endless quirky bars and along pretty alleyways that open into courtyard gardens.

always find vegetarian and vegan options and gorge on mushroom dumplings, borscht, and potato pancakes with sour cream. Every morning we stop at Lviv Croissants for double espressos and filled croissants. For a healthier option, the Green Art Café is worth a visit for some vegan burgers and falafel wraps. Those on a budget should seek out Puzata Khata, a chain of cafeteriastyle buffet restaurants where you can stuff yourself with authentic Ukrainian food for the equivalent of €1.50 per head.

Lviv is also a suitable jumping-off point to explore the rest of the beautiful country. Head south for monasteries and hikes in the Carpathians in the summertime, or watch the countryside roll past as you take a train eastward to the capital Kiev, where Soviet tower blocks and socialist architecture jostle side-by-side with onion-domed cathedrals and Orthodox cave monasteries. The iconic Motherland Monument gazes proudly down at her city, holding sword and shield aloft – take the time to walk a few kilometres towards her, as the park on the banks of the Dniester houses a haunting monument to the Holodomor victims, a microminiatures museum and several beautiful churches. Get off the metro at Arsenalna, the world’s deepest underground metro station (which doubles as a Cold War bomb shelter), and enjoy the dizzying five-minute escalator ride to the exit.

Adventure seekers and lovers of all things creepy, take note, from Kiev you can take a day trip to Chernobyl and wander the abandoned workers’ town of Pripyat. Nature has completely retaken the town and it feels like walking through

The nightlife is excellent here, my favourite place by far being Kryivka, a fun ‘secret bar’ on Ploshcha Rynok. Knock on an unassuming wooden door and the guard will open a small peephole to demand the password, Slava Ukraini (or “glory to Ukraine”), which is rewarded with entrance and a shot of mead. Stone stairs lead down to a restaurant/beer hall hybrid styled like a WWII bunker, with an air rifle shooting range in the back filled with targets bearing the image of Vladimir Putin. Other bars of note include Libraria, an admittedlypretentious cocktail speakeasy hidden behind a bookcase and Beer Theatre, with dozens of delicious craft beers on tap.

Ukrainian food is hearty and perfect for cold weather, revolving around pork, dairy, and potatoes. However, you

22

TRAVEL

the end of the world. Additionally, if you get tired of opera houses and sightseeing, it’s possible to explore some of the 2,500 km of catacombs that snake beneath the city of Odessa on the Black Sea. These excursions are not officially endorsed, but with the aid of a local friend, we squeezed through a narrow entrance and scrambled down a scree path into the cave complex, twisting past stalactites as the air grew warm and humid.

After some half an hour venturing deeper and deeper, we found 70-year-old graffiti left by the guerrilla fighters who sheltered here, open areas where the mine workers slept, and eerie modern-day shrines of animal skulls and dead flowers. class berth on the Kiev to Odessa fast sleeper is €15, half that for third-class. A sit-down meal starts at €5 and, perhaps the most important metric, decent local beer is 60c.

Thoroughly terrified, a swift exit from Odessa is possible with regular buses to Chisinau. Steady your nerves with some tasty Moldovan wine and brandy, continue to Bucharest and if you crave more adventure then explore Transnistria.

Getting to Ukraine is easy, with direct flights between Dublin and Kiev, as well as frequent buses and trains to Lviv from Krakow, Budapest and many more European cities. Some English is spoken in tourist regions, but basic Russian will stand you in good stead in most of the country, except for Lviv and surrounding regions in Western Ukraine where Ukrainian (the official national language) is vastly preferred.

A euro is equal to about 30 Ukrainian Hryvnia, and the whole country is amazing value for a budget traveller. Dorm rooms in a hotel start at €3 per night, while private double rooms in mid-range hotels will set you back around €10. A second-

Elana Kiley is a JF PPES student who took a gap year to work and travel that accidentally turned into six.

All photographs were taken by the author.

23

TRAVEL

The descent felt a lot like falling

by Dean Hayes About half an hour from the Italian border sits an Austrian town called Lienz. It spreads itself modestly within the generous surroundings of an otherwise sparse valley, hemmed in on all sides by implausibly huge mountains. I cannot overstate how large they are. Log into Twitter and search for one of those videos that shows what it would look like if Saturn were as close to Earth as the moon is. They arouse some sort of primal terror in me, those videos; make me feel like a medieval sailor faced with a tsunami. The Alps didn’t quite terrify me, upon first sight, but they did give me that same sense of incomprehensible awe; a mild pantheistic revelation tinged with a disquieting awareness of my own vulnerability.

I had been living in Vienna for almost two months before venturing beyond its perfectly-manicured squares of verdant grass and impressive columns into the rest of Austria. Der Wasserkopf, they called the city in the aftermath of Austria’s traumatic and reluctant birth; “The Waterhead”. The former royal seat of a sprawling European Empire, its new existence was as the swollen, irrelevant capital of a former German hinterland with a largely rural economy. The region of Tyrol was one of the few former Habsburg lands which the new Republic of Austria was allowed to keep, and it is here that one may come upon, as I did, the valley wherein lies Lienz.

I was staying at the family home of a friend, and it was she who suggested one morning, over breakfast, that we hike the imposing kraken of rock which gouged the sky behind the house. After perhaps five minutes of vague, inarticulate protest, we decided to go (despite my reservations). I bid farewell to the rest of our travelling party and feeling, like Captain Oates, that I may be some time, I took those fateful steps into the abyss.

“There are only three sports,” said Ernest Hemingway, “bullfighting, motor racing and mountaineering. The rest are merely games.” I have never been fond of extreme pursuits.

The sports I enjoy all fall short of Hemingway’s requirement for danger. I am, in other words, a lover of ‘games.’ In this sense, those first hours I spent slowly navigating my way up the prehistoric geography of rural Austria were my first real encounter with sport. Even as I sit and write this now, I can vividly recall how each new bend struck me like a Gorgon’s head. The loosening stones which met each fresh footfall lost any sense of thrill after about three hours in. My legs had become one with the mountain, and I began to believe that the elemental battle between the freezing air and my burning lungs would not end well.

As I rested on the memorial bench to a former town mayor who had perished on those slopes, I realised I was not having the time of my life. It was difficult to appreciate the beauty of the scene whilst simultaneously urging my every sinew incrementally forward. By now the snow was so deep that our already glacial progress had slowed even further. At one point I attempted to plant my foot into it, only to sink thighdeep. The last Kaiser, exiled in Portugal, never missed Vienna more than I did at that moment. I remember this section of the climb felt like navigating a very steep forest, a sort of dream-logic landscape - but mostly I just remember it as a struggle.

Eventually, implausibly, we arrived at the summit. Turning the final bend revealed the sun, hitherto hidden by the thick cover of trees, shining without warmth like an enormous bulb fixed in a faraway firmament. The winding, uneven route we had followed opened up into a series of fields, wallpapered by a vista so awe-inspiring, I felt the millennial disappointment of knowing my Instagram story could never do it justice. The view looked out upon the entire valley, with Lienz below just a tiny cluster of humanity, like some satellite state of heaven.

That moment is the closest I am ever likely to get to the feeling astronauts describe upon seeing Earth from the depths of space. My exhaustion receded, overcome by the exhilaration of achievement. The transcendence of the moment felt earned, and I just sat for a while, remote from language and everything else but the mountain. I felt the need to take something of the moment with me, knowing it would soon fade to the remote land of memory. I breathed deep and slow as if to drink in the vapour stored within the rarefied air, which would, through some miraculous interlude, transubstantiate within me. I noticed a tiny church on a distant slope across the valley. You had to hike there to worship. I thought of the story of the hermits who forced one of their own to be pope; and how he’d eventually abdicated the throne of St. Peter to flee back to solitude. God wasn’t in the city.

The descent felt a lot like falling.

Dean Hayes is an SS English Literature and History student and Sports Editor of Trinity News.

24

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