Trinity Frontier, Issue 4

Politics, Culture and Travel

Issue 4 March 2018

CONTRIBUTIONS ON: FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY, SPAIN, BELGIUM, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, PALESTINE, NEPAL, CHINA, JAPAN, AUSTRALIA & MARS.

Neasa Candon

TREASURER: Tamaki Marumo

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND POLITICS EDITOR: Navika Mehta

SOCIETY AND CULTURE EDITOR: Laura Thomas

TRAVEL EDITOR: Catherine Hearn

PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER: Hannah Rieger

COPY EDITOR: Hester Malin

ONLINE EDITOR: Paul Gorby

DESIGN EDITOR: Carol O’Brien Cover Image: Bruges by Libby Penner

EDITORIAL TEAM

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:

EDITORIAL Welcome to the fourth edition of Trinity Frontier magazine! A student publication founded in 2016, Trinity Frontier has gone from strength to strength in showcasing the best in student journalism and travel writing. In incorporating travel, political and social perspectives into one publication, students are encouraged to take a more holistic view of world events, noticing the social factors at play in an area travelled to, questioning how social and cultural factors shape political movements, crises or decisions, and considering the lived experiences of those affected by certain policies and political decisions. In varying form and content, from political and cultural analysis to travel narratives and tips, we hope to make Trinity Frontier accessible to students of differing writing styles and levels of experience.

We hope you have enjoyed this issue. We would love to hear your feedback, or better yet, your ideas for our next issue! I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank each and every member of the Trinity Frontier team for their hard work and dedication this term, without which the standard and quality of this issue could not have been achieved. Finally, this issue would not have been possible without the support of Trinity Publications; sincere thanks for your guidance and encouragement.

Thanks for reading, Neasa Candon, Editor-in-Chief

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.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND POLITICS 4

Too Soon To Say: The Fight for Corsican Autonomy

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Resolving Grievances in Bosnia

By Paul Gorby

By Francisco Onofre

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Erbfeindschaft wird Freundschaft:The Franco-German Relationship

By Ciaran Sunderland

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Have You Forgotten About Palestine?

CONTENTS

By Hana Efendic

SOCIETY AND CULTURE 17

Sherpa: Bravery and Exploitation at 29,000ft

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Undergraduates Dreaming of Martian Landscapes

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Arab-Norman Sicily

By Hannah McCarthy

By Emily Nolan

By Rosalie Engels

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China: A Country of Contradictions

By Jenny Murphy

TRAVEL 28

Japan: A Good Kind of Weird

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Barcelona Guide (Where to‌)

By Marta Jurczak

By Alanna Macnamee

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Bruges: Medieval Flemish Charm

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Ruminations on the Outback

By Christian Dunne

By Caoimhe Durkan

The TCD Association & Trust The TCD Association and Trust Provides grant support for a wide variety of college projects such as Trinity Frontier. Its committee is made up of Trinity graduates who operate on a volunteer basis. One of the main sources of funding for the TCD Association and Trust comes from the TCD Affinity Credit Card. With over 10,000 cardholders to date, a percentage of the annual turnover on these cards is donated back to the Trust by Bank of Ireland. If you know of anyone who might like to support Trinity College in this way, details of how to apply for a card can be found on the alumni website: www.tcd.ie/alumni/services/affinity-credit-card

IR + POLITICS

TOO SOON TO SAY: THE FIGHT FOR CORSICAN AUTONOMY WORDS BY PAUL GORBY In 1972, the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was reported as claiming that it was ‘too soon to say’ what the effects of the French Revolution would be. The seemingly sage quip has since been shown to be a myth – both the reporter who asked him the question and Enlai himself were referring to the contemporaneous student protests in France. However, at the heart of the ridiculous misunderstanding there is a nugget of wisdom, as we can see in the Corsican controversy currently wracking French politics.

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After years of Eastern European countries splitting apart from the USSR and Yugoslavia, it seems that the 21st century is the era in which Western Europe becomes ever more fragmented.

While Scotland and Catalonia have undoubtedly held the media’s attention the most, smaller secessionist and autonomist movements have gained sway in recent years. One of the most noteworthy of these is the Corsican movement for regional autonomy in France, which won almost 2/3rd seats in regional elections in December.

CORSICA Photo by Elizabeth Bryant for www.dw.com

“Whereas a few decades ago the teaching of Corsu was forbidden in Corsican schools – alongside and directly compared with spitting in official academic guidelines – today over 1/3rd Corsican schoolchildren will be instructed in the language of their forefathers.”

It was during the French Revolution that France

growing nationalist movement on the island

became what was arguably the world’s first nation state and has historically been very opposed to devolution of central state authority. Should an autonomist or even secessionist movement succeed in France, it could prove to be a signal of the impending end of the nation state as we know it.

this threat is only being worsened by the French government. Despite decades of campaigning, the French state has consistently refused to give Corsu any kind of official status on the island.

During his tenure as Prime Minister, Manuel Valls reiterated the Revolutionary dictate that the French Republic has only one language, French, and this idea has continued into the policies of President Macron, who refuses to consider the proposition of co-official status for Corsu on the island.

During the French Revolution, local languages were suppressed in favour of French – all official laws and documents were published in French only, and education would take place exclusively through French. This led to suppression of various local languages and dialects, some of which have only resurfaced in recent decades. Corsu, the native language of Corsica, is one of them, and it is probably the most politically potent of the re-emerging local languages.

Corsu is more like an Italian dialect than a French one, signalling the island’s cultural and historical ties to Italy: the Italian state of Genoa ceded Corsica to France in 1768 in order to help pay off their debts. Corsu is classified by UNESCO as a ‘definitely endangered language’ and for the

Nevertheless, the tide is turning against such views. Whereas a few decades ago the teaching of Corsu was forbidden in Corsican schools – alongside and directly compared with spitting in official academic guidelines – today over 1/3rd Corsican schoolchildren will be instructed in the language of their forefathers. Efforts to save the island’s language from extinction are central to autonomists’ demands, and they are very popular among natives.

Another legacy of the French Revolution which is currently protested in Corsica is that of regional

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IR + POLITICS uniformity. Very early in the Revolution, regional exceptionalism on taxation and fiscal issues was dissolved, however today many Corsicans feel that the current system is exploitative.

Greater regional autonomy on fiscal issues, the autonomists argue, will help to increase Corsica’s currently floundering economic development.

They also wish to see a change in the local property market which currently grants equal access to all French citizens: autonomists see this as unfairly disadvantaging locals, who are on average poorer than the mainland French citizens who buy second homes on the island to use for holidays. If preference could be given to locals, it is argued, the island’s economy would improve and homelessness would decrease.

“Should the autonomists continue to be snubbed so openly in political discourse, there is a serious risk that the violent wing of their movement could come to the fore yet again.”

Demands for greater regional autonomy contradict the founding ideas of the French nation state, and thus have received little attention from the central government in Paris. What little attention has been paid to the Corsican issue has not been cause for optimism among autonomists.

Macron has offered to add a special mention of Corsica in the French constitution, however this is seen in Corsica as a gesture of little substance.

Whenever the President discusses the island he always mentions unity and reconciliation; these are noble goals, but he gives little attention to the actual demands of autonomists. Some consider

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this to be a very dangerous game: nationalists engaged in a campaign of violence from the 1970s that only formally ended in 2014 with the promise of fair dialogue between the island and the capital. Should the autonomists continue to be snubbed so openly in political discourse, there is a serious risk that the violent wing of their movement could come to the fore yet again.

For the moment it is the autonomist wing which dominates local politics in Corsica, and the French government has to negotiate with reasonable politicians making reasonable demands – not for full independence but merely greater regional autonomy. This is a significant opportunity to prevent future violence, as well as to set an example for other European states on how to work with, rather than against, autonomist movements. In a recent survey, 88% of people living in Corsica identified as Corsican, but still over half claimed that French was one of their identities too. The French state has the chance to show that these identities need not be considered mutually exclusive.

However, the Revolutionary nation state model is deeply ingrained in French political consciousness, and dislodging it is no simple task. Nevertheless, as the autonomists push further against the French state and the fear of violence enters the minds of French politicians, this model might begin to rupture in the very place of its birth. Whether this will occur sooner rather than later, and what the impact of such a rupture might be, it remains too soon to say.

Paul Gorby is in final year of History and Political Science, a senior editor at the Social and Political Review, and is fond of knitting, meditating, and doing anything else that lets him procrastinate college work.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA RESOLVING GRIEVANCES IN

BOSNIA WORDS AND PHOTOS BY FRANCISCO ONOFRE In the early 1990s, the former Yugoslavia found itself in the midst of a fratricidal civil war, the scale and horror of which had been unseen on European soil since the Third Reich. In Bosnia, hundreds of thousands were killed and millions fled the genocidal forces spreading across the country. Over twenty years later, many have returned and rebuilt their homes, but justice, resolution, and reckoning still eludes the people of Bosnia.

in the hope of finding their lost relatives. For these people, the wounds and grievances of the 1990s remain painfully present.

Post-conflict grievances can only be resolved through efforts on both warring sides to overcome the past. After Nuremberg, in a unique act of repentance, it was the Germans who built monuments and museums to the Shoah, not the Jews. In Colombia, both FARC and the government have pushed to create a long-lasting peace after

Any visitor to Bosnia notices that its dark past looms inexorably over its people. From north to south, from east to west, houses are riddled with bullet holes. I took the picture to the right of a man walking along the footpath in the old town of Mostar. On the wall across, the holes of the bullets that killed his son in 1992 remain visible.

He passes this spot every day, on his way to work.

The moral, physical, and emotional fallout of the war still hangs in the air. Many mothers who lost sons, brothers, and fathers did not find solace in the ICTY’s meagre attempts at bringing justice to the aggrieved. Despite solid efforts by forensic experts, thousands of people remain unaccounted for in the myriad mass graves dotted around the country. Over 40,000 people are still missing from the war. Many mothers, fathers, sons, husbands, and wives remain faithful

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IR + POLITICS the international community to incriminate them and refuse to accept the status quo of the postYugoslav peace settlements.

The fragile post-Yugoslav settlement is under the serious strain of its failures to provide justice for the people of Bosnia, for both Serbs and Bosnjaks.

Many war criminals still walk free, and with the recent closure of the ICTY, their prosecution will be transferred to national courts. This method is doomed to fail from the outset – in Bosnia, one side’s criminals are the other side’s war heroes. Whatever the verdict of national courts, war criminals prosecution will be politicized to delegitimize the Bosnian judiciary and entrench both sides further.

fifty years and thousands of lives lost. Similarly in Ireland, both unionists and nationalists, tired of relentless fighting, accepted the terms of peace Good Friday Agreements. This is not the case in Bosnia, as peace was not achieved through war exhaustion or any other sort of willingness to repent for war crimes. Rather, the Bosnian Serbs were, in fact, coerced to the negotiation table by intense NATO airstrikes.

Reckoning has not come from the West either, where denial and historic revisionism thrive.

British magazine Living Marxism famously sued ITN over their reporting of the concentration camps, arguing that footage was staged. Noam Chomsky himself, as well as many others mostly left-leaning intellectuals, refused to label Srebrenica a genocide. These have given a voice to the Bosnian Serb narrative of victimization in Western intellectual circles. In fact, many Serbs believe to this day that Srebrenica was staged by

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The problem lies at the basis of the Dayton Agreement of 1995 that put the war to an end. It outlined three equal nations within the state, creating undoubtedly the most complicated political system in the world with a rotational presidency between each of the three autonomous regions. This institutional layout is a lose-lose for both sides; the majority Bosnjaks find themselves under the veto power of minorities like Croats and Serbs, while these minorities remain outside of Serbia and Croatia proper, which they fought hard to join. However, the beauty of this system is that it works. The circumstances of the war in 1995 made it impossible to find an agreement satisfactory to all sides, so a system in which all were unhappy was the best guarantor of peace.

The founding principle of the Bosnian institutional latticework is the idea of moral equivalence – that each side was equally culpable of atrocities.

Factually incorrect (the Bosnjaks suffered disproportionately) but politically necessary for

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA maintaining peace. Moral equivalence is the founding pillar of the ambivalent Bosnian system today. On the one hand, Bosnia remains relatively peaceful; on the other, moral equivalence has fanned the flames of nationalism on all sides by confirming the narratives of victimisation of ethnic entrepreneurs and nationalists, from Islamist Bosnjak President Izetbegović to Serbian war criminal Milošević. Within this fragile balance, peace survives in Bosnia but reconciliation still eludes its people.

Some brave former refugees have returned to the ethnically-cleansed towns. Many found their homes destroyed or occupied by their former persecutors and captors. Cities that had formerly been praised for their peaceful cohabitation of religions had been effectively purged of Bosnjaks, or doomed to division along national lines. The beautiful town of Mostar, the millenary home of Muslims, Jews, and Christians (both Orthodox and Catholic) now finds itself divided between Croats and Bosnjaks – it now has two

hospitals, two universities, and even two football clubs. In northern Bosnia, women are now forced to live alongside their rapists. One particular story of a woman from the Prijedor region struck me; as a prisoner in a concentration camp, she had been repeatedly abused by a prison guard.

Upon returning home after 1995, she found that very same man running the local bakery where she buys her bread every day. Essentially, many Bosnjak families now have as neighbours the same people who cleansed them out years before.

While the armed conflict has ended many years ago in Bosnia, the wounds it opened still have not healed.

Francisco Onofre is a 3rd year History and Political Science student from Portugal with a keen interest in diplomacy and conflict resolution.

- Article previously published on author’s blog: deadparrot288678381.wordpress.com/

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ERBFEINDSCHAFT WIRD FREUNDSCHAFT:

THE FRANCO-GERMAN RELATIONSHIP WORDS BY CIARAN SUNDERLAND The Franco-German Relationship is an extensive epilogue from the 20th century.

However, veteran German Chancellor Angela Merkel and new French President Emmanuelle Macron are drafting a new chapter. With Macron halfway through his first year in office and Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) entering a second coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD)1, this article examines what direction the FrancoGerman relationship will take next and what this means for the European Union.

The Franco-German Engine

“For better or for worse [the Franco-German relationship] is often referred to as the engine of European construction, the motor of European integration.

It is, and it has been central to the European Union. No other country has managed 10

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to dislodge it”, claimed Dr Emmanuelle Schon-Quinlivan, a lecturer in European politics at University College Cork, “The European Union is very much a Franco-German creation and it is very much branded that the relationship is key”.

Along with Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, France and West Germany were the founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) established in 1954. Since then the two partners have advanced the European Project further including the Treaty of Rome, 1957, the European Monetary System in 1979 and the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.

Of late, though, the so-called Franco-Engine has stalled, and Merkel was often left to manage European affairs alone. “If you look over time the partnership is more or less solid and strong”, said Schon-Quinlivan. “But it works more or less well when

the French government and in particular the French President gets on well with the German Chancellor. It works extremely well when there is a similar interest or understanding. You can see it with Merkel who has seen a few French Presidents in her time”.

Merkel and Sarkozy never really developed a relationship and Hollande lacked a vision for Europe according to Schon-Quinlivan. She believes this is different with Macron and Merkel, “You can see a connection between these two characters and therefore the Franco-German duo is back on the forefront of the European discussion”.

If former President Hollande was criticised for a lack of European vision the same could not be said for Emmanuel Macron. Last September the French President gave a 100 minute speech2 at the Sorbonne University outlining

FRANCE-GERMANY his vision for the European Union. Described widely as daring and ambitious 3 the marathon touched on nearly every subject of European society from the economy and education to defence and security cooperation. It was a call for the European Union to reinvent itself in the face of today’s global challenges and an attempt to stem the fragmentation and division of recent years. Most interestingly of all was the call for greater political cooperation. This has been somewhat stalled since the EU’s recent focus on economic affairs and developing the Single Market.

“What I think Macron is pushing for and he needs the support of the Germans is this kind of concentric circle formation of the EU”, SchonQuinlivan says, “Abandoning this idea that we all move forward at the same pace, which is already half dead in terms of participation in the euro, but he wants it formalized with a core concentric circle which pushes further with fiscal integration, budgetary integration, political integration”.

“You would have a second circle around that with countries who don’t want that then”. Quinlivan supposes that the more Eurosceptic member states, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland would sit in this second circle. Although Macron does not mention Brexit in the speech, he does mention

the United Kingdom. SchonQuinlivan believes Macron does not want to aggravate the UK and wants to find a place for countries like the UK or Switzerland. A third circle would be for countries such as this. Sitting on the outer circle, part of the wider circle of the EU giving a formal position to countries that “are on the outside but not fully on the outside”.

This radical reimagining of the EU does not neglect economics. Schon-Quinlivan believes this is where German cooperation really comes in, to reform the European Economic and Monetary Union as well as to develop Macron’s plans for a eurozone finance minister and a European Parliament for the Eurozone. However Macron has not finished making his case on these concerns and both Schultz and Merkel are reticent.

Schultz’s is not keen to form a parliament for the euro zone according to Schon-Quinlivan while neither Merkel nor Schultz are enthusiastic about a Eurozone finance minister.

Schon-Quinlivan notes that, while Wolfgang Schauble, the former German Finance minister and storied eurozone reform sceptic, is out of the way and that opens up more possibilities, the Germans want “rules, they don’t want any politics to muddy the water”.

The program the two partners agree to pursue will depend on the contrast,

preferences and priorities of the two partners. The previously mentioned economic orthodoxy of Germany, that member states get their economic affairs in order before beginning to discuss ambitious European projects.

This factor hampered the Franco-German relationship in recent years, with France consistently failing to reduce its debt, unemployment levels or improve economic growth.

Macron was however elected on a platform to do such matters and although the jury is still out, next year he must make the necessary spending cuts; last summer’s labour reforms, where so many previous French Presidents have failed before, were a promising start.

Foreign Policy and Defence Bilaterally, both countries have pursued closer ties when possible, particularly through defence. “For the first time in some time there is a very positive, very European flavour to French foreign policy” says Professor Ben Tonra, Jean Monnet Professor of European Foreign, Security and Defence policy at University College Dublin (UCD). Tonra notes that, while the French have been eager to advance defence cooperation but usually incrementally and bilaterally, no European international efforts have been attempted since the European Defence

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IR + POLITICS Community (EDC) in the 1950s.

Tonra believes this has changed immensely with Macron’s election and his program for EU development in this area.

Tonra does, however, point out that, although Macron is very forthcoming with suggestions and policy ideas, “popping up and making interesting suggestions on lots of different issues”, he is yet to “really sit down and do some hard graft in terms of policy development”. The issue of Germany’s fragmented election results4 and Merkel’s struggles to form a government

Martin Schultz has made his preferences clear for European Union reform, Merkel may revert to her “traditional middle wary ground on Europe”, alternating between intergovernmental and supranational positions.

“How that shapes up in terms of coalition agreement will be fascinating. If the SPD in the negotiations hold to their pro EU agenda, then that will be very interesting in the relations between France and Germany”.

Macron will have to continue to develop the partnership if he wants to achieve the aims of his European vision.

Council and a nuclear deterrent.

This opens further possibilities.

Cultural Reconciliation Last month Macron and Merkel met at the Élysée Palace in Paris to deepen bilateral ties between France and Germany5. The occasion was the renewal of the Élysée treaty first signed by President De Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer 55 years ago. This friendship treaty signified the end of a bitter, centuries-old rivalry. Since this determined commitment to cooperation,

“Last month Macron and Merkel met at the Élysée Palace in Paris to deepen bilateral ties between France and Germany.

The occasion was the renewal of the Élysée treaty first signed by President De Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer 55 years ago. This friendship treaty signified the end of a bitter, centuries-old rivalry.” are acknowledged as part of this lack of policy design. Now that Merkel has succeeded in forming a new coalition, Tonra anticipates further defence policy developments, led by a “very positive spin” from a Paris and a “more reluctant agreement coming out of Germany”.

Tonra identifies another difference between the two partner states, or even the two leaders. Are the French President and German Chancellor on the same page?

While Merkel has been open to engagement on European issues and the SPD’s leader

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Tonra further believes that scepticism of NATO commitments and Britain’s decision to leave the EU established by American President Donald Trump also provides scope for further defence and foreign policy coordination. Traditionally, while Britain has been open to greater defence coordination, they have always resisted deeper defence integration at a European level, preferring to maintain their position in NATO. With their decision to leave, France remains the only major military power in the EU with a seat on the U.N. Security

French and German heads of state have strived to maintain close relations. The renewal of the Treaty between France and Germany has been revised further to reflect the “new partnership” between the two neighbours that Macron identified in a speech given about Macron’s EU vision at the Sorbonne last September 6.

This friendship and partnership between two former belligerent and bellicose neighbours is a remarkable achievement, especially when examining the cultural identity and political conception of Germany by the

FRANCE-GERMANY Romantics. Jürgen Barkhoff is a Professor of German (1776) at the Department of Germanic Studies, Trinity College Dublin.

He quotes a verse from a popular German nationalist song by Ernst Moritz Arndt from the 19th century to demonstrate this, “Das ist das Deutsche Vaterland, Wo Zorn vertilgt den wälschen Tand, Wo jeder Franzmann heißet Feind, Wo jeder Deutsche heißet Freund, Das soll es sein! Das ganze Deutschland soll es sein!”

This translates to: ‘The German fatherland is a country where every German is named friend and every Frenchman is named foe’. The antagonistic rejection of France that intrinsically united Germans during the Napoleonic occupation of the Germanic States is often conveyed through poetry and songs such as this. Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland is a prime example of the cultural formation of German unity in opposition to the French. Barkhoff explains how the song begins with a “neutral cultural prescriptive” of the various German regions and

“The relationship is testament to seemingly intractable hostile relations that can be overcome and completely transformed.” lauds the German language, to “a highly politically charged, normative, antagonistic, political definition”. The song, by answer to the question, “What makes a real German?”, declares “He hates the French.”

After German Unification, the conflict that followed between the two states in the Franco-Prussian War, WW1 and WW2 were the most destructive and destabilizing Europe had ever seen. The reconciliation attempts afterwards were welcomed across generations.

Partnerships like the FrancoGerman relationship are not unique in Europe, and Barkhoff remarks how “every family, every city, every political entity, every country is so much influenced by their neighbours and their network of exchange,

economic, cultural, of people in Europe”.

This complexity of relations and shared experience lay bare the falseness of the Romantic construction of Germany, the rejection of France, the notion of cultural superiority.

“The most enduring and most famous example of that are the Grimm fairy tales”, Barkhoff finishes. Popularized to a mass modern audience by Disney, the Grimm Fairy tales are a common Germanic association, although “the research has shown that a large proportion of the Grimm Fairy tales are of French origin”.

Perhaps there is yet more to be shared between France and Germany. The relationship is testament to seemingly intractable hostile relations that can be overcome and completely transformed. It will, however, be interesting to see whether the relationship is capable of accomplishing the same integration measures in the 21st Century. The European Union is larger and now more voices clamour to be heard.

Ciaran Sunderland is studying 3rd Year Single Honours History, and is interested in all things Europe.

4. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/

1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/07/

bundestagswahl-2017-alle-ergebnisse-im-

germany-coalition-deal-cdu-spd-angela-merkel-martin-schulz

ueberblick-a-1167247.html

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/world/europe/

5. https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-emmanuel-

france-macron-european-union-reforms.html

macron-pledge-to-drive-forward-european-reform/

3. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/

6. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/26/

french-president-macron-outlines-ambitious-plan-for-

profound-transformation-macron-lays-out-vision-for-post-

europe-1.3234938

brexit-eu

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HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN ABOUT

PALESTINE? WORDS BY HANA EFENDIC

The story of Palestine and its people has, for a lot of people, the conclusion drawn is that, for approximately a century now, been one of the many years now, something unsettling has been biggest examples of injustice, oppression, and hidden under the surface, something that calls acts of evil that a group of people has faced. for clarification as to what has happened, and is The circumstances remain largely unchanged presently happening, to Palestine. and the prospect of justice being restored is According to the UN, Israel has been drifting further and further away from reality. condemned as an apartheid state meaning that The treatment of the Palestinian people, the it is guilty of infringing upon the life, liberty, expulsion from their homes, and the massacres and civil rights of the Palestinians, adopting they have experienced can be traced back to the legislation that restricts their involvement in end of the 19th century where the ideology of political, economic, and cultural affairs, whilst Zionism emerged, its goal also subjecting them to “What followed this is being to expel the native torture. Israel’s activities Arabs, take their land, have been compared to historically known as the and create a Jewish state Nakba, the Arabic term for those of the apartheid in a place where only 4% catastrophe, as 700,000 state of South Africa in of the population were of the 20th century. Hendrik Palestinians were forced this religion. The source of Verwoerd, the South from their homes and over strife for Palestinian land African prime minister in has been neglected by 350 villages were ethnically the 1960s addressed that the media, and our school cleansed and destroyed.” “the Jews took Israel from textbooks which makes it the Arabs after the Arabs no surprise that people have questioned recent had lived there for a thousand years, Israel, like developments on the issue such as the reason South Africa, is an apartheid state”1. There are for the uproar regarding Trump’s decision to three stark differences between the regimes, name Jerusalem the capital of Israel and about two of which have been described by Mondli the fate of the 17 year old, Ahed Tamimi, who Makhanya and Ben White, respectively. First, that is currently being imprisoned for standing up the whites in South Africa did not want the blacks to a representative of the oppressing side. For to disappear whereas this was and is the desire of

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PALESTINE

Photo by Pere Albiac/FLICKR/ CC BY-NC-SA2.0

Israelis for the Palestinians. Secondly, that settlers in South Africa exploited the labour power of the blacks but in the Israeli case, the native population was “eliminated; exterminated or expelled rather than exploited�2. The third difference is that apartheid in South Africa was abolished whereas in Israel, it still happens to be an everyday phenomenon for its inhabitants.

The motivation for founding Israel as a Jewish state began with the onset of the Zionist movement in the 1890s, instigated by Theodor Herzl who believed that taking over the land in Palestine would be a solution to the antiSemitism of Europe. Something that started

against by the new settlers. In 1947, 33 out of 56 UN states voted for partition in Palestine even though more than two-thirds of the population were native Arabs and owned almost 93% of the territory. The Zionists saw that the only way to claim the land which they had been granted was through ethnic cleansing i.e. physically removing the people of Palestine as guaranteed by BenGurion, the Prime Minister of Israel at the time.

What followed this is historically known as the Nakba, the Arabic term for catastrophe, as 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes and over 350 villages were ethnically cleansed and destroyed. Places such as Lydda (renamed Lod)

off as a thought soon became reality once the Jewish National Fund was set up in 1901 to acquire Palestinian land solely for Jewish settlers,

where the population of Palestinians was 98% were entirely seized by Israeli troops and became Jewish settlements, dismissing any hope that the

and when Britain supported the creation of such settlements within the region. Palestinians that had worked on the land prior to Jews purchasing it became homeless and were discriminated

former inhabitants could return one day. Many Palestinians left their houses in fear, whilst those without this option were killed regardless of their age. In 1967, another Nakba occurred, whereby

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Something can and must be done to change it, in order to ensure that current Palestinian territories are protected, and that this land does not continue to be lost to the point of extinction.

To help support the cause of Palestine one can participate and put pressure on governments to take action, avoid the purchasing of Israeli goods that profit from apartheid, get involved in the BDS movement or simply raise awareness. There is nothing worse than being a silent spectator to injustice when all that is required is a voice to end it, because continuing this would mean that we have truly forgotten about Palestine and, as such are complicit in its destruction.

To get more engaged in this issue one can get involved in TCD Students for Justice in Palestine or the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign- IPSC. Hana Efendic is a 2nd year Economics and Political Science student who likes to read, and dream of making the world a little bit better.

1. Hendrik Verwoerd cited in IIan Pape (2015) Israel and

South Africa 2. Ben White (2009) Israeli- Apartheid, a beginner’s

guide

Photo by Pere Albiac/FLICKR/ CC BY-NC-SA2.0

over 400,000 people were expelled from Gaza and the West Bank, proving that the land once owned by Palestinians has diminished severely over time. 87% of Palestinians who once lived in what is now known as Israel are gone, and the ones that have remained live in inhumane conditions. Palestinians in Gaza survive on only two hours of power a day and a supply of water which the UN predicts will deplete by 2020.

In the space of eight years from 2000 to 2008, 5100 Palestinians have been killed and a wall has been built creating a barrier between East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice. Journalist Ben White has written that the number of Palestinians that have died equates to 120 ‘9/11s’, which in itself shows how unjustified the treatment of the Palestinian nation has been.

The question we must ask one another is why this situation has been allowed to continue?

Why have suffering and oppression become institutionalised and normalised to the extent that we live with it every day? It should also make us question the power of international organisations and countries who have the resources to put an end to the brutality, yet appear unwilling to do so. But what these questions can make us come to realise is that morality does not lie at the core of what we do, from whom we buy our goods, and compete with in tournaments because if it did, then this problem would not have become the nightmare it is with its unforgettable consequences. The military aid that the Israeli state receives worsens the situation, such as the $38 billion donated by Obama in 2016 and the perception of Arabs in the media which turns our attention even further away from the fate of the Palestinians.

The story of Palestine is a truth that is difficult to swallow, but one that must not be tolerated.

NEPAL

SHERPA:

BRAVERY AND EXPLOITATION AT 29,000FT WORDS BY HANNAH MCCARTHY The Sherpa people, native to the Himalayan region, are one of the most remarkable ethnic groups in the world. Yet, too often, they are glanced over in favour of the achievements of the clients they guide; a mere footnote in the annals of Western mountaineering.

Most of us, when asked what we know about Sherpas, will reply that they are skilled mountaineers, helping ambitious climbers to scale extreme-altitude peaks such as Mount Everest – the mountain known to the Sherpa as ‘Chomolungma’, meaning ‘Mother Goddess of the World’. Some may even be able to name Tenzing Norgay, who, along with Edmund Hillary, made the first ever recorded successful climb of Everest in 1953.

Yet behind the image we all have of the smiling, patient Sherpa guide epitomised by Norgay, there is a fascinating and complex story of incredible athleticism and bravery – but it is a story darkened by increasing exploitation.

The obsession with climbing mountains isn’t a Sherpa thing. To them, many of the Himalayan peaks are sacred, to be respected and appeased rather than clambered over. However, they

are incredibly good at mountaineering. Their superhuman reputation is well-deserved and recently backed up by science: a 1976 American study by Morpurgo et al. showed that, from thousands of years living and working at extremely high altitudes, the Sherpa people have genetically adapted to survive in low oxygen – with doubled nitric oxide production, haemoglobin-binding enzymes and more efficient lungs than those of us who live closer to sea level. This adaption plays a huge part in the Sherpas’ role as elite climbers. They climb faster and easier than everyone else, and require less supplemental oxygen to do so.

“The Sherpa people have genetically adapted to survive in low oxygen ...they climb faster and easier than everyone else, and require less supplemental oxygen to do so.”

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SOCIETY + CULTURE Photo by Kiiril Rusev/FLICKR/CC BY-SA2.0

Commercial climbing companies have utilized this remarkable adaptation well. Most will employ porters, both Sherpas and members of other ethnic groups, to carry enormous loads of equipment and supplies for their clients to campsites, even as far as Everest Base Camp.

However, nearly all of the climbers who go with these clients further on to the higher camps or the summit are Sherpas.

These men make several trips up and down the mountain before it’s even ‘officially’ open for business; setting up ropes for climbers to pull themselves up with in the more difficult sections and stashing oxygen bottles on the higher ridges for when the air gets too thin to breathe properly.

They also carry equipment and even make tea and bring hot towels to the tents in the morning - all so that the clients they are escorting can concentrate on making it to the summit and back alive.

In short, most expeditions would be impossible without Sherpa guides.

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It’s a dangerous job. Sherpas make more ascents of Everest and other high-altitude Himalayan mountains than anyone else. These extreme altitudes are inherently hostile to human life. Plotting out the trail for clients is no easy task, and it’s entirely too easy to slip and fall hundreds of feet, or to succumb to deadly altitude sickness.

The maze of creaking crevasses and towering blocks of ice known as the Khumbu icefall, not far from Base Camp, is widely considered one of the most dangerous parts of the Everest climb, where a single misstep or sudden collapse of ice can and has resulted in instant death. All climbers attempting to summit Everest from its south side must pass through the icefall several times – but the Sherpas have to do it up to thirty times a season, picking their way carefully across the shifting ice to lay out ladders and ropes for the clients to use in their own crossings.

Statistically, being a Sherpa climbing guide is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. In 2014, sixteen men were killed in an avalanche in

NEPAL the Khumbu icefall as they were setting out that climbing season’s route – all of them Sherpas. The Sherpa community refused to work on Everest for the rest of the season out of respect, and in protest.

A year later, ten more were killed after another avalanche, triggered by the earthquake of 2015.

As the years have gone by, and with Everest expeditions becoming increasingly more commercialised, such disasters have done nothing to halt the growing tension between the Sherpas and their Western clients. In 2012, a highly-publicised brawl broke out at Camp II, between a large group of Sherpas and three well-known Western climbers who had allegedly ignored the Sherpas’ request to stay off the 3690ft Lhotse face – a necessary part of the ascent - while the guides were working to set ropes up on it.

Tensions are exacerbated by the fact that, while earning the equivalent of $4,000-$5,000 a

“In 2012, a highlypublicised brawl broke out at Camp II, between a large group of Sherpas and three well-known Western climbers who had allegedly ignored the Sherpas’ request to stay off the 3690ft Lhotse face – a necessary part of the ascent - while the guides were working to set ropes up on it.”

season, and, thus, ten times the average national wage in Nepal, the Sherpas’ salary pales in comparison to the salaries of Western expedition leaders, who can earn up to $50,000. And that’s not even mentioning the millions of dollars the Nepalese government makes through selling obligatory climbing permits. To top it all off, government compensation for the families of Sherpas killed on the job are slow in coming, and usually amount to very little, usually just enough to cover funeral costs.

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were often pestered by reporters to name which one of them had ‘officially’ set foot on the summit first. They refused, insisting that it didn’t matter - they had reached the summit as a team. Hillary went on to help build hundreds of schools and hospitals across Nepal as a mark of respect and gratefulness to the Sherpa people.

In 2002, on the fiftieth anniversary of that first successful climb, Peter Hillary and Jamling Tenzing Norgay – the sons of the original HillaryNorgay team – followed in their fathers’ footsteps and climbed Everest together in a touching tribute. But a lot has changed in the fifty years since their fathers took those last few historic steps, and that sense of camaraderie between Sherpa and climber may soon be in danger of being lost to the history books.

Hannah McCarthy is a Junior Sophister European Studies student currently on Erasmus in Seville, where she is slowly getting to grips with the Andalusian accent and falling in love with Spain.

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SOCIETY + CULTURE

UNDERGRADUATES DREAMING OF

MARTIAN

LANDSCAPES WORDS AND PHOTOS BY EMILY NOLAN

As the winter draws to a close, the undergraduate students involved in the Mars Desert Research Crew-185 have been reviewing the results and unpacking the equipment returned to Trinity College, Dublin.

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MARS The mission was completed by the Mars Desert Research Crew 185 from the 13th – 31st December in an isolated research base in the Utah Desert. The landscape surrounding the research facility is a geologic analogue for the Martian surface – it’s an ideal location to run trial missions. A rotating team of scientists and engineers spend a full eight months in the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) conducting field work, as it would be done during the Mars mission. The facility was established in 2001 by the Mars Society, as a volunteer-led research base with the aim of furthering human exploration of the Red Planet.

In preparation for each field season, the Mars Society invites students, graduates and working professionals to submit proposals for field research to be conducted onsite by a selected MDRS Crew. Crew 185 conducted the first ever experiments to be designed by an Irish undergraduate cohort. The team was made up of seven Junior Sophister Trinity students who prepared their work under the guidance of Dr. Bourke, a Fellow of Trinity who is involved in a number of ongoing NASA-funded research projects. ‘’What’s amazing about this project is that it demonstrates the abilities of the highly motivated undergraduate cohort in Trinity. The team has shown endless passion and creativity for the project despite the fact that they receive no course accreditation for such extra-curricular work,” Dr. Bourke said of the group of students she is guiding through the process. She continued: “The different approach to learning has provided a platform for the students to actively utilise their skills and knowledge of planetary geomorphology in a real world environment’’.

The students submitted two experiments to the MDRS. One experiment, submitted by the

aptly named team ‘Gone with the Wind’, was designed to test the rate of transport of sediment of various densities in the locale of the MDRS. The team was led by Nancy Williams and joined

by Sorcha O’Carolan Murphy and Sarah Fisher.

The second team, dubbed ‘MARV’, proposed an experiment that could be used to evaluate the responses of a vehicle with increased sample loads over various terrain types, in order to produce a hazard map for the study area. This team was led by Lucie Delobel, in cooperation with Liza Jabbour and Emily Nolan.

The moment of truth has arrived for the budding planetary scientists after weeks of waiting in anticipation for the fruits of their labor.

Dr Cinelli, the Mission Commander for Crew 185 shared the results of the experiments with the teams on the 10th January 2018. As any scientist knows, it is rare that an experiment goes wholly

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SOCIETY + CULTURE “I have learned more in the space of three weeks, from the acceptance of our research project to the sending of our equipment to the MDRS in Utah, than I usually do over an entire college year!” smoothly. When a crew is in an isolated location such as the Utah desert (or Mars!), the options for correcting issues are often extremely limited. This experiment was no exception.

The experiment designed by MARV encountered difficulties with the carrying capacity of the rover in use. During the mission, the experiment couldn’t be completed as the crew decided that attempting to drive the rover with a load that was deemed beyond its carrying capacity would pose a risk to the driver.

MARV decided that if they were to repeat this experiment it would require a different vehicle with a greater carrying capacity. Despite the difficulties encountered, MARV team members remain positive! Upon reflection of her experience

to date with the MDRS, MARV team lead, Lucie Delobel, said “I have learned more in the space of three weeks, from the acceptance of our research project to the sending of our equipment to the MDRS in Utah, than I usually do over an entire college year!”

The results for Gone with the Wind were limited due the lack of wind, which was integral to the success of the experiment. The Windsoft program chosen by the team to collect data during the experiment unfortunately didn’t work for the computers at the base. The crew established and photographed the experiment regardless, in the hope that some data could be collected.

Despite the setback, the team members of Gone with the Wind were nevertheless excited to see the photos sent back by Dr Illaria in January.

“Although the results we got back were limited, I still really enjoyed the entire experience and I would definitely do it again!” Sorcha O’Carolan Murphy said when the teams met up to review their results.

The TCD Mars Desert Research team value the expert guidance provided by Dr. Mary Bourke, without whom the project would not have been completed.

The Team are extremely appreciative of the funding from AI reputation risk intelligence firm Polecat and AIB Seed Capital Fund, with Polecat CEO, James Lawn concluding: “We are extremely proud to have supported the innovative and pioneering students at Trinity College on their brave missions, and I’m sure the results will prove to be stepping stones to all sorts of future success.”

Emily Nolan is a Junior Sophister student of Earth Sciences, who doesn’t like cricket, but loves it.

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ITALY

ARAB-NORMAN SICILY WORDS AND PHOTOS BY ROSALIE ENGELS

Sicily’s unique charm When I first travelled to Sicily last summer I was immediately enchanted. I had just spent a year at the university of Siena in Italy and thought I knew the country pretty well at that point. After all, I had seen the tourist must-haves of Venice, Florence, Rome and Milan. Sicily, and its capital Palermo in particular, were a whole different story. Though officially part of the Italian Republic since 1860, the island of Sicily has undeniably retained very unique characteristics that distinguish it from the rest of the country. On the one hand, this is due to its geographical location as an island off the coast of mainland Italy; on the other hand it is owed to its particular history of colonization. For the last 2,000 years Sicily has been invaded and controlled

by Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Germans and Spanish, all of whom have left their special mark on the island in terms of customs, language, food, architecture and art. Undoubtedly, the most intriguing relic of foreign occupation on the island are the countless buildings in the ArabNorman style, which stand testament to roughly 130 years of peaceful coexistence between Arab Muslims, Norman Christians and Greeks on the island, at a time when inter-religious tolerance was extremely rare in the rest of Europe. It is therefore not surprising that the cathedrals, churches and palaces bearing witness to this outstanding socio-cultural syncretism between Western, Islamic and Byzantine cultures, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015.

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SOCIETY + CULTURE How Arabs and Normans came to share this Mediterranean island So how did two so radically different peoples end up sharing this small island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea? The History of Arab-Norman Sicily begins the year 1061, when the Norman nobleman Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger arrived in Sicily with a small army of soldiers, aiming to extend their reach over Southern Italy by gaining control over what was hitherto an Arab enclave. The Arabs had invaded Sicily and made it an Emirate about 250 years prior to Robert and Roger’s arrival, after they had seized control of the island from the Byzantine Empire. By the time the Normans got there, Sicily was a wealthy Emirate, with a flourishing economy, beautiful palaces and mosques and a population of over 350,000 Arabs, Jews and Greeks, making it one of the biggest cities in Europe. Soon after their arrival the Normans were to take over the political

and military leadership of the country, without disturbing the delicate mix of cultures in their new kingdom. By establishing a complex system by which each people was allotted different tasks according to their own strengths and weaknesses, they were able to maintain religious and ethnic tolerance amongst the citizens of the island.

Accordingly, the navy was commanded by the Greeks (interestingly enough, the word “admiral” is a corruption of the Arabic word “emir al-bahr”, meaning “commander of the sea”, and comes to us through Norman Sicily) and the state finances were entrusted to the Arabs, who were known for their excellent mathematicians.

Artistic expression of multiculturalism Astonishingly, these political principles were reflected in the art and architecture for which the Normans were responsible. Many of these wonderful works of art are still intact today and can be seen in Sicily’s capital city Palermo, as well as other smaller cities around the island like Cefalù and Monreale. The most obvious features on the whole island are the Moorish orange and vermilion domes that crown several of the churches, notably San Giovanni degli Eremiti and San Cataldo, both of which are located in Palermo. Inside the courtyard of San Giovanni degli Eremiti, surrounded by citrus and pomegranate trees, cacti, palms and ruined walls, one truly feels like he has just entered a different world, more Oriental than Italian. In fact, in her 1882 Diary of an Idle Woman in Sicily, Frances Elliot described the church as “… totally oriental, it would fit well in Baghdad or Damascus”.

Another astounding fusion of different architectural styles, artistic traditions and religious symbolisms is Monreale Cathedral, located on the slope of Monte Caputo, circa 15

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ITALY kilometres southwards of Palermo. Built between 1174 and 1182, the cathedral is best known for its striking mosaics, spanning over an acre and a half.

Experts have estimated that all of the mosaics were completed within five or six years after 1183

by Byzantine craftsmen who used up over 2200kg of pure gold. The mosaics on the two sides of

Byzantine elements are found in its mosaicked depiction of Christ Pantocrator and Islamic in its stalactite wooden ceiling. Both are intricately decorated with the earliest datable group of Arabic figurative paintings in existence.

What makes this artistic expression of religious tolerance most startling, however, is its date. Built

“...the cathedrals, churches and palaces bearing witness to this outstanding socio-cultural syncretism between Western, Islamic and Byzantine cultures, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015.” the nave depict scenes of the Old Testament and the life of Jesus, completed with details of angels, kings and saints, and culminating in a giant representation of Christ Pantocrator above the choir. Outside the cathedral stands a similarly impressive artistic masterpiece: the cloister. Built shortly after the cathedral itself, the cloister’s most striking feature is without doubt its 108 marble columns and its covered Arabic arches.

No two of the columns are the same, with every single one being decorated by a unique mosaic pattern and beautiful Romanesque stone-carved capital, unmatched in style and precision in the rest of the South.

in the mid 12th century, a hundred years after the great schism between the Eastern and Western churches, it is contemporary with the Crusades: while Christians and Muslims were slaughtering each other everywhere else they crossed paths, they came together peacefully on this small island in the centre of the Mediterranean and created artistic masterpieces, that we can still enjoy to this day. Considering the state of the world we currently live in, there’s no doubt in my mind that Arab-Norman Sicily could be a lesson for us all.

Rosalie Engels is in her Senior Sophister year of European Studies. A student from Germany, Rosalie fell in love with Italy and its rich cultural heritage on her

Equally as golden and impressive as the interior of the Monreale Cathedral is the interior of the Palatine Chapel in the Palazzo dei Normanni, Palermo’s Royal Palace. John Norwich, historian and expert on Norman Sicily, describes the Chapel as a “seemingly effortless fusion of all that most brilliant in the Latin, Byzantine and Islamic traditions into a single, harmonious masterpiece”.

It is Latin in its layout and the western basilica has a central nave and two side aisles, while its

year abroad.

1. UNESCO World Heritage Site “Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalú and Monreale“: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1487 2. Norwich, John Julius. Sicily: An Island At The Crossroads Of History. Random House, 2015.

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SOCIETY + CULTURE

CHINA:

A COUNTRY OF CONTRADICTIONS WORDS BY JENNY MURPHY

The French village of Bái Lù is located in the midst of the lush bamboo filled Lóngmén Mountains two hours outside of Chéng Dū City, the booming capital of Sichuan Province, China. The cobbled streets are lined with colonial style buildings, with shuttered windows and pointed turrets.

Other buildings are painted with splashes of pale pink, blue and yellow, and the memories of smog filled Chéng Dū are washed away by the warm smell of roasting chestnuts.

The Disneyland style village was built only six years ago and when I visited in 2013 it boasted a permanent population of zero.

Before 2008 Bái Lù was an ordinary rural Chinese village with narrow streets and bird cages hanging either side of thick wooden doorways. There were markets, a school, a strong

bridge over the river, muddy and polluted by the nearby coal mines, and a large but dwindling population, which suffered only as a result of the migration of young people to the big cities.

On the 12th May 2008 this all changed. An earthquake measuring 8 Ms on the Richter scale hit Sichuan, killing 69,000 people. The epicentre was just 80 km north of Chéng Dū but the massive strength of the earthquake meant that the tremors were felt as far away as Beijing and Shanghai, where people reported seeing the skyscrapers sway side to side.

It is known colloquially as “The first great Earthquake” and is reported to have left up to 11 million people homeless.

Like most of the rural villages, Bái Lù was destroyed.

The arching stone bridge crumbled into the river and

the buildings fell back into the mountains, with the exception of just one - the school. In fact, when the earthquake hit, the ground underneath the school expanded, raising up the entire building from its foundations towards the sky and saving the children within.

I’m not a seismologist, a geologist, or even someone who necessarily believes in miracles, but I visited Bái Lù in 2013 and I saw this school building: intact, elevated by the earth beneath it with the doors and windows, untouched, still swinging wide open from where the children had climbed out of them five years before.

It was suggested that the survival of the children and the miraculous endurance of the school building was thanks to the former presence of French missionaries who had come to the village in the late Qing

“It was suggested that the survival of the children and the miraculous endurance of the school building was thanks to the former presence of French missionaries who had come to the village in the late Qing dynasty, building a Catholic church and establishing a religious community there. For this reason it was decided that the village should be rebuilt in the fairy-tale style of a 19th century French village.”

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CHINA dynasty, building a Catholic church and establishing a religious community there. For this reason it was decided that the village should be rebuilt in the fairy-tale style of a 19th century French village.

While I was living in China I was constantly in awe of the contradictions I came across in my day to day life. I met a woman living in Péng Zhōu, a large town near Chéng Dū, who spoke perfect English and dreamt of being an international translator. Despite this, she had never left Péng Zhōu. Suffering from motion sickness meant she could only travel by electric bike. Cars were out of the question, so I didn’t have to ask about planes.

Chinese people talked about feelings of patriotism and a pride in everything “Chinese”, from food, drink, architecture and art, to their culturally rich history and yet, they so often tried to copy Western ideas; be it the mass production of “knock off” Louis Vuitton handbags and Paul Frank tracksuit bottoms, or the replica of an entire French village in the Chinese mountains.

So, when Bái Lù was destroyed, the town was not rebuilt in a way designed to once again serve its original purpose. It did not rehome survivors, and it did not commemorate the regular Chinese people who had lived there, nor did it celebrate the kind of lifestyle they had led.

Instead, it was replaced by a site of tourism and consumption so far removed from the needs of local survivors and the families of those who had died.

When I visited Bái Lù I struggled to understand the thought behind the creation of this Disneyland town. I was brought there by the owners of an English school I worked in - Julie and Charlie. For months

stopped but Charlie was still overcome with tears. We left the darkened room and he excused himself. Julie saw my expression and responded, “his father and brother were killed in this town during the earthquake”.

Once again I failed to understand the contradiction.

I could not reason why Charlie had come here, why he had

“...but for me it symbolised the contradictory nature of Chinese life that simultaneously honoured and disregarded their past in favour of Western ideas of consumption and modernity.” they had desperately asked me to visit “The French Town”, talking about its beauty and peacefulness. After visiting the school building when we arrived, Charlie encouraged me to try the “earthquake simulator experience” with him, which I guessed would be an interactive exhibition or documentary. In fact the earthquake simulator experience was a terrifying three minutes in which the ground of the dark room shook so violently that our legs ached from the effort of trying to not be thrown to the ground.

About thirty seconds into the “experience”, through the thundering sounds of the earthquake, I heard Charlie begin to cry. I couldn’t walk to him as my feet were planted to the ground, trying to stay standing. Eventually it all

brought me, and why he was excited by this fake town.

Why had he gone into the earthquake simulator when he had lived through the disaster just five years previously?

Charlie felt that the rebuilding of Bái Lù as a touristic site was a fitting commemoration of his family and the way of life that had died following the earthquake, but for me it symbolised the contradictory nature of Chinese life that simultaneously honoured and disregarded their past in favour of Western ideas of consumption and modernity.

Jenny Murphy is a final year Sociology student, a cat and yoga enthusiast, who has spent a semester studying in China and a semester not studying in Barcelona.

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TRAVEL

JAPAN:

A GOOD KIND OF WEIRD WORDS AND PHOTOS BY MARTA JURCZAK

The first thing you need to know about Japan is that they don’t eat real cheese here. It might seem random, I know, but for a cheese addict like myself that is a crucial piece of information which I did not have before coming here. Just before I left for the airport, my dad jokingly asked me whether I’d come home again if they didn’t have any cheese there. He was fully convinced that places without cheese do not exist. Alas, my worst fears came true, and that was only the start of a series of daily surprises which awaited me in this wondrous, wondrous place.

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JAPAN I didn’t know much about Japan when I first received the offer to spend a year here in Tokyo, and I’ve only read a few books since then. I had no expectations, no pre-acquired knowledge that would influence my experience here, so I’m forming my opinion of this new world as I go. Of course, I was aware of the popular culture view of Japan, but I hadn’t given it much thought. Maybe I should have: a clue to understanding modern Japan is hidden there in plain sight. When one thinks of the Japanese, one of two pictures inevitably comes to mind - either the ancient traditions of the samurai, with swords, battles, emperors and Mount Fuji in the background, or the modern world of manga and anime, of cosplay, games, technology and Pokémon.

Obviously, these two images could not be more different - and yet both, to an extent, are accurate.

That’s why Japan leaves me in a state of amazed bewilderment every day. It’s a place full of contradictions. On one hand, it’s so western, so technologically advanced, so familiar - and yet at the same time, so different, so alien, so foreign.

The desire for efficiency is ubiquitous. You can see it at the airport, at the train stations, on the streets, and just in the general love of queueing.

At the train stations there are signs to indicate where the doors of the train will open, so that you can get in line before the train even arrives.

On the streets, there are people hired by the city council to point out the way you’re supposed to be moving (don’t even get me started on hidden unemployment!). The medical check-up before my classes began was organised in line with Fordist principles, as students moved from station to station in an orchestrated choreography, no

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TRAVEL one really sure of what was happening. Houses and plots fit together like puzzle pieces. Not a square centimetre can be wasted. Even in my own room, to make best use of the space, I have to move the washbasin over to the toilet in order to have room for the shower!

I can’t even guess how many times I have caught myself saying ‘Japan is a weird place’ over the course of the year - but good kind of weird.

When people hear I’m spending a year in Japan they assume I must be experiencing some form of culture shock. I don’t agree.

“I’m not really sure I’m not really sure I know what And yet, the city escapes these I know what culture culture shock is. If I had to attempts to organise or placate put a name to it, I would call shock is.

If I had to it. Instead, it’s bustling with it culture enthusiasm. I’m just put a name to it, I really happy to be constantly hidden energy, it’s dynamic and would call it culture surprised. As for the samurai vibrant. Neons flash, as colours, smells and sounds collide on enthusiasm. I’m just and manga – it isn’t as though the streets in what can only be really happy to be one of these images is more described as sensory overload. accurate than the other. It’s constantly surprised.”

The city almost screams at you, not either or, it’s both, and so modern and full of technology more. Choosing one over that it seems futuristic. However, it is possible to the other wouldn’t grant you a comprehensive escape all this. Walk 10 minutes from the train understanding of Japan. Choosing one would station, and the tall towers and glittering ads will be falling into the trap of the ‘single story’. Japan slowly give way to family houses and adjacent is complicated, but a good kind of complicated. fields filled with wine, rice and bamboo - as if the Weird, but a good kind of weird. people who moved to the capital took not only all their belongings with them, but also refused Marta Jurczak is a final year History and Political to part with their traditional lifestyle.

Science student. She’s passionate about literature and the preservation of cultural heritage. Originally from Warsaw, she intends to visit and live in as many places as possible.

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SPAIN

BARCELONA GUIDE (WHERE TO…) WORDS AND PHOTOS BY ALANNA MACNAMEE Ah, Barcelona. Jewel of the Mediterranean.

Skateboarding capital. Proud home of the Sagrada Familia and a sandy beach where you can drink in the delights of naked elderly men sunbathing and reading La Vanguardia, as well as some distinctly dodgy mojitos sold by the city’s famed Cerveza Men. As a former inhabitant of this most cosmopolitan of Catalan cities I can’t but recommend that you do yourself a

favour and hop on to Skyscanner to book a budget flight to this incredible city. Arm yourself with my City Guide, some funky sunglasses and a bottle of Don Simon sangria, or a few cans of Estrella from the Carrefour supermarket on Las Ramblas (a tourist destination in its own right: check out that sushi selection!) and hit the boulevards of BCN. You won’t regret it. Te lo prometo.

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TRAVEL Where to….

Sleep: Barcelona has an abundance of pretty amazing hostels – but be sure to book far in advance as prices in large mixed dorms can and do rise above the 30 euro mark.

For a sociable party vibe check out St Christopher’s Inn by Placa Catalunya: it’s pretty central and has an onsite bar. For a more chilled out vibe, try Soul Backpackers in the Eixample neighbourhood – definitely the place for a chat and a chill beer rather than a mad fiesta.

For a bit of luxury head up to the Gracía neighbourhood (a hipster haunt and full of cute shops and bars – although it’s increasingly being charged with the gentrification slur) and Casa Gracía. Although Barcelona has an overwhelming number of AirBnB rentals, do be aware that locals unequivocally hate AirBnB, seeing it as ruinous to their neighbourhoods and even their city.

Best to stick to hostels, or if you’re on a tight budget, Barcelona has a pretty active Couchsurfing scene to check out.

Eat: Brunch: definitely the meal (is brunch a meal now?) that BCN does best. There is an absolute ton of places to get your Avo Toast fix in the city. Highly recommended is Brunch and Cake, which has a few places around the city, although do

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be aware that you will have to wait for a table. Get the acai bowl if you want to feel vaguely virtuous after a night spent on the tiles at one of the city’s mega clubs. For more traditional fare, hit up Casa Lopez in Gracía: it’s a bit out of the way but it really is a local haunt and a great place to grab some decent tapas. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Barcelona has quite a good offering for vegans. I’d recommend Cat Bar for a burger so good you won’t miss the beef: promise.

Do: Barcelona has an amazing ambience, and my favourite thing to do is probably just stroll around or chill out with a café amb llet in one of the many fabulous placas. A beach day is always a good shout in the summer, although you’re best to skip Barceloneta and set up your towel on the adjacent Bogatell or Vila Olimipica beaches. If you prefer the park, Parc de la Ciutadella has lots of shade (a must in the hot summers) and can be a great spot to indulge in some people-watching.

Culture vultures should hit the Picasso museum (free entry with a student card) and the contemporary art spaces MACBA and the CCCB. Stay by MACBA to watch the best of Barcelona’s skateboarders hone their skills: day or night it’s the best spot to soak in the unique BCN vibe, to people-watch, enjoy a beer, maybe have a chat with some

SPAIN locals… If you have the time, and you’re not too hungover (although it’s unlikely you’ll escape a visit to Barcelona without a thumping hangover at some stage) I would highly recommend checking out the sunset views of the city from the Bunkers Del Carmel, Spanish Civil War era bunkers that were once home to anti-aircraft guns. And there’s always the Camp Nou for the football-mad who fancy trying to catch a glimpse of Messi, Piqué et al…

“Barcelona nightlife is legendary – and lengthy.

Prepare to dance from dusk until actual dawn.”

Drink/Dance: Barcelona nightlife is legendary – and lengthy. Prepare to dance from dusk until actual dawn (locals regularly move from the club to the metro, which starts up early in the morning, just as the clubs are closing). If you’re staying in Gracía, predrink in Placa del Sol and witness the phenomenon that is the botellón.

Otherwise, good bars include The Mint and The Limehouse; the 4 euro mojitos at the Mint are highly recommended and ridiculously strong. For a rock vibe (and a slightly higher price point – be warned) check out Nevermind on Carrer Ample.

Barcelona has a pretty good gay scene – head to the Eixample neighbourhood for gay bars and clubs (it’s dubbed Gay-xample by locals).

Barcelona’s mega-clubs - Pacha, Opium, Carpe Diem - are by the beach but these demand a hefty 20 euro cover charge, and a mixed drink will set you back 12 euro. For a house/techno night hit up the legendary Razzmatazz, a massive club with over four floors, or head to the ‘Brunch in the

City’ events in the summer where top DJS play.

Apollo, La Fira or Jamboree are more local-y clubs (as in, locals actually go there) and Otto Zutz does some great RnB and hip-hop nights. If you want to get your salsa on, head to Mojito Club for some salsa and bachata dancing.

Final tips: Barcelona has a reputation as being a bit dodgy, and while it’s probably not much worse than any other major European city, it’s still best to be wary. Watch out for pickpockets on Las Ramblas, and on the Metro in particular.

If you are getting the metro, get the T-10 metro card. This card sets you back ten quid but gives you ten metro journeys.

Barcelona gets its fair share of terrible tourists, so understandably locals can be pretty resentful of visitors... Just don’t be an idiot. Please.

Finally: Barcelona is in Cataluña. People probably won’t appreciate you harping on about how fantastic you think Spain is…

Alanna Macnamee is a JS English student who enjoys the weird and wonderful side of travel, and also appreciates a glass of sangria (or three)...

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TRAVEL

BRUGES:

MEDIEVAL FLEMISH CHARM WORDS AND PHOTOS BY CHRISTIAN DUNNE

Most people have some sort of preconception about Bruges: it’s medieval; picturesque; the setting for Martin McDonagh’s excellent 2008 movie In Bruges. And I am not here to debunk any of these ideas. In fact, if anything, Bruges is exactly as you expect it to be. As Ralph Fiennes’ character Harry repeatedly says in the movie, it’s a fairytale town.

But it’s not contrived, and it’s not clichéd. Most people arrive by train in Bruges and as you walk

out of the station, nothing remarkable meets the eye. A dual carriageway, some traffic lights and, most likely, a covering of grey cloud. But cross the road and wander through the walkway, and within minutes, you find yourself navigating charming medieval streets. Medieval cities are undeniably beautiful but in Europe, they’re tena-penny. Bruges, however, is different. It’s not like other medieval cities, which usually consist of one historical square and three cobbled laneways.

In essence, it is a square mile section of history within a modern concrete town.

Bruges looks medieval through and through, from its centre at the belfry to the waterways which surround it.

It’s the most obvious thing about the city and it hardly needs articulating, but Bruges is gorgeous. The streets are narrow, cobbled and flanked by tall and charming townhouses. Canals weave their way through the city and with them come fairytale bridges, romantic walkways, secret nooks, and hidden crannies. Bruges, like most cities, was slowly constructed over many centuries, but one constant

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BELGIUM throughout was the artful attention to detail and the beauty in the buildings. The city is old but not shabby, quaint but not twee. It is a sentimental town; a place of drama, love, mystery and intrigue.

At night, the only sounds to be heard are the pitter patter of footsteps, hushed voices and hidden conversations. You walk the quiet streets and in the dark and the lamplight you could be in any century. You halfsee the swish of cloak around a corner, the glisten of a guard’s spear by the bell tower. It is a place to dream.

The Basilica of the Holy Blood is another sight worth seeing, and entry is free. Its name is self-explanatory: it is a small, ornate church remarkable for housing of a phial of what is alleged to be the blood of Jesus, brought from the Holy Land during the crusades. The blood can be viewed by the public and looked to me like a strange gunky liquid, a mixture of reds and whites in a curious semisolid state. The church’s atmosphere is strange, the visitors a mix of nosy blood-viewers and religious devotees. If you have the time, consider a visit to the Groeningemuseum afterwards. The works here come from a different age, a golden period in Flemish history when artists like Jan Van Eyck and Jan Provoost painted in Bruges.

The art evokes a different world, a time when life was dark, dramatic and superstitious. Depictions

“The city is old but not shabby, quaint but not twee. It is a sentimental town; a place of drama, love, mystery and intrigue.”

No one can dream all the time though, so luckily there’s also lots to do in Bruges. The skyline is dominated by the fascinating Belfry of Bruges, a medieval bell tower and fortress. It dates from the thirteenth century and was built upon at intervals until the middle of the eighteenhundreds. For a small price - there is a discount for those under twenty-five - you can ascend the 366 steps to the summit and survey the province of Flanders. The view from the top is stunning, and on a clear day you can spot the sea northwards at Ostend. In wind and rain, the tower almost seems to sway and the experience is altogether more unsettling.

Either way, it’s well worth the climb. As you gaze down upon the city you can imagine its medieval citizens milling about, the bells ringing, the guards securing the city gates.

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TRAVEL of the Last Judgement range from beautiful to disturbing; portrayals of medieval life are graphic and violent. Unsettling and unnerving at times, and beautiful and pure at others, the museum is certainly worth a visit.

be a party town but it does have a college and you’ll notice the students cycling the streets with typical effortless cool. Where there are students there are invariably student bars, and in Bruges many of these are housed in cave-like basements beneath grand townhouses. ‘T Poatersgat on Vlamingstraat is the place for Belgian beer; they have over two hundred types, each served in a different glass, from chalices and goblets to whiskey-style tumblers, slim, elegant glasses and oversized bulbous ones too. Beer is generally strong - 10% alcohol volume is not unusual - and for the ale-averse of us there is a selection of fruity beers, the tastiest of which is Lindemans Pecheresse peach beer. ‘T Poatersgat is a humming cavern of noise and music, shouts and singing, a lively haven of raucous revellers and love-stricken couples alike. Just make sure you don’t miss the inconspicuous cellar-door entrance!

“...you can’t walk down a street free of the tempting waft of waffles in the air, or the fresh-cooked scent of crispy chips.”

No article about Bruges could claim to be complete without any mention of food. From your first steps into the city you see it all around you: waffles, frites, chocolates, mussels and beer. You smell it too; you can’t walk down a street free of the tempting waft of waffles in the air, or the fresh-cooked scent of crispy chips. The Friterie 1900 in the Markt Square does large portions of chips with dollops of sauce; for waffles, steer clear of anywhere you see the waffles pre-cooked and then reheated. Many outlets cook hot waffles to order, and these warm, soft delights verge on life-changing in their deliciousness so it is best to eat here. But don’t fill up. Keep some room for luxurious Belgian chocolate; the streets of Bruges are lined with decadent, dreamlike chocolate shops, full of bars and slabs, truffles and sweets.

Stock up!

For a proper meal, many would recommend a tourist trap, and the traditional mussels and chips, but I’d suggest a wander onto a side street in search of a cosy restaurant instead. We happened upon a barbeque restaurant called Bones, a small, dimly-lit, friendly place serving hearty feeds of sweet and sticky ribs and zingy slaw, and a healthy selection of hoppy Belgian beers. Young, smiling staff and student-friendly prices mean it is definitely not to be missed. I’d encourage you to head out for drinks, too. Bruges may not

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Bruges doesn’t have it all. It’s not a cityheavyweight like London or Berlin. There are no raves until 7 a.m., no skyscrapers, no bright lights, and no underground trains. But really, the important thing about a place is how it makes you feel, and in Bruges, it’s impossible not to succumb to its timeless charm.

Christian Dunne is a Junior Sophister History student.

He is interested in European cities, particularly their history and culture.

AUSTRALIA

RUMINATIONS ON THE

OUTBACK

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY CAOIMHE DURKAN In the weeks prior to my arrival in Alice Springs, I was having serious doubts about the plans that a friend and I had made to travel around the Australian Outback. I had spent the preceding six months studying in Sydney, where everyone I met seemed confident that there was nothing in the Northern Territory worth seeing, and that our trip would be a colossal waste of time and money. I did my best to ignore them, but deep down I felt panic creeping in… would we be wasting the money we had

scrupulously saved up over the years? I briefly entertained the thought of changing my flights, and spending some more time elsewhere in Australia instead… Looking back on it now, I am so incredibly grateful that I didn’t.

Alice Springs itself is completely different from anywhere else I had experienced in Australia. A quiet town in the Red Centre, it has a curious kind of energy to it. However, what struck me most about this place was the tension that existed between the white Australian and

Aboriginal Communities. While the nation has taken enormous strides in the prevention of racist activity in recent decades, many Aboriginal people continue to be stigmatized and excluded from society throughout Australia. It was in Alice Springs, however, that I found such tensions to be most pronounced.

As a backpacker, I am conscious that I am an outsider, unaware of the full scope of the situation. I recognize that I am in no position criticize others for their behavior, lacking, as I do, a comprehensive

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TRAVEL understanding of the current couldn’t help but be struck by Aboriginal peoples, and so it is socio-political climate in how overwhelmingly vast the strongly discouraged to do so Australia. Nevertheless, I landscape was. Coming from out of respect for their culture couldn’t help but be distressed such a small country, I had and beliefs. by the way that so many tourists never experienced that sense Over the next few days, we and white Australians avoided of boundlessness; of being hiked around Kata Tjuta and eye contact, or Kings Canyon refrained from “I couldn’t help but be struck by how National Park, and engaging with slept under the overwhelmingly vast the landscape Aboriginal peoples. stars in swags, a We spent a few kind of ‘backpack was. Coming from such a small days staying at bed’, or heavy-duty country, I had never experienced one of the hostels canvas sleeping that sense of boundlessness.” in Alice Springs, bag, traditionally and mostly took used by nomadic advantage of the time to catch able to drive for hours before laborers, or swagmen travelling up on emails before we set off coming across any towns and through the bush. The night sky for Uluru-Kata Tjuta National encountering scarcely any in the Outback is incomparable Park. Our budget style camping buildings. to anything I have ever seen. trip would take us south to We spent the first day hiking The lack of light pollution Uluru and Kings Canyon and around Uluru and exploring makes for breathtaking then up north, ending in the cultural center there, which visibility, prompting us to Darwin. explains the significance of the spend our evenings searching Our bus departed at 4.40am site for the aboriginal peoples. for various constellations and from a stop near to our hostel, While many visitors choose weaving together stories about and we began the long to climb to the top of Uluru where the names of each one journey south towards Uluru. I itself, the site is sacred to the originated from. Pulling my

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AUSTRALIA sleeping bag tight around my shoulders against the chill that was creeping down my back, I gazed up at the Milky Way sprawled on the velvet night sky above me.

Our last night was spent camping at Kings Creek Cattle Station. After a delicious pasta dinner cooked over the bonfire, our bus driver Chris showed us how to prepare damper, a kind of bread that’s made by wrapping the dough in foil and burying in in the ashes by the fire until it rises.

The next morning, we rose long before sunrise, packed up our swags and made our way to Kings Canyon National Park.

We were shivering beneath the layers of thermals and jumpers that we had slept in the night before, attempting in vain to shake off the chill in our bones caused by the bitter desert nights. The dark sky brightened

behind us as we climbed ‘Heart attack Hill’ to begin our hike.

The sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon as we reached the peak, saturating the rugged landscape in a warm glow. The light seemed to soak into the earth itself like liquid gold, transforming the coarse desert scene before our very eyes.

At the top of the hill, we sat and gazed at the rusted terrain which stretched out for countless miles before us, dissolving into the horizon so that it was impossible to tell where the earth met the sky. It is difficult not to be overwhelmed by the mysterious beauty of such a hostile environment; to not be struck by the sheer force of nature. The sense of diminutiveness, of insignificance that I experienced when confronted with this limitless expanse of

space was incomparable to anything I have experienced before. I felt as though I had been stripped of any influence over the physical environment which I had previously deluded myself into believing that I possessed; as though I had been engulfed entirely by the outback itself.

And yet somehow, I was completely fine with it. I surrendered myself to the Outback during those few days, and it has maintained a firm grasp on my imagination ever since.

Caoimhe Durkan is a Senior Sophister student of English Literature and Classical Civilisations. She is an adventure seeker, a lover of the outdoors, an avid photographer, and a dog enthusiast.

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