Tag: USA

Walking the blurred lines between the three Ns of extremism and a pandemic

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By Fairuzah Atchulo Munaaya Mahama

On January 6th this year, the whole world got a front row seat to what happens when extremists are left unchecked and unfettered during a pandemic. Like watching a train crash, we watched riveted as a mob of angry white insurrectionists stormed the US Capitol, bringing the modern world’s oldest democracy to its knees. 

The events of January 6th did not stand in isolation, if the rumblings of another March 4th insurrection was to be believed. Extremism is not a new phenomenon in the United States, yet somehow in all of its machinations, extremists had never stormed the Capitol building until the pandemic. So, what conclusions can be drawn here? 

Continue reading “Walking the blurred lines between the three Ns of extremism and a pandemic” →

#StandWithBelarus: Interview with a Belarusian Activist

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This article is part of a project designed to raise awareness about what has been happening in Belarus since August 2020, at the occasion of the Day of Solidarity with Belarus launched by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. In order to understand the past and current events better, The Euroculturer Magazine organized a live interview with a belarusian Euroculture Alumni who kindly agreed to give us her insights on the situation. For the sake of this person, this interview will be anonymized.

Interview conducted by Leyre Castro & Hannah Bieber and transcripted by Bryan T. Bayne & Katarina Jarc

Euroculturer Magazine (EM): How do the events in Belarus affect you personally?

Of course the event affected all people in Belarus because the scale of the violence produced by the police in Minsk was so unpredictable and unproportional, especially August 2020. It produced collective trauma not only for people who participated in the protests, but also for those who couldn’t participate. People were tortured and killed and this was something nobody expected because a protest of this scale has never happened in Belarus. It was very hard for me because I am an activist in Belarus and I know a lot of people protesting. Most of my friends were protesting and many were detained. One was arrested on the very first day and he’s still in prison.

Continue reading “#StandWithBelarus: Interview with a Belarusian Activist” →

No Sacrifice, No Victory: Building Chinese collective narratives

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Whoever has won the US presidential elections, China is ready. The movie Sacrifice (金剛川 2020) tells us why.

by Wong Tsz (王子)

Background

The time was June 1953, the Korean War had been going on for three years, Chinese volunteers were still fighting tirelessly in a war they believed was necessary to defend their motherland. The mountains of Kumsong set the foreground of the last major battle of the war. In the valley of the mountains lies the Kumsong River (金剛川). Chinese engineers were ordered to build a bridge on the river to ensure the logistical support to the troops stationed in the mountain. The bridge was destroyed seven times by UN artillery and air raids and seven times it was rebuilt by brave Chinese volunteers. The movie Sacrifice – the original title of which is “Kumsong River” (金剛川) – narrates the perspectives of three soldiers at this scene.

The reasons behind China’s involvement in the Korean War were manifold: a communist alliance, the wider impact of Maoism, Chinese national security interests, economic incentives       from Soviet Russia to its eastern neighbors and the need to consolidate domestic political control in mainland China shortly after defeating the Nationalists. The official terminology in China for the Korean War is ‘抗美援朝’ – ’Resist US Aggression and Aid (North) Korea’-, a term that avoids explicitly mentioning of the term ‘war’: the Chinese were helping the Koreans while the Americans were the demon. This perspective would of course be interpreted very differently in South Korea and in the West. The Korean War was the first ‘hot’ war of the Cold War, and the distress of a communist expansion in East Asia was clear and imminent. For many years, this conflict  has been a very sensitive part of Chinese history – but things are changing.

Continue reading “No Sacrifice, No Victory: Building Chinese collective narratives” →

The end of the Trump presidency: Good or bad news for Europe?

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By Justine Le Floch

As I am writing this article, Joe Biden has just been elected as the 46th President of the United States. If, from a European perspective, this seems to be some welcomed news, the consequences of this election could be worse than they appear. Indeed, the results were so close that it took more than four days after Election Day to know the name of the new president. The country seems more divided than ever. But what do the results of this election entail? More particularly what are the consequences for Europe and Transatlantic relationships? Why would a Biden presidency be both for the best and the worst from a European point of view and for international relations in general?

Continue reading “The end of the Trump presidency: Good or bad news for Europe?” →

I hate this, but I hate you even more: Negative partisanship and why the odds were always in favour of Biden

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By Fairuzah Atchulo Munaaya Mahama 

How do you win a modern day US election? First, hate and fear the other side. Second, show up with your  ‘opposition hating’ crew. We often call love a binding factor, yet it has become apparent that where love is missing, hate will do just fine. For nothing breeds camaraderie like a group of people coming together to actively dislike  someone, something or even an ideology. It is for this reason that the odds were in favour of Biden and Harris in the 59th quadrennial US elections. This observation is not remiss of the 2016 presidential elections, and the insurmountable odds that Donald Trump beat to synch his presidency.  Yet taking a closer application of negative partisanship this year, it was clear that something was different: the tables had turned in favour of Biden. 

Continue reading “I hate this, but I hate you even more: Negative partisanship and why the odds were always in favour of Biden” →

The Roots of Racism: Understanding today’s protests through yesterday’s lens

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By Ana Alhoud

On May 25th an innocent man was killed by an unrelenting knee.
That knee belonged to a man who saw only what he wanted to see.
He held him there on the asphalt and ignored his pleas for mercy.
“Please,” said the man on the ground. “I can’t breathe.”
While one man’s knee crushed life from the other, people watched.
Cell phones held like nets so the day’s injustice could be caught.
Horrified faces and traumatized eyes saw this same terror, but weren’t that surprised.
The deepest stares were those of the man’s peers, in silent agreement with the execution taking place at their feet.
The people cried, they screamed and shrieked
For another life lost on this “colorblind” street.
A few days later a police station was set ablaze by a group of people hurt to the point of fury.
This latest reminder that their skin is a sin took its place as the people’s jury.
The kindling of 400 years of terror and sub-standard citizenship finally caught flame,
And that flame roars with the wails of millions wrongfully slain.
The pot has boiled over and the world stops to see
What happens when the people remember how to be
Together, fighting for each one to be free…
George Floyd looks on, finally able to breathe. Continue reading “The Roots of Racism: Understanding today’s protests through yesterday’s lens” →

My Third Semester: Research Track at IUPUI, Indianapolis, USA

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Interview conducted by Hannah Bieber

Gianluca Michieletto (2018-2020) is an Italian Euroculture student who spent his first semester at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and his second one at the University of Bilbao, Spain. Soon, he will return to Göttingen for his fourth and final semester. Before enrolling in the Euroculture programme, he did a BA in Languages, Civilisation and Science of the Language at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy. He applied for Euroculture because the degree matched his interests and previous studies, but also because of the international context of the master. For his third semester, Gianluca crossed the Atlantic to do a research track at Indiana University-Purdue University, in Indianapolis, United States.

Euroculturer Magazine: If you had to describe Euroculture MA in one word, what would that be?

GM: If I had to describe Euroculture in only one world, it would definitely be ‘growth’. Euroculture transformed me as a person, not only by the enhancement of my educational skills but also through my mental, social and emotional growth. I would definitely say that all the small things that I had to undergo during the past three semesters – living by myself, finding an accommodation every semester, taking care of everything, getting to know new people and new cities – have shaped me and helped me to become the person I am today.

EM: If you had to talk about two positive and two negative aspects of Euroculture, what would that be? Continue reading “My Third Semester: Research Track at IUPUI, Indianapolis, USA” →

Leave no man behind: let’s talk about the fourth industrial revolution

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By Jelmer Herms

It is probably a truism at this point, but we are not living the same way we did 20 years ago. Technology and innovation are changing our lives at a pace they have never really done before. CNBC News aptly put it in perspective like this: It took 75 years for 100 million people to adopt the telephone. The video game Pokémon GO reached that number of users in about one month.[1] The impact of technology is felt quicker and to a greater extent than ever before as a result of our globalized and interconnected world. But of course, more than just video games and telecommunications are developing at a rapid pace. Family Guy, at the end of its episode “The Peter Principal”, manages to point out in just a very short dialogue exchange how technology revolutionized the way we think about delivery services like Amazon, but also how hard it is to truly experience such change as remarkable or otherwise noteworthy:

Stewie: Oh, I bet he’s delivering those marmalade jars we ordered.

Brian: Doesn’t that feel like a million years ago? Yeah, we don’t need those anymore.

Stewie [To Delivery Guy]: Sorry, just send them back.

Brian: You can just do that?

Stewie: Oh, yeah, you can just refuse delivery.

Stewie: You’ve never done that?

Brian: I-I genuinely did not know you could do that.

Stewie: Well, you can. Anything you order. If you don’t sign for it, it has to go back. Everyone does it.

Stewie: Most of what America is now is just boxes going back and forth.[2]

As rapid innovation is becoming a new normal, it is also becoming a new kind of mundanity, and I think we should be wary of accepting the rapid pace of technological change as normal, even though you could make a strong case that almost nothing has changed in the ways that matter most. In fact, considering the quantity of global crises over the last years, I would expect nothing less than a sceptical view on our development, or the idea of a teleology of human progress. I agree that in most of the ways that matter, humans have not changed at all. Looking at the last 20 years or so, issues of social justice and socio-economic inequality remain, global terrorism has become more prevalent, man-made climate change is an unrelenting cause for distress, and civil war in the Middle East, famine in Africa, or the recent fires in the Amazon have traumatized, displaced or in the worst cases ravaged entire cultures. So of course, humans haven’t really changed as a species, but the technology we wield has. And this has had (and still can have into the future) undoubtedly positive effects as well.

Because over the last twenty years we have also, for better or for worse, connected billions of people to each other through the power of the internet, forging new transnational networks and alliances that have greatly contributed to the wellbeing of many across the planet. We now have entirely automated vehicles driving around, and they drive better than any human ever could. We have developed self-learning AI that can not only beat us at turn-based games like chess or checkers, but also at much more complex real time games, such as the classic RTS Starcraft II. [3] Computers can help us save lives and identify dangerous criminals, but they can also help us make entirely new forms of art, like this programme that writes (admittedly pretty bad) music by itself [4]. That is, in my view, nothing less than extraordinary: all of us here are alive in the period being called the Fourth Industrial Revolution.[5]

But can we say that as active citizens, we are asking ourselves the right questions on how to deal with the fact that we are in the middle of an Industrial Revolution? Are we directing our attention to making sure we are investing time and effort into the technologies that could help us the most? Are we structurally modernizing our democracies, our cultures, and our discourse to adapt to this revolutionary time? I’m not always so sure. It seems to me that the public sphere is not particularly on board with this idea of an Industrial Revolution, except for when Apple comes out with the ‘revolutionary’ new iPhone, which features a marginally improved camera and some new software updates.

To me, it seems that the actual revolution of innovation is being led by an exploding technocratic billionaire class. And many within this small group of people are mostly concerned with keeping their customers satisfied. But I think there is a massive difference between designing a product for a consumer, and designing a tool for a democratic citizen. I think it is fair to say that, as one example, social media has not been designed with the idea of existing within the framework of an inclusive liberal democracy: Facebook has caused extreme views getting disproportionate attention, and led to rampant misinformation that swayed election results because of its click-based monetization model, which rewards the loudest and most controversial voices.

In those cases where we design technology for the broader public, we should think more carefully about who benefits from innovation and technological advances, and to make sure that we don’t create systems that favour groups of people by design. And let me just add that my problem is not that people are getting rich by developing new technologies. I am not trying be some kind of neo-Marxist, urging you to eliminate class struggle by killing the wealthy, or to destroy any of the processes driving our technological innovation.

What I see is a technical operational challenge to the capitalist economy. Both innovators and citizens could play a much more active role in driving solutions to what I see is the major issue of this moment: the challenge of economic inclusivity. The problem as I see it, is that less and less people can participate on equal terms in this labour market. Of course, some skills or educations will always be more desirable than other kinds depending on the market and the environment, and I see no real issue with that dynamic continuing into the future. But we are reaching a point where technology is so efficient and innovation has accelerated so much, that it is very likely there will eventually not be enough labour to perform for entire segments of populations. Think of not only “low-skilled” labour, even though they will be hit the hardest, but also middle management positions, doctors, or all kinds of support staff eventually being overtaken by automation and artificial intelligence. The issue of keeping people included in the labour market cuts across class lines, and I think it is not central enough to our understanding of national politics.

While some answers to this issue have been presented in politics, they have come only from across the Atlantic, in the US. The American Democrat Andrew Yang is running for President of the United States on a platform attempting to tackle exactly the issue of automation and the increasingly exclusive labour market, and he has gathered a surprising amount of bipartisan support. [6] But his chances of winning are still minimal compared to mainstream top dogs like Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, or the guaranteed Republican nominee, Donald Trump. Here in Europe, I have not heard of any running national public official looking to address the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or even mentioning the issues I have talked about here (and I hope, of course, that anyone can prove me wrong on this: I don’t speak every European language). This, I think, speaks for the need for a change in perspective more than anything else.

If we want to manifest political change that strives for a more inclusive society not only in terms of social justice, but also in terms of economic stability and employment, then framing that discussion in an accessible and appropriate manner should be considered essential. By popularizing the idea of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, by making people think about our current moment not as mundane, but as extraordinary, we can help make people aware that the neoliberal logic of radical personal responsibility with regards to your employment can be successfully contested or suspended. It could help us reframe how we view unemployment and eliminate the stigma on it, which in turn could help us think in more positive terms about how to find people new jobs, if we even want to continue with striving towards full employment at all. Talking about a new Industrial Revolution can also help us kickstart a broader conversation about new and exciting technologies that we could feasibly incorporate into our societal structures. Finally, talking about the Fourth Industrial Revolution as an explicit operational issue can help us become more willing to let go of the economic and political models of the past, and to instead embrace new and innovative technologies and models for organizing our society.

We need to do more than just reform: it’s about time we revolutionize.

Picture: joshsdh, Flickr

Sources:
[1] ‘’What is the Fourth Industrial Revolution?’’ CNBC News. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9rZOa3CUC8

[2] Family Guy S15E18, The Peter Principal.
https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=family-guy&episode=s15e18

[3] RTS, Meaning Real-Time Strategy. For more on Starcraft II AI, see: https://deepmind.com/blog/article/alphastar-mastering-real-time-strategy-game-starcraft-ii

[4] http://computoser.com/

[5] https://www.weforum.org/about/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab

[6] https://www.yang2020.com/

REPORT: What Happens in Venezuela Does Not Stay in Venezuela

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By Maeva Chargros

Everyone should be aware of this fact, after two world wars, many genocides and a major crisis triggered by terrorism worldwide: when something happens in one specific country, the entire region surrounding this country is affected; and when a whole region is impacted, the entire world ends up facing consequences of this local event. It is the principle of the well-known butterfly effect. Therefore, how can we not hear the call for help coming from Venezuelans fleeing their country? How can we ignore the growing tensions on the borders between Venezuela and its neighbours?
Seen from Europe, the ongoing crisis in the north-west of the Latin American region reminds of another crisis that Europeans had to face and are still facing – the so-called “refugee crisis”. One might be stunned by how relevant this comparison is, but also puzzled by what it means for our governments and international organisations. After two resolutions failed to pass at the United Nations in the last few days[1], here is a timely reminder of what is actually happening at the border. Nicolás Javier Pedraza Garcia, currently an exchange student from Universidad Externado de Colombia (Externado University, Bogotá, Colombia) at the Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, agreed to give his insight to help us understand the situation from a local perspective.[2]

Relations between Colombia and Venezuela are a very good example of what can be achieved when two independent states decide to cooperate for the better good of their respective economies. Who needs a hard border when both populations speak the same language, work and live together, and benefit from this soft border situation? Until the political crisis hit the Venezuelan economy, “the border was just a line”; now, the border area is described mostly as a “war zone”[3], or a “conflict zone”. “The border is experiencing a very bad situation both economically and socially; most of Venezuelans who are fleeing are poor, so they stay at the border and are forced to engage in criminal activities such as drug trafficking or prostitution to survive. We, Colombians, try to help as much as we can, but our local government does not have the institutional nor the infrastructure capacity to attend to the situation. Maybe the situation is better in some other cities, but at the border, it is a crisis situation. We have been asking for more financial and human resources from the national government, but so far we are left alone to take care of these people.” Continue reading “REPORT: What Happens in Venezuela Does Not Stay in Venezuela” →

Student Profiles: Ana Alhoud (US, Göttingen-Bilbao)

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Interview conducted by Ivana Putri

Ana Alhoud (2018-2020) is an American who traveled across the pond to start her Euroculture life in Göttingen, Germany. Before Euroculture, she studied Communication and International Studies for her Bachelor’s degree. She applied for Euroculture because she loves learning about different cultures and the many ways they interact. Ana is about to finish her first semester in Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany, and she will be continuing the next semester at the University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain.
Thank you Ana, for taking the time to answer these questions!

1. What was the most difficult thing that you had to adjust to when you started the programme?

For me, the most difficult thing to adjust to was the language barrier. Even though I have experience with other languages, German threw me a curve ball because the languages I do know are not super similar in structure or sound. However, I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn German and overcome the challenge it presented. Continue reading “Student Profiles: Ana Alhoud (US, Göttingen-Bilbao)” →