Control values? Control the media!

In three European countries citizens are deeply at odds with their leaders, and public opinion in these countries is shaped in different ways. The media play an important role in it.

• In France, a country with a history of very complicated state affairs (Clearstream, Dreyfus, Bettencourt), the foreign minister lost her job over something as simple as flying in a plane that belongs to a friend of dictator Ben Ali's. (And a controversial statement on the repression of protesters.)
  
• In Germany, the defense minister is under heavy fire for plagiarism in his PhD thesis. But a whopping 68% of the population still support him.
• And in Italy, thousands of Italian protesters all across Europe joined demonstrations against their prime minister on 13 February. Yet, many Italians, in particular elderly women, still support the prime minister. Of those who demonstrate against him, quite a few believe that he will somehow manage to remain in power after all.

Apparently

• in France you don't get away with stuff unless you control the public sphere (Sarkozy does. MAM didn't)
• in Germany you get away with quite a lot as long as you control the public sphere (Guttenberg receives favorable coverage from BILD)
• in Italy you get away with everything because you own the public sphere. And those defying you are either retarded or criminal

It strikes me how public opinion in these societies, all of them rather critical of politics and of political elites, would be so volatile depending on the way in which the media cover these affairs. It strikes me in particular because it touches values as well.

• France is gloating because a morally correct politician who didn't do anything "illegal or improper", is no longer "chef de la diplomatie française".
  
• Über-correct Germany has a new debate about the acceptability of cheating.
  
• And Italy spends more time debating "bunga bunga" than fighting unemployment.

Values are shaped because of media coverage. And coverage is dependent on political influence over the media.

I find that worrying.

China and EU start into Year of Youth

Today was the official launch of the EU-China Year of Youth in Beijing. 40 days after the European launch event in Brussels, 200 young people from China and the EU met in Beijing to kick off what will hopefully be a year of fruitful exchanges. They discussed potential EU-China cooperation projects, ranging from environmental protection to world heritage and intellectual property.

The cooperation is managed by the European Youth Forum (YFJ) on the European and the All-China Youth Federation (ACYF) on the Chinese side. Both have launched websites on the year of exchanges (China, EU) and an array of events and conferences is being planned in the EU and in China.

On the European side, the French are the most active organizers. They are trying to export the French language to China via a blogging competition (offline!) and a film festival for young Chinese. Second are the Germans with events on sport and social development.

But before you believe that the EU is relegated to being a spectator in culture, there are also some political EU-China Youth Events. Tomorrow marks the beginning of a a China photo exhibition in the European capital (I will try to cover it), other events include the European Youth Week or an EU-China Youth Culture Week. And also in China, some interesting things are taking place, such as the Shenzhen Universiade in August (college olympics).

Who knows, maybe we can even increase links between European and Chinese bloggers. China has a growing blogosphere (see English coverage here, here, here, here and here) and more conversation can certainly reduce a lot of cultural prejudices.



Launch video of the EU-China Year of Youth 2011

Maastricht, NL: An example of cultural integration gone wrong

On the verge of leaving beautiful Maastricht after three years of study, it is interesting to look back at life in this mini-Europe on the border between the Netherlands, Germany, Flanders and Wallonia, because it shows interesting implications for European togetherness in general.

In my first year in Maastricht, 12,080 students were enrolled here, 37% of which were non-Dutch (most of them were actually German). In the English-language programs, the share of international students already exceeded 50% in 2007. In 2008, 39% of all UM students were non-Dutch; the share of foreigners in the English language tracks crept further upwards. The current figures are not out yet but I'm sure they show another surge as the university continues its publicity campaigns to get more of the esteemed German Abiturienten.

In my understanding, cultural integration runs along simple lines. You come to a country, learn the language, meet locals and curiously let them introduce you into the culture. Meanwhile, the locals play the host, are happy to share some of their culture with you and help you a bit in your language efforts.
And now imagine you're a 17-year-old Dutch high school graduate in a group of 100 fellow countrymen (and women), and 250 19-year-old Germans parachute into your city, speaking German all over the place. Kind of turns my understanding of cultural integration upside down, doesn't it?

In practice, many Dutch students fled into the Maastricht student fraternities and sororities which are a defining factor for college life in the Netherlands. From what I've been told, Maastricht has the highest enrollment figures in the Netherlands.

Those Dutch students brave enough to make German friends soon find themselves in a need to make a step towards their new friends, rather than drawing German curiosity for Dutch culture. One of my best friends (a Dutchman) learned to speak German without accent - by living in Maastricht for three years.

We even conducted a survey among our fellow students once and proved that "cultural integration happens not from the side of the guest culture, but from the side of the host culture". For example, 50 % of the Dutch and 66 % of the Belgians we questioned had signed up in the German community StudiVZ; not a single German participant had decided to enter the Dutch community Hyves, even though it is also offered in English while StudiVZ is completely in German.

Criticism on all sides has risen as the student community drifted farther apart over the years. My program European Studies is rather progressive, at least from what our research said. There are many intercultural friendships and non-Dutch students also read the Dutch-language University Newspaper Observant (10 pages in Dutch, 2 in English). But in the programs "International Business" and "International Economic Studies" with a German share of - apparently - close to 80%, integration has been difficult to bring about.


As many Germans turn their back on Maastricht and spend their summer vacation at home, the Observant this week published an edition written by the chairs of the four Maastricht fraternities. The four "pillars" of Dutch student life enjoy broad coverage while the dialogue between Dutch and non-Dutch student groups is limited to an English language interview about the clichés of Dutch fraternities that echoes the old confrontational lines: "German students have a different mind-set. They only come here to study, whereas Dutch students also want to enjoy life as a student. They need to be more open. Why don’t they try it just once?"

Leaving mini-Europe after three years of study, it is clear that much remains to be done to bring these groups closer together. Of course, Maastricht student life is far from the cultural clashes of Belgium/Belgium, Slovakia/Hungary, Estonia/Russia (getting better), Croatia/Slovenia (also getting better), Northern-Ireland and Bosnia, but it clashes nonetheless.

Finally, after a lot of criticism from student representatives and critical coverage in the media, the university established a project group for the improvement of student relations. I really hope that this will help to create closer bonds between the students at the university. The beautiful educated city between the Netherlands, Germany, Flanders and Wallonia does not deserve to be the place where cultural integration fails.

Inglorious bastards - What a shame for European actors

If you decide to watch a film by Quentin Tarantino, you mostly know what you're up for. You know Pulp Fiction, the celebrated black comedy in which a guy in the back seat gets his head blown off because the car hits a bump in the road. You know Kill Bill, in which hundreds of people get killed by Uma Thurman in a revenge fight. You know that Tarantino films are bloody, macabre, funny and far off reality. That's what you're expecting when you decide to see a Tarantino.

But the new Tarantino film is totally different. This time, the fun is not so far off reality, and that's what makes the film a very gruesome experience - at least if you watch it in Europe. The first twenty minutes show a nerve-wracking scene. A Nazi officer, played by Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, discovers a Jewish family in the house of a French farmer and has them murdered. Unlike former Tarantino films, a long intensive and deep-reaching dialogue in French and German language preceeds the kill. This is not fun. This is good acting of highly qualified actors. After watching that dialogue, you don't feel like laughing about the kills any more.

The film continues with a weird interplay of trash-talking American-style Brad Pitt humor, fighting scences and a serious and well-acted character study of the only survivor of the farmhouse massacre. That HAS to touch you as a viewer if you have an inkling of historic sensitivity. It's not a problem for me to parodize Nazi history, if it's done in a sensitive way. But Tarantino doesn't really choose if he wants to show an irrealistic black comedy or a serious revenge story in a historic setting.

If it was only for that, you could still shrug off the film as an uninformed American-style war movie. But the really sad part is that highly qualified European actors sign the movie with their name. German actors Til Schweiger and Diane Krüger as well as my personal favorite Daniel Brühl and Austrian actor Christoph Waltz have a high potential and have starred in outstanding films before (let me just remind you of Daniel Brühl in "Goodbye Lenin"). Of course it's their right to appear in funny and parodistic films. But a history-based film like this one also sends a political message. An American's vision of Europe and European history is often shaped by Hollywood movies like this one. And many Americans will now get to know the actor Daniel Brühl, one of the very few German actors with a reputation outside of the country, in the role of the self-loving Nazi whom he displays in the Tarantino movie.

It's a real shame to see the actors' talents wasted in a movie like this one.