The Biggest Fears of a Latvian News Reader regarding Refugees [2015]

©Gatis Šļūka 'A View on Europe Today'

As it became clear earlier, due to the refugee crisis the EU made a decision to find new homes for 60 000 refugees in its member states. Latvia as one of them also agreed to contribute to refugee crisis and in two years time accommodate 250 refugees. However, Latvian society has demonstrated different attitudes to this event, including readers of news portals. Weirdly enough refugees haven't come yet - but an opinion about them and who they are is already formed. More stereotypical than real. One of the causes for that might be the fact that despite a large protest against the coming of unknown, refugees are going to settle in Europe, and that it is already decided without public consent. Therefore the reaction of European society in some parts is very harsh. However, it does not change the fact that the information that is rotating around is rather prejudicial and stereotypical. In this matter, I did a small research in which I went on exploring the characteristic traits of the future refugees in Latvia based on posted comments by readers on news portal DELFI [www.delfi.lv] and came up with TOP 7 stereotypical characteristics of future refugees in Latvia. The results do not represent the opinion of the whole Latvian society, but is still a [great or minor, decide yourself] part of it. I hope these findings will serve as a tiny bit of a help to the people that will be dealing with integration issues in tomorrow's Europe. If not then it's just a sarcastic answer to all today's bloated and superficial fears about refugees that are intensely spread around in social media channels. Enjoy!

An Inspiring Journey of Learning: Bits from the Training Course 'Art for Community Development'

© Biljana Klisarova

It's been quite a while since the last time I attended one of these always inspiring events under Youth in Action program. I missed them. I missed the feeling of empowerment and being among the same-level crazy people that see solutions before problems, and give any at-the-first-glance crazy idea a healthy amount of soil to grow into a real initiative. Yes, you guessed right, I'm speaking about the brave change makers of the world that are sure the change can be made with their own bare hands (and minds). Maybe sometimes you just need a a little push, or sometimes you're the one that pushes someone if he/she is stuck in an ugly moment of stagnation. The training course 'Art for Community Development' gathered 28 young people from 8 countries, namely Czech Republic, Macedonia, Portugal, Spain, Latvia, France, Poland and Romania in a lovely small town Přerov in South-East Czech Republic to learn and discuss how art can help and is actually already helping to foster community development, develop new ideas for future cooperation and projects, and remind themselves and the rest of the world one simple truth 'JUST DO IT'!

Sunday 22nd. The Last One.

It's Sunday. I made myself awake at 6:30 AM and got ready for another regular trip to the work I'm not proud of doing, but still doing to provide some sort of sustainability for my livelihood? I find it important to be fed and have a roof above my head. And it's winter. Sleeping under the big blue sky is considered rather tragic than romantic at this period of the year. 

I take the first train from Nijmegen in direction to Roermond at 7:38 AM as usual, and expect my 15 minute ride also to go as usual. While I'm still in my sleeping mode I'm listening to cheerful and energizing music tracks and getting emotionally ready for my daily 10 km cycling activity to work. I think about the weather and whether the wind today blows with me or against me, as it greatly determines the longevity of my daily cycling trip to work. It also determines the level of my annoyance that greatly depends on whether the wind holds extras with it in form of rain or snow.

The Cellist Playing Hope

'An insight into a devastating reality of the war' or 'The hopeless, frightened and emotionally ruined in Sarajevo' could be just a few of the many phrases used for describing the plot of Steven Galloway's 'The Cellist of Sarajevo' (2008). The story evolves around the daily lives and thoughts of three characters during the recent Balkan war (the siege of Sarajevo particularly that took place from 5th April 1992 till 29th February 1996): a lady-sniper named Arrow, a young defender of the city, and two civilians, Kenan and Dragan, a former financial director and a bakery employee. Although there is around 20 years age difference between the two men, the reader can easily realize that it does not play any difference in experiencing the fear of being shot, being exposed as a target for a bullet every time crossing an intersection just to get to the other side of the river for whichever purposes, being tired, aging in no-time and asking existential questions to themselves such as how painful is to die and how does it feel when you're shot, and why some people die and some don't. It somewhat creates flashbacks to E.M. Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (1929) and makes you angry about how somebody in power has decided for the whole nation to suffer, obviously against their will. And there is the Cellist, also an ordinary man whose dreams and Sarajevo like it was before the war were also broken down like everyone else's. The Cellist plays. He plays hope. A hope for a change after witnessing one of the many daily realities of wartime Sarajevo, an event that took lives of 22 people on an ordinary wartime morning standing in a cue to get some bread... 'It screamed downward, splitting air and sky without effort. A target expanded in size, brought into focus by time and velocity. There was a moment before impact that was the last instant of things as they were. Then the visible world exploded...'

Thinking piece on Understanding of Modern Political Challenges

 © Marta Podniece

The Earth is round? Right? That is the universal truth we all tend to believe, because there has never been any discussion about it in the past few centuries or possibly no political campaign has found it an attractive reason to make people believe it will change something for them. Let’s face it - we are egoists. Many things have been happening on this round ball called Earth, especially in political matters. It’s easy to see the point of one individual by just hearing him commenting on the news, while reading an analytic piece on the second page of the daily newspaper every morning. This is a habit. And politics is a habit as well. Politics of a particular newspaper, which include choices on exactly which activities will be commented on on the second page of the paper. Sensations? Surprises? Money laundry? Politicians involved in the international scandals? Yes, please! We want it! We want a theme to talk about during the lunch break! We want a theme that we can be smart about! And here we go...

The World On a Day Before Yesterday: A Global Image of 14th March 2012

Guardian, India; Parivartan Sharma/REUTERS

Once I prepared a workshop for young people on the theme of stereotypes and I used visual data of online media [to be precise - I used photo galleries posted on different news sites under the name "Photos of the Day" as a data set], as a source that represents different countries and influences different reading audiences on their opinions about the world here and now. It's undoubtedly a free space for stereotyping and identifying global players in the global politics, but from other perspectives such a gallery of the day reveals a lot more information about what is important for different nations - individualism versus collective consciousness, traditions, culture, the life quality and life priorities, the importance of time and status, money and wealth, and if you're just a reader of a particular media, such visual interpretations even unconsciously influence your view about the world, as according to S.Sontag or any non-expert in photography - "we tend to trust that the image is showing the truth as  in the reality we don't have enough time to travel and check it "... so therefore I wanted to check: How the world looks like on 14th March 2012?

Let the Party Begin... Carnival Days in the Netherlands.

It's great to realize that the carnival tradition in the Netherlands is treated as something very usual and a way to create yourself a little celebration in the middle of February by participating in such a massive activity. Yes, in the Netherlands it was really a celebration weekend. In total four days of parading and partying. One of the most famous carnivals in the Netherlands is held in Limburg area, particularly in Maastricht, but other towns and cities are as impressive with their carnival shows. Though it is said that in the North of the country the carnival is not so popular [well, they don't know what they are missing though]. However, I'm in the sort of South and I had a chance to experience two local parades - one in a medium-size village Horssen, and other in a small town Druten, which is nearby.

Kathy Bee - A Collector's Tale

Kathy Bee in her own creation. Hostel in Belgrade, Serbia

What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear a term "Knitting"? I guess your thought flies not far from boring stuff that only our grandmothers tend to do in a big love to their grandchildren, caring how to keep them warm in cold winters by making a cute pair of gloves or socks. But it's not so easy. There's definitely much more to see in this as old-fashioned perceived hobby. There’s actually a huge industry hidden behind it. The world of knitting and textile - we see it everyday on the urban catwalks [especially in Serbia], but we never really dig in deep how actually the production process of creation of new materials and fulfilment of crazy ideas is happening.

I give myself a chance to dive in deep into the curiosities of textile world and speak with a brand new textile engineer Katharina Bredlich. She's just 24, freshly graduated from North-Rhine University of Applied Sciences [Germany], holding a Bachelor’s degree in textile engineering. We meet in Belgrade, and it's a place, where she did her internship in a knitting company “IVKO” [http://www.ivko-knits.com/en/ - by the way, the promo video is quite impressive] and where she got a job offer to continue her life-long learning experience adding to it a few extra years in the management of textile world...

Summer 2011: Exit Festival, Hostelworld of Belgrade and Other Things

Festival's Tent 'City' in Novi Sad

I've been kind of busy these days and this summer in general. The Internet connection was pretty limited, or better say limited for a long-term private use. Currently I live in a hostel among other people and I have no space or feeling of writing more than 140 signs on Twitter occasionally. So how is it going here so far? 

Here are some flashlights from the summer 2011. Firstly, upon my arrival here I did some volunteering at Exit Festival in Novi Sad. The whole festival experience was pretty new to me  as I never was on a music festival before. This experience included meeting masses of drunk and happy people, waking up every morning in a field of tents, swearing on the sun for being so hot (45 C is not something what can be enjoyed for an unlimited period of time), accidentally meeting current EVS volunteers in Novi Sad, lying on the beach and doing nothing (which kind of annoyed me, but there were not many other options available during the day) and enjoying great music at night (Jamiroquai, Editors, Portishead playing live on Exit this year). I also enjoyed being among the volunteers on the Silent Disco stage that made me feel like being a part of the festival organizing team. However, after being seven days in the nature and at full disposal to the sun I decided to move on to Belgrade.

Hitch-hiking Back to Balkans. Day Three. Bits of Czech Republic.

Ostrava, Czech Republic 2011

The morning starts just right after 6 AM. We’re having the last coffee together this summer. I have no doubt there will be more, as Europe appears more and more to be an extremely small village, where everything and everyone is connected. Agnieszka makes me sandwiches for the long way, as with hitch-hiking you never know where and when you’ll exactly end your day, as she says, though my destination is clear for today - Ostrava, where Adam is expecting me, so we can continue our journey to Balkans together tomorrow.

We take a tram from Agnieszka’s place (she actually lives quite close to the Old town - at least you can see Wawel Castle on the other side of the bridge, when you come out on the busy street) and get off at the main bus station. We go to the platforms, looking for my bus, or actually the bus, which I’m not taking to Katowice. We wait for the passengers to come, as it’s almost the departure time. We don’t know yet, if our idea of selling the ticket on the bus will work - as everyone appears to have a previously purchased ticket. But we’re lucky - just 1,5 minutes before the bus should leave appears a guy, who is in a complete rush, trying to manage to get on the bus, so that it’s not leaving without him. Agnieszka asks the guy in Polish, whether he needs a bus ticket to Katowice and luckily he really does! He gives Agnieszka 10 Polish Zlots in cash and he’s gone with the wind and the bus. We’re happy to have some benefit out of this morning’s bargain activity, and moreover Agnieszka admits that it was her first time selling the ticket on the bus. Yeah, there always comes the first time for something.

Hitch-hiking Back to Balkans. Day Two. Krakow.

Familiar places with Familiar Faces in Krakow: Agnieszka and Tomas!

Krakow's pride: Medieval Wawel Castle

It’s 7:15 AM and feels a bit weird to be such an early guest, and I am a bit disappointed that I found the house with number 70 so fast and easy. That means I’ll have to wake her up and the whole house too! I sit on a pedestrian sidewalk in front of the house and pay a long observing stare to the house. It's a relatively huge two-storey building that has been build in pre-Soviet era and has survived till this day. It looks pretty unique in this urbanized blockhouse paradise (i.e. neighborhood) built already in Soviet times. Meanwhile I text Agnieszka without a hope that she'll reply immediately, since she's a night-bird like me and this part of the day doesn't really exist for her. To my amazement, she comes out of this beautiful two-storey pre-Soviet building in less that 5 minutes.