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Boris Johnson: If you do the philosophy as well, it gives you a huge understanding of the origins of European civilization.
Source: Festival Latin Grec [edited]
This interview was done in April 2009, for our “Job’s Corner” by Olivier Coen (Anarès) and Elizabeth Antébi, writer, historian et creator of the Festival.
EA: It’s almost the First Anniversary of your election as Mayor of London. At that time, do you remember what your father said, that he who can master Demosthenes and knows Pericles can master a city like London? What would you say, one year after, about that?
BJ: I have no reason to depart from that opinion, it’s absolutely true ! I spent myself almost twenty years, well, I cannot remember exactly how much, anyway Latin and Greek was the bedrock of my own education. I think, it’s invaluable. It teaches you about Civilisation, about Politics, about Democratic participation and all sorts of difficulties that leaders encounter.
EA: We try to convince parents and children that Latin and Greek can really help you to be able to work better, to find a job and construct a career. What would you think of it ?
BJ: I think it’s a fantastic mental training, because to do Latin and Greek properly requires a great deal of intellectual discipline – you have to understand the grammar and you have got to fit all together, and it teaches you obviously how to think, how to think straight. If you do the philosophy as well, it gives you a huge understanding of the origins of European civilization. So I thoroughly encourage everybody to do it, but don’t bubble … don’t think you can just do it without learning Latin and Greek, you must learn the languages.
EA: Some parents think that it is more useful to speak Chinese ?
BJ: Absolute nonsense ! And there is an increasing school of Chinese studies of Latin and Greek and quite right too. Because Latin and Greek, Latin in particular of course, is the origin of so many other Romance languages around the world. If you read Latin you can pick up a newspaper across Latin America, across much of Europe, and you can more or less understand what is being written and it is invaluable too. Of course, it’s true that Chinese is an important language to learn. But English is the language of global capitalism and I would thoroughly recommend that people study Latin and Greek and English.
EA: In the East, there are many Web sites speaking Latin for the news in particular, in Finland, in Germany …
BJ: Let me make a point to you. We have a huge issue in Europe today. And it’s a great feeling that this continent, this city was founded by the Romans. And nobody feels the sense of European unity, that they used to under the Roman Empire, do they ? And it seems to be that one way we can inspire that again, will be to encourage every people in Europe to learn Latin. Because when the Roman Empire existed and when Europe was genuinely united, everybody studied the same texts. And every child could read the story of Dido and Aeneas and could recite it, but it’s no longer true. But if they read it again and if only it was common curriculum of every European country, then once again you would have a sense of collective cultural heritage.
EA: Well, as a political man, when you are looking at Iran, do you think of Xenophon ? When looking at Egypt of Herodotus ? When you see peace in Europe of Aristophanes?
BJ: I do, of course I do ! And I see the huge continuity between the Ancient world and the Modern world. And if you go to Athens, what’s so astonishing is the linguistic continuity : you can pick up “Tachidromos” or any newspaper, and you can read it! It’s the language of Pericles ! It is the same script, the words are the same. And if you go to Egypt, it’s absolutely true, you can see the same Pyramids that Herodotus saw, you can see the same Sphynx that Herodotus saw, you can buy the same souvenirs, and you can be ripped off exactly the same way by the same guides.
EA: For the children, could it be a key to the world ? You said once that against the “culture” (if it is a culture) of knives, the best thing would be to teach Latin and Greek in all the schools ?
BJ: I never said that: journalists make things up. But, it’s true ! I mean it’s certainly true that one of the things you can do is to give better education; one of the things that I find sad about education in Britain is that we have such a restricted number of schools that actually offer Latin and Greek. I’d like to expand it, that’s one of the reasons we are having seminars here, in City Hall, to encourage it.
Official vs.unofficial partnership with the EU institutions
Source : EurActiv [edited]
Please see the EuroElections add here : http://www.europarltv.europa.eu/YourVoice.aspx?action=view&PackageId=3aa717a9-86c7-48b6-af0d-3046a364b605
Online broadcaster YouTube and TV channel Euronews launched a new broadcasting service to “connect voters and candidates” ahead of next month’s European elections. ‘Questions for Europe’ is not the first time YouTube has hosted political messages. The White House, Queen Elizabeth II and 10 Downing Street all have official channels on the site, while YouTube has worked in partnership with local broadcasters for elections in Spain, Poland, Israel and New Zealand.
The ‘Questions for Europe’ projectexternal seeks to encourage candidates, constituents and experts “to engage in a dialogue through online video”. The project, which becomes active for the public later this week, primarily relies on user-generated content, inviting citizens to submit questions to candidate MEPs by uploading videos to a dedicated channel on YouTube, a popular online video community owned by US giant Google.
Euronews will broadcast a selection of the questions – and MEPs, think-tank representatives and other Brussels commentators’ answers to them – at the end of its half-hourly news bulletins, which reach 256 million households in 144 countries.
Echoes of MyBarackObama.com
The European Parliament and the EU executive already have their own YouTube channels, but Questions for Europe’s backers stressed that the new initiative was completely independent from the EU institutions’ preparations for the elections. “There is no official partnership with the EU institutions,” said Echikson, and “there is no official partnership with the candidates or political parties either,” added Euronews managing director and board member Michael Peters.
Asked what the motivation behind the project was, Echikson said “we remembered the Obama ‘Yes we can’ phenomenon, and thought, ‘Can we do this in Europe?’” “It’s too early to say whether this will take off like ‘Yes we can’. It’s an experiment. It’s something new,” he added. “The glossiest veneer isn’t always the most authentic in politics,” added Aaron Ferstman, director of political communications at YouTube. “Raw can be better sometimes, which is where YouTube comes in.”
‘Not a marketing exercise’
Refuting suggestions that the whole enterprise was simply a marketing exercise for all concerned, Peters said the project was “about giving concrete, professional answers to individual questions”. “It’s a question of educating people. We are trying to be a bit of a Wikipedia on the EU elections,” Peters said. “It’s about putting intelligent user-generated content on air.” “It’s also about having the right questions available at the right time when we’re interviewing MEPs. It’s not a question of using our partnership with YouTube in a marketing way,” he insisted.
Some observers present at yesterday’s launch suggested that the channel could become a Eurosceptic hub, as most public contributions to such initiatives tended to be anti-EU. “We’re not afraid of it becoming a Eurosceptic channel. We know that it will be mainly Eurosceptic, and we’re waiting for that. We need all points of view for it to be credible,” insisted Euronews’ Peters. “Please Eurosceptics, come to us,” he urged.
Positions:
“The upcoming European election will captivate European citizens and generate discussions from Portugal to Poland. Our news, online content, and soon YouTube videos in Euronews broadcasts all fuel impassioned political conversations,” said Michael Peters, managing director and a member of the board at Euronews.
“The Euronews-YouTube channel enables a global audience to delve into politics in a way that simply was not possible during the last [European] Parliamentary election,” said YouTube’s director of political communications, Aaron Ferstman. “In conjunction with Euronews, a leader in both television broadcasting and editorial programming, we are for the first time enabling voters from around the European Union to ask their potential future member of parliament a question in video form and hear the answer,” Ferstman continued. “One of the things that works most successfully for politicians is to upload frequently and be engaged,” he said. “YouTube can raise awareness of the EU elections. Many people don’t even know when the elections are, but everyone recognises the YouTube logo.”
European Health Insurance Card
Protection Of Cultural Heritage
Human rights throughout the world
Does the EU understand its own past?
Source: Euro Parliament
Europe’s 20th century left a continent shattered by World Wars and Fascism and Communism. As Western Europe recovered after 1945 and went on to build a European Union based on democracy and open markets, countries behind the Iron curtain endured Communist rule. A recent public hearing looked at life under Communism and how little it is understood in west. Two decades on from the fall of the Berlin Wall and with West and East united, we want your opinion: “Does the EU understand its own past?”
Does the EU understand its own past?
If EU countries have emerged from sharply contrasting experiences, not yet sufficiently understood by each other, what of the EU as such? The EU has its own history, one emphasising democracy, unity and peace, but as the EU has enlarged to encompass 27 member states, does that history fully encompass the historical experience of all its citizens, including all those who lived much of the period since the founding of the EU under totalitarian, authoritarian and undemocratic regimes?
As part of this effort to create a better understanding of European history, the hearing – ‘European Conscience and the Crimes of totalitarian Communism: 20 Years After’ – on March 18 in Brussels brought together MEPs, European governments and NGOs. The discussion focused on how Europe should reconcile itself to its totalitarian legacy. It came ahead of a resolution MEPs adopted on 2 April to call for 23 August to be a Europe-wide day of remembrance for victims of totalitarianism.
West is West and East is East: different perceptions
Estonia was one of the countries swept back into the Soviet Union at the end of the war. Estonian Christian Democrat MEP Tunne Kelam chaired one of the panels at the hearing. He told us that it still surprises many Western Europeans that in the ten years following World War II “1 million people were killed in Central and Eastern Europe liberated by the Soviets”.
The consequences of this are that “today there are 10 of millions of citizens in Central and Eastern Europe who have or whose parents have suffered whose sense of justice have not yet been satisfied”.
Hungarian Christian Democrat MEP György Schöpflin told the hearing that “the West regards this issue as irrelevant as it gets in the way of everyday business” and that “Communist crimes are less important than Nazi ones”. He said such an approach “eats away at East-West relations”.
“90% never heard of Gulag”
Camilla Andersson from the Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism in Sweden told the hearing about public perceptions on Communism and Nazism. In a recent survey of students aged 15-20 it found that 90% had never heard of the Gulag whilst the same number were well informed about the Holocaust. In addition 40% believed that Communism had contributed to increased prosperity in the world.
For the Presidency of the EU, the Czech Europe Minister Alexandra Vondra said that “knowing our past is also an essential tool to teach our children how to avoid intolerance, extremism and the recurrence of totalitarian rule in the future”.
Emmanuel Zingeris for the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania commented: “This is not an issue of left or right, this is an issue of the fate of our nations and that of millions of victims. We should not equal Nazism and Communism; gas chambers were not the same as gulags.”
In Romania the secret police – the Securitate – were particularly notorious. Marius Oprea from the Institute for the Investigation of the Communist Crimes in Romania told those gathered that: “More than 10,000 people were shot without any sentence by the Securitate, and out of the 1 million political prisoners more than 10% were killed during detention.”
Day of remembrance for victims
MEPs in a resolution adopted on 2 April called on European governments to establish 23 August as a Europe-wide Remembrance Day for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. It would mark the date of the infamous Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939 which enslaved millions. In a resolution on European conscience and totalitarianism they say “there can be no reconciliation without truth and remembrance”. They want the past to be documented and archives opened.
What has Europe ever done for us?
Source: European Movement
The European Dream
source: Wise Enterprise
Nicolas Sarkozy “Turkey is not European!”
Illustration: "Citizenship", Rafael Lopez, www.rafaellopez.com
We would like to highlight in this post the work of Professor Osler, founding director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights Education at the University of Leeds.
She began her career as a teacher and has experience working for local authorities as an adviser for multicultural education and as a director of a teachers’ centre.
Prof Osler has received career recognition from a wide range of bodies, both nationally and internationally. In 2003 she was winner of the Times Educational Supplement/ NASEN award for best academic book. From 2003-2005 she was sole European representative on the University of Washington’s Consensus Panel on Citizenship and Diversity. She has acted as an advisor to a number of international organizations, including UNESCO, the Council of Europe and the Carter Center at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. She has also acted as advisor and/or trainer to national governments and NGOs, including the Korean Commission on Human Rights; the Development Education Association of Japan; Equitas, Canada; the government of Macedonia (FYROM); the Jordanian Ministry of Education in collaboration with UNICEF; the Kenyan Ministry of Education; and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education.
Prof Olser’s research focuses on the socio-cultural contexts of learning and on education policy as it relates to questions of equity and human rights. Research projects have addressed the processes of school inspection; exclusion from school; teacher careers and professional development; student perspectives on schooling; children’s human rights; diversity, identity and citizenship; faith schooling and social cohesion; and the processes of implementation of European and national policies on citizenship and multiculturalism.
Abstracts of recent publications:
“This article examines recent UK government policy and proposals relating to immigration and citizenship, and the ways in which these policies are presented as means of securing allegiance and integration. From 1997, the incoming Labour government emphasized the importance of informed, active citizenship and social justice. From 2001, the emphasis shifted to community cohesion, with immigrants identified as a potential threat to cohesion. The article analyses the knowledge required of new settlers through the `citizenship test’, introduced in 2005, and the assumptions made about immigrants and about British culture and society in the test. It critiques the concepts of `active citizenship’, `earned citizenship’ and `probationary citizenship’ in the 2008 Green Paper, The Path to Citizenship . These policy proposals, if enacted, threaten migrants’ employment opportunities, risk creating barriers to participation and undermining social cohesion. They place unrealistic demands on aspirant citizens, which are not placed on established citizens.”
“This paper examines the British Labour government’s developing political discourse on patriotism, citizenship and multiculturalism since 1997, particularly following the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the 2005 London bombings. It focuses on the speeches of key government figures, notably Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and on the ways in which they apply their ideas to the teaching of history and citizenship in schools. It contrasts a broadly cosmopolitan rhetoric about Britain and its role in the world with a narrower focus on British history and “British values”. It considers concerns about the radicalisation of Muslim youth and how such concerns are related to a discourse about separation and communication, applied to minorities in general, and to Muslims and to Muslim women in particular. Political discourse is contextualised within the race relations legislation of the period. The author reflects on challenges that arise when history is harnessed in a project to promote national unity. It suggests that history teaching needs to be reframed, so as to recognize that students are not only citizens of a nation-state but are also emergent cosmopolitan citizens living in an age of globalization and universal human rights.”
Back in August 2007, Dutch photographer and journalist Bruno van den Elshout started working on a proje
- Day One: Cork, Ireland
ct that would make many a European marvel. Within 366 days, he visited all 27 EU member states in one zig-zag journey across the continent.
Baptised “Us Europeans“, the now-finished travel project contains testimonials of over 2,500 young Europeans, interviewed by the photographer throughout the course of the project. While staying in over 180 different European cities, Bruno kept up a rhythm of interviewing between five and ten people every day.
Subjects differed daily, and ranged from the Dutch Carnival to the Bulgarian alphabet celebrations, from Portuguese tomato jam to Greek coffee, from immigrants in Spain to religious matters in Poland.
- Stockholm’s archipelago: Finhamn, Sweden
Forced into flexible mode, Bruno had to be prepared for roughly 27 culture shocks. “I met lots of small surprises on the way, saw many stereotypes confirmed but also had to adjust many of them,” Bruno says. “I knew the Irish enjoy spending time in pubs, but I never knew that even funerals are likely to include a pub visit at some point. In much the same way, it’s interesting to see how something that seems trivial in The Netherlands – going to a sauna – can be such an integral part of daily life for a Finn.
Also, in some countries, hardly anything gets done without kisses or handshakes, while elsewhere, people avoid physical contact whenever they can. It’s good to know about such differences in advance. It saves a lot of misunderstanding and even mistrust. Being conscious of cultural differences is the best first step in overcoming them. I hope that Us Europeans can serve as some people’s first step in gaining interest in the wonderful world of intercultural communication.”
- Salt: Torrevieja, Spain
Throughout his journey, Bruno stayed with friends, with CouchSurfing hosts and in youth hostels. He used public transport making his way from one side of each country to the other.
The budget for the trip amounted to 30 euros a day. Bruno did not get any subsidies or external funding for the
project, and withdrew the budget from his own savings account. “I also needed to give up my job”, Bruno explains, “which made the project a bit risky. I did count on previous work experience to feel confident about finding proper employment upon my return. And in the end, I did have a “safe landing”.
Since my return, I have been working as a free-lance photographer, journalist and consultant. Besides all that, I am working on a photo exhibition my journey. It’s named “Crossroad Europe”, and it will take off in The Hague, The Netherlands on 8 and 9 May.”
Mulilingualism is a cultural and linguistic challenge for all citizens of an enlarged Europe.
The European Union has 23 official languages, and as the EU enlarges, the number will increase further”[1].
By: Nathalie Henri
European institutions refer to the key term of multilingualism as not only the expression of the plurality of languages but also as source and structure of European “values”.
In a European document defining the objectives of the multilingualism framework, Fleming (2008) explains that the “the notion of the languages of education is dual, it constitutes first a structural tool allowing to identify different parts of the programme, dealing with language development (…) but it is also supposed to translate a belonging to fundamental values which are the core of the action of the European Council: human rights, “plurilinguism”, diversity, social cohesion and democratic citizenship.”[2]
Through multilingual policies in the European Union are European citizens invited to become multilingual citizens or at least master three languages of the European Union in order to communicate more effectively with their neighbours.
Michael Byram (2007) [3], Professor of Education at Durham University and language policy advisor to the Council of Europe, affirms that by teaching of languages “competitiveness and mobility” are raised and reminds that “language teaching should support the development of intercultural awareness, tolerance, social inclusion and a European identity’.
Multilingualism in European institutions can be seen as a long-term investment through Arts and Education, training the future generations of European citizens. Younger generations and future citizens of an enlarged Europe are encouraged to think of themselves as part of the multilingual and united Europe – see the excellent little book “United in Diversity” (2007), edited in 27 languages to encourage primary school children to discover the geography the European Union and learn about the history of the EU, the Euro and landmarks of each country.
Mulilingualism is a cultural and linguistic challenge for all citizens of an enlarged Europe. In a recent Communication, the European Commission has presented a detailed framework to invite Member States to support multilingualism, encourage their citizens to learn two languages.
Multilingualism is presented as “an asset for Europe and a shared commitment” and “linguistic diversity” recognised as “an asset for solidarity and prosperity”.[4]
Notes:
[1]Europa: European Commission>Multilingualism>Languages of Europe: <http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/languages-of-europe/index_en.htm>
[2]“La notion de « langues de l’éducation » est double ; en effet, elle constitue un outil structurel permettant d’identifier les différentes composantes du programme concernées par le développement du langage (langue comme discipline, langue d’enseignement des autres disciplines et enseignement des langues étrangères), mais elle est aussi censée traduire un attachement aux valeurs fondamentales qui sont au cœur de l’action du Conseil de l’Europe : droits de l’homme, plurilinguisme, diversité, cohésion sociale et citoyenneté démocratique.” Fleming (2008), translated from the French by Nathalie Henry.
[3] Languages for Europe: “on the edges” (multilingualism intercultural awareness and European citizenship) Draft proposal for an all-European regional project.<www.britishcouncil.pl/pdf/>
[4] Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Multilingualism: An asset for Europe and a shared commitment, Brussels, 18.9.2008, COM (2008 ) 566 final <http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/news/news2853_en.htm>
Source: BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7830498.stm
The Czech EU presidency has apologised for an art installation it commissioned that lampoons national stereotypes.
- The Netherlands is shown as a series of minarets submerged by a flood – a possible reference to the nation’s simmering religious tensions.
Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra apologised directly to Bulgaria, which has formally complained over its depiction as a toilet in the art work.
He said the image, at the European Council building in Brussels, would be removed if Sofia insisted.
David Cerny, the Czech artist behind the work, admits misleading officials over his intentions with the project.
He said he had “wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself”.
The Czech Republic thought it had commissioned work from 27 European artists for the Entropa display, which was installed at the weekend to mark the start of its six-month presidency.
But it turned out the work – an eight-tonne mosaic resembling a snap-out plastic modelling kit – was entirely completed by Mr Cerny and two associates.
‘No censorship’
At the official unveiling of Entropa on Thursday, the artwork “came to life”, emitting noises and flashing lights, to general applause – a sound not often heard in the EU Council building in Brussels, says the BBC’s Oana Lungescu in Brussels.
Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra apologised to anyone who was offended by the work.
“I apologise to Bulgaria and its government if it feels offended, and I think we are certainly ready to engage in a dialogue,” he said, quoted by the AFP news agency.
- “If you stand by your request to remove it,” he told a Bulgarian diplomat at the ceremony, “of course we will certainly do that”.
Sofia summoned the Czech ambassador on Wednesday to complain.
“If you stand by your request to remove it,” he told a Bulgarian diplomat at the ceremony, “of course we will certainly do that”.
But he said the rest of the installation would stay. “We wanted to prove that 20 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, there is no censorship,” said the former Czech dissident.
But he refused to share the platform with the artist, who insisted his piece was in the European tradition of satire, like Monty Python and France’s Les Guignols. He also denied that the Lego entry for Denmark was a representation of one of the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that appeared in 2005.
As well as portraying Bulgaria as a toilet, Entropa depicts Romania as a Dracula theme-park and France as a country on strike.
The Netherlands is shown as a series of minarets submerged by a flood – a possible reference to the nation’s simmering religious tensions.
The Czech EU presidency has apologised for an art installation it commissioned that lampoons national stereotypes.
Germany is shown as a network of motorways vaguely resembling a swastika, while the UK – criticised by some for being one of the EU’s most Eurosceptic members – is absent from Europe altogether.
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