Issue 52 of the CEU Weekly

W E E K Lthe

c e n t r a l e u r o p e a n u n i v e r s i t y

YAn independent newspaper by CEU students and alumni November 12, 2014, Year 4, Issue 52

Hungarian Expressionof the week

Szavak helyett a tettek beszélnek.

Actions speak louder than words.

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Hungarian News &This Day In History

IAPSS Human Rights Autumn Convention

Upcoming Events

Uganda: Drive to the 2016 Elections

Carry That Weight

CEU Reflects on the Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

Comet-Chasing &Scientific Navel-Gazing

DE-STRESSWEEK

Nov. 10-14

THE CEU WEEKLY

Thousands-strong demonstrations have taken place several times in Budapest in the last two weeks, ignited by the gov-

ernment’s plan to introduce a tax on Internet usage.Fidesz has to be congratulated: it takes a special effort to annoy both the left and the right so much at the same time. ‘Internet tax’ as a phrase is like ‘fossil fuel subsidy’ or ‘consumerism benefit’: remarkably elegant in its abil-ity to spread disgust so equally across the whole political spectrum.The plan, as it was originally conceived, was to impose a

charge of 150 forint on each Gigabyte of data download-ed, which could amount to as much as 900 forint for a single HD movie. But downloading films wasn’t the right the protesters were defending. The demonstrations were about Internet freedom - freedom of expression, of access to information – the new grounding of our civil society in this digital age. The mechanisms of democracy, they say, are not the sort of thing that should be taxed.

And if Hungarians are wary about that sort of thing right now, it’s with good reason. In a speech in July, after praising the political systems of Russia and China, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared, “the new state that we are constructing in Hungary is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state.” In that context, this tax appears to its critics as symbolic of a larger effort to undermine the democratic process in Hungary. The protesters were determined to win at least this small victory over Orbán’s grim project.The battle on that front seems to be going well. The gov-

ernment initially proposed a compromise: a cap on the tax at 700 forint per month for private citizens, and then finally took the issue completely off the immediate agenda last week. The issue hasn’t disappeared completely, and the government is now talking about a possible tax on In-ternet Service Provider profits, to be introduced at some vague future opportunity. Back home, we’d call the issue ‘kicked into the long grass’: hopefully somewhere nobody will find it again.

But the protesters haven’t backed down. The opposi-tion to this policy was so predictable, the climbdown so complete and rapid, it’s prompted many to wonder if the

whole plan was an exercise in misdirection. A chance to unite opposition groups in achieving one small victory, in the hope they’ll lose sight of the larger plan. It’s certainly true that while all this has been going on, the government has been involved in co-operative negotiations with Rus-sia over the construction of a new gas pipeline: a means for Vladimir Putin to maintain his grip on Europe’s ener-gy supply, which is alarming policymakers in both Brus-sels and Washington. The protesters, in maintaining their organised opposition, are not letting the broader question go, and are beginning to see themselves as a platform to voice dissent against the whole of Fidesz’s project.

Whether this attempt to establish the group as a new opposition force will succeed remains to be seen. Orbán has divided, and ruled, successfully for some time now. Finding a uniform platform for the breadth of dissenting voices against Fidesz’s platform - liberals, socialists, and libertarians are all among them – will be no small task, and nor will be turning a single issue protest group into a fully established opposition, which is the only thing that can hope to challenge Fidesz now. But the determination of the protesters is certainly admirable, and we should ex-pect this story to continue on for the foreseeable future.

---Daniel Hartas, Philosophy, United Kingdom

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Hungarian News

Hungarian News

(http://www.apartmentsbudapest.info)

This Day in Hungarian History

You pass along the Basilica almost every day, but did you ever wonder how and when was it built there? Well, the construction of St. Stephen’s Basilica was a long and pro-tracted process. Funds were already raised for its con-struction during the 1810s, but the actual building pro-cess started only in 1851. The plans for the building were created by József Hild, a renowned architect, who also designed the cathedrals in Esztergom and Eger. After his death in 1867, another acknowledged architect, Miklós Ybl took over the supervision of the construction. An unfortunate event in 1868 prolonged the building pro-cess significantly when the cupola and the cupola drum collapsed due to defects in materials and craftmanship. Construction could restart only in 1875, on the basis of plans modified by Ybl and the building was eventually finished in 1890. After the death of Ybl Miklós in 1891, the final, mainly decorative works were supervised by József Kauser. The dedication of the church took place in November of 1905, but for the placement of the keystone citizens had to wait until the end of next year when Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Autria and King of Hungary, hon-oured the event with his presence. As the Basilica was dedicated to St Stephen, founder of the Hungarian state, his Holy Right Hand is guarded there.--Alexandra Medzibrodszky, PhD Candidate History, Hungary

November 9, 1905: St Stephen’s Basilica pens its doors

You can read more about Budapest Churches on our blog:ceuweekly.blogspot.com

ISSUE 52

3

Interview

On November 9th, 1989, the world witnessed the fall of the most potent symbol of the division between the Com-munist East and non-Communist West within Europe: the Berlin Wall. 25 years on, the arbitrary division of the

continent is almost unimaginable to those born since its collapse; a bad dream from which Europe has long since awoken. For others however, the collective memory of the Wall, and its subsequent fall, still colours their experiences of contem-porary life. Below are some examples of the opinions of CEU students on what this anniversary means to them –their diversity demonstrates something of the complicated and contested nature of this generation’s relationship with the Wall.

-- Stephen Westlake, History, United Kingdom

CEU and the Berlin Wall: 25 Years Later

“25 years on Eastern Europe is still taking orders from above. Nowadays it’s Brussels instead of Moscow calling the shots”.

[theatlantic.com/]

[media.cleveland

.com]

“In Sofia, part of the Berlin Wall stands as a monument outside the National Museum of Culture. It feels like what happened belongs almost as much to Bulgaria and Bulgarians than to Berliners.”

“Even though the Wall fell 25 years ago, we still see former Communists and even the children of the

Communist Party’s pre-1989 elite becoming the new ruling elite in Croatia. Some things don’t change.”

“I think expectations were too high after the Wall fell. The idea that suddenly all of Eastern Europe was going to enjoy the same standard of living and po-litical freedoms of Western liberal democracies overnight was naïve.”

“The Berlin Wall? Well I saw the movie Goodbye Lenin, which made me think it must have been

pretty difficult for middle-aged and older people to adjust to capitalist life in former East Germany.”

“People say they wish they had been alive during the revolutions of 1989 but I think part of

the reason why it seems so romantic to our generation is because of how it is portrayed as a

“golden age” by those who were young at the time and want to re-live their youth now.”

“For me, the fall of the wall will always mean Guyla Horn, who was the minister of foreign affairs in 1989 and opened the border to Austria so the GDR citizens staying in Hungary could go to the West, which led to the collapse of the GDR and the fall of the Wall. I think there is a street in Berlin named after Gyula Horn somewhere…”

“It was a missed opportunity. We had a perfect shot at creating real democracy, but we only had blank bullets.”

“The way Germany opened up the Stasi files so quickly after the fall of the Wall

is part of what makes me love modern Germany. This would never happen in

my country, where contemporary politicians are too afraid of the revelations

about their pasts to totally declassify secret police files from before 1989”.

“Maybe it was better to be young in the Europe of 1989 than it is in 2014.”

“The Berlin Wall makes me think of Francis Fukuyama’s claims about the “end of history.” What a dumb thing to say!”

THE CEU WEEKLY

4

Life at CEU

“Carry that Weight” Day of Action

The mattress you saw wandering around the

CEU campus two weeks ago wasn’t a cruel joke about the sleepless season of midterms; rather, that mattress was part of a day of action aimed at raising awareness about sex-ual and domestic violence. While a mattress might seem like an unlikely tool of pro-test, the concept was inspired by the performance piece “Carry that Weight” of Co-lumbia University student, Emma Sulkowicz. A survi-vor of sexual assault, Emma committed to carrying a 23 kg mattress around campus as long as she was still attend-ing the same university as her assaulter. Taking the mattress from the bedroom into the classroom was a symbolic way to convey how sexual and domestic violence often re-mains a private affair left out-side of the public discourse. “Carry that Weight” has

quickly developed into a na-tional movement and day of action. On October 29th students from more than 130 universities brought mat-

tresses onto their campuses in support of Emma Sulkowicz. CEU student Andreea Ros took the initiative to organize events at CEU to show inter-national support for “Carry that Weight”. For ten hours, Andreea and other students carried a mattress around campus, passing out flyers and explaining the protest to students and staff. While most reactions were positive, Andreea did encounter stu-dents who were confused and thought the protest was a joke. Andreea said, “I know people didn’t have bad intentions, but it felt like they were laugh-ing at the idea of supporting sexual and domestic violence survivors and that was quite stressful...this is something I hadn’t anticipated although it’s probably a reaction Emma has to deal with quite a lot.”Because sexual assault isn’t

just happening at American colleges, “Carry that Weight” has increasing global rel-evance. From campuses in the UK to universities in Hungary, rape happens and often goes unreported and

unaddressed. While a Brit-ish survey found earlier this year that 37% of female and 12% of male students have experienced sexual assault at their universities, there seems to be a global trend towards disregarding rape cases which occur at universi-ties. Just like heavy drinking, rape jokes, and casual sexism, it’s simply part and parcel of the student lifestyle. As a stu-dent union leader told a stu-dent who experienced rape last year at a Hungarian uni-versity, “don’t make a scene”. This is exactly what “Carry

that Weight” is about – rais-ing awareness about sexual assault and the prevalence of rape culture at universities by purposefully making a scene.More information on ‘Carry

that Weight’: www.carry-ingtheweighttogether.comRead CEU’s Policy on Ha-

rassment: http://documents.ceu.hu/documents/p-1402-1

-- Giavana Margo Gender, United States

ISSUE 52

5

World Politics

In 2016 Uganda will hold general elections that will usher in a new

government. It is unclear whether President Yoweri Museveni – who has ruled the country for almost 30 years – will be nominated by his party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) to stand again in 2016. Nev-ertheless, the stakes are high with ten-sions mounting in this upcoming elec-tion. In fact, media polling suggests that support for the NRM has been declining over the past 10 years. This is because the NRM government has for the most part failed to deliver what it promised over the past many years it’s been in power. Instead, Ugandans face skyrocketing unemployment, never ending corruption scandals, and worst yet, frequent tribal clashes seen in recent clashes between the Ba-konzo and Bamba in western Uganda. It is estimated that over 85 people were killed in these clashes in the districts of Ntoroko, Bundibugyo, and Kasese.

So why is it important to talk about the situation two years before the election?

First, the current idea that tribal clashes have reduced the popular-ity of the party is in itself misleading. Two varying forms of clashes tend to show up; the first involving the police – alongside the army – against loy-alists of a given tribe (the Baganda) seen in the September 2009 riots. The other involves communities fight-ing within themselves for power and resources seen amongst the Bakonzo and Bamba in the July 5 clashes. De-spite these conflicts, the NRM still manages to gather support from peo-ple living in these affected areas us-ing tax payers’ money to bribe voters.

Second, it is believed that the grow-ing political tension within the NRM weakens the party. In fact, it is not, and Ugandans ought to be worried, because President Museveni’s style of uprooting opponents is nothing new in Uganda. History will prove that this approach helped him run down oppo-nents within the NRM like Late Hon. Eriya Kategaya amongst other when they opposed the removal of presiden-

tial term limits. In fact, former coor-dinator of intelligence, General David Tinyefuza criticized elections in Ugan-da for always being manipulated in fa-vor of the ruling party. In many ways this suggests that the much anticipated 2016 election will not be any different.

So will these thoughts gather any significant results in 2016? I want to believe that “no”, because regard-less of these previous tribal clashes and political fights within the party, it is always certain that the NRM will emerge victorious. In Uganda, a small bottle of our favorite local brew kasese kasese will make one win an election, as long as it is bought con-tinuously towards the voting day. This, in itself is the political foul play practiced in my home country today.

-- Pasqualino Okello School of Public Policy, Uganda

Uganda - Drive to the 2016 Elections

THE CEU WEEKLY

6

Science and Technology

Today is a big day. From 500 mil-lion km above the Earth, we

are making history. OK, it’s not re-ally “we”; it’s just a bunch of scien-tists who are encountering another world, quite literally. If all goes well, today we are landing on a comet for the first time ever. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta mis-sion is remotely sending down a collection of delicate and creatively named* scientific instruments to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (we’ll just go with 67P).The Rosetta spacecraft travelled for

over 10 years and 6 billion km to reach 67P, with the overall project running up a bill of €1.4 billion involving some 2,000 people. All this so that scientists can have a digitally mediated look at the dust and rocks 67P is made of and see it develop a tail as the Sun melts its icy surface when the comet is back in our solar neighborhood in 2015. As comets are ancient leftovers from the Solar System formation, looking closely at them should give us clues to how our planetary system evolved. In other words, this mission is part of our (never-ending?) quest to find out from where we all came.

So, yes, these are exhilarating times.But there is controversy surround-

ing the new grounds in science that Rosetta is making. After an insider leaked comet images in July 2014, space fans criticised ESA for not shar-ing its toys, arguing that it probably should share this wealth of informa-tion with the public. Although ESA and its partner institutes are mostly government-subsidised, the data gathered is carefully guarded for at least 6 months for the exclusive use of selected researchers. It’s called “proprietary period” because (duh!) science is the property of its maker.

Scientists need time to examine and publish their findings and if outsid-ers can access precious data, they might steal the glory by publishing first. Certain scholarly phobias are in-grained so deeply that at first it might be hard to respond to such claims. But not only are there rational arguments for sharing with the public (from “yo, I paid for that” through fundrais-ing for further research to sustain-ing public engagement), real-time publication of scientific information is doable and has been done before.

Viewed from another angle, ESA’s policy is part of a mainstream rhetoric of separating the scientist and the gen-eral public into a hierarchy, with the former standing on a pedestal as ‘the expert’ in possession of the ‘truth.’ And as the leaked Rosetta images showed, not even the insiders are uniformly happy about this setup. Research in-stitutions, such as the ESA, wield immense power by controlling the knowledge-making process and ac-cess to the resulting ‘facts’. By exploit-ing assertions for publishing rights and conjuring up the tragic ruination of scientific careers, it is this power structure that is being concealed.

-- Tamara Szűcs, Gender, Hungary

* That is to say, SESAME (Surface Electrical Sounding and Acoustic Monitoring Experiment), MIDAS (Mi-cro-Imaging Dust Analysis System), and OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging Sys-tem)? You couldn’t make this stuff up!

You can follow Rosetta at blogs.esa.int/rosetta and https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta.

Comet-chasing and scientific navel-gazing

(source: www.esa.int)

Rosetta “selfie” Comet 67P, “Rubber Duck”

(source: www.esa.int)

ISSUE 52

7

The IAPSS Autumn Convention 2014 on the Universality of Human Rights in the 21st Century

Academics & Culture

Are human rights in contemporary world universal? How can one justify the scope and protection of hu-

man rights? How are human rights interconnected with the concept of development? What role has the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) played in European hu-man rights protection so far? Do civil and political rights come before social economic rights, or vice versa, or are they equally important?These are just some of the questions addressed during

the Autumn Convention of the International Association of Political Science Students (IAPSS) held from October 20nd to October 23rd at Radboud University (RU) in Ni-jmegen, the Netherlands. Attended by over 220 partici-pants from almost 50 countries, the program consisted, foremost, of keynote speeches by renowned human rights experts, such as Prof. Marcel Wissenburg and Prof. Jan-neke Gerards, both from RU. The former argued in fa-vor of the rather unconventional idea that human rights are animal rights, while the latter provided some insights into the practice of the ECtHR. The second component were expert panels, such as the

one with former Dutch Prime Minister Prof. Dries van Agt, known for defending the Israeli position in the Pal-estine-Israel dispute during his tenure in the late 70s and later shifting completely in his views in favor of the inde-pendent Palestinian state. Thirdly, several student panels included students of all levels who presented the results of their ongoing research on human rights issues. It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to participate as one of the student presenters in the panel called The Practice of Human Rights: Case Studies, where I summarized the results of my paper on Freedom of Political Speech in the Slovak Republic. Finally, an Oxford Style Show Debate was organized, where two teams of five discussants tried to persuade the audience that human rights, as formu-

lated in the Universal Declaration either are or are not universal. The final voting of the audience was in favor of the concept of universality.

Apart from the official parts, various social events were included into the program, such as documentary screen-ings, the festive Closing Ceremony and Farewell Dinner, as well as a one-day trip to The Hague, where participants had an opportunity to choose among excursions to the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court or a Masterclass lecture given by Prof. Jan Pronk, former UN Special Envoy to Sudan and former Dutch Minister of Foreign Affair. It was the latter who applied his vast amount of practical experience to demonstrate the interrelatedness of political and socioeconomic rights using the example of the importance of ‘freedom’ vs. ‘food’. Both the organizers and participants concluded that the convention was a great success and a valuable learning experience for all. Many are already looking for-ward to the next conference with even larger coverage: the IAPSS World Congress 2015 in London and later the Autumn Convention 2015 in Prague.

For more information (full schedule, speakers, photos, re-ports) simply visit http://acganijmegen.wordpress.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/IAPSSAutumnConvention2014.

(Conference pictures from acganijmegen.wordpress.com)

You can learn more about the IAPSS via http://iapss.org/ and the World Congress 2015 in London at http://iapssworldcongress.org/.

-- Max Steuer, IRES, Slovakia

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The CEU Weekly is a student-alumnu initiative that seeks to provide CEU with a regularly issued newspa-per. The CEU Weekly is a vehicle of expression for the diversity of the perspectives and viewpoints that in-tegrate CEU’s open society: free and respectful public debate is our aim. We offer a place in which current events and student reflections can be voiced. Plurality, respect, and freedom of speech are our guiding principles.

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Editor in Chief: Eszter Kajtár Managing Editor: Lara TafferContributors: Daniel Hartas, Giavana Margo, Alexandra Medzibrodszky, Tamara Szűcs, Daniel Corsano, Jacob Verhagen, S.A. Siwiec, Aaron Kore-newsky, Stephen Westlake, Pasqualino Okello, Max Steuer, Anna Varfolomeeva and Christina E. Hermann.

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What else is there to talk about in November, but about bringing light to the darkness or warming up our bodies and souls? Check the upcoming events to prepare for the time when the sun disappears early and the gas convectors are turned on.

Combating DarknessThe Museum of Fine Arts and Hungarian Na-tional Gallery take turns in hosting Museum events once a month on Thursday evenings. November’s theme is “Battle between Light and Darkness”. To conquer the Darkness at least for one evening, the Museum is offering guided tours in Hungarian and English, classical music concert, tea house and wine & delicacies tasting. Where: Museum of Fine Arts, BudapestWhen: November 13, 6-10 pmCosts: 2 800 HUF; the new exhibition“Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age” is an extra 600 HUFMore information at: http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/museum

Light the CandleBudapest Jewish Quarter is uniting its well-known places and hidden corners for the 6th Quarter6Quarter7 Hanukkah Festival, The Fes-tival of Lights. This year’s focus is on subcultures and minorities of the quarter. The program in-cludes concerts, city walks, exhibitions, round tables, performances, forum theatre events and many more. It’s a great chance to explore the Jewish quarter.Where: various locations in Districts 6 and 7When: November 27-December 5More information at: http://negyed6negyed7.com/info/Also check out: Expat’s night at Massolit cafe with a round-table discussion: http://negyed6negyed7.com/event/expats-

night-a-massolitban/Warm up Wisely

Besides being fun, second-hand shopping reduces con-sumerism and inspires us to recycle. Thus, you have a lot of reasons to visit the Gardrob Fair, a giant community ga-rage sale which takes place on Saturdays throughout No-vember very close to Deák Fe-renc square. Where: Passageway, Kiraly utca 8When: November 22 and 29, 11.00 -17.00 More information at: https://www.facebook.com/Gardrob-KozossegiVasar

Stir Your SoulSeveral days ago I wanted to buy tickets for Mamma Mia! at the Madach Theatre and found out that they translated all the AB-BA’s songs into Hungarian. For-tunately, the Contemporary Dra-ma Festival is approaching, and there will be a chance to enjoy modern Hungarian theatre per-formances with English subtitles. Where: several theatres; note that each of them sells tickets sepa-rately. When: Nov. 28-Dec. 7More information at: http://www.dramafestival.hu/

---Anna Varfolomeeva, Environmental Science and Policy, Russia