Demo-crazy Times_Issue 2

Issue 2.

Democracy Times

While you are working hard at General Assembly, your editors have been on an-other GA. The Geek Assembly. From the mess in our room, among the tons of

cables, gadgets and empty cola bottles, today’s news-paper is born. It is the longest issue yet! It has funnier articles, more interesting views and priceless guides on how to survive during a session. We love reading about your adventures although we hardly get to see you at all. That is the sad part of the life of the editors although we are having lots of fun by ourselves (it’s sad, we know). When you’re reading this, GA will be over and the next part of the session will start. A different element to an EYP session that we hope will be interesting for you. Have fun and look forward to the next video which will be shown tomorrow!

Your Editorial Team, Lavrentia Christodoulou & Johan Wallin

(aka the Greek and the Swede)

Fabian Hildenbrand (DE), Lukas Rosenkranz (DE), Lukas Bock (CH), Monica Mantovani (IT),

Tuna Dökmeci (TR)

2 | Demo-crazy Times

Editorial...

Contributors

Content

Demo-crazy Times| 3

p.9

p.8

p.15

p.17

p.4-5

Life Without Democracy>There is one delegation at the session that has a special story to tell. Coming from Be-larus, these delegates live most of the time in a totalitarian society situated in Europe. Lukas Bock talked with them about their life in Belarus, the advantages of democracy and their visions for their home country.

For most participants of the Leipzig Forum, being able to express their own opinion is not something unusual. For them, travelling abroad does not imply the threat of being expelled from university. Actu-ally, the large majority of the participants would refer to their country as a democracy. There is though one delegation which does not fit into this pattern . I am talking about the Belarusian delega-tion, which comes from the region some are used to call the “last dictatorship in Europe.” Living in their home country means experiencing a totali-tarian political system, led by the President Alex-andr Lukashenko. I had the chance to talk with two of the Belarusian delegates who tried to give me a more realistic image of the society they live in. As their government recommends them not to take part in EYP, I am not going to mention their names.

To begin with, I had to dramatically revise the im-pression of Belarus I had till now. Daily life there is not constantly dominated by the government; Belarusians can practically travel anywhere they want to. It is the contact with other people which is of higher importance to them than governmental restrictions. However, you must always be aware of the consequences which might follow your actions – obviously, criticising the President can cause your immediate interview by the state’s security service.

Taking a closer look though, you easily recognize the president’s fear of opposition. He has recently

passed a new law banning clapping (yes, you read correctly). The reason for the law was that clapping was the only way, in which silent demonstrations of the opposition -criticising the governmental sys-tem openly would not be possible of course- could gain attention. Freedom of speech is hence defi-nitely not granted. Freedom of expression is con-sequently the right that the two Belarusians would like to establish first if they had the power (be-sides taking the power away from the president).

On the other side, it is surprising how many liber-ties the Belarusian people have – complete control of every citizen is just impossible. EYP in Belarus basically means that young people inform them-selves about sessions abroad, apply and leave the country, not caring about possible consequences at all. Even though our Belarusian delegates might be threatened to be expelled from university because of attending the Forum on Youth and Democracy in Leipzig, they decided to travel here. They say that attending the session is in any case more useful than spending another week at university in Belarus.

Their life at university is pretty much similar to the one in the rest of the world (you can study the same subjects as anywhere else, such as marketing or inter-national economic relations). However, it is clear that any action against the state will be strictly prosecuted.

Still, I have to admit that I cannot understand how


one individual, the Belarusian president, might possibly exert so much power as he does. Take for example his hobby, ice hockey. He built over-dimensioned stadiums all over the country – one delegate living directly next to one of those huge buildings tells that if the president feels like play-ing ice hockey by himself, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood would be instructed not to make any light and close their windows. Furthermore, the police would block all the streets in the vicinity. Can you imagine a more selfish and titanic behaviour?

The situation in Belarus, described by two na-tives, really seems to be horrible. However the Belarusian people are normal people like you and me. Their daily lives resemble ours in many ways since the government is just not able to control every aspect of their life (as the GDR and North Korea have tried or are still trying).

In any case, I really hope that their visions for their country will become true one day, that Belaru-sian people won’t have to be afraid of the govern-ment anymore, that they will be able express their opinion freely and that the state will be led by politicians who fulfil their tasks cautiously. When I finally asked whether they felt patriotic about their country, even though there were many nega-tive features attributed to it by their political sys-tem, they quickly said yes; they would be patriots of their country, not patriots of their state though.

I wish them all the best in their efforts to spread the word of Youth and Democracy in Belarus. They per-sonally do believe that change is possible, too. They stated that they felt positive about the country’s fu-ture after all.

Demo-crazy Times| 5

The Story of a Humanitarian>Tuna Dökmeci gets inspired by the story of Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese fighter for demo-cratic rights.

It is widely known that the term democracy derives from Ancient Greek and originally means the “rule of the public”. However, democracy today means something more than a nation selecting their gov-ernment each four or five years. Democracy is the freedom of expressing different opinions, having the right to turn them into action and the assump-tion that everyone is equal in terms of humanitar-ian value. Democracy can’t exist without this as-sumption, aka without respect to human rights.

We have all heard on the media about the case of Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese writer, professor and a hu-man rights activist. Liu Xiaobo is aware of the im-portance of having the fundamental rights in a democratic state and thus keeps fighting for this cause. However his case is quite different be-cause he is citizen of the People’s Republic of China(PRC) which is claimed to be a communist state, while it actually represents a model of “state capitalism” and the market of world capitalism.

Firstly I would like to tell you about Liu Xiaobo’s po-litical views. He is known on the Chinese media as a pro-Western, which means that he identifies mod-ernisation with westernisation. He stated that “west-ernisation is not a choice of a nation, but a choice of the human race.” By the term west he mostly means the American model of a liberal state and is a de-fender of the American foreign policy, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iraq War. I must say that my personal is the total opposite, yet it is ab-solutely anti-democratic for PRC to call him a “trai-tor” solely because he publicly expresses his opin-ion, opposing to the government’s official attitude.

He is also one of the most important humanitarians in China, mostly known for the Hunger Strike Decla-ration, where he urged the adaptation of a new politi-cal culture based on dialogue and compromise (thus

abandoning the Marxist ideology for struggle of classes). On June 6th in 1989, he was arrested and af-ter three months he was expelled from the university. All of his publications were banned. He was released after 19 months; however he kept being arrested and released several times by the end of Decem-ber 2009, when he received a sentence for 11 years

On October 8th in 2010 he was awarded with the No-bel Committee for his “long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” Chinese government, as expected, reacted harshly upon the news, immediately censored the disclosure of the award and opposed to the Norwegian government by claiming that Liu Xiaobo is a criminal, who didn’t deserve that honour. Of course, he wasn’t allowed at-tend the award ceremony, an act that caused the re-action of the Western media and governors. Still, the Chinese government kept defending their position..

You may not agree with the political views of Liu Xiaobo or you may be a strict Marxist and op-pose to the USA policies which he strongly de-fends. However, under no circumstances, can such a violation of the right to freely express your opinion be accepted. Because, after all, that’s what democracy is all about. Democracy is the right to think and the right to demand a change.


PEUX-TU UNDERSTAND MICH?> As in every EYP session, you are meeting people from all around Europe. The Euro-pean Union has twenty-three official languages. Are you able to speak at least the three most common ones? Here your favorite translators Lukas Rosenkranz and Monica Mantovani will help you to survive in every situation that can occur during the session.

Bei jeder EYP Session triffst du Leute aus ganz Europa. In der Europäische Union gibt es dreiun-dzwanzig offizielle Sprachen. Kannst du wenig-stens die drei herkömmlichsten sprechen? Deine Lieblingsübersetzer Lukas und Monica wollen dir jetzt dabei helfen, jede Situation, die während der Session entstehen kann, zu überleben.

Pendant chaque session du PEJ vous avez la possi-bilité de rencontrer des jeunes de beaucoup de pays européens. L’Union Européenne a vingt-trois langues officielles. Connaissez-vous au moins celles qui sont les plus communes ? Ici, vos meilleurs traducteurs Lukas et Monica, vous aident à survivre chaque situa-tion que vous pourriez rencontrer pendant la session.

BonjourAu revoir!

Bonne nuit!Comment ça va?Tu viens d’où?

Peut-tu m’aider?Est-ce que vous avez la clé de ma

chambre?Quand on aura la pause du café?Où est-ce que on se rencontrera?Je ne parle pas français, parlez-

vous ...?Notre resolution sera la meilleure

Tes yeux sont aussi marrons que le désert du Sahara!

Je t’aimeTu me manqueras

Quelle session fantastique!L’équipe de presse est adorable

Merci, mon cher orga notre équipe de chairs, c’est la

meilleure du monde

Good morning Goodbye

Good nightHow are you doing?Where are you from?

Can you help me? Have you got the key of my room?

When is the coffee break?Where should we meet?

I don’t speak English, do you speak…?

Our resolution will be the best oneYour eyes are as brown as the Sa-

hara desert!I love you

I will miss youWhat a wonderful session!The press team is adorableThank you, my sweet orga

Our chairs’ team is the best in the world

Guten Morgen Auf Wiedersehen

Gute NachtWie geht es dir?

Wo kommst du her?Kannst du mir helfen?

Haben Sie meine Zimmerschlüssel? Wann ist die Kaffeepause? Wo sollen wir uns treffen?

Ich spreche kein Deutsch, sprechen Sie…

Unsere Resolution ist beste!Deine Augen sind so braun wie die

Sahara! Ich liebe dich

Ich werde dich vermissenWas für eine wunderbare Session!

Das Presseteam ist bezaubernd Danke, mein süß Orga

Unser Chairsteam ist das beste auf der ganzen Welt

Demo-crazy Times| 7

GA for Beginners>It is our prime goal to ensure that you will get the most out of the General Assembly. Your Journos, Fabian Hildenbrand and Lukas Bock, have collected the most important rules and guidelines for proper behaviour during GA.Part 1: Fashion

We don’t know who came up with the idea that men have to dress up like formal penguins (editors’ com-ment: how does the formal penguin differ from a normal one?), i.e. with suit and shirt. However, this issue is slightly more complex than one might think at first glance. Be aware of the following traditions and taboos:

•Ties: Mandatory for men, may occasionally re-placed by a bowtie. Fashionable designs are: plain, small stripes but definitely not the stains from your last meal – pay attention!•Suit: Black is classic, Scottish style (aka kilt) appre-ciated.•Don’t wear sunglasses. This is a privilege of the board.•Running shoes may only be accepted in specific cases – for instance if you are volunteering to help the organisers during the coffee breaks.•Forget about the turbans. That was popular at the oriental party, but not any longer.•High heels for the women are a sensitive issue. 5cm are the minimum, but we encourage you to try ones which are 13cm high. Consider your own height when it comes to deciding on this matter. •Even if you are tired: don’t show up in bathing suits or bikini. Please.

Part 2: General Behaviour

The following simple instructions are to be obeyed at any time, by any participant of GA. Report in-fringements immediately! (Editors’ comment: to the for-mal penguin?)

DON’T DO

Part 3: Further Recommendations•Do not attempt to bribe the president or any mem-ber of the board prior to the 4th resolution.• Do not use the placard “point of order”. No way (unless your chair decides to do so). • Do not ask the proposing committee any of the fol-lowing questions, unless you have a concrete exam-ple to support your question:•“In your introductory clauses, you mention that […]. I do not believe you. Is this really true?•“In Operative Clause […], you suggest that the Euro-pean Union does more […]. Do you really think that this is going to help? •“In your resolution you suggest […]. How are you

going to make that?•Whenever you decide on making a point of debate think of “SEX”. No we are not being inappropriate. It’s just an easy way to remember the 3 keys for a suc-cessful point: Statement (not a question), Evidence (to support your statement) and eXamples (how to improve the clause you are referring to).


Don’t dare falling asleep. Have a good cup of coffee at least every two hours, but preferably more often.

Placards are not decoration. Take use of them as often as possible to get the most out of the GA!

Speak up. Don’t mumble. SPEAK. UP. DON’T. MUMBLE..

Do not speak in any language other than English or French, but also try to keep your contributions short and concise. Your fellow delegates will ap-

preciate it, more topics will be discussed and more statements can be made.

!

!

!!

Ce qui affects all of us, c’est quelque chose vous n’avez pas considered

Θέλω να πω

Шпыщњ ФінѢ

קןבם בכןסוק

Have your say! >After you all know your own committee quite well, it is time to have a look at the other participants. The Journos collected some interesting information about the participants of the session. Fabian Hildenbrand reveals what they said.

Victor is addicted to playing the guitarpiano.Koray missed playing Strip Poker during Team-building.Chritos thinks coffee with beer is a good combina-tion.Ilena doing voodoo.Ognjen (aka Oggy) has a victory dance.Ivars is not allowed to sing because his voice is too beautiful.Can is so big that even the biggest-sized pants don’t fit him well (at least when it comes to American football).Kerstin is not able to sit down for longer than three minutes.Alexandra has a cat, which can catch water drops.Victoria is blue.Max (Chair) loves watching vintage finnish filmsAladin doesn’t have a flying carpet.Maria has a cat with a dog’s attitude.Werewolfs scare Jan to death.Singing in the middle of the street at midnight is On-feus’ real profession.Laurens is following about 15 TV series.Carlos is devoted to work.

For the last session Sophie(Chair) had to do a crim-inal record check.Maya becomes possessed when she gets hungry.Isodora speaks four languages fluently including her native language, Siberian.Arthur had a dare, and came to school wearing make-up, a woman’s dress and a wig, while flirting with other guys.People say that Eda looks like Selena Gomes, but she hates her.Helena is writing an article, comparing her family with an ape.Gabor walks faster on his hands than on his legsMathilde is Belgian and is allergic to chocolate.Ludo is unable to perform a committee shoutEva broke her nose sledging towards a wall last win-ter.Tereza(Chair) becomes an elephant when it’s rain-ing.Hannah walks like a penguin. Julia is Swiss and allergic to Fondue. Martin is addicted to sleeping during classes.Fabian is German and never on time.Panos(Chair) may spoiled his body but never spoiled his soul.

Demo-crazy Times| 9

Organisers- It’s a hard knock life!>An EYP session demands of the officials to go through the right way. Hopefully, you already know all the chairs and all the journos. However, are you sure that you know who actually organises the session? Monica Mantovani explains how hard the work of the orgas’ team is.Every day they wake up early to plan our day.

Kick every delegate out of his bed.

Arrange the venues.

Plan our timetable.

Bring the delegates to the venues and show them the way.

Organise the coffee break, even if the bottles are too heavy.


It’s just 5:00 AM!

Wake up caaaallll!

It will be a looong day!

It’s not so far from here!

I will be a superhero!

International Democracy Conference

Sell the fashion session’s bag and EYP cups to everyone. Be afraid of the tyranny. I mean ..the head orga.

>The second International Democracy Conference is an importantpart of our session. Lukas Rosenkranz and Tuna Dökmeci will give you some information about it. Half of the session is already over, but still, the ses-sion’s highlight is still ahead. On Thursday and Fri-day you will attend the International Democracy Conference in Leipzig. This is a great possibility for you to use all the information you´ve learned during committee work and to broaden your knowledge about the topic of democracy even more. You will be one of 450 participants coming together in order to discuss questions concerning democracy. For doing so, there will be the so called “open space” which is a platform providing you with the chance to meet experts and other interested participants. At the be-ginning you and your fellow delegates will set up an agenda and decide on which questions you want to talk about. While there is “open space“, you should remember “the law of two feet“ which means that whenever you feel like another group´s discussion is more beneficial for you, you´re free to leave your group and join the other one.

According to the organisers of the conference, there are two types of participants: Bumble-bees and but-terflies. Bumble-bees tend to go from one group to another but still have the full focus on the subject asking crucial questions. By doing so they spread ideas and important thoughts among the confer-ence. Butterflies on the other hand aren’t that active

during the discussions. They are still contributing to the open space though, as they

are the centre of lightness, fun and recreation.

Most of the participants are German and so are the experts, so the conference will mostly be in Ger-man. Fortunately translation will be provided via headphones in larger groups, e.g. during speeches and presentations however not in the smaller ones. You should not worry, the experience of the confer-ence organisers assure us that you won’t have any language problems as people will quickly switch to English. However, we encourage you to take an ac-tive role in debates by starting a discussion in Eng-lish.

This is a chance to see your topic from another perspec-tive, share ideas with people outside of EYP and talk to experts about them. That is why, on the morning of the 15th of October, the last day of our session, you will have the opportunity to amend to your resolution and make a final decision. Every committee will have the chance to defend and explain their amendments to convince the others. So pay attention, be open-minded and benefit from this unique experience!

Demo-crazy Times| 11

Buy it, you will look cool as me!

Hurry up, Franzi is coming!

Changing your Life>One of the biggest EYP’s powers is the fact that it opens our mind to different countries and languages. Let’s try to imagine how your life could be abroad. Monica Mantovani explains what you could find when moving to another part of Europe.

Studying abroad is useful for maturing and learning about life. In reality, how many people find enough courage to leave their country and look for some-thing new far from home?

The adventure starts very long before leaving. You begin idealising the place where you want to go. You start to imagine how your life could be there. The first thing you should do is to forget the first idea you had about the foreign country. Stereotypes are our minds biggest enemy.

Just think about a child. He’s always happy, he doesn’t have any worries and he lives without prob-lems. Soon enough, he will start to realise how com-plicated life can be. This is what happens to you abroad. At the beginning it’s like living in a very big EYP mood: lots of new friends, a new school and lots of places to visit. Very soon you will be disappointed with your new life. The educational system can dif-fer from the one in your country, people have differ-ent habits and you have to live on your own without someone who loves cooking gorgeous meals for you every day.

The first thing to do is to not panic, you will get over it. After the first month, your life will be organised and completely integrated with your new lifestyle.

Day by day, time will pass quickly. One day, you will wake up and find out how your life will be changed, how you will be changed and how much you will love these changes. You will remember how diffi-cult the beginning of this adventure was. You will remember all the troubles you experienced during your stay there. You will remember how much you missed your parents, your friends, your home, your bed. But the most important thing you will find out will be the fact that all these difficulties will be the things that will make you grow and make you a dif-ferent, hopefully better person.

You could be scared after reading my article and think that you love your life back home too much to be able to change it. However, I think that the experi-ence you get from living abroad outweighs any kind of fear we can have about our life.


Gossip Girl>Gossip Girl here, your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Leipzig Forum’s elite. The last days we have seen delegates, journalists, chairs, organisers and teachers going around, living the Leipzig experience to the maximum. I was there to reveal their deepest thoughts on the condition that their names won’t be published. And who am I? That’s one secret I’ll never tell. You know you love me. XOXO, Gossip Girl.

The Sexiest Official

The title of the sexiest male official goes to…our Vice-President Max Karpf! Most of the female delegates told his name, adding that he’s really sweet. Some of them even de-scribed him as the “sexy, blonde, tall chair”. Although Max won the title, there was some competition. Our handsome organiser Nils and Mr. President were also mentioned.

As for the female officials, we have two win-ners, our lovely organiser Celine and our lovely chair Sophie (Editors’ comment: gin-ger boys beware!). The male delegates didn’t hesitate to mention their names. Our fellow journo Monica was also mentioned as the first choice of some male delegates.

The President

When it comes to Bentley, there must be a secret agreement among the delegates. Without any exception, we were told that he is super-cool and self-confident. Del-egates who had a chance to get to know him better say that he is very helpful and nice. His cute accent apparently caught the attention of many delegates. Lots of them even answered our question on what they think of the President with “I love his accent”!

We tried hard to find juicy gossip about him, a funny observation, or even something less positive, but except from a “He doesn’t look like a car” joke, every delegate seem to have reached a consensus on him. Nice job Mr President!

Message to the Organisers

Our delegates are well aware of the fact that our orga team is working really hard to make this session German-perfect for them. However, they wanted us to mention things that they don’t dare to demand. Personally we love the coffee breaks, but al-most all the delegates told that they wanted more cookies. Well, you can blame the journos for that, since they eat most of them!


Wake up call! >There is no sleep during EYP. Lukas Rosenkranz and Monica Mantovani give you some advice on how to stay awake during the General Assembly.

EYP is definitely not about relaxation and recreation. After the session is over, there are two typical feelings: Post EYP Depression (PED) and an over helming tiredness. Although this time the GA is right in the middle of the session, it is quite probable that some of you might have problems with staying awake and paying at-tention all the time. As Johan Wallin (video-editor) once did, you could simply take a marker and draw ‘fake eyes’ on your eyelids while taking a nap. It’s true that sitting down for a long time, stuffy air and the lack of sleep from the previous nights might seem to be too heavy to handle. Nevertheless, the following advice might help you to stay awake and active during the GA.

Stay hydrated

Don´t forget to bring your cup to the GA! You should regularly take a sip of water; this will help your body to combat tiredness. Of course, you can also consume the classic coffee.

The nose trick

Press your nose with the thumb and the forefinger for a few seconds; this will prevent your eyes from shutting down without control.

Move your body

Walking is useful for your health, but also for your wakefulness. Take a walk when-ever it’s possible, for example during coffee break or, if you feel too sleepy, just take a walk to the podium to deliver a speech.

Love the boardCreate lovely placards saying how much you love your beautiful president (Editors’ comment: you mean Bentley the bear?) and your sexy vice-president (Editors’ com-ment: The one who thinks that Bentley looks like a bear?). Be as creative as possible to keep your brain awake!

Emergency clause

Make sure that at least one member of your committee will be able to wake you up in case of emergency. Do not forget to do the same with them!

Refresh yourself

Wash your hands and your face with cold water (preferably not in the GA room!) during every coffee break.

Participate

Debates will be the main part of the GA, it can become very boring if all the partici-pants are not involved. Try to make it more vital by giving interesting speeches and making controversial interventions.


Wanted: Germans

>Do you know how Germans really are? What are typical German characteristics? Which secret features have led them to their perfection? In this feature article, Tuna Dökmeci and Lukas Bock have delved into the complicated science of Germanology.


As you have been in Leipzig for a couple of days by now, you surely have had the chance to observe the inhabitants of this beautiful country. You had probably heard before that they have certain characteristics such as punctuality and perfectionism. However, we wanted to know how true native Germans describe themselves.

Not quite surprisingly, the first thing most Germans mentioned was their punctuality. Even though there is no watch industry in Germany, it is a widespread habit to complain about the Deutsche Bahn trains be-ing late for two minutes or even less. Jan from AFET told us that their punctuality was due to the Germans’ perfectionism and ambition. He furthermore considers Germans to be slightly unfriendly and stiff.

Mirja, one of the organizers of the session, enhanced this picture by drawing our attention to the fact that Germans are constantly walking as fast as possible to maximize their effi-ciency. Also, if a German happens to talk to you very quickly, shortly and straightforward, do not feel offended. This is just the way they are.

Mirja also mentioned that Germans have a fixed image in their mind of how things are supposed to be – if reality does not correspond to it, complaints are guaranteed. Furthermore, you may not expect them to hide their dis-satisfaction just to seem polite. This is also true when it comes to their ex-pectations of an ideal German breakfast; whole meal bread must be part of it. In a restaurant, you may easily recognize Germans by their way of paying the bill: When eating as a group, every member pays exactly for what he has eaten. Of course, they do not just dispose of the glass bottles they have used at the next trash can: every German knows that it is a matter of honor to recycle and protect the environment.

Hanna, a delegate from AFCO II, pointed out that Germans are not patriotic at all. She also described to us the typical German house: small, made of wood, located in the mountains and far off from other people. She emphasized though that the image foreigners have from Bavarians should not be applied to the rest of the Germans – not all of them are constantly drinking, singing and dancing.

Maria Guthke, another German citizen, said that Germans love travelling around the world. If you want to recognize a German outside his homeland, just watch out for people carrying their valuables in a small “kangaroo bag” in front of them. Apparently, they tend to overestimate the threat of being robbed abroad.

Our little survey about how the Germans are may have made you laugh at them. But keep in mind: If they were not like that, you could not enjoy this marvelous session!

Fighting (for) Peace>The proposal of a motion claiming the international recognition of the Palestinian territories as a state unmasks the true goals of Palestinian government. Lukas Rosen-kranz explains.

This year’s annual General Assembly of the United Nations was dominated by one topic, the Middle East conflict. After decades of advancements immediate-ly followed by backstrokes, Mahmud Abbas -presi-dent of the Palestinian National Authority- came up to a decision with scenic effects. On September 23rd, Palestine officially proposed its international recog-nition as a state.

This step reveals the real Palestinian attitude to-wards the conflict in the Middle East. Obviously Ab-bas doesn´t seek a peaceful and mutual solution, but still rather tries to weaken Israel by demoralizing it. At least this assumption is quite reasonable. It is very well known that the Palestinian motion has no chances of success at all as the U.S already an-nounced that they will veto it in the Security Coun-cil. Anyway, we should take a look at the conceiv-able consequences of the motion for the Palestinian people.

From Israel´s point of view, this procedure is both a provocation and a threat to its national safety. We should keep in mind that according to a survey by the Palestinian Centre for Public Opinion, 61% of Palestinian population is contrary to a two-state so-lution, 62% defends kidnapping of Israeli soldiers as a proper and justified political measure and 73% agrees on an abstract of the Hamas charter saying: „Oh Muslims, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him“. That´s why Israel still doubts that Palestinians

have peaceful intentions. Still casting for its role to-wards its neighbour states during the Arab spring, Israel is deeply worried. Therefore it can accept an independent Palestinian state only if it is the result of mutual multilateral negotiations. At this point it must be mentioned that even the Oslo accords com-mand that a Palestinian state must be the outcome of such negotiations. Offending against internation-al treaties shouldn´t be rewarded.As a matter of fact the Palestinian motion already made the Israeli react by reducing the economic co-operation. Since most of Palestinian trade goods are exported to Israel, its further economic development depends on the cooperation with the Israeli state. As you can see, Palestinian government is jeopardising the well-being of its economy and thus harming an improvement of its people’s standard of living.

Fortunately, Israel has already accepted a map for new negotiations offered by the Middle East Quar-tet, consisting of the U.S., Russia, the UN and the EU. This proves Israel’s willingness to strike a deal which ensures reliable peace.

The Palestinian demand for an own state is vindi-cated. Logically the two-state solution is the inter-nationally most preferred option for peace in the Mideast Region. Still, a solution won´t be sustainable unless both sides are involved. The Palestinian Na-tional Authority should rather try cooperation than confrontation.


The Arab Spring>Tuna Dökmeci writes an opinion piece on the Arabic Rebellions, a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world.

It all started on the 18th of October in Tunisia; The Arab Spring, or even The Arab Revolution. Soon enough, it spread to Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Bah-rein, Algeria and so on. From what we see in the media, the Arab people are in the streets, defending their rights by protesting and finally saying “No!” It is a protest against their anti-democratic govern-ments who expose them to violent applications and western countries who are the defender of democ-racy in these countries. Is this really the reality?

I am not going to defend dictatorships such as Ben Ali’s or Qaddafi’s governments. I definitely won’t deny the violation of the fundamental human rights, the obvious lack of democracy nor the extreme pov-erty. I simply think that it is not as simple as we think it is. All of a sudden people started to demand rights by violent protests, in which social media such as Twitter and Facebook had a huge role, dictators los-ing their position one by one as a result of a revolu-tion. That doesn’t seem likely.

First of all, the attitude of European countries and especially USA has been exaggerated. They claim that they are important to the democratisation pro-cess of these countries so much so that they have the right to intervene in Libya, for “protecting the civil-ians”. I must say that it is a quite clever game of im-perialism: using the notions such as democracy and human rights to protect their own interests. I highly doubt that the reason for which USA is opposing Qa-ddafi is him being a dictator. It is more likely that because Qaddafi was after all, a nationalist leader

who was loyal to the interests of his country which so happened to have natural resources such as oil and gas.

What we also know about USA’s foreign policy is their openly declared Great Middle East Project. In order to realise it, they need Arab and Middle East countries to be open to foreign domination and the Arab Spring might be the perfect opportunity for them. “Divide et impera”, which means divide and rule, is probably most ancient, definitely most effi-cient way of implementing a strategy, and imperial-ist states are quiet aware of that fact.

Finally, I don’t think that establishing a democratic system can be achieved in the present situation. Mostly because secularism is the one of the essen-tials of a true democracy while these states, particu-larly Egypt, are becoming more and more radically Islamic. None of these countries seem likely to adopt a constitution based on the public consensus. So you see, a revolution must be radical and it must change fundamental problems of the society, however nei-ther USA nor the European countries seem to be considering it essential.

My point is that, the Arab Spring may seem posi-tive and inspiring at the first glance, but if we take a closer look, we will see that it wouldn’t have existed without the consent of world power houses whose interest lay on the economic dependence of Arabic countries to the West. That’s why I invite you to see the “ugly truth” behind the Arab Spring.


Finding Out Something New

>In the middle of this “demo-crazy” session, after the interview of the chairs and the organ-isers, how could Monica Mantovani miss the occasion to also meet with the delegates?

We chose random delegates to answer to the following questions.

•What about your first EYP experience?•How do you say in your language“What a beautiful fish!”?•Which are your expectations from the session?•How many pairs of shoes do you have at home?

Have a look at what they said!

Koray Cilaglu, 16(Turkey, EMPL I)

National selection conference Turkey 2011

Bu ne guzel balik boyle!

“Fun more fun”

Gabor Dorida, 16/17,(Romania, AFET II)

Romanian regional session in 2011

Cerpeste framos!

I would like to learn new things, know new people, exchange ideas and im-prove my communication skills.

Jannis Kuhiencord, 18(Germany, AFCO I)

In Greece, last year

Was für ein wunderschöner Fisch!

I hope to have fun, meet new people and have a great time here in Leipzig.

Alexandra Koneru, 22(Russia, EMPL I)

This session!

Kαkαyа ktαsivαyα ribα!

I want to find communication, friends and I want to exchange my point of view on democracy and other important topics.


Julian Swinkels, 17(The Nederlands, EMPL II)

This is my first EYP session.

wat een mooie vis!

I’d like to learn something new and be more interna-tional than before.

Christus Kaimakkamis, 16(Cyprus, EMPL I)

Regional session in Cyprus

τι ύμοργο γάρι!

I’m sure I’ll have nice time and I’ll meet lots of new friends

Greta Jankava, 17(Latvia, EMPL II)

Regional session in Latvia

Cik smuka zivs!

Hard work, but also hard party!

Julia badertscher, 17(Switzerland, AFCO II)

National session in Ticino 2011, Switzerland

Wa für en schöne Fisch!

I want to meet new people and have fun

Denis Bakija, 17(Belgium, LIBE I)

Belgium’s National selection conference in 2010

Quel joli poisson!

I hope it will be a good session, with lots of interaction between the par-ticipants, and I would like to learn something new.


CROSSWORD

>Here we are with the second step of our competition. Probably, you would like an easier task than the last one, but to select the real winner, this time Monica and Tuna prepared a very challenging game. In the box bellow, you are asked to find the listed words, which can be written in every possible direction. With the remaining words you will make a sentence, which is the solution of the task.

The rule is always the same: the first one to come to us is the winner.

Good luck!

L I P B D S E S S I O N E P C MA I G M U C R A L L Y F U N O EM G E R M A N Y E N O U J R M EE S E P B B R A I N S T O R M TN A L R Z B U T P Y U U U F I ID U O E F R A N Z I R R R D T NM D T S E R T R I O C E N A T GE E E I E P T S G A O S O P E DN B A D G E A M K U R O S E E DT A D E M O L A Z Y B A S I C NB T O N E C K E Y D O F A C I DB E D T E I S O O N A E C O D EC H E F L I P C H A R T T F E LI M A G I N E A R T D O E F R AB C R F R I E N D S R N A S A YA I R C A B C O I N G A M E T YG O S S I P H A G R E E M E N T


PicsPicture

PlanPoeRainRallyRedRestRoseRunSeeSeed

SessionSky

SleepSlotSoon

SpeechStandTalkTeamTestTinyToneTramTrioZoo

AcidAFETAge

AgreementAir

AmendmentArt

Attack speechBadgeBag

BasicBeardBedBeeBin

BoardBrainstorm

BugBunBuyCaféChef

Coin gameCommittee

DearDebateDelayDemoDumb

EggEnd Fee

FlipchartFranziFriends

FryFuture

GermanyGossipGrab

ImagineiPad

JournosKey (x2)

LazyLeft

LeipzigLieLip Lira

MeetingMr President

NeckNote

Ode (x2)Oriental

PedPen


Sponsors

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Unterstützt durch die Sächsische Staatskanzlei

Demo-crazy Times_Issue 2

Documents

Transcript of Demo-crazy Times_Issue 2