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 March 18, 2015, Year 5, Issue 59

The CEU Weekly is proud to present the

first place doodle in our Drawing & Doodling

contest!Flip to page 8 to check out the other winning

drawings!

Best drawing: Ewa MaczynksaIRES, Poland

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Smoke Over Europe: Is the Ukrainian Crisis a Gritty Reboot of WWII?

Remarks onWomen’s Day

Why Debate At CEU Is Vital

A Response to How Your Student Union (Unwittingly?) Wastes Your MoneyHate Speech Monologues at CEU

Winning Doodle Entries!

Thoughts on Recent Events in Macedonia & A Cartoon

THE CEU WEEKLY

2

Op-Ed on Ukraine Crisis

Smoke Over Europe: Is the Ukrainian Crisis a Gritty Reboot of WWII?

All in all the situation is unsettlingly familiar to the beginnings of World War II. Putin is obviously playing from Hitler’s book, occupying parts of neighboring countries based on fake referenda, claiming to protect oppressed Russian minorities. He is even trying, with questionable suc-cess, to propagate a pan-Slavic Ide-ology modeled on pan-Germanism – the old project to unify all German peoples in a single nation-state. Fol-lowing Hitler, he is trying to claim as much territory as possible without forcing his opponents to make the war official. All the while NATO is ready to play the part of the Allies, care-fully considering which countries are worth protecting. Judging from their actions, or the lack thereof, Ukraine isn’t one of them, and the Maginot line is being built in the Baltic States, which are EU and NATO members.Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of

Hungary also seems to be an eager follower of Miklós Horthy, the fas-cist dictator who allied himself with Hitler and led the country into de-struction and occupation by the Rus-sian liberators for almost half of the twentieth century. He follows Horthy not only in his archaic-sounding and openly anti-liberal ideology, declar-ing a national revival after the many adversities of the past, but also in his confused foreign policy. What trouble can possibly come from being the first to side with a debased superpower

led by an autocratic ruler, initiating open conflict with its neighbors in a futile attempt to regain lost glory? We might even get Transylvania back in the end! – As great an idea as it was before both World Wars.One doesn’t need to look to history

to see the conclusion of this drama: Russia lacks the force to take even Ukraine by a blitzkrieg-style assault, and its military is vastly inferior to that of the European Union both in number and quality, not to mention the United States. Putin’s Russia has nowhere near the battle-readiness and nationalistic fervor of Hitler’s Germany, and its economy seems unable to maintain even the current covert war for long. True, Putin does have something Hitler didn’t: nukes. Unlike the relatively scarcely populat-ed Russia, the whole of Europe could be wiped out with a few well-placed bombs. This prospect is enough to send shivers down the spines of any sane person, and Putin actively plays on this fear by melodramatically de-claring his right to deploy nuclear weapons in newly occupied Crimea. That will teach those insolent Tatars and Ukrainians about harassing the Russian minority! However, the Cold War is over and with good reason. Nuking Europe would not only be heinous, but utterly pointless as a mil-itary strategy – a bloody ritual suicide for a broken country, like Germany’s last offensive in the Ardennes in the

winter of 1944.What outcome does Putin hope for

then, from reenacting one of the big-gest mistakes of the twentieth centu-ry, and Orbán from siding with him? There is no rational explanation for this behavior, but there might be an irrational one. Hitler greatly admired Napoleon, and was consciously fol-lowing in his footsteps in many ways. The numbers were decidedly against him as well, but, being a delusional amphetamine munching psychopath, he proceeded to invade Russia just as his idol did, and, after making the same mistakes, he was deeply bewil-dered to meet the same fate. Recent developments in experimental psy-chology suggest that psychopathic behavior may stem from a kind of learning disability: Psychopaths have trouble connecting actions with their consequences, and thus, instead of learning from mistakes, they keep trying the same thing over and over again, blinded by the prospect of short-term rewards, and becoming more and more frustrated by failure. Senselessly repeating the same bloody mistakes might not be an incorrigible defect of humanity, but of a certain kind of personality, which is drawn to power in corrupt regimes. The ques-tion is then: are we, as a civilization, finally mature enough to put a stop to it?

~ Daniel CorsanoPhilosophy, Italy

Life in Europe has changed a lot in the last hundred years, but one aspect of it, as old as civilization itself, seems in-vulnerable to all the social revolutions and technological progress: war. Just the last one, this century began with the

prospect of final peace, but, barely into the second decade, smoke coils over the old continent from the east. A new gen-eration has to familiarize itself with the reality of military occupation and expressions such as secession and annexation. Officially there is no war, but the youth of two countries, Russia and Ukraine, are already being sent to kill each other in our neighborhood, while NATO troops are flocking to the Baltic States in an effort to contain the crisis.

ISSUE 59

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Op-Ed

ONE DAY IS NOT ENOUGH, ONE FLOWER IS NOT ENOUGH!

Women's Day was established as an official, annual event at the 1910 In-ternational Women's Conference, ini-tially proposed by prominent socialist feminists including Luise Zietz and Clara Zetkin. Delegates of the Interna-tional Women's Conference, coming from seventeen different countries, agreed that International Women's Day would exist to promote equal rights for women. Over one million people in Europe celebrated Inter-national Women's day the following year. While the March 8th came to be celebrated primarily in commu-nist and socialist countries, in 1977 it was declared a UN Day dedicated to promoting women's rights and world peace. Today, Women's Day celebra-tions take many forms, from gifts of flowers and chocolates, to protests and demonstrations addressing gender-based discrimination. The diversity of these celebrations indicates the ten-sion between Women's Day as a con-sumer holiday or a day of political and social importance. Different women's organizations and activist groups have organized Women's Day marches in Budapest

throughout the last several years. This year's march was led by Rhythms of Resistance, a group which uses samba batucada drumming as a political ac-tion. The march was attended by a di-verse group of 100 people, including many CEU students, politicians (rep-resenting themselves and not their party), and a local Women's Organiza-tion protesting the Hungarian Parlia-ment’s non-ratification of the Istanbul Convention*. The goal of the march, according to Helena Lopes Braga, a PhD student of the Gender Studies Department and an organizer of the event, “was to stress that one day is not enough, and we need to fight for our rights every other day; while at the same time, paying an homage to the history of feminism. It was a fight for women’s rights and gender equal-ity, but also a critique to the capitalist appropriation of this day, when people buy flowers and other gifts for wom-en, take them out to dinner, etc.” The march began on the Buda side, at the entrance of a shopping center, a loca-tion specifically chosen to challenge the notion that International Wom-en's Day is about gifts rather gender

I handed the grocery clerk my money, and he handed me a rose. I'm not one to reject a free gift, and I even felt an initial surge of delight holding the small, wilting flower in my hands. But that delight quickly ended. There was so much that

could be read into that little flower. It was March, 8th, International Women's Day, and somehow this rose was meant to symbolize global and national respect, appreciation and celebration of women and their achievements. But this rose stereotyped my gender, this rose contained only beauty and no meaning, this rose would die by tomorrow. Had Interna-tional Women's Day come to symbolize the same values?

equality, and ended near a different shopping center at the Nuygati train station. Another CEU student, Zarina Riva, also of the Gender Studies Depart-ment, has participated in other Wom-en's Day marches, and found the in-ternational nature of the Budapest march particularly interesting. She shared that, “there was a mixture of languages among the group and it was difficult to shout things in Hungarian that I didn't really understand.” Hel-ena also shared a similar sentiment that, “language is a privilege” and in contrast to other marches she has participated in, the inability to really discuss the march and its goals with people on the street was somewhat limiting. Despite such limitations, both Zarina and Helena felt that the march was generally well-received. While some people simply stared at or ignored the Women's Day march, there was no antagonism towards them. Some people on the street cheered and supported the march and even gave the participants flowers as they passed by. Beyond the positive energy of the observers, the collective mood of the march and its partici-pants indicated that Women's Day has the potential to bring together a di-verse group from many countries and communities to address the struggle for women's rights and gender-based discrimination.*http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standard-setting/convention-violence/about_en.asp

~ Giavana MargoGender Studies

United States

THE CEU WEEKLY

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Op-Ed

~ Alexandru MoisePhD Political Seience, Public Policy

and International Relations Romania

Shreya BhattacharyaSchool of Public Policy

India

This past weekend CEU was trans-formed into an arena of clashing

ideas, as it hosted the fourth Budapest Open International Debate Tourna-ment. This year’s tournament brought together 128 debaters, from over 25 countries, representing more than 50 institutions. The event kicked off March 6th with an inspiring lecture on public speaking by Michael Shapira, professional public speaking trainer and former World Champion debat-er. The enthusiastic audience was an equal mix of CEU students and par-ticipants.On Sunday afternoon, stu-dents and distinguished guests joined debaters, adjudicators and organizers to watch the finalists of the tourna-ment compete (a recording will soon be available). This Open, the largest to date, was jointly organized by the university de-bating societies of CEU, Corvinus and ELTE. A core team of 20 organizers and 17 volunteers had worked hard since November to make the Open possible. Their efforts, however, would have been in vain without tremendous support from CEU. We are especially grateful to the External Relations Of-fice, the Student Life Office, the School of Public Policy and the CEU Student Union (SU), for making this event as successful as it was! We regret that the vital help we re-ceived from the SU resulted in a mis-informedand unnecessarily negative reaction in the last edition of this newspaper. We very much welcome discussion and inquiry into what hap-pens with funding at CEU. However, for a discussion to be fruitful, it must be based on facts, rather than specu-lation. We hope that the corrections in this and other responses will shed light into how the funding procedure took place. We are very happy that the SU still has 2400 EUR in its budget for student clubs and we encourage anyone to ap-ply for it. CEU is always in need of more high quality student organized events! With regards to our fund-ing request, we believe several things

should be pointed out. Firstly, all Stu-dent Assembly members received our documents and were aware of our re-quest. Secondly, we made a detailed and clear (as well as publicly avail-able) presentation on the funding we required and its allocation. This was followed by a very long and engag-ing Q&A session in which many SU members presented their positive and critical comments to our proposal. We are therefore confident that the final vote reflected an informed decision on the assembly’s part. Finally, none of the funds we requested were desig-nated for “partying”. In fact, we spend verylittle on social events—most of our efforts (and the SU funding we re-ceived) went to ensuring the quality of the Open, specifically in attracting the best adjudicators and trainers to ben-efit the Society and CEU. But even after correcting for all of these factual errors in the previous piece, we realize that 1500 EUR (out of which slightly more than 1300 was used) is still a significant sum of money. Therefore, it is important to ask why the SU, and CEU as a whole, should fund debate. First, debate and open discussion represent a vital part of CEU's values and an important component to any university. Second, the Open itself is a great opportunity for CEU to enhance its visibility and image. The exposure in national me-dia and through online forums is nec-essary in establishing CEU’s image as a modern, diverse university that pro-motes students and their initiatives. Moreover, CEU and its programs are presented to a large group of diverse students. Beyond benefitting CEU, we believe that debate itself also directly benefits CEU students. As Mr. Shapira noted in his open lecture, university gradu-ates are entering ever more competi-tive job markets. Combined with such a diverse and growing pool of job ap-plicants, one's ability to deliver an idea persuasively makes all the difference in standing out and getting ahead. Moreover, any job that we as CEU stu-

dents will likely take upon graduating will test our skills at making and pre-senting arguments, whether in activ-ism, consultancy, academia, journal-ism, or at any corporation where you are expected to convince peers of your ideas or clients of your products. We help students acquire these very skills in our weekly meetings and workshops. We also hold workshops for courses in order to integrate de-bate into the classroom, as we have this year for the Department of Public Policy and the School of Public Policy. Events like the Budapest Open are crucial for spreading debate, as well as for attracting world-renowned train-ers to interact with students and im-prove the quality of our own trainings. Moreover, CEU students participated in organizing, competing and judg-ing the Open, while also attending Mr. Shapira’s lecture and the debates themselves over the weekend. Ultimately the reason we need more debate at CEU is to improve the quali-ty of our discourse and arguments—to learn to make substantive points and criticisms without resorting to per-sonal attacks and sensationalism.

WHY DEBATE AT CEU IS VITAL

ISSUE 59

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Op-Ed

The Student Union’s Suggested Amend-ments to “How Your Student Union (Un-wittingly?) Wastes Your Money”1) Most of you might be aware that our Student Union’s (SU) annual budget of €13,200 comes from our enrollment fees of €200. This very first statement and all those claiming it is ‘your money’ are false.According to the Budget and Finance Of-fice the budget of Student Union is de-fined centrally and approved by the Board of Trustees as budgets of all other units in CEU. There is no special allocation pro-cedure in case of the Student Union. The budget has been fixed about 3 years ago and has not changed since then (thus it does not vary based on the number of

students). The Student Union budget is covered from the yield of the school’s en-dowment so it does not depend on the revenues from enrollment fees. - Verified by the CEU Budget and Finance Office. 2) Almost 70% of the total money avail-able for student clubs. False, it’s almost 70% of pre-allocated budget, but not the available money for student clubs/groups. Available money for clubs/groups in-cludes: pre-allocated budget for clubs/groups (2200), buffer amount (1000), un-allocated amount (approx. 300) and remaining amount from last year (approx. 1070). This means that this 1500 EUR is less than 33% of the money available for student clubs. - Verified by the SU budget

approved by the SUA on 14/11/2014.3) 90% of the total dispersible club money False calculation, it’s about 43%4) Barely 30 student reps showing up for the SUA. Attendance Records prove that 38 representatives present. 5) No records of the voting and minutes have not been published either. Minutes have been published including records of the voting on the SU Google Drive which is always available to the public by access-ing this link . 6) There is no money left in the €2200 stu-dent club budget – There is an additional 2300 EUR available.

Words are a powerful thing and it is true one should never take

for granted the importance of free-dom of speech in our society. CEU prides itself on its diversity and pro-gressive thinking, it is certainly what has brought many of us to its class-rooms. That being said, there are in-stances where words or articles can come off as misleading or attempt to stir controversy simply for the sake of stirring controversy. That is not to say this article is one or the other, though I certainly believe there are some rath-er questionable points, which can be witnessed from the numerous posts on social media and throughout the author's article itself. For instance, YES... we all can agree that it is an opinion piece, one that cares very little for the alternative views, as is the goal. But that is certainly what I find most troubling. The author makes no reasonable at-tempt to try to consolidate an alter-native view point, instead painting a picture of a CEU Student Union filled of incompetent individuals who either did not care enough to show up for the important vote or who showed a com-plete lack of empathy, wishing to sim-ply get it done and over with... exclud-ing the author, who without saying it, comes off as being the selfless com-batant against injustice. Granted, this may very well be true and the world certainly needs that sort of conviction, but not while belittling everyone else in attendance, simply for not sharing

the same view. This author went to great lengths to quote specific sen-tences, numbers and periods, where funding comes from and so on. Yet she did not feel that maybe asking one or two questions in the opposite di-rection might have lent a much more balanced conversation, not to men-tion, removed the immense bias most opinion pieces generally have.

“A more interesting

question, why is it that the Debate Society still has

not gotten funding from other units in

the university by now?

This would have also provided for a more useful debate, which one must hope was the initial goal. Instead, it was a missed opportunity to talk about ways in, which funds could be saved in the future. A more interesting question, why is it that the Debate Society still has not gotten funding from other units in the university by now? (Ex. Recruitment office) Another possible question

could have been, can we raise the price of admissions applications and use that extra money to help fund popular clubs? This would have the added bo-nus of freeing up Student Union funds for more clubs or events for years to come. These long-term questions, would have also avoided taking shots at individuals who go out of their way to make this university great. Students we should be praising for their dedica-tion and sacrifices, not belittling them or making assumptions on their in-tentions. “Full disclosure”, I think the author did an exceptional job and had I not been on the other side as a board member myself once, I think I would have been jumping on the bandwagon with a pitchfork as well. I also shared her frustration with Assembly mem-bers who missed meetings regularly. Yet, fortunately this experience also taught me the importance of compro-mise and teamwork. Our aim should be to build bridges, not destroy them. This is accomplished by working along side those individuals who also want to leave a positive legacy. Let us change this volatile rhetoric of ques-tioning our student’s dedication and focus on constructive ways in which we can, as a community, solve the many challenges that still need to be addressed.

A RESPONSE TO ‘HOW YOUR STUDENT UNION (UNWITTINGLY?) WASTES YOUR MONEY

~ Kevindaryán LujánFormer Student Union Treasurer

2013-2014United States

THE CEU WEEKLY

Think critically

about

what you read

and watch;

words kill.

Hate speech is

simply foolish.

Hate is a way to

avoid the

problems of

being human.

“My short skirt

is not an

invitation.”

Ignorance is

not bliss.

Not backward

because of

appearance.

Dignity

for all.

“Hey, babe! You are

sexy, I would bang

you!”.. Compliments...

You have to like compli-

ments...

We can

change it.

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Life at CEU

‘HATE SPEECH’ MONOLOGUES AT CEU: MOTIVATION FOR SELF-REFLECTION

~ Max SteuerIRES, Slovakia

On 12 March 2015, the “Hate Speech” Monologues took place at CEU for the third time.

Professor Peter Molnar explained the purpose and ratio-nale behind the performance: ‘When in 2013, I initiated and started to direct the “Hate Speech” Monologues at CEU, I hoped for what the wonderful casts and audiences had done already three times: Students, building on their fascinatingly diverse experiences, have been telling stories, mostly their own ones, about prejudices and hatred.’

Long and detailed preparations of motivated students and Peter Molnar culminated in a one-hour performance with a variety of pieces such as personal experience with ‘hate speech’, especially anti-Roma speech (including in the CEU environment); illustrations of the consequences of preju-dices in several countries (e.g. Romania or Russia); and re-flections on why people hate and what can both individuals and communities do against it.

According to Molnar, ‘This year a record number of 22 students performed. The Auditorium was full, both in numbers and energy. Everybody present was participant in self-reflection, with many laughs with a valid reason and other forms of conversation between the performers and audience. Together, we demonstrated that art, espe-cially participatory art is a most powerful response to "hate speech". I believe that it is stronger than all emotional ma-nipulations of “hate speech”.’

At the end of the performance, all of the participants, who came from almost every CEU department and the Roma Graduate Preparation Program, said one key message, sev-eral of which are indicated in the bubbles on this page. Video from the performance will be available soon on the CEU Weekly blog, and don’t forget to check http://on.fb.me/1BGJuHy for photos as well. Thank you all and hope to see you again next year!

Teach

your-

selves not

to hate.

Teach your-

selves not to

hate.

Living

as a Roma in

Europe is very hard

BUT not everyone

can be a

Roma.

“Humanity

transcends

all religions.”

“Hate the hate,

love all.”

I am not

an issue.

Make sure

that you have a

healthy

self-esteem.

Does the first letter of

human

mean hate?

Is CEU indeed

an open

society?

ISSUE 59

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Op-Ed on Macedonia & Cartoon

Imagine your Government Minis-ter ordering electricity shut down

in your neighborhood. Why? Because it is Election Day and people want to go out and vote. But not for the rul-ing party, as the majority of citizens disapprove of a major reconstruction project in the city center of the capital.

This is exactly what happened in Macedonia during the 2013 local elections. At least, this is what was revealed in the audio recordings re-leased by the biggest opposition party in the country. For weeks now they have been publicly releasing audio materials where high ranking govern-ment officials, media owners and oth-er public figures are discussing illegal political plots against their opponents.

So far, the public has heard conver-sations on well-organized election fraud, like ordering media pieces from several Macedonian TV channels and rigging court decisions, all in favor of the ruling party. What is quite disturb-ing is the level of criminality discussed in these plots, involving high-ranking officials.

On the other hand, the opposition party’s interest in this scandal is not clear. They claim the audio tapes were leaked by particular “concerned citi-zens” from the State Security Service, where they were recorded illegally. The chief of the secret police suppos-edly ordered the wiretapping of more than 20,000 people in Macedonia. One daunting dilemma is: why would one order an extensive wiretapping against one’s own ministers? The op-position claims this is a preventive loyalty, possibly using the tapes to keep in check those who disobey the Prime Minister.

It is questionable why the opposition is not releasing the tapes entirely. Jour-

nalists and the public are constantly kept alerted for the next “episode” of government scandals. It seems the motive to keep this “House of Cards” marathon going is an attempt to re-gain voter support, considering the fact that the party has been struggling to reshape its public image because of past political burden.

Due to this political turmoil happen-ing in the country, a few of us, CEU students, decided to show concern and raise this issue internationally. By setting up a blog in English, we pub-lish the audio recordings as a way to keep the international community informed. We plant further analytic input since we think it is necessary to preserve democratic debate in the country.

Please visit or contribute to our blog macedoniawatch.wordpress.com or comment on our Facebook page Macedonia Watch. We could use all the support we can get!

~ Marija Stojanovska Rupcic & Ana Todorovska

Public Policy, Macedonia

Get informed about the Macedonian crisis!

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The CEU Weekly is a student-alumni 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: Aaron KorenewskyContributors: Giavana Margo, Max Steuer, Daniel Corsano, Alexandru Moise, Shreya Bhattacharya, Kevindaryán Luján, Alexandra Medzibrod-szky, Jacob Verhagen, S.A. Siwiec, Daniel Hartas, John McLean, Christina E. Herrmann, Marija Stojanovska Rupcic, Ana Todorovska, Erik Kotlárik.

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From bottom left to bottom right are the second to fourth

place doodles:

2nd place: Ewa Maczynska3rd place: Justina Vaikutyte,

Public Policy, Lithuania4th place: Simona Torotcoi,

Public Policy, Romania4th place: Dorottya Deák, former CEU staff, Hungary