I chose to write a rather heavy post the first day of my guest blogging, as food for thought and discussions for the whole week, but today I’ll keep it a bit lighter and - much more constructive.
In fact, I would like to use the opportunity of this platform to ask a question that has to do with these elections as well as with you and me:
Where should I be on election
day?
For those of you who might doubt: This is not
a rhetoric question!
One of the goals of this project, TH!NK09, is to connect people
interested in European issues and new communication technologies.
Real-life encounters and online communication are supposed to be
mutually stimulating, across borders but along a common topic - the
European Parliament elections 2009. And despite the critique I
expressed yesterday, I still see positive impulses coming from this
platform.
Since this is inspiring and since in general I share the view that
blogging and the “offline world” need to be connected, I want to
undertake a little more effort in this direction…
To make it short:
At least on the last day of the elections from 4-7 June 2009, I
would like to be someplace in the European Union, mainly to meet new
people and to get an interesting final perspective on the EP
elections, but also to report about my experiences afterwards.
The easiest solution would be to go to Brussels. I could stay
for some days, meet some people I know from previous activities or
through blogging, talk to representatives from the European parties,
discuss with Brussels-based journalists and look at these elections
from a central perspective - if not geographically then for sure
politically.
The second posibility would be to go to another European
capital. I could try to get a glimpse at the last moments of the
national campaign, talk to different political activists, make some
billboard sightseeing and capture some reactions to the final results.
In this way I would get the most typical view on these European
elections - from a national perspective - in my case just a different
one.
Or, I could go somewhere outside the centres of the European Union and
its member states. I could go to a little town in the
“periphery”, talk to people living there about their feelings towards
these elections and about the role the EU plays for them. I would
visit the local election commission, eat some simple food and drink a
glass of local alcoholic beverage while discussing about what really
matters there.
These are all clichés of the European Union and the reporting about
these elections. There are hundreds of nuances between these three
examples, but in the end, they constitute the basic choices I have.
Still, you may be much more creative than these examples!
So here is the deal:
You propose me where I should go for the election day(s).
Propose me to come to your town, make a good point for a European
capital or tell me about a remote place from where you would like to
hear a story about the EP elections.
What is important is that there is a good reason to go there;
it should make sense for you, for me, or for the electoral process
that I am at this place during the elections.
The only condition from my side would be that I can reach the place
via train within 24 hours from Berlin (plus a boat if that’s the only
way) and that I can find a relatively cheap place to sleep.
You can make proposals in the comments and discuss them. You can ask
other bloggers or people outside the blogosphere to join if they like.
You can even collectively agree on a place or make a vote. I don’t
care. I won’t interfere in these discussions until the end of the
week, except for questions that need an answer from my side.
And at the end of the week, on Sunday evening, I will chose the
most interesting, the most convincing option or proposal and then
start making preparations for the trip.
(8 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)
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Julien,
A really great idea!
If our aim is to build a community of politically engaged European bloggers, what better way than by creating stronger links offline as well as online?
Can I suggest, as part of your experiment, that you broaden your scope outside of just the TH!NK community. Do you know couchsurfing?
http://www.couchsurfing.com/
Perhaps we should create a TH!NK group on couchsurfing? There are many, many Europeans on couchsurfing that would be really happy to host you - and they would all argue with great passion why their city is the best place for you to experience the elections!
For my part - you are more than welcome to come and visit me in Trento and stay in my apartment, either for the elections or if you are just passing through! But I’m not sure that sleepy Trento is the best place to experience the elections.
Next time you’re in Southern Austria or Northern Italy, though - get in touch with me by Twitter or e-mail!
I wish you luck!
Joe
P.S. Let me know if you are interested in setting up a TH!NK group for couchsurfing and I will give you a hand.
btw,
If anyone else is on couchsurfing, my profile is “elsef” (I share it with my wife)
http://is.gd/wTfe
Joe
Hi Julian,
I would say that you should come to Brussels. There are hundreds of Journalists expacted in the EP. BBC will report live all day from Brussels and they will have video links into all European capitals. Plus there will be a big crowd in front of the EP. Plus I have heard the rumor that there might be election parties of some European parties.
Last but not least I would be happy to finally meet a blogger mastermind who is pushing so much for a more political EU (this is a more egoistic argument, I admit…).
I’m not sure if you can reach this place in 24h from Berlin (I’m sure you can’t do it by train, but hopefully train+bus would work), but I’ll still try.
In my opinion, you should go to Daugavpils - the 2nd biggest city in Latvia (although 8x smaller than the 1st biggest city, our capital Riga). Why? Because only 17% of the population are Latvians, the rest being Russians (more than half), Polish, Belorussians etc. It’s a very interesting city, where you can hardly hear Latvian language (although it’s the only official language in Latvia)… So I think it would be more than interesting to speak with the inhabitants of the city - what do they think about EU, how do they feel as EU citizens, what will they vote for (most of Russian speakers vote for parties, which are presented by Russian speakers, but it will be much interesting to find Russian speakers who would vote for typical Latvian parties - what is their motivation?) etc.
@Anita
I have checked the connection, and I could reach Daugavpils in 23h49 by train from Berlin Central Station if all trains were punctual (so that the transfers would work out).
So your proposal is in range.
Julien - great to hear it, but incredible at the same time as trains from Lithuania to Latvia go only once in two days (as far as I know), so how did u manage to find it?
Buses are going at least 5x a day, if not even more, that’s why I mentioned them.
How about Sibiu (Hermanstadt) in Romania? It’s a booming city in a largely europhile country where, however, very few people know anything about the EU.
There is a significant German comunity living there, along the Romanian majority and a small Hungarian number, and there’s all sorts of issues going on, not the least minority problems, regionalist and subsidiarity debates etc. Add that that the mayor of the city is a Germant ethnic voted in office by the Romanians as well, and you should have a pretty interesting study.
Also Romania is one of the newly joined countries, and I believe it’s in range of Berlin by train
I think you should come to Birmingham in the UK.
It’s a great vibrant city with a unique cultural diversity. It’s got a strong blogging & tweeting crowd who you could connect with.
However, the region only had a turnout of 36% at the last Euro Elections.
It’d be interesting to see if someone who isn’t from the city can begin to discover why the turnout is low, how we could begin to crack the apathy of local voters & what local political groups are doing to engage the local electorate.
Sound like something you’d like to do?
PS.: To check train connections all over Europe I use: http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml
(Remark: If you go too far into the future, it might show that it didn’t find a connection. But usually the connections of this month will be the connections of the month ahead.)
Julien,
As I have done to other EUrophiles I would invite you to Dover where you can see first hand the biggest example of why I hate the project.Correction. Not hate, because it may be of value to most or all the other nations, But not Britain. I`ll lay you a bet there; for every heavy British truck leaving I`ll give you a Fiver. For every foreign truck you give me a quid.
I`ll buy the food and drinks on the winnings.
Hehe, Robin - is that invitation open to me as well? Next time I’m in the UK, I could pop down to Dover and we could have a proper discussion about the EU!
@Julien
At this rate, you should do a European tour of several cities! Time to take some time off work/studies?
Why dont you come to Cyprus? Berlin - Larnaca air connection is frequent enough.
You can reach the island by ship, but it would not be within 24hrs am afraid.
Cyprus, according to statistics, will be one of the few EU countries with voters’ participation of more than 60%, despite the fact that Monday after the elections is a holiday and many will chose to go to the beaches instead of the polling stations.
As you know, half of Cyprus is occupied, but still Turkish Cypriots are allowed to vote, although only some hunderds have registered. You can cross over to the occupied areas and see how Turkish Cypriots and Turkish illegal settlers are ignorant about the elections and dont really care.
Every election day in Cyprus is a party, Cypriots are very politically conscious. You will see grandmothers and grandfathers, beeing escorted by their children, going to the polling stations, because they feel it is their duty to do so…
And it will be a thriller between the left wing ruling party AKEL and the opposition right wing party DISY. Both want to secure the first position, and boast the next day.
I recommend Nicosia, where most politicians will cast their vote. You can see me there in action, I will be working, I am a journalist.
Elections will take place on Saturday, but
until results are out, Sunday evening, you can enjoy yourself at the beach along with thousands of tourists, mostly British and Germans, who chose Cyprus instead of staying home to vote for the EP elections in their country!
I gave it a thought and I’m not going to suggest my home country. How about Bratislava - the capital of low turnout on European elections (16.96%).
Slovakia is relatively small and you can use the election weekend to actually circle around the main cities - Trnava, Trenčín, Nitra, Žilina are relatively close. The country is actually a good case study of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe that could serve as an explanation of the low turnout in the whole region.
I know that probably I will spend EP election days in Belgrad. If you join my company there so what to expect? My estimation is that feedback would be quite mixed feelings. From positive side EU means perspective of visa free travel and some interesting projects financed by EU; from negative side EU is only a bit better organisation than Nato and USA (who made its best to ruin the whole town ten years ago).
Maybe in Belgrad you could get stronger than European average pro’s and con’s feelings about EU. About EP elections the opinions probably represent European general on the ground attitude - no one gives a shit about that.
Hristo: You can’t imagine my surprise when you mentioned Slovakia, my home country, and even Trnava, my home town - it still makes me feel proud to see a foreigner who knows something about it.
Well, Julien could study our “new democracy” and visit the biggest cities, but I would recommend it as a trip with sightseeing, getting to know our culture, maybe some hiking in mountains, and definitely not just because of the elections. The election day would be just like all the others, a lot of people are still ignorant about European Parliament, and making interviews or observing the “election atmosphere” might be a bit boring or even depressive, I guess.
The campaign in Slovakia is not the most sparkling one, we would need a lot more active approach. I have written about the latest part of a campaign in Trnava:
http://elections.thinkaboutit.eu/2009/05/eurocampaign-is-3d-or-tell-it-with-a-chicken/
Anyway, Julien, wherever you will go eventually, I wish you a nice, interesting, and useful stay!
So, I have chosen to take the proposal by Anita and if everything goes right, I will go to Daugavpils (Latvia):
http://julienfrisch.blogspot.com/2009/05/where-i-will-be-on-ep-election-day-1-i.html
I could do with some help, for sure, so if you, Anita, or others, can give me some advice, I’d be more than glad about it (for details see my post).
And thanks for all of you who have been making proposals, and whenever I will be close to one of the other cities, I promise I will get in contact with you!
Hahaha, incredible!
I was about to write and ask what is ur final decision! Congratulations!
For sure you can get a lot of help from me virtually - as much as you need, just write me personally and say what exactly (or maybe make a new post with questions) do you need
One of the advises at the moment - start learning Russian as young people speak there in English even less than in other cities, and the older generation doesn’t speak in English at all
I’d say that you could even try some German as the elder people still remember German (it was obligatory when they were studying, e.g., my grandparents were learning it), but even then it wouldn’t work because it’s Daugavpils - so u could try German only with their Latvian inhabitants, not Russian speakers as they have different historical background.
(P.S. I don’t receive update every time somebody posts a comment on ur post, so, please, really write either personal email or new post in general if you want me to help with anything :))
I am getting very interested about Daugavpils :D, Anita presented it in a very interesting way. I’ll put it on my future places to visit list. Would love to join Ari in Beograd too, one of really great, still very vibrant spots-I love it-they might not care about EU elections too much though but you could get a great conversation about politics in general
Tanja, if you ever do - lemme know and I’ll provide u with some tips as well
I live in Daugavpils. I was supposed to blog here but fell ill before the Brussels meeting.
You might be able to stay with me if you like.
Be certain that the train does not briefly pass through a corner of Belarus. At least until recently, it did — requiring a transit visa, which is quite expensive.
Peteris, thanks for the offer, I might very well come back to it (still have to convince my boss that he doesn’t need me me for three working days :-))!
Regarding the train I have checked and there is no transit via Belarus foreseen. In fact, this is what I thought so far, but it crosses the Polish-Lithuanian border at Mockava (have to change the train in Sestokai), continues to Vilnius (have to change the train), and goes to Daugavpils via Kurcums border crossing (Lithuania-Latvia).
OK — there’s a Skype link at my blog, or you can e-mail me at cedrins@gmail.com
Good to know about the train, though the changes of trains probably make the trip not so smooth? I wouldn’t mind if it were cheap (I used to find exceedingly complicated ways to “get to Europe”) but it’s probably not — not compared to the budget flights we have these days. I, too, prefer trains — but not if they’re expensive!
Well, the train trip is also about seeing how the landscape and cities look (e.g. I have never seen Vilnius), to meet people, to feel the distance.
I pay the extra price exactly for this reason, plus because I like to give examples that ecological transportation is possible, even on long distances.
And the changes this time might be a little inconvenient, but I won’t have much luggage, so that the highest risk is to miss a train. That’s life.
In general, the only reason for me to fly is time pressure or excessive length.