#theceuweekly | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ceuweekly-blog · 7 years ago

Text

FIDESZ’S TWO THIRDS

Martino Comelli / Political Science Doctoral Program

Italy

Hungary’s far-right party has won a crushing victory. And the opposition is in tatters.

In Budapest, the results of the recent national elections came as a surprise to many. The historically high turnout (68 percent) had led commentators to speculate whether something was finally changing in Hungary, which has been firmly ruled by Viktor Orbán’s far-right Fidesz party since 2010. Many expected the high voter turnout to boost the opposition.

It wasn’t to be. Fidesz won handily, receiving over 49 percent of the vote and winning all but a handful of electoral districts in Budapest and a few other places. The incredulity of the Budapest-based intelligentsia speaks volumes about the state of the country’s opposition — and of the deepening divide between citizens in the capital and elsewhere. But their sense of shock was also puzzling: pollsters had predicted the results quite precisely. Fidesz was favored to triumph. Many were simply unwilling to believe that the party would win so resoundingly, especially given the large share of voters involved in a “tactical vote” movement.

Unfortunately, their online and social-media bubble burst on the evening of April 8, and they were left to call, quite desperately and rather ironically, for a demonstration pronouncing, “We are the majority!”

In the weeks leading up to the April 8 contest, municipal election results in Hódmezővásárhely, a Fidesz stronghold since the 1990s, raised hopes that the far-right party was finally on its back heels. An independent candidate, supported by the cooperating opposition parties, won by a significant margin against the local Fidesz pro-consul. If the tide could turn in Hódmezővásárhely, opposition leaders thought, anything was possible.

In retrospect, the victory — in a town of less than 50,000 —was an aberration. Nonetheless, the surprising win fueled an electoral strategy to overturn the seemingly immovable government: for the sake of “regime change,” all opposition parties should unite, regardless of their ideological background, and the strongest opposition candidate should be supported in every electoral district.

The plan had been brewing for some time. Various political and civil organizations, united under the umbrella of “Country for All Movement,” ran a series of surveys to determine the strongest anti-Fidesz candidate in the most competitive districts; the weaker candidates were then supposed to step aside. This call for tactical voting sparked much discussion both inside and outside the country, with liberal editorialists like Cas Mudde even suggesting that in order to overcome the Orbán regime, the liberal opposition should join forces with the Jobbik party, an extreme-right formation that has tried, like Marine Le Pen in France, to clean up its image and present itself as more moderate.

In the end, though, the “tactical vote” strategy confused the opposition and the electorate alike. In the final week before the elections, the opposition parties — rather than challenging Orbán’s narratives or proposing a new vision for Hungary — were busy discussing how to make the tactical vote work. Few candidates were willing to bow out in support of stronger ones, and many of those who did opted to do so individually. Without explicit coordination among the parties, the effort floundered.

According to a counterfactual study by Zoltán Kmetty, a sociologist from Eötvös Loránd University, the “tactical vote” strategy prevented Fidesz from attaining an even more resounding victory. But the far-right party still won two-thirds of the seats in parliament.

The “tactical vote” movement was largely the work of the liberal opposition, a bloc dominated by tech-savvy, urban, educated voters. While well-intentioned, they failed to venture outside their communicative bubble — attempting to reach other educated, urban people at ease with social media — and used tactical maneuvers to try to deflate Fidesz rather than advancing a clear programmatic alternative. As a result, Orbán set the agenda while the liberal opposition simply reacted.

Aside from anti-corruption rhetoric, opposition parties offered nothing new to voters. The election program of the ostensibly socialist party — as well as that of its liberal spin-off, Democratic Coalition — contained little progressive content. Discredited due to past betrayals, lacking a strategy to expand beyond partisan die hards, these parties failed to offer voters a credible left-wing alternative. Their opposition was stylistic, rather than substantive.

This is partly because in the liberal camp, there is a deep misunderstanding of Orbán’s politics. To hear many liberal commentators tell it, Orbán is an illiberal intrusion, an unknown creature in the European political taxonomy. Yet as the Hungarian sociologist József Böröcz has argued, describing the Orbán government as “illiberal” overlooks its resemblance to figures outside Eastern Europe. “It makes it impossible,” Böröcz notes, “to point at the astonishing similarities between Orbán’s regime and not only, say, the political situation in Russia or Turkey (the comparisons that are often made) but also with recent political developments in the United States, France, Austria, Italy, Germany, etc.”

Orbán is a liberal at his core, topped off with some colorful nationalism and racism. The same could be said of Italy’s Berlusconi or France’s Sarkozy or, more recently, Austria’s Sebastian Kurz. Has Western Europe already forgotten Italy’s anti-immigrant Bossi Fini law, or France’s ban on facecovering (which Kurz is now considering implementing)? Do we really have to remind aghast liberals that Switzerland voted for a constitutional amendment, proposed by the far-right Swiss People’s Party, to ban the building of minarets?

Some western critics are now calling on the European People’s Party (EPP) — the umbrella formation that hosts or hosted (among others) Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, Sarkozy’s Les Republicains, Kurz’s ÖVP, and Merkel’s CDU — to expel Orbán from their circle. Yet the EPP is a perfect place for Orbán, and Orbán’s Hungary is a perfect fit for the EU’s liberal project. While Orbán might declare his intent domestically “to stop Brussels,” his economic program is a dream come true for the Brussels elite.

Hungary boasts the EU’s lowest business taxes, a shrunken welfare state, strong fiscal discipline, a stable political situation, an abundance of cheap labor, and no noisy trade unions. The monthly average net wage in Hungary is 635 euros, the median wage even lower.

Given these conditions, what is Brussels or the EPP expected to do beyond issue strongly worded statements? The black sheep is also a goose that lays the golden egg.

Indeed, if the Orbán regime works, it is partly thanks to the complacency of Europe, especially the core countries that have invested much in Hungary and want to see their investment remain safe. What many core European countries desire in places like Hungary is “stabilocracies”: “weak democracies with autocratically minded leaders, who govern through informal, patronage networks and claim to provide pro-Western stability in the region.” These are, after all, the same people who turned the Greek crash into a humanitarian crisis and abetted the rise of the fascist Golden Dawn party. They could hardly be expected to care about the state of Hungarian democracy. On his official English website, Orbán describes his agenda as resting on four main pillars: competitiveness, a workfare society, demographic policy, and identity-based politics. “All decisions made by this government could fit into these categories,” he says.

By competitiveness, Orbán means keeping wages low and crushing trade unions. But by “workfare society,” he refers to the massive public-works programs he’s implemented. Even though they offer a meager 150 euros for menial work, the programs are still a godsend for the poorest. Orbán has been remarkably successful at detecting the political mood of Hungary, perhaps because his party is well rooted throughout the country, especially in the countryside. Opposition parties, meanwhile, have little connection to the constituencies they should represent.

While Fidesz’s policies mainly benefit the middle and upper classes, the public-works programs are popular among downscale voters. The liberal opposition likes to frown on such programs, labeling them patronage, if not pure clientelism — without truly realizing their own grave shortcomings in addressing poverty. When in government, the socalled left-wing parties had even less to offer.

Given the parlous state of the opposition, it’s easier to see why Orbán has won the hearts and minds of poor Hungarians, even if his economic and social policies largely work against them.

The opposition should restart, not by barricading themselves, in their Budapest environs, expressing contempt for Fidesz voters, but by going out and doing what Orbán did so well: listening to them. The press is concerned about the risk to democracy that a Fidesz supermajority poses, and rightly so. But democracy is also in danger when elites are not able to listen anymore.

#fidesz #hungarian politics #EU #student #journalism #ceu #theceuweekly

1 note · View note

ceuweekly-blog · 7 years ago

Text

THE HATE SPEECH MONOLOGUES: AN EVER-GREATER EVENT

Toni Cerkez / International Relations

Bosnia & Herzegovina

One of the most recognizable events of the CEU community, the Hate Speech Monologues, occurred on March twelfth. The performance managed to light up Auditorium A of Nador 15 through a combination of tragedy, satire, mockery, and emotion. The essence of the performance, conducted and organized by Peter Molnar, is the channeling of personal lived experiences of hate in all forms and turning them into a strong message against hate. Essentially, the process of turning hate into love or satire liberates performers from the experience (or even trauma in some cases) and shows to the public that hate, like any emotion, is a process and can be played with and overcome. The Monologues demonstrate that even in some of the harshest environments and events, there is a potential for life-affirming action, for political dissidence, women's emancipation, or general liberation.

For those who went to the Monologues last semester, this semester’s edition is a striking difference, not least in terms of participant numbers but also in terms of the setup of the play. Previously, there were seven participants while this year the performance counted more than a dozen. Furthermore, performers were also a part of the audience. They caught many onlookers by surprise with sudden exclamations and dramatic scene-takeovers. One of the participants, who happened to be the one of the Hungary’s best competitive slam poets, suddenly stood up and demonstrated his performing skills by briefly fooling many into believing that he was a right-wing activist and then making everyone laugh in the face of the irony of Hungarian politics. Another student, from Corvinus University, made a point by saying that the Monologues should expand across universities in Budapest.

From the hyper-nationalist climate in India to racism of Europe, the particular troubles of women in Lebanon and those of students in Hungary, the Monologues are an assemblage of personal stories and experiences of CEU’s students streamlined into a coherent, cohesive and socially aware performance. March twelfth was a night to remember because it reaffirmed CEU students’ dedication to the project and offered an indication that the Monologues have the capacity to expand beyond the CEU community. Perhaps the latter may be too hopeful, but then again, isn’t that what this performance is all about? It remains to be seen.

#hatespeechmonogolues #ceu #theceuweekly #student #journalism

1 note · View note

ceuweekly-blog · 7 years ago

Text

IMPRESSIONS FROM THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES

Iris Belensky / International Relations

Bulgaria / U.S.

CEU’s 2018 rendition of Eve Ensler’s ‘The Vagina Monologues’ was the first time that I had been given the opportunity to see this now celebrated play. It is a piece which, at this point, needs no introduction, and I was curious and excited to see how a group of grad students and faculty members would bring it to life on stage. Theatre has the capacity to create a tantalizing intimacy that cannot be reproduced at the movies - emotions and anxieties mirror each other on both sides of the stage, making for an event in which both actors and audience are necessary. School productions, in particular, have always drawn in me by the mystery of being able to witness the familiar faces of classmates be transformed both by their new purpose as actors and their new personalities as defined by the roles in the piece. The magic of watching CEU students take on the voices of women young and old, from all over the world, while standing on a stage rather than sitting in a classroom, was already captivating in itself.

The topic of the night – vaginas – also lends itself perfectly to the intimacy of theatre. “Women secretly love talking about their vaginas,” the play begins, and it’s true. We all harbor, whether secretly or not, a penetrating preoccupation with the nature of our individual sexuality and the experiences that formed it. The play thus actually allows for a prolonged dialogue on a range of topics related to women’s sexuality – a dialogue, because every skit evokes a response from each of us, a stream of remembered desires, embarrassments, satisfactions, wounds. And while the play may emerge from a particular flavor of feminism which can be both admired and critiqued, the emotions and reactions that are evoked by each monologue are wide-reaching and inclusive. The entanglement between identity and sexuality is a profound and delicate one affecting the majority of us on a daily basis. The ability to claim the pleasure of sexuality is a powerful moment of emancipation. The moment when sexuality is betrayed through violence and abuse is an unfathomable act of destruction. In between these two extremes, the ways in which we care for, express, and share our sexuality and the way that we respond to and behave towards that of others’ can define our experiences in the world with greater severity than we might imagine. It is to draw our attention to the substance of our sexuality, that the Vagina spoke.

#thevaginamonologues #ceu #theceuweekly #student #journalism

1 note · View note

ceuweekly-blog · 7 years ago

Text

ORBÁN WON THE REVOLUTION?

Heni Horvath / International Relations

Hungary

The 23rd October is the national holiday of Hungary, when Hungarians remember the 1956 Revolution and War of Independence. However, most of us at CEU only know 23rd October as the day we don’t have to do our readings, don’t have to leave our cozy rooms, and finally get to have a well-deserved day off to sleep.

And what do the Hungarians do on this noble day? One would assume that they watch as their prime minister and president place a wreath onto Imre Nagy’s grave, and then do the same. Which many did this year. This actually comes as a surprise, not simply because it was a particularly rainy day, but because for the last decade, we spent every national holiday gathering together and protesting something. The issue was always different, though essentially the same: that we should fight against some enemy (be it migrants, Brussels, Soros or the government itself, sometimes even against the parties too).

This year, we had a number of events organised by different parties. First, the government held its official commemoration at the House of Terror. Even though Prime Minister Viktor Orbán talked about the ’56 Revolution, his speech was mainly about the upcoming elections. He claimed that Western Europeans never understood the stamina the Hungarians had against the Soviet oppression - and today they still don’t get it, especially in “Brussels.” During the Soviet era, the Hungarians were to fall in line with the Soviet sphere, and today “the forces of globalisation are aiming to knead the Magyars into homo brüsszelicus.” Additionally, he claimed that it is time to go back to the pre-multicultural Europe. The he added that they can stop the plan of the “financial speculator” (to be understood - George Soros), but one cannot underestimate the power of the “dark side,” and invited those present to vote for Fidesz in April.

Jobbik’s leader Gábor Vona gave an election campaign speech at Corvin Köz. He claimed that Viktor Orbán is “afraid,” and that if the Soros-plan is the symbol of immigration, then the “Orbánplan” is the symbol of emigration. He went on to introduce the “Vona-plan,” which is basically about stopping the other two, and winning the elections in April. Momentum Movement (MoMo) held a protest at Szabadság Square later on the day. The party was formed last year and became famous for the NOlimpia campaign. Three of their leaders, Tamás Soproni, Anna Orosz, and András GyőrFekete gave speeches about the corruption of the previous generations of politicians, the patriarchal oppression and low numbers of young voters. Fekete-Győr announced that MoMo would start an active campaign encouraging people, especially young voters living abroad, to vote in the next elections.

Since early October, there was another protest to be held on the 23rd. It was organised by Country for All Movement (KOM) civil political movement, but would have included 8 opposition parties (MSZP, DK, MoMo, LMP, Együtt, PM, MMM, and the Liberals) - basically including everyone but Jobbik. KOM had set its goal to change the un-proportional, unfair electoral system that favours FIDESZ. The aforementioned 8 parties and KOM drafted an electoral system reform and submitted it to the National Assembly for a review. This reform included a call for more equal gender representation, for the re-drawing of electoral districts, for the lowering of the threshold for getting into parliament from 5 to 4% of votes, and for proportionality between the percentage of total votes a party receives and the number of seats it receives in the parliament. The last one is probably the most important change, as in 2014, FIDESZ won 67% of the seats even though they only received 45% of the total votes.

Although all 8 parties signed the proposal, they backed out from the protest one by one: first LMP, then MoMo and eventually Együtt too. Technically this already demonstrates that there is not a common agreement between the opposition parties that would unite the voters. Additionally, on the protest’s Facebook event page, less than a thousand people clicked “going.” These are probably the reasons why the weather forecast came in handy as an excuse for KOM to cancel the whole event. The National Meteorological Service gave a 3rd degree red warning for the holiday, which would only mean a lot of rain. However, many media published this as “red alarm” which has a much more serious meaning that should be taken seriously. Based on the “red alarm,” KOM called off the protest because they did not want to “risk the physical integrity of their sympathisers.” Many subscribed to the conspiracy theories that FIDESZ is behind the forecast-misunderstanding, others called out KOM for using it as an excuse. My friend, who is a KOM activist, told me that the movement truly believed that there would be a storm that day, however, it is true that they also wanted to avoid looking small because of the lack people’s interest.

Overall, the events of the 23rd October are very demonstrative, since they are about the upcoming elections rather the commemoration of ’56. And what can we see? There were around 2000 people at the official state ceremony, and there were around 200 at both Jobbik’s and MoMo’s events. The common oppositional protest did not happen. The rest of the parties did not even attract a hundred people each with their last-minute gatherings. I think everyone can derive their own conclusions from here on…

#ceu #theceuweekly #student #journalism #hungary #politics

1 note · View note

ceuweekly-blog · 8 years ago

Text

CEU Residence Centre: The globe under one roof

Yara Asmar / International Relations

Lebanon

People usually travel to new countries to discover new cultures and experience new traditions. For us at CEU, all we need is a metro ticket to take the red line and head to Kerepesi 87 where more than 50 experiences are gathered under one roof. Every room at CEU residence center reflects a story and a history. On the ground floor, just on your left, a small bar hides between its walls, long nights chats, multinational laughs, and interesting political conversations. Nights usually start out quietly, but with the increase of beer intake, conversations become more intense, deeper, and more engaging.

Life underground is quite similar. You might be doing your laundry- of course after learning how the machines work - and someone comes to you to exchange some ideas while waiting for their clothes to dry up. On the other side, the gym fans gather. I once entered the gym to hear a conversation on health habits between a Canadian, a Chinese and an Italian person. Despite my embarrassment at not having any healthy habits to share, I felt so lucky to be here in this small underground gym. It was actually satisfying for me to know that we all speak the same language in spite of our differences.

At the CEU residence center, the floor kitchens are very important, and not only for cooking. Usually the parties start there; at least speaking for my floor, the 5th floor. Before every party, the IR people of the 5th floor gather in the kitchen to cook, drink and talk about their week. It is not just that we like it, but also because of 1- economic reasons – eat and drink at home to avoid spending money outside . 2- cultural reasons – eat a different type of food every time from a different country and listen to new music genres.

I do not regret living under the CEU resident roof. It‘s a one in a million kind of experience.

#ceu #theceuweekly #student #journalism #residence #centre #accommodaion

1 note · View note

ceuweekly-blog · 8 years ago

Text

THE CEU BUBBLE?

Petr Knor / Political Science

Czechia

A drunk aggressive man at a party in Ankert manages to attack a few of your friends, kicks someone else, and hits a young woman so hard that her nose bleeds. You were unjustly kicked out of a club and bouncers got aggressive. Now, you cannot go back since they remember you because of your race. You were a student wearing the blue CEU badge and somebody physically attacked you in downtown Budapest. You listened to a racist or sexist story somewhere in the city. My Hungarian friend told me about his ex-boyfriend getting beaten up during the day at Ferenc Deak for talking about being gay. The reality of Budapest can be difficult, were I to use quite diplomatic language. I often wonder what can we as a community do to facilitate openness?

I remember those honeymoon days when my expectations of CEU, the charm of Budapest, and the lure of a new life enclosed me in the CEU bubble. Yet, I was soon disillusioned when I realized that I should not automatically expect the advertised openness and inclusivity even within our community. As my bubble burst, I was shocked. It was easy to criticize, to launch a crusade to save CEU and these ignorant eastern Europeans. Easy for us to judge people we do not know without experiencing their life stories. Easy to assume the moral high ground; utopias do not exist. I realized that I must work with what I have. Giving up would be like allowing this violence to continue. It is hard to get out of our overtly critical academic mindset, and get out there and try to change something.

The respect does not arise by itself. The contact theory that assumes that bringing people from different groups together creates inclusive respectful communities does not work. It takes a lot of effort, patience, and skill to build safe space that fosters respect. For change to start, we need to listen and learn. Criticizing people’s abhorrent ways is only going to affirm them. We need to be smarter than that. Empathic listening gives us the strongest weapons against ignorance, it shows us ways how to challenge the other. To put them out of their comfort zone while respecting their backgrounds. And then we can engage, change their views through non-violently. We can stand up to this, we are CEUers. Don’t try to do impossible, but change the possible. Every change counts. Budapest and CEU are not going to change in a whim. We did stand up for our school, let’s selfreflect and open the society around us.

At the end, something changed a little thing that night in Ankert. First, it helped us become aware of some local realities. Second, management of the club made sure that the aggressive guy got fired and the situation will hopefully not repeat again. Let’s not close ourselves in our bubble. Go out, engage with Budapest, but be aware of its differences. Sustainable change starts with little changes that we do every day, and CEU’s diversity is the best sandbox for all of us to change ourselves and others.

#ceu #theceuweekly #student #journalism

1 note · View note

ceuweekly-blog · 7 years ago

Text

THE WEEKLY POST-GRAD PLANS

Eli Cloonan / International Relations/Global Economic Relations

U.S.A

In Budapest, it is the season of sunshine, limonádé a plenty, and, for many of us, rapidly approaching thesis deadlines. Since most of us atThe Weekly graduate this year, we thought it would be a good idea to include a story in the last issue about what our plans are after we graduate. Of course, there are those of us who simply do not know what we will do after Commencement. Of the writers and editors whom I had queried, Iris Belensky and Andrej Hagan fit this description, along with myself, though I have tentative plans for a position in the U.S. for two or three years and then pursuing another Master’s. Life happens and plans change. Fortunately for some of us, however, post-CEU plans are a bit more certain. This is the case for Olga Romadin. After graduation, Olga answered that she was planning to stay in Budapest for a few months to work on her thesis, study for the LSAT, and travel around Europe for a little bit, but she is also considering some summer programs. In the meantime, Olga is applying for jobs in the U.S. in her field, so her intention is to have something lined up upon her return in the autumn until she starts law school.

Özge Çakir is planning on taking time off from academia as well. Specifically, Özge would like to take a year off and work, in addition to continuing to write for small journals, periodicals, newspapers, etc. For her, CEU reminded Özge that she loves to write, not as much for homework but rather something in which she is actually interested. It was Toni Cerkez, though, who had perhaps the most detailed answer. Like myself, his plans are not certain, but he does have some framework developed. Toniwill be taking part in a two-month research traineeship with the Peace Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Specifically, he will be working on Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy and its application to “crimmigration” and migration studies. Afterwards, Toni intends to move around the EU and gain relevant experience. Ultimately, hewants to continue his studies and pursue his research interests. He does not want to stop traveling, studying, and researching, is considering doctoral studies in the not-too-distant future, would like to reconnect with people from his hometown, and is open to the unexpected.

For many people, uncertainty can be uncomfortable, even scary. For others, uncertainty is exhilarating. But, for everyone, uncertainty is inevitable.

#future #plans #team #ceu #theceuweekly #student #journalism

0 notes

ceuweekly-blog · 7 years ago

Text

THE MESSY BENEFITS OF IN-BETWEEN AND FALLEN-APART-PLANS

Camilo Montoya-Guevara / Alumna, Cultural Heritage Studies Program ‘17

Canada / Columbia

If you’re sentimental you’ll like this. If you’re not, don’t put it down so quickly! Hopefully, you’ll find new perspectives to some thoughts you’re having as CEU’s ‘18 year comes to an end, ideally helpful ones.

I was in your shoes last year as I tossed my graduating cap and walked out of CEU as a ’17 graduate. I’ve come and gone, so where am I now? The easy answer is Toronto. Yet, for a sentimentalist it is never so simple. More accurately phrased, I’m in-between. Between snow and sun, between Canada and elsewhere, between family and friends, between what I planned and what is. These are the in-betweens that I spiral in as I slowly land in place here in Toronto.

You might have already learned, like I currently am, that to arrive in a place physically does not mean to be in that place. The mind is slow to land and much more so are emotions. Unpacking clothes, and sorting them in your bedroom is not the end to the mental and emotional baggage that follows any transition and trails behind your plans. A transition which you’ll soon have to face.

You might have decided to stay in Budapest, or perhaps you’ll go back to Bogota, return to Romania, trek to Turkey, or explore unknowns as you take your degree unto the next adventure. The way will be hectic, the adjustment slow, and the places changed. No matter whether you revisit familiar places or move unto new ones, the truth is that those places, like you, are now different.

As you prepare to face post-graduation, I’m sure you’re planning, planning, planning. Planning where to go, planning when to go, planning what to take, planning where to work, planning where to live or study next, planning whether to stay together or to…well…

Here, I’d like to question the value of planning. What good comes from spending your mental energy and the little stress-capacity you have remaining on “plans”? As an extensive planner myself, I am confident that very little tangible benefit comes from it.

Slowly unpacking myself back into a “regular” life that I haven’t been a part of for three years in Toronto, I’ve been realizing that no amount of planning could have prepared me for the realities of being back. I planned to get a job back in Canada, or at least interviews, while I completed my internship in Germany. Despite 50+ applications no interview came! There went my plan. I planned to read a whole book in German over Christmas. I’m still three pages in, still working on that plan. I planned to start my career in cultural community engagement. I’m doing research as a conference planner, while leading food tours in Toronto and working with the Ward Museum of Immigration on the side. So I guess I’m on my way? Emerging from naïveté my reality has been that plans take time and although I wish that your plans come together smoothly, it’s more likely that they’ll fall together in unlikely places and you’ll have to compromise here and there.

I don’t mean to say you should not be planning. Not planning would be like giving up! Just don’t carve out your plans in stone or set them in cement.

We all need a healthy balance between planning, planning, planning and being flexible enough to go with the flow. The “very little value” of planning lies in setting out goals. When I plan, I articulate where I’d like to go, what I’d like to do, how I’d like to be. But when I set these plans in motion, when I pursue my dreams, a healthy balance between planned and unplanned is the better alternative. I would not have rediscovered my passion for Toronto’s culinary diversity had I not been pushed to look for a part time job because my plan to kick-start my career was much much much slower than I had planned. I’m still in-between, quite literally in between winter and spring, in between wanting to be here and yearning for elsewhere, in between learning in school and learning out of school. I think I’d like to stay in this in-between. As you plan your next steps, take time and pleasure in the messy benefits of in-betweens and fallen-apart-plans which will bring you unto new, unexpected and, yes, unplanned adventures.

#plans #future #alumna #ceu #theceuweekly

0 notes

ceuweekly-blog · 7 years ago

Text

SOUND RELATIONS PROJECT AT CEU

Iris Belensky / International Relations

U.S./Bulgaria

CEU provides all of its students with countless opportunities and possibilities, the effects of which will be felt by each of us for years into the future. From the people we’ve met, the ideas we’ve communicated, to the projects we’ve participated in and the career opportunities we’ve uncovered, CEU is our gold mine. There is one opportunity, however, that may be less well known, while at the same time representing a frontier in terms of the skills and experiences that tend to be cultivated in a grad school like this one. The Sound Relations project at CEU attempts to both study and capture the power of sound and its ability to transgress, disrupt and transform our daily life both within academia and without.

As students, we are constantly conscious of the written word – every printed word of our readings, every word we have to write for our essays, and how many words are left until we’ve hit the word limit. And yet it would seem that an even greater, more impactful, part of our education centers on the spoken word – the professors we adore because their reflections leave us spellbound, the questions our classmates ask that have us thinking for the rest of the day, and the rare moments that we decide to speak in class and end up saying something that actually makes sense. The Sound Relations Project strives to observe and capture precisely these phenomena that are so fundamental to our education. As a collaboration between the Center for Media, Data, and Society, the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Blinken Open Society Archives, and several departments at CEU, the project directs workshops on podcast making, courses in sound studies, and various opportunities for sound technologies and techniques to be incorporated into the classroom setting.

The project has already seen numerous accomplishments, the greatest of which is the CEU podcast library. This online library features the exceptional work of numerous CEU students, including Stephen Westlake’s five episode podcast series “Speaking to the Soviets,” the podcast series “Voice Matters” capturing seven academic seminars on media and communication, and the series “Diaspora Politics and Transnational Political Violence” featuring episodes by five IR Master’s students. This latter project represents the collaboration of the Sound Relations project with Professor Mate Tokic’s class on Terrorism and Diasporas, which offered students the option of making a podcast in place of writing a final paper. This type of collaboration represents one of the novel incorporations of sound into the classroom that the Sound Relations project has been able to actualize – providing students with the chance to give voice to the questions and contemplations they have been grappling with throughout the semester, and furthermore, the opportunity to have their work reach an audience.

Apart from the aesthetic, and at times downright poetic, manner in which sound can be implicated into the themes and issues of our coursework, there are also practical reasons for which the collaboration between Sound Relations and classrooms represents an enriching opportunity for all CEU students. Podcasting presents students with a chance to mobilize a variety of skills and character traits that will serve them well with their inevitable CV building needs and future careers. Creating a podcast means taking the initiative to experiment with a whole new medium; it means taking the time to learn new hands-on technical skills and combine them with the more esoteric activities of academia; it means learning to pursue contacts and communications with professionals in order to land an interview. Finally, there is nothing quite like having a finished product that you’ve crafted and that can be shared in a way that our essays will never be. The Sound Relations project allows for some of the most innovative opportunities available at a graduate university – here’s to hoping that many more students will be able to take advantage of it!

#ceu podcast #sound relations #project #ceu #theceuweekly #student #journalism

0 notes

ceuweekly-blog · 7 years ago

Text

STUDENT STORIES: OMNIA KAMAL SABILABDUALHALEEM

Andrej Hagan & Toni Cerkez / International Relations

UK/Czechia, Bosnia & Herzegovina

My name is Omnia Kamal SabilAbdualhaleem and I am doing a two-year MA in International Relations. Originally, I am Sudanese, and I live there, but I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, so this impacted my experience greatly. I always wanted to compare social viewpoints and understand them from different angles.

I have a lot of work experience, but I want to emphasize my work for the Italian Development Cooperation Agency, which is a part of the Italian embassy. There, I worked in the social development field for two years. During my work and studies at the University of Khartoum, I came to realize that Sudan is a fragile and conflict-affected country where a deep identity crisis is recreating conflict. This deep identity crisis increases the political instability by radicalizing the ongoing armed conflicts and transforming them in to ethnic and religious ones, particularly the conflict at the border with South Sudan and the civil war in Sudan’s Western province of Darfur. Identity will be crucial for understanding Sudan post-Bashir and for reforming it. This kind of approach to international relations and social sciences was not really available to me at my university in Sudan, so I decided to move elsewhere.

Therefore, I came to Europe. My thesis is on integration of migrants in the European context. I want to understand othering as a process more closely. I want to see how issues and people from MENA are seen from Europe. I found out many things, most of which I do not really like. For us Sudanese, we have a very different character than the Europeans. There are so many nice things here, but the people are really passive because of individualism. Even at CEU, we have this community but it’s quite passive. In Sudan we are collectivist and that means that we are actively involved with communities, individuals matter as a part of the community. For example, even with the Syrian refugees, we do not call them refugees, we treat them like our Arab brothers and they have real education, and they do not have to pay taxes and taking into consideration that Sudan is not the richest country in the world, it’s one of the poorest, that’s amazing to me. So, my question is how would I appease my desire to help Sudan with a totally different experience of Europe? How can I learn from Europe when it’s so different from Sudan?

When I came here I wanted to see how Sudan is perceived here but so many people know nothing about it. You don’t have to know about every country in the world but there are some things that people here should know. Students ask me what is FGM (female genital mutilation) and they are very surprised to hear about child or forced marriages and when they hear about it they are immediately triggered. While I am against FGM completely, it’s interesting to see how people here judge it immediately and call for a change. But, the change needs to come from within.

When it comes to the FGM, female’s sexual appeal is minimized by doing it, of course the man is pleased as well because she is kept for him. But also, after giving birth they re-do it. They do that because they think that the man would enjoy sex more in sexual terms. It is a very patriarchal thing, male domination and all. Some people will look at me and think I’m Europeanized. But you know who’s really standing by FGM: women themselves. Mothers, grandmothers support FGM. That’s what I want to change by having my own NGO. I worked for SALMA in Sudan, a women’s research center- we did so much advocacy work. But it was mostly the westerners who pulled all the strings- I want to involve the Sudanese more, otherwise it’s just continuing the subject-object relationship imposed by the western influence.

In the very, very past we were not a patriarchal society, we were a matriarchal society, but the change came, and this is heavy history. The change was very gradual. We still have some tribes that have matriarchal elements, like matrilineal names. In the official documents it’s different but tribally there are still such elements. For us the name is important, and it signifies tribal heritage. Patriarchy is becoming prevalent even more than it was. This goes not only for FGM but also for child marriage; the legal age for a woman to get married is ten years- I mean not even a woman! Forced marriages and matriarchal rape are considered rights of men. When a woman gets raped in Sudan, a country where Sharia Law is constitutionally enshrined, the law is applied against women. There is equality nominally, but women carry much more stigma, much more. For example, I was married. Yes, I was married but apparently, I did not fit the perfect standards of a Sudanese wife. My way of thinking and the willingness to be independent, maintaining my own personality and being equal in making decisions with my husband caused us problems. I was supposed to be acting, dressing, dreaming and believing in a certain way which my society had decided for me as a woman!

Sudan is very sensitive. If a woman is not dressing “appropriately” – which is totally undefined – the police state enforces it strictly. The penalty for wearing pants instead of a scarf is public lashing! That’s why SALMA was so important to me- it was a space for my freedom of speech. And this is why I came to Europe instead of doing a master’s in Sudan, because I wanted this freedom of speech. Even the professors themselves in Sudanese universities are oppressed, and this causes brain-drain migration. Most of all, I am angry with the oppression in Sudan. I want to be independent, I want to change the constant subordination of myself, and women in Sudan. To reverse constant male domination, to have some agency over my life. So, it is important for me to speak up and inform people about Sudan and these places. We need to get out of our bubble and actually delve in, study, and understand the different. It’s important not only because we want to know about things, but because we need to stop perpetrating the same colonial practices, same ignorance, and perhaps offer an opportunity for wholesome change of systems and societies there.

#student stories #ceu #theceuweekly #student #journalism #interview

0 notes

ceuweekly-blog · 7 years ago

Text

ENERGY STORAGE ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION

Neringa Stropute / Environmental Sciences and Policy

Lithuania

Central European University, the Energy Research Group, and the Jean Monet Chair for Energy Innovation Strategieson March 6th has organized the roundtable discussion “Energy Storage Technology: Is the CEE Region Ready?”. According to the moderator of the discussion dr. Michael LaBelle, “We look at Western Europe countries, US, Australia where energy storage ecosystems are well developed, but the focus of this discussion is how we bring in new energy storage technologies in the CEE region with robust electrical and gas systems”. To answer this question, the roundtable brought together the key leaders at the forefront of the energy storage business: Jan Namyslo (Sales Leader Fluence Energy, Germany), Csaba Kovács (Partner, KPMG, Energy and Utilities), Tamás Bóday (CTO, HeatVenters Start-up) and István Slezsák (Grid Development Associate, ELMŰ).

First of all, Jan Namyslo presented “Fluence” – ajoint venture in energy storage of Siemens and AES (USA). Siemens was interested in a partnership with AES because they have high expectations on a market based on energy storage. As Jan Namyslo puts it, “Energy storage will change dramatically the way of consuming and producing energy”. AES is famous as a company that started working in the area of energy storage already 10 years ago. The two companies together make up installed power of 500 MW. They focus on Europe, Northern, Southern America and even Asian market. Therefore, even though the “Fluence” was established just 8 weeks ago, it is not anymore a small start-up, but a large company with installed power worldwide. The ambitions of the joint venture are best illustrated by the largest project of the company – retransformation of the coal power plant into 100 MW capacity energy storage system. Furthermore,Jan Namyslo highlighted that there is a real business case for energy storage in central Europe too. One can easily earn 100.000 EUR per year for operating 1MW storage system and it can be scaled up to 50 MW. Especially attractive business case is regarding lithium-ion batteries – one of the most mature energy storage technologies so far.

The discussion that followed after the keynote speech touched upon a wide variety of topics from home-scale energy storage, electric cars to availability of resources and power to gas technology as well as regulation. With regard to home-scale batteries the case of Germany was brought up, since there is a large market for residential storage due to the significant development in the photovoltaic (PV) sector. Considering electric vehicles, it was highlighted that the number of such cars is growing in Hungary (today there are around 5000 electric cars in the country) and they have the potential to inject energy to the grid as well as help to solve voltage problems in the power system. Furthermore, debating the issue of regulation of the energy storage, all speakers pointed out that the legal environment in CEE and in Hungary is not supportive enough. According to Jan Namyslo, storage systems are treated like any other conventional consumer, or producer. Thus, it is rather difficult to run arbitrage business in Europe because every time one is going to charge or discharge the storage, the taxes will have to be paid as it is the case even in Germany with the “Erneuerbare energie” fee. Therefore, “Germany, France, UK, Italy are lobbying in the European Commission regarding incentives for storage in the regulation system”, Csaba Kovács pointed out. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the incentive system is not perfect for energy storage in Hungary, one can be more optimistic when looking at Japan, USA, UK, France, Italy, Germany. Besides, once the clean energy package of the EC will be passed (by 2020), the legislative environment will be much more supportive in Europe. All in all, the technology is developing on its own and even though the regulation is missing, the technological development is far ahead.

With regard to availability of resources’ influence on investment security, in a short-term perspective there might be a shortage of resources, but like in the oil business, from the long-term perspective, there will be significant investments in the sector, which will result in the discovery of more resources and consequently the prices will drop too. The prices for batteries is a good example as it has decreased by 75 % in the last 4-5 years. However, considering the power to gas (P2G) technology, the difficulties with regard to distribution system of gas has to be overcome if the full potential of this technology is to be unveiled.

In conclusion, the future of the energy storage was discussed and it was pointed out that especially in Hungary energy prices are highly political, therefore the essential question is, who has an interest to invest in energy storage. Lastly, it was highlighted that we all should be interested in energy storage technologies because of the climate change and rapidly increasing temperatures that require further development of the renewable energy sources.

#energy #storage #technology #ceu #theceuweekly #student #journalism

0 notes

ceuweekly-blog · 7 years ago

Text

IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO: A TAKE ON THE HUNGARIAN STATE OPERA’S PRODUCTION OF “PORGY AND BESS”

Helena Lopes Braga / Musicologist and PhD Candidate in Comparative Gender Studies

Portugal

When I first read that Porgy and Bess was to be performed in Budapest, even though I was sure Audra McDonald would not be playing the role of Bess, I didn’t even blink: “Oh my goddess! Tickets! Buy tickets!” George Gershwin (1898-1937) is among my favorite composers ever. As a jazz lover and a classical musician myself, Gershwin’s music has everything to be the object of my affection, and Porgy and Bess was on my list of must-see operas for years. However, as soon as I booked the tickets and read that it was going to be played by a Hungarian white cast, I trembled and asked myself: will I still be able to enjoy this? Other questions arose between that day and the day that I watched the performance (Sunday, January 28th), and I will be discussing some of them, and my conclusions, in this opinion piece.

Porgy and Bess is an opera with elements of African-American music; it was written by the (classical) composer who brought jazz into classical music. It tells the story of Porgy, a black disabled street-beggar, who falls in love with Bess, and *rescues* her from her abusive partner, and from her drug dealer. It is supposed to show the daily struggles of southern black communities and their hope in the future (represented by the baby, particularly in the well-known “summertime”). It explicitly demands an all-black cast – except for the only few spoken roles.

[Let me pause here just to remind you how sexist this libretto is (mind you, there is sarcasm ahead): there is one very special woman, Bess, who has no agency whatsoever, is lost at the hands of an abusive partner and a drug dealer, and is “saved” by the true love of a well-meaning disabled beggar. She falls in love with him, because the fact that he wants an old (30 years old) drunk, addicted whore (as the community of perfectly good and pure people treats her) can only be *true love*. But when her partner returns she goes back to him, because he is strong and powerful, and again she has no choice. Then the two men fight for her and Porgy shoots the abusive partner - he goes to jail, only to find out two weeks later, after being released, that Bess was taken to New York by her drug dealer, once again deprived of any agency. The opera ends with Porgy leaving for New York to *save* Bess again.

There are many other sexist tropes such as the constant groping and objectifying of women (“a woman is a sometime thing”), the presence of gossiping women (they say bad things about Bess and advise Porgy to stay away from her), the praying widow, Serena, (this one is sexist and racist) who insists on praying instead of taking people to the hospital, and of course there are straight couples only, and mothers taking care of husbands and children. This is happening in an opera written by a very likely gay composer - rumors about Gershwin’s sexuality exist since he was alive, not only because of his secrecy towards his private life and the absence of any known female lovers, but also because he was connected to certain circles of homosociality between composers who were students of the French composer Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979).]

With music by George Gershwin and a libretto by Ira Gershwin (George’s brother), DuBose Heyward and Dorothy Heyward, Porgy and Bess premiered in 1935: first at a private concert in Carnegie Hall, in concert version, and with the choir directed by Eva Jessye, the first black woman working as a professional choral conductor; then the public premiere took place at the Colonial Theatre, in Boston, just a couple of weeks later. The libretto was an adaptation of DuBose and Dorothy Heyward’s play Porgy, which was in its turn, an adaptation of 1925 DuBose Heyward’s novel Porgy. It is sometimes called the first African-American Opera, the first jazz-opera. Gershwin himself called it folk opera. It is, nonetheless, the most famous American opera. Many songs from this opera have become part of the Great American Songbook, and therefore have been recorded and are performed frequently by an infinite number of musicians. From the start, this has been a controversial work. Some audiences and specialists could not give credit to a black cast, or to a script about black people. Some others were furious that it was extremely racist. Many authors have discussed and explored racism in the critical reception of Porgy and Bess.

Indeed, in the segregationist south of the USA (Charleston, South Carolina), the opera portrays black people as violent, drug-addicts, beggars, religious, and with the capacity of having fun and finding happiness and hope in the future even when their lives are falling apart. It is a fetishization of black poor people, but even by doing so, it was considered the first novel (and later play, and later opera) that took African-American culture seriously and which explored human aspects of African-American people. It was written by white people in African-American Vernacular English. When it´s the case of being sang by a white cast, this can easily qualify as a type of blackface.

There are many other determining factors in these narratives that pose questions and negotiate perspectives on Porgy and Bess, and Gershwin’s career - the fact that Gershwin was possibly gay, and was from a family of Russian Jews who fled to the US, thus placing him in a particular level in the hierarchy of whiteness in early 20th century New York is not to be undermined. Another issue that is frequently discussed is how Porgy and Bess can be conceptualized as empowering for black people, especially black people in classical music, notwithstanding the racist overtone of the script and the fact that it was written by a white composer. Nevertheless, this is not the place to explore this further.

Despite being part of the operatic canon, Porgy and Bess is rarely performed, especially in Europe. This is for two main reasons: the first, as I’ve said before, it is a controversial opera, the second, many European Opera Companies argue that they don’t have the means to hire an all-black cast, that there are not enough classically trained black singers available. (This may be true for many countries, which brings us to question: why is it so? In the case of countries with a colonial past, it should be possible to find non-white people in every profession, but we know that this is still not the case for structural reasons) Now let me situate myself, once again, this time in regard to my country of origin. I am from Portugal, I have lived in Lisbon for the past 10 years. Portugal has a history of having bad cultural policies. When I say bad I mean investing the least possible and expecting good financial results. This is especially truth for the Period of the dictatorship (1926/33-1974) and afterwards until this day. A certain fringe of the left wing believed that with democracy we would have better cultural politics, the State would be more available to invest in culture, and finally turn the dream of having a National Opera Company into reality. But none of that happened. To this day there is no National Opera Company in Portugal. This results in having only a few operas performed each year: for this year’s season (2017/2018) the São Carlos National Theatre, in Lisbon, home to the Portuguese Symphonic Orchestra, which should be the home to a National Opera Company as well, is presenting only seven operas, of which only four are produced by the Theatre, and some are presented in semi-staged versions. Needless to say, these few operas rarely defy the canons of the operatic repertoire: Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Elektra by Richard Strauss, Idomeneoby Mozart and Verdi’s La Traviata. The other three productions are by foreign companies (Opera North, Opera Lyon, and Arena di Verona Teatro La Fenice). However, it is important to notice that in the Portuguese Productions, and because we have no National Opera, a significant part of the participants is hired specifically for each production and is not Portuguese (this goes from the staging director, to the musical director and, of course, to the singers, especially the ones in the main roles). Although I am all in favor of mobility and cultural exchanges, this only puts forward a huge problem in Portugal: the lack of opportunities (meaning jobs) for people in the performing arts. This comes with the added price of perpetuating the myth that artists from other countries (particularly Northern European and North Americans, but also Russians and Eastern Europeans, and Asians in the case of instrumental music) are much better than us, Portuguese.

Therefore, for me, it is uplifting to be living in a country with a National Opera Company where the productions are made mainly with artists from that country. (Is there a slightly nationalist undertone in all of this? Probably yes.) I will go back to my first question and answer it in a bit. My other question is: should the Hungarian State Opera have hired foreign singers to feature in Porgy and Bess? If it is true that there are no classically trained black singers in Hungary, then it might have been a good idea. Is it valid that the director, András Almási-Tóth, decided to do it this way? Yes, it is. Art is not supposed to be a cage in any way. We can reinterpret it and change it as much as we want to. We can read it in many different ways. Many versions and adaptations of operas co-exist with more traditional, faithful ones. And that is fine. (And the audience gets to choose if they still want to watch the performance or not. Had I seen Porgy and Bess before, I might have passed this production).

In this staging, Almási-Tóth placed the cast in 21st century Hungary, more specifically in homeless people living in the streets of Budapest. This was done through the wardrobe and set design. According to Almási-Tóth, they are in the harbors by the Danube. According to the State Opera´s General Director, Szilveszter Okovacs, the action is set at an airport. I watched it as if it was happening in the subway access channels, because of what looked like a replica of an escalator and because that is where I see homeless people more frequently.

Now there is another detail to be considered. The cast included two non-white actors. One of which, the darkest person in this production, the Guinea-Bissau actor Marcelo Cake-Baly, played the policeman, one of the smallest spoken roles in the opera. If the cast director was aiming at staging a production of white people, in order “to bring them [Hungarian audience] closer to it”, why then did he cast this black actor in such a small role (and I could argue that he is the comic relief of the play)? These smaller and spoken roles in Porgy and Bessare usually played by white actors because they represent the repression of white people in 20th century US: the exploitation, in the case of the coroner and especially the lawyer, and the State Repression, in the case of the Detective and the Policeman. What does it mean to reverse this logic in 21st century Hungary? This policeman is the weakest instrument of control in this opera, he only responds to his superior’s commands, he only does what he is told to do, showing no opinions, no personal will, despite still having the symbolic power of his position as an agent of authority. There is a history in drama of using policemen, no matter how small their roles are, as representatives of the State, sending messages to the audiences about the State’s im/potency, repression, silliness, etc. So why is a black person impersonating the State in this way? Was this production portraying the Hungarian State as weak, silly, puppet-like and opinion-less?

It is striking that this actor brings in a whole new level of otherness, in contrast to the Hungarian white homeless people. Maybe the message was instead close to a nationalist sense of own community/ies(even if from lower classes, but still Hungarians) suffering because of the imposed presence of the other(s)? And who are the superior powers which impose this presence? (Do I really need to spell out possibilities?)

Or was this just a lazy way of including a black actor in the production, just like the director’s excuses for having used a white cast read as extremely lazy? It is very difficult not to have an opinion of Porgy and Bess. People either hate it or love it. Some hate it for its music, for not being classical enough, operatic enough. Some hate it for its rather racist stereotypes. Some love it for its music; some love it for its story, or for both. However, our opinion and positionality does not have to fit within a binary of good versus bad. Loving it versus boycotting it. We can and should develop the critical tools that allow us to think about works created in the past. Watching them, reading them, listening to them with our own critical lenses.

I am now able to answer my initial question. Yes, I did enjoy this performance very much. Despite the problematic issues happening both in the libretto, as in the production, I was able to appreciate this staging. The singers were amazing, particularly Orsolya Sáfár as Bess, and Beatrix Fodor as Clara (what a beautiful and flawless rendition of “Summertime”!). Marcell Bakonyi (Porgy) needs to learn how to walk in crutches (using the crutch opposite to the hurt leg), but his acting skills are convincing, nonetheless, and he did a good job singing as well. Boldizsár László as Sporting Life was one of the stars of the evening, not only does he have great acting skills, but also an energetic way of bringing rhythm and singing together, despite sometimes standing on the verge of becoming a bit vulgar. In my opinion, Csaba Szegedi has a great voice for the Crown but his physical appearance (he is a large and very tall man) turned the character almost into a ticking time bomb, which is not usually the case, and this ended up emphasizing his abusive relationship with Bess in a rather uncomfortable manner, because he became physically more threatening than usual.

I must admit the orchestra was a bit of a disappointment, not only because of the choice of certain tempi, and the lack of a convincing swing in the fastest songs, which turned out a bit lazy because the tempo was not flowing in a clear manner, but also because the relationship between orchestra and singers was at times slightly desynchronized - this was especially true during the first act and in one or two scenes of the second. But overall, the orchestra did its job and provided a nice and smooth environment for the staging. Apparently the premiere (Saturday, January 27th) faced lighting issues and had to be delayed for 25 minutes. Some might believe that this was the Phantom of the Opera or, in this case, it would be Gershwin´s or DuBoise´s ghost mad because there was a white cast. In any case, could this have caused the orchestra´s lack of confidence the following evening? We will never know.

I have been imagining Porgy and Bess performed, as it should, by an all-black cast, in a place like Budapest, where everyone in the audience was (and is usually) white. How uncomfortable would that be? How reminiscent of Minstrel Shows would that be? Black people for white people´s entertainment? One thing is clear to me: in any case, Porgy and Bess is a racist (and sexist) opera. Porgy and Bess will always be a racist opera. Just like Puccini’s Turandot and Madame Butterfly, or Verdi’s Nabucco, or Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado, Aida and Il Trovatoreby Verdi, Carmen by Bizet, The Gipsy Baron by Johann Strauss II, and I could go on. Most of these operas are extremely sexist as well. Many are deeply rooted in misogyny, where women are portrayed as promiscuous femme fatales or pure naive girls who are deceived, but eventually most became hysterical and end up killing themselves or are killed as a form of punishment for their immoral behavior (unless heterosexual monogamous *true* love saves all): Rigoletto, La Traviataand La Forza del Destinoby Verdi, Norma by Bellini, Carmen by Bizet, Turandot, Tosca and Madama Butterfly by Puccini, Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and so on. As we all know, they were written in a different cultural context. Does that excuse their content? No. But should we remove them from the repertoire? No.

Does this prevent us from enjoying such performances? I can only speak for myself. No. But maybe this is just me trying to excuse myself for being a snob privileged middle-class white scholar (no sarcasm here) and envying the fact that so many countries have National Operas where most of the roles are played by local professionals.

#opera #ceu #theceuweekly #student #journalism

0 notes