W E E K L Ythe

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

An independent newspaper by CEU students and alumni March 23, 2016, Year 6, Issue 70

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2 - CEU Smalltalk 3 - Reflections on the 2015 4 A Monumental & - Controversy: The 5 Debate over the History of WWII in Budapest 6 - An Interview w. Dean Starkman on Public Interest Journalism7 - Thoughts on the ‘Hate Speech’ Monologues at CEU 8 - A Bottle to Myself: A Student’s Guide to Hungarian Wine

IN THIS ISSUE

CEU WILLNOT FORGET

THE CEU WEEKLY

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Small Talk

What was the best selfie you have ever taken? And what do you think about Selfies in general?

I judge people who take selfies. And I definitely judge people with these selfie

sticks. I’d rather take a video. I took one with my favorite band, I was in their life

show and the guy was singing right in front of me and he came and he hugged me. So I’d rather just make a video, but

never a selfie.

CEU SMALLTALK: CELEBRATING THE 10TH EDITION WITH …

Selfies! Back in September, we were sick and tired of the standard small talk at CEU. Same questions, same answers, same polite nodding. So we decided to come up with alternative questions that would provoke people to tell us

more about them: CEU Smalltalk was born. Six months and over 100 CEU student interviews later we still find fresh faces and fresh answers. To celebrate the 10th edition of CEU Smalltalk, we decided to go back to the very first question we used for our friends, but never for the whole CEU community:

Margaryta RymarenkoInternational RelationsUkraine

~ Ann-Kathrin BeckSchool of Public Policy

Germany

Anastasia Zabusova School of Public Policy

Russian Federation

Apo SahagianPolitical Science

Jerusalem

I like what they call “oursies” when you have several people taking pictures of themselves. The coolest one we had is when we went hiking in Montenegro

and it was raining like hell, so we were in a tiny car: nine people and seven huge backpacks. And we managed to take a selfie of us and all the stuff.

It’s okay if you don’t overdo it. We would take one with Obama. No matter if he’s in office or not, anytime!

Aisuluu KurmanbecEconomics

Kyrgyz Republic

Dora SolymosEconomicsHungary

I feel stupid if I do selfies myself. When my mom makes a selfie that’s fine, but for me no. My friend does that.

I’m fine if my friends do it, then it’s amazing, I even posted one.

Barbora Petrova School of Public Policy

Czech RepublicWhen I travelled for the first time outside of Syria, especially in India, I met many people from Japan and they take selfies every minute. After a month I was crazy, too. When I graduate I will take one in front of all the other students. Yousef IbrahimEconomicsSyria

ISSUE 70

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Op-Ed

THE 2015 PARIS AGREEMENT: THE KEY TO ITS SUCCESS

We made historyonly a few months ago

when 195 countries agreed to combat climate change through commitments outlined in an international agreement. Organized by the United Nations and in collaboration with the host country’s government, these climate change conferences happen every year. So what made the 2015 conference in Paris especially notable?The timing was crucial. The US

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration listed 2014 and 2015 as the hottest average temperatures on record with 2016 expected to be just as record breaking . With climate change becoming harder to dispute, people are curious how others are reacting. UN Assistant Secretary General for Climate Change János Pásztor explained, “[Previous] negotiations were too isolated from the real world of investment and climate action on the ground,” but seeing movements actually happening encourages others to set similar goals and involve more people. This outreach cycle creates a snowball effect, collectively raising benchmarks and spreading awareness in all sectors and corners of the world.In line with this notion, countries

were asked to come forward with climate friendly pledges, known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), before the conference even began. The EU and its 28 member states set the standard by proposing impressive goals with clear targets and deadlines, followed by 160 other countries reciprocating INDC proposals including the US and China. Proposals were included

~ Kristen Calille School of Public Policy

United States

on a website for public viewing ahead of the conference. Countries were leading by example, feeling pressure not only from their citizens but also because of other countries’ contributions. With overwhelming participation, even among the biggest emitters, these pledges not only added legitimacy to the upcoming negotiations, but built trust vital for the agreement’s success. We would be remiss not to

mention the role of the technology revolution. Investments in renewable and sustainable research and design are paying off, making cleaner alternatives more viable and cost-effective for the public and private sector. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon recognized the increasing involvement of non-state actors and made an inclusive effort to invite them to the table, calling it an “all hands on deck” approach.With varying capacities

and agendas, how could the 2015 Paris Agreement ever amount to anything?Though specific emission

reduction amounts were not legally binding, many celebrated it as a great achievement. Pásztor rejoiced, “It was way beyond our expectations,” but pointed out, “the hard part comes now with the implementation.” Critics however felt the agreement was not ambitious enough, blaming the fossil fuel industry and climate change deniers for causing the US and China’s reluctance to consent to legally binding targets.While specific goals were agreed

upon, strategies to reach those goals by the 2020 deadline were left up to individual countries.

Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project hailed the agreement a “turning point” in breaking dependency with fossil fuels, but cautioned that the responsibility will rest on cities, businesses, and even private citizens to encourage the same kind of activism seen leading up to the Paris negotiations. Yet, even if all the proposed INDCs were implemented, we would still not reach the targets outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement and would surpass the temperature threshold scientists believe will create environmental effects beyond our adaptive capacity.So even after COP21,

are we doomed to fail?No. The key to the 2015 Paris

Agreement’s success is civil society. We must continue to enact change through spreading awareness, engaging in collective action, and investing in climate-friendly alternatives, as we ultimately hold the power to transition our world into a sustainable era.

SPP’s Kristen Calille Reflects on the Significance and Future of the 2015 Paris Agreement about Combating Climate Change

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UN Assistant Secretary General for Climate Change János Pásztor at his public lecture

The Action Agenda at COP 21 at CEU

THE CEU WEEKLY

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1944 Monument Controversy

A MONUMENTAL CONTROVERSY: THE DEBATE OVER PRESENT-DAY DEPICTIONS OF WORLD WAR II HISTORY IN A CITY STILL GRAPPLING WITH ITS PAST

Just after midnight on July 20, 2014, police officers cordoned

off Budapest’s Freedom Square, as workers labored under the cover of nightfall. Hours before, a Hungarian court had ruled against a proposed referendum over the construction, which the government declared was “of outstanding importance for Hungary’s economy.” The construction at issue: erecting a monument, symbolizing a past even more dark and complicated than its secretive setup. Now, almost two years later, both the monument and the controversy surrounding it remain. During World War II, Hungary

was a member of the Axis powers, but was occupied by German troops in March 1944 when Germany discovered Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Kallay had secretly been in talks with the Allies. Kallay was deposed but Admiral Miklos Horthy was permitted to stay on as regent. In May 1944, Hungary began sending Jews to Auschwitz, deporting 424,000 in the first two months alone. As the Axis Powers’ future seemed to grow increasingly grim, Horthy began armistice talks with the Soviet Union, which was quickly approaching the Hungarian border. He was in the final stages of talks when Germany again intervened in October 1944, this time arresting Horthy and replacing him with Ferenc Szalasi, leader of the fascist and antisemitic Arrow Cross party. The Arrow Cross murdered thousands of Jews, organizing death marches to the Austrian border and shooting victims on the banks of the Danube. The latter is memorialized in a privately commissioned 2005 monument, constructed of sixty

pairs of cast iron shoes lining the riverbank, not far from Parliament. An estimated 500,000 Jews and 10-12,000 Roma living in Hungary were killed between 1944 and 1945.Unlike the Shoes on the Danube

Bank monument, the 1944 monument in Freedom Square, just a few minutes’ walk from CEU, was created by the government to honor the “victims of the German invasion” on March 19, 1944. The Hungarian government declared 2014, the 70th anniversary of the invasion, to be a year of Holocaust remembrance, and the government selected sculptor Peter Parkanyi

Raab to create the monument.CEU History Professor Carsten

Wilke explained, “Hungarian historiography and public opinion have faced this embarrassing chapter in the country’s history, and the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Center in 2004 was a dignified way of coming to terms with it. However, as a result of political change, the new constitution of 2011 defined the years 1944-1989 as an interruption of Hungarian statehood, which implied that the Hungarian agents of fascist or communist repression were acting

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ISSUE 70 1944 Monument Controversy

5~ Ilana Ullman

School of Public PolicyUnited States

entirely under foreign constraint. The monument erected in 2014

on Freedom Square visualizes this rewriting of the past.”In the monument, Nazi Germany

is symbolized by a menacing eagle, its wings outstretched and talons spread, as it swoops down upon the defenseless archangel Gabriel, representing Hungary. From its conception, the monument was fraught with controversy, not only for its whitewashed depiction of Hungary as an innocent victim of Nazi brutality, but also, according to Wilke, for the “undemocratic way in which the monument had been realized: there was no public competition, the planning was done confidentially, and even the construction took place under cover of the night.” The 1944 monument was never

officially inaugurated, and a protest installation, including stones, traditionally left on Jewish graves, and photos of Holocaust victims, was set up in front of it before the monument’s construction was even finished. Jewish organizations cancelled their participation in official government activities marking the 70th anniversary of the deportations, which Wilke observed, “was quite a strong statement.”However, the Fidesz government

and the Jewish community are not always at odds over WWII historical issues. Five years ago, after discovering WWII-era human remains in the Danube River during construction on Margaret Bridge, the government planned to bury them in a municipal site. However, following objections from the Jewish community, the government conducted DNA testing on the bones, which revealed they were likely that of Ashkenazi Jews. Earlier this year, Budapest’s Jewish community successfully lobbied to bury the bones in a Jewish ceremony held in Budapest’s

main Jewish cemetery on March 20. “This is an important indicator of

consideration, and there are others, regarding especially the protection of the splendid but decaying cultural heritage of Hungarian Jewry,” noted Wilke. “The Fidesz government is often unjustly suspected of antisemitism by foreign media; a cooperation in good faith with the Hungarian Jewish organizations is therefore a source of prestige. High-ranking politicians participate in Jewish events, and this is reported on Hungarian state TV at prime time. Yet it was suspected that the breach between the state and the Jewish community before the commemorative ceremonies in 2014 may have been in the interest of both sides, as there was no commonly shared view of the 1944 persecutions.”The controversy around Hungary’s

portrayal of its history did not end with the 1944 monument. The government’s proposed “House of Fates,” a Holocaust museum that critics argued would present a skewed version of the Holocaust in Hungary, (and whose funds Jewish community organizations have contended would be better spent on the existing Holocaust Memorial Center), has been significantly delayed from its

originally scheduled 2014 opening. Last month, a bust of Gyorgy Donath, a Horthy-era Hungarian politician, was installed a block away from the Budapest Holocaust Memorial Center, though the unveiling ceremony was cancelled after significant protest. Shortly after its installation, the bust was removed due to concerns of vandalism. In December, plans to install a statue for another WWII politician, Balint Homan, in the city of Szekesfehervar, were cancelled following condemnation from Hungarian Jewish groups and the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.These disputes, according to Wilke,

“show that the German Occupation Memorial has not been successful in spreading its message: the years of 1920-1945, in which antisemitism was inscribed in Hungarian law, have not been whitewashed en bloc, but the memory of each and every personality of those times is still to be judged individually. These debates may seem repetitive, but they are necessary, and they show that the image of the interwar period and its major actors has maintained its complexity.”

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THE CEU WEEKLY

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Interview with Dean Starkman

THE DECLINE OF PUBLIC INTEREST JOURNALISM AND WHY WE MUST ACT IN ORDER TO SAVE IT

~ Calum CameronSchool of Public Policy

Scotland

It starts with a conviction that public interest journalism

matters. The problem is that it doesn’t have a constituency. It benefits everyone, but no one in particular. There isn’t a business model to support it. For a long time, news organisations were essentially advertising monopolies. This created robust, profitable news teams. That’s now going away. Newspaper circulation and advertising revenues are falling. And this business model collapse is coming at the same time that other democratic institutions are under stress in many parts of the world, including in Hungary.

Do people on the street know, or care that corporate media is losing power?

Media is held in low regard in many places, somewhere between congress and used car sales. But as a journalist you need to separate yourself from public dissatisfaction with the cacophonous tabloid world of Gawker, TMZ and cable news. When great journalism delivers on its promise, people

Dean Starkman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and fellow at CEU’s Center for Media, Data and Society, teaches a course on the global challenges to public interest journalism at the School of Public Policy. SPP’s Calum Cameron asks

him why he thinks journalism is a policy problem.respond. It plays a vital role in connecting people to complex problems, and being a voice for people without much power. High quality journalism must keep going, and it’ll always find a market.

So there’s a market for it, but not a sustainable business model – hence a policy intervention is needed? Does this contradict liberal beliefs that the press should be separated from government?

I come from the school of thought that says government should leave the press alone. But if you look at history in the US, this is false. Starting with the Postal Act of 1792 there have been endless examples of government subsidizing and acting to preserve newspapers. Even if this wasn’t the case, anyone

who has looked at the business model problem knows that there is no market solution. The post-war period masked unpleasant truths about journalism. Newspapers were profitable because they had advertising monopolies, not because of their great journalism. Journalism has always been subsidized in one way or another. The internet has taken that away. That period is over. Newspaper revenues actually

peaked in 2005. So this is a recent problem. We have a long road ahead, but right now there is no path to profitability for large scale, robust, professional news organisations based on digital models. People throw out examples, but I don’t see that the market provides the answer. If

it did, I’d be the first to invest. If the market doesn’t provide, we need to turn to public policy.

So models like Buzzfeed, using high-volume entertainment content to subsidize investigative journalism, are just window-dressing?

I know people on the Buzzfeed investigative team and it is a first class operation. Is it sustainable? The numbers aren’t public and so we don’t know. The outlets that really offer market hope, are those that have the cachet to persuade their readers to subscribe. That’s The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. The traditional model was based on advertisers being the core customers. Since digital ads can’t support quality journalism you turn to readers. This is great in theory, because now you are reader supported and free to concentrate on great journalism. Trouble is, only a few papers have made paywalls work. This won’t support the vast majority.And so the class is about imagining

policy responses. We can think big, without anyone laughing at us, and see what solutions we come up with. The only answer I won’t accept is that there is no answer.

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ISSUE 70 ‘Hate Speech’ Monologues

RETURN OF THE ‘HATE SPEECH’ MONOLOGUES TO CEU

~ Colin Forber School of Public Policy

Canada

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On March 10th, the auditorium at CEU was home to talk of hate

and the power to overcome.For the past few years, Dr. Peter

Molnar has organised the Hate Speech Monologues at CEU. This visceral journey into the pain and anguish of discrimination, from the perspective of those that have experienced it, can’t fail to evoke emotions. The hour-long presentation features the stories of students, ranging from marriages of mixed religions in Africa, to the effect on children in the Balkan wars, to the plight of Europe’s Roma population. The voices of those present showed a perspective many of us miss. For many of us here at this university, it seems foreign to be told, “No son, university is not for you.” For men who have never faced the daily struggles of sexism and misogyny, it might seem foreign to hear, “It doesn’t stop them from staring or commenting on my chest. I’ve never felt so afraid.” It is raising awareness of these often ignored or unseen issues that makes the Hate Speech Monologues so important. It was for this reason that Dr. Molnar,

himself an advocate of human rights and free speech, began to organise this annual event. The monologues themselves are delivered by students. They are the stories of their lives, their struggles and their experiences with discrimination and hate. At the beginning, he encouraged the audience to participate, to react to what was being said on-stage. The audience response to the speeches ranged from laughter at times to quiet contemplation.Above all else, the message of the

Hate Speech Monologues is the power of people to overcome this hate and find solidarity in love and acceptance of everyone. Whatever pain and hurt has brought us here, consider this power, and the fact that we have made it here to CEU together.

CEU Weekly Editorial Board & ContributorsEditor in Chief: Ekaterina Efimenko Managing Editor: Ben Spies Layout Editor: Aaron Korenewsky Contributors: Ann-Kathrin Beck, Kristen Calille, Calum Cameron, Colin Forber, Camilo Montoya-Guevara, Ilana Ullman, Alexandra Wagner, Anastasia Zabusova

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“Words were bombs that shelled the soul of this six-year-old child.”“This is a world where what you are is more important than who you are.”“Who we worship or where we’re from. Should that decide if we love someone?”“An aircraft dropped a bomb on the field where I used to run and play.”“I couldn’t recognise my parents’ faces

anymore. They were trying to protect me from those iron hands but there was nothing they could do.”“You hate yourself, not me.”

SPP’s Colin Forber Reviews the Latest Iteration of the ‘Hate Speech’ Monologues that Took Place Match 10th at CEU

8Distribution Points: Reception Nádor 9, Nádor 11, Library, Cloakroom & CEU Dorm ceuweekly.blogspot.com

Tinder dates have had me drinking a lot of wine due to the

fact that this being Hungary, wine is abundant and so is the enthusiasm for it. Unfortunately, I am no sommelier and know very little about Hungarian wine, so aside from swirling the red and tasting the rest, I never knew how to approach the task of selecting a wine. Fortunately, in the name of journalism I’ve decided to educate myself and hopefully some of you along the way.The Romans and the Magyars cultivated wine, and Kings and Emperors enjoyed the sweet aromas of the famed Tokaj Azsu. Then, the Soviets monopolized the wine production during the communist period, and with a strategy of quantity over quality and impaired the rich diversity of grapes and wines in Hungary. This has changed though, from 1989 on Hungarian wine has been making a come-back in the regional and international markets. History though you can learn in the classroom, here let’s focus on practical knowledge and getting your next great bottle.

With 22 main wine growing regions in Hungary, memorizing all their names and spellings is a task to rival your thesis. So the main ones to know are Villány, Szekszárd, Eger, Badacsony, and of course Tokaj Azsú. So what to look for?

Villány and Szekszárd are close rivals for making the country´s best reds. Villány’s location and weather conditions bear great full-bodied wines (Cabernets Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot). North of it, Szekszárd and its widely planted Kekfrankos and re-established Kadarka grape varieties make for full-bodied and spicy reds.

Eger´s claim to fame is the Egri Bikaver, Bull´s Blood, a very strong, full-bodied red, also one of

A Bottle to Myself: A student’s Guide to HunGAriAn Wine

Hungary´s most well known wines. Recommendations from the region also include whites such as the Olaszrizling grape, with its slightly acidic fragrance.

When white wine is your preference, the Badacsony region and its Szükerbárat grape with full-aroma, high alcohol content and warming flavours are good to look for. That leaves us with the Tokaj Azsú region, which I´m sure you´ve

heard of. This wine’s magical trait, its “noble rot”, otherwise known as Aszú, is known for its sweetness. The new 2014 sweetness rankings indicate that only numbers 5 and 6 are allowed to be called Tokaj Azsú, while 3 and 4 are just sweet wines.

When you get some semblance of a social life back at the end of the term, treat yourself to a celebratory glass of Hungarian wine with your newly acquired knowledge.

Bars:St. Andrea Wine & Gourmet bar ($$$)Eiffel Palace1055. Budapest, Bajcsy-Zsilinszky u. 78.A bit of a splurge for the winery’s very best, in a beautifully renovated Art Nouveau building.

The Tasting Table ($$$)Bródy Sándor utca 9 1088 Buda-pest, HungaryA community centred wine bar and shop run by Taste Hungary, which also offers wine tastings and food tours of Budapest. See more on their website!

Apropó Wine Bar ($$)Budapest, Király u. 39, 1077In the heart of Budapest’s nightlife, my personal favourite with a large selection of wine, helpful staff, and delicious aubergine dip & pita appetizer.

Author´s favourites:Red:A kutyafáját, (2014) St. Andrea Vineyards, Eger1 890 HUF

White:Paptag Cuvée (2011), Juhász Testvérekpincészete, Eger2 576 HUF

Rajnai Rizling Tavasz (2014), Villa Tolnay Borház, Badacsony1 790 HUF

~ Camilo Montoya-GuevaraCultural Heritage Studies

Canada, Colombia