World News
Pro-independence Movements in Europe
Each and every one of us remembers the news about the colossal protests in Catalonia that marked late 2019 by bringing together hundreds of thousands of protestors. However, I may surprise you by the fact that this is nowhere close to the complete picture of how widespread are the pro-independence movements in Europe.
Before I begin with the general situation let’s delve a bit into the Catalan phenomenon. Anti-spanish ‘separatism’ has been a thing since the late 19th century with the rise of Basque separatism. Since then, this movement has seen ups and downs, although the real fire started in 1968 when a member of ETA, a Basque radical far-right separatist organisation, was killed by a police agent during a chase. The fallen’s associates planned a retaliation that resulted in an assasination of the chief of the secret police in San Sebastian and much more bloodshed in the following years. On the other coast, in Catalonia, the action wasn’t as bloody. During the 20th century, multiple Catalan parties attempted to pull away from Spain and actually succeeded in 1932, when Catalonia was finally given autonomous status. However, it didn’t last long, in 1938, Franco abolished the Statute of Autonomy. Although having partial autonomy, Catalonia has seen multiple humongous pro-independence protests in 2010, 2014, 2017, and the well-known 2019-2020 Protests respectively.
As was said before, Spain is far from the only country with such movements. When broken down to the basics, the two main reasons why a region may seek independence are cultural or national distinction to the constituent people and the ‘unfair distribution’ of tax income within the country. Regions that fall into the second category are usually extremely wealthy, stable regions like Lombardy and Bavaria, which have to ‘feed’ other, less-profitable, regions. The other type are regions that are either too small to have a chance of becoming a country or regions that were annexed during conflicts of any sorts. This includes The Faroe Islands of Denmark, that have almost boundless autonomy and actually act more like a self-governed country under the Dannebrog, the Danish flag. A similar, but much more active situation builds in Flanders, a Dutch speaking region where the majority of the population lives. According to various opinions of political experts, this will lead to the split of Belgium, with various parts of the remaining region, Wallonia, joining France and Germany respectively.
All in all, it’s obvious that there are not more than two options: we’ll either see new gigantic protests being successfully suppressed by government powers or, in a less potential case, a couple of new countries popping up on the map of Europe.
By Tim Zhevlakov
Changes in European Politics Since the Last Parliamentary Elections
Everyone who is somehow interested in modern politics noticed the recent shift in the political course of Central European countries. With the 2015-16 refugee crisis which, as reported by Frontex, left us with nothing but millions of illegal migrants (Frontex 2017 Annual Report) and an ‘unsolvable’ puzzle of finding a roof for the foreigners.
Different countries have shown radically disparate position from a welcoming policy in the Netherlands and Belgium to a ‘spike-cowered’ door of Poland’s hostile attitude towards “muslim illegal immigrants”, as stated by Dominik Tarczyński, member of European Parliament from Poland. This can be supported by the changes in the distribution of political movements in the European Parliament. For example, in 2014, a year before the crisis, there were no far-right political parties in theEuropean Parliament. However, in the 2019 elections this changed significantly. Now there are more than a hundred right-wing members in the institute.
Such a trend continues on the national level. In the German Bundestag, for example, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland is the largest party in the opposition with 89 seats. In Eastern Europe, this has gone even further: Polish governing coalition Zjednoczona Prawica (United Right), Hungarian Fidesz (far-right ruling party), Slovakian anti-immigration Sme Rodona, second largest party in government; and so on.
Another aspect that has to be mentioned is a huge rise of pro-independence sentiment among some European provinces. Late 2019 was marked by colossal protests in Catalonia, that brought together more than half a million protesters and have paralysed the whole city of Barcelona and a dozen smaller towns.
With all that being said, it’s clear that Europe changed its way and you are the only one to decide how good or bad it is. We are still expecting major changes in upcoming elections that will take place in lots of countries across Europe. Stay tuned.
By Tim Zhevlakov
Pollution in the Oceans
In the real word, pollution can add up to some pretty serious consequences. We need to start making changes in the world we live in as it does not look all that well for us and the animals on planet earth.
Plastic takes up a large amount of fossil fuels to produce. It is the main pollutant as it takes up to a thousand years to decay. It also has the potential to leak harmful toxins into the soil, these chemical components can be taken in by us, humans and lead to adverse health effects. A report in 2008 has shown that the amount of chemical energy in the millions of tons of plastic in US landfills was equal to about 37 million tonnes of coal or 139 million barrels of oil, and that is in the US alone, 12 years ago.
Plastic is bad for our land, but what about the water and oceans? If we look at the waters of the world, we can see that plastic is everywhere: in our ocean on the surface on the bottom. Once it is in the ocean, it never goes away. We can really see how this pollution causes havoc to our sea turtles and many more sea animals. Plastic bags and bottles are often found stuck inside of their breathing passages and stomachs. They can get injured or even killed by that.
What can we do to help? While it will take a global effort to make a change in the world. You (yes, YOU) can still be a part of the change! Simple things like bringing your own reusable bags to the grocery store and choosing greener options for transport like a bicycle or an electric scooter. Many plastics are recyclable, so make sure to recycle when you throw out your next water bottle.
By Alexey Gretchman
Spanish: So similar and so different.
There is less Spanish in Spain than in Latin America. Although this statement sounds ridiculous, it’s the very state of the Spanish Language, the one proposed to be the future new World Language.
Considering all this, some of you might consider learning Spanish as your second language. And what’s the best way to practice a freshly learned language? One of the ideas that would certainly pop up in your mind is to travel to the country where this language has originated, in our case, Spain. So, you hop on your plane to Barcelona, listen to your favorite music or watch a new blockbuster on your iPad and, after a couple hours, you step on Spanish soil. The surprise will probably strike you the moment you will try to read the first sign on your way. If you are happy enough, you will understand it with low effort or, in another case, you will need to look at italics at the bottom of the sign. Both ways, you will be stunned by the fact that words are somewhat or completely different from what you’ve read in your Spanish books. The reason for this is that the language things are written in Barcelona isn’t Spanish, it’s Catalan. The same will happen to you in Pamplona and Bilbao with the Basque language, in Zaragoza with Aragonese, in Santiago de Compostela with
Galician and so on.
All of those languages, except for Basque, can probably be understood on the street by a native Spanish speaker. But once you open a book, written in an unmixed variation of any of those languages you will hardly get a word. Catalan, for example, is sometimes told to be more similar to Portuguese, than to Castilian, ‘the Spanish of the books’. However, that’s not the most ridiculous difference, the Basque language is called an ‘alien language’ for it having no roots to any other language nor being categorised into any of the existing language groups. Even though the Spanish is known to the whole population of Spain, except for some of the older inhabitants of the remote villages of two of the most independent regions: Catalonia and the Basque country. (read more in our article on the Spanish regional conflicts)\
In contrast, in Latin America, a gigantic piece of land that was once colonized by the Spanish conquistadores, is an almost perfect example of unity. More than 30 countries, from Mexico up north to Chile down south use Spanish as their main language. And this Spanish is almost all uniformed throughout the continent. Although there are few deviations, this is nowhere close to what we can see in Spain. Imagine, you can technically drive a 20,000+ kilometres trip from Dallas to Ushuaia almost without hearing a single word in no language other than Spanish. This is truly impressive.
Spanish is undoubtedly a global language. You can hear it all over the world, even in some unexpected places like Bratislava, Anchorage or Moscow. Isn’t all this a good reason to go and learn just a few words in this wonderful tongue?
By Tim Zhewlakow