Translated by: Aida Regidor - aidaregidor[at]yahoo.es
This is a voluntary-based translation. Proposals, proofreading and comments about the understandability of the contents highly appreciated here
© Pablo Castiñeiras
E.T. went to Planet Earth to do some research. As he was observing the wonders of the new world, he lost his family and friends and felt trapped in the disturbing exoticism of the novelty.
When you wake up from the spell of the novelty, you are frightened; memories and images from home come to you, all heartaches and boredom of the world you know disappear; the old well-known streets change in your memory, and you feel like walking them again, yearning for your home.
*
The conquerors look for new lands to restructure them in their own image, in order to call them their own. They try to impose the colours and the sounds of their homelands; they try to be the owners and not to depend on any other owner, which is the leitmotiv of the European and universal colonialism and yearn for conquest.
Exiles and emigrants try to recreate their small but satisfying home far from it, in new lands; often hostile, where they are taken to districts where they can find support among others like them; and, maybe, where they can become curious E.T.s who long for a new home for everybody.
Globetrotters do not need to come back home for Christmas. If they chose their own exile, why would they want to repeat the same well-known holidays of every year? Would it not be better to invite your family and friends and guide them in the new world? There, every moment brings the emotion of the discovery, and the uneasiness of not understanding what is going on. And it is not because of the people around you, the ones you do not know, the different ones, speak a disturbing language, still to decipher; but because you realize it is the people you know, the ones who speak your own language and express themselves in the same way you do, who you do not understand. You walk away from your family and friends to live new experiences, so that you can erase the things you do not like from the world you already know; and you try to learn something else about life.
The world you know is still present in your mind. When you leave it, you wish you could come back for a while, to have a rest from the new world, maybe just to take a peek to the streets and people you left behind a few months ago, although never before for so long.
I had committed the folly of going to a different country whose culture, people or even situation in the map I barely knew. I had followed an impulse, a call, maybe destiny, an intuition. In the first moments, as usual, some of the expectations you have, in times of constant change and challenge, do not come true. The safest plans become traps, but maybe fears turn into opportunities.
What can you do about your life? Why and what for do you take this step, unlike other young people who follow straighter and useful paths? That was not important; the important thing was the here and now. I was not trying to pass carelessly by the uncertain future to come; I was just falling into the need of forgetting about that future to be able to feel completely the heaven and hell of each special moment I was living.
Some remember their experiences during this time as something they will never forget, when they were happy, they found special people who marked them, even, in some cases, a partner with whom to peer into the future. Even more important, some of them found themselves and the path to follow in their future lives, many times the opposite of what others had planned since long ago.
In my case, I thought I was securing my way by gathering resources that would help me avoid disappointments and would give me a way out of possible frustrations. I decided to immerse myself in an unknown culture, but I felt safe because I knew from before some of my volunteerism’s mates and colleagues, my future place, and the opportunity of developing an interesting project during the next few months...
The future hosting town was the one with more European volunteers in Hungary at that moment. It motivated me more to decide myself to do this crazy thing thanks to the excitement of living with other young people like me. I hoped we would help each other, living the same experience, and also I was looking for this kind of intercultural experience that would enrich me personally, in case I did not have a good experience with the native people. I even believed there were great experiences waiting for me, as others who lived this experience before had told me.
I thought the following: <<I love to do new things, and to live with people from different cultures and different views about life; if I do not feel comfortable with the people and culture of the country I will be living in during the next few months, I could find shelter in the other volunteers>>. I was thinking more like an Erasmus student than like a European volunteer. These were my precautions against the vertigo of my first experience abroad.
*
But my plans failed.
My relationship with some volunteers was finally tense; I realized soon that we did not have the same views about the others and our life there. As it usually happens in other areas of human communication, the difference in our characters turned our living together into hell and conflict, either personally or culturally. Firstly individual differences afterwards cultural differences, or upside down, as you wish to consider the order.
But in spite of all of this, I can not forget the collective help of those who find themselves in the same group, that EVS solidarity, as we, who have lived this experience like to call it. It is real, I got profit of it and I try to benefit others with mine as well. I must be grateful to my flatmates and workmates who tried to integrate such a socially shy person like me among the young people and students of the town I was living.
My fears did not come true, and it was with the Hungarians that I identified myself and with whom I felt more comfortable. New fellow countrymen that I thought I could not understand or appreciate beforehand. I was now among them with the astonishment of an ethnologist observing someone from another tribe, but also with the comradeship of being young and sharing the same worries and dreams with my peers, although in a different language and environment.
*
I should have tried an experience like those from ERASMUS programme before. It is a more reasonable and well-known adventure for the young people in my country, where democracy brought an increase in the number of universities and of students, even though access to them is not free, as it is in other countries. The demand for modernization and the high rates of unemployment that we suffered during the transition from a dictatorship to the European free market made it almost compulsory for our parents to send their children to University. They did not have that opportunity and wanted their children to enjoy it.
Once their studies are finished, some Erasmus students will embark themselves in a European voluntary service experience. Their period of careless life as students is over, and they are afraid they might not fulfil the high expectations they had as university students, only finding unemployment or precarious employment. As a consequence, they try to relive again that break of the real life, to recall that cosmopolitan life they led as European students. With the voluntary service, they experience such a break as well, and the emotional and psychological impact might be similar to that in the Erasmus experience; but it is not the same.
*
- Now the whining is over, how do you feel?
- I feel alive! I am living the best and the worst moments of my life. These few months are worth as much as all the stupid past years of my life.
- Don´t you think you are exaggerating? You are speaking like a child!
- I don´t think so, but I don´t care. Now I know that all those doors that were hidden or closed are open to all that I still have to live and discover.
…and what was to come, it has been so much since then…
What happens when you take this experience just as a mean to an end? What happens when you look for a project, just to get closer to that girl you met when she was an Erasmus student in your city? And what happens when, after so much waiting and impatience she decides to break up? This is a particular example that the totalitarian idea “the goal justifies the means”, when it fails, it brings catastrophic collateral damage, as it is called nowadays what was considered just damages in the past.
He was not the first not the last guy who went to Hungary just to be closer to the beloved girl; proportionally, this was a very common circumstance among the few men volunteers that were there at that moment. I only remember one or two guys who did not meet a Hungarian girl; all the others fell into temptation or they had just went there to be closer to their Hungarian girlfriend in the first place. When I went back home, I was always joking with the volunteers who were going to Hungary; I warned then that, unless they were determined not to do so, they would meet a girl. Up to now, my predictions were not wrong.
I met a guy whose Hungarian girlfriend broke up with him once he had started his EVS project, just before the last official training meeting for European volunteers I attended. The victim was having a real tough time: so many plans and efforts turned into a reality of uncertainty, since his stay in the country was now meaningless. On the contrary, I cheered him up and I felt optimistic about his situation.
I had been let down by what I expected so I had learnt from the unexpected. I had the feeling there was a fantastic new view about life for him, about the young people of a different culture yet to discover. If he did not give up and went back home he would become an EVS volunteer that grows after the disappointment. Despite this letdown from destiny he was a lucky guy, because he was living in a collegium, the typical student residence in Hungary, where he would get the necessary support from their students, surely empathetic with the suffering felt when you break up with a girl. I knew, by myself and other people’s experiences, he would get more satisfaction and he would discover more things with these new friends, than just weeping for his loss. He was about to live an experience very different from sentimental love. He will speak with his new friends about Hungarian girls and, in the next few weeks or months, he will possibly find another special girl to make up for his loss and to complete his new circle of native friends.
A tower collapses so that a new one can be built in its place.
*
Europe as a whole, as a project of diversity and disagreement, has gone through a lot of possible stages and made a lot of mistakes.
Many non-European families, whose members migrated either to America or to Europe, in the end, prefer the Far West. Moreover, this is in spite of the bigger difference in America than in Europe between the economical and social welfare of the newly arrived and the immigrants already settled, who enjoy better consideration and remunerated jobs. But this situation is likely to change, due to the competitiveness of the global world, and thanks to politicians sold to the golden calf which try to destroy the social economy while trying to emulate the American economical and cultural empire; and, like them, sinking in their own decadence.
Some people argue that this preference of the immigrants for America might be explained due to the feeling of integration that comes along with the idea of the “American dream”, whether this is real or just propaganda. This dream is more captivating than the “everyone included” identity preached in Europe, while in many countries there is a different practice with regard to what it means to be European and citizen of a particular country. We still do not help to the integration of the new European people, with their difficulties, creativity, energy and dependence; we still consider different cultures just good or bad, instead of considering them as they are put to practice in culture within society.
*
My Turkish night was one of many special weekend nights when I was travelling all along the nocturnal and mysterious Hungarian plains on a Soviet compartment train, to visit my dear volunteer colleagues in the capital city. Again, they had to put up with me; now in order to go out clubbing on Saturday night with Levent, Turkish EVS volunteer.
Up to that moment, I had not met any Turkish people. That night, as I would be able to confirm the following year in my first journey to that country, I had the opportunity to observe two different Turkeys present mainly in their city centres, as an example of the old interest of the turkeys authorities to become members of the European Union. I could also observe some of the European authorities´ reasons for and against the entry of Turkey into the Union.
Levent was finishing his Engineering studies, and he had enjoyed those European feelings shared by the citizens of Istanbul and the educated Turkish classes. He also belonged to AEGEE, one of the oldest and largest Europe's cross-faculty student organisations, thanks to what he decided to live a deeper European experience with the European Voluntary Service, as he already experimented in shorter periods in the “Summer Universities” and other European meetings of this student association.
He was carrying out his voluntary service with Katell, my dear Breton EVS volunteer, in an association related to European campaigns and activities, and work camps for young people. They were sharing a wonderful flat I was jealous of, since it was far more charming and well equipped than mine, located in a good district of my beloved Budapest.
He devoted his free time to sleeping (as I found out, some Turkish people love to sleep, and their daily timetables are not very different from the Spanish ones, which surprise so much European people) and surfing in the Internet. He bought a computer to keep in touch with his family and friends, like the rest of us who had access to Internet. The broadband is far more developed and accessible in Hungary, and, generally speaking, in all the countries that recently entered the European Union, than in modern countries such as mine.
The moment for Levent to go back home was nearer, and his tower of lack of concern as a volunteer with a grant was falling apart. He wondered how he could take his computer with him back home and regretted having to live again with his family -even though it would be just for a while, since he had to do his compulsory military service-. He was even angry because he was sure he would not be able to find in his city a hairdresser who could get him the haircut he wore, and that he liked so much because it made him look so modern.
That weekend, another Turkish EVS volunteer who had just arrived to Hungary was visiting him. His wished destination was Spain, but he could not do his voluntary service there because his application for a visa had been refused. This is an eternal problem for those who did not belong either to the European Union or to the so called Schengen Area of free circulation of goods and people.
Levent remembered, annoyed, the visa fees he had had to pay to leave Hungary and enter the Czech Republic, crossing the bordering countries, in order to attend the last AEGGEE meeting in Prague. He talked us about the old friends he met again, those girlfriends appearing when you are young from these intense international events, usually short in time but so exciting in experiences and emotions.
That Friday night became a good chatting night with the two Turkish guys, Katell and me, with the help of chocolate, music played from the computer and Ouzo, the famous Greek liqueur conveniently watered, that Katell or maybe Levent had brought with him. The topic of the conversation was, of course, how we felt as EVS volunteers; we compared the feelings of each of us who were finishing the service with the new ones about to begin it. This, of course, would develop into a discussion about Europe and its values.
Speaking about Europe and its values with other convinced cosmopolites -as we were- was, in the end, more interesting than we had expected. The disagreement came with this new Turkish guy, whose principles and beliefs were the entire contrary to Levent´s and all the other people who were there with him. His framework of indoctrination was not any European organisation but Islamic ones. He was a passionately practicing Muslim, who liked to speak openly about his religion.
Like Levent, he belonged to that class of people who went to University and could afford European experiences. Therefore, we expected from him to be interculturally broad minded (he even talked us about a Mexican girlfriend, whose relationship failed due to incompatibility of cultural characters; probably because of their different views on premarital relationships) having dared to try EVS. However, his statements and opinions reinforced some ethnocentric ideas. Ideas, some argue, to justify being against the entry of Turkey in the Christian club which is the European Union for them. Levent seemed to exemplify the opposite side of this clash of ethnocentrism, by which the entry of Turkey into the Union would provide with a longed for antidote in Europe against the Islamic fundamentalism typical of other areas.
*
Turkey is a muslim country, but, contrary to many people’s belief, on the alert against any possible contamination in politics by Islamic fundamentalism. For many urban and educated Turkish people, Europe is the model that inspired the founder of the Republic, Atatürk, for the democratization and modernization of Turkey. Since Europe took form as a united entity, most of the Turkish leaders had been pro-European, and they aspired to belong to Europe’s supranational institutions: since 1949, only months after its foundation, Turkey became a full member of the Council of Europe, which is the oldest and most important European organization to promote democracy and human rights. Besides, Turkey still aspires to be admitted as a member of the European Union since it was created as the European Economic Community, after having applied formally to do so in the 70´s.
These aspirations of Turkey clashed against realities like the lack of modernization of the rural areas and economy, as is required by the Union; the Cypriot and Kurdish conflict, the lack of guarantee of real respect to Human Rights; but mainly the reluctance to treat a Muslim country equally, which lead to reconsider European identity itself. The positive points for Turkey would be the economical interest of a great potential market; its strategic geopolitical situation, possible antidote against Islamic fundamentalism in Europe; and the high number of young people in Turkey, if compared to other European nations.
Its youngsters constitutes the present hope and the dynamism needed for the reforms leading to the resolution of problems of the huge and peculiar Turkey, because of its social, economical and even geographical circumstances (we cannot forget that only a minor part of his territory is situated in Europe). Youngsters are claiming, louder and louder everyday, for the promises of a united Europe they want to belong to.
*
Several times, during that Turkish night, we had to hear some arguments, within the conversation, against the respect to different ways of life. To some of us, those attitudes came from specific and excluding beliefs.
That weekend, it just happened that the gay pride parade was being held in Budapest, so we brought up that topic. Our Turkish colleague’s religious beliefs did not allow him even to speak with a homosexual: <<This is a big disability and nobody should be like this, it's a mistake from Nature and Katell, if you tell me tomorrow that you are a lesbian, I won’t talk to you anymore, even if you are my friend today. I hate homosexuals and I don’t want to have them around me. I don’t want to meet them and I don’t even want to talk about them anymore>> Then, Katell told us about a Hungarian friend of hers: <<My friend is a normal person, he didn’t choose to be a homosexual; he tried to have relationships with girls, but it didn’t work. He knows he’s going to hell, but he can’t change and try to be what he’s not>>.
This story did not move our Turkish friend, who still did not accept any criticism to his beliefs. We asked him what would cause him to reject people who were speaking with him cordially up to that moment, considering ourselves equals and friends, if he suddenly found out that we lead a life contrary to his liking. And if this happened, why would he not speak to us anymore if, up to that moment, he had not been able to detect any anomaly in our behaviour that would make him decide to stop speaking to us. This reasoning shocked him, but the characteristic hypocrisy of some indoctrination prevented him to change his mind. Some ideas or fantasies thought by others were more important, turned them into universal law, and he accepted them willingly, without reflecting, when prejudging someone for what other people says, instead of for what someone really is.
Did the following months change his mind? On the other hand, he would go back home like another Turkish volunteer, that I met a year after, wished? The cultural clash was more conflictive in his case. He complained because he felt observed, as if people looked down him on for being Turkish. His mentor kept on repeating him that it was just his imagination, since it is normal that people are curious about foreign people, and they would not look at him better or worse just for being Turkish.
*
That night I realized several things. I became indignant about Katell´s friend reference to hell when speaking about his condition; it reminded me of the intolerant, narrow-minded, and hearted people, product of a bad education... In my own country, there was a big conflict between the enemies of sexual liberty and the Government, who had promised and finally passed a law in favour of homosexual marriage (a law which did not at all increase the real tolerance for this collective among the population, but at least it brought for them an equality of rights, since they were already equal in duties). I was aware that in our dear Europe, the so much acclaimed liberties, diversity and respect, not only for religious but political, cultural or individual reasons as well, turn into the reality of not being able to be free, diverse, or respected for being different, even after the fall of the Iron curtain.
Traditional religions cannot be held responsible for the lack of respect and acceptance of the sexual minorities in Hungary. I tried to find the reason for this discrimination in another religion, called sovietism, which denied any other form of life dissident from the soviet family, and considered it unnatural and antisocial. This negation is still imprinted in the bad education of the new generations.
I did some research, and some people told me about the difficulties to live as a minority in many Eastern European countries; even with the Union’s exigencies to some of these new member states to change discriminatory laws. Whenever I heard someone to say “rosz buzi”, (bad “sissy”), I was not aware that people did not mean it in an informal way; there, just like in my country, not even in the big cities would people talk to you openly about their queer sexual preferences.
The activists fighting for the respect to homosexuals’ rights needed police protection during some gay pride demonstrations in Budapest, which were not many. Attacks by extreme right groups, and the risk to lose their jobs, almost force them to live a secret life. Another example of this is what happened during the fundamentalist administration of the Polish twins Kaczinsky, a witch-hunt against homosexuals and communists. All of it is showing a reality we did not expect to exist and to revive in a Europe guaranteer of rights.
We do not need to go so far to find “Polish twins” attacking liberties; this reality of intolerance and narrow-mindedness can be found everywhere, even in my post-modern Spain, where it is legal now to marry someone of your own sex. I do not remember having seen two men kissing in a straight disco here. Some say they would not even think about it, for fear to the reaction of some hotheaded intolerants. However, and after having heard of the persecution of homosexuals by a past Polish Government, I was astonished to see gay couples kissing in a famous student disco in Cracow, full of foreign students and not being a gay oriented at all. I saw this as a sign of hope and as a confirmation of the bigger and bigger distance between the open or repressive social tendencies of the politicians, and the way the citizens live their lives.
*
Something else happened that famous day, while we went for a walk in the melancholic night of Budapest. We were considering our chances to find a girl in that country of beautiful women just for being exotic foreigners. Levent opened my eyes when he told me that might be true in my case, as a white continental European; but not in his as a non European Turkish, so women were not so interested in his exotic attractiveness.
What is responsible by building towers of difference? Is it the difference of exoticism? Is it historical reasons? E.g. the invasion carried out centuries ago by the Ottomans, where some see the possibility of a previous European union in the alliance to stop their conquest. Were we, old members of the European Union, considered exotic for our skin colour? Or, were we, for the promise of a rich and capitalist country we represent in this old Europe of stereotypes and utopias?
Do I get angry with myself when I am suspicious about gipsies, due either to cultural stereotypes or personal experiences, as I do about the Turkish colleague who hated homosexuals?
Why do we build towers? To be able to look far away, and at the same time to defend ourselves of what is coming from afar?