Berlin has been…..a city that divides opinion, almost literally.  Even now, close to 25 years after the fall of the wall, one can still see the remnants of a city that once was divided and suffered from very different world views, even the architecture differs from the former east and west.  But the greatest treat has been to be escorted around the city by Stevie, a wonderful woman who has experienced this divide first-hand.  Her stories about what life was like in this divided city are miraculous and she truly offers us the chance to experience inter-generational learning, which is something I think many of my generation do not take advantage of near enough.  I quite enjoyed her story about the lengths she went to discuss important topics with her friend who lived in east Berlin, and how they always went outside to discuss important matters, or discussed them in her friend’s bathroom with the shower running full blast in order to muffle their voices.  It really shows what it was like to live in this city during such divided times, and we were able to experience that through her.  For that I am eternally grateful to her.

Now on to a tougher, more solemn topic: The Holocaust.  There is an awareness that you see and feel in this city concerning the atrocities committed during the Third Reich.  Outside of the hotel there are small bronze plaques that commemorate Jewish citizens that lived in the same neighborhood and lost their lives in concentration camps.  It is a powerful and emotional thing to see.  Even more powerful is the Holocaust museum located underneath the memorial close to the center of the city.  I have been to the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., and I hade believed that I was emotionally ready to experience the atrocities once again, but Berlin’s museum made the experience more personal.  Inside the museum were biographies of individual families as well as individuals that had been removed from their homes and murdered.  It made the Holocaust more than a set of statistics for me.  I remarked after leaving the museum that I had hoped I would not have nightmares that night, such was the effect of the museum.

All of this was exacerbated by the fact that we visited the Wannsee museum the day before.  The Wannsee House was the location of the Wannsee Conference, which was convened by the Nazi party to specifically address the “Jewish Problem,” and how, logically, they were going to be able to deal with liquidation of 11 million Jews.  There are no words to describe what it felt like to be in a place where some of the most sinister men history has ever seen signed away the lives of 11 million people without remorse.  It took simply a scribble on paper to turn violent prejudice into full genocide.

It truly has been an emotional experience.

Paris is indeed a city of lights and inspiration, and within two days we realized that we needed to discuss culture once more. This time, the discussion centered around the balance between a region’s culture and its economy. Does culture inhibit or enhance a region’s economic viability, and how does one balance these two essential characteristics against each other?

http://www.spreaker.com/user/7441073/june-23rd-2014-culture-and-economics

After the site visit to ifri, security was one of the biggest issues on our minds. A half-hour discussion on the effectiveness of security alliances and institutions lead to another discussion on the European defense arrangement, specifically on the topic of resource pooling.

http://www.spreaker.com/user/7441073/june-28th-2014-security-institutions

http://www.spreaker.com/user/7441073/june-28th-2014-european-defense

International institutions are established to facilitate cooperation and enable multilateral agreements to the benefit of the community as a whole. In the 21st-century we had supposedly transcended the brutish world of Hobbesian anarchy, making of it a place socially constructed from iterated games and a development of trust. Through continued efforts over time, we have been steadily approaching a cosmopolitan, Kantian world.

Yet in the EU and NATO, there is a growing dichotomy between normative trust and the pursuit of selfish interests. In the meeting rooms of the European Union, commissioners dance around the “former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” while the Greek parliament champions self determination for all. In the halls of the UN, representatives find solidarity in supporting the principles of sovereign territory in Ukraine, even as Turkish troops patrol their hard earned half of Cyprus. In press conferences, the heads of NATO condemn Russia’s violations of human rights as the centennial anniversary of the Armenian genocide approaches in a silent Turkey. In the conference rooms of SHAPE, officers discuss the importance of contributing their shares to defense funding, while Greece continues to spend inordinate amounts to defend against the threat of a fellow NATO member.

Admittedly, these bitter ironies are not enough to overshadow the feats of these institutions. For the past 60 years, the benefits of economic integration have prevented lethal conflict across the continent, and the power of collective defense has been one of the primary means of preventing nuclear warfare. This is promising, because as the world becomes increasingly interconnected and realizes full globalization, international institutions will be the primary instrument of peace and cooperation. Yet the pursuit of complex multilateral agreements can not overshadow the importance of resolving bilateral conflicts and local issues, a multitude of which have been immediately obvious in Greece alone. The importance of the smaller resolutions are especially important if these international agreements base their legitimacy in their moralistic values and leadership; after all, hypocrisy within institutions dangerously undermines their normative capabilities. These institutions have been successful so far, but it is vital that they not overlook the trees in their grand ambitions for the forest.

This week, we have been immersed in culture and history, constantly forced to think about how these aspects of the world affect who we are today and who we become tomorrow. In light of our continued exploration of subjects such as the cultural debate of TTIP, the issue of immigration in Greece, and the rise of nationalism in the EU, we decided to engage the idea of culture and explore its effects on the world.

Topics that we explored included defining culture (:40 (Part 1)), maintaining distinct cultures (1:14 (Part 1)), America’s reluctance to integrate (12:08 (Part 1)), reducing the tension that arises from globalization (7:43 (Part 2)), and George the gyro man! Things get real, heated, and kind of silly.

http://www.spreaker.com/user/7441073/june-14th-2014-culture-part-1
http://www.spreaker.com/user/7441073/june-14th-2014-culture-part-2