W E E K Lthe

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

YAn independent newspaper by CEU students and alumni November 26, 2014, Year 5, Issue 53

Hungarian Expressionof the week

Sötétben minden tehén fekete.

At night, all cats are grey.

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This Day In Hungarian History

Romanian Elections:Reviving Civil Society

Upcoming Events

Student UnionAssembly Remarks

“Light Your Phone For The Drone”

Remembering the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Film ReviewCEU Disability Policy

THE CEU WEEKLY

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Hungarian News

This Day In History

The Széchenyi Chain Bridge was the first permanent bridge which connected Buda and Pest. The building of the bridge was initiated by Count István Széchenyi, the ”Greatest of the Hungarians”

in the 1830s and the bridge has borne his name since 1899. The bridge was a controversial issue be-cause it involved introducing a bridge toll which would apply to everyone and, thus, harm the nobles’ privileges. Construction was eventually started in 1839 and the bridge was opened on November 20th, 1849. It was designed by English engineer William Tierney Clark,while Scottish engineer Adam Clark was responsible for the management of the actual work. The stone-lions were added only later, in 1852.

During the 1848-49 Revolution and Freedom Fight, Heinrich Heintzi, a general in the army of the Austrian Empire, wanted to blow up the bridge, but thanks to Adam Clark’s sabotage the bridge did not suffer considerable damage. Unfortunately, the Chain Bridge could not be saved when all bridges over the Danube in Budapest were blown up during the last years of the Second World War. Sadly, there was one person who never set foot on the bridge - Count István Széchenyi. He developed severe depression in 1848 and was already in an asylum in Döbling by the time the building of the bridge was finished.

165 years ago, November 20th, 1849:The Opening of the Széchenyi Chain Bridge

--Alexandra Medzibrodszky, PhD Candidate History, Hungary

ISSUE 53

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World Politics

Presidential Elections in Romania - Reviving the Civil Society

This message was one of many that flooded the Internet on the

16th of November as thousands of Ro-manians living abroad queued once again outside their embassies and cultural institutes in major European cities waiting to cast their vote in the final tour of the Romanian presiden-tial election. The insufficient number of polling stations in cities as big as London, Paris, or Munich resulted in thousands of Romanians being unable to vote on both tours of the election. This sparked massive protests in the home cities of Bucharest, Cluj and Ti-misoara, as well as the highest turnout on the final day of elections since 1996.Solidarity with the Romanian dias-

pora and a strong aversion toward the ruling communist-descended PSD party have enabled the victory of center-right candidate Klaus Iohan-nis, who won with a surprising 54.8 percent against the 45.2 percent taken by the acting prime-minister Victor Ponta. Ponta was the favorite to win after the first tour elections revealed a comfortable 10 percent advan-tage over contender Klaus Iohannis.The events that have taken place

over the last two weeks meant more than just choosing between two presi-

dential candidates. What occurred signaled the emergence of a new un-derstanding of the role of civil society for democracy in a country that had seemed to slip into a resigned apathy when faced with widespread corrup-tion that took hold of it after the fall of communism. The political events that ensued after 1989 had slowly pushed the public into a state of alienation in which one across-the-board convic-tion reigned: “they (the politicians) will do whatever they want no mat-ter what we (the general public) do.”This presidential campaign saw a sur-

prising involvement from civil society groups, particularly on social media platforms, where the main message focused on the people’s capacity to prompt change. Events organized on Facebook turned into protests de-manding Ponta’s resignation as prime-minister for the failure to adequately organize the elections in the diaspora, who were known to vote against him and his party. “I have no reason to step down,” Ponta told a local TV station. The elected president will face

a hostile parliamentary major-ity currently dominated by Vic-tor Ponta’s party, which could cause serious policy disputes and

further the country’s instability. Nevertheless, this vote and the events

around it have given encouraging signs of Romania’s political maturity: the maturity to elect a president that is part of an ethnic and confessional minority -Klaus Iohannis is an eth-nic German who is openly protestant in a predominantly orthodox coun-try, something that his opponent has tried to use against him in the cam-paign; the maturity to stand up to a political system that would hinder its own citizens’ right to vote; and most importantly, the maturity to under-stand the active role that civil society has to play in a working democracy.

-- Isabella Trifan, Philosophy, Romania

“We are not holding much hope for being able to vote today. But you can vote back home. We have come out here so that everyone can see, and we will stand here as long as it takes.”

Klaus Iohannis celebrates at University Square in Bucharest after winning the presidential elections. (rtve.es)

THE CEU WEEKLY

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Interview

Eszter: Could you tell me a little bit about how and when the Drone Lab was launched and by whom?Tautvydas: Last Spring Dr. Austin

Choi-Fitzpatrick, a faculty member at the School of Public Policy (SPP) sug-gested I join his Human Rights Advo-cacy course. He had an initial idea to create a project which would include both technology and social move-ments. Originally, he had a drone in mind, because there is lots of work on this issue lately. If you want to make something new and innovative, then do it with a drone. As a scholar, Prof. Choi-Fitzpatrick thought that drones and aerial photography could be use-ful for estimating crowd size. Until now, there have been many unpro-fessional ways to counting a crowd. Usually, these estimations do not cor-respond to reality. The media, civil so-ciety, and the government’s crowd es-timations often mismatch. Therefore, we thought that we can tell the exact number of people within a crowd by taking aerial imagery and videos. Since then, we established the Drone Lab as a long-term research project at SPP. E: There are numerous joint, stu-

dent-faculty research programs at CEU. What is it like to work on a

project with our professors, outside the usual class setting?T: I have always been interested in ex-

tracurricular activities, and I thought that it would be a long-term proj-ect. I had the feeling this might take a whole year or more to deploy the method and to finish the article. I also think that the SPP’s faculty is unique because they often think like entre-preneurs. The Drone Lab is a good ex-ample of this since it integrates both the theoretical part, which is the so-cial movement curriculum, and the method itself. These two things go hand in hand in the public policy field. E: Now let’s move away from the ac-

ademic setting. Why do social move-ments need crowd estimation?T: The number of a crowd is the sub-

ject of political disagreements. The governments usually want to show social movements as smaller, while the social movement actors want to show a larger movement. The media sometimes aligns with the govern-ment, but sometimes with those dem-onstrating, so either way it’s biased. Therefore, in order to get an objec-tive number of the crowd, we need a fourth party, an NGO or a civil society organization, which can track both

the social movement and the govern-ment during the demonstration. If we have a real number, it can help the social movements to increase their legitimacy before the government. Jacob: It is interesting that you have

expressed how drones can be useful for civil societies and NGOs when they are often viewed as tools of sur-veillance. What do you think are the broader implications of civil soci-ety organizations also using drones?T: I would say that there are three

main domains where drones could be used by the civil society. The first one is for accountability and trans-parency purposes, for instance in in-vestigative journalism to track down some illegal property, or a company carrying out illicit business. The sec-ond area is the usage for humanitar-ian purposes, such as rescue opera-tions, refugee camps’ supervision, and disaster relief. And last but not least, the commercial usage is potentially very profitable. Many industries have tested drones in agriculture, environ-ment protection and construction. J: How do you think drones will af-

fect individual choices to join a mass demonstration?

Drones are a new area of interest, especially for entrepreneurial scholars and change advocates working with these technologies. However, there are complex issues related to balancing the benefits with questions of security and

privacy. The CEU SPP Drone Lab is currently focusing on this debate. On the occasion of the numerous demonstrations taking place in Budapest, the CEU Weekly interviewed Tautvydas Juškauskas (MPA ’15) about his experiences in the Drone Lab and the purpose of the research project.

Footage of the Scorpions concert at Hősök tere in Budapest, June 2014.

‘Light Your Phone for the Drone’

ISSUE 53

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Interview and Student Union RemarksT: The problem that nobody realizes

is that the majority of the population has mobile phones at the moment, and that they take pictures and videos by them. Phones take precise and close pictures of people, which make face recognition very easy. But who gives his or her consent to be photographed at mass demonstrations? I think that drones are the same as mobile phones in this sense, but the difference is that we take the responsibility of data and privacy protection, which means that at the SPP Drone Lab we fly the cam-era only at the altitude where it can-not recognize people’s faces. I think that the privacy issue is the major fac-tor which might impede people from taking part in mass demonstrations, while they don’t recognize the use of hundreds of mobile phones within the crowd, right next to them. J: How might the nature of mass

demonstrations change with an in-creased presence of drones?T: It can work both ways. If people are

afraid of being exposed, it might de-crease their interest in participating. However, if people are aware that an exact number of the crowd might in-crease their legitimacy and strengthen their claims against the government, I guess that it would even encourage them to participate. This is all about how civil society educates their part-ners. For instance, people lit up their phones several times during mass protests in the night time, because

they were aware of the drone’s pres-ence. This was a very innovative act from a social movement, because they expressed their unity through this.

E: What is the desired regulatory framework for drone usage and what would be the major policy innovation in the regulation?T: The drone regulation should be

balanced enough to protect people’s safety, privacy and data. This is the di-rection towards which the US and the EU is working now. And this is where academia is heading to, as well. For instance, Prof. Choi-Fitzpatrick has recently published an article on the is-sues of the regulatory frameworks for drone usage, which could be used by policy makers, since it covers all the areas of the drone issue. Drones’ activ-ity will become more profitable over time, therefore, they will attract more investment. Since the regulatory en-vironment is unfriendly for drones in

some countries at the moment, these countries lose the opportunity of re-ceiving foreign direct investment. The investors are not able to fund the re-search and testing of drones due to the strict and unfavorable legal conditions.E: Back to the Drone Lab project

again, what is the next big step of the Drone Lab within the research pro-cess?T: We are looking for software engi-

neers familiar with computer science and robotics. We would like to coop-erate with them in order to generate a sophisticated and automated meth-od of measuring the size of a crowd. E: Is the SPP Drone Lab open to

students from other departments of CEU?T: Definitely. Anyone, who is inter-

ested in these issues are free and wel-come to join the Lab, because we al-ways need human resources!

More information on the SPP Drone Lab is available here:http://www.austinchoifitzpatrick.

com/drone-research-2/http://spp.ceu.hu/article/2014-09-18/

spp-drone-lab-takes-flight

-- Eszter Kajtár, SPP, Hungary & JacobVerhagen,

Nationalism, Canada

A ‘dronie’ (selfie taken by a drone) of the researchers in action.

This term’s second Student Union assembly meeting was held on Friday 14, Nov. and presented the budget

and event calendar for this academic year, and the budget proposal. The first part of the meeting gave a brief update on what the Student Union has been up to in the previ-ous weeks. Since the first Assembly meeting, the SU has worked to build a strong foundation and ensure that all administrative issues are in place. We have worked on the calendar and the budget, met with different CEU bodies that are involved with the SU and made connections out-side the University. We have moved into a new office in the Faculty Tower basement, room 102. Next, the budget proposal was discussed. This year’s budget totals 13200 euros after taxes, most of which goes to social events, and to clubs and groups. Some remaining funds from last year’s SU budget were rolled over, which provides a nice buffer for unforeseen costs and additional events. A clear majority approved the budget. Third, the assembly discussed the rules for applying for funding from the SU. There was some confusion about this issue, so we want to make clear that although the budget has been approved,

the amount for ‘Clubs and Groups’ is not allocated yet, and clubs, groups and individuals can still apply for funding for events, equipment, or travel costs. The rules for apply-ing and application form can be found on the CEU SU webpage: https://studentunion.ceu.hu/what-we-support. Representatives also raised important concerns about how information is circulated, the CEU medical centre, the University’s disability policy and voting rights for students enrolled in the Roma program. It was proposed to estab-lish a new Committee for the Medical Centre. Answering to complaints that information was not accessible prior to the meeting, a google drive has been set up to make it easier for student representatives to access SU documents. Future SU Assembly meetings will be held every second Thursday of each month. We invite representatives to take part in setting the assembly agenda. The SU hopes that representatives will take on this task as it provides an op-portunity for the department representatives to focus on issues they care about. For the next meeting, representa-tives from two departments are expected to set the agenda.

Student Union Assembly Remarks

THE CEU WEEKLY

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Verzio Film Festival & Life at CEU

CEU’s Disability PolicyIn universities around the world,

there are disabled students who don’t receive the help they need. Sometimes this is because they have not been diagnosed, sometimes it is because of the cultural stigma re-garding seeking help, and some-times it is because a university does not adequately accommodate their needs. Unfortunately, CEU has some of these same problems, which we will attempt to explain briefly in order to find a better solution.

Although the current CEU Student Disability Policy was written in con-sultation with disability rights orga-nizations, it is still a twelve page legal document and as a result, it is some-times difficult to understand by stu-dents without a legal background. It is also difficult to find the policy on the CEU website which means both current and prospective students do not have easy access to this informa-tion. Additionally, the policy seems

out of touch. Receiving accommoda-tions is both complicated and time-consuming, even if one already have their documents in order. It can also be tricky to meet with a Department Head and professors if a lack of con-fidentiality or stigmatization is feared.

There are further problems with the policy, mostly related to how it has been implemented so far. Every stu-dent is supposed to receive informa-tion about disability accommoda-tions when applying, when accepted, and during orientation. So far, this has not happened, nor were accom-modations ever suggested during de-partment meetings. As students, we are also supposed to meet with a Dis-ability Services Officer for advice and discussing accommodations, however no one currently holds this position.

We are currently working with the Dean of Students, the Student Union, and our peers to improve the environ-ment for disabled students at CEU.

December 3rd is the International Day of People with Disabilities and the Stu-dent Life Office is planning some great events for that, so keep an eye out. We are also in the process of building a blog to document our activities and provide additional resources for stu-dents. It can be easily found at ceud-isability.tumblr.com. We also have the CEU Student Disability Policy, a page which tries to explain in simple language what the policy means, and also includes a guide for asking for ac-commodations. Links about disability news and culture will also be posted.

Anyone who is interested in joining our working group, receiving more information about the policy, seek-ing accommodations, or just wants to know more about disability, sim-ply visit our Tumblr page or email us!

-- Kylie Boazman, Sociology, United Sates &

Andreea Ros, Gender, Rmania

Why Cain’s Children?Cinema is one of the most pow-

erful mediums through which we can not only view, but analyze our own existence. On the opening night of the Verzio Human Rights Documentary film festival, poet Virág Erdős claimed, “a good documentary is impartial and just: it shows the whole picture and helps choose. In this sense, a good documentary is poetry, a good documentary is protest itself.” Cain’s Children was selected as the 2014 Ver-zio Human Rights Documentary Film Festival winner for many reasons. Rarely does any film, documentaries included, push the borders of our comfort and of our ideals. The film acts like a follow-up to the banned 1984 documentary Bebukottak (The Fallen) that explored life in a Youth detention centre during state social-ism. Cain’s Children finds three of the original boys interviewed in Bebukot-tak; now full-grown men, each one is still haunted by the sins of his past. While their incarceration may have ended, their suffering carries on in the form of ostracization and insecurity.

Director Marcell Gerő deconstructs many dichotomies in human rights

idealism: guilt/innocence, victim/per-petrator. For many, Cain’s Children will not be an easy documentary to watch. It does not explore subjects with a noble struggle against an oppressive regime, or a grandiose cause. Instead, Cain’s Children explores the smaller personal battles of three people who once took life. The audience is offered harrowing portraits of tortured and complex individuals who defy our pre-conceptions of crime and punishment. Cain’s Children has many dynamic

and fascinating qualities. The cinema-tography is beautiful, even a scene so simple as József, one of the men, star-ing blankly and silently at the cam-era from his room in the psychiatric ward conveys a powerful message of despair. The interviews are intense, and it is difficult not to adopt a feeling of desolation when one of the film’s subjects passively tells the director he wished his mother never existed. The film takes risks, and delicately balances the fine line in documentary filmmak-ing between presenting subjects, and exploiting them. At one moment the director asks József about the crime he committed that landed him in the

youth detention centre and he opens with a barrage of anger and emotion accusing the director of being like ev-eryone else and not leaving him alone. Marcell Gerő’s style is audacious, the word is chosen over brave because the level to which we see these lives is un-nervingly intimate. Marcell Gerő gets frighteningly close and personal with not only the ex-convicts, but their families and all those around them

The film refrains from pontificat-ing, instead it calls for reflection. Rights are often presented as ethical absolutes, they are obligations, they are statements of ‘ought’. They imply a clear cut form of ethics which can be objectively viewed and applied. Unfortunately, the world is far more complex and nuanced than this out-looks of human rights admits. Cain’s Children faces the viewer with the uncomfortable task of reconsidering these issues from a framework that is not black and white. It forces us to accept what is, not what could be.

-- Jacob Verhagen, Nationalism, Canada

ISSUE 53

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Remembering the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Interviews

The Fall of the Berlin Wall appears to all of us as a turning point: a remarkable, simple moment in the history of the world, which changed the way we look at ourselves and each other forever. It serves as a reminder of how the

most fixed and solid of sheer political facts can be swept away in an instant, and yet also, as we reflect on that mo-ment in the context of the tragedies of our post-Communist world, of how valuable, how rare, and how precarious, such changes can be. Following last issue’s student opinions on the legacy of that moment, we offer some reflections from the CEU faculty on the Fall of the Berlin Wall.-

“I was very young when the Berlin wall fell. When it happened, schools friends and me didn’t really had a sense of the importance of this event for the world.

However, as everything having to with the cold war in (more or less) leftist spheres in Mexico the big question was not what will happen wit the USSR or Eastern Europe, but what will happen in Cuba. That was the main concern at the time. Some of my friends argued that it was only a strategic retreat, others were singing victory for the Ameri-cans. What I remember the most is the sense of complete incredulity, the inability of our teachers (and parents) to explain what was going on, and the sense of uncertainty. The Berlin wall had a great impact in Mexican politics because it consolidated the democratic left. Before 1988 there was a disarray of left wing parties: Trotskyist, Revolutionary Leninist, and Social Democrats. Partly because of the events between 1989-1991 it was possible to unite the left into a one big party that still exists.”

“In communist East Berlin, I was arrest-ed twice during an afternoon visit -- once for jaywalking, once for buying German books with East German currency I’d smuggled in. When when the wall came down I was completely pre-occupied elsewhere. It was only years later that I walked along the traces of the wall and came to see how spectacular it all was -- the utter unexpectedness of its fall, the desolate wasteland it created spawning a robust counterculture, its proximity to the former Gestapo headquarters and the domino effect the fall of the wall had on the other Warsaw pact countries.”

“Freedom, freedom, and freedom again, blue jeans, food in grocery stores, chaos, new, old, MTV, violence, pettiness, heroism, tragedy, comedy, farce, Europe, hope, hope, and hope again. These are just some of the many thoughts and feelings that as a teenager, I was try-ing to grapple with in 1989. Some of them are still with me by day and by night. The post-communist transition was undoubtedly the political moment of my life.” “I gave birth in 1989. I remember when my partner came home and said the wall went down. I immediate-ly scanned what kind of wall I needed to worry about in the midst of breastfeeding and washing/ironing 45 nappies a day. I concluded that there was no such wall. Weeks later, I accidentally saw a newspaper in our apartment, and it turned out that the wall was the Ber-lin Wall.”

[dokdo-research.com]

[dogonews.com]

---Daniel Hartas, Philosophy, United Kingdom

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The CEU Weekly is a student-alumnu initiative that seeks to provide CEU with a regularly issued newspa-per. The CEU Weekly is a vehicle of expression for the diversity of the perspectives and viewpoints that in-tegrate CEU’s open society: free and respectful public debate is our aim. We offer a place in which current events and student reflections can be voiced. Plurality, respect, and freedom of speech are our guiding principles.

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Editor in Chief: Eszter Kajtár Managing Editor: Lara TafferContributors: Alexandra Medzibrodszky, Jacob Verhagen, S.A. Siwiec, Aaron Korenewsky, Daniel Hartas, Christina E. Hermann, Kylie Boazman, Andreea Ros, Isabella Trifan, and Shirlene Afshar-Vogl.

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November

December

New Wine and Cheese FestivalWhen: 29-30 Nov., open from 10am-6pm on both daysWhere: Vajdahunyad CastlePrice: A day pass is HUF 2,000, which includes a tasting glass and free admission to the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture.Info: vajdahunyadcastle.com

Winter & Christmas

MarketsDuring November and December, both Vörösmarty tér at the end of M1 and Szent István tér in front of the Basilica become seasonal hotspots for winter merriment thanks to the Christ-mas markets and fairs. Stop by to browse through hand-made crafts and gifts while sipping on delicious hot drinks and eat-ing traditional Hungarian and international foods. The fair at Szent István tér opens on 1 Dec and lasts until New Year’s Day, while the market at Vörösmarty tér is open on 28 Nov - 31 Dec.

WAMP Christmas Design and Gastro FairWhen: December 7, 14 and 21Where: Millenáris ParkInfo: WAMP is a monthly design market held in Budapest. Stop by the market in its December location for food, drinks, crafts, workshops, and gifts! --- For more info: www.wamp.hu

Contemporary Drama FestivalIn its 12th year, the fesitval is held in Budapest at participating threatres. A new take on theatre and performance!When: 28 Nov - 8 DecWhere: Multiple LocationsPrice: Varies per performanceInfo: www. dramafestival.hu

Mentés MáskéntAn innovative exhibit present-ing the lost and found items and photos of Belváros-Lipót-város.When: Until 15 Dec.Where: Imagine Budapest, Királyi Pál utca 18.Price: Free!Info: imaginebp.hu

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