Interview – Pike & Hurricane

“I’ve been looking for freedom”, or have I?

Tim Klaenfoth — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 09:29:46 +0000

The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was an ambitious project. Good intentions intertwined with bad ideas and the harsh reality of a global capitalist economy, and what resulted was an economically weak espionage state that ensured “safety” and public peace through all means necessary. Stuck in constant competition with its economically more successful neighbor state, East-Germany had to forcefully fend off migration out West and used heavy propaganda to combat the issue. Nonetheless, rumors of a better future out West reached the masses, and some risked their lives to flee the regime. After the reunion, which was really the Federal Republic of Germany (FGR) overtaking East-Germany, all the crimes committed by the regime came to the light of day, and the West felt reaffirmed, further strengthening a too straightforward, tainted view of the dynamic between the supposed capitalist utopia and backward socialist country.

In later years, however, the real difficulties of the East-West relationship started permeating the one-sided narrative of the Great West and came to show a strong ambivalence towards a newly united Germany, especially among East Germans.

What is nowadays too often excluded from the conversation, is the fact that many people remember their time in socialism fondly. The idea of a “wonderland” out West simply doesn’t hold up for many people, especially considering that after the reunion, the East has been steadily dealing with a weak job market and slowed economic growth.

The following interview presents this complicated emotional state about having left a heavily controlled environment very well. I asked to talk to my former kindergarten teacher, someone who, for obvious reasons, influenced me a great deal. She is a woman that wears her heart on her sleeve, is grounded in the most likable way, and is representative of a generation victim to an emotional turmoil in the years past 1989, which were previously unseen. Feelings of insecurity surfaced for her once the wall came down, and the safety that was once self-evident seemed to fade, whilst at the same time seemingly opening up many new doors, and further complicating the lives of many Germans, who, as a nation, were still smitten by the impact of World War II.

Pike & Hurricane: Just briefly for our readers, who are you?

Schmitt: My name is Regine Schmitt, I am 55 years old, and a kindergarten teacher here in Berlin. I was raised in what used to be East Berlin and was about 21 when the wall came down.

P&H: How would you describe your childhood?

S.: Whew, my childhood was really, how I should say, happy? Yeah. I grew up very sheltered, let me say it that way. I have two sisters, one older, one younger. My parents were both working.

First day of school in East Berlin for Schmitt.

P&H: What did they do for work?

S.: My mother was a kindergarten teacher, too, and my father worked for the “Deutsche Reichsbahn” (East German Railway). I went to school for ten years, as you used to, and then did vocational training to become a kindergarten teacher, which is what I really wanted to do. So yeah, I had a good childhood. We traveled a lot, as my family is originally from the Baltic Sea, and so we always went there over the holidays. I can’t really say anything negative. Especially as a kid, I didn’t really see any of that, all the things that were happening in the world.

P&H: What was your financial situation like?

S.: Nowadays, I would say average, middle class. We weren’t rich, but also not poor. But we had what we wanted, and even had a car, which was really something at that time. Being mobile and all that.

P&H: How did you and your family view the West back then?

S.: We learned a lot in school about how the West is full of Capitalists, people are exploited, and everything is just not as nice as it’s always presented on TV. That’s what I learned in school, you know? I was really scared, well, not scared, but I felt bad for those people. They don’t have it as nice as me, I thought. They don’t grow up in as secure of an environment. They always suggested to us, that we’re being protected from Capitalism and all these bad people.

P&H: Did you experience anything positive about the West?

S.: Yes, they had many things that I didn’t have. Like candy, or when you saw advertisements on TV, you’d see all these toys. All these colorful, bright things, I didn’t have all those. But I also can’t say I missed any of that. I had toys, too, like dolls and stuff. But sometimes you’d see the commercials and think: “Oh wow, that’s pretty”. I also knew that I’d never have those things, so I just took it at face value. That’s fine too, I thought.

P&H: Did you ever think the wall would come down, and you’d be here in West Berlin?

S.: No, no, never. Not even in my dreams. I wasn’t really politically active or anything, like some other people, were. Even when I was around 14, 15, 16, I didn’t really think about these things. Many others were much more engaged with it than I was, but that really wasn’t me. I was happy to graduate, to learn a profession, and that made me content somehow. But I would have never thought of the wall coming down.

Schmitt in front of the Fernsehturm. Once a symbol of communist power; now one of Berlin’s most popular tourist attractions.

P&H: But then it did come down, how did you feel?

S.: Good question. I have thought about this a lot if I’m able to somehow summon those feelings again. I can still remember being at home and I really couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t scared, but I really didn’t know what’s coming next. I grew up sheltered from everything, everything was “good” so far. We didn’t have a lot of things, but we got used to that, so I had no idea what all this meant now. Insecure, is the best way to put it. The next day, when I went to work, I realized that a lot of colleagues didn’t show up anymore. They just left. They left their families behind. There were even cases, where you would only see the father of a child anymore because the mother had left to head out West. And I just thought: “How could they? Just because some wall came down, how could you leave your family like that?” I couldn’t understand it, it was surreal.

P&H: What is your stance on the common stereotype that all East Germans wish the wall was still standing?

S.: No, I really don’t think that way. Sometimes one might say that nonchalantly, but I really can’t say that. Everyone is responsible for their own life, and if I want to live well, I have to act on that. That’s my view on it. Complaining about how everything used to be better, I really wouldn’t do that.

P&H: We just wrapped up German Unity Day in early October, does that day make you feel any kind of way?

S.: No, not at all. Back in East Germany, we had all these “mandatory holidays”, where you’d have to go somewhere, dress nicely in your blue FDJ (Free German Youth) shirt and march, wave, and all that, and I never liked that. I’m really happy those things don’t exist anymore, and now I’m just happy to have a day off. I’m not sad, or anything. I just take it as it is.

By Tim Klaenfoth

Related articles:

Back to the Roots

The Case of the Mistaken Identity

Photo credits:

Featured image: Raphaël Thiémard from Belgium., CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Picture 1 and 2: The pictures stem from the private collection of Regine Schmitt.

The post “I’ve been looking for freedom”, or have I? appeared first on Pike & Hurricane.

hejhej – Founding a sustainable business at Malmö University

Maya Diekmann — Sun, 25 Apr 2021 10:32:14 +0000

In 2017 Anna Souvignier and Sophie Zepnik, then-students at Malmö University, founded hejhej. Starting out by selling recycled and closed-loop yoga mats, the company now sells a range of circular yoga products. We have talked to one of hejhej’s members, Pia, about the brand, what it stands for, and what it takes to found a sustainable business as a student at MAU.

Pike & Hurricane: Can you tell us a little bit about the background of hejhej? How did Anna and Sophie get the idea to found a business selling recycled yoga mats?

Pia: When Anna and Sophie got the idea, they were studying the master’s programme Leadership for Sustainability at Malmö University. While the nature of the programme made them consider sustainability issues all the time, it was an art exhibition in Gothenburg that gave them the actual idea for hejhej. There was one piece by an artist called Pinar Yoldas that was calling out the hypocrisy of yogis: On the one hand they very much embrace the respect for the people and environment around them but at the same time they practice with equipment that is made out of plastic. And Anna and Sophie felt like they were caught red-handed. And they absolutely agreed with the artist. They were practicing yoga without even thinking about the implications of what kind of material they used. So after the exhibition they kept thinking about the issue. They never really considered the option to found a business before, so in their case the whole foundation process was very intrinsic. They departed from this problem that really spoke to them and then weighed their options: What can we do, what do we want to do? That’s how they came up with their very first product, the hejhej-mat. And when they thought about the product that they wanted to produce, and how they wanted to go about it, it was clear to them from the beginning that they wanted to reach for the highest sustainability standard, which is the closed-loop approach, the circular approach. They would never create a product that does not fulfill these sustainability criteria.

P&H: So they created a business because there was a need for it rather than because they wanted to merely supply something?

P: Exactly. hejhej follows something called the “sufficiency strategy”, which means that they openly communicate: “Do not buy our product if you don’t need it.” It’s a major part of their communication and their beliefs that you should only buy if you need it and that you ask informed questions about where and how something is produced. For their second crowdfunding campaign, they launched a video that started with: “If you already have a bag for your yoga mat, then this video isn’t for you.” That’s a pretty bold statement and they felt that this was something very courageous––of course they need people to buy their products. But they 100% believe in the sufficiency strategy and that they only want people to buy when they need it. Because that’s part of the highest standard of sustainability, that you consume when you need to, not for the fun of it.

P&H: hejhej advertises their products as being 100% recyclable. How about the resources that are used in the production? Are those 100% recycled, too?

P: Most of the material that we use is already recycled, yes. And as you said we only use material that is recyclable. Otherwise that wouldn’t meet the closed-loop criteria, if we couldn’t take back the products at the end of their lifespan and recycle them. So every product is designed to be sent back to us and be recycled.

The biggest part of the mat is the foam and that is made from recycled foam off-cuts that we get from other productions, like mattress productions for example. So it is actually waste for others but we turn this waste into a new resource and turn it into the hejhej-mat. There is a textile between the foam layers that is keeping the mat together and making it tear-proof and very durable. In the beginning it was not recycled, but a few months ago we finally developed this layer to be made of a recycled material. Often it is also a very long process for us to talk to our producers, develop new ways of doing things, or producing these materials. The one part of the hejhej-mat that is not made from recycled material is the top layer, because that needs to be medically confirmed. So there is a very thin layer on top that is made from a virgin material. We would love to also use recycled material there too it is just not existing yet. Once we recycle the mat though, we can use all of the material again––including the top layer.

The bag is made of recycled PET bottles and the zipper is made from recycled fishing nets. The strap of the bag, which is also the yoga belt, is made from hemp. This material is chosen very consciously because it uses much less water than other alternatives like cotton for example. But we actually have to import this from Asia, just because there is so little hemp being cultivated in Europe. This is the only material that we import from afar, all the other materials are from Germany or neighbouring countries, like Austria, Switzerland,France, and Italy.

The outer layer of the bolster is made from a mix of material: cotton, recycled cotton, and hemp. With these, as with all materials, we always opt for the organic version. We also, if possible, try to go for recycled materials or at least a mixture. What is also cool about the bolster is that it is filled with the husks of spelt grains. It can be given to animals as a supplement to their food or as a natural fertilizer for soil, but in the end it is mostly considered as waste product by the industry. But we can use this perfectly as a filling for our bolster instead of using a virgin material. So what we always try to do is to use material that either exists in abundance or is considered waste by other producers.

P&H: “Sustainability” is such a catch phrase these days––it’s the red thread in every major company’s responsibility report, even those whose nature is wholly unsustainable. As a circular business that whole-heartedly believes in and promotes sustainability, how would you create more awareness around the problem of greenwashing?

P: Yes, many companies have started introducing what they call “circular products” or “sustainable fashion”. The problem is that there is no catalogue of criteria that a company needs to fulfill before they can call something sustainable. So even Primark offers “sustainable” jeans now, that still only cost 20€. At this price it is self-evident that there will be workers in the supply chain that are not paid fairly, and it is virtually impossible to uphold environmental standards in the production at such a low price. The same goes for closed-loop or circular products: There are big companies that are advertising circular denim––but they are not taking the products back. They are not closing the loop, which means it is not circular. They merely use recycled fabric, which in itself does not fulfill the circular standard. We sent them a message because we are always interested to see how other companies apply the concept and they replied: “Bring the product to your local denim recycling at the end of the lifespan.” There is no such thing as a local denim recycling!

We always have to remind ourselves that not everyone is familiar with the concept of a circular economy and we have to keep explaining a lot and try to be as transparent as possible about everything. So that includes being honest about our progress, for instance the top layer of the mat. Okay, the top layer isn’t made from recycled products yet but hey, we just found a way to use a recycled middle layer. We are not perfect but we are always aiming to become better, more sustainable and circular in every aspect. And most importantly we are transparent about it. People know exactly what material we are using, where we are producing, how we are producing, that we take products back and so on. And by that we want to motivate people to ask well-informed questions-–Where is it from? Do I need it? Who is involved?––when they are buying products elsewhere, too. So hopefully people will realise that when other companies advertise something as “sustainable” or “circular” that this might not actually be the case.

P&H: What role do sustainable startups play, in your eyes, when it comes to building a truly greener economy?

P: I would say that especially startups that are financially independent from investors and follow a strong vision––something which I have often experienced to be the case––are moving towards their goals in very determined and fast ways. Larger companies, where many more people, especially investors, are involved take longer to achieve these goals. Of course you can’t generalize this, but in my perception, there are so many startups with great visions, full of ideals, that are striving to change the way people think and consume for the better. They are really acting out of their ideals and their wish to change the economy. They are not only driven by their profit but by people and the planet. They are just always a great source of inspiration and they help create a climate in which well-informed customers ask the right questions. And that pressures larger and less-sustainable companies to change their approach.

P&H: Sustainability does not just include environmental aspects but also social dimensions. How does hejhej score in this area?

P: That’s definitely a very big and important part of hejhej’s business. For one, the company is donating a Euro for every product sold to a non-governmental organisation in Cape Town, South Africa, called “Earth Child Project”. The NGO is supporting children in difficult life situations, by enabling them to have weekly yoga classes and gardening classes. The aim is to teach the children resilience: How to listen to their bodies, take care of their bodies and minds. They support kids that already have faced a lot of struggle in their young lives. Through our donations over the years we have enabled 327 kids to participate in weekly yoga classes for a year, and 235 to attend the gardening classes.

Locally, parts of the production take place in workplaces for people with disabilities. So the yoga mat bag is produced there and they also take care of sewing the label on the mats, and they handle the shipping of products. So there is a team in the workplaces that is dedicated to working with hejhej. Sophie visits them approximately once a week to keep in touch, make sure the processes are clear, and include them in the bigger process. It is Sophie’s and Anna’s goal to one day employ a team of their own that can for instance handle the shipping and that hejhej can be an inclusive team, too. Of course, for now that is not possible because we all work remotely all over Germany and we don’t even have an office. But Sophie tries to still work very closely with them.

P&H: hejhej was founded with the help of Drivhuset Malmö, the startup hub for MAU students. How was the experience with Drivhuset?

P: Anna’s and Sophie’s experience was extremely good. They just took the idea to Drivhuset and they found it really helpful to get feedback, to have someone asking the right questions, to get input from people with entrepreneurial experience. They said that before it was just them and their friends talking about the idea and planning, and then through Drivhuset they had contact to experts that helped them develop and grow their idea. They also instructed them about the next steps, which is very important because in the beginning you have no idea about so many things that are awaiting you down the line. Drivhuset also connected them with external experts who could help them further down the line, and informed them about scholarships like Leapfrog, for which they applied and received funding. They really recommend Drivhuset and are very thankful for the experience. They would suggest to anyone with even just a vague idea to go there, make an appointment, and make use of this great opportunity. The Swedish spirit of founding is so different from the German one, for instance, so for them it really was a unique opportunity to start a business. Especially because that wasn’t on their agenda before.

P&H: What are some of hejhej’s favourite circular startups founded in Malmö?

P: Seljak Brand is definitely a startup that we’d recommend. They produce wool blankets made from wool offcuts. They are located in Tasmania, Australia, but Sammy, one of the co-founders, also studied at MAU. Anna and Sophe met her during their master’s. They have been a great inspiration for hejhej because Sammy had already founded the startup before starting her studies at MAU, so she gave some really helpful advice. Basically all the lessons that Sammy had learned, she passed on to Anna and Sophie so they could avoid those mistakes.

There is also Repamera, located in Malmö. They are founded by Henning (who is the founder of Circular Monday) and they are a shop that repairs clothes. A very cool circular startup!

P&H: Is there anything that has been left unsaid?

P: I have some advice from Sophie and Anna: They say that the most important thing when it comes to founding is to really trust in your idea. There will be a lot of obstacles––there is no way there won’t be––so that basic trust is absolutely necessary. Also, talk to other people! In the beginning, they were worried to talk to others, because they worried others might be stealing their idea. But there is so much to be learned from others and advice to be gained if you discuss your idea.

Check out their website here.

Related articles:

Circular Economy – Interview with the founders of “sveeka”

Photo credits:

hejhej founders Anna Souvignier and Sophie Zepnik. Photo Credits: Maria-Bayer

hejhej mats and straps. Photo Credits: Maria Bayer

The post hejhej – Founding a sustainable business at Malmö University appeared first on Pike & Hurricane.

Circular Economy – Interview with the founders of “sveeka”

Franziska Fink — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 18:48:06 +0000

Climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic are just the latest examples of fundamental threats to our current world order. Even though threats are usually seen as something negative and frightening, they might also bring some positive aspects with them. Often, they are merely mirroring the malfunctions of our world, highlighting all that is disastrous, wrong or ineffective within a system. Yes, climate change is slowly turning our earth into a degraded and inhabitable planet, and it is true that the corona virus is responsible for millions of deaths and a complete turn-over of our lives compared to as we have used to live them. But nevertheless, in all their dreadfulness, they have the potential of changing our world to the better. By inspiring creative and innovative minds to come up with solutions of how we can not only fight threats but avoid them altogether through the creation of a stronger, more just and more sustainable system.

These days you often hear politicians, economists and leaders of civil society claiming that the world after Covid-19 will be an entirely different one. Especially in economic terms, the voices calling for a fundamental system change are becoming louder and louder. Many people are suffering from the socio-economic effects the pandemic has brought upon them and which the system has failed to prevent. Millions of people all over the world lost their jobs, their home, and presumably a good deal of their social life and contacts, which resulted in yet another plague: a growing mental health pandemic.

How can we reorganize and rebuild the structures of our world then, to better deal with such hazardous threats such as climate change and pandemics in the future?

Even though Sweden might have not been the most exemplary model to follow in terms of its management of the Covid-19 pandemic, the country might be on the right track when it comes to reimagining of how a sustainable political economy could look like.

Earlier this year, Sweden announced that it is in the midst of transitioning to a circular economy.

At the core of the nation’s strategy is a vision: “A society in which resources are used efficiently in toxin-free circular flows, replacing new materials.”

But for effective systematic and sustainable changes to actually occur, a simple top-down approach will not be enough. Initiatives from both the state, everyday citizens and the business sector are needed for a fundamental and wide-ranging transformation.

Pike & Hurricane had the opportunity to talk to alumnis from Malmö University whose startup is a telling example for what a business model within the circular economy could look like. Katha, Lissy and Ellen are three friends that got to know each other during their time in Malmö. Together they founded sveeka, a startup that makes sustainable postcards from grass paper.

Pike & Hurricane: Tell us a bit more about sveeka and how you came up with this unusual idea.

sveeka: One of us (Katha) already knew about grass paper before as it is being produced close to her hometown. She wanted to do something with it to raise awareness for this great alternative paper.

When we were brainstorming for the first time about what could be a good product to start a business with, we decided on postcards as the most practical option. We didn’t need a big amount of money to get it going, nor a big storage space. The production was easy and also the shipping to our customer was quite manageable.

So that’s how we started with postcards!

Now for our Christmas edition we made foldable cards as well and we are looking forward to what the next year will bring…

P&H: Have you heard about the circular economy before? In what way did this influence your business concept?

s: We definitely heard of it before and especially Lissy is quite a fangirl when it comes to the concept of circular economy. We first got introduced to it when we did a field trip back in Malmö where we visited Repamera, a circular clothes repairing business whose founder also started the initiative Circular Monday (former white Monday).

When creating our products, sustainability was always included in our decision-making process but it never occurred to us that our product could be circular.

When we randomly got in contact with the Circular Monday team they reassured us that we are actually providing not only a sustainable but a circular product – and therefore sveeka can be a Circular Monday buddy alongside other popular companies like toogoodtogo, hejhej mats, Recup, wye and many others. As we are using grass and recycled paper for our postcards they are falling under the circular category of “reusing”.

P&H: Where are the buyers of sveeka postcards located?

s: Most of our customers are located in Germany, that is also where we have the most retailers selling our postcards. Nevertheless, we have also had customers from Austria, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

P&H: Katha and Lissy, you are from Germany, Ellen is Dutch but grew up in Germany… however you started your business while you were all studying in Sweden, one of the first countries that has committed to transforming to a Circular Economy. Do you think there is a difference regarding mentalities of sustainability between Germany and Sweden?

s: Maybe Sweden is a bit more connected to sustainability as there is more nature around and people live more in the countryside and are doing outdoor activities, but you can see that Sweden is already ahead when it comes to the circular economy. For example, providing citizens with tools such as “smarta kartan” to live more sustainably and to use circular offers in a city is a great initiative that we haven’t seen in Germany in the same way.

In general, we are super happy to see that the circular economy is getting more known all over the world, including Germany, and initiatives like Circular Monday and new startups working within the circular economy are definitely a big reason why.

P&H: In your starting phase, sveeka was supported by Drivhuset, the Malmö University’s support team for student start-ups. How big of an impact do you think that had for sveeka’s success? Do you think you would have gotten similar support in Germany?

s: It was great to have somebody to talk to and to get honest and professional feedback for our ideas. If we would have founded the company officially in Sweden it would have helped us even more, as getting businesses off the ground is their daily business.

There are similar support organizations in some German universities but having Drivhuset already around, coming to lectures, holding events and reminding students to apply for grants and to take part in boot camps definitely leads to an entrepreneurial spirit at Malmö University which also encouraged us to just start our own business.

P&H: How is sveeka doing now? What is your vision for the future?

We are super proud that we have sold all of our Christmas cards and will now work on our next collection. We also started doing personalized design for companies and private people. Moreover, we are thinking about expanding our portfolio, but we do not know yet if that is going to happen already in 2021. After all it is our hobby, and we need to work our normal jobs next to it as well.

sveeka founders Katha, Lissy and Ellen (from the left)

Related articles:

Nigeria: from recession toward sustainability

The post Circular Economy – Interview with the founders of “sveeka” appeared first on Pike & Hurricane.

The Teacher Feature – Mikael Spång on Rights, Emancipation, and Domination

Maya Diekmann — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 04:00:11 +0000

Mikael Spång is a professor in political science at the Department of Global Political Studies at Malmö University. He teaches in human rights and democracy. In 2017 he published a book with the title “Emancipation, Democracy, and the Modern Critique of Law: Reconsidering Habermas” in which he addresses the dialectic of law as an instrument of both emancipation and domination.

P&H: Hello Mikael and thank you for taking the time to share some insights into your research with us. Let’s start with a simple question, that will reveal something about your professor-persona. Between Niagara, Gäddan, and Orkanen, which is your preferred building and why?

M: Out of the current buildings, I think that Niagara is a nice and beautiful building, but it is not the most functional building. It is very nice to have such a big atrium, but from a functional point of view it is a confusing way of having a building in which you take away all the floors that you could use for lecture space and office space and so on. I think it is also a problem that the construction is that you have locked sections where students may not enter.

P&H: Would you like to say something about your book before we dive into more specific questions?

M: The basic argument is that law is both condition for freedom and for domination and that this is relevant for discussing, for instance, rights. And to that extent, I address what I call “the modern critique of law”, which is partly relating to Hegel and partly to Marx. This critique concerns such dialectic of law and addresses a certain history of law that one would need to take into account. But it always runs into the problem of seeming to be reductionist in its argument. Either that law and rights become a sort of semblance—that is something which glosses over inequalities and relations of power—or in some historical or theoretical sense it gets reduced to the base superstructure construction. But these problems, I think, are not reasons to ignore the relevance of that kind of critique.

So that is really the background for writing it in this way. Additionally, I worked a lot with Habermas’ theories for my dissertation and onward. It’s been a very important set of theorisations—Habermas more specifically and the Frankfurt School in the broader sense. And I thought that Habermas’ analysis in The Theory of Communicative Action is pointing to something quite relevant, when he talks about “the colonization of the lifeworld”. But he fails to address this in his later work Between Facts and Norms.

P&H: You just mentioned that your critique builds on that of Marx. Could you summarise Marx’ main point when addressing the dialectic of law?

M: First of all, my two main examples are Marx and Habermas. Marx addresses the problem of labour contract, in the private law context, whereas Habermas addresses the problem of welfare state law.

For Marx the labour contract is a condition for freedom, in one sense. That lies partly in the idea of the contract itself, being between free and equal parties and in the historical transformation, where the transition to the labour contract—a defining characteristic of the capitalist mode of production—means a transition away from largely forced labour.

But then at the same time, there is the exploitation of workers within the capitalist mode of production. And in the labour contact this exploitation finds a legal basis. So, the labour contract is enabling the form of exploitation in a capitalist mode of production where labour is free. And that is the key thing: it is free but exactly that is also a constituting aspect of exploitation. You can’t say that labour is inherently free and exploitation is something that comes afterwards, depending on certain factors and circumstances.

It is something which has a legal basis and that means that one needs to attend to this enabling of exploitation.

The second point to keep in mind is that Marx is talking about this mostly in a private law context. He claims that in this sort of contract, where you have equal rights, it is force or power that decides. When Marx seems to be very, very skeptical of rights, we need to have in mind this exact context. Because otherwise one doesn’t understand why he is so critical, thinking that rights have a very limited value in terms of emancipation. That is sometimes taken—from our contemporary point of view—to be a certain Marxian scepticism of rights. There is a famous essay by Steven Lukes titled Can Marxists Believe in Human Rights?, but this is not the question. It is not whether Marx believed or didn’t believe in this kind of rights, instead he is trying to analyse how do they function within that context.

P&H: So where exactly lies the importance of considering private law, as well as public law, when we talk about rights?

M: I think this reading of Marx, as a question of whether Marx believed that rights are emancipatory tools or not, is a reading that considers rights from within a public law understanding and then reads that back as if Marx’ context was the same. And it is not the same.

The other thing is that when we want to understand how rights, including human rights, were formulated, we need to pay attention to two things: One is that rights have a history that is a private law history. The other one is that through a historical transformation from the dominance of private law to one of public law—through legislation and partly through collective bargaining—the labour contract is modified. So by the late 19th, early 20th century comes this idea that these parties, the workers and the capitalists—even though it’s not just these two—are in fact not equally powerful and we need to intervene through public law to regulate that contract in such a way that it regulates contracts for the workers. That means various forms of workers’ rights. And that transformation means that you start to dismantle this whole package and as such you enable a transformation where you can start to formulate something on the basis of public law.

P&H: And this is then where various labour rights and social rights enter the scene?

M: Yes, and all kinds of rights. It’s a whole slew of transformations. So what one begins to consider is, let’s say, what was called “public utility”—things like water provision or railways. If we look in the mid or late 19th century most of this in many European countries was privately owned. And then the situation arises that all of these private corporations are now providing something which is supposed to be enjoyed by the public. Regulating these things through public law is part of a very broad transformation that involves privately owned corporations performing public functions. Then you have another big chunk, which is the labour rights, and then comes what we call “social rights”.

P&H: Do you think Marx would be happy about these regulations we now find in public law? Would he be less critical?

M: Yes, sure. But we may note that traditionally Marxists have huge problems to make sense of what we call “the welfare state” and social rights and so on, because they seem to run counter to not only the theorisation that you find in Marx, but also the prognoses he made. He foresaw what were likely developments of capitalism—that the impoverishment of workers was going to continue and be exacerbated—and for many people in the working-class movement in the late 19th early 20th century this starts to no longer make much sense. You don’t really see that severe impoverishment—at least of certain sections of the working class it actually seems to be the opposite. You don’t really see the polarization of two major classes and the disappearance of different classes that would eventually lead to an opposition between workers and capitalists. Again, it seems to be the opposite. Sure there is the disappearance of a strong peasant class in a lot of European countries but there is instead the rise of middle classes of different kinds.

So that might not be really answering your question. But if you want to understand a background for the formulation of what we call “reformism” within the labour movement, it is quite important how a lot of people from the late 19th century start to question these development tendencies. Besides a lot of other questions about strength, tactics and strategy and so on, this seems to play a role for a shift where eventually, not all but many, labour movement organizations would endorse this idea of social rights and welfare, even though they initially didn’t.

P&H: Perhaps this is making the best of the situation that presents itself. If the revolution isn’t coming you might as well work concretely with what you have.

M: Yes, and this becomes very important for many reformists. You need to show that you are doing something that produces tangible results in an ordinary situation.

P&H: You write that “the understanding of the political community as a legal community has played a key role in much of modern thinking about politics.” Do you think that there could be something problematic with this overall legal approach, perhaps that we are too quick in framing everything within our society through rights and freedom?

M: I think it is a characteristic and more of an observation. It certainly means that you understand the political community in a specific way. If you then consider the role of rights in that context there is a question concerning how much of the background to that—including private law—do you inscribe actually in the political community? If we think of a modern understanding of political community a lot of people don’t want to talk so much about, let’s say, the capitalist means of production or other problematisations of modern society. But obviously they are connected. The question is then, in which ways can you trace such a connection? One of the ways you can do it—though not the only—is through the idea of a legally constructed community as such. The question there, I think, is not so much what are the alternatives to that? but rather what are the consequences? Often we get this attitude that if you come with any sort of criticism you need to present alternatives. This is short-circuiting. It is short-circuiting the critical question which is asking what the consequences are.

P&H: Habermas is in the title of your book, so he deserves at least some attention here. You criticise him for giving law too much credit when it comes to emancipation of the individual. He does address—although in your view not persistently enough—something that he calls “the colonisation of the lifeworld”. What does he mean by this?

M: Marx and Habermas are similar in their criticism of the dialectic of law, although they are addressing different contexts. Welfare state law is emancipatory, for instance—if you keep to the Marxian question—vis-a-vis dependence on wage labour. For Habermas law dominates through normalization. This isn’t as sophisticated as the account of normalization that you find, for instance, in Foucault, but it is pointing into the same direction. Normalization here means that the individual becomes a beneficiary of rights but only in a specific standardized way.

This, according to Habermas, is due to a lack of involvement of those who have rights, in the process of drafting rights. That’s a very common criticism of bureaucracy: Bureaucracy offers this one size fits all approach from which one can select. This constructs a certain life pattern as “normal”, where other situations become a problem in terms of addressing or dealing with them. We can think of people with several different medical conditions. These often have more difficulties in the healthcare system, because usually, there is a certain way of how medicine and healthcare works. And if you then have two, three, four conditions, you are treated by one specialist on this, by another on that, and by third on the third thing. But taking into account these combined is something, then, that one would be less able to do. And that is, in a way, a form of colonization. You have a way through which administration can work with something and that constitutes the de facto right of certain people with multiple conditions, for instance, to healthcare.

I think Habermas is doing an important job with this problem in The Theory of Communicative Action. He says that the welfare state is “dilemmatic” in itself but then he retracts from that position. There may have been good reasons for him to reconsider the way he is thinking about colonization, but he doesn’t really bring aboard that problem in Between Facts and Norms. That is my basic “complaint”. He is not taking his own analysis seriously enough when he wants to construct the legal basis for democracy and the democratic community. And he reformulates his own problematization into one that fits the legal construction, namely as a question of factual and de jure equality.

P&H: You emphasise the limits of the legal medium as a means for acquiring political autonomy. Can we overcome these limitations and if yes, how? Sorry for asking you for alternatives, which you clearly criticised earlier on.

M: I think if I knew about alternatives, I wouldn’t be writing a book like this. I would try to do something instead or work with that in other ways.

P&H: Whom would you rather have over for dinner, Marx, Hegel, or Habermas?

M: Well, Habermas is still alive so that is one reason for why I would like to have him over. I also have some questions to him.

P&H: Is there another philosopher or sociologist that you’d invite to join?

M: To pick someone very different, maybe I would like to have Spinoza for a visit. He seems like a fascinating person.

P&H: Thank you for your time, Mikael, and some insightful answers! Take care

Photo credits:

Karl Marx | Карл Маркс, 1875, by Olga, modified under CC BY-SA 2.0

Jürgen Habermas, by Wolfram Huke, modified under CC-BY-SA-3.0

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“Gender ideology”: The case of Colombia

Tanya Rahozina — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 15:12:13 +0000

In this interview, I talked to my former classmate Diana Rocío Rodríguez Benítez who specializes in the evolution of ‘gender ideology’ as a phenomenon pertinent to the Americas and Europe. In particular, Diana’s academic interest lies in discovering the role which anti-‘gender ideology^[1] has played in Colombia since 2016. This was the year when the landmark peace deal between the government and FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) was signed but did not come into force, as the referendum on the deal turned out to be the victory of the no-vote. However, after the revision of the agreement, which removed gender focus from the document, it was ratified by both Houses of Congress. As Diana researched the subject in-depth, I wanted to hear her opinion on the role of ‘gender ideology’ misperception within the scope of the entire nation and whether one might expect the situation to change in the foreseeable future.

Tanya: Could you please say a few words about your master’s thesis?

Diana: I wrote about ‘gender ideology’. It was a discourse analysis based on four actors because all these actors were against this so-called ‘gender ideology’. This created the political agenda against diversity. Everything that seems different is something that you cannot accept within what is considered to be right.

T: Could you make some examples of how the actors that you talk about use ‘gender ideology’?

D: The first thing I would say is that the whole gender ideology is a fake construct. It is not something that is legit in academic terms. Today everybody knows its meaning, but before 2015 it was something nobody knew about. It was created by the Catholic church, and then it evolved into the whole movement.

Secondly, here in Colombia it is linked to the decision by the Constitutional Court that every school had to review their Code of Conduct keeping in mind that every school should have an inclusive environment. To which they (anti-gender agents) said that this was the violation of the schools’ and parents’ autonomy to teach kids about sexuality and diversity.

It was a decision based on the precedent. There was a very sad case of the teenage boy Sergio Urrego. At the school he studied the director and the psychologists found a photo of him and another male student kissing. They then forced the two of them to come out publicly, which they hadn’t done before. And because of that Sergio killed himself.

In Colombia we have this legal mechanism: when your fundamental rights are violated you can write a piece of paper and then send it to the Supreme Court. Sergio’s mom did that, and then the Constitutional Court issued a ruling which guaranteed the rights that were violated. Based on this ruling they created different orders, and one of them was the one I mentioned regarding the Code of Conduct^[2]. All of this happened during the referendum and peace agreement negotiations, and the referendum had this strong gender focus. The four actors whom I then analysed in my dissertation also said that peace agreement was going to turn our kids gay, and was filled with gender ideology, which was not true––it was fake.

T: How unpopular was the decision and how big was the anti-gender ideology movement?

D: A lot of people went out to protest it. The leaders were far-right politicians, and the Catholic church together with other Evangelical church. And it was huge. I remember reading and watching the news, and there were a lot of angry people protesting. At that time the Minister of education was a lesbian woman. The protesters went around saying that she is lesbian who is trying to mess our kids. It was quite huge not only in Bogota, but all over the country.

T: Did they achieve anything?

D: There is no causal relationship, as there is not enough evidence to link one event to the other, but this topic was without a doubt something that people talked about and feared. I don’t know if they achieved their goal, but, for sure, the no-vote won, and this ruling is not being executed. I am doing volunteer work with the mom of Sergio. She created an NGO^[3]. And nothing has changed during these four years. The decision is not on hold, but there is a lack of the political will.

T: Are there a lot of similar cases?

D: Not a lot, but this case was huge because there was the decision of the Constitutional Court. Not a lot, but a few. Not only in school environments, but also other contexts when people are the victims of discrimination, which is a crime.

T: Can people seek any legal help in such situations?

D: Of course. If there is a judicial proof that someone was discriminated based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, religion, ethnicity, then yes, the offender can face jail time.

T: Are there any legal instruments that can support them?

D: There are. We actually have a lot of legal instruments and institutions, which on paper look very good and progressive and guarantee rights. But I would say we are not there yet. We are not a progressive society. You have all of these mechanisms, legal and disciplinary, but when the time comes for you to validate your rights, it is hard. If you go to a state institution, most of the people there have no clue about gender focus or what LGBTQ stands for. It is hard, but the instruments and mechanisms are there.

T: Would you call it a problem of a conservative mindset and the lack of awareness?

D: Yes, this is a country which is very conservative. We don’t see us as a cohesive society, we don’t stand for our rights. We have never done this. We have this word in Spanish ‘’arribista” which means that you always want something for yourself, something that you don’t have. You want to go to the best school, you want to have the last iPhone, this superficial lifestyle, but it is not only about the iPhone. I do think that these things are connected to each other. We are a very unequal country. Going to school here is a privilege. Reading the news in English is an incredible privilege. Most people see what the local news show.

T: You stress the fact that Colombia is not a very wealthy country, however did you find any similarities between Colombian case and developed states?

D: I think that ontological security is the key. It is how people feel insecure when their basis is being disturbed. If your whole life you have had a certain mindset, and then all of a sudden, although it has been years of progress, but people think that it is all of a sudden, then they say something about gender, diversity and inclusion, different ways to do things and the structures. But definitely there are countries where institutions are not strong and people are not that educated, then things tend to stick more.

T: Are there any examples of people waking up and realizing that it is actually a delusion that is being promoted? Or are we in a hopeless position?

D: I don’t think people realize that it was a delusion. Here it was crazy because by the time of the referendum there was this person who was the press secretary of the whole no-campaign. After the vote, he gave an interview in which he literally said that people were tricked, and they used different discourses based on the socio-economic levels. Here we have numbers. Houses are ranked on the scale from one to five, one being the poorest and five being the richest. So, if you live in a house, but you don’t have access to education or social care, then you are one. If you are middle class, you are three. They created strategies depending on this division. He said to the poorest ones that the deal was going to spread the ‘gender ideology’ because they knew that people were afraid of it. There are people who believe that ‘gender ideology’ is true. It is something you have to be aware of. One of them being my aunt. You don’t have to look any further. Even in my family. I am quite hopeless.

T: You often underscore that you have a strong belief in the youth. Do you think with the change of generation it might be different?

D: I hope so, I really do. I am doing some volunteering work with the Truce Commission, and I am working with a couple of interns. Surely, they are privileged, but still they are pretty smart and aware of all of this. I also think that one thing is here in Bogota, women who are privileged, and a completely different thing if you go to the jungle, the Amazon region, or to other places where you don’t even have running water. So, I wouldn’t dare to have an answer to that as I am not in touch with the younger generation. We will see. I really hope so.

Notes:

[1] ‘Gender ideology’ is the phenomenon in which people defend the traditional family values, where female and male roles are established. The term is closely connected to the debates within the Catholic Church. Anti-’gender ideology’ is directed against gender, and counteracts questioning of the binary gender model.

[2] On the website of the Constitutional Court of Colombia they refer to the codes as “manuals of coexistence”

[3] Fundación Sergio Urrego

Related articles:

Gender Is Bending and We Should Embrace the Change

Photo Credits:

Bandera arcoiris, by Natalio Pinto, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

By Crawford Jolly on Unsplash

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Why We Still Need Feminism in 2019

Merle Emrich — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 19:17:09 +0000

When I take a step back and look at my life, I have to inevitably realise that my gender has never been much of an obstacle. I cannot remember a single instance in which I was told I could not do something because I was a girl. And sure, I am aware of sexual violence which is directed mostly towards women. And yes, I am familiar with the terms ‘second shift’, ‘gender pay gap’ and glass ceiling. But I always – naively – assumed that most people in the society I live in share my principles of gender equality. A recent incident however made me realise that, firstly, I live in a social bubble. And secondly, while we have undoubtedly taken great steps forward, feminism is a matter as urgent as ever.

The Butt Incident

The incident I am referring to is the following: I was sitting at home, brooding over my minor thesis when I received a message from Ellen Wagner, a friend of mine. She asked me to read through a letter of complaint she had written because of a job advertisement in her town’s local newspaper. In their ad the company stated that they were looking for a plumbing and heating installer. The job description was accompanied by the image of a woman’s bottom in hot pants and holding tools in her hands.

Since the German advertisement council states: ‘Most of all statements or depictions may therefore not be used in commercial advertisement which, 1. discriminate a person on the basis of their gender […] 5. reduce to their sexuality or suggest their sexual availability’ and furthermore the advertisement council emphasises the consideration ‘whether there is a socially acceptable, non-discriminatory or degrading connection between the depiction of the human body and product/ service’, Ellen decided to write a letter of complaint, and has now agreed to an interview with Pike & Hurricane.

Job advertisment published by a local German newspaper.

P&H: What was your initial reaction when you saw the advertisement in your local newspaper?

Ellen: It took me some time to realise what was actually displayed, and why. When I first saw the ad, my subconscious mind probably instantly categorised it as distasteful, not worthy of any attention. But then, a few seconds later, as soon as I caught myself just reading over it, ignoring it, I got alarmed, and I still am. So really, I had to look twice before being able to reflect on it, which really shocked me. I started asking myself, how come my subconscious mind is so indifferent to seeing women’s bodies selling stuff? Has “Sex sells” become naturalised up to a point where we find it legitimate, and we relativise it by claiming it to be a matter of taste and aesthetics, something entirely subjective?

P&H: What reaction to your letter of complaint were you (predominantly) expecting, and what happened in reality?

Ellen: I sent my letter of complaint both to the company commissioning the ad, as well as to the responsible newspaper that chose to print it. I sent it just wanting to do something about it, not even expecting much of a response from them. I was surprised to find support from the mayor who responded to the letter the same day with a very positive message of support. Another interesting part is that I decided to also share it in one of our local facebook groups, to encourage other people to become active, too. I was aware that the same topic had been thoroughly debated a few days earlier within that group, with many people making some meant-to-be-funny comments about women’s butts, not seeming to understand the problem addressed. I guess at that point, I didn’t take it seriously enough. To me, it looked like they were few, maybe because I didn’t find any convincing arguments in their comments which made my brain just skip this whole debate. For my own post, I used the “disable commenting” function because I didn’t want to have to read the same angry ranting and raving again. I explicitly addressed those people interested in becoming active, those wanting to make a change. When I think about it now, I expected at least half of the people to share my concerns about this particular ad, and maybe even some of them to show interest in becoming active in criticising the ad industry. But that impression changed rapidly after I published the post, and I slowly realised that my expectation of a 50:50 distribution would actually rather turn into a 70:30 ratio, dominated by an angry virtual mob.

The Angry Virtual Mob

The comments of this ‘angry virtual mob’ included remarks as to how ‘[w]hat this woman has written is hard to surpass in ridiculousness’, that ‘she can very well wear a burka during summer’ and ‘must be really bored’, as well as assumptions about the body hair of women criticising this type of advertisement. I imagined this to be the result of the (stereo)typical ‘fragile male ego’ but to my surprise – and utter horror – a considerable amount of the comments showing incomprehension for Ellen’s open criticism of this clearly objectifying and over-sexualised advertisement were posted by women.

Facebook reactions to the letter of complaint ranging from incomprehension to comments such as ‘[s]he can very well wear a burka during summer instead of running around in a bikini’.

P&H: Do you see the issue of or need for feminism differently now in comparison to before the incident?

Ellen: After this incident, I see it as especially urgent to reach out beyond our own, comfortable bubbles. When I think about it now, it’s no surprise that I completely underestimated the negative reactions – because most of the time, I am surrounded by people who share my perspective on many issues. That’s why I think we should never jump to the conclusion that the fight for justice – including feminism – isn’t topical anymore. If we only get out of your bubble, we’ll witness how different other people’s realities are from ours. And then, really, it is just about confronting others with the problems we see. Despite all the negative reactions I am receiving at the moment, I do hope that the anger of the mob turned into food for thought for them. If only few of them start reflecting on the problem, this whole initiative was so worth it. Spreading this personal experience with as many people as possible will definitely be one of my goals in 2019, just to make people aware of how we are taking for granted what we had to fight for throughout history.

P&H: Do you have any explanation for the overwhelmingly negative reactions you received?

Ellen: Of course, the scene where all of this happened was quite a rural area, a small town in Bavaria, where people tend to think less critically about politics and how their lives relate to it. People live in their cozy little worlds – of course they feel under attack if somebody comes and turns it around. And once they saw their conceptual world endangered, I think it was mostly the feeling of anonymity online that encouraged people to join the mob and to start making discriminatory remarks. The barrier is lower online than it is in real life, and people enjoy the kind of anarchy they feel to be given in social networks. Though I have to mention that facebook deleted approximately ten comments because they were considered either hate speech or sexual harassment – so it might not be as anarchical after all…

P&H: What changes in society regarding women/ changes in the debates about women’s/ feminist issues would you like to see?

Ellen: Not seeing feminism as a “women only” club, but as an inclusive movement, driven by empathy and togetherness. In the end, for me, it all goes back to the question of how we want to live together on this planet.

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Job advertisement published in Blickpunkt Pegnitz (Nordbayerischer Kurier), Dez 7, 2018

Facebook Screenshots, Merle Emrich & Ellen Wagner

Slutwalk Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, 04.06.11, Ben Ponton, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Back to OUR future: “Your future is whatever you make it”

Nina Kolarzik — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 15:04:57 +0000

Listen to the past? No, the future!

Since children and young people are humanity’s future, they should in theory be thought of as the most important humans. But do you feel like that? They are the most vulnerable persons and often suffer the most in conflicts and catastrophes. Everyone knows what parents used to say: “You still have to learn and grow up first before you can make an important decision.” This is also what children hear when it comes to politics. They are not taken as seriously as adults. Or they are only seen as victims, but not as actors.

The future is about and for us, the young, so why should we not engage in it? There are many ways of exercising influence and no shortage of examples of young people doing so. This article wants to show some of their ways, to remind you that we all have a voice and possibilities we can use.

Active in the Real World – Protest, Petitions and Speaking up

The most direct way to raise political attention about the youth’s problems is through active engagement in politics and civil society, by participating in youth organisations of political parties, starting petitions or political activism.

The generation gap between the elderly and the young population is an issue with multiple effects on the demographic landscape of politics. When the generation divide is too oppositional, political activism of the youth arises. This has become increasingly visible all around the globe: in the US not only adults but high school students march against the lose gun laws, young people participated in the radical political protests during the Arab Spring, and there is much dissatisfaction with the generation clash of the Brexit referendum.

Children’s voices can be powerful and loud. Even though not everyone will change the world completely, small steps are important. Some voices got heard worldwide and have a long lasting influence on the recognition of children’s issues. Malala Yousafzai and Severn Suzuki addressed issues of the future, such as education and climate, which are often neglected in the high political debates.

Learn politics: youth parliaments and conferences

There are also ways for young people to learn for their future in politics. Youth Parliaments exist on different levels, nationally and internationally. Slightly different are political simulations as for example the Model United Nations (MUN). They take place all around the world. International guests come together to get an impression of how decision-making works. They aim at educating and empowering the youth, and giving them a possibility to express their opinions, ideas and solutions.

The question is, how much power to invoke change do political simulations actually provide? The organisers state that they can be influential in the sense, that the participants learn about their own capabilities and possibilities, but also that they can communicate their messages through meetings and media to the public and politicians.

Personal criticisms can be found on platforms like the questions-and-answer website Quora, where former participants exchange their experiences. It is possible to make a detailed analysis of the opinions expressed, but you can also quickly get a general impression. There are positive, enthusiastic comments that express the unique chance MUN conferences offer to test skills in communicating, negotiating and presenting in an environment you would never have at university. It taught them, how much research and effort you need to put into decision-making. But there are also many disappointed voices who see the MUN’s being used as for acting cool and important, winning prices and taking it as a step on the career ladder – not as something that you could take seriously as an effective means for facilitating change.

As you can imagine, these personal experiences depend a lot on when, where, and with what participants and organisers people attended the conferences. But when you read through the statements, the impression is that those who participate regularly at such conferences see it as an elitist club of which they are part of. The expression “MUN careers” is used which makes me wonder if the unspoken purpose is to select and train the next generation of aligned, political leaders.

In front of our eyes – MUNmö 2018

One conference is taking place at Malmö University: the MUNmö in mid-november. This gave me the chance to talk to Liana Shabbar, one of our fellow GPS students, regarding the conferences’ purpose and goals. She is the Human Resource Manager at MUNmö 2018 and has also participated in MUNmö before, so she can provide an inside view most of us do not have.

“I think the purpose of it is really to get the Youth involved in world politics, because the Youth can be detached from what is happening in politics right now.”

Shabbar said, the Model UN can be useful for everyone who wants to work in international organisations or in the field of politics, even if they do not like the UN institutions, because it gives an inside look into the power they actually have and what processes, formalities and bureaucracy they work with. Even though it is a simulation, it shows the entire process and involves the youth in it.

“I think it gives people the opportunity to research subjects that maybe they would not have done otherwise and see them in a more diplomatic sense than just doing plain research.”

According to Shabbar, MUN provides a chance for students to prepare for the future, since it teaches to find solutions and look at problems not only in theory, but also realistically.

The Road Ahead

Age can be an obstacle but it is no excuse when you want to create change. The possibilities that juveniles have to influence politics are in the end the same as those that adults have. I remember Hannah Stanton’s speech at last year’s MUNmö. She told us that we have the chance to make the world a bit better every day – if only we start doing something. No matter whether it is uncomfortable or something small – we do not need to start the world revolution today – but we can start acting. And I remember her saying that MUN conferences are not about having a fancy dinner or pretending to be a diplomat but that it is about the exchange and improvement of ideas we have for our future.

by Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credit:

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Would you eat that? A perspective on food saving

Nina Kolarzik — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 18:40:46 +0000

What are rules and laws there for? To protect us. Take the example of food–there are hygienic reasons for best-before dates but it can be criticised, as the desire to constantly sell contributes to the throwing away of food too early. Since food production costs tons of energy and resources, that behaviour has a negative impact on the environment and green activists call for a more reasonable dealing with food.

But would you still eat something that is deemed not good enough to be sold in a supermarket or restaurant? Methods like dumpster diving are highly contested, but creative heads all over the world have already developed new projects to promote food saving. One is Zeenath Hassan’s Malmö based organisation “Rude Food”. To get to know their idea of food saving and whether it is a grey zone or not, I interviewed one of the activists and food savers, Hampus Mattson.

“Rude Food is an organization that collects surplus from restaurants, supermarkets and fruit and vegetable stands. Then we donate 60 percent of that to charity and we use the other 40 percent to make caterings. So we try to upcycle food before it becomes waste,” explains Mattson.

It is always the question of how small projects can make a difference in saving our environment. So I ask, how Rude Food can be seen as part of a broader environmental movement and whether local initiatives can have an impact on the global environment.

“[Rude Food] is a very small one, so I think in terms of the overall environmental movement, I hope that Rude Food is some mode of inspiration to other entrepreneurs to find these gaps in the system and take advantage of them, because that can help things in the bigger picture in the environment I think,“ says Mattson.

He explains, that “[the influence] is very country specific. We have met people from Australia that were involved in a thing called “Oz harvest”. And they do basically what we do […]. The difference between them and us is that they are huge, a massive organization […]. In Sweden, it’s very difficult for us to work with larger businesses. Everything is so slow, it takes forever, there are lots of hoops to jump through […]. I would say in our context in Sweden, I don’t know how much these types of small organisation like Rude Food can make a big difference in the overall picture, other than to inspire people. But then if you look at Oz harvest, they actually can make a significant dent in the food waste problem.”

Mattson mentions “gaps in the system”- that raises the question how exactly do the laws regarding food saving look like? For the topic for this issue, “Grey Zones”, this is an important aspect. Mattson explains the legal side of Rude Food:

“Since we were one of the first, maybe the first one doing it– when we approached municipal government offices that have anything to do with food safety, they didn’t really know what to say or what to think about it. So it became that we just follow the exact same rules that any other restaurant or food business does. And I would say that in legal terms, there is not actually a grey zone, because we are not taking food that has already been thrown out. It’s food that’s still edible, it’s still in a fridge, we are just moving it to another location and then we are using it. But culturally, maybe we are, because that is actually been the bigger hurdle […] whenever you talk about food waste and turning food waste into food, like regular food, people think it’s maybe dirty food or it’s rotten or it is spoiled, whatever. Overcoming that kind of mindset, that has been more of the difficult thing, I think, for Rude Food.”

A Cultural Grey Zone?

I want to go a bit deeper in the expression of a “cultural grey zone” and ask Mattson to explain it a bit further.

“I can start with looking at the business side of it. There is also this kind of unsettled thing in that we are getting a lot of our resources for free. So sometimes we hear ‘that is not really fair’ […] But usually that can be solved by telling them that we are not for profit, so we don’t actually make any money from this. It’s just a service that is meant to raise awareness about food waste. If you explain to people what it is, then you can overcome that […] If it’s in a grey zone, it’s because it has not been done before, so people don’t know how to react to it.”

So once people get into contact with the projects of Rude Food, how is the general reaction? Are they rather disgusted or do they appreciate and support the work?

“Generally, it’s–at least in my personal experience–good. We get positive feedback all the time, both in terms of ‘it is great what you’re doing’, in the sort of social sense and environmental sense and also we get compliments on the food as well. So everything has been positive” Mattson concludes.

Positive feedback is always good and something that keeps these organisations running. Without the engagement of its activists, Rude Food would not be able to exist.

As we can conclude from the interview, there is still a long way to go and many things we can do. Every one of us. Rules need to be redefined from time to time and it can be necessary to cross some lines or try something completely new. That potentially means, that you move in a grey zone between right and wrong. But as the idea moves on, this question will clarify.

By Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credit:

Portrait Hampus Mattson (chairman of the board at Rude Food) by Nina Kolarzik

Rude Food at the Parabere Forum by Malin Nilsson

Food Save Volunteer by Alexander Olivera

The post Would you eat that? A perspective on food saving appeared first on Pike & Hurricane.

Life Keeps Going on: The Life of the Ones Who Fled

EditorChief — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 12:49:58 +0000

When the first tents went up at the IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps of Nineveh, Iraq, no one had figured how permanent the camps would become for all their inhabitants. As 800,000 people were displaced from their homes between October 2016 and June 2017 in just the city of Mosul alone, the need for humanitarian aid and planning was grave. A plethora of organisations and locals continue to work together daily to bring in necessary equipment and help to those in need. I had the chance to speak with Osama, a 24-year old Project Officer for the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, regarding the situation in North-West Iraq.

Longing for Home

Some people come to stay in the camps for longer.

“It can take months or even years to leave the camps”, Osama says.

The city of Mosul, from where more than one million people had fled, is far from normality. It will take a long time for all families to be able to return to their homes, often without a loved one. Homesickness is present, and many can not wait to return back home, whether the security risks are still high or not. Returnees have already started to head back to the ruins of their hometowns, by the thousands, still leaving a mass of people living within camp borders.

From markets you can buy fresh produce, something you would do back at home, too. Photo: Osama

Life for those in the camps is not easy. The tents are vulnerable to weather conditions and life can be really boring without jobs and the normality of weekdays. Osama describes how families inhabiting the thousands of tents are very susceptible to disease and food and water shortages, while going back to school can also be very difficult due to injuries and trauma.

Although many children can be seen to have physical injuries, many more suffer with hidden psychological pain from the war. Many volunteers and staff members are passionate about working with children—slowly teaching the traumatised children to be children again, after everything that they have seen and been through.

“When you are walking down the streets, you will see kids playing and hear them laughing”, Osama says.

“Through the children, you can see the future.”

Bringing Back the Mundanity

“There are two types of ways to work,” Osama says.

“The camp guards allow some of [the IDPs] to leave the camp to work.” Then the people can work in nearby villages and towns, and in a way touch upon the regularity of life back home. “They can then work as anything they want!”

When the IDPs cannot leave, they find work within the camp borders as marketplace sellers or barbers. Unused supplies, such as lentils and rice—which families get through the distributions—are sold forward in markets around the camps. This gives people a sense of purpose and a job, the Project Officer explains. Some NGOs also hire IDPs to work in projects within the camp.

Barbershops have popped up within the borders of the various refugee camps. Photo: Osama

“Some NGOs [organise to] build a water tank or bathrooms … so the IDPs can work in [those projects] and get paid,” Osama says.

The UNHCR administered project in Jordan is a good example, in which refugees were involved in the installation of solar panels for the camp they were inhabiting.

Humans will continue to be humans, no matter what the conditions are. Although, Osama notes that life in the camps is far from an ideal one, people can be seen putting up their own shops and services, almost as if trying to mimic their life back home. People in the camps want livelihoods, they want jobs and an income, something to do. The existence of normality within camp life is what gives the inhabitants hope, hope to continue to live their lives and hope to one day be able to return home.

The use of Osama’s full name has been omitted by the editorial team to protect his identity.

By Laura Korte

Photo Credit:

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Of Hope and Justice

EditorChief — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 12:31:54 +0000

On October 24, 2017, Sanji Mmasenono Monageng, a judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC)—a one of a kind example of international cooperation which tries individuals for the crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity—visited Malmö University, and we were lucky enough to sneak in a quick interview with her about her thoughts on her own position and the ICC. Her story of how she became a judge captivated us, motivating ourselves as students to reach higher with our future plans.

“For me it was a natural progression,” she explains of her path to judgeship at the ICC. Beginning in the national legal system of her home country, Botswana, she worked her way up to the African Commission, ending up at the ICC in 2009.

The field of human rights and international law has developed greatly in the past decades. Post-WWII, the notion of international responsibility and international criminal law has begun to flourish in academia and practice—the infamous Nuremberg trials were the first of their kind. Judge Monageng developed her personal legal skills parallel to this amelioration of international human rights law.

“I started reading about international criminal law. Remember, that when I went to university there was no subject called International Criminal Law, there was no subject called Human Rights Law, I developed an interest in it,” she says.

The Court has publicly indicted 31 people and convicted nine up to date, but Judge Monageng says she “cannot single out one” that has had the most impact. To this she says:

“All of our cases are important, they are different in terms of circumstances, in terms of evidence… The impact has been huge from all of them.”

Being a judge comes with restrictions as Judge Monageng puts it:

“I was an activist, I worked for NGOs, we were moving the agenda, the parity movement, in Botswana and in Africa and elsewhere, and to that extent at times I want to say something very freely, but I can’t because I am a judge! So, yes maybe to that extent I feel a little bit prohibited, but that comes with the territory.”

Although, she has a strong political activist background, she does not think about it when applying the law. What you need to find is a balance between activism and judgeship, she says and adds:

“I think I have succeeded in that.”

Finding the balance plays a big role in the courtroom as well—dealing with difficult crimes comes with its emotional drainage:

“We are talking about massive crimes and I do feel emotionally drained… but again, I am doing my job […] if I allow my emotions to run away with me then I lose my partiality.”

The ICC does not work alone on the world stage of justice. It relies solely on countries to only refer cases to the ICC “as a last resort.”

“States should do their part, they should train their own people, they should domesticate the [Rome] Statute, they should have the ability to investigate these crimes and prosecute them at a national level, so whatever comes to the ICC is what should come to the ICC,” Judge Monageng explains.

The hopes for the Court are high. But, for it to flourish, it requires smooth cooperation from all parties.

“We need to continue on this professional path, in order to give redress for [those who] need redress,” says the judge.

The work of the ICC to fight impunity and complement the work of national courts will continue with the power of more than 900 staff members, but the future of the ICC is dependent on the future generations.

Judge Monageng, once a student of the University of Botswana, now an ICC judge, places her trust in the younger generations:

“Reach for the stars. Empower yourselves. Develop yourselves. Identify what you actually want to do, and follow it. [Your dream] will not materialise unless you make it happen. [In Sweden] you are lucky because your government is able to support you, take advantage of those opportunities … nothing comes on a silver platter, apply yourself!”

After her talk, Judge Monageng left an impression on the student body who were at the UN-day event hosted by Malmö University together with UNA Malmö and UF Malmö. The students largely study programmes such as International Relations and Human Rights, and are a part of the generation Judge Monageng speaks of. UNA Malmö and UF Malmö will continue to offer opportunities for the future generation to connect with leaders for a better tomorrow.

Interview by Julia Glatthaar and Laura Korte

Text by Laura Korte

Photo Credit:

The ICC in The Hague, Oseveno, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

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