Limes Guide Book.docx

LIMES Borders and Bridges: Challenging division in Europe

a gallery created by European students

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Our gallery takes you to very different places in Europe each representing a border within the EU that we wish to challenge and bridge or explore as part of our diversity. The gallery itself was created during a conference in Budapest in March 2018 that is part of our project “Limes: Borders and Bridges – Challenging division in Europe” supported by Erasmus plus funding. We – students from Budapest, Bucharest, Copenhagen, Rome and Stuttgart, are taking you on a journey showing everyday life, conflict, cooperation, ideology, borders between states, diversity and dividing lines between generations. These topics work as a magnifying glasses. Choosing two similar and two contrasting photos representing each aspect, helped us to discover what we share and made us appreciate our differences. This booklet offers our thoughts on just a few photos and welcomes you to make your own journey through the exhibition and see all the contributions. Please enjoy the tour! Find your own path, cross borders and share your thoughts and memories with us either online while visiting our online gallery at www.flickr.com/photos/156967246@N03/albums/with/72157697734954165 via the link on our homepage: agorainternational.wordpress.com/2018/06/07/limesgallery-has-opened/ or in the guest book at your venue. March 2018 Your sudents from Eötvös Jósef Gimnázium (Budapest), Liceul Tehnologic Mircea Vulcanescu (Bucharest), N Zahles Skole (Copenhagen), Liceo Statale Farnesina (Rome), GeschwisterScholl-Gymnasium (Stuttgart).

Everyday life Let's begin with a contrast. These German photos, one picture of the Berlin Wall and one picture of a church where a terror attack took place, present very different borders. Why have we chosen these pictures? In the first picture a part of the Berlin Wall is represented, with paintings on it expressing the thought of liberty and freedom. The second shows a church where a terror attack committed in the name of the IS took place during the Christmas market.

We chose these pictures because, in the first case it represents a fallen border which is now symbolic of the forces that reunited the society and a political system. The second case shows a former place of a terror attack, so it is about building a new social border. The striking difference is that in Germany on the one hand there is a fallen border and on the other hand we are building new borders against different ethnic and religious groups. As two comparable pictures showing parallels, we chose the Romanian post-wall photo and the Hungarian private school situation. In the medieval ages, the rich German and Saxon population of Eastern Europe isolated themselves from the poorer local people with city walls like the one in the picture. It meant protection from the eventual attacks of the often starving peasants, or extra protection in a possible war conflict.

Putting it into the context of our present day everyday life, the Hungarian situation of state and private schooling system is a good example of a similar separation. People, who can afford to do so, send their kids to private schools so that they can study under better circumstances in well- equipped schools. Even though that does not mean they get a better education separation is fostered.

Conflict The Romanian photo shows a jail where the war prisoners were locked up and tortured. Later the jails were used to imprison people who were against communism, and therefore it’s a political border.

There was a huge conflict between Germany and the rest of the world. After that Germany and Berlin were separated during The Cold War and divided into a western and eastern part. The border between east and west in Berlin was a huge wall. There was conflict between the eastern and the western political systems and two conflicting ideologies. The German and the Romanian photo are similar to each other because both borders were political borders and both the GDR and Romania had a communist ideology. They imprisoned everyone who was against them. An interesting difference between an ambiguous personal identity, an inner conflict, and tension between groups can be found in the next two photos. There are lots of Danish people who live on German territory, and some of them want the border to be moved south, so they can live in Danish territory. That will remain a personal inner conflict because the border between Germany and Denmark is not subject of political debate.

”If I could, I would move the border southwards.”

In Jerusalem, there is a wall called “The Wailing Wall” which is a gathering point of the Jewish community that represented the foundation of Islam, Christianity and Jewism. Since people of all these religions live next to each other, and together, there are huge differences and conflicts between them not only in the city, but in whole of Israel and nearby regions as well. The conflict in this is that people fail to be tolerant with each oth er and respect each other’s religion but instead they fight each other. The Danish and Italian photo are dissimilar to each other because the Danish represents an actual border between countries, and the Italian photo represents something more abstract like religion, which is international, there is not only one religion in each country.

Cooperation

The first picture is of a person standing behind bars reaching out for the other side of the border. The second picture is of a border between two countries. The similarity between the photos is that the main focus is on a border dividing two nations/countries. In the German photo the border was once real dividing the west side and the east side of the city. After the Berlin wall had fallen in 1989 there was still at border, but it became a social border.

The Vatican border divides two countries, Italy and Vatican City. The border is still there today divided by the fence. It is protected by Swiss soldiers.

The first picture is of a sign that shows that you are leaving Rome and entering La Giustiniana. They are separated in two territories.

The second picture is of the traditional clothing that the Romanian, Saxon and Hungarian people whore at festive times. The three nations where combined and then went to formal parties together as one nation. The difference between the pictures is that in the first one we are leaving one nation and entering a new nation. In the second picture we see the nations united, not being separated.

Ideology Under this topic we discussed topics such as hard and soft border, xenophobia and racism. We chose four photos, two of them are similar and two of them dissimilar. The first two photo show how people can interact positively despite of their different religion, nationality, language and culture. The other two photos show a big contrast between acceptance, integration and racism.

In the first two pictures you can see two international restaurants that show a cultural clash. In the first one you can see a Hungarian boy and a Vietnamese girl in a Chinese restaurant sharing meal. The second picture shows the title of a restaurant which connects two cultures. They both represent how we can overcome differences and theoretical borders. It also shows that many people find interacting and integrating an important aspect to learn from each other, and see many things from a different perspective. On the other hand the other two pictures show that many are still xenophobic and thus fear expressing as well as accepting different cultures, religions and nationalities. The opinions are very divided, because the two pictures are in contrast to each other. While the first picture shows a man that is convinced that: “Different cultures can communicate and interact”, the other one illustrates that there are still many boarders because of fear, prejudice and lack of acceptance. We feel that a lack of these qualities can lead to exclusion which for example can lead to terrorism.

As a conclusion we think that if we learn from each other and cooperate we can solve many of the current problems that we deal with in our everyday lives in Europe.

Geography: Natural borders - imposed/enforced borders We chose two pictures that we think are somehow similar although they represent two very different borders. The first picture shows us the border to the Vatican. The Vatican is what we call the smallest country, and is placed in the heart of Rome. The second picture shows a gate in the old Berlin. The German wall divided Berlin in east and west. In 1989 the wall got destroyed and Berlin was now a united city again. That meant a lot to the inhabitants who after many years could live a life in freedom again. The Vatican is a state in itself, that involves own laws, compared to the rest of Italy. The same goes for the old German wall which made Berlin to a city with to different ways of living. In that way the pictures are similar.

We also chose two different pictures that represent “homeless people in different countries”. The two images represent a good contrast. Despite the same subject the pictures are very different. The first picture is a motive of some homeless people in front of an exclusive hotel in Berlin. They are not getting any sort of help. Without a roof over their head, they have to face their situation and deal with it.

Compared to picture number two which is a motive of some homeless people in front of this school in Hungary where the students actually help the homeless, especially doing the winter-time which is the hardest time for the homeless to live on the streets or in the underground.

Diversity We thought that difference makes diversity and it's also a need for the countries in the respect that it makes everyone equal. We found two different types of borders in our gallery. The first type separates people from each other, and the second one connects them in a kind of way. Romania and Italy have borders which are quite similar in different ways. In Romania there is a private high school, where only German people are allowed and they only speak German, so the Romanian people can't understand what they are talking about. As a result, there is no possible way to go to this school as a Romanian, which we think is discriminating.

In Rome in Italy you have a city center, where rich people live and work. There are also many different districts all around the city center, where people also live, but in contrast to the people living in this center, these people are poor.

Contrary to this, the German and Danish photos show similar borders, which connect people. In Germany there was a wall in the capital called "Berlin Wall" and it separated the western part of the city from the eastern part, but also many families. However, it didn't only divide families, it connected them too, because the relationship between them got much stronger. Germany and Denmark are really similar in the fact that the border connects the two nations. Between Denmark and Germany there is a region called Schleswig. People living there are not just Danish or German, they are both. During the World War II, Denmark lost Schleswig and Holstein. So now some people living in this region do not really feel that they are at home in their own country.

”I love Denmark!”

Generations Throughout history many things have changed, but there are some basic values that still hold true today. Of course, every generation interprets it in their own way. We would like to highlight these differences, these changes and ideas that withstood the test of time.

In the first two pictures we can see an area filled with commercials. In the Romanian one the wall is plastered with advertisement in different languages, and in the German picture the square is filled with logos of companies, trying to appeal to as big of a mass as they can. Referring to our topic generations you can say that, in the Romanian picture which is from around the 1940’s the advertisements were on paper and in their own language, and in the German picture there are a lot of signs and there are some photos of different social media, where we get our information from today- and were we see the advertisements today .In our time we see adverts in both our own language and in English, but most of the adverts on social medias use English words or slogans.

The differences between the last two photos can be seen with the naked eye. In the Danish photo we can see that in the present there are still tensions between the people of Germany and Denmark. These tensions started in the 1864 as a consequence of a land driven war and continues until today. In this case the two sides were especially interested to gain new territory and to strengthen the economy.

“I get the impression that the Danes sometimes regard the Germans as angry, strict and unpleasant. That is not what we are!”

The Italian photo is also about tension between two countries, but this time the reasons for these tensions are the different ideals of each religion. Additionally, religion has a different meaning to various generations. In the past people were willing to go to war for religion, while today people are more inclined to fight for economic power and give less thought to religion.