the haguerazzi - issue 2

-official newspaper of the 11th dutch national session-

ISSUE TWO

The Haguerazzi

thehague2011.wordpress.com2 thehague2011.wordpress.com2

CONTENTS

Editorial pg. 3

THE French article pg.16

Headorga interview pg.4

Teambuilding pg. 6-15

Politics in EYP pg.21

the haguerazzi 3

ED

ITO

RIA

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Opinions on newspapers in EYP are very diverse. Many see it as a memory to take home, so they can relive the session later. Others feel that it is an extra medium to make the reader think, to maybe find a fresh look on com-mittee topics, or even on current situations. Is a newspaper for pleasure, relief and something to read through during coffee break or can it be preten-tious, about external topics and more like a “real” newspaper? What is more valuable to delegates, what do they want? What can we do to make sure the paper is read? Should the newspaper be on topic and sharp or something that you can read now but also in 20 years?

We tried to make a balanced newspaper where very current topics are debat-ed, such as the situation in Egypt, as well as more session related topics are discussed, for example our press team mascot. We hope you can find some memories of the session when you find this newspaper stuffed under your bed when you’re finally moving out of you parents house. We would also like to achieve that when you read the articles now you might get some new insights on situations that are happening now.

Most of all we hope this newspaper makes you think, about yourself, about your committee, about Egypt. Referring to our first editorial where we expressed the importance of freedom of speech, we would like to make the side note that this is only valuable when you think first. A discussion (and maybe even life) only makes it worth it when you are constantly trying to understand yourself and others. Why do I have this opinion and others the complete contrary? Why do I disagree? If this newspaper only makes you wonder about a couple of these questions, our work is done.

yours,Rosa and Jon

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He has THE lowest voice of this session, our shepherd, the head-organiser of the 11th National Selection Con-ference of EYP The Nether-lands, Mr. Laurens Kraima.During his tight yet always flexible schedule Laurens al-lowed me a short interview and reveals his EYP past, the Session, and his future plans. Before starting, let me take this opportunity to thank the “best orga team” Laurens ever had. Thanks to them, this article could be written, because they were here to take over, when he is busy.

My first mail with our head-organiser was about French ham, which I should bring to the session, my second was about me asking him who he actually was, and introducing myself. However, through the emails and text messages I felt that Laurens is a very special person. He is not only excessively calm, but also very punctual, organised and very thank-ful for his organisers.He started EYP in November 2008 at a prelimi-nary session in Wageningen. In the years, “the

love grew, with the National and International Sessions”. Now he is head-organising the National Selection Conference which is the highlight of the Dutch national committee in 2011. He still has a lot of plans for the months after the ses-sion: he will be traveling from France to Albania and from It-aly to Sweden; all over Europe to keep up with his love. During his gap year, Laurens is almost as busy as all his 19 years-old colleagues. But there is only one restriction, Laurens

doesn’t spend his days sitting on a chair and listening to courses or lectures, he is working as bar supplier in one of Amsterdam’s main clubs: the Melkweg. His personal aim, regard-ing his job, is to become the bartender of the club, before the end of his gap year.

As a final message for you Laurens could like to say that “being culturally active is more fun than it sounds, even here (in Zundert, close to the Belgian border), where it can be as fun as in Amsterdam”. By: Alex Narayanin

THE VOICE OF REASON-interview with the head organiser-

We reside on a continent that indirectly promotes opaque representation of our citizenry; we live in undesired moral masochism. Nevertheless, we continue to elect an indistinguishably similar body to voice our needs to the rest of the Europe-an society. We preserve a tendency to make these choices with the conformed ideology that unbi-ased decisions will be made on our behalf, even after being daily reminded, by worldwide media, that these representatives of our moral behalf do, in fact, submit to the same sexual and self-centred urges as we do. Europe is in denial of the con-formity brought upon the citizens by modern po-litical globalisation and intimidation.

In retrospect at modern history, European people have been vastly affected and currently reminded of the immense power that people in leading po-sitions should have on people; we disregard our knowledge in comparison to political leaders. Based on sociocultural psychological theory a human in a position of overwhelming authority or majority conforms to feebleminded decisions. With the persistence of numerous crises and po-litical debacles, the contemporary media reflects on us with results of negative self-esteem. Unfor-tunately, the blame goes to our natural instincts and urges as all people have a natural tendency to promote close-range actions caused by mere greed and materialistic lust.

Modern politics and our tendencies are sadly a despondent issue. The inordinate contradic-tion of our need of efficient representation of our voice and, subsequently, the conformity to ac-tions gives bias and superficiality to it. In order to resolve this dilemma, it is necessary to let go of the past and draw conclusion from it by forming a new ideological basis for future political deci-sions. However, on one hand we have the issue of self-inflicted political suffering and on the other we have external dominance over our cognition. It is, indeed, hard to reduce the effects of these implications, nonetheless, we are in the end living under in the same European society and should perform to its best possible extent.

DIE

BY

YOUR

OWN

VOICE

Our own god among men, Jan Bubienczyk, expresses his view on issues faced by his peo-ple.


Sometimes it takes a while to get know new people, you just need some time to get com-fortable with them. With SEDE, that wasn’t the case. After all, no one could come up with a committee song that would match theirs!

Of course, even this brilliant bunch of young EYPer had to overcome the initial shock of dealing with so many crazy new people in such crazy situations, but they seemed to have no problem in overcom-ing that. By hitting each other with a rolled up paper, presenting one another’s best qualities and showing of their most impressive dance moves, SEDE quickly changed from a room of complete strangers who didn’t know quite what to do with themselves into a group of wonderful fun delegates who were happy to announce the most random facts of their lives.

I learned a lot about them, and they learned lots about each other. And as if that wasn’t enough, they did their very best to auction each other off. How surprising to find so many marvellous qualities and talents, all in one group!

I particularly loved seeing the patience the members of SEDE have developed for each other, which was especially obvious during the spider’s web game. Even after forty–five minutes of hearing “That’s a reset!” over and over again, they still seemed eager to finally get through the web every time, and they never showed any of the frustration you might expect from people who have fruit-

lessly tried to manage the same task for such a long time. Given a bit more time, they will get through. If anyone can, it’s them!

Apart from being such a source of eternal fun, this committee has

already shown prom-ise of a wonderful debate during committee work. Because even in their break, when they could have been talking about anything they wanted, they chose to have an intellectual chat about their topic instead of gossiping about hot officials or talking about the upcoming party.SEDE is a committee that has it all: They’re fun, they’re active and they’re patient.So, are you ready for SEDE?

ARE YOU READY

FOR SEDEOur devilishly handsome Ollie McManus reports from the committee on Security and Defence which he calls the best committee of them all.

By: Oliver Mcmanus

When a committee says quotes like 'Why are we applauding for suicide?' and immediately as-sociates the sweet and innocent Disney classic Bambi with guns and murder, you know you've just found yourself a killer committee. Not only did bonding go very smoothly within this com-mittee, due to the strong involvement of every single delegate, but this committee is also the only one at this session that can proudly say they have a real EYP couple. Steven and Dianna met each other at the Prelims and ended up in the same committee here at the Nationals. Talking about some serious EYP loving right there, eh?What really shined in this committee was their closeness. While discussing Abigail, I couldn't spot a single person who hadn't said a thing. Eve-ryone was paying attention, contributing posi-tively in the debate and making sure their voice was being heard. Although there is a danger in having a talkative committee due to the risk of the debate becoming quite chaotic, the delegates of ENVI did not seem to have this problem. In a natural way they divided several roles, which helped them getting things structured.Even though structure essential, what I person-ally love most is a creative mind. During a simple name-action game, these delegates were able to take a step back from 'the obvious' and think of new, original actions. Names like kangaroo Ka-rim and kinetic energy Khalid are not ones you find at every EYP session. Even illustrating Sex and the City as four gossiping girls seems to be too boring in the eyes of these delegates. They'll rather put two people making love on the floor

and use the other three guys to illustrate three skyscrapers. When asking them about their favorite game so far, Giants, Wizard and Dwarfs definitely takes the crown. According to ENVI there's nothing ridiculous about striking embarrassing poses when you can potentially beat another commit-tee by doing it. However, for me as a silent ob-server the game Pervert and Virgin was the most fun to watch. Female as well as male delegates showed that a high pitch note was a piece of cake while being an virgin and ENVI's chair So-phie showed us that she very well knows what a stereotype pervert looks like. This committee is dynamic, enthusiastic, crea-tive, but above all: crazy, in a good way. The hu-mor as well as the balance within the committee promises great things for committee work and that just makes me very excited.

By: Jana Trifunovic

DANGER ZONE AKA.KILLER COMMITTEE

From the danger zone, at the Committee on Environment our correspondent Jana Trifunovic reports.


NOT JUST FET,NOT JUST AFET...

I’m lucky to be the journalist of the committee on Foreign Af-fairs 2 and therefore have the opportunity to write an article on a group of young, enthusi-astic, funny, smart individuals who speak very well English. The spirit of this group is so amazing, you wouldn’t notice they only had one chair. An awesome chair, constantly tak-ing care of, helping and guid-ing everyone; yet still having a lot of fun and making jokes about her own origin too. So before highlighting the great-est moments in teambuilding I will, write a brief introductory name-game.

First of all, we have Myrna, the strong and balanced one of the committee, a lot like “Lara Croft”. Secondly we have Roos, who is the creative mind with-in the group, reminding me of “Coco Chanel.” Third we have Carmen, the initiative taker,

and she makes me think of “Hillary Clinton”. Fourth is Marilou, who is the calm and rational one, or “Princes Di-ana”, as I prefer to call her. Fifth to introduce is Lenneke, the smart and intelligent one, much like “Marie Curie”. Next up is Dirk, the comedian, re-minding me of a modern “Charlie Chaplin”. Seventh to introduce is Daphne, the op-timist and therefore the smile of the committee, “Cameron Diaz”. The eight to present to you is Eileen, the sensitive and caring one, close to “Mother Teresa”. Last but not least, we have Bart, the sharp and intel-ligent one, much like “Barack Obama”. All together they form the Committee on Foreign Af-fairs 2 and are by far the most quickly bonded group I have seen at the session.

Now that the introduction is out of the way, we may move

on to ice-breaking! I must say I was very impressed with our chair who came up with a lot of original and fun teambuild-ing activities. Instead of speed-dating for instance, they had to set up a Facebook page for each other, with drawings and descriptions of their interests. During all these tasks, it looked as if the delegates were al-ready one big family. Just like any family though, AFET II will certainly face challenges too.

by: Julie van der Post

Fashion Rules: lesson 2

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Every committee bumps their head to a steel bar, just like lovely Ezgi did today, or meets a storm, same as the one that blew away our papers while playing Giants Wizards and Dwarves. This commit-tee, however, is extraordinarily capable at solving problems in a speedy manner and an innovative and way. An example includes but is not limited to creating a committee mascot called Mr. B, due to the absence of the initial Dutch chair of the com-mittee, Boudewijn.Teambuilding has been a lot of fun today, and the members of AFET II managed to build an unbe-lievably strong team of debaters as well as friends. I, for one, feel extremely lucky to having had the opportunity to be the journalist of this commit-tee. I am positive that Committee Work and Gen-eral Assembly will be as fruitful as it gets, mostly thanks to a very productive teambuilding session. After all, these guys are not just FET, not just AFET, they are AFET II!

To make sure you don’t ruin this very special moment, you will be asked to dress formally. No Jeans and T-shirts will be allowed. A suit and a tie are warmly recommended for men, and either a skirt or suit – trousers with a blouse for women.

To be the ultimate killer, take care of your shoes, trainers will ruin the best suit. It is a sad fact that people judge you from what you wear, so don’t give them any chance to noticed any fail-ure. Be perfect. Think perfect. And you will be perfect.

Tomorrow is the big day: General Assembly. We will be leaving to the Hague, and to be even more specific the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No need to tell you that this will be the most serious day of the session. You won’t be able to cheat the guards at the entrance, like you cheated your chairs during Spider’s Web. The key – word is “behave”. EYP the Nether-lands put a lot of time in getting this fantastic venue.


WARNING:LIBE I UNDER CONSTRUCTION

“Silence!” shouted Zero Zosia, with Tremendous Titus nodding approvingly. The delegates’ first impression of their chairs must have been an un-expected one, right away they were ordered to keep their mouths shut and listen to their bosses of that day. They would soon discover the fun-damental reason of their chairs having them re-main silent. In general, every Teambuilding ses-sion starts with, how cliché, a name game. The fact that I want to mention the name game here is that it is the first contact between the mem-bers of the committee. Another essential part of Teambuilding consists of recognising the differ-ent positions in a team and to unconsciously as-sign them to each member. In order to achieve this, members of a team need to have great in-terpersonal skills. Both aforementioned dimen-sions of Teambuilding were at the core of the first Teambuilding games that were played by LIBE I.

The team’s first assignment was to find out each other’s names without verbal communication, which at first produced some awkward looks across the room. The first games were quite amusing, however, the toilet paper game gave much more interesting insights into each of the delegates. It was during this game that I came up with the first real nickname for a delegate with a shoe size of 49 which equals an astonishing 14 in USA standards! From now on, he will be called Mister Bigfoot and I leave it up to you to figure out his real name. It was the starting point for much more fabulous facts about the members of this committee. One of those totally random stories I found fascinating was that one of the delegates gets high from taking painkillers, which makes her fantasise about birds. While they continued with their Teambuilding activities, there was a gradual development noticeable in the interac-tion between the delegates. The ice was almost broken and it became time to bring the team to

a higher level. How? By dancing their way to the top.Our lovely chairs had picked the all time number one cheesy song, “Telephone” by Lady Gaga and it was up to the delegates to come up with their own choreography for the first minute of the song. The deadline proved to be a real hassle, but the result is what matters and I sincerely hope the footage that was made will get through the tough selection of the video editors. After these long hours of hard work and silly games mak-ing you look like a fool, the committee eventu-ally grew into a close, dynamic and especially fun group of delegates.

I wish my lovely delegates all the luck during committee work and GA and do not forget to get a taste of the amazing EYP parties, because it is all about the perfect balance of being serious and knowing when to have fun!

By: Charif van Zetten

FLIGHT 05070211LIBE II

Ten delegates, two angels and one plane: flight Hague 05070211. With Sanna (lived in Africa), Boris(born in Germany), Lisa(half Italian), Sophie, Laura, Rosa, Lou, Linda, Lucien and Martine. This multicultural committee decided to travel the world, get to know each other and different cul-tures to promote mutual understanding and pre-vent violent extremism in Europe. Luckily they had Mia and Joss with them as guiding role mod-els.

During the flight to their first stop Africa, they chose to play some violent name games to get to know each other. During the name games they played using a baseball bad to hit people’s head, three of them were injured in the head and one of them was temporally blind. Luckily it did not take long for their brilliant minds to memorise everyone’s names, and lives were saved.

After improving their skills in communicating

without using words by lining up according to age, height and shoe size they decided to join the zulu clan. While they were doing the zulu energis-er the other committee could not stand the cool-ness level of LIBE II and they also joined. Later on LIBE II and their fans from different committees decided to go on a bear hunt together; however, it was a failure. The brave hero of the committee, Lou, tried to protect his peers from the bear by trying to walk on his hands(?!) and unfortunately he was badly injured.

When they took of from Africa to fly to their next stop Australia, they realised that they forgot to take their spare gasoline tank. The plane was about to crash on an island. It was time to make a great decision to choose four things that they could take with them to the island out of sixteen objects provided by the angels Mia and Joss. Their decisions were going to determine if they wanted to survive all together as a committee or escape as fast as they could. They chose to take a hunting knife, safe water, a one way radio and a first aid kit and their choices proved that the only thing that mattered for them was to stay safe to-gether and live the LIBE spirit.

On the first day of the session, these ten strangers bonded so well that it was impossible not to feel the li(e)be surrounding my lovely Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs II...

By: Zeynep Yavuz


AFET I“BRING IT ON”

After the first hour I think I already know David, Ruben, Ludo, Daniel, Jara, Marielle, Kiki, Anton and Tsjip a little. They’re all sporty types, though Daniel is into gaming, David likes to play music and Kiki is fond of taking pictures. While playing Two Truths and One Lie we got quite impressive and hilarious stories. Take Jara’s story, the girl lost her ear while fighting wild animals when she was nearly 3 years old! Too bad that was a lie. She fell of a chair and hit a very sharp object. The little piece of her ear never grew back again. No wor-ries though, she lives happily ever after owning more than 40 pair of shoes now.David makes the best apple pies of Amsterdam (I can verify that) in the picturesque bar Winkel. During the game he was quite suspicious, he came up with several theories about what was the lie and why.

Marielle with her athletic body practices a lot of Zumba. Which is without a doubt a serious sport – according to all the girls. Ludo peed his pants (when he was still a baby boy), but even more interesting is that he met his current flirt at the last Preliminary Rounds in Maastricht. Isn’t that romantic?

Ruben with his sexy curls practices fitness and has a seriously autistic cat. He stares into empty spaces and never recognises people, even if he knows them for years.

Introducing AFET I there is one thing that is clear: they are AWESOME.

Kiki while attending high school in Amsterdam-Zuid lives on a farm. Her mother is the 13th born child of an even bigger family. Anton’s mother is from Colombia. He wants to study Politics or Law and wants to become a poli-tician one day. He doesn’t know where though; it could be in the Netherlands, Colombia or (what we really hope) Europe!Tsjip is a contradictory man (which man is not?). He played water polo for years, even though he hates all ball sports!

Daniel has a love for swords. He has collected them for quite a while now and has several spe-cial editions like “the Aragorn” the “Daggers of Legolas” and “the Sword of Elrond” from the Lord of the Rings. He says they are worth quite a lot, but I’m not sure how he could know since math is his worst subject at school!

When they had to decide an original place to take the group photo, the very first thing the committee came up with was... the loo! Even though Jara tried several times to convince the others to take pictures somewhere “more ap-propriate”, they declined. They were determined and the result is fabulous! After several ideas like standing as a soccer team and crazy poses at the stairs, they decided to try out the showers... But, you can already feel this coming up, when they were trying to get in the right pose, quite pre-

dictably, the showers went off! They returned to their shoes with drenched socks...

All in all Kiki says that she already feels that she has a different perspective on her committee members and that she learned a lot. Within half of a second everyone agrees cheerfully. They all feel that when they met this morning they were total strangers, but now they have become a team. The AFET I team.

The committee has done a lot of energisers, trust games, problem solving games, commu-nication games, icebreakers and games that de-mand many thought and tactic. They were good at every task they were asked to perform. After breaking their record for the 5th time they just couldn’t stop begging for more. They are fun, cute, hilarious, smart, witty, open-minded and fast-thinking. They are determined to make a fabulous resolution. So watch it guys, they are in it to win it. Bring it on.

By: Romée Swaab


To start with the most typical opening line in the handbook, this morning, strangers came together by excuse of EYP. In typical EYP-style, we all came to know facts about each other which aren’t exactly the first things you will ordinarily learn about a stranger. For ex-ample, the fact that some of us are kickboxers, are DJs, sing opera, have black belts in taek-wondo, design tattoos and have 12 piercings! In short, CULT is a group of talented people who know vultures are greedy, and have an innate grudge against batteries. (You know what you’ve done!)With more time came more information. Through games that demand thought and as-sertiveness, all the members of the committee showed themselves to be powerful personalities with a mind of their own. I must admit that this is my favourite combi-nation of characters in a com-mittee: instead of trying to step around each other’s toes, the CULTians rather confronted every issue head-on. I was happy to see that this didn’t happen with hard feelings or a blind stubbornness to “win” the debate. The discussions were peaceful and friendly de-spite opinions which were the polar opposites of each other. I found it wonderful that there was such respect for everyone’s opinions, and that arguments flowed constructively, build-ing on what was already said, rather than fall-

ing on deaf ears who just reiterated what was already said. Having said that though, there was one is-sue that kept on coming up throughout teambuilding. That a team of strong-willed individuals with an independent manner of thinking, sometimes forget to listen in the first place. In games such as blind square, survivor and Abigail, there was one central issue that

inhibited a smooth passage to consensus. The fact that when a dead end seemed to be reached, the reaction was to keep on ar-guing for the sake of arguing. This was an issue, however, that was resolved further with eve-ry new game. In Survivor, the delegates realized that on cer-tain moral issues where there are bound to be irreconcilable views, there was no reason to dwell on those differences. As a result, in Abigail they estab-lished an outline of debate, in order to avoid going around in

circles as before. Finally, Spider proved to be the turning-point: the problem was resolved, albeit a haphazard beginning, with full coop-eration and no unnecessary dwelling on mi-nor issues. CULT communicated, got to the point, and did that with a smile on their faces and less clothes on their backs. My friends, we are ready for Committee Work!

DON’T BE A VULTURE, GO WITH CULTure!

Going against all her editor’s style advise is Elina Mantrali using a pun to 11describe teambuilding for the commitee on Culture and Education.

By: Elina Mantrali

ECON GOES EVOLUTION

When the committee on Eco-nomic and Monetary Affairs gathered under the world in the canteen of the Zundert high school, a unique and surprising experience was ahead of them. Like the first game led by Mr. President himself, ECON would go through a rather radical evo-lution throughout the day.

When I first met ECON I had some troubles with the Dutch names, but after a few name games I could even pronounce Gilles and Maarten. As the games continued it became clear that the committee was very musical with four members of the committee mentioning a deep relationship with dancing, singing, and listening to music.

Having completed this first part of Teambuilding, the chairs, Iwa-na (NL) and Benny (DE) wanted to enjoy the stormy weather outside and we played a round of very serious snowball fights. This is when the topic of eco-nomics first came up – Stephan mentioned that he would buy

a house in Latvia if he had one million euro. This is certainly a sign of very strong commitment to his own country. However some of the other committee members expressed their inter-est in placing their money in a bank, to become even richer. From this point on I knew for sure that this committee had the right sensitivity to solve this challenging Eurozone problem.Things became even clearer af-ter the “drunken bottle” game, where everyone, even debating Yves wanted to try the relax-

ing sensation of being passed around in a circle of some stran-gers. I have to admit that ECON was a bit distressing from time to time. Believing that their French journo could seriously be studying in Paris, instead of being a German citizen is quite annoying!

Over lunch I approached some ECON members, sneaking around by asking a typical EYP question: What do you think of the session so far? Then I recog-nised a familiar emotion in Mel-anie’s eyes: love. EYP has already become something different to these delegates than a simple way to meet new friends. In the afternoon when I returned to the committee room, the first word I heard upon entering was, ‘help!’ While ECON was enjoying playing The Human Knot they were still willing to provide the right amount of concentration to succeed. The last moment I caught from this Teambuilding day, was that of a committee that solved the spider’s web is-sue as a group. One word: Evo-lution.

“If I had a million euro I would buy a house in Latvia.”

By: Alex Narayanin


Vivant dans un autre pays européen que le France, j’approche la question de la grève en France différemment qu’un français vivant en France. De plus, pendant mes sessions PEJ, on m’as souvent fait une remarque à propos de la France. Pourquoi ?

Comme l’écrivain anglais Stephan Clark, hab-itant en France depuis plusieurs année décrit de façon exemplaire dans son ouvrage Fran-çais, je vous haime, les français maîtrisent parfaitement l’art de la grève.Dérivé du droit de réunion, le droit de mani-fester autorise tout regroupement de person-nes à se manifester sur la voie publique, une fois qu’une autorisation ait été déposée au préalable.

Malheureusement, comme dans de nom-breuses autres situations, la théorie est tou-jours bien pensée, mais elle est souvent rat-trapée par la réalité avec des faits totalement différents.La grève est, en général, inspirée par des raisons légitimes ; mais quelques fois les manifestants ne font preuve d’aucun bon sens et ne savent même pas pourquoi ils sont dans la rue. Certains profitent de l’occasion pour suivre le mouvement pour remplir leur journée, d’autres pour échapper à une

journée au travail.Par exemple, les grèves récentes en Octobre 2010 qui avaient pour objet la réforme des retraites. L’âge d’entrée à la retraite passant de 61 ans à 63 ans, a provoqué une immense vague de protestation. Le port de Fos-sur-Mer est une plateforme d’une importance capitale en matière de pétrole et autres res-sources naturelles, mais il fût bloqué pen-dant presque trois semaines. Or cette péri-ode de non - fonctionnement coûta très cher à l’entreprise. En plus des coûts de remise en route des machines, l’entreprise a perdu presque 300.000 euros par jour. Soit, plus de six millions d’euros !Tout ceci à cause du mécontentement à pro-pos d’une réforme, qui aurait dût arriver beaucoup plus tôt qu’en 2010. Aucun pays en Europe n’est dans un cas similaire que celui de la France : la plupart des européens tra-vaillent jusqu’à 65 ans.

Je pense que les français doivent changer radicalement leur façon de penser pour pou-voir rester compétitif sur les marchés inter-nationaux ; mais aussi pour ne pas devenir la risée à l’international, ce qui peut venir plus vite qu’ils ne le pensent.

By: Alex Narayanin

Notre journaliste français Alex, se demande pourquoi les français ai-

ment faire la grève.

THEY JUST LOVE A BIT OF STRIKE

When I arrived at Amsterdam Central station I couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming number of bicycles. There are so many of them that they even need a special garage for bikes in order to stall all of them near the train station. I was so flabbergasted that one of the first things I asked my fellow journo Charif was why the Dutch are so much into cycling. I explained the unaware French guy that the Netherlands has completely integrated the bike into their culture. A few weeks ago I actually read a book about the biking culture in the city of Amsterdam. You will be amazed by the vari-ous reasons people use the bike.

Starting with the healthy aspect of biking, the Dutch need in any way a compensation for their unique way of life. The Dutch people are known to have the ability to consume soft drugs, such as weed and hash. By doing so, they put their bodies at risk and in order to balance this life-style, in comparison with other Europeans, they cycle. The climate in the northern of Europe is rather cold compared to their southern member states of the European Union. As everyone knows do-ing sport keeps the internal engine running and accordingly maintains the vital temperature of the human body.

We think that the Netherlands is a rather flat country and therefore better suited to any kind of natural mean of transportation. Moreover, the Dutch Kingdom is one of the smallest countries in the EU, which shortens the traveling distanc-es and allows cycling.

In the past, the previously stated intellectual foundation of taking the bicycle instead of the car, lacked material support. However, the gov-ernment massively invested in infrastructure throughout the last years and made cycling an attractive and a lucrative business. These devel-opments have had a positive influence on the usage of fuel, because the bicycle substituted the car. Indeed, the rate of fuel import to the Neth-erlands decreased with the infrastructural de-velopment. Nowadays, the current mindset on environmentally friendly behavior calls for an increase in the usage of bicycles.

We would, on a final note add that green ener-gies are playing a key role and we should bare this in mind while searching for even more in-novative resources in the future.

By: Charif van Zetten & Alex Narayanin

WHY DRINK AND DRIVE, WHEN YOU CAN SMOKE

AND CYCLE?


There is someone very important at this ses-sion that you haven't met yet.It's our mascot. It's the Penguin. Without this sweet little creature we wouldn't have been able to write this issue of the paper, or any other issue for that matter. We want to let you know why this penguin is so special to us.

What is so great about our feathery little friends in general?Penguins have an amazing sense of direc-tion. Every year they use the sun to return to the same place where they make a lot of love and bear an egg. They are monogamous for a whole breeding season (although any loyalties are forgotten the next year), which is remark-able for an animal. Another cool thing about penguins is their way of transport. They either waddle on their feet or they pretend to be as awesome as a snow-board while sliding on their bellies across the snow. Moreover, penguins are so great that even the famous Edinburgh Zoo has taken an interest in them: they have a 24 hour live cam focused on an Antarctic poultry, which you

PENGUE FEVER

can access at http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/EZPenguinCam.html

What is so great about our little mascot?Firstly her name. There have been many in-tense discussions about what to call this lovely lady. We've heard Cupido, Precious Penguini, Hagrid, Hagfish, Himmler, Stacy Lace, Marie-Antoinette and last but not least Velma Trouser-Snake. Since the last name is quite inappropriate for our under aged mad-emoiselle and most of the others are too ran-dom, we are now left with Penguini and Ma-rie-Antoinette.Secondly she is great because of the love she brings to the Press team and to this session. She unites us in our desire to cuddle her as much and intimately as we can.

One last thing you should know about the pen-guin is that whenever they are cold they stand really close together to keep each other cosy. They do this with a big group. The problem is that the birds at the edge of the group get cold. However, the ultrasocial penguin buddies

have found a marvelous solution to make sure that everyone enjoys the warming love of the group. Once in a while, the outer ring of these feathery friends switch places with penguins who are already warmed up to their core.

This is exactly the reason why our penguin –whatever her name may be– is our mascot. Even in EYP you might sometimes feel like you are never going to make that deadline as a journo, as a delegate you just don't see the light at the end of the tunnel while writing the resolution or when chairing you are so sleep deprived that you are not sure whether you can even make your delegates listen to you for a minute and a half.But we, as EYPers, always put you right back into the warmth. Into the love zone. Whenever you are at the outside, whenever you feel like you can't go on, we as metaphorical penguins will always be here to keep you warm.

By:Ollie&Romée


In ancient Greece, the people exerted the so-called οργια, or orgies where they consumed a great deal of food, drinks and usually had some casual intercourse afterwards. In EYP we have Eurovillage, we consume a great yet responsible deal of food, drinks and dress up in the most ridiculous costumes. It is only at these events that you will see a posh Frenchman, a walking chili and green suit. It is also probably the only EYP event, other than opening and closing cer-emony, when all delegates and officials are to be found at the same spot. This can be explained very simply: it is where the food is.Even though Eurovillage is often seen as one of the highlights of every session, it is always a pleasure to see in which way the delegates pre-pared for this particular happening. I'd have to say that this Eurovillage was one of an outstand-ing quality. I remember my own Eurovillage at the NSC as a delegate where my delegation was given the task to present the Dutch cuisine. I didn't really get a chance to wander around past all the different tables and take some food here and there, because I was mainly the one who stayed at our table and 'presented' it. There

was nothing left for me but to quiet my hunger with cold fries and stroopwafels, while amusing teachers, delegates and officials by decorating their hair with cocktail sticks with tiny Dutch flags on them. Until this day I regretted not be-ing able to stuff myself with all I could eat back then and so this time, I decided beforehand that nothing would hold me back. I have to say, my dear delegates, you have lived up to all my ex-pectations and so much more. From Spanish shrimps to Turkish baklava to a beautiful French dish and royally stuffed Greek aborgines, you truly had all a tired, hungry official could ask for.We decorated our tables, we played old school dress-up, we ate, we drank, we laughed, we played table football, we danced like there was now tomorrow. This was a successful Eurovil-lage and all props go to you, delegates. As a Dutchman, as well as an Englishman, would say: I take my hat off to you. To all of you. You guys truly raised the bar this year and I would happily like to see if next year's delegates will be able to live up to this, if I would be lucky enough to be there.

A VILLAGE WITHIN

A VILLAGE

words and photography by: Jana Trifunovc

We don’t join EYP only for the fun. We also come here because we care about what goes on in the world. I always found it quite obnoxious when we hear within the context of EYP that we are different, with a con-notation that rather infers “better”. I have to admit though, that for the purpose and context in which it is said, it is true. We attend these sessions because we do care that there is a democratic deficiency in Europe; because we do believe that Europe has the power to define our lives, and therefore we know that as respon-sible citizens we need to be a part of shaping such an institution. I always find that within EYP I can talk to every single person at any given session about poli-tics and world affairs, and they will have an opinion – not necessarily one I share – concerning the issue. In contrast, I do not find this possible in my daily life outside sessions. The majority of people simply don’t care. Or rather, simply don’t care to learn. This is why I went around asking the delegates about their opinions concerning politics, and more specifically European politics and the integrationist policy it is pursuing. As expected, the fact that EYP is a concept whose ideals we all find noble, does not serve however as a mecha-nism for buying our blind loyalty to the political estab-lishment that is Europe. Firstly, there were those who were in support of more integration, but more so in the economic sense, and based on the realization that where the effects are felt by all European States, then cooperation is the efficient way forward. From this comparatively ‘lenient’ opin-ion, the EU was criticized for its lack of transparency. Not in the sense that its dealings are kept from the people, but rather because it has so much power over these people who are not even aware of its influence in their lives. The common currency was criticized, as

was the bail-out policy and the fact that certain coun-tries should not have been admitted into the Eurozone to begin with. The argument therefore follows that no institution should hold power which has not been conferred to them upon the people. The other side of the coin argued that as a result of the European Union, Member States are giving up their sovereignty, and are in this way losing their identity. They criticized the parallelism often made that the EU is following in the steps of the USA. The people of the USA shared a common history and culture, whereas in Europe we clearly do not – neither religiously, or culturally and clearly not politically. In fact, it ought to be said that the foundations of Europe were in fact laid down in fear that another war could grow out of the hostility between the French and the Germans. Personally, I do not believe we should rush to create the United States of Europe any time soon. Talk of a constitutional treaty was immediately struck down in a frenzy, while the bail-out policy was met with hardly more than a grumpy and rather coerced acceptance. And yet, it seems almost certain that Mrs. Merkel’s new leverage is taking us on only a step away from top-down demands for ever closer economic integra-tion between the Member States. If even within an or-ganisation such as EYP there is criticism of “rushing” to create a new political identity, then it cannot be ap-proved in the wider setting of the 43% turnout in the last European Parliament elections. In a political set-ting where already the States and even more so their citizens are having a hard time just accepting the new identity being created, then perhaps Europe’s young voice should begin spilling outside of EYP committee rooms and addressed towards the ones responsible?

POLITICS IN THE EYP

Our journalist Elina Mantrali ponders on the reasons why we are in EYP and wonders if the EU is turning into a United States of Europe.

By: Elina Mantrali


Almost every single song written in history is related to one thing, Love. You know the feel-ing you get with that special someone; it makes you feel something you can’t describe or put into place. “It’s an unconditional feeling for someone else” and “is a substitution to such an extent that you can not live without it anymore.” One of you called it “just a mystery” and again someone else said “it’s being able to be yourself completely with that person.” My definition of love always used to be: opening yourself up for possible and total destruction. But before we can answer the question: what is love? We need to separate the different kinds of love and declare what kind of love we are talking about. Because you have a lot of different kinds of love: love of one’s fel-low men, sexual love, amorousness or being “in love”, and even narcissism: only loving yourself. I will explain, in the easiest way possible, the feel-ing we call “being in love”.

In the medical world it is often seen as a human drive, that has much in common with hunger and thirst. Within this medical view for falling in love there are three partly overlapping stages: lust, attraction and attachment. Lust exposes people to others, romantic attraction makes us focus on sexual intercourse, and attachment makes sure you stay with your lover long enough, to repro-duce.

Lust promotes the sexual desires and gives an in-creased release of chemicals –actually neurotrans-mitters, which are transmitting chemicals- as tes-tosterone and estrogen. The effects of lust usually do not last longer than a few weeks or moths. De-sire or attraction deals with other hormones, as it focuses more on commitment to an individual person. The chemicals, including pheromones; the smell hormone, dopamine; the hug hormone, norepinephrine; the stress hormone and seroto-nin; the happiness hormone which creates simi-lar effects as using speed or “amphetamines”-, are all contributing to the feeling of “being in love”. These chemicals herby activate the brain’s pleasure center and this leads to side effects such as an increased heart rate, loss of appetite, loss of sleep and an intense feeling of excitement.

The attraction state can last from one and a half to three years. Therefore the stages of lust and attraction are temporary; there must be another stage to cover long lasting love. Like one of you described me: “the feeling that you want to stay with someone forever and that you actually do that.” This third stage is called the “attachment stage” and this stage causes a relationship to last longer than the maximum three years covered by the previous two stages. The base of attachment is usually marriage, children, or mutual friend-ship based on shared interests and other com-

NOT JUST LESS THAN THREE

By: Romeé and Julie

mitments. It has been linked to higher lev-els of chemicals to a greater degree than the short-term rela-tionships have. These chemicals contain oxytocin, -the actual love hormone, also linked to female reproduction - and vasopres-sin – controls reabsorbing the molecules in kid-neys, so it controls things like water flow in your blood-. The last thing contributing to “falling in love” is the nerve growth factor (NGF), which is a protein molecule, which’s presence increases when people first fall in love, after one year these high levels of NGF reduce back to normal levels.Complicated isn’t it? This medical explanation still doesn’t answer all of our questions. Because

even though science may have explained or proven what happens when you fall in love, it doesn’t clarify the way you feel. They can tell me it’s the

vasopressin and the norepinephrine rushing through my blood, but that is not what it feels like. Feelings, and espe-cially love, are not justifiable, by epistemological science –science based on justifiable knowledge-. So dear delegates, officials, EYPers, we’re not sure if we can give an answer to the question: what is true love? But we can state that we do love you, with all our crazy-named hormones and newly-discovered protein molecules interacting in our brains.

Not that long ago I first saw the work of the Shepard Fairey, a 38-year-old street artist. You might know the street art posters he made with Barack Obama on them, for they’ve been every-where during his promotion. His most astonishing work, however, is the one in which he coupled the ominous slogan ‘Obey’ with the face of pro wrestler Andre the Giant. He printed thousands of copies of that one piece and post-ed them everywhere around town. Buildings, street signs, everywhere you’d look, you’d see The Giant staring you fiercely in the eye. Peo-ple felt intimidated, confused, but most of all annoyed, because they didn’t know what on

earth was going on. Fairey had caught every-one’s attention with just a single piece.Lately, I’ve been getting the weird feeling that Fairey just might’ve reached EYP. Wherever I look I

see light bulbs. Even the blog shows a huge light bulb when you open it. Now, obviously, this work is not done by Fairey, because why would a successful street artist travel to Zundert? What is certain is that whoever is

pulling this prank must be really serious about it, because when you take down our blog, you better run. This is concerning. What is up with all these light bulbs?

By: Jana Trifunovic


Sometimes words can not describe.


We are getting closer and closer to the general as-sembly and some of you delegates will defend their resolution tomorrow by giving speeches. To help you get started a little bit, I will give the last tips and tricks on writing a stunning speech. Writing a speech is very similar to writing a paper, but you can’t be punished for spelling or punctuation er-rors. If you do not have to worry about the wrong use of your semicolons, it makes it even easier to write your speech.

The first thing you have to take into account is the time limit. Assess what amount of time you have to give your speech and structure your arguments within this limit. For both the defense speech and the attack speech you have three minutes to pre-sent your speech and for the sum-up, if you will give this speech with someone else, you only have one and a half minute. Therefore you need to plan what you are going to say. Planning is crucial for giving a speech, planning contains creating a structure. Analyse your arguments, and structure all the information you think is important to re-member for your speech.

Further more you need to keep in mind your audi-ence, let the perception of the audience shape your speech. What are you trying to say to your audi-ence? What is your purpose? Why are you giving this speech? What are you trying to say?When you start writing your speech, stick to your structure. As Dale Carnegie once said: “Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it, then tell them what you’ve said”. Which is basically all the information about structure you need to remem-ber. You can begin with an introduction in which you make clear what the purpose of your commit-

Last tip on writing speeches: Have Fun!

tee was and what the purpose of your speech is. Then you label the arguments you are going to elaborate. You may want to use an anecdote or interesting fact, information or even a joke, if good, to grab the audi-ence’s attention.

When you move on to the hardest part of your speech, the actual explanation of your arguments, organise your information into three to five points maximum. Because you only have three minutes for the introduction, the centre and the conclusion, so “cut the rubbish”. Cut everything that is not neces-sarily adding anything to your story or statement. Don’t use too many metaphors, difficult words no one understands, or words you are not comfortable with pronouncing. This will often lead to a less flu-ently delivered speech. As a last tip to structure the elaboration of your ar-guments I would say: start with your most impor-tant argument, and let your weakest argument be second and support all your points, if possible, with facts, examples or statistics. But again, don’t use this if it is not necessary.

When you write you conclusion, bear in mind it is to summarise each point, restate your main purpose and leave the audience with a lasting impression. End with something funny or interesting, after re-peating, very shortly, all the arguments you’ve dis-cussed in your speech There are three kinds of speeches you are going to give: defense speeches, attack speeches and the sum-up speeches. For the defense speech and the attack speech you can use all the above, if you want to. The sum-up speech is a little different, in relation to the content.

The sum-up is sometimes seen as “another defense speech”. But you should be careful with this expres-sion, because it is not necessarily true. The purpose of a sum-up is to summarise the debate and repeat the main discussion points that the other commit-tee members were disagreeing on. You summarise these main discussion points and explain why you still stand where you stand. If you do an unprepared sum-up, you can use this speech to answer the last round of questions and statements made in the de-bate.

All in all writing a speech takes a lot of preparation and you definitely shouldn’t underestimate this dif-ficult task. However I’m really sure all of you will do a great job at it. Just remember to plan, structure, re-spect the time limit, say what you want to say and to “cut the rubbish”. You don’t have to use any of these tips, it is in the end all up to you to write and give your speeches. Last tip, and probably the most im-portant tip: Get some sleep and take a deep breath before you give your speech. Remember at all times to have fun!

By: Julie van der Post


EGYPTTRUE NATURE OF MEN UNLOCKED?

I question the concept of God and most of my questions have been left unanswered. Thus I leaned towards an agnostic religious view, I did not want to fool myself with beliefs and thoughts that I can never be sure whether they exist.

On the 28th of January on the plane from Southern Egypt to Cairo for the first time in my life the reasonable side of my character was dominated. It had been two days with no TV, no internet and no mobile connection. The connections were blocked by the gov-ernment in order to prevent the protestors from uniting. People were saying that thou-sands were on the streets, people were dying and Cairo was burning. My father who was back in Turkey was watching CNN the whole day hoping we were safe while my mom and I had no idea what was awaiting us at the air-port. On the plane from Assuan to Cairo, vul-nerable and desperate, I was praying.

I will never forget the time when I arrived at the airport and saw the telescreen. The city I arrived was burning. In the airport, the saf-

est place in Egypt at that moment, the flights were canceled and hundreds of people were stuck inside, since they were not allowed to leave. I listened to extraordinary stories of people who were already in Cairo and were able to make it to the airport. Their hotels had been broken into, they were robbed, beaten and attacked by the protestors who were throwing molotov cocktails at their cars. While Chinese people chose to show their anger by singing, Egyptians broke in to the Egyptair office and started beating the offi-cials inside. People were getting arrested and I felled overwhelmed surrounded by people from all over the world who would do any-thing just to send one message to their fami-lies to say that they were “safe and okay”.

I cannot say that I’m a person who believes in miracles. However, it is true that in some occasions the question “how” is hardly an-swered. After waiting at the airport for eight hours, an unexpected message tone on my mobile phone made me jump. I realised that altough my phone was not able to make any calls due to the mobile connection block by

In the past weeks there has not been a sin-gle newspaper without either the word re-volt, demonstration or revolution in combi-nation with Middle East and/or North Africa on the front page. If this sounds completely unfamiliar and new to you, then you might consider waking up from your hibernation, because the news has been flooded with it. What I find most intriguing, almost scary, in situations as in Egypt is that in times like these it seems that the true nature of men is unlocked. Immediately I feel like recalling the heavy fights between pro-Mubarak and anti-

Mubarak protesters that were broadcasted live on CNN. What I noticed was that after a week of relatively peaceful demonstrations, just one tiny spark was needed to turn these peaceful protesters into brutal animals. Try-ing to get to the foundations of this behavior would result in a platonic philosophical story. My fellow journo Zeynep is going to give you an insight on her unique hands on experi-ence in Egypt

the Egyptian government, somehow I could send text messages to any other cell phone in Turkey. All the turks who were stuck at the air-port gathered around me to contact their hus-bands wives or parents, and I sent a text to my father that we were safe but that he had to get in contact with Turkish Airlines and the Turk-ish government immediately to tell them that there were more than fifty Turkish people who had been able to make it to the airport. Fifteen hours later the Turkish government sent a plane to Cairo to bring back the Turkish citizens from the airport.

One of my friends from Jordan told me that in the Middle East and North Africa there is no such thing as an ex-president, either the presi-dent will always be in power or he is dead. The

current movements, who try to change this, de-serve a positive attitude; however, should vio-lence be part a of it? In other words, are the in-nocent people taken into account?

With love,your journo’s Zeynep Yavuz and Charif van Zetten

PS: Unfortunately this photo is not taken by me. My camera was taken by the Egypt Police because I was taking photos which “I shouldn’t”. No worries I got the camera back, but the pho-tos were deleted.

By: Zeynep Yavuz and Charif van Zetten

This newspaper was brought to you by:

Elina Mantrali – Alexandre Narayanin – Zeynep Yavuz – Charif van Zetten – Jana Trifunovic – Julie van der Post - Oliver McManus – Romée Swaab –

Conor Hamill – Jan Bubienczyk – Jon Vrushi – Rosa Douw

Follow us in the online blog thehague2011.wordpress.com

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