the haguerazzi - issue 3

The Haguerazzi

ISSUE THREE

-official newspaper of the 11th dutch national session-

the haguerazzi 3thehague2011.wordpress.com2

CONTENTS

Mistery of the lightbulb pg.17

Editorial pg. 3

Committee work pg.4-15

EYP structure pg.20

Disagreeing pg.21

ED

ITO

RIA

L

As we polish up the last aspects of the session and finish our last of-ficial duties, we take a short minute to look back and reflect on the past 3 days. However short, this reflection already produces a number of thoughts.

Firstly we are massively proud of our team. Words can not describe our feelings when we know that 8 talented youngsters from across Europe took their time and dedicated it unconditionally to the “Haguearazzi”. Over the last few days we have seen very high quality journalism delivered by our dear journalists. To them we remain ever thankful and we are sure that their insurmountable amount of work has not gone amiss.

What else makes us proud is the feedback that we got from our target readership, the delegates. Looking back we can say with confidence that we have delivered 3 issues which have been informative, amus-ing, and above all thought provoking. Topic overviews helped you to see the topic from different perspectives and points of view. Other ar-ticles might have served as guidelines on what to expect of the session and to make you feel more at ease with the settings. Other non EYP opinion pieces might have provided food for your thoughts and chal-lenged you into looking at things you had never thought of before.

For us this experience has been a beautiful challenge. The amount of work put into this media team surely has reward us morally as we are confident that our successes have overcome the downturns.

We would like to invite you, just like us, to have a moment of reflec-tion as well. When you go back home sit comfortably for a little while and look back at your experience in this session. We do hope that the products of this media team –videos, newspapers and the blog- will aid you in this process.

yours,Rosa and Jon


“The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality”, as the wise Dante Alighieri once said. This exactly illustrates the struggles AFET I had during committee work while trying to agree on what stance the European Un-ion should take towards Bela-rus. Belarus is also known as “the last dictatorship of Europe”. However believing/saying/ that his country is a fair cho-sen presidential republic with a fair chosen National Assembly, President Lukashenko, controls a state that is far from European standards. The Belorussian gov-ernment is also criticized for its human rights violations since “there is no freedom of expres-sion, religion, assassination or freedom from fear”, as AFET I puts it. The EU is also dissatisfied with the government's actions

against NGOs, independent journalists, national minorities and opposition politicians. Sim-ply said: the situation in Belarus

is quite messy.

What should be done with this? After defining the problems and writing the introductory clauses AFET I started thinking of solutions, nevertheless, not without difficulties. They need to think of an appropriate, re-alistic and achievable policy to-wards this complicated country. Solutions like “an armored inva-sion”, “just blackmailing” and “assassinating Lukashenko” are too immoral to agree on, but keeping the current situation -leaving inhabitants of Belarus be- is immoral as well. On the other hand, one cannot simply say that “I am right and you are wrong”. Who decides on what facts with exactly which knowl-edge that freedom of speech and expression is indeed better than living under a regime of an authorial leader? Isn't it immoral

HEAVEN OR HELL?AFET I to even think about forcing our

values, our way of thinking on what is right or what is wrong upon countries such as Bela-rus?

During the whole day the core aspect of the agreements and disagreements was about mor-als. What is a morally correct stance the EU should take to-wards Belarus, and what is not?, while at the same time being realistic about the feasibility of the solutions they thought of. Sometimes they didn't know which side to choose, whether it was better to think of radi-cal solutions or to stay close to

current EU policies?

Doing nothing and staying neutral was no option for AFET I. In this great moral conflict they tried really hard to stay in Heaven. The solutions they have found and the phras-es they have written are all well thought-out. During GA we will see what AFET I has made of this challenging mo-tion. I have faith in them. Dur-ing team building they have showed their capability to find consensus, to work fast and to think creative. During com-mittee work they showed their dedication to -in my opinion

at least- high moral standards while looking for solutions. I am proud of them and so are their chairs, Ben and Leonie.I wish them a lot of luck and hope with all my heart that the effort they made pays off dur-ing the General Assembly and their resolution will pass!

By: Romée Swaab


Fresh and early in the morning, after listening to the speech of our president Chris hall, the committee on foreign Affairs continued their “journey”, heading for a resolution on their top-ic. Next up crossing their path was the most in-teresting and fun part of EYP: committee work. As planned, the committee on Foreign Affairs 2 rushed into the rooms to have a lot of pas-sionate debates about the illegal immigration problems. The asked question about illegal im-migration into the EU border countries was: “to what extent is this the shared responsibility of all member states?”.

The committee encountered opposition within this question, because the first thing running through their minds was: money. How can we solve money problems regarding this “shared responsibility on illegal immigration”. This led to big discussions on funders, money and eco-nomical problems. These evolved into heavy debates concerning the EU member states budget in proportion to the GNP per mem-ber state, which is the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time.

This was a difficult discussion point, but with help of the lovely Ezgi, they figured out that a “shared responsibility” is not necessarily about sharing monetary funders and money. It’s also about creating common policies for many oth-er difficulties that illegal immigration brings, es-pecially at the border countries.

New problems and difficulties were brought up, leading the delegates to discuss about the over-flow of immigrants in external border countries, the flaws in the existing policies and agree-ments and the lack of involvement with agree-ments regarding the surrounding countries of the EU border countries. These problems were dragged out by the committee, which caused

miscommunication among the delegates.At one point they tried to solve refugees prob-lems and to change the conditions in the coun-tries of refugees. This confused the delegates a lot and they got stuck, just an hour before their deadline for finishing the resolution, cracking their brains over “saving the world” as stated by their lovely chair.

Fortunately they got back into the right direc-tion, with a little push from Ezgi, and worked together to finish up their resolution, mainly focusing on the common immigration policies and common integrated management systems for external borders. It was a very difficult but successful debate about illegal integration. The bumps in the road were caused by the fact that this topic involves a lot of opportunities to drag you into non-topic related discussions. For instance discuss-ing refugees from third world countries, made it easy to warm up to the subject and eventu-ally led the delegates to jam on a discussion about, beautifully phrased by Ezgi: “safeguard the whole world”. The committee maintained to keep their focus on the subject in the end and hopefully “safeguarded their great resolution.”

By: Julie van der Post

AFET II WILL SAVE THE WORLD FOR YOU

WE ARE ALL HUMAN IN THE END

LIBE II

“We have to show everyone that we are not that different, because we are all human in the end.” Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs II believes in multicultural-ism and a Europe managing to coexist with different civilizations. In order to reach their aim, LIBE II considers education and media as their most powerful weapons. While solv-ing such long standing problems, creativity was the most important aspect to consider. However, creativity brings with it the risk of getting away from down to earth solutions.

The LIBE II delegates believed that in order to promote mutual understanding and toler-ance, they had to determine the origin of growing violent extremism in Europe. While trying to reach the bottom of the issue, they struggled through various essential defini-tions. How were they going to define a for-eigner? Wouldn’t defining such aspect also cause separation and social alienation? LIBE II is not a committee to give up in involute situ-ations. It is true that at one point they almost felt like giving up as Lou has stated “we will never reach a consensus”; but they realised in a very short time that he was wrong. Daunt-

less LIBE II delegates did agree in the end that what made their ideas and projects improve was their almost insoluble disagreements.

Although the committee work was a bit more stressful and tiring compared to yesterday’s teambuilding, the li(e)be was still in the air. Thanks to their two smart and understand-ing angels, Libe II rarely got of the topic. This was also due to the mature attitude of the delegates who pulled themselves upright in a very short time after realising that they were off the topic. Mia (NL) and Joss (ES) were so kind that they even brought the coffee break right in to the class room. Furthermore with creative games such as “have I never/fruit-salad” they eased their delegates and proved them that committee work can also be very fun. After the game, LIBE II delegates learned so much about each other that they said they were “feeling just as a family” and are left with no secrets about themselves which would make them uncomfortable.

LIBE II delegates are advocates of integration. They are in the search of creative and unper-formed projects. Being aware of the dangers of being too idealistic or too pragmatic, by the end of the day Committee on Civil Liber-ties, Justice and Home Affairs II held a bal-anced and outstanding resolution in their hands.

By: Zeynep Yavuz


In watching CULT this morning, the first thing that came to my mind was “Wow, the system of yesterday is working!” Of course there were the opposing ideas, and each conclusion was only reached after discussing all the opinions present at the table, without any questions concerning the topic left unanswered. The participation of the European Parliament was looked at in detail; the value of culture in our society debated; and the extent to which austerity ought to be balanced strongly ad-vocated for on both sides. This was, however, done with strategy and efficiency. Firstly, go around stating all opinions. Secondly, debate the ideas presented. Thirdly, consensus – and if that was impossible, then voting. NEXT! Of course there were those moments when the discussion became frustrating or tiring, and at times I’m guessing it may have felt like a war of attrition. But even here, this wouldn’t last for long, and instead end up in joking. Though I must say, the coffee breaks seemed to be con-veniently near every time at such moments.

Committee work did not of course go without its share of originalities. For example, I learnt that the next world war ought to be called the “second Second World War” because we won’t remember the original one when it comes along. In addition, my personal favourite as a native Mediterranean who in fact does tan quite well in the summer, was that “…there are just many tanned people lying in the sand”. Towards the end, in listening to the discussion

concerning art and its value in society, I found myself wondering what these delegates them-selves valued the most in the art world. So following a round of applying lipstick (some of us inspired by The Joker), we all went round saying our favourite artists. The likes of Arctic Monkeys, Tupac Shakur, Pixie Lott and Ellie Goulding all came along, with only one being outside of the music world: Piet Parra. All in all, we had a harmonious day I would say. So harmonious in fact, that it inspired me to write the (hopefully?) CULTured poem in response.

Finally, in an attempt to make a special com-

Austerity, austerity,We must admit it’s necessary.

It is however still a fact,That art also needs to stay intact.And Europe the decision is up to

you,How much goes where, and then to

who.CULTians talk, discuss and agreeThis is what it means ‘’choice is

free’’ -Do we envision a Europe of art,Or do we prefer the safety of the

debit card?

Elina Mantrali

CULTURAL OR ECONONOMIC AUSTERITY?

CULT

mittee close, this journo (secretly from the chairs) asked the delegates for a few opinions on like and dislikes concerning the chairs:Chris´ positives: He is like a big cuddly teddy bear! He is British. Relaxed and cool person. He reminds me of Damon Alborn. In Amsterdam we would call him a `superchiller´. He´s cool. He looks like a giant TEDDY BEAR! Very kind and relaxed person. Asks critical, helpful questions.

Chris´ negatives: He has got a short tie. He has got a short tie. (Journo´s Note: Not a copy mis-take). He didn´t put lipstick on. He didn´t put any lipstick on. (Like I said). He leaves us alone. What can you not like about him? He´s British! He does not wear high heels.

Florentine´s positives: She´s pretty. Very kind and

friendly. She always tries to make us feel comfort-able. She has hair. She is very co-operative. Love her excited and bright personality! She´s really nice, she´s motivating us. Cute voice.

Florentine´s negatives: She doesn´t wear high heels. She has terrible typing skills. She is just too perfect. She hasn´t even got a negative point! She doesn´t allow us to talk Dutch nor Latin

By: Elina Mantrali


It was the central question of today’s topic to be fiercely discussed, defeated and debated by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs I. Many different views exist on the cur-rently famous whistle blowing website because it can be approached in many different ways seeing as it has appeared excessively in the news these past weeks. Therefore, the average knowledge of each delegate on the subject compared to other session topics is much broader and allows them to heavily debate the topic. Taking these facts into account, the committee commenced their elaborating discussions with a solid basis.

The approach of the topic proved to be an essen-tial factor in tackling their issue, because it forms the basis of the whole resolution. Consequently, the committee decided to focus their debate on the fundamental purpose of Wikileaks. They

VOICE OF FREEDOM OR VOICE OF TERROR?LIBE I

Wikileaks: a candidate for the Nobel Prize of Peace or condemned to be sent to the depths of oblivion?

defined this purpose as bridging the gap of mis-understandings resulting from a lack of transpar-ency in governmental affairs. In doing so they avoided what many governments did wrong, namely, trying to censor existing sources of in-formation. Instead, they recognised the main flaws in the flow of information from govern-ments to their citizens. The facilitator here is the media, which according to LIBE I delegates forms the primary source of information. They agreed that the media influences the public opinion and causes misunderstandings by placing facts out of context, either deliberately or accidentally. However, the next stage of breaking down these main issues into clearly formulated clauses was not without struggles, let alone agreeing upon a final conclusion that would deal with the afore-mentioned matters.

Other prominent elements of the debate were the violation of human rights and to what extent political significant documents should be made public. There is a very vague line between these two matters and it is critical to clearly point out

the committee’s proposed policy regarding both. A central question in this part of the debate was whether all forms of whistle blowing activities should be supported when they concern the violation of human rights regardless of the im-plications it entails. Eventually, all committee members agreed upon the fact that they should, at all times, respect the basic human rights and included this point in their resolution.

A remark I would like to make here is that during committee work I found it amazing to see how the team dynamics again affirmed a certain phi-losophy I once read about teamwork with a short deadline. The first half of the available time, was characterised by a relatively low state of produc-tivity, but exactly at half time when we played a round of blib blob, their energy was renewed and the final result definitely deserves a round of applause.

By: Charif van Zetten


DEADLINESSEDE

Deadlines are dreadfully sad things. Of course they make people stressed and irritable, but that’s not the worst of it. Deadlines mark the end of the process that leads towards a goal. And after all, isn’t it the journey that counts, not the destination? Yet for all the misery they cause us, we are all plagued with deadlines. Committees need to write resolutions, chairs need to compile resolution booklets, and journalists need to fin-ish articles on time. One thing that can help with most aspects of deadlines, is planning ahead. It is said that five minutes of planning can save fif-teen minutes of work, and SEDE is living proof that that is definitely true. It’s been an interesting journey by any standards and definitely a stress-ful one.

It started, as Committee Work always does, with the establishment of some ground rules. Ironi-cally, the committee on Security and Defense came up with the necessity of keeping track of time the very moment they had run out of it. De-spite this, the amazing nature of this committee, was proven yet again by the less obvious rules they came up with. They didn’t only set up rules of patience and mutual respect, but they also had the brilliant idea to ban references to Hitler. Good thing they had too, because Hitler would have been a dreadful threat if he had come up in con-versation. Another useful tactic they agreed on

for the rest of the day, was to have a stop word. If any discussion got out of hand, they could just say the ‘Stop Word’, and people would have to get back on the main point again. Several of the most random words were recommended, includ-ing ‘distinguish’ and ‘cheese.’ The one that won it in the end though, was ‘porridge.’ Amazing as it may sound, whenever the discussion was turning down a non–productive road, someone would say ‘porridge’, and they course–corrected right away.

The discussion was interesting as ever, but the real excitement came when things went wrong. At a certain stage they realised they’d been consider-ing that all EU member states were also members of NATO. Of course they got very nervous that they’d been following a train of thought based on a false assumption, and they didn’t know how long it had been going on, or how many of their conclusions had been affected. This almost–fias-co just went to prove that good planning truly is vital. They would have had to go over everything they had discussed to see if they had made mis-takes, if they hadn’t taken note of all the agree-ments they had come to. As it was, they only had to check if their conclusions were affected by the assumption that EU states were automatically NATO states. Luckily, they had nipped this in the bud, so they only had to revise one point.

Planning is everything, and without it not even the amazing SEDE would have made their dead-line.

“Deadlines are dreadfully sad things”

By: Oliver McManus

LEAN BACKENVI

My Greek teacher once said, that an oral exam is best when the pupil takes charge and the teacher basically just sits back and enjoys the beauty of it. Now, I don’t know if any of the delegates of ENVI have ever met my Greek teacher and heard his wise words, but it is undeniable that they are fully in charge of their own debate. It is a true delight seeing chairs, Sophie and Boris mainly not having to do anything at all. This is a committee that works well together by themselves.

Whereas some committees need to be guided more by their chairs into the right di-rection, the delegates of ENVI seemed to be capable of dis-cussing their topic without too much advice from their chairs. Basic steps as putting tables and chairs in a circle were more than natural to these delegates: ‘It is an effective method, be-cause everyone can see each other, is connected and is at all time able to take notes’, they

told me. Throughout Commit-tee Work, the balance that they had shown during Teambuild-ing reoccurred. No point was written down before the entire committee had agreed upon it. You might think that this method might lead to a long, dreadful debate, but only the contrary is true: by using old EYP tricks like the ‘I agree’ hand movement, placards up on the wall with the most valid points written down and their own method of using raising hands as a direct response, rather than a waiting line, this com-mittee managed to have their operative clauses completely phrased and written down by lunchtime.

However, with great minds and impressive preparations also come heavy discussions. When everyone is passion-ate about doing the absolute best thing and is not willing to settle for anything less than that, it might slow you down and stress you out a bit. Even

though the committee on ENVI experienced this speed bump here and there after lunchtime, with a push from their chairs to move on they managed to get past the issue and work their way to the end.

The key thing that kept this committee down to earth and constructive was the remain-ing calmness that was present in their committee room. For an outsider, tension was nowhere to be found and this effective way of debating resulted in a fresh, newborn resolution on Carbon Capture and Storage. I wish the delegates of ENVI the best of luck tomorrow in Gen-eral Assembly and will keep my fingers crossed for their resolution to pass.

By: Jana Trifunovic


“If you cross the 3% limit, then you get a letter saying that you should please, get under it. If you don’t obey, then you get an even angrier letter, and it goes on and goes on.” This is how Stan explained how the national debt works to his fellow ECON members. In fact the topic is a bit more complex than that.

When I entered the committee room this morn-ing, and I saw all these long and sleepy faces, I could not help but ask myself how this day of committee work will pan out. At lunch, the delegates shared the same table as their chair, Iwana (NL) and discussed the tricky aspects of this challenging topic. What had they covered already?

Setting up the traditional golden rules, finding

the key-words and starting brainstorming, were the stages of the first hour. When thinking about the topic, the delegates picked “prevent further damages” as the most important words and not the more obvious choice of “Eurozone”. That al-lows me to say that the ECON members took the preparation time very seriously and already had a good idea of the complexity of the problem. This soon proved to be true when most of the committee members chose from their post-it notes that; “responsibility” would be the best word to describe the approach for the resolu-tion. I was impressed by the knowledge the del-egates had of the topic. It requires a deep un-derstanding of the actual situation, while also knowing the basic definitions of economical terms such as inflation, regulation of the debt, investment, or loans.

ECON LEADS

“This committee achieves the perfect balance between the born economists and just interested people, it makes working with them very pleasant”

On the other hand, this almost spot-on knowl-edge wasn’t necessary inspired by creativity. There are a lot of innovative ideas – yet, some-times they can be too revolutionary. The con-struction of this committee achieves the right balance between the born economists and “just” interested people and that makes work-ing with them really pleasant.

Before leaving for lunch, ECON decided to re-inforce the power of the European Central Bank (ECB), to make it less suspicious to poten-tial upcoming crisis or to personal interests of economically strong countries such as France or Germany. For instance, they saw a possible danger coming from Germany, which can un-dermine the whole Eurozone by taking deci-sions on it’s own. The committee argued with

a simple and understandable example: If Ger-many deflates their Euro to make its products cheaper than Spain it would have devastating consequences for the Spanish markets which would be unable to compete.

Through my few hours spent with the ECON committee, I noticed a prompt change in their attitude, where ill-coordinated arguments were replaced by patience, teamwork and re-spect towards one another.

By: Alexandre Narayanin


Fight for your ideas and face certain death or collude with the enemy to save your own skin? Stefan Ruzowitzky’s “The Counterfeit-ers” (Die Falscher) is an engaging true story about the largest counterfeiting operation in history reflecting a concentration camp where Jews are spared the gas chamber in exchange for forging money for the Nazis. Known as Operation Bernhard, which aimed to crush the British and US economies by printing counterfeit cash and causing the devaluation of the foreign currency, succeeded in forging over £130 million; however, not enough to change the course of the WWII. The movie reflects a great clash between ide-alism and pragmatism, presenting two lead characters, Salomon Sorowitsch, a profes-

sional forger willing to cooperate with the Nazis to survive, and Adolf Burger, a com-munist Jew who would rather sabotage the operation than finance the Nazi war effort, thereby endangering the lives of the whole team. This dilemma in “die Falscher” caused conflict between the brave and rational sides of my character, making me question the ra-tionality and extent of moral courage in the face of adversity. However, by the end of the movie I realized that this dilemma was the main reason why the prisoners reached suc-cess and saved lives.

If Salomon did not have his strong desire to live, he would not work so hard to serve the Nazis and prevent Burger from sabotaging the forgery, the counterfeit operation would become a failure and the prisoners would be killed. On the other hand, if Burger was not so courageous and passionate about defend-ing his ideas and sabotaging the operation, Operation Bernhard could have been suc-cessful in flooding Great Britain and the US with counterfeit notes, thus bringing down the economy; the Nazis would win the war and the prisoners would be killed anyway. The contention between Salomon and Burger created such a balance that neither the opera-tion was successful nor were the prisoners killed, proving that one should have an inner balance between idealism and pragmatism so that neither one’s valor nor one’s stolidity will get him killed. In the end, for those in the con-centration camps, to live is the most sacred right and the most powerful vindication one can get.

By: Zeynep Yavuz

FILM CRITIQUE

For those of you that have up till now stayed in the dark, because you were sleeping and did not hear my speech during closing ceremony: the light bulbs that you could find spread out over the school were there to promote the 3rd Alumni Weekend of EYP the Netherlands. What is the fuss all about and what can you expect? I will try to turn on the light bulb in this article.As you have been told several times now, from this session on you are recognised as an alum-nus of EYP. This means that you can partici-pate in the events that we organise here in the Netherlands and can apply for all sorts of ses-sions and events all around Europe. The en-tire organisation is run by alumni, who work together in different teams and in all sorts of different roles. Examples are the chairs and organisers during the sessions you attend, but there is also the Board and Head Organisers of EYP the Netherlands.If you stay involved in EYP the Netherlands there is a good chance you will keep running into several of the people that were here with you this weekend. EYP in that sense also be-

comes a social network of friends all around the Netherlands. In order to foster this de-velopment and to give you a chance to relive your experience from this National Selection Conference, it has been tradition in EYP the Netherlands to organise an Alumni Weekend. This year this will take place from the 11-13th of March and you are all invited!In essence the weekend is there to help you get to know the other alumni, both the people who were delegate with you but also alumni from older generations. However, this cannot be successful without enjoying yourselves to the fullest. That is why the programme of the weekend will consist of fun games, challenges and parties which will keep you entertained the entire time. For example, you will be chal-lenged to participate in the legendary Egg Vol-leyball and ‘Meel estafette’. There will be plenty of time to relax and sleep as well which gives the weekend a nice change of pace from the often hectic environment of a session.All in all, the 3rd Dutch Alumni Weekend is something you cannot afford to miss. We hope to see many of you there!

THE MISTERY OF THE LIGHT BULB: SOLVED

By our guest author or as he likes to be known: the wonderful and hand-some and smart and legendary Wim van Doorn.


In 1795 the separation of church and state was estab-lished by the French in the Netherlands, which is intend-ed to create more distance in relation between organised religion and nation state. The first amendment to this con-stitution states in the United States of America stated that the “Congress shall make no law respecting an establish-ment of religion, or prohibit-ing the free exercise thereof.” However this separation should not be confused with a separation of religion too. Church is something totally different than religion, but be-cause the two are linked, peo-ple often use them in a heap. Religious institutions, like the church, are indeed not al-lowed to have an influence on the nation state, but this is no guarantee for the state being separated from religion’s in-

fluence as well.In Holland we still have a lot of religious influences within our community. We have a possibility to carry out a reli-gious ideological education. On our two euro coins you will find the line: may God be with us. Even our politi-cal parties are largely religion based. For instance parties like the Christian Union, and the Christian Democratic Appeal. Which base their statements on religion. This contrast with France for instance who is al-ready has completely sepa-rated influences of religion from its state. The law “épa-ration des Églises et de l'État” based on Laïcité, which is also secured in the fundamental law since 1958 and schools in France are holding on to this principal very strictly. There are no religious influences in school whatsoever.

The French version of this sep-aration is called laïcité. This concept works both ways, be-cause neither state nor religion is granted to have an influence on each other.

Religious institutions are pro-tected from interferences of the state and the other way around as well. The public power is protected from influ-ences of religious institutions, especially in public office. It seems ideal, because both ways are protected from the negative influences form each other, but on the other hand it also sometimes limits the pub-lic religious expression.

What if we, in the Netherlands didn’t have any religious in-fluence within the nation state? In my opinion it would have a positive effect on the society. Religion is not some-

Our lovely Julie investigates on the reasons on why the church should be seprated from the state.

HEY PREACHERS: LEAVE OUR KIDS ALONE

thing you can force upon all people, it’s a choice and a life-style and it’s something you need to believe in. Religion is not to be proven or justified by epistemological knowl-edge. There are no concrete facts that prove the authentic-ity of religion.

I believe you cannot base rules and statements for a

society on something that is not to be proven with ration-al knowledge. We are gifted with our ratio, and a Dutch expression says “je moet een gegeven paard niet in de bek kijken” which means you shouldn’t neglect any gift you have received. If I could change something about our government within the future it would be this, I would want

the same concept as in France, because I believe religion is not to be identified with the state. Let’s copy the French and let us separate not only the church but also the actual religion from our state.

By: Julie van der Post

OVERHEARD IN THE SESSION

“I someone fires a nuclear bomb, you know shit’s gonna go down” - Megan

“It is the way you do it that matters” - Jon

“I am not going to make my delegates touch each other, but I am ok with people touching me” - Zosia

“I am too nervous, I can’t do it” - Conor

“Don’t blame me for not remembering the names, blame my nationality” Ezgi (Turkish)

“ I am not drunk, yet” - ECON delegate during Teambuilding.

“ Okay, So you are doing Laurens” - nasty editor.

“I need an hour to warm up” - ECON delegate at the beginning of committee work.


Among things, the European Youth Parliament aims, to raise awareness on European issues, and promote active European citizenship. To do so, sessions are organised all over Europe and include more than 20.000 young Europeans every year.

EYP was founded in 1987 in Fontainebleau in France. Since then, it has grown to an internation-al organisation, and gathers now 33 national com-mittees in Europe. Even non-EU members such as Turkey and Russia take part in its activities. National Committees have a proper board, to check the board of EYP the Netherlands you should visit the official website: http://www.eyp.nlThe alumni elect the national committee. The aim of a national committee is to involve more and more schools every year into EYP sessions. Fur-thermore, it assist its alumni to experience more sessions, also abroad. You should bear in mind that the structure of each national committee is different.

The national committees elect the board of nation-al committees. The BNC meets three times a year,

during the three international sessions, in spring, summer and autumn. During the meetings inter-national cooperation, knowledge and opinions are exchanged. Without the BNC get in sessions abroad would be almost impossible. The BNC also takes the ultimate decision proposed by the gov-erning body. Which leads us to the last body.

Finally, there is a governing body, which is based in Berlin. An international board chaired by Mr. Jan-Philipp Beck (DE) supports the national com-mittees, the head-organisers of the international sessions and runs the alumni web platform. The GB is elected by the BNC and by the EYP alumni. The official website for the European Youth Parlia-ment is http://eypej.org

EYP is a fantastic organisation that has taught me a lot. I can only recommend you to continue, and try other positions such as journalist or chair at any upcoming session in the Netherlands or all over Europe. I hope to see you soon.

By: Alex Narayanin

HOW DOES EYP WORK

We all have our opinion, and we definitely like to be told it is the right one. When people agree with us, it is like sharing a common in-terest – it brings people together by virtue of a common love for something independent. It seems that agreeing is the first step to the harmonious society we all strive for, despite the fact we only ever reach it in our dreams.But supposing that such a world is in fact possible, this assumption that agreeing acts as groundwork for cooperation is nonetheless flawed. For such harmony to exist on the ba-sis that we all agree, then that means we all need to agree on every single topic that ever comes past us and requires a group decision. And we are different, we cannot agree on everything. Consider the fact that not even in matters as simple as our taste in food match. To imagine a world where everyone agrees is not an utopia of harmony, but a dystopia of conformism. Both Hitler and Stalin envisioned their peo-ple united under a common banner for a common cause, and we all saw how that

turned out. That is not to say that coopera-tion and harmony between people are not necessary. Rather, the point to be made here is that this can only be achieved in its ideal form by respecting disagreement and toler-ance of people who don’t necessarily think in the same way we do. The core here is that we need to understand that there are more truths than one in this world. There is such an effort being made world-wide to ban social exclusion and promote tolerance, and yet the first step, to agree to disagree, has not been given its deserved value. I would not go as far so as to say that the perception of disagreement is an exten-sion of the aversion to whatever is different around us, that is inaccurate and describes only an extreme minority. It does however hint at a reluctance to respect the fact that our own opinion rules supreme. And we cannot live harmoniously unless we do exactly this. Therein lies the importance of disagreeing

By: Elina Mantrali

THE IMPORTANCE OF DISAGREEING

Our cypriot beauty Elina shares her perils of wisdom with our newspaper for the last time.


"I'm that star up in the skyI'm that mountain peak up highHey, I made it, hmI'm the world's greatestI'm that little bit of hopeWhen my back's against the ropesI can feel it, hmI'm the world's greatest”

This is what rapper R. Kelly would tell him-self when feeling down. When hearing these words, he would know he could do every-thing again. However, not everyone might feel that same boost R. Kelly feels when hearing these lyrics.The approach to reach this adrenaline rush differs for every indi-vidual. For the delegates of the Barlaeus del-egation that are the two little guys who've always supported them while hanging round their necks. The only problem is that, even though we've been seeing them for six years now at sessions, most EYPers don't know that much about Mazzel and Slimpie. But hey, as my gran would always say: bet-ter late than never. It all started once upon a time in a small Dutch shop, called the Kruidvat, where Barlaeus' Vice Principal bought the two monkeys as a nice gesture, not knowing that that day she had started a Barlaeus EYP tradition. The names stand for luck (Mazzel) and bright-ness (Slimpie), the two most essential things you need to have to win the nationals, ac-cording to the Barlaeus school. The first NSC Barlaeus participated in, they came along to comfort their delegates and perhaps give

them that extra 'it' that assures them every-thing will be alright. Ever since, the school has never visited a session without bringing the two and including them in every aspect of the session. In Helsinki last year partially even in Eurovillage, for the monkeys ended up in a bag with dough for Dutch tiny pan-cakes and got completely covered in it. This meant that they had to take a bath, which sadly had washed of all the names of all the Barlaeus delegates which were written on. Luckily most of them were saved and the others, well, according to some of this year's delegates it was meant to happen, because if not there wouldn't have been any room to write theirs.The truth is, we all have our own Mazzels and Slimpies. Maybe not in the form of two colorful monkeys, but in the form of a good friend, a joke, a good night rest, the sound of your favorite song, a read though the ses-sion paper or, in Boaz's case, a whopper. Whatever it is, it is that one thing that gives you that extra boost and the confidence that you can do it. You're the world's greatest.

By: Jana Trifunovic

“I’m that star up in the skyI’m that mountain peak up highHey, I made it, hmI’m the world’s greatestI’m that little bit of hopeWhen my back’s against the ropesI can feel it, hmI’m the world’s greatest”

MONKEY’S BUSINESS

We sleep about eight hours a day, with EYP ses-sions being an exception, and a lack of sleep has a huge effect on the moods of some of us. Actu-ally, the real purpose of sleep has until now been undefined and the only solid reason for us daily engaging in either spooning or snoring is be-cause we get sleepy. Although it is such a usual thing to do and the research on it has been truly intensive, we still hold lots of falsehoods regard-ing our daily routine. Take for example the sim-ple question “why do we sleep?”. A majority here would answer that sleep is something that allows our body to get some rest. However, how do we define rest? and what does our body do when we sleep?

Research has pointed out that when we sleep, our mind and body go through a cycle of five different stages in which restoration and memory process-ing take place. In order to effectively do so, the body has to enter a higher anabolic state. In every-day language that means that we simply direct our energy to other parts of the body. Some research-ers even state that we actually use more energy when we sleep compared to watching television. So despite the fact we feel sleepy, when you re-ally want to rest it may be an advice to grab some crisps, lay down on the couch and watch a docu-mentary about Meerkats on Discovery Channel.

Another aspect of sleep that has been recently in-vestigated is, how to diminish the minimum num-ber of sleeping hours we need in a regular night. As a student, time is one of our primary scarcities and there are times when I am willing to sacrifice almost everything to get more of it. Thus, reduc-ing on the hours of being unconscious would be

a perfect solution wouldn’t it be for the fact that after a while my eyelids start to act independently of my will and eventually close. One of the find-ings from these experiments was that we, humans, seem to be able to manipulate the five stages mod-el and train our brain to be satisfied with just two hours of sleep a day. Unfortunately, the drawback is that you would have to change your living hab-its, because this manipulation only works when you take a 20-minute nap after every three hours. Imagine that you just need three hours per day and feel like you have had a proper night’s rest, in my case I would have finished my article on time then.

Sleep is without any doubt one of the most inter-esting habitudes in our lives and it still has many secrets that until now remain a question mark. With the help of new technologies, researchers are shedding light on previously dark areas and it seems a matter of time before futuristic movies like Inception will become reality.

THE NAKED TRUTH BEHIND

SLEEPING


Chairs, orgas, journalists, as officials we're all undeniably important parts for any ses-sion. The same goes for the brilliant del-egates, they are the heart and soul of EYP, the new blood that keeps keeps EYP alive and rejuvenates it every year.

However there's another invaluable group of people that's less obvious. They make everything possible. Without them, EYP would have been doomed from the start. Be-cause without the teachers, nobody would help the delegates get to sessions, nobody would even inspire them to participate in the first place.

Accompanying delegates to a session is no light task. These self–sacrificing educators give up their entire weekend, plus a day of school, just to bring their students back and forth. But what do they do in between? How did they even get involved to begin with? To find out a bit more about them, I had a chat with Carla Beverwijk, a Dutch teacher from RSG Hoeksche Waard.

This is her school's first time participating in EYP, she learned about it through connec-tions from the debate club she runs at school. Her delegates are lucky to have her, because it's not always that teachers so readily offer to come along. I asked her what she does during the day, when all the delegates are busy with teambuilding or committee work. “I wonder about that myself sometimes” was her response. Today consisted of get-ting a cup of coffee in Breda with her friend Hellen van Apeldoorn from the Nieuw Ly-ceum in Bilthoven.

It is her duty to just be generally around she says, because even if her pupils didn’t di-rectly need her all the time, it’s still comfort-ing for them to see a familiar face every now and again.

By: Oliver McManus

TEACHERS: TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL

Video-editors singing “Every time we touch”, chairs checking their e-mails and their facebook accounts in their pajamas, Jon being randomly dragged across the room by an organiser, and a couple of sleep drunk people playing movie charades at two in the morning. You can only find such moments in the EYP press-room. Sat-urday night was surely an exceptional gathering of officials in the library of the Zundert school.

Out of all official positions, the role of the jour-nalist is the most unknown to delegates. Every-one knows what the chairs and the organisers are doing, but people can’t really define EYP journalism. This is due to our always – flexible schedule. We try to be as sociable as possible and spend as much time as we can with our com-mittees, but sometimes things such as tight dead-lines or crazy video recordings make this hard to live up to. While you are in heavy debates with your committee members, we are in heavy de-bates either with our editors, ourselves or with Chariff about his music. It happens to the best of us, that we sometimes can’t find the appropriate word to express what we mean. Such a moment can lead to a lot of stress, especially when you consider that the deadlines are very sharp. There is nothing worse than, when finally being able to go to sleep, noticing that you are the last one and that all the sleeping bags are taken. In such a situation, spooning becomes a physical necessity, rather than a friendly act. Fortunately, the editors allow us to get our daily two hours of sleep in the press-room, which is much warmer and more comfortable than the gym.

Stressed, sleep deprived and not being able to bond with our committees all the time, you might think that being a journo is a hell of a job. How-ever, we have the press-room. It is the messiest place that has a playstation, which allows us to play Singstar with a bunch of crazy officials, tired after a day of work. While working, we have also the opportunity to check our facebook accounts and keep connected to the real world. Which other official can claim that?WThe press-room at the 11th Dutch NSC is the place to be. Chairs love it, orgas crash it, delegates envy it and journos have it. Dear delegates, make sure you apply as a journo any time soon and pray you will have a press-room as good as ours.

By: Jana Trifunovic & Alex Narayanin

CAN’T FIND SOMEONE? CHECK THE PLACE

TO BE


THE ORGANISER’S OLYMPUS

We wouldn’t have been here, without them. They made this session. You can usually find them around the canteen, but also in your committee rooms and taking care of the proper conduct of the General Assembly. Invisible, yet - always there. The least we could do is to thank them for their incredible work, in this final issue.

EYP aims at individual growth for all par-ticipants. You can always learn new things and acquire new skills. As a delegate, a chair or a journalist the learning process is rather clear. There is an academic purpose and the human experience. However, as an organiser, these mentioned criteria are less demanded. Organising an EYP session requires other skills, such as time and crisis management. There is always something going wrong, at every single session. As an organiser you have to think fast, come up with the practi-cal solution while being creative, in order to substitute missing material. Whenever something happens not not according to the plan, they set priorities and bear in mind the daily program as a whole. Starting to deal with the most urgent issue, while al-ways remaining calm, focused and solution minded. Being an organiser often means to work while the others are enjoying the session. They are usually the first ones to wake up, and the last ones to go to bed. You also need a healthy amount of perfectionism; pay-ing enough attention to the minor details,

which are usually simply forgotten, but ac-tually the ones that make the difference.

Organising a session can also be lots of fun, the orga-room is lively. As a real team they aim to make the session a great suc-cess. They are a part of the officials’ team; but way too often they feel less important than the chairs or journos. At this point we would like to remind you that without them the session wouldn’t exist.What organisers pity the most is being un-able to get to know the delegates, as much as the other officials.

Our “inspector gadgets” are the heroes of the session, and this is how we should re-member Laurens, Max, Bob, Dico, Luca, Paul, Merve, Tom, Casper and our own pressteam orga Stefan.

By: Alex and Romèe

During the last night of the session, we took the opportunity to pin down your most notable memories from the past days. It was heart lift-ing to hear that the general impression of the session varied from “good” to “stupendo” or “gestoooord!” and in the recent rage concern-ing French in Dutch sessions, “vraiment un bon weekend”!

References to all those… err… “normal” EYP games that involve bunny rabbits and end up forcing you to kiss someone’s toes were as popular as Pamela Anderson in the nineties. There was a particular affection for games such as pile-up, which was apparently identified as a “lovegame” among the participants.

At one point Julie the journo begged a comment from the delegates that would involve a verb other than “good”- and received a surprising piece of

information. Apparently Justin Timberlake (Brit-ney Spears’s boyfriend before she started doing drugs AND good music) was in he’s Adams outfit in one of the makeshift bedrooms.

There were plenty of references to the chairs and their interactions. For example Florentine and Chris, were described as “superhot”. Ezgi’s com-mittee truly appreciated when half an hour before the deadline, when not everything was at its best, she took them outside to play a game and relax. Mia’s committee thinks she’s totally crazy (in the positive sense of course!), and finds that she kept the atmosphere fun by playing games at regular intervals during committee work.

The makeshift bunkbeds made out of chairs and mattresses are among our personal favourites. Quite honestly, there is a prize for the person who gets us a picture!

SESSION IMPRESSIONS

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

Special thanks to our pressroom organiser, Stefan Trifunovic

the haguerazzi - issue 3

Documents

committee work

dutch national session

national minorities

national assembly

media team videos

struggles afet

introductory clauses

haguerazzi 5thehague2011