Post by pieter on Jun 14, 2024 16:23:28 GMT -7
Folks,
As a Dutch person who works in the regional/local press I don't like people like Geert Wilders, Donald Trump, Björn Höcke, Viktor Orbán, Thierry Baudet attacking me and my colleagues calling us 'Lügenpresse' (Lying press), 'scum', 'fake press' ‘Enemy of the American People’, 'Leftwing Church' (in Dutch 'Linkse kerk'), 'Political Correct' and etc. This undermines the role of the press and media as Fourth controlling power, reporting, explaining, news bringing force, which plays an important role in democracy. Debates are organized or aired by Media and commented on in the press. The Press is and was critical about the Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations as they should.
In Europe journalists report in all the many European languages, and even in European regional languages (such as Frisian, Low Saxon, Kashubian and Silesian -you have specific Silesian language press in Poland-) and European dialects about local, regional, provincial, Union state level, Federal level, or in a Republic or Monarchy from a National centralistic level from the capital, from other cities and towns, about the European level in Brussels, Luxemburg and Strassbourg (Straßburg), the cities of the EU, and from London, Rome, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Athens, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Basel, Zürich, Geneva, Istanbul/Ankara, Cairo, Riyadh, Rabat (Morocco), Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Vilnius, Bratislava, Sofia, Warsaw, Budapest, Kiyv, Minsk, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah, New York, Washington D.C., LA, Bejing, Tokyo, Seoul and other world cities of the world to report on important regional, national, Federal, Monarchy (in the Dutch sense), Eurregional, European and International levels. Journalism is an important job, and it there are traces of history, art history, political science, sociology, politics, economics, psychology, academical research, like on universities, statistics, teaching (being a teacher), story telling, police research, being a lawjer (studying cases) and in some cases with some calculation, Math, being an accountant going through files and sometimes archives (old files) in your research as a journalist.
In European politics, the term Euroregion usually refers to a transnational co-operation structure between two (or more) contiguous territories located in different European countries. Euroregions represent a specific type of cross-border region.
Map of the Euroregion Rhine-Waal
Euroregion Bug is a Euroregion that encompasses cross-border areas of Belarus, Poland and Ukraine. The main aim of the agreement is to develop co-operation in the fields of: regional development, transport, communication, delivery of energy and water, nature protection, industry, trade, agriculture, education, science research, healthcare, culture, art, tourism, recreation and crime and public menace prevention.
EUREGIO
EUREGIO is a cross-border region between the Netherlands and Germany and the first Euroregion. It was founded in 1958 as a German Eingetragener Verein, and has been converted in 2016 into a public body based on the 1991 Treaty of Anholt (German: Anholter Vertrag, Dutch: Verdrag van Anholt). Participating communities are in Niedersachsen (Osnabrück, Landkreis Osnabrück, southern part of Landkreis Emsland, Bentheim) and Nordrhein-Westfalen (Münsterland) in Germany and parts of the Dutch provinces Gelderland, Overijssel and Drenthe. Participating cities in the region are Münster, Osnabrück, Gronau, Enschede, and Hengelo. The headquarters of the Euregio is located in the city of Gronau, at the Dutch border.
In the sense of Europe we European journalists report on European history in general, but also on for instance 20th century political and economical history and monetary history and fiscal history. How came the present European Union to existence. How does the European Democracy works? What for organizations where there before the EU?
European Coal and Steel Community
The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a European organization created after World War II to integrate Europe's coal and steel industries into a single common market based on the principle of supranationalism which would be governed by the creation of a High Authority which would be made up of appointed representatives from the member states who would not represent their national interest, but would take and make decisions in the general interests of the Community as a whole. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany and was generally seen as the first step in the process of European integration following the end of the Second World War in Europe. The organization's subsequent enlargement of both members and duties ultimately led to the creation of the European Union.
The ECSC was first proposed via the Schuman Declaration by French foreign minister Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950 (commemorated in the EU as Europe Day), the day after the fifth anniversary of the end of World War II, to prevent another war between France and Germany. He declared "the solidarity in production" from pooling "coal and steel production" would make war between the two "not only unthinkable but materially impossible". The Treaty created a common market among member states that stipulated free movement of goods (without customs duties or taxes) and prohibited states from introducing unfair competitive or discriminatory practices.
The Flag of the European Coal and Steel Community (1952–2002)
Founding members of the ECSC: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany (Algeria was an integral part of the French Republic)
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, aiming to foster economic integration among its member states. It was subsequently renamed the European Community (EC) upon becoming integrated into the first pillar of the newly formed European Union in 1993. In the popular language, however, the singular European Community was sometimes inaccurately used in the wider sense of the plural European Communities, in spite of the latter designation covering all the three constituent entities of the first pillar.
In 2009, the EC formally ceased to exist and its institutions were directly absorbed by the EU. This made the Union the formal successor institution of the Community.
Flag of Europe
Back to my story,
Journalists won't be stopped, but they face intimidation, aggression, violence, threats during their work from various sides. From the Far right, from the extreme left, from Islamists (whom tolerate zero criticism of Islam), radical farmers, environmental extremists and authorities in countries without a democracy (Western foreign reporters). I say, let's keep our democracies, and don't lose them! Many people take our 'Freedom & Democracy' for granted, our wealth and freedom as natural as the air they breathe. Well it is not. Under our Democracy lies old tribalism, clan thinking and old regional and local interests of our ancestors which lived in a Feudal Christian Fundamentalist (Roman Catholic) Europe with Serfdom and thus extreme inequality and poverty. And under that Medieval Monotheist Feudal Europe lay the roots of old Germanic, Slavic, Latin (Romanesque), Celtic, Basque, Hungarian (Magyar/Huns), Tartar and Baltic Pagan Heathen tribes, clans and peoples that were in war with each other for milenia and centuries. The bloodthirst, conflict, distrust, introversion, caution, sensing the other, keeping an eye on the situation, suspicion of betrayal or breaking agreements, seeing the other European as fundamentally different is deeply ingrained in us, because many has been passed on in our European genes for hundreds of generations over thousands of years.
Both Trump and Wilders have a long history of hostility to the press. Wilders matured a bit due to the coalition talks in the last months.
A scene during the German Thirties Year War (1618- 1648)
The sack of Antwerp, often known as the Spanish Fury at Antwerp, was an episode of the Eighty Years' War. It is the greatest massacre in the history of the Low Countries. On 4 November 1576, mutinying Spanish tercios of the Army of Flanders began the sack of Antwerp, leading to three days of horror among the population of the city, which was the cultural, economic and financial center of the Low Countries. The savagery of the sack led the provinces of the Low Countries to unite against the Spanish crown. The devastation also caused Antwerp's decline as the leading city in the region and paved the way for Amsterdam's rise.
For instance as a Dutch person, the French people look different, have a different language, different mentality, different car, van, motorbike or bus with a different number plate, eat different food, drink different wine and beers, watch different tv, radio, internet websites, Facebook and Instagram pages, watch different movies in the cinema, discuss completely different news topics and they, the French know nothing to Zero about the Netherlands, because the Dutch language (of course) and press and media are alien to them. And the French media of course dedicate a little amount of time and space to Dutch news. Over the border in Belgium you see already a difference between the Dutch speaking Flanders on the Belgian side and the Dutch speaking Netherlands on the Dutch side. The same language, but completely different landscapes, infrastructure, culture, mentality and etc. The Dutch more sober Calvinist and the Flemish a little bit more Southern, a life style closer to the French, but still, Dutch speaking Flemish Belgians. If you cross the language border, for Dutch people the Walloon part of Belgium already feels like France or the French speaking part of Switzerland, it feels like France. Flemish and Walloon people live in completely linguistic, cultural enthnic different realities in Belgium, in their segregated Dutch and French speaking parts of Belgium. They have little in common, and the existence of Belgium is an Oxymoron.
Belgian girl in Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium
For us North-West-Europeans the Southern-Europeans are temperamental, beautiful, a little bit darker (more brunettes, black hair and dark eyes people), more cultural, traditional, Mediteranian 'Hail Mary' Roman-Catholics, people whom live outside due to the warm Southern climate (while we Noth Europeans have an indoor life during the colder autumns and winters), different Romanesque Latin people with their French, Southern-French Oxitan, Spanish, Basque, Castillian, Catalan, Corsican, Maltese semitic, Portuguese, Italian, Romansh (the Gallo-Romance language spoken predominantly in the Swiss canton of the Grisons (Graubünden)) and Romanian (spoken in Romania, Moldova, the USA, Canada, Israel, South America -mainly in Brazil, Venezuala and Argentina-), exotic (the Romantic often distorted sentimental view of the Southerner in Northern Europe), fascinating, different than us and thus interesting. That's why mixed relationships between different ethnic European groups are not uncommon. Because the 'opposite' attracts.
Barcelona, Spain, Southern-Europe
Back to Europe. The reality of Greece, Portugal, the Celtic Ireland, Bulgaria, Estonia or even Poland is nearly alien to me as a Dutchman, because little to zero news of these countries arrives in the Netherlands thanks to these language (linguestic) cultural, ethnic, historical and geopolitical barriers. Even the for instance Germanic part of Europe is very divided in Sub Germanic zones which have little to do with each other. The West-Germanic England in the UK is separated from the EU by the North Sea and Brexit, since the UK is not part of the EU and Shengen anymore. From the other side I feel a linguistic-cultural-historical barrier between the Benelux on one side and the German (Deutsch) speaking countries on the other side. The Dutch speaking Flemish Belgians and the Dutch speaking Dutch speaking people of the Netherlands (Low Franconian, Low Saxon and Frisian people in the Dutch sense; Friezen [Frisians], Groningers [Low Saxons], Drenten [Low Saxons], Tukkers from Twente [Low Saxons], Achterhoekers [Low Saxons], Veluwenaren -Veluwe Forest people [Low Saxon people]-, Betuwenaren [Low Franconians], Limburgers [Low Franconians], Brabanders [Low Franconians], Zeeuwen [=Zealanders = Low Franconian people], Hollanders [Low Franconians], Utrechtenaren [Low Franconians] and Flevolanders [Most of them Low Franconians]), the French speaking Walloons and the Luxemburg people with their own typical Luxemburgian language (Luxembourgish: Lëtzebuergesch), a Moselle Franconian language. The Dutch are less focussed on Germany than they are focussed on Belgium, because Belgium due to the Flemish Dutch language and culture is closer to the Netherlands. That said, I mean the Western-Holland Dutch and the Southern North-Brabant and Zeeland Dutch, but the Eastern Low Saxon border lands are of course close to Germany. What I mean to say is that the Dutch feel themselves to be very different than Germans in language, culture, heritage, history, mentality and as human beings. A Dutch person could be nearly insulted if an American sees him as a German, not because he hates or loathes Germans, NO, but because he is Dutch. It is like saying to a Polish person you meet; 'Hey, are you from Russia, you look and sound typcal Russian'. If you meet the wrong kind of Pole, you will walk away with a black eye, a couple of bruzes and only a broken leg or arm. Thank god you are not dead. People are what they are and you can't make them different, by changing borders, unifying them, or Europeanising them. We Europeans simply have no common history, no common language and not one European culture, like the Americans.
This naïve Western European chap said to a Pole that he looked like a Russian, acted like a Russian and sounded like a Russian.
The linguistic, cultural, social, political and human borders in Europe are deep and have a long history of conflict, wars, civil wars, border conflicts, shifting borders and etc. The Germanic/Non Slavic vs Slavic border goes from Northern Germany to Austria, Hungary, Romania/Moldova, Turkey and etc. The Germanic-Latin linguistic, cultural and mentality border goes through many countries, peoples and civilizations; Belgium, Luxemburg, the Dutch-Belgian Walloon invisible language border, the French German border (with a large part of Northern France being very Germanic, with very Blond, Blue eyed and a German dialect speaking French people with German surnames, while Southern France and Central France are more French French and Oxitan/Catalan/Basque Southern French), through Switzeland (with it's French, German, Italian and Romansh Cantons (administrative divisions), and then along the Austrian-Italian border (with a German speaking Tirol part of Italy). I don't know much about the German minorities on the Balkan, Hungary, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. I know that they exist and I hope that they are well treated as minorities in these countries. So folks to conclude Europe is a complicated and far from United Europe, but what many Europeans agree upon is that European cooperation in staid of War brought a lot of progress, wealth and possibilities to Europe. The EU, the European Union was a success because it stopped the animosity between Germany and France that fought many wars with each other. In the same time it brought and end to the animosity between Germany and the UK that fought 2 bloody wars in the 20th century, the First World War (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945) which on both sides costed millions of lives. Italy alone lost in both wars 1,050,000 soldiers. France lost 1.607.800 men in both wars (only soldiers, no civilians in this figure).
Poland alone lost 240,000 men and women in battle during the Second World War. 140,000 Regular Polish Armed forces and 100,000 Polish resistance fighters. Not taken in account here are the millions of civilian lives taken in the First and Second World Wars and the massive destruction that caused throughout Europe, changing many landscapes for ever due to mass destruction of cities, towns, villages, hamlets, Urban Agglomerations, Industrial area's and also farm lands. Hundreds of Millions and maybe a billion or more of shells, grenades, bombs, rockets and bullets were fired in these 2 World Wars. If you add up the total number of deaths from both wars, you see that approximately 100 million people died as a result of these two wars, that is more than the total population of the largest EU country Germany today, which has a population of 80 million. And that's why Europe in the past 75 years was such a Success in Peace, Trade, Diplomacy, Culture, Science, Financial world, Economics, Education (Human Capital), Music, keeping History and Heritage alive and etc. In contrast with the present USA, the history of Europe with it's many countries, nations, treaties, clubs, Alliances, Foundations, animosities, rivalries, competitions, present conflicts goes back 48,000 years ago when the first early European modern humans appear during the Paleolithic era. Today we stil have some elements from the stone age, iron age and bronze age, and our foundations stil lay in the Old Greek and Roman Empires, the Medieval development of Europe, the Renaissance, Enlightenment era (Verlichting in Dutch, Aufklärung in German, Oświecenie (epoka) in Polish and Oplysningstiden in Danish)(18th century), the Industrial Revolution (during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840) and the century of Nation Building, and the century in which new ideologies came to existence Liberalism, Marxism and Socialism (Social Democacy, which developped from Marxism as a Reform movement within Marxism) the 19th century. Poland and England had their oldest forms of democracies for the elites and we have European universities like the Jagiellonian University (Polish: Uniwersytet Jagielloński, UJ), in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in continuous operation in the world. To compare, the Leiden University (Dutch: Universiteit Leiden), public research university in Leiden, the Netherlands. Leiden University was founded as a (Calvinist) Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange (Willem van Oranje in Dutch), making it the oldest institution of higher education in the Netherlands. The Uniwersytet Jagielloński in Kraków is 211 years older than the first Dutch university. This says something about the Polish civilization and sophistication. The same of course can be said about the Leiden University, the Amsterdam University, the Groningen University, the Rotterdam University, the Utrecht University, the Tilburg University, the Maastricht University, the Nijmegen University, and the technical universities of Delft, Eindhoven and Enschede and the agricultural university of Wageningen (which belongs to the top of the world) in the Netherlands today. I consider my country the Netherlands a technological advanced, civilized, cultural and very European nation with a modern economy, one of the most advanced agricultures in the world, a countries with a lot of cities and towns and Urban agglomerations and a very advanced infrastructure of roads, highways, bridges, railroads, viaducts, intersections, modern bicycle roads, metro systems in cities and a very developed Internet economy and a country with a lot of Internet media (blogs, bodcast, online radio and video media stations, press, educational facilities and etc.). That said Europe has many advanced and highly developed countries, from Lithuania to Italy, and from Greece to Denmark, and from Poland to the Netherlands. Like the Netherlands Poland has a lot of University city, a lot of educated and cultural people and a Polish intelligentsia of Professors, university students, Polish intellectuals, philosophers, sociologists, scientists, academics, research journalists (Gazeta Wyborcza & Rzeczpospolita) and etc. The image in some Western European countries that Poland is a ppor Eastern-European country is wrong. First of all because Poland is a Central-European country in the heart of Europe. Eastern European countries are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Romania. The Central European countries are Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. Poland has about 20 universities in Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań (Adam Mickiewicz University), Gdańsk, Wrocław, Łódź, Katowice, Szczecin, Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Toruń, Lublin, Opole, Rzeszów, Olsztyn, Zielona Góra and Kielce. Some cities have several universities like Warsaw (The University of Warsaw and the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University), Lublin (John Paul II Catholic University and the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University).
Leiden University in the Netherlands
Professors of the Leiden university walk through Leiden, South Holland Province, Western Netherlands (inbetween Rotterdam and Amsterdam, near the Hague)
King Casimir III the Great (1310 – 1370) founded the Jagiellonian University in 1364 in the Polish city Kraków in Southern Poland. Kraków in that time was the capital of Poland.
The Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University (Polish: Uniwersytet Jagielloński, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in continuous operation in the world. It is regarded as Poland's most prestigious academic institution. The university has been viewed as a vanguard of Polish culture as well as a significant contributor to the intellectual heritage of Europe.
The Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland
The campus of the Jagiellonian University is centrally located within the city of Kraków. The university consists of thirteen main faculties, in addition to three faculties composing the Collegium Medicum. It employs roughly 4,000 academics and provides education to more than 35,000 students who study in 166 fields. The main language of instruction is Polish, although around 30 degrees are offered in English and some in German. The university library is among the largest of its kind and houses a number of medieval manuscripts, including the landmark De Revolutionibus by alumnus Nicolaus Copernicus.
Copernicus' De Revolutionibus in the library of the Jagiellonian University
Libraries
The university's main library, the Jagiellonian Library (Biblioteka Jagiellońska), is one of Poland's largest, with almost 6.5 million volumes; it is a constituent of the Polish National Libraries system. It is home to a world-renowned collection of medieval manuscripts, which includes Copernicus' De Revolutionibus, the Balthasar Behem Codex and the Berlinka. The library also has an extensive collection of underground political literature (so-called drugi obieg or samizdat) from Poland's period of Communist rule between 1945 and 1989.
The Jagiellonian Library's main site
The Jagiellonian Library extension
The beginning of the Jagiellonian Library is traditionally considered the same as that of the entire university – in 1364; however, instead of having one central library it had several smaller branches at buildings of various departments (the largest collection was in Collegium Maius, where works related to theology and liberal arts were kept). After 1775, during the reforms of Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, which established the first Ministry of Education in the world, various small libraries of the university were formally centralised into one public collection in Collegium Maius. During the partitions of Poland, the library continued to grow thanks to the support of such people as Karol Józef Teofil Estreicher and Karol Estreicher. Its collections were made public in 1812. Since 1932, it has been recognised as a legal deposit library, comparable to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford or Cambridge University Library or Trinity College Library in Dublin, and thus has the right to receive a copy of any book issued by Polish publishers within Poland. In 1940, the library finally obtained a new building of its own, which has subsequently been expanded on two occasions, most recently in 1995–2001. During the Second World War (1939-1945), library workers cooperated with underground universities. Since the 1990s, the library's collection has become increasingly digitised.
In addition to the Jagiellonian Library, the university maintains a large medical library (Biblioteka Medyczna) and many other subject specialised libraries in its various faculties and institutes. Finally, the collections of the university libraries' collections are enriched by the presence of the university's archives, which date back to the university's own foundation and record the entire history of its development up to the present day.
Uniwersytet Jagielloński in Kraków, Poland.
The University of Bologna (Italian: Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, abbreviated Unibo) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (studiorum), it is the oldest university in continuous operation in the world, and the first degree-awarding institution of higher learning. At its foundation, the word universitas was first coined. The university's emblem carries the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum ("Nourishing mother of studies"), the date A.D. 1088. With over 90,000 students, the University of Bologna is one of the largest universities in Europe.
The University of Bologna in Italy. Bologna is one of the largest universities in Europe.
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. It grew rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two English ancient universities share many common features and are jointly referred to as Oxbridge.
The University of Oxford in England, United Kingdom (Great Britain)
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the world's third-oldest university in continuous operation.
Students take part in the Vice-Chancellor's procession, from King's College to Senate House, ahead of a graduation ceremony at the University of Cambridge, England, United Kingdom (Great Britain) (Image: Joe Giddens/PA Wire)
The University of Paris (French: Université de Paris), known metonymically as the Sorbonne (French: [sɔʁbɔn]), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated with the cathedral school of Paris, it was considered the second-oldest university in Europe. Officially chartered in 1200 by King Philip II of France and recognised in 1215 by Pope Innocent III, it was nicknamed after its theological College of Sorbonne, founded by Robert de Sorbon and chartered by King Louis IX around 1257.
The University of Paris
Poland
Poland is an old cultural country and nation in Central Europe and in today's Europe of 2024 in the heart of Europe. Above (North of) Poland you have Norway, Sweden, Finland, Part of Russia (Kaliningrad), Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, in the East of Poland you have Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia (behind Belarus and Ukraine), in the South Poland has Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria (it's old occupier), and in the West Poland has Germany and over the sea Denmark. Indirect the Netherlands and Belgium, Luxemburg and France are also Poland's Western neighbors. I often drive in the evening or at night on Dutch highways and I can tell you that half of the Trucks on the Dutch highways are Polish trucks, and in factories, companies and in supermarkets and restaurants you see a lot of Polish employees.
Poles next to Ukrainians and Lithuanians. That is the new Europe folks. Maybe in the near future Polish Roman Catholics will be the largest Roman Catholic group in the Netherlands, because the Dutch Roman Catholic church loses Dutch Catholics fast due to secularization. Many Dutch former Roman Catholics are atheist, Agnostic, or something else today, a minority of traditional Conservative Roman Catholics and some more progressive liberal modern Dutch Roman Catholics stay, but many churches are empty, many sold, many demolished and lost for ever and others became hotels, migrant churches (Coptic, Assyrian Christian, Chinese evangelical), occasionally a mosque and also apartment complexes or Museums. As I said Europe is changing fast.
Pieter
As a Dutch person who works in the regional/local press I don't like people like Geert Wilders, Donald Trump, Björn Höcke, Viktor Orbán, Thierry Baudet attacking me and my colleagues calling us 'Lügenpresse' (Lying press), 'scum', 'fake press' ‘Enemy of the American People’, 'Leftwing Church' (in Dutch 'Linkse kerk'), 'Political Correct' and etc. This undermines the role of the press and media as Fourth controlling power, reporting, explaining, news bringing force, which plays an important role in democracy. Debates are organized or aired by Media and commented on in the press. The Press is and was critical about the Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations as they should.
In Europe journalists report in all the many European languages, and even in European regional languages (such as Frisian, Low Saxon, Kashubian and Silesian -you have specific Silesian language press in Poland-) and European dialects about local, regional, provincial, Union state level, Federal level, or in a Republic or Monarchy from a National centralistic level from the capital, from other cities and towns, about the European level in Brussels, Luxemburg and Strassbourg (Straßburg), the cities of the EU, and from London, Rome, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Athens, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Basel, Zürich, Geneva, Istanbul/Ankara, Cairo, Riyadh, Rabat (Morocco), Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Vilnius, Bratislava, Sofia, Warsaw, Budapest, Kiyv, Minsk, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah, New York, Washington D.C., LA, Bejing, Tokyo, Seoul and other world cities of the world to report on important regional, national, Federal, Monarchy (in the Dutch sense), Eurregional, European and International levels. Journalism is an important job, and it there are traces of history, art history, political science, sociology, politics, economics, psychology, academical research, like on universities, statistics, teaching (being a teacher), story telling, police research, being a lawjer (studying cases) and in some cases with some calculation, Math, being an accountant going through files and sometimes archives (old files) in your research as a journalist.
In European politics, the term Euroregion usually refers to a transnational co-operation structure between two (or more) contiguous territories located in different European countries. Euroregions represent a specific type of cross-border region.
Map of the Euroregion Rhine-Waal
Euroregion Bug is a Euroregion that encompasses cross-border areas of Belarus, Poland and Ukraine. The main aim of the agreement is to develop co-operation in the fields of: regional development, transport, communication, delivery of energy and water, nature protection, industry, trade, agriculture, education, science research, healthcare, culture, art, tourism, recreation and crime and public menace prevention.
EUREGIO
EUREGIO is a cross-border region between the Netherlands and Germany and the first Euroregion. It was founded in 1958 as a German Eingetragener Verein, and has been converted in 2016 into a public body based on the 1991 Treaty of Anholt (German: Anholter Vertrag, Dutch: Verdrag van Anholt). Participating communities are in Niedersachsen (Osnabrück, Landkreis Osnabrück, southern part of Landkreis Emsland, Bentheim) and Nordrhein-Westfalen (Münsterland) in Germany and parts of the Dutch provinces Gelderland, Overijssel and Drenthe. Participating cities in the region are Münster, Osnabrück, Gronau, Enschede, and Hengelo. The headquarters of the Euregio is located in the city of Gronau, at the Dutch border.
In the sense of Europe we European journalists report on European history in general, but also on for instance 20th century political and economical history and monetary history and fiscal history. How came the present European Union to existence. How does the European Democracy works? What for organizations where there before the EU?
European Coal and Steel Community
The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a European organization created after World War II to integrate Europe's coal and steel industries into a single common market based on the principle of supranationalism which would be governed by the creation of a High Authority which would be made up of appointed representatives from the member states who would not represent their national interest, but would take and make decisions in the general interests of the Community as a whole. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany and was generally seen as the first step in the process of European integration following the end of the Second World War in Europe. The organization's subsequent enlargement of both members and duties ultimately led to the creation of the European Union.
The ECSC was first proposed via the Schuman Declaration by French foreign minister Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950 (commemorated in the EU as Europe Day), the day after the fifth anniversary of the end of World War II, to prevent another war between France and Germany. He declared "the solidarity in production" from pooling "coal and steel production" would make war between the two "not only unthinkable but materially impossible". The Treaty created a common market among member states that stipulated free movement of goods (without customs duties or taxes) and prohibited states from introducing unfair competitive or discriminatory practices.
The Flag of the European Coal and Steel Community (1952–2002)
Founding members of the ECSC: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany (Algeria was an integral part of the French Republic)
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, aiming to foster economic integration among its member states. It was subsequently renamed the European Community (EC) upon becoming integrated into the first pillar of the newly formed European Union in 1993. In the popular language, however, the singular European Community was sometimes inaccurately used in the wider sense of the plural European Communities, in spite of the latter designation covering all the three constituent entities of the first pillar.
In 2009, the EC formally ceased to exist and its institutions were directly absorbed by the EU. This made the Union the formal successor institution of the Community.
Flag of Europe
Back to my story,
Journalists won't be stopped, but they face intimidation, aggression, violence, threats during their work from various sides. From the Far right, from the extreme left, from Islamists (whom tolerate zero criticism of Islam), radical farmers, environmental extremists and authorities in countries without a democracy (Western foreign reporters). I say, let's keep our democracies, and don't lose them! Many people take our 'Freedom & Democracy' for granted, our wealth and freedom as natural as the air they breathe. Well it is not. Under our Democracy lies old tribalism, clan thinking and old regional and local interests of our ancestors which lived in a Feudal Christian Fundamentalist (Roman Catholic) Europe with Serfdom and thus extreme inequality and poverty. And under that Medieval Monotheist Feudal Europe lay the roots of old Germanic, Slavic, Latin (Romanesque), Celtic, Basque, Hungarian (Magyar/Huns), Tartar and Baltic Pagan Heathen tribes, clans and peoples that were in war with each other for milenia and centuries. The bloodthirst, conflict, distrust, introversion, caution, sensing the other, keeping an eye on the situation, suspicion of betrayal or breaking agreements, seeing the other European as fundamentally different is deeply ingrained in us, because many has been passed on in our European genes for hundreds of generations over thousands of years.
Both Trump and Wilders have a long history of hostility to the press. Wilders matured a bit due to the coalition talks in the last months.
A scene during the German Thirties Year War (1618- 1648)
The sack of Antwerp, often known as the Spanish Fury at Antwerp, was an episode of the Eighty Years' War. It is the greatest massacre in the history of the Low Countries. On 4 November 1576, mutinying Spanish tercios of the Army of Flanders began the sack of Antwerp, leading to three days of horror among the population of the city, which was the cultural, economic and financial center of the Low Countries. The savagery of the sack led the provinces of the Low Countries to unite against the Spanish crown. The devastation also caused Antwerp's decline as the leading city in the region and paved the way for Amsterdam's rise.
For instance as a Dutch person, the French people look different, have a different language, different mentality, different car, van, motorbike or bus with a different number plate, eat different food, drink different wine and beers, watch different tv, radio, internet websites, Facebook and Instagram pages, watch different movies in the cinema, discuss completely different news topics and they, the French know nothing to Zero about the Netherlands, because the Dutch language (of course) and press and media are alien to them. And the French media of course dedicate a little amount of time and space to Dutch news. Over the border in Belgium you see already a difference between the Dutch speaking Flanders on the Belgian side and the Dutch speaking Netherlands on the Dutch side. The same language, but completely different landscapes, infrastructure, culture, mentality and etc. The Dutch more sober Calvinist and the Flemish a little bit more Southern, a life style closer to the French, but still, Dutch speaking Flemish Belgians. If you cross the language border, for Dutch people the Walloon part of Belgium already feels like France or the French speaking part of Switzerland, it feels like France. Flemish and Walloon people live in completely linguistic, cultural enthnic different realities in Belgium, in their segregated Dutch and French speaking parts of Belgium. They have little in common, and the existence of Belgium is an Oxymoron.
Belgian girl in Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium
For us North-West-Europeans the Southern-Europeans are temperamental, beautiful, a little bit darker (more brunettes, black hair and dark eyes people), more cultural, traditional, Mediteranian 'Hail Mary' Roman-Catholics, people whom live outside due to the warm Southern climate (while we Noth Europeans have an indoor life during the colder autumns and winters), different Romanesque Latin people with their French, Southern-French Oxitan, Spanish, Basque, Castillian, Catalan, Corsican, Maltese semitic, Portuguese, Italian, Romansh (the Gallo-Romance language spoken predominantly in the Swiss canton of the Grisons (Graubünden)) and Romanian (spoken in Romania, Moldova, the USA, Canada, Israel, South America -mainly in Brazil, Venezuala and Argentina-), exotic (the Romantic often distorted sentimental view of the Southerner in Northern Europe), fascinating, different than us and thus interesting. That's why mixed relationships between different ethnic European groups are not uncommon. Because the 'opposite' attracts.
Barcelona, Spain, Southern-Europe
Back to Europe. The reality of Greece, Portugal, the Celtic Ireland, Bulgaria, Estonia or even Poland is nearly alien to me as a Dutchman, because little to zero news of these countries arrives in the Netherlands thanks to these language (linguestic) cultural, ethnic, historical and geopolitical barriers. Even the for instance Germanic part of Europe is very divided in Sub Germanic zones which have little to do with each other. The West-Germanic England in the UK is separated from the EU by the North Sea and Brexit, since the UK is not part of the EU and Shengen anymore. From the other side I feel a linguistic-cultural-historical barrier between the Benelux on one side and the German (Deutsch) speaking countries on the other side. The Dutch speaking Flemish Belgians and the Dutch speaking Dutch speaking people of the Netherlands (Low Franconian, Low Saxon and Frisian people in the Dutch sense; Friezen [Frisians], Groningers [Low Saxons], Drenten [Low Saxons], Tukkers from Twente [Low Saxons], Achterhoekers [Low Saxons], Veluwenaren -Veluwe Forest people [Low Saxon people]-, Betuwenaren [Low Franconians], Limburgers [Low Franconians], Brabanders [Low Franconians], Zeeuwen [=Zealanders = Low Franconian people], Hollanders [Low Franconians], Utrechtenaren [Low Franconians] and Flevolanders [Most of them Low Franconians]), the French speaking Walloons and the Luxemburg people with their own typical Luxemburgian language (Luxembourgish: Lëtzebuergesch), a Moselle Franconian language. The Dutch are less focussed on Germany than they are focussed on Belgium, because Belgium due to the Flemish Dutch language and culture is closer to the Netherlands. That said, I mean the Western-Holland Dutch and the Southern North-Brabant and Zeeland Dutch, but the Eastern Low Saxon border lands are of course close to Germany. What I mean to say is that the Dutch feel themselves to be very different than Germans in language, culture, heritage, history, mentality and as human beings. A Dutch person could be nearly insulted if an American sees him as a German, not because he hates or loathes Germans, NO, but because he is Dutch. It is like saying to a Polish person you meet; 'Hey, are you from Russia, you look and sound typcal Russian'. If you meet the wrong kind of Pole, you will walk away with a black eye, a couple of bruzes and only a broken leg or arm. Thank god you are not dead. People are what they are and you can't make them different, by changing borders, unifying them, or Europeanising them. We Europeans simply have no common history, no common language and not one European culture, like the Americans.
This naïve Western European chap said to a Pole that he looked like a Russian, acted like a Russian and sounded like a Russian.
The linguistic, cultural, social, political and human borders in Europe are deep and have a long history of conflict, wars, civil wars, border conflicts, shifting borders and etc. The Germanic/Non Slavic vs Slavic border goes from Northern Germany to Austria, Hungary, Romania/Moldova, Turkey and etc. The Germanic-Latin linguistic, cultural and mentality border goes through many countries, peoples and civilizations; Belgium, Luxemburg, the Dutch-Belgian Walloon invisible language border, the French German border (with a large part of Northern France being very Germanic, with very Blond, Blue eyed and a German dialect speaking French people with German surnames, while Southern France and Central France are more French French and Oxitan/Catalan/Basque Southern French), through Switzeland (with it's French, German, Italian and Romansh Cantons (administrative divisions), and then along the Austrian-Italian border (with a German speaking Tirol part of Italy). I don't know much about the German minorities on the Balkan, Hungary, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. I know that they exist and I hope that they are well treated as minorities in these countries. So folks to conclude Europe is a complicated and far from United Europe, but what many Europeans agree upon is that European cooperation in staid of War brought a lot of progress, wealth and possibilities to Europe. The EU, the European Union was a success because it stopped the animosity between Germany and France that fought many wars with each other. In the same time it brought and end to the animosity between Germany and the UK that fought 2 bloody wars in the 20th century, the First World War (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945) which on both sides costed millions of lives. Italy alone lost in both wars 1,050,000 soldiers. France lost 1.607.800 men in both wars (only soldiers, no civilians in this figure).
Poland alone lost 240,000 men and women in battle during the Second World War. 140,000 Regular Polish Armed forces and 100,000 Polish resistance fighters. Not taken in account here are the millions of civilian lives taken in the First and Second World Wars and the massive destruction that caused throughout Europe, changing many landscapes for ever due to mass destruction of cities, towns, villages, hamlets, Urban Agglomerations, Industrial area's and also farm lands. Hundreds of Millions and maybe a billion or more of shells, grenades, bombs, rockets and bullets were fired in these 2 World Wars. If you add up the total number of deaths from both wars, you see that approximately 100 million people died as a result of these two wars, that is more than the total population of the largest EU country Germany today, which has a population of 80 million. And that's why Europe in the past 75 years was such a Success in Peace, Trade, Diplomacy, Culture, Science, Financial world, Economics, Education (Human Capital), Music, keeping History and Heritage alive and etc. In contrast with the present USA, the history of Europe with it's many countries, nations, treaties, clubs, Alliances, Foundations, animosities, rivalries, competitions, present conflicts goes back 48,000 years ago when the first early European modern humans appear during the Paleolithic era. Today we stil have some elements from the stone age, iron age and bronze age, and our foundations stil lay in the Old Greek and Roman Empires, the Medieval development of Europe, the Renaissance, Enlightenment era (Verlichting in Dutch, Aufklärung in German, Oświecenie (epoka) in Polish and Oplysningstiden in Danish)(18th century), the Industrial Revolution (during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840) and the century of Nation Building, and the century in which new ideologies came to existence Liberalism, Marxism and Socialism (Social Democacy, which developped from Marxism as a Reform movement within Marxism) the 19th century. Poland and England had their oldest forms of democracies for the elites and we have European universities like the Jagiellonian University (Polish: Uniwersytet Jagielloński, UJ), in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in continuous operation in the world. To compare, the Leiden University (Dutch: Universiteit Leiden), public research university in Leiden, the Netherlands. Leiden University was founded as a (Calvinist) Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange (Willem van Oranje in Dutch), making it the oldest institution of higher education in the Netherlands. The Uniwersytet Jagielloński in Kraków is 211 years older than the first Dutch university. This says something about the Polish civilization and sophistication. The same of course can be said about the Leiden University, the Amsterdam University, the Groningen University, the Rotterdam University, the Utrecht University, the Tilburg University, the Maastricht University, the Nijmegen University, and the technical universities of Delft, Eindhoven and Enschede and the agricultural university of Wageningen (which belongs to the top of the world) in the Netherlands today. I consider my country the Netherlands a technological advanced, civilized, cultural and very European nation with a modern economy, one of the most advanced agricultures in the world, a countries with a lot of cities and towns and Urban agglomerations and a very advanced infrastructure of roads, highways, bridges, railroads, viaducts, intersections, modern bicycle roads, metro systems in cities and a very developed Internet economy and a country with a lot of Internet media (blogs, bodcast, online radio and video media stations, press, educational facilities and etc.). That said Europe has many advanced and highly developed countries, from Lithuania to Italy, and from Greece to Denmark, and from Poland to the Netherlands. Like the Netherlands Poland has a lot of University city, a lot of educated and cultural people and a Polish intelligentsia of Professors, university students, Polish intellectuals, philosophers, sociologists, scientists, academics, research journalists (Gazeta Wyborcza & Rzeczpospolita) and etc. The image in some Western European countries that Poland is a ppor Eastern-European country is wrong. First of all because Poland is a Central-European country in the heart of Europe. Eastern European countries are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Romania. The Central European countries are Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. Poland has about 20 universities in Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań (Adam Mickiewicz University), Gdańsk, Wrocław, Łódź, Katowice, Szczecin, Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Toruń, Lublin, Opole, Rzeszów, Olsztyn, Zielona Góra and Kielce. Some cities have several universities like Warsaw (The University of Warsaw and the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University), Lublin (John Paul II Catholic University and the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University).
Leiden University in the Netherlands
Professors of the Leiden university walk through Leiden, South Holland Province, Western Netherlands (inbetween Rotterdam and Amsterdam, near the Hague)
King Casimir III the Great (1310 – 1370) founded the Jagiellonian University in 1364 in the Polish city Kraków in Southern Poland. Kraków in that time was the capital of Poland.
The Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University (Polish: Uniwersytet Jagielloński, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in continuous operation in the world. It is regarded as Poland's most prestigious academic institution. The university has been viewed as a vanguard of Polish culture as well as a significant contributor to the intellectual heritage of Europe.
The Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland
The campus of the Jagiellonian University is centrally located within the city of Kraków. The university consists of thirteen main faculties, in addition to three faculties composing the Collegium Medicum. It employs roughly 4,000 academics and provides education to more than 35,000 students who study in 166 fields. The main language of instruction is Polish, although around 30 degrees are offered in English and some in German. The university library is among the largest of its kind and houses a number of medieval manuscripts, including the landmark De Revolutionibus by alumnus Nicolaus Copernicus.
Copernicus' De Revolutionibus in the library of the Jagiellonian University
Libraries
The university's main library, the Jagiellonian Library (Biblioteka Jagiellońska), is one of Poland's largest, with almost 6.5 million volumes; it is a constituent of the Polish National Libraries system. It is home to a world-renowned collection of medieval manuscripts, which includes Copernicus' De Revolutionibus, the Balthasar Behem Codex and the Berlinka. The library also has an extensive collection of underground political literature (so-called drugi obieg or samizdat) from Poland's period of Communist rule between 1945 and 1989.
The Jagiellonian Library's main site
The Jagiellonian Library extension
The beginning of the Jagiellonian Library is traditionally considered the same as that of the entire university – in 1364; however, instead of having one central library it had several smaller branches at buildings of various departments (the largest collection was in Collegium Maius, where works related to theology and liberal arts were kept). After 1775, during the reforms of Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, which established the first Ministry of Education in the world, various small libraries of the university were formally centralised into one public collection in Collegium Maius. During the partitions of Poland, the library continued to grow thanks to the support of such people as Karol Józef Teofil Estreicher and Karol Estreicher. Its collections were made public in 1812. Since 1932, it has been recognised as a legal deposit library, comparable to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford or Cambridge University Library or Trinity College Library in Dublin, and thus has the right to receive a copy of any book issued by Polish publishers within Poland. In 1940, the library finally obtained a new building of its own, which has subsequently been expanded on two occasions, most recently in 1995–2001. During the Second World War (1939-1945), library workers cooperated with underground universities. Since the 1990s, the library's collection has become increasingly digitised.
In addition to the Jagiellonian Library, the university maintains a large medical library (Biblioteka Medyczna) and many other subject specialised libraries in its various faculties and institutes. Finally, the collections of the university libraries' collections are enriched by the presence of the university's archives, which date back to the university's own foundation and record the entire history of its development up to the present day.
Uniwersytet Jagielloński in Kraków, Poland.
The University of Bologna (Italian: Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, abbreviated Unibo) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (studiorum), it is the oldest university in continuous operation in the world, and the first degree-awarding institution of higher learning. At its foundation, the word universitas was first coined. The university's emblem carries the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum ("Nourishing mother of studies"), the date A.D. 1088. With over 90,000 students, the University of Bologna is one of the largest universities in Europe.
The University of Bologna in Italy. Bologna is one of the largest universities in Europe.
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. It grew rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two English ancient universities share many common features and are jointly referred to as Oxbridge.
The University of Oxford in England, United Kingdom (Great Britain)
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the world's third-oldest university in continuous operation.
Students take part in the Vice-Chancellor's procession, from King's College to Senate House, ahead of a graduation ceremony at the University of Cambridge, England, United Kingdom (Great Britain) (Image: Joe Giddens/PA Wire)
The University of Paris (French: Université de Paris), known metonymically as the Sorbonne (French: [sɔʁbɔn]), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated with the cathedral school of Paris, it was considered the second-oldest university in Europe. Officially chartered in 1200 by King Philip II of France and recognised in 1215 by Pope Innocent III, it was nicknamed after its theological College of Sorbonne, founded by Robert de Sorbon and chartered by King Louis IX around 1257.
The University of Paris
Poland
Poland is an old cultural country and nation in Central Europe and in today's Europe of 2024 in the heart of Europe. Above (North of) Poland you have Norway, Sweden, Finland, Part of Russia (Kaliningrad), Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, in the East of Poland you have Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia (behind Belarus and Ukraine), in the South Poland has Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria (it's old occupier), and in the West Poland has Germany and over the sea Denmark. Indirect the Netherlands and Belgium, Luxemburg and France are also Poland's Western neighbors. I often drive in the evening or at night on Dutch highways and I can tell you that half of the Trucks on the Dutch highways are Polish trucks, and in factories, companies and in supermarkets and restaurants you see a lot of Polish employees.
Poles next to Ukrainians and Lithuanians. That is the new Europe folks. Maybe in the near future Polish Roman Catholics will be the largest Roman Catholic group in the Netherlands, because the Dutch Roman Catholic church loses Dutch Catholics fast due to secularization. Many Dutch former Roman Catholics are atheist, Agnostic, or something else today, a minority of traditional Conservative Roman Catholics and some more progressive liberal modern Dutch Roman Catholics stay, but many churches are empty, many sold, many demolished and lost for ever and others became hotels, migrant churches (Coptic, Assyrian Christian, Chinese evangelical), occasionally a mosque and also apartment complexes or Museums. As I said Europe is changing fast.
Pieter
