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\nThe European Communities (EC) were transformed into the European Union by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, and with that came the final ascension of the EU beyond an economic project and its emergence into the realm of international politics. The treaty laid out the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) as one of the three pillars of the EU, and its first major test was to be the violent collapse of Yugoslavia, directly on the EU’s borders. There were hopes to use the framework of the CFSP to maintain a peaceful order in the Balkans and prevent the intensification of the conflict, with the EU to step up in a major mediating role. This did not happen, and the CFSP quickly proved inadequate and incapable of meeting the challenges it was tasked with. While the CFSP was not Europe’s first foreign policy dimension, with European Political Cooperation (EPC) dating back to 1970, EPC was seen as a rudimentary tool striving for some level of coordination between member states’ foreign policies, and it remained informal and outside the functions of the EC until it was finally institutionalised in 1987. EPC was little more than a discussion forum for EC foreign ministers; following the negotiations on Maastricht amidst the end of the Cold War, it was superseded by CFSP. The new Common Foreign and Security Policy was intended to be a more comprehensive, powerful, and dynamic instrument, befit for a world where the EU would step up as the major geopolitical power on the European continent following the end of Cold War jostling.
\nHowever, despite the aspirations of the EU to become a normative power with a strong institutionalised foreign policy, the reality of CFSP was not enormously different to that of EPC, and it faced its own challenges stemming from structural weaknesses. The term ‘Common’, often used in EU institutions to denote elements of supranationalism, such as the Common Agricultural Policy or Common Fisheries Policy, hid the fierce intergovernmentalism of the ‘Common’ Foreign and Security Policy. Member states did not surrender their sovereignty or their own foreign policies in order to create this EU-wide foreign policy, leading to institutional confusion and the continuation of simply a coordinated, rather than common, foreign policy.
\nAnother weakness of the CFSP was the level of paralysis it faced resulting from its organisational complexity, the number of actors involved in the decision-making process, and the cumbersome unanimity requirement among member states. As one scholar put it, ‘The creation of a separate inter-governmental \"pillar\" for CFSP also led to numerous squabbles over issues of competence. Another problem is the sheer number of actors involved in CFSP: the Member States, the Council, the High Representative, the Special Representatives, the Commission, and the Parliament, each with their own bureaucracies, interests, and ambitions’.1 All of this contributed to a policy output that was slow and minimal – in the case of Yugoslavia, fatally so.
\n\nWhen CFSP did emerge, it was immediately put to the test by the crisis in the Balkans, which quickly exposed its aforementioned weaknesses. While it would be unfair to judge any entity on its ability to maintain peace and stability in the Balkans, the EU’s CFSP can still be viewed as a clear failure in Yugoslavia. Instead of a cohesive, EU-led approach, the member states quickly returned to national policymaking, with significant divergence between them. Greek policy caused particular friction, with a unique geopolitical positioning and special interests in the region, and historically strong ties to Serbia. Greece’s lengthy embargo of Macedonia was a clear example of the primacy of national foreign policy over EU foreign policy, and of the diversity of member states’ interests. On the other hand, Germany’s strong support for Croatia and early recognition of Slovenian and Croatian independence precluded a common EU position on the breakaway republics. Another member state on the border with Yugoslavia, Italy, ‘often developed [foreign policy] in the absence of consultation with other EU member states, causing occasional frictions with Italy's partners’.2 British and French policy, while coordinated, was undertaken far outside the structure of the CFSP. Later in the unfolding war, the two European powers arguably determined EU policy unilaterally by exercising their diplomatic strength, as Germany had done initially with the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia. The resulting ‘European response to the new situation [in Bosnia in May 1995] was a further development along the Anglo-French cooperation line. The Franco-British Rapid Reaction Force (RRF), announced in early June, consisted of two brigades in national uniform but operating under UN command’.3
\nThis pattern of coordination between EU states occurring outside the framework of the EU itself was repeated at multiple major points in the Yugoslav Wars. Diplomacy and mediation in the latter stages of the Bosnian War were dominated by the Contact Group, a grouping of five states – Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia (later joined by Italy as the sixth). Three (later four) of these were heavyweight EU states, and yet they found it better to cooperate within this loose forum at a national level, rather than have joint European Union representation. Even at the Dayton peace conference, with three co-chairmen (one American, one Russian, and Carl Bildt representing the EU) the prominent member states still insisted on individual representation: ‘Germany, Britain, and France also sent envoys, and each indicated that Bildt did not speak for them’.4
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\nBy the time of the aforementioned conference that ended the Bosnian War, held notably not in Europe at all, but in Dayton, Ohio, the EU had been firmly sidelined, with the United States stepping up as the primary actor involved in Yugoslavia. The EU and its member states, whether acting alone at a national level, together through informal cooperation, or through the official channels of CFSP, had failed to move quickly and cohesively enough. They had been unable to prevent the outbreak of conflict or to coordinate a unified effort on ending it, and therefore the United States had to intervene once more as the major political player on the European continent. Put plainly,
\n\n\nIn early February 1996, after the United States had engineered a peace agreement for former Yugoslavia that the Europeans had failed to bring about after four years of intervention, a senior U.S. official concluded out loud what many other observers had already begun to think: \"Unless the United States is prepared to put its political and military muscle behind the quest for solutions to European instability, nothing really gets done.\" … Five years after the European Union (EU) had signed a treaty announcing the creation of a common foreign and security policy (CFSP), the perception had begun to emerge-not only among Americans but among many Europeans as well-that the EU's efforts had failed, and that the United States was more than ever the diplomatic and military leader of the Western world.5
\n
In light of the initial failures of CFSP, the EU has had a long time to reconsider what went wrong and why its foreign policy pillar proved inadequate in many ways so soon after its launch. This influenced the EU to rework CFSP, and to strengthen the associated European Security and Defence Policy into a Common Security and Defence Policy. However, while there have been signs of progress, and some issues have been addressed, the fundamental challenges for CFSP remain the same, and the EU's continuing capacity to respond to the ongoing conflicts in the regions covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy is a ruthless test of its current strength.
\nOne factor that has been addressed is the cumbersome interinstitutional bureaucratic process that plagued the responsiveness of CFSP at its launch. For example,
\n\n\nthe [2007] Lisbon Treaty provided for the creation of the post of High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, meant to “conduct the Union’s common foreign and security policy” and “contribute by his proposals to the development of that policy, which he shall carry out as mandated by the Council” … Basically, the new High Representative’s mandate encompasses the old ones of the Commissioner for External Relations and of the former High Representative for CFSP, together with the post of Vice-president of the Commission and the permanent presidency of the Foreign Affairs Council. The double-hatted nature of this new post was meant to enable the High Representative to ensure the coherence of the EU’s external action and the coordination of all its elements – from trade policy to diplomacy, security policy, human rights promotion and neighbourhood policy.6
\n
This is a very positive sign, but the problem of diverging state interests has not been fully addressed and seems unlikely to be addressed in the near future, at least to the extent that it prevents a genuinely ‘common’ foreign policy from emerging. National foreign policies still play a significant role and diverge in critical areas; with the question of Kosovo’s* statehood still not answered conclusively, EU member states cannot even agree on how many Western Balkan states there are. While there has been more unity in terms of the candidacy status and accession negotiations of Western Balkan states (which is organised bilaterally between the candidates and the European Union directly, rather than involving member states at every step), as long as intergovernmental unanimity is a central factor in CFSP, the policy output of CFSP will continue to be minimal and sluggish. Greece and Bulgaria, for example, can continue to hold up accession negotiations with North Macedonia. This institutional issue is not even limited to the candidate states, but extends even to member states as well, as can be seen in actions such as Austria's previous controversial blocking of Romanian and Bulgarian accession into Schengen, or the infamous intransigence of Hungary under Orban.
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\nOverall, the EU’s CFSP – emerging into an environment marked by the crisis of Yugoslavia's collapse – quickly fell short of its ambitious goals, shattering the initial optimism surrounding the policy, much to the disappointment of the EU's leaders and institutions. The experience of this disillusionment, and the CFSP’s inability to go far beyond the scope of the previous system of European Political Cooperation, forced member states to rapidly pursue other forms of foreign policy coordination in the short term, and to thoroughly re-evaluate the legislative and normative foundations of CFSP in the long term. The failure of CFSP in Yugoslavia profoundly influenced the EU and set the tone for institutional challenges to come, but despite a widespread recognition of the areas where reform is needed, this reform has come only partially. Some lessons have been learnt, and these failures have indeed influenced the EU’s post-conflict approach in the region, but the overarching structure of EU foreign policy and its implementation – in the Western Balkans and beyond – has not surpassed the initial limitations that were exposed in the CFSP. Although some improvements have been made to structure and procedure within the EU institutions, streamlining CFSP, the fundamental challenge of divergent interests among the member states, and the resultant confused and contradictory direction of the EU as a whole, remains unaddressed. The question of how to coordinate a ‘common’ policy on an intergovernmental basis remains as unanswerable now as it was thirty years ago.
\nCameron, Fraser. “The Future of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.” The Brown Journal of World Affairs 9, no. 2 (2003): 115–24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24590470.
\nGordon, Philip H. “Europe’s Uncommon Foreign Policy.” International Security 22, no. 3 (1997): 74–100. https://doi.org/10.2307/2539358.
\nLavdas, Kostas A. “The European Union and The Yugoslav Conflict: Crisis Management and Re-institutionalization in Southeastern Europe.” Journal of Political & Military Sociology 24, no. 2 (1996): 209–232. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45294320.
\nMurphy, Ray. “The European Union and Developments in Crisis Management Operations and Peacekeeping.” Connections 8, no. 1 (2008): 58–91. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26326159.
\nOproiu, Monica. “The European Union as a Conflict Manager: Perspectives after the Lisbon Treaty.” Studia Diplomatica 65, no. 4 (2012): 39–54. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26531553.
\n\n
\n
*All references to Kosovo, whether the territory, institutions or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.
", "image": "https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/20/20260706_102906.png", "author": { "name": "Finn Chapman" }, "tags": [ "Writing" ], "date_published": "2026-09-09T00:06:13+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-10T01:41:17+02:00" }, { "id": "https://finnchapman.eu/india-pakistan-partition/", "url": "https://finnchapman.eu/india-pakistan-partition/", "title": "India, Pakistan, and the Reverberations of Partition", "summary": "The partition of British India in 1947 primed the two newly independent…", "content_html": "The partition of British India in 1947 primed the two newly independent states of India and Pakistan for a trajectory of war in a variety of different ways. While the partition was intended as a reluctant solution to a conflict already taking place within the imperial territory, it instead transformed that conflict into a hallmark of the interactions between the two states. Partition may not have been the sole cause of the Indo-Pakistani conflict, but it did have a profound impact on the internal structure of the post-colonial states, the way each state viewed themselves and their counterpart, the continuing border dispute over Kashmir, and the broadly hostile Hobbesian way in which relations are generally conducted, setting the stage for an often violent rivalry with seemingly no way out. These impacts will be examined in detail here, following a history of the partition to provide the necessary context.
\nThroughout the 1930s and 1940s the inevitability of the British exit from India became clear, and Britain began to make hasty preparations. The independence movement was dominated largely by the Congress Party under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, who envisioned a single secular and united Indian state. In the years leading up to independence, that vision was contested by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, who sought the establishment of a separate state for India’s large Muslim minority.1 Although this was initially a marginal call, and the prospect of dividing India was widely unfavourable, Jinnah’s Muslim League grew in influence, particularly amidst growing bitter religious violence that left Muslims (as well as Hindus, Sikhs, and others) feeling victimised and persecuted, increasing the attractiveness of statehood.2 This clashed with Britain’s hopes for a united yet decentralised federal structure for India, as well as the Congress’s rejection of statehood along religious lines. The debate over India’s future grew into a crisis with intercommunal violence frequently breaking out and the future uncertain, which only accelerated British attempts to find a solution as quickly as possible before further deteriorations could occur. Massacres and riots killed between 5,000 and 20,000 in Calcutta over a few days in August 1946 following a breakdown in negotiations surrounding a plan for a united federal India,3 and partition began to be seen as the only viable option remaining and the last hope for preventing the total violent collapse of India. Lord Mountbatten was sent to India by the British government in March 1947 to oversee the final transfer of power by 1948, with partition as the solution he reluctantly decided upon. Nehru and the Congress conceded to this when it became clear that securing any agreement on a united India would come at the cost of such extensive decentralisation that they would be sacrificing any semblance of the strong central Indian state that they were fighting for.4 Jinnah agreed to this plan, and in June 1947 it was decided that India was to be partitioned.
\nBritish India at the time was divided between provinces ruled directly by Britain and princely states ruled by autonomous local leaders.5 Most provinces joined either India or the new Pakistan in their entirety, but Punjab and Bengal were further divided between the two, with the precise borders decided by Cyril Radcliffe.6 The princely states were nominally free to determine their own path, though in practice were given the options of acceding either to India or Pakistan. By the time of independence, all but three princely states had acceded to one or the other. Two of those were quickly annexed by India after independence, leaving only Jammu and Kashmir unsettled.7 On 15th August 1947, India and Pakistan gained their independence, only two months after the division of India into two states had been conceptually agreed upon. The new borders dividing both Punjab and Bengal were drawn so quickly and so late that they were not yet known to either government until two days after independence, establishing chaos and insecurity as the norm from the second the states were born.8 Punjab and Bengal were largely divided as to minimise the number of Muslims on the Indian side and non-Muslims on the Pakistani side, though given the religiously mixed nature of the regions, this was impossible to achieve completely. Countless communities were left stranded on the “wrong” side of the border and an enormous wave of disorganised migration was triggered. Around 12 million people fled haphazardly across the new borders, and the chaos that ensued killed between two hundred thousand and two million people.9 ‘Murder, pillage, arson, rape - all of these words can fit accurately what happened … Trains arrived with their whole passenger complement silent - unable to speak because all were decapitated or stabbed to death.’10
\nJammu and Kashmir represented another challenge, as its sovereign question remained unanswered. The princely state had a Muslim majority but was ruled by a Hindu, Hari Singh, who refused to join both India and Pakistan. Having acceded to neither by 15th August, this left it independent in most respects, but riots broke out and a local Muslim rebellion in favour of joining Pakistan was soon underway, with the support of Pakistani militias who swiftly crossed into Kashmir.11 Singh turned to India for help, signing an accession document in exchange for Indian support in October 1947, with Pakistani and Indian troops clashing in Kashmir for the first time thereafter.12 Thus, the very act of partition thrust the two new states into their first war from the moment of independence. The ceasefire line agreed in January 1949 remains largely unchanged as the de facto Indo-Pakistani border to this day.13
\nThe border dispute over Kashmir is the most obvious impact of the partition on the culture of war between the two, having led to wars in 1947, 1965, and 1999, as well as continuous smaller clashes nearly constantly.14 Hostilities remain pervasive because each side has so much at stake, with Kashmir being central to the national image of both states.15 For Pakistan it is a natural and rightful part of their Muslim nation-state, which already emerged after partition so much smaller and weaker than they had hoped for.16 With the mandate to guard and provide statehood to India’s Muslims, Pakistan cannot then lose Kashmir after setting out to defend its Muslim population – segments of which were already agitating to join Pakistan – from perceived Indian aggression.17 For India, incorporating a Muslim-majority region into their state is a symbol of their claim to being a secular, multi-religious state and a rejection of the religious nationalism which partition represents.18 Letting go of Kashmir could threaten the sovereign integrity of India by legitimising and emboldening other separatist movements, such as the Khalistan movement.19 The importance to India of Kashmir can be seen in Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which laid out autonomy for Kashmir but in doing so implicitly enshrined it as being Indian territory.20
\nKashmir’s Himalayan geography also makes it isolated both culturally and infrastructurally, meaning it is difficult to effectively integrate into the structures of any larger state, whether India or Pakistan, making a conclusive peace more difficult.21 For the same reason, its borders are very challenging to demarcate or control, allowing drugs and terrorism to flow smoothly across, creating security concerns and intensifying the sources and stakes of conflict.22 Exacerbating this is Kashmir’s highly strategic location, bordering both Afghanistan and Xinjiang in China; hotspots of drug trafficking and radical Islamist groups. Thus, Kashmir’s enigmatic borders not only increase the likelihood of flare-ups between Pakistan and India but are also perceived by India as a serious security threat due to the risk of terrorist activity.23 This is especially the case since the insurgency in Indian administered Kashmir began in 1989, with a range of participating groups, some of which are recipients of Pakistani support to various extents.24 This increases Indian hostility towards Pakistan, while India’s heavy-handed response in Kashmir only antagonises Pakistan further, creating a vicious cycle of insecurity and conflict.
\nThis cycle extends far beyond just Kashmir; partition established fundamentally irreconcilable visions of the basis of Indian and Pakistani statehood, with each threatening the national project of the other. India was to be united, representing Indians of all religions, thus inherently opposed to and threatened by separatist religious nationalism.25 The very idea of an independent Pakistan contradicts the founding image of a singular, free, pluralistic Indian state. Pakistan thus lacks ideological legitimacy, existing as a testament to colonial interference which carved up and weakened India’s rightful foundations. Conversely, Pakistani statehood is predicated on the idea that it is the homeland of all of India’s Muslims, making it irredentist from the very beginning towards the Muslims remaining within India’s post-independence borders, not satisfied with the territory they were given compared to the maximalist territorial vision they would have hoped for.26 Their perception is that they had to fight every step of the way for statehood, with the Congress Party doing everything possible to prevent Pakistani independence, and ultimately succeeding in reducing Pakistan’s final territorial extent to an undesirable degree, leaving a large number of Muslims still within India’s borders.27 Thus even where the two states had no official border dispute, they were left with a lingering sense that the other’s territorial claims and fundamental sovereignty were invalid. Exacerbating this was the rushed and dictated nature of the partition; although both parties agreed to partition in principle, they were not made aware of the final borders until after independence was already upon them.28 This inevitably provided a sense of colonial artificiality to the borders, as well as encouraging the dangerous impression that they could still be changed. What ultimately ‘persuaded the leaders to accept them was not so much the fact that any of them was satisfied, as the growing realisation that their opponents were as bitterly unhappy as themselves’.29
\nAs was already mentioned, the desperately rushed finalisation of the borders in the days after independence triggered an enormous wave of disorganised migration characterised by unprecedented human suffering. This migration imprinted itself on each state at the moment of their independence and established the tone of relations as being brutally violent and marked by complications and hostilities.30 Nonetheless, this relationship was central to the identity of both states; each defining themselves in opposition to the other. As the populations of India and Pakistan transferred and homogenised, the populations of Delhi and Karachi (Pakistan’s first capital) exploded, bringing a swell of refugees close to the centres of political power.31 These migrants brought with them the horrors of their journeys, each bearing stories of Muslim/Hindu brutalities, leaving a deep mark on the newly unfolding national identities and permanently shaping the demographics and political culture of their new states.
\nThe impact of the partition on domestic political culture was thus significant for both India and Pakistan, helping to entrench and perpetuate the conflict. Pakistan’s perception was that India had never fully accepted the partition or Pakistani statehood, meaning that they were always under threat.32 Events in Kashmir and the atrocities associated with the migration only solidified this viewpoint. Being the smaller and weaker of the two states, Pakistan’s domestic priority therefore immediately became military defence. Military expenditure took up an enormous 70% of the national budget in the immediate years following independence, meaning that the cultivation of a democratic structure or civil society was inevitably sacrificed in favour of consolidation and development of the military.33 This gave the military a crucial political role, being seen as the valiant guardian of the nation’s fragile sovereignty (even more so than for most other states), especially given the war in Kashmir. This importance allowed them an increasing degree of political influence, encouraging active participation and interference which culminated in Pakistan’s first military coup in 1958.34 The decision in Pakistan’s early years to prioritise the military above all other considerations set them down a path of military preponderance that continues today. This in turn leads to a predisposition towards more military-oriented solutions to the conflict with India – including a willingness to support insurgent and terrorist activity within India – which increases the likelihood of war, amplifies India’s own security concerns, and deepens their suspicion towards Pakistan.35
\nIndia, for their part, have also had their domestic political culture marked inexorably by the partition. The failure of the Congress Party’s attempt to bring about India’s independence as a united state prompted various ideological debates and developments within post-colonial India. One of these was the trend towards centralisation: having undergone one partition – which began simply with calls for greater representation and autonomy – India became deeply suspicious of any other calls for regional, linguistic, ethnic, or religious autonomy, fearing that they could lead to a second partition of the subcontinent.36 This would run counter not only to India's credibility as a civic nation-state, rejecting the logic of religious nationalism and espousing itself as the pluralistic heir to all of British India's land and people, but also to the understandable desire to avoid a second humanitarian disaster that might follow another partition. The first partition still evokes imagery of near-apocalyptic suffering; it is traumatic even today, and India has made it a priority to avoid another such tragedy. Thus India employs heavy-handed and often counterproductive repression against movements that could threaten its sovereignty, such as the Sikh insurgency to establish an independent Khalistan.37 That insurgency intensified in 1984 after the Indian military raided the Golden Temple – the holiest place in Sikhism – attempting to root out Sikh militants who were occupying it, in an operation that likely killed between 1,000 and 10,000 civilians and caused irreparable damage to various religious artifacts within the temple.38 This forceful approach is applied to Kashmir as well, with India keen to maintain their sovereignty over that territory in an effort to avoid both a cascade of other separatist movements threatening their territorial integrity and difficult questions about the basis of India’s national identity. This repressive approach ironically only provides more space within Kashmir for intense reactive separatism to take hold, as well as inflaming Pakistani relations, with Pakistan then supporting and amplifying various Kashmiri separatist groups.39
\nAnother linked, yet separate, political development that the reverberations of partition have brought to prominence is the rise of the Hindu nationalist ideology termed Hindutva. The independence of a nation-state for Indian Muslims, the trauma of the religious violence of the partition, a history of struggles between the Indian central state and various movements for autonomy or separatism, and continuing tensions with Pakistan have all contributed to fuelling an ongoing debate about the place of the existing Muslim minority within Indian society.40 There is much disagreement over whether India should exist as a secular state or instead embody Hindutva, becoming a Hindu nation-state. If Indian Muslims can have their state, why not Indian Hindus? Partition has provided the political space for such an ideology to take hold, which represents new challenges for India’s many minority groups as their place in society and the legitimacy of their Indian identity is questioned, leaving India’s Muslims under particular threat. Actions like the destruction of the Babri Masjid, a historically significant 16th century mosque demolished in 1992 by a Hindu nationalist mob,41 or the 2002 riots in Gujarat which targeted mostly Muslims, hundreds of whom were killed while more were raped and mutilated42 not only vastly increase the incentives for Kashmiri Muslims to keep fighting against incorporation into an increasingly Hindutva-dominated India, but also make establishing constructive relations with Pakistan much more difficult. Since Modi’s BJP government came to power in 2014, Hindutva has been government ideology, representing a clear break from India’s secular tradition.
\nHowever, this is by no means a clear break from the legacy of partition. Conversely it was partition that allowed for Hindutva’s rise, with the trauma associated with it, the immortalisation of Hindu-Muslim violence, the defining of relations with Pakistan, and the regional validation and legitimisation of religious nationalism all providing the conditions for Hindutva to establish itself.43 Indeed, in 2021 Modi himself designated 14th August to be the annual Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, with the BJP’s National General Secretary responding by acknowledging the sacrifices Indians made, bemoaning their loss of territory, and accusing the Congress Party of whitewashing partition’s legacy.44 The trauma of partition thus plays a central role in Hindutva, which nonetheless entrenches the cycle of Indo-Pakistani enmity, simply evolving it from being between Muslim nationalism and secular Indian nationalism to between Muslim nationalism and Hindu nationalism. This has ramifications for Kashmir as well, with Modi’s government nullifying Article 370, thereby removing the autonomy that Kashmir was constitutionally granted, opening it up significantly to centralised rule.45 Kashmir remains a key part of national identity under Hindutva, but with secular acceptance of Kashmir’s mostly Muslim religious identity replaced by Hindu nationalist opposition to Kashmiri autonomy and fierce defence of the Hindu minority in Kashmir, with the unforgiving stance against insurgency and Pakistani interference remaining unchanged.46 Thus, Kashmir holds paramount significance in India’s foundational myth of partition, independence and the mortal struggle against Pakistan, regardless of whether the prevailing ideology is secular or Hindutva.
\nPartition has therefore had broad and deep impacts on the relationship between India and Pakistan, entrenching a pattern of conflict between them, leaving relations almost permanently hostile and keeping both states in a warlike mindset primed for conflict, even when there officially is none. Specifically, partition established this pattern through its role in the intractability of the dispute over Kashmir, the irreconcilable foundations of Indian and Pakistani statehood, the role that the human consequences of partition have played in the founding myth of each state, the strong legacy of militarism in Pakistan and its encouragement of terrorist activity, and the dual legacies of centralisation and Hindutva in India. With Hindu-Muslim tensions existing long before 1947, partition may not have been the sole cause of the conflict, but it undeniably shaped its contours, keeping both states locked structurally into conflict against each other until even today, with very little prospect of either India or Pakistan being able to change course in the foreseeable future.
\nChapman, Graham. The Geopolitics of South Asia: From Early Empires to the Nuclear Age. Routledge, 2000 (2018).
\nGanguly, Sumit. “Wars without End: The Indo-Pakistani Conflict.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 541 (1995): 167–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1048283.
\nGilmartin, David. “The Historiography of India’s Partition: Between Civilization and Modernity.” The Journal of Asian Studies 74, no. 1 (2015): 23–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43553642.
\nHasan, K. Sarwar. “The Real Issue in The Present India-Pakistan War.” Pakistan Horizon 18, no. 4 (1965): 333–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41393246.
\nIndurthy, Rathnam, and Haque, Muhammad. “The Kashmir Conflict: Why it Defies Solution.” International Journal on World Peace 27, no. 1 (2010): 9–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20752914.
\nLalwani, Sameer P., and Gillian Gayner. “India’s Kashmir Conundrum: Before and after the Abrogation of Article 370.” United States Institute of Peace. US Institute of Peace, August 5, 2020. https://www.usip.org/publications/2020/08/indias-kashmir-conundrum-and-after-abrogation-article-370.
\nMatloff, Judith. The War is in The Mountains. Duckworth Overlook, 2017.
\nSharma, Deepti. “The Kashmir Insurgency,” in Ethnic Subnationalist Insurgencies in South Asia, edited by Jugdep S. Chima. Routledge, 2015.
\nTalbot, Ian. “Legacies of The Partition for India and Pakistan.” Politeja, no. 59 (2019): 7–25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26916350.
\nThe Hindu, “Narendra Modi Picks August 14 to Recall Partition Trauma.” The Hindu, August 14, 2021. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/partition-horrors-remembrance-day-narendra-modi-picks-august-14-to-recall-partition-trauma/article35907824.ece
\nVaish, Varun. “Negotiating The India-Pakistan Conflict in Relation to Kashmir.” International Journal on World Peace 28, no. 3 (2011): 53–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23266719.
\nVan Dyke, Virginia. “The Khalistan Movement in Punjab-India and The Post-Militancy Era,” in Ethnic Subnationalist Insurgencies in South Asia, edited by Jugdep S. Chima. Routledge, 2015.
\nVerghese, Ajay. The Colonial Origins of Ethnic Violence in India. Stanford University Press, 2016.
", "image": "https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/17/cab21-20381.jpg", "author": { "name": "Finn Chapman" }, "tags": [ "Writing" ], "date_published": "2026-09-06T23:06:09+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-10T00:19:33+02:00" }, { "id": "https://finnchapman.eu/xerox-art/", "url": "https://finnchapman.eu/xerox-art/", "title": "Xerox Art", "summary": "These are a few examples of xerox art from a much larger…", "content_html": "These are a few examples of xerox art from a much larger multimedia project I did years ago centred around the Red Army Faction. The project dealt with the RAF as a violent collision of different currents within post-war German society. I was particularly interested in the mindset, experiences, and ideology of Ulrike Meinhof and others within the RAF.
\n![\"\"](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/16/gallery/scan-14-2.png\")
![\"\"](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/16/gallery/scan-18-2.png\")
I discovered this technique somewhat accidentally after scanning in some old photos of 1950s West Germany I had got at an antique shop.
\nI had the idea to distort and disrupt the scanning process, just out of curiosity about what would happen. I loved the textural depth it added, so I decided to play around much more with it and create these pieces, among others.
\n![\"\"](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/16/gallery/EPSON052-2.JPG\")
![\"\"](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/16/gallery/scan-21-2.png\")
![\"\"](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/16/gallery/scan-23-2.png\")
![\"\"](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/16/gallery/EPSON072.JPG\")
It was only afterwards that I found out that this technique had already been named and put to some very creative use.
\nMy intention here was to use physical objects to thematically represent elements of the overall project, including the contemporary political context, the long shadow of Germany's past, and Ulrike Meinhof's upbringing and later life.
", "image": "https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/16/scan-14.png", "author": { "name": "Finn Chapman" }, "tags": [ "Photography" ], "date_published": "2026-08-31T00:57:34+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-08T23:49:58+02:00" }, { "id": "https://finnchapman.eu/benicio/", "url": "https://finnchapman.eu/benicio/", "title": "Benicio", "summary": "Tell me a little bit about your background. Where you and your…", "content_html": "Tell me a little bit about your background. Where you and your family are from, where you grew up… Where would you say is your home?
\nI'm from New York. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, so was my dad. So that's probably the largest part of who I am and who I consider myself to be. My mom – originally from Belarus – immigrated there, I think she was 19 when she immigrated. She met my dad there, he's Puerto Rican, but he’s been there his whole life, and his dad before him was also in New York. So it's been a long time there.
\nI think I would always consider New York to be my home, even though at a certain point when I hit about 18, I made a relatively spontaneous decision to leave New York. I knew where I was going, but I didn't know much about it. I didn't know what would happen in the years to come, I couldn’t have predicted anything since then at all. But I made the choice to move to a country that I didn't know so much about, the Czech Republic. Prague was a completely different experience in every way. It wasn't my first time abroad, I'd been to Europe a few times; to Russia as a kid, to Belarus and Italy a few times, France many times, because my mom loves France. So it wasn't my first rodeo abroad, but it was my first long rodeo.
\nBut when I moved abroad, I began to spend time really comparing the place that I grew up with the place that I now lived in. I compared pretty much everything: the people, the food, especially the infrastructure. This was when I really began thinking about urban planning, for example. Then I lived in Japan for six months on a study-abroad. Japan was something that I had internalised for a long time, because I spent a long time in New York studying Japanese and immersing myself in Japanese culture, history, and literature. I really loved Japan in a very deep way, but then I moved back to Prague, finished my degree in Prague, and then I moved to Geneva, in Switzerland.
\nSo I have many places that I can call home. I have a very deep attachment to Belarus and Belarusian culture and people, especially because of where I grew up in New York; it's a place called Brighton Beach, in Coney Island. Coney Island is diverse enough, Brighton Beach is very diverse. It's quite divided, and a large part of it is very Russian. It has a lot of people who emigrated to the United States throughout Soviet history, and when the Soviet Union dissolved, a lot more emigrated to the US and settled in Brighton Beach. So right now, it's a very Russian, Ukrainian, and even Belarusian neighbourhood. I grew up in an environment where Russian was very commonly spoken. You can walk around Brighton Beach nowadays and most of the signs you see are going to be in Russian; most don't even have an English translation. It's a phenomenal place. The demographics have changed over time, and even nowadays it's a different place than how it was when I grew up. When I grew up it was very Russian, nowadays it'd be easy to find plenty of Uzbek restaurants, Turkish cafes, and Uzbek grocery stores. So it's a different place, but it's a beautiful place, and it's very diverse.
\nBelarusian culture has been a part of me, even though I don't look Belarusian at all, so going to Belarus is always an interesting experience for me. It's hard to describe, going to a place where nobody looks like you or grew up in the environment that you did, yet you know so much about them, and feel like you're one of them. That's always interesting to me.
\nI was connected with Puerto Rican life as well, even though I spoke Spanish way less growing up. I was around a lot fewer Puerto Rican people growing up, besides some of my closest family members on my dad's side, who I would talk to and see very frequently – but it wasn't like I talked to them in Spanish, it never really happened. There's a part of Brighton Beach which is very Puerto Rican. Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican… and those cultures make themselves heard, that's for sure. They're very loud in a great way, very eccentric, and very colourful.
\nSo the place where I grew up really is where those two cultures came together, and they collided very often. If I connect it with my own experience, my ethnic background, it's hard to find another place that's more home than that. That really is the only place in the world where I can go outside and see Puerto Ricans and Belarusians border each other directly and think, ‘Yeah, that's me. Those two sides are me’. I think there are plenty of people in my position who may not have connected with either side that much, and I've tried to work on that over time, having this close connection to either place. So in short, that's why I would call New York – and specifically the place that I grew up – home. It's a real collision of cultures, but it just so happens to be the collision of cultures that I am. To call either place individually home would be very difficult for me to do.
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What do you mean by either place?
\nTo call Belarus my home, to call Puerto Rico my home. If I were to go to Puerto Rico, I think I would look a lot like the people there, more than any other place. I have the Puerto Rican skin colour, I have the Puerto Rican facial hair, if I let that grow – just a goatee. You can tell I'm Puerto Rican, just by the goatee alone.
\nBut in neither place I would connect on a spiritual level. I think there are a lot of references from either place that I wouldn't know. You go to school somewhere and there are a lot of references that only the people that you grew up with know. If I were to go to either Belarus or Puerto Rico, most of the people there would have those connections with each other that I, as a first or second generation American in New York, would not really be able to relate to.
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Are there ways in which you feel connected to Puerto Rico and Belarus then?
\nI've always felt more connected to Belarus because first of all, there are the very clear civic identifiers. I have a Belarusian passport, which is a very clear identifier of my nationality and my identity. But Belarus is actually difficult, because if I were to list out everything that I identify with Belarus, really it's all just Russian. Not much is super unique to Belarus; I think most Belarusians, even those who grew up in Belarus, would have that similar experience where a lot of the culture and media is all Russian. But I've also been to Belarus many times. I don't really have any clear memories of Russia, but I do have many, many memories of Belarus, so that ties me to that land in a way.
\nPuerto Rico is even more difficult, because we go to Puerto Rico on vacation; it's very beautiful, but it's not a very authentic Puerto Rican experience. We didn't go to San Juan and participate in Puerto Rican parades and whatnot, so that connection is much harder for me to make explicit, I suppose. The connection there would be that Puerto Ricans are very good at national pride, and showing themselves off. You’ve got Puerto Rican Day parades in New York, and there's something special about Puerto Rican music dominating the Latino music scene. Most of the artists that people think of when they think of Latino artists are Puerto Rican. There's something special about that. You see the place that you're from on TV, it makes you feel something. But if anything, for me, I don't see all that and think to myself, ‘Wow, I'm so Puerto Rican’. I think to myself, ‘Wow, this is a great reminder of the things that I could potentially identify with if I work a little bit harder to do that’.
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Do you always just tell people that you’re from New York then?
\nI would always say that I'm from New York. Nowadays, I'm more likely to just say I'm from the US, and then I'll say I'm from New York afterwards. But saying that I'm Puerto Rican and Belarusian… part of it is the novelty, saying that I'm Belarusian and Puerto Rican is always fun, you know? A lot of the time I would just say I'm Puerto Rican, and then if somebody in the room speaks Russian, I like to talk to them in Russian, and then I'll say that I'm Belarusian. It's always a good time to do that.
\nI think the fact that my parents have roots in these places is a very simple way to identify who I am, but if you dig deeper, it's kind of just not the case. My Puerto Rican side has a very strong Boricua, Native American, Taíno root to it. There's also the slave trade that went into, you know, creating me. A DNA result can show that – it's all West Africa in there.
\nThe Belarusian side is hardly even Belarusian. It's Russian, mostly, and then Polish and Czech. That came together about three generations back; they settled in Belarus and then that became the Belarusian identity.
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Can you tell me more about your parents’ experiences then, in contrast to yours?
\nYeah, my mom didn't really grow up in Belarus. She lived in Belarus and she was born in Belarus, for sure. But when Chernobyl hit – April 26, 1986 – she moved to Georgia, and she lived there for a number of years. I think she ended up living there during her most formative and memorable years, so she has very fond memories of those. Her childhood memories mostly consist of Georgia, and then she left because of the war in Abkhazia. I think she went back to Belarus for a bit, and then she went straight to America. She was already in her late teenage years. So if you talk to her, she won't call herself Belarusian at all. She'll acknowledge it, but she doesn't identify closely with Belarus as much as she does with Russia. She wouldn't call herself Georgian either, because she doesn't really speak the language, she only remembers a bit.
\nBut my grandparents still live in Belarus. My closest cousin still lives there. It's good to know that I have family there that I can visit. They were all born in Belarus, so that'll always be there, even if my mom kind of has a fluid identity herself.
\nMy dad wasn't born in Puerto Rico. He was born in Brooklyn, lived in the Bronx, and then in Brooklyn again. He's been to Puerto Rico many times as a kid, and he speaks fluent Spanish. He speaks… you know, they say ‘Spanglish’. His Spanish is a real mix of English and Spanish. I don't know how well he would fit in a really, really Puerto Rican crowd. But the family that I have very closely identify with Puerto Rico. They have family there, and they'll participate in the Puerto Rican Day parades. Along with many other Puerto Rican families, I have family in Florida, New York and Puerto Rico. Most of them I don't know at all on that side, but they're all there. They very closely identify with Puerto Rico, and they love the flag. So that's where the Puerto Rican comes from.
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You mentioned comparing the places that you've lived. First New York, and then Prague, Tokyo, and Geneva. What have you derived from that? What have you noticed about those places?
\nWhen it comes to pure diversity, I don't think there's anywhere quite like New York. You've got all the little ethnic groups, and they've all huddled together in a little corner of New York. You have dozens and dozens of them. It's possible to roam New York for a day and eat Algerian food, go to a Moroccan clothing store, then right next door have gulab jamun, walk for two minutes to have Mexican food and dance with Puerto Ricans, take a train for 30 minutes to your Japanese neighbourhood, and then go south and you're in South Africa. New York is great like that, I struggle to think of another place that really comes close. There are some places that, for me, resonate with that mentality and that lifestyle. I think places like London really resonate with me for that reason. Even Paris, to a certain extent as well.
\nTokyo is certainly not like that at all. I mean, it's the most homogenous country on earth. Prague is certainly a diverse place as well, really international. Prague has its Vietnamese quarter, Sapa, which is a beautiful place. You go to Sapa and the signs are hardly even in Czech, much less English. So that's a great place. I appreciate when cities can do something like that. Geneva is also extremely international; sometimes they tell you that there are more international people in Geneva than Swiss people. But you don't really feel that as much as in those other cities. You can really feel a strong domestic culture that's emphasised in the city when you're walking the streets.
\nI really like cities: I enjoy studying cities, the way cities are planned, and the way they come out and express themselves. What I've taken away from them in general is a hard question to answer, because there are many things that I take away from cities in different ways. I'm someone who enjoys a fast-paced city. New York is a very fast-paced city, and I think Paris and Tokyo are as well. Other places like Prague and Geneva are certainly not. There are things I take away from cities urban planning-wise, but I'll stop there, because there are many things I take away from cities in different ways.
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Is there anywhere that you think you would stay forever?
\nIt's hard for me to conceptualise what forever would look like, I can only really conceptualise where I would live right now. I mean, there are many places I can conceptualise retiring. We just went on a trip to Dalmatia – I'd retire in Dalmatia. That seems like a great place to be. But if I went to Alaska, I'd probably want to retire there as well. London seems like a beautiful place to live. Another part of me thinks about how amazing it would be to just spend the rest of my life in a dacha in Gomel. All of it sounds super enticing to me. So, where I would actually live the rest of my life is a question that I answer differently every hour of the day.
\nThere are certainly places where I’d probably not want to live. Nowadays, my family lives in suburban Tennessee. I don't particularly see myself ending up in suburban Tennessee anytime soon. But rural Tennessee, maybe. If it was a really rural lifestyle, I could foresee myself living there and probably enjoying it.
\nThere are cities that do things right to me. Amsterdam, for example, does just about everything correct when it comes to urban planning. It's really an ideal city, but then there's everything else about Amsterdam that I probably wouldn't be able to resonate with on a cultural level. Do I see myself living the rest of my life in the Netherlands? I don't know, maybe in some suburban Dutch town, that wouldn't be so bad.
\nThere are parts of Japan where I remember feeling mesmerised in a way that I haven't anywhere else. I went to Hokkaido, to a few towns, and that was a place that blew me away. It was a very slow-paced life. I know I just said I enjoy a fast-paced life, but when I think about forever, that's something that seems much better. I couldn't really see myself living forever in Manhattan, for example. It would be something between suburban and rural, but country-wise, I'd be very open.
\nI think I no longer have any attachment to any of the places that I've been to. I don't really have the drive to retire in New York, to live the rest of my life there. The places I've been to… over time they've each meant a little bit less and less to me, in terms of being places that I would dedicate myself to trying to stay in for the rest of my life. At this point I feel quite fluid and mobile.
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Given how fondly you talk about New York as your home then, why is it that you think you'd be comfortable leaving it for potentially the rest of your life?
\nBecause ‘home’ is a completely abstract, constructed image that I've manufactured as a way to encapsulate my past and my memories. That's where home is for me. I think about all the things I've done in New York: the places I've seen, the things I've experienced, the food I've eaten, the art I've seen, the books I've read, and the music I've listened to. A lot of my memories, I've made in New York. So I will never be able to disassociate those memories from New York. Home for me is a past.
\nNowadays I would call Geneva my home, because I live there. I could write that Tennessee is my official home, because that's where my family lives. It's all quite fluid, and ‘home’ to me doesn't really coincide with the place that I see myself ending up, it's just the place that I've grown up in the most.
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You’ve talked specifically about New York a lot more than the US as a whole, but New York does fit into a broader American cultural identity. You’re talking about being Belarusian, Puerto Rican, but not really about being American. How much of an overlap is there between being from New York and being from America? How does that fit into your identity?
\nTo say ‘I'm not American, I'm from New York’ would be very pretentious of me, but that's exactly what I'll do. My family don't live in New York anymore, and it's very hard for me to go to New York nowadays. If I do go to the US, I go to where they are, and that's suburban Tennessee. So I've been forced to confront a different sort of America. This southern American lifestyle with twenty-lane superhighways, and Buc-ee’s, and all these big Walmarts and chain stores. To me, it's slightly miserable, I don't really feel like any of that is a part of me and my identity, and I don't know how many Americans would feel that way.
\nI think a lot of Americans sympathise or feel nostalgic for a certain way of life. I can understand it; there's this American image that’s very popularised on TV. You've got your high school proms, for example, and people show up in their trucks to the parking lot and drink there, and they go into the drive-in movie theatres and watch the movies from their cars. They hang out in the Walmart parking lot at sunset. Just driving through country roads in your Ford pickup, you park somewhere and sit in the back of your pickup and drink a couple of beers.
\nSo much of that, I think, is what a lot of Americans are nostalgic for, and I didn't have much of that growing up. My version of that was riding the subway at five in the morning with some drug addicts and a couple of rats next door. I mean, that's a type of America. I can imagine some other places that might sympathise with that. Maybe some people from Chicago, Atlanta, California.
\nBut then again, I think the ethnic diversity in New York plays a big role. A lot of my childhood was spent exploring other cultures, and I think a lot of Americans really haven't done that. Not because they wouldn't want to, because they haven't really had the opportunity to. When you talk to other Americans and you tell them that you're from New York, a lot of time they say they wish they went to New York because they'd love to see that. It's a very different kind of America. It's made me a lot more comfortable being abroad as well, because not many things are super novel to me. A lot of it I've experienced before, on a micro scale.
\nSo calling myself an American is a weird thing. It's just a way of identifying with other people who are from America, a way of justifying my accent, and a way of saying, ‘I participate in the same political discussions that you do’, to other Americans. But I think talking to people around the world, it's easier to say that I'm from the US, and then if they ask where I'm from, I say New York and it goes from there.
\nAlso, on a deeper level, I think there's something beautiful to America. Being maybe the most geographically diverse country on Earth, there’s a lot to see, and there's something to really enjoy in being able to call yourself a person from that place. It's a special thing.
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Do you switch up where you say that you're from depending on who you're talking to then?
\nYeah, absolutely. Absolutely. If I'm talking to an American, it goes straight to ‘I'm from New York’. If I'm talking to somebody outside of America, I'll typically just say I'm from the US. If I'm talking to a Russian person in Russian and I haven't introduced the fact that I'm from the US, I'll say that my mom's from Belarus. Not that I'm from Belarus, but that my mom's from Belarus, and then that associates me with being Belarusian. Then maybe the conversation will go a little bit further, and then I'll say ‘well, actually, I grew up in New York’.
\n\n
What would you say makes New York unique within the US and the world then? It has such an enormous cultural output: what is it that's behind that?
\nThere are so many ways to go about answering that. I think within the US, it stands out in many ways. There are many things that I think other cities in America do equally well, if not better. One can argue that Chicago, for example, has better architecture than New York. But people really immediately recognise the New York City skyline, it does stand out in that way. Then there's the infrastructure, which is at the top of my interests. New York has the largest metro system in the world by area and by stops, so that's something that I am happy about. I could take pride in that, actually. It's a very unique thing for the world, but then you think about it in terms of America… It's really a miracle that a city in America could have such accessibility by metro. And then a bus map of New York is just a sea of colours, you can't even see the streets because it's all covered in lines. All of New York is incredibly well connected. I think for someone who's growing up in America, who doesn't have a car, who is willing to go out and explore on their own, there's really no comparison to New York. You can't really have that sort of accessibility anywhere else. So I think that makes New York special in America.
\nI think of a lot of stuff on social media, a lot of the videos of the New York City subway, the rats that are romanticised, the craziness. A lot of people associate New York with the crazy things that go on there. I think the average New Yorker who commutes on the subway would have enough stories to fill weeks and weeks of pub talks. A lot of that is very special about New York, I would say.
\nYou've got music from New York – I think there are artists from New York who define multiple successive generations of artists and genres. What most people would think of for New York music probably depends on your own taste, but what comes to mind for me would be New York rap. There’s this really active rap scene, and some of the biggest names that come to people's mind immediately – Tupac, Biggie, Nicki Minaj – are from New York. They defined a genre and really created rap as we know it today.
\nThe art scene is super powerful in New York. My dad was a graffiti artist in New York in the 80s. During that time, graffiti was a really powerful form of expression. Even if it wasn't explicitly political, the idea of being able to display your art so publicly, cover a train car, and have it run over the city so that everybody in the world can see it is pretty anti-establishment. There are really so many cultural outputs worth talking about. There was certainly a blend of very powerful artistic movements. A lot of artists from the UK would come to New York and get together in these very well-known clubs. David Bowie would be there, and the Beatles, Lou Reed, Andy Warhol, maybe Marc Bolan, and they would all be mingling with each other and creating music and art. It was a very underground scene. There was a very live and active transgender movement happening at the time, and these forms of expression were pretty novel. I think people really started making art about these kinds of people around that time. A lot of that was born in New York City.
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Back to the Puerto Rican, Belarusian side of things – that to me is a very unique cultural overlap. In your experience, is there anything that those cultures share with each other? Do they blend together and assimilate into one thing in your mind, or are they very separate to you?
\nI think I've learnt that most cultures are not so different from each other. Most cultures in the world do very similar things and just call them something different. I could easily say that a very big part of Puerto Rican culture is to be able to come together as a family, make a lot of food, say your prayers, and enjoy a big meal and share food with each other. Sure, that's really big in Puerto Rican culture, but everybody does this. Belarusians certainly do this.
\nThere are things about Belarus that I could call unique. Maybe the clothing, the vyshyvankas, which are traditional Belarusian garments. They're very beautiful, but you know, they look a lot like Polish garments or Ukrainian garments. You could probably tell them apart, but they're very similar. I think Belarusians enjoy having a blend of Russian and Polish in their mode of life and the things that they eat.
\nWhat's similar between them? I think a lot – things become really similar when you think of the countryside. Cultures can seem very different from each other if you focus on things like language, or if you look at flags or museums. But I think as soon as you step into most countrysides, things really start to look the same. If you can speak two languages from two different cultures, so you don’t have a barrier to talking with people in the countryside, those similarities really do stand out.
\nOf course, there are going to be some things that are different in the cuisine. Puerto Ricans might eat a lot more fish – Belarus doesn't exactly have a huge seafaring culture in the way that Puerto Ricans do, there's no embedded historical memory of island-hopping in Belarusian identity.
\nAs someone who didn't grow up going to school in either of those places, it'd be hard for me to say what the people themselves learn throughout their school life. That's going to be a big part of talking about cultures and national identity: the things that people learn in school, the markers that they personally choose to identify themselves with. For example, in Puerto Rico, there’s always been this Boricua movement and identity, which stems from the Taíno word for the original name of the island of Puerto Rico, which was Borinquén. So if you have native Taíno heritage, that's a very deep marker of Puerto Rican identity. In a place whose independence is threatened on a daily basis, that becomes even more important. When you identify with the people around you, that creates a stronger foundation to then have your own independence.
\nWith Belarus and Belarusians, it's a lot more divided. There's not a western and eastern Puerto Rican identity, there's just a Puerto Rican island identity. In Belarus, that would be much different. There's no part of Belarusian identity that's common to everyone stemming from a deep Belarusian cultural heritage. People from western Belarus who have more Polish heritage might identify with more Polish aspects of life, and eastern Belarusians are much closer to Russian identity – this would actually be very similar in Ukraine as well – and then northern Belarusians might identify with a more Lithuanian identity. So those make Belarus an interesting case. There's the language issue in Belarus as well, where a majority of people don’t speak Belarusian on a daily basis. It's not an endangered language, there’s a very large speaker base, but it's not a lingua franca within the country, so that makes it hard to unify people.
\nOf course, there have been bouts of Belarusian identity. The white and red flag is a big part of it; that was really big during the protests in 2020, where people came together with this new image of being Belarusian. That was done by digging up old memories of the past, of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Belarus, and picking up those pieces of Belarusian identity. Picking up pieces of war-torn Belarus, where Belarus lost the most people as a proportion of their population during the World Wars, and trying to construct a new Belarusian identity around that.
\nThen again, Lukashenko has done a similar project in a different way. Constructing a different image of Belarus, with a different flag. One that can coexist with Russia, and that speaks to a different base of people. So Belarusian identity, I think, is a lot more factionalised than Puerto Rican identity.
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Turning back to the places that you've chosen to live – Prague, Tokyo, and Geneva – why and how did you end up at those places? Why did you choose them?
\nWhen it comes to the first place I moved to, Prague, I say a lot that there's the nice-sounding reason and the real reason. The nice-sounding reason is that I wanted an international experience. My family was moving out of New York, so I was put in a position where things were changing very quickly, and I could make a change to my life if I wanted, and move abroad. I didn't know so much about Prague or the Czech Republic, but I knew it was closer to Belarus than New York was, so if I wanted to go there, it would be a bit easier to do that. I knew it was very central in Europe, so that was a big selling point; I could really move around.
\nBut the real reason was that I didn't really get the chance to study in the US, even if I wanted to. The school that I had gotten into in New York would be twice the price because my family was just about to move out, and there were no schools in suburban Tennessee that I really wanted to go to. I had decided to study International Relations, as a mixture of the domestic politics that I was interested in and all the international cultures I was interested in. So Prague came about through desire, but also just necessity. I had to move abroad somewhere, and Prague was accepting applications in May.
\nBut since then, the places that I've moved to have been much more intentional. Japan was a big part of my life because I had consciously made it that. I didn't grow up going to Japantown all the time, I went to Chinatown, I spent much of my high school days in Chinatown, and I spent maybe six months learning Mandarin. Then my friend mentioned to me ‘Have you looked at Japanese at all?’. I hadn’t, but then I started really getting into it. There were a lot of Japanese authors and philosophers that I had read and admired growing up, like Murakami or Fukuzawa Yukichi, so I thought ‘This would be really nice if I could read it in Japanese’. I spent some time listening to Japanese, and I thought ‘Actually, this is a very beautiful language’. So then I decided to study it. Then, in Prague, I decided that this is a good time for me to go to Japan, when I can study abroad and I have the resources to do that. I went there, and I think that changed a lot of my perspectives. That was my reason for going to Japan. I knew I wanted to make my experience as… in a way, as romanticised as possible, and I ended up being able to get that.
\nSince then, I went back to Prague, and then I had to make a choice about where I wanted to go next. I decided to continue studying International Law, and international law isn't a big priority in many places. In the US, that's a difficult thing to study. There are really three places where that's prioritised, and Geneva is one of them. So I thought it might as well be in Geneva; that's probably the place to do it. There was nothing about Switzerland that had called me particularly. I knew that French was a language that I could more reasonably pick up than Czech, so that was a slight driving factor, but I think beyond that, there wasn’t much else to it.
\n\n
You mentioned studying International Relations and then International Law. What is it that drew you to those, and were there any alternatives you were also drawn to?
\nThere were certainly alternatives, but before I get there, International Relations as I briefly mentioned earlier was a blend of two things to me. I enjoyed talking about domestic politics in the US, and I really enjoyed cultures and languages. That was something I was passionate about. This whole thing I mentioned about Chinatown and learning Chinese, and growing up in a mixed Russian, Spanish, but mostly English household. I admired all of that, and I put the two together in my brain and said ‘what would that reasonably look like as a way to do both of those at the same time?’. International Relations just came up as the natural product of that. I did very much enjoy world history, so it felt very natural, and nothing else really spoke to me on that level.
\nThe alternatives weren’t remotely related to politics at all, they were just things that I've been interested in and love nerding out about but didn't see myself studying. In retrospect, I don't really know why that was, that was just how I felt back then. That would be things like marine biology, and other subjects like physics or chemistry. I've always loved space, I would have loved more than anything to continue studying astronomy.
\nInternational Law was a weirder one, because throughout studying International Relations, I felt like it was just a slightly glorified political science degree. I think politics can be very abstract. A lot of it can be looking at the same issue, through two different life experiences, and coming to different but equally reasonable conclusions. I'm hardly the first to say that, but law for me was a way to ground things on a different level.
\nIf you know law, you have a much better way to ground your opinions based on reality and power. Power in a very real sense comes from law. The people who enforce, set, and follow the law are three different groups, and knowing how to differentiate them was, in my mind, the best way to understand society. In retrospect, that wouldn’t all be entirely accurate. There's so much more to it than that, but that was a good starting point for me. I felt like law would be something much more practical, and of course, I was thinking about jobs in the future. I shouldn't not bring that up; trying to find a job was a big thing.
\nBut I wanted to keep the international bit. I enjoy studying International Law, and I took a Humanitarian Law course in my first year in my undergrad. That course, taught by a Hungarian military lawyer, was a very enlightening experience. The things he was talking about were very interesting, about wars and things that are allowed in wars. This was, to me, a new way to understand the world, and to understand politics in a way that's centred on the people on the ground. International Law as an interest was born from there. Of course, I should mention again that the job market was always another factor.
\n\n
Other than what you're studying now and what you've considered studying instead, Do you have any other major passions or interests?
\nGrowing up, I tried a lot of things, which I'm very grateful for. There are many sports I did, and tennis has always been the most present. I did in the past few years have some injuries which have rendered me unable to play tennis today, but tennis was a big passion of mine.
\nBesides sports, I would say art in many ways. I did acting in my middle school, and outside of school as well. I studied Fine Art in high school. I went to the School of Visual Arts in New York as well – a different school – to study art, and I did painting and wood carving there. I really focussed on art, I did many types of art. I think a lot of where my passion lies today is creative, it focuses around fine arts, and around literature and the spoken word as well. Music has been a large part of my life. I grew up playing piano for many years. I always loved improvising, even though I never formally studied the art of improvisation. I just loved creating music, whether or not I knew the theory behind what I was creating.
\nWhen I moved abroad, I couldn't have a piano with me, so I kind of stopped playing music for a bit, and that really messed with my psyche. I felt like I needed a way to play music. My parents were able to bring me my guitar from the US to Europe, so I’ve carried my guitar with me since. I love guitar, but at the end of the day, I'm not as technically talented as many other people are. Improvisation for me is very important. Art for the sake of art itself is very important for me.
\nIn a more specific way, creating music, writing music and poems was important to me. Reading and writing in other ways as well. I enjoy writing thought pieces, and fictional narratives here and there. A personal goal for me would be to write more short stories if I can. Nowadays I'm painting a lot more as well, so painting would be really big for me.
\nA big one that I haven't mentioned is birdwatching. I love birdwatching, I really picked up that passion in Japan. That to me has been a very therapeutic thing. I love drawing birds as well, and maybe I'll write a poem about the bird that I drew that day, so all of that comes together in a way.
\n\n
Why do you think that you feel that drive for some creative or artistic output?
\nI think the world is disjointed. It’s also quite bland if we don't make art for it. We, as humans, are constantly interpreting the world around us. We have to, there's no way we can't. So I think if I constantly interpret the world in a way where I don’t output creatively, I enter into an unhealthy mental state. I just don't feel great. There's something about it that's very instinctual, and it'd be hard to rationalise it.
\nI think everything today is so focussed on being as productive as physically possible. So if I go birdwatching, I've spent half the day out, and the fruits of that are just that I've watched two birds fly and make some noises. But if I didn't do that, I feel like I would probably go crazy at some point. It's the same thing with writing as well. If I have an idea, I'll write it. It'll be this instinctual thing, and there's no real way to justify it.
\nIt's never really so consistent, but it has to be there. A wise man once said it, and I'm going to butcher it, ‘If you're deciding whether or not you are an artist, it's a very simple thing. Either you make the art, or you jump off a bridge.’ For me, that's it.
\n\n
Lastly, when you're thinking about the artists who have inspired you – no matter what medium they work within – are there any who stand out to you from your own culture, whatever you interpret that culture to be?
\nWell, it'd be bad if I didn't mention my favorite lyricist of all time, my favorite artist, which is Lou Reed. This would be New York culture, really. Lou Reed was born in New York. He moved around a lot, but he was born and raised in New York. He was part of this Andy Warhol group of people, he made songs about the disgraced in society, the people who weren’t really talked about: the drug dealers, the gays, the transgenders. He made one of the first songs in New York, and in the world, which detailed the experience of a transgender person. He created that image, and the ability to discuss that. He created the mainstream ability to discuss the raw and the vulgar.
\nThe way he describes New York is perhaps the best depiction that exists in media, depicting all the things I've mentioned already. Talking about that raw experience, the sadness and hope that comes with living in a big city, what it means to have a home, and the artists that inspired him as well. All of this comes up in his music. I also really enjoy his singing style; someone said that Lou Reed can never hit a note, and if he does, it's the wrong one. He's really not a very talented singer in terms of his vocal chops, but his songs are unique, and I can listen to him forever and never get tired of him.
\nI think when it comes to people from Belarusian and Puerto Rican cultures, I can fully admit that I don't keep up with it as much. It's a part of my life that I've thought about recently, that I would need to improve on this sort of information. That's why I'm trying to polish my language skills, so that I can unlock this new dimension of cultural knowledge. There's less of a language barrier in Russian, but there was definitely a language barrier in Spanish.
\nThere have been Russian groups and Russian singers that I've really been inspired by. I've always been very inspired by Viktor Tsoi, by Kino. For me, it's a very inspirational group. First of all, his lyrics are beautiful, very poetic, and I admire them. Even though he wasn't an explicitly political figure, his lyrics were commandeered for political purposes. I admire a person who can write lyrics about their own life, and about experiences that are very common and average, and have those lyrics be interpreted in such a way that can have such a powerful effect on politics.
\nBut of course, he's not Belarusian. And really, the same goes for Puerto Rico. Maybe I could name more Puerto Rican artists, but I wouldn't really say that, for example, Daddy Yankee has inspired me as a person, as much as I like Daddy Yankee's music. If I talk to my dad, he could certainly name a lot more of those artists that he grew up listening to, and maybe those that inspire him. But even then, the things that he outputs creatively don't really seem to be inspired by his Puerto Rican cultural heritage.
\nSo if I were to name a Puerto Rican artist that really inspired me, I would just name my dad. I don't do the same art that he does, he does graffiti and lettering. He's very talented in all types of art, but that's mainly what he does. The art that he made growing up had a big impact on my desire to do art, and probably also some of the art that I try to make sometimes.
\n\n
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\nNote: I wrote this article in August 2024 while working at a think tank in Yerevan, and have published it here untouched. Inevitably, it is no longer as topical or relevant as it was two years ago, as events have continued to unfold. However, I believe the core of this perspective remains accurate. I no longer agree with it entirely, due to changes both in circumstances and in my own convictions, but I believe it still holds enough insight to warrant cataloguing here.
\nArmenia’s dramatic pivot away from Moscow in the past five years has shown no signs of slowing down lately, but how far will that pivot go, and can the isolated state successfully cultivate a strong partnership with the West? While the outlook now appears precarious, in the longer term there are signs that Armenia will be able to navigate the challenges of the region and arrive at a more secure future.
This is not to say those challenges will be easy. Armenia has lost Nagorno-Karabakh, leaving it in a vulnerable position vis-a-vis Azerbaijan, while recent domestic political challenges such as the widespread protest movement led by Galstanyan will be a factor restricting Pashinyan’s policy playbook for dealing with Aliyev’s government. Azerbaijani demands have been bolstered not only by their strengthened bilateral position, but also by Moscow’s reduction in support for Armenia – which directly contributed to Azerbaijan’s military victories in 2020 and 2023. This has left Armenia fragile and in dire need of allies, and there is a growing sense in both Yerevan and Moscow that Russia may no longer fulfil that role. But geography is an indomitable fact for landlocked Armenia, and that precarious geography, as well as the legacy of centuries of Russian rule over the South Caucasus, will make successfully navigating out of the Russian orbit a daunting task.
Pashinyan will be risking a lot if this fails, considering the volatile state of Russian politics and the possibility of a direct move against his government (although an invasion or other forms of military intervention remain unlikely, Armenia’s current reliance on Russian trade and infrastructure gives Putin a wide array of other options to retaliate). Armenia cannot count on the support of allies abroad in the same way that Ukraine can, and as the catastrophic week-long ‘special military operation’ drags on well into its third year, Putin may seek to prove that Russia’s status as a global power with an unquestionable sphere of influence has not been lost by taking action against what he sees as a rebellious government trying to bring the West to his doorstep.
However, despite the stated risks, the risk involved in doing nothing and remaining under Russia's wings is equally great, and realistically – given the events of the last few years – even less of a viable option. Attempting to venture away from Armenia's Colossus of the North and towards new partners is uncertain and risky, but not doing so is even moreso. Fortunately, there is reason to believe that Armenia can pull this off – there are currently a few favourable conditions, and some of the challenges will either fade away or can be played to Armenia's benefit.
For example, Georgia has seemingly turned its back on the EU and once more shifted towards Russia. Their momentum towards Western cooperation and integration has been vastly slowed due to governmental rhetoric increasingly turning against the West, with accusations that Georgia is being dragged against its will into a Western war against Russia, and general denouncements of foreign influence in the country. This is reflected in governmental policies as well, with the highly controversial ‘foreign agents’ law being the focal point of a breakdown in Georgian-European relations – as well being the reason for unprecedented American sanctions on dozens of Georgian officials in June. This is despite an overwhelming majority of Georgians supporting EU and NATO membership, with major pro-EU protests breaking out against the government since 2023. Thus, despite only recently offering Georgia candidacy status, the EU has lost its poster child in the Caucasus.
This may seem like a bad thing for Armenia, but with European attention newly focussed on the Caucasus as a result of the developments in Georgia – as well as due to the war in Ukraine directing much greater attention towards Russia's Eurasian periphery – now is the best time for Armenia to make use of this, and to become Europe's new premier partner in the region. The loss of Nagorno-Karabakh has also put Armenia directly in the spotlight, garnering sympathy from Western audiences. While sympathy did nothing to prevent the events of 2023, when combined with the ongoing break from Russia and the aforementioned Georgia factor, it may give Armenia enough diplomatic strength for the EU to begin treating them as a serious partner.
However, one limiting factor here is the vastly increased economic link between the EU and Azerbaijan as a result of the EU seeking out alternative sources for gas that do not involve Russia. The EU have embraced Azerbaijan as part of this vital new trade route, with Ursula Von Der Leyen visiting Baku in 2022 to agree on a new deal. Such a reliance could weaken the European appetite and ability to support Armenia. With Azerbaijan taking such a bullish rhetorical stance towards Armenia – including discussion of constitutional change for Armenia and an Azeri-controlled corridor running through Armenian territory – there is a risk of Aliyev using newfound leverage on the EU to limit European cooperation with Armenia.
However, Europe’s long term energy goals remain a move towards renewables and a diversification of energy sources. Renewable energy sources have been getting steadily cheaper and more readily available in the EU, and if this trend continues then Europe’s reliance on fossil fuel imports will be lessened. Despite her visit to Baku, the Green Deal remains near the top of Von Der Leyen’s policy agenda. Setting aside environmental reasons, this is in line with the geopolitical goal of energy independence. Reliance on petrostates such as Russia, Azerbaijan, or the Gulf states which have values and geopolitical interests very different to Europe’s carries a strong degree of political risk. Europe has seen this now in the case of Russia, and will likely attempt to continue to diversify their energy sources in the future as a result.
Therefore, while in the medium term Azerbaijan can count on a strong economic partnership with the EU regardless of the political dimension of the relationship, in the long term things could be much less favourable for Azerbaijan. This is compounded by growing European concerns that Azerbaijan simply acts as a sanctions-busting conduit for Russian gas to flow into the EU uninhibited – a perception which will not be helped by the growing bonds between the governments of Aliyev and Putin. There are also no signs that the current economic relationship between Brussels and Baku will develop into any sort of a meaningful political one, given the deep disapproval that the capture of Nagorno-Karabakh was met with. Azerbaijan’s political system and actions are fundamentally at odds with the values the EU espouses, whereas the EU is increasingly seeing those values reflected in Armenia.
While values hardly count for everything when resources are in the picture, in the midst of a bitter struggle against Russia framed in the values of democracy and self-determination, the EU would find Armenia to be a natural and compatible partner in a way they could simply never do with Azerbaijan – all while helping to erode Russia’s influence in a key region of Eurasia. Ultimately, the current European trading relationship with Azerbaijan will likely do little to prevent a strengthening EU-Armenia partnership.
Nor should remaining political ties to Russia stand in the way of a strengthened Western orientation. The question in Yerevan seems not to be whether or not to continue on this new course, but how to do so most effectively. Relations with Russia are as distant as they have ever been and Pashinyan has been making no efforts to change that – less than a month ago Russian border guards left Yerevan’s airport for good, where they had been stationed for almost the entire duration of Armenia’s post-Soviet history. In June, Armenia announced it would be making a full withdrawal from the CSTO, which in some de facto respects has already occurred.
However, much like the EU and Azerbaijan, the Yerevan-Moscow relationship is an entirely different creature in the economic realm. Trade with Russia has increased significantly since the war in Ukraine, contributing to a huge boost to Armenia’s GDP. Much of Armenia’s infrastructure remains Russian-owned, such as the railways, most telecommunications and electricity networks, and the entirety of the gas supply infrastructure. Russia is Armenia’s largest trading partner for both imports and exports, and is particularly reliant on grain imports from Russia. There are no signs of Armenia leaving the Eurasian Economic Union – which it currently holds the presidency of – with Pashinyan leading a summit in Moscow in May with the heads of the other four member states. However, this economic relationship is being disentangled from the political one to the best of Armenia’s ability, and so far this seems to be working. Despite the clear trajectory away from Russia, Moscow has not done much to try to reverse this or destabilise Pashinyan’s government other than making cautionary statements.
\nArmenia’s gradual approach certainly helps here, for example retaining the Russian military base in Gyumri for the foreseeable future, and so far the West seems to have been understanding of Armenia’s geopolitical constraints and has not demanded too much too quickly. Pashinyan unequivocally dismissed rumours of holding a referendum on joining the EU, and rightfully so. Other than risking a volatile and dangerous inflammation of tensions with Russia, Armenia is far too closely locked into the Russian economy to consider joining the EU in anything but the very long term. Yerevan’s ambitions will thus be more modest, and not centred around joining the EU or NATO, which will mean they are not only achievable but also relatively unlikely to result in Russian intervention.
Despite this modesty, it is clear that Russia’s role as Armenia’s sole security guarantor is dead and buried, and given not only the raw emotion behind the events of 2020 and 2023 but also the newfound warmth between Baku and Moscow and the wider entrenchment of Armenia’s reformist path domestically, there can be no going back.
When considering Armenia’s domestic situation, it would seem as if the government is stuck between a rock and a hard power neighbour. With massive protests breaking out against perceived concessions to Azerbaijan and the possible terms of a peace treaty, negotiating such a peace on conditions that would have been unthinkable just five years ago appears almost impossible to accept for a domestic audience. However, as can be seen in the failure of the protest movement to manifest into a serious political alternative, there may not be any other option.
While a peace treaty with Azerbaijan would be seen as submission and inevitably spark a significant wave of backlash on the streets, if no other solution can be found to cool tensions and prevent further territorial losses, then it is doubtful that this backlash would turn into a political threat capable of bringing down the government. Even if it did, the new government would likely find themselves in the same position and unless they wanted to risk sparking a new war, then the policies would not be much different. Despite the anguish, Armenia’s domestic situation seems relatively stable; held together by the omnipresent threat of further conflict with Azerbaijan. That stability also makes Armenia an attractive partner for the West. With Georgia and Turkey both straining their ties with the Euroatlantic community and becoming increasingly authoritarian, Armenia is now a beacon of stability, democracy, and European values – especially considering that the only other states present in the region are Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran.
\nThus, despite its marginal position, Armenia could become an important outpost in the region with some skilled statesmanship. While any bilateral peace treaty would hardly be a concrete guarantee of lasting peace, if Armenia can successfully cultivate a stronger relationship with new partners, then a treaty in combination with the support of powerful allies willing to assist Armenia in upholding it would act as a genuinely powerful bulwark. After all, it was Armenia’s diplomatic isolation which contributed so much to the catastrophes of 2020 and 2023.
\nOutside of the West, Armenia is already receiving military equipment from ‘safer’ sources such as India. Such a diversification of Armenia’s security partners can only be a good thing. Despite the heavy emphasis here on strictly the Western and Russian factors, other states could also play important roles in Armenia’s political, military, and economic security and would likely do so without attracting nearly as much unwanted attention from Russia. This is another area in which a peace treaty could be helpful, as that may eventually lead to normalisation of relations with Turkey. This would create a vitally important link to the EU and Mediterranean and open another avenue of trade for Armenia, rather than having to rely on the borders with Georgia (which could be risky as Tbilisi draws closer to Moscow) and Iran (who remain one of Armenia’s closest regional partners, but are no happier than Russia about Yerevan’s overtures to the West).
Ultimately, it is clear that Armenia’s political future no longer rests with Russia. The search for new partners is already underway, and the West seems the clearest choice. While the challenges of negotiating this will be immense, Armenia is in a much stronger position than it appears. Russia remains distracted with Ukraine, unwilling or unable to cause a change in Yerevan’s policy, and seemingly happy for the moment to keep the economic and political relationships decoupled. The EU and US are newly focussed on the Caucasus, eager to find a new ally there to replace Georgia, and willing to assist in anything that may weaken Russia. Armenia remains more democratic than all of its neighbours and more internally stable than most, and with values clearly compatible with the West. While the EU has increased its reliance on Azerbaijani gas imports, this is unlikely to be a decisive factor in the relationship with Armenia. Despite the challenges, Armenia is well poised to outperform expectations and succeed in its bid for a new set of partners.
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\nCan you first introduce where you’re from, where you grew up, all of that?
\nYeah, of course. I guess I have two sides of mine. I have my father's side, he's completely Moroccan. He moved to the Netherlands in his twenties, where he met my mum. On my mum's side, she was born in the Netherlands. She's Dutch, but all of her family, her parents and beyond, are also from Morocco. So I've got my mum who's Dutch, but ethnically Moroccan, and then my father's completely Moroccan. I was born in the Netherlands as well, and then I moved away at about ten or eleven years old to England, together with my parents and my brother – who was also born in the Netherlands – because my father found work. And yeah, ever since then – I'm twenty-three now – I've been in England really.
\n\n
Do you have citizenship here?
\nNo. [laughs] I moved here pre-Brexit. I'm still on a Dutch passport, and I've got settled status. No English passport yet. My brother has an English passport. He's the only one in our family who does.
\n\n
Do you feel more connected to the Dutch side or the English side?
\nI think the English side. I mean, it makes sense. I've been here longer, but I've also spent most of my proper growth years here. I know people often talk about childhood as being the years where you're forming, and that's true. But I also think that adolescence and your teenage years are when you start making your decisions about what you like, what you think, and what your opinions on the world are. And those have been shaped in England. Being at university, learning how to think about the world, being in secondary and sixth form. Those have all been here. And because of that, I feel like a lot of my thought process has been shaped in quite an English way.
\nIt is interesting though, because although I came here about ten or eleven, I still have a remnant of an accent. So because of that, I feel like there is always a part of me that won't be completely British. Not in a sense where I don't connect to the culture, but I think the first talking point with people is often ‘where are you from?’, even if I connect better with England. So there is always that little distance. That few percent that means that I'm distanced from the culture. Alongside, of course, the way I look. If you look at me, I'm not British, I'm ethnically Moroccan. So I don't think I'm 100% anything. If I had to choose, I would say England is most familiar.
\n\n
So if you were introducing yourself, would you say you're English or Dutch?
\nSee, that's so interesting because it happens a lot, right? Especially since I don't have a British accent. I've got some remnants of a weird Frankenstein accent. My go-to response is ‘what do you mean?’, ‘in what way?’, and people always look at me quite puzzled. I had to do that last week when meeting somebody. She's an international student from Egypt, and I was thinking ‘oh gosh, how do I approach this?’ Because, you know, we're neighbours, Morocco and Egypt, but then do I really connect with that? So I just hit her with a ‘what do you mean?’. They often say ‘tell me everything’. So I have to give them the whole story, because I feel like if I tell somebody I'm British in England, they're going to raise an eyebrow; ‘no, you're not’, which they're right about. Dutch is sometimes what I go for if the setting is right. For example, if I'm at a conference and lots of the people there are from Europe or from Germany, I often lean towards Dutch.
\nBut I feel like most people who ask ‘where are you from?’ are really asking like, ‘why do you look the way you do?’. So I feel like I have to add in the fact that I'm ethnically Moroccan, even though that opens doors such as ‘do you speak Arabic?’ and then I have to let them down. I remember once in my first week at work there was this employee from Egypt who saw my name and was like ‘oh, where are you from?’ and I had to do the whole spiel. And then he asked ‘do you speak Arabic?’ And you can just see them let down when I have to tell them I don't. Or a taxi driver asking me why I look that way or why my name is Rania.
\nLong story short, to be safe, I tell people the whole story because I often feel like they will dig for something. If I say that I'm Moroccan, they will ask if I speak Arabic. And if I'm not able to say that I do, I'll have to explain that I lived in the Netherlands. If I say I'm Dutch, people will question why I look the way I do, why my name is Rania, and why I'm five-foot-two instead of a huge towering giant. And then if I say I'm English, while I'm in England, people often can tell I'm not. If I'm on a holiday abroad, I will often just stick with England or something like that.
\n\n
So you're being asked that wherever you go.
\nYeah, yeah. I do notice that I'm asked that a lot, which makes sense because I've got a little bit of an accent. I don't look white British or anything like that. So I don't think it's always people trying to separate me. I think a lot of people are just curious. They see someone who looks different or has a different name. A lot of these people, like they might be from Egypt, are very curious. Maybe they think you're from where they're from, or maybe they know somebody from a culture they think you're from. I think it's inevitable, even though it's sometimes a hard question to answer.
\n\n
And in the Netherlands, can people tell that you haven't spent as much time there? Do you have any sort of an accent when you speak Dutch, for example? Because I imagine the Netherlands now is a pretty multicultural country, so I'm a little surprised that you would be asked so often ‘where are you from?’ while you’re there if you're speaking Dutch at a native level.
\nYeah, you're totally right. The Netherlands is hugely multicultural. A lot of my family is from Amsterdam specifically. Hugely multicultural. Whether my Dutch has slipped a little bit? Yes, especially in my written Dutch. But obviously people don't notice that when you're spending time abroad. I have noticed- I was so sad. I got a phone call from my aunt the other year and she was talking to me. I often hear ‘oh, wow, your Dutch is really good still’. But she said something like ‘oh, it sounds like you've got an English accent when speaking Dutch’, and I was thinking ‘oh, no!’ [laughs] ‘Oh, gosh. An accent on speaking English AND on speaking Dutch?’ So there’s definitely that indicator. And of course, I don't have a Dutch face either. People are curious to know if not whether I'm from there, whether my parents are from there either. I think that's to be expected, to be honest.
\n\n
And does that bother you then, the fact that you're always having to answer this and always giving caveats?
\nYes and no. 99.999% percent of the time people who ask this aren't trying to be discriminatory. They're saying this out of genuine curiosity, and they seem super excited when they ask that. So I can never be mad at that. But it is difficult because I'm having to explain these cultures and it feels like there’s a tag against my name. And although I love all of the places I am from, it feels like I can never distance myself from them, often this is the first thing people want to know about me.
\nAnd I guess I feel it's a bit of a shame as well that although I have these labels to my name, I don't have that strong of a resonance with my culture. So I have to tell people I am from Morocco because there's no way of distancing myself from the fact that I'm Moroccan. I've got a Moroccan name after all, but I can't speak the language, I haven't been there in so many years, and I feel like I'm mis-selling myself by adding that to my name. But I have to add it to my name because it is part of me. It's a weird internal mixed bag of feelings.
\n\n
Do you wish you had more of a connection to Morocco then, for example?
\nYeah, it is really difficult having the name, having the face, having the family lineage and not even being able to speak the language. I'd be lying if I said I don't feel a sense of shame when I have to tell people that I'm not as connected as I should be.
\nFor example, I think if you take minorities in the Netherlands, like the Moroccan minority, they often have quite a strong feeling towards their culture, a sense of pride, because they're a minority and it's the little piece of home that they have left that they brought into the country. I admire that to a certain degree. I often think we talk a lot about the bad parts of nationalism – there are many, many, many parts that are bad – but on the patriotic side, there's something so nice about having a place that's home or feels homely, to have something that you can connect with. A culture. Meeting somebody in public who’s completely different to you but you share and you know the same love for the same food, or you've been to the same places, or you understand that depth through language.
\nI think it's hard to replicate, and unfortunately, as much as I love to be more connected with my culture now, I fear that the way that I interact with it is always going to feel more like a tourist to my own culture. The way I have to go out of my way to learn the language, or visit these super touristy spots in Morocco that any native would never go to. It sometimes feels like I'm putting on a costume to my own culture. I sometimes envy people who can say ‘oh, yeah, me? I'm Moroccan. I know everything about Morocco. I grew up there. It's my home’. I remember when I told that Egyptian co-worker that I didn't speak the language, he said ‘oh, it's fine, you don't need to know it’ and I said ‘I feel like there's a little bit that you will never be able to connect with if you don't speak the language’. I think if you speak the language, you get so much closer than if you don't. I remember him agreeing with that, and I think it's true. There's always going to be that distance unless I cross it, which is going to take quite a while because it's not an easy language.
\n\n
Are you trying to learn it?
\nAt the moment, I'm not. No. I've been really focussed on all sorts of things. I mean, I'm making excuses here, to be honest with you. Part of me is focussing on trying to secure what is immediate. My immediate career in the UK, in England, my immediate degree here and everything to shape my new world here. It's even harder when Morocco feels so far away, when I don't have a close, tight-knit family that I'm connected with from Morocco. I don't have a lot of Moroccan friends or anything like that. It feels like this other world that’s just out of reach. It's something I have to try harder for if it's something I want, which I haven't yet. That and it being quite a challenging language has stopped me so far as to learning it. But I really hope to be able to make it more of a priority at some point.
\n\n
From the sounds of it though you have been there before.
\nI have been there when I was super young. We used to go every few years, and then the last time was eight years ago or something like that. So it's been a long, long while.
\n\n
Would you like to go back? Do you still have any family there?
\nI do have family there. We’ve never been super close, but I do have family there. I would always love to go back, but it's been really difficult because of the years and years of separation. Obviously, growing up in the Netherlands is hugely different, and then the UK is hugely different. A lot of my values, my culture, and my opinions have been shaped to be quite different to what's often the dominant culture in Morocco or what my family aligns with. I think that's the difficulty with my relationship with Morocco, because it's always going to be attached to my connection with my Moroccan family, which has been so-so. We're very different in the way that we think. We have very different beliefs, very different opinions. I think it's always going to be a weird relationship with the country because of that.
\n\n
By the sounds of it, integrating into the UK has been a lot easier. I’m assuming the culture feels more natural to you?
\nThe culture feels super natural, yeah. It was really difficult with language at first when I came to the country at ten or eleven, I remember struggling a lot to fit in. You know how kids can be. Not very nice when you don't fit in. But as the years have gone by, it's been so much easier to integrate. Even with the Netherlands, I remember visiting three years ago, and there were parts that felt like home – I was able to speak the language that I haven't spoken in a public setting in such a long time – but there are lots of things that have happened and moved on since I've been gone. So many cultural references that I just don't know. Actors I don't know, singers I don’t know.
\nI've spent so many years here being surrounded by that: watching British television, going to school in England, listening to the music on BBC Radio. Especially in my years as a teenager or a preteen. It's been much easier, especially speaking in 2026, to feel at home here.
\n\n
Would you say you can feel at home in both places or instead that neither place is truly home?
\nI think none of them will be 100% home. I think England is like 80, 90% there. As I said, there's always going to be a distance because of the colour of my skin, my name, my accent, things like that. It's not going to make it super easy to always blend into the crowd. Once again, people say this out of curiosity, but they always end up – not from any fault of their own – separating me from the group. ‘Oh, there's that one girl, where is she from?’ and then it makes you remember, ‘oh yeah, I'm not from here’. So that's always going to be a challenge. But I would say England would be 80, 90% home. The Netherlands would be 60%, and Morocco is probably the biggest challenge I've had relating to culture and the country.
\n\n
Would you like to have one place that is 100% home or are you comfortable with the idea that you're just from multiple places?
\nI think it's like a double edged sword in a certain sense. On one hand, I really admire people who have a home. The way I view home is kind of a fantasy concept because even in the Netherlands I was always a little bit of an outsider, especially since in my formative years I was in really small towns that weren't very diverse. So I've always felt as an outsider. My opinion about home is tainted by that; I never really felt it. When I see people who have their own culture they relate to, it feels almost like having your own family. Obviously you can appreciate everything else, but you've got your home base, the thing that feels like that sense of warmth, that thing that transcends wherever you are. I envy that sometimes. For example, when I'm talking to people and they're saying they're going back home to visit their family in said country, whichever they may be, or when I'm at a party and two people are from the same dominant culture and they just really hit it off, I sometimes envy that and admire that.
\nBut I think there is also a good part of it. I think… Obviously my experience in Morocco has been limited, but at least with the Netherlands and England, I think it gave me a fresh perspective, and because I don't feel super stationed in any country, I feel like I've developed quite an open mindset. It made me much more open to the possibilities of different ways of life, different cultures, the ability to just move, and different ideas. Because that's often what cultures are: they're different ideas, different ways of living. I guess I've become more open as a result. That's the good side.
\n\n
Do you see yourself making use of that then and moving around further?
\nI feel like the way I think about England has been quite practical. My mum, on the other hand, often talks about going back to the Netherlands, and for her she has that feeling of home. Each time I ask her about what it is that’s drawing her back to the Netherlands, it's always a feeling. It's not necessarily the healthcare, or whatever metric you want to use. It's ‘I want to go back home’. For me, it's always been more superficial, if that's the right word. I'm here because I've got friends here, but I'm here because it's really good for my career as well. It's one of the best places to study and practise law in the world. It's a great location, England, when it comes to being able to move into Europe. It's in the middle of almost everything. But if these factors change, as much as I'd love to stay here since I've built my life here, I'd be open to leaving. If I find out that Germany or wherever becomes the new legal powerhouse, it won't be long until I'll be out of here.
\nBut one thing that is important to note is the UK and the Netherlands were both within the EU. So I feel like because I've spent my whole life within that context, my heart does come back to Europe. Even if it's not England or not the Netherlands, I think it'd be challenging – not impossible, but challenging – to leave the continent altogether. If there's a super-duper convincing reason for me to go to the Americas or Asia, I won't ever say no. But I think I have a little bias to this little continent.
\n\n
Do you have some sense of European identity?
\nI think so. It's interesting, because I talked a lot in this conversation about the feeling of home. Although I didn't feel that with the Netherlands or England, I do feel that sometimes with Europe. Like, for example, my boyfriend is from Poland. When I visit Poland and I see the same ice cream brand I saw in the Netherlands, I feel a rush, or nostalgia. Or when I go to Germany and I see a similar cartoon character that was really popular when I was growing up in the Netherlands, it just brings joy to me, which is interesting. I feel like there are certain things that connect the continent. Certain songs that play on the radio that are super popular in Europe, where you're like ‘oh wow, we do have things in common.’ I think my feeling of European identity is coming from that.
\n\n
Okay. And have you been around much of Europe then? You mentioned Germany and Poland.
\nYeah, not a lot. I want to do more. I've briefly been to Belgium as a child. I've been to Spain when I was in secondary school. I was part of a youth choir and performed there. Germany, in the winter. Poland – I've been going almost every year now. That's been a huge hub. My boyfriend has much more of a tight-knit connection to his culture and his family. Much more than mine. So we always end up there, whether it be his hometown, Łódź, or anywhere else. I've been on trips to France. Growing up, my family didn't travel too much, to be honest. I'm always trying to catch up on it now because it's not something I did a lot as a child, which is funny, because we moved countries, but we didn't really go on many holidays across Europe or beyond. Yeah, just little trips here and there that I've tried to make time for.
\n\n
So you've talked about being caught between Dutch and British cultures. What would you say are the similarities and differences between those?
\nIt's really hard to say because I've been away from the Netherlands so much, so I'm always wary of being the Dutch culture expert. Sometimes people ask me about how things are in the Netherlands and I always have to preface by saying ‘I haven't been there in a while’. But if you're talking about my transition, I think culturally they're very similar. They're not far away, so that makes sense. A lot of the media you grow up watching is identical. In some respects, the Netherlands has much more of an honest, frank culture. People don't beat around the bush. If they have an opinion or they think you're doing something wrong or they don't like to do something, they will be a bit more honest about it than you’ll often see in England.
\nBut funnily enough, even though this is true, I didn't have the hardest time with this because – maybe it’s because I spent more of my socialising years in the UK – I felt like I'm much more aligned to the British way of talking than the very honest, frank Dutch way. There are definitely small details like that, but it's not been super difficult for me to navigate. I'm sure if I moved here now, at twenty-three, from the Netherlands to England, I would notice that more. When I meet people from the Netherlands who moved here a bit older, or international students, I think they notice these cultural things way more than I did when I was ten years old.
\n\n
Yeah, I definitely think that you seem more British than Dutch in the way that you speak compared to the blunt attitude that most Dutch people have.
\nYeah it’s funny, I was at Brighton beach not that long ago with my friend from Canada, and we saw these firemen by the beach. I said to her, ‘why don't you go up to them and ask what's going on?’ just out of curiosity. And I thought to myself, ‘why don't I just ask?’. So I went up to the firemen, and they answered. My Canadian friend, she's like, ‘oh, I'm so proud of you, well done!’ and she turns to the fireman, ‘I was just saying to her, she's so British, you know? She's always too shy to speak up’. I notice that she often says, ‘she's so British, she's so British’. I don't know how I feel about that. I think it's true that I'm culturally British, but it felt weird to be called British because of how many times I've been asked where I'm from in this country. So culturally I am quite assimilated, I think.
\n\n
You mentioned you found it much easier to integrate since you moved when you were a lot younger. But your father would have left Morocco for the Netherlands when he was about your age now, right? Not only that, but he left to cross a much broader cultural gap and then again left the Netherlands to come here. So how do you think your experience has compared to his?
\nYeah, it's hard to say. I will preface this by saying he passed away six years ago, so I don't know how up to date my knowledge is. I didn't really notice how much of a big change that was for him until I started my uni journey. I used to think I’ll have such difficulty moving to a different city – from Bracknell to Brighton – and I couldn't imagine moving to a country with a completely different culture and language. The Netherlands and Morocco are culturally really different, even though it does help that there is a Moroccan community in the Netherlands.
\nI don't know too much about his personal experience moving to the Netherlands. I know that he struggled with the language, as did I when I moved to England. On the other hand, England is even more complicated because my father moved first when he was in his teens to start a degree in Glasgow, but it didn't work out. He had to leave to Morocco again for a good few years, and then he ended up in the Netherlands to properly do his degree in his twenties. He stayed there until he moved to England. So I guess to him it wasn't super different as he's been to Britain before and he spoke English at that point. I imagine that the move from Morocco to the Netherlands was definitely the harder one.
\n\n
Speaking of the Moroccan community in the Netherlands, it certainly feels here like the topic of non-European migration has got very toxic within the last few years. From what I understand, the Dutch Moroccan community specifically are one of the main targets of this rhetoric. Do you know what your family thinks about that?
\nGrowing up in the Netherlands, I think you're quite aware if you come from a Moroccan lineage that you are the minority, and there are people that have opinions about that. Since then, after moving from my small town in the Netherlands to England, I've had distance from the discourse. So I'm not a Dutch expert, it's quite limited to my childhood memories and that specific town. I do hear that things are, as in many places in Europe, getting more tense about immigration and assimilation and all those things.
\nI'm a Dutch national, but I'm ethnically Moroccan, but I reside in the UK. For a lot of people, their nationality and their ethnicity are the same, but in my case it's not. My family are ethnically Moroccan, but on my mum’s side, all of them have Dutch citizenship, and not all of them have a Moroccan passport. It's really interesting to see their opinions about politics in the Netherlands, because you would assume that they would support politicians that are a little bit more left-leaning as opposed to those who are anti-immigration. But since they have the Dutch passport, they align themselves so much with their citizenship.
\nI remember my mum being like ‘I really hope we get a more right-leaning politician in the Netherlands. because I'm so tired of these immigrants taking advantage of us. I think Dutch citizens should be prioritised and I think that's the way it should be.’ I said ‘you're an immigrant…’, she's like, ‘no, I have a Dutch passport, and all of these asylum seekers are taking everything from us’. I remember thinking that this is so strange, all of them are ethnically Moroccan. But you can make a case that she was born there, she was raised there, she was completely assimilated. She's relatively white passing as well. It makes sense that she has that tie to her Dutch side, but it is really still interesting to see minority groups being quite against immigration, even though they wouldn't be able to be there without it, you know?
\n\n
From what you’ve said, it almost sounds as if you're more connected to that Moroccan side than your mother is. Would you say that’s the case?
\nI think it goes back to the issue where as a third culture child, your depiction of your country – one that you have never lived in or weren't born in – is always going to be tainted by your opinion of your family. Those are the ones you always visit, those are the ones that give you the guide into what Moroccan culture is. That's usually all you get, unless you make lots of friends there. I think my mum has that issue, where it's mainly my father's side of the family residing in Morocco. She's had a difficult relationship with them, which is always going to taint Morocco for her, and I don't see any drive to want to visit the country at all.
\nBut on the other hand, when she's in the UK, I always see her finding Moroccan, Middle Eastern, or Arab communities as opposed to Dutch communities. Obviously, you can say that there are fewer Dutch people, especially in Bracknell. But it seems she does feel a certain pride for Morocco, even though she wasn't born or raised there either. When she meets someone from Africa generally, or from Morocco or a neighbour like Egypt, her eyes light up, and she's so excited to make friends and connect with them over that.
\nSo although there are aspects about Morocco that she thinks so fondly about, I think the idea of actually living there or visiting has become really difficult for her due to family. I think my mum's opinions – she identifies as Muslim as her parents did, and she's quite conservative in belief – means that often she has opinions that are quite similar to those who have immigrated from Morocco to the UK, for example.
\nI think I'm different, because the fact that I'm not really religious makes it even harder for me to connect with Moroccan culture, even if it's not in Morocco. I'm pretty left-leaning; I've always had those political beliefs, and even more as I grew up and went to university, which makes it a little bit harder. So on the whole, I would say we both have quite a difficult relationship with Morocco, but I think my mum somehow remains way more connected with it than I do.
\n\n
Speaking of university, you mentioned before that you were a little intimidated just going from Bracknell to Brighton. How did you find that transition? Do you like Brighton?
\nThat's so interesting; Bracknell has felt like home because it is home. I spent almost all of my years in England there. Brighton has only been four years, but it feels like home. It was really difficult moving here at first because it was different culturally, in the sense that it's a much bigger city. There's so much to do, it was intimidating. It was this huge student town with lots of young people, and I always struggled socialising with people growing up. My mum was quite conservative and she made it quite difficult to do stuff like sleepovers or go to parties – God forbid. [laughs] God forbid.
\nIt was exciting, but scary, to go to a place where I'm deciding these things for myself. Going from having to push back on my mum a lot just to do normal things like going to a friend's house, to being able to decide what I'm doing, when, and where. I think the cultures also reflect that. Brighton is such an open city. People are so diverse in thought, and it is quite left-leaning, which aligns closer to my values. So it was a huge change, but Brighton really became home. I met lots of people that align with the way I see the world.
\nI remember I spent two months in South Korea a few years ago for a summer school. I had so much fun, it was a great time and really a highlight in my life so far, but when I got the train into Brighton station, I was like ‘finally, I'm home’. And I thought, why am I saying that? It was only after one or two years of being in Brighton. I felt like there was huge weight to being able to think that I fit in. Maybe that's also attributed to Brighton being super quirky, so it's pretty hard not to fit in. I think you can be quite a quirky, strange person and still somehow not be the weirdest person in the room. So I guess all of these things have nuance. Yeah, it's feeling much more like home.
\n\n
Do you think you'll stay in Brighton?
\nYeah, for the short term, I'm trying. In an ideal world where I didn't have to think of factors like my career and future development, I think the chances would be high. Obviously, I have to think about those things, so I will always go for the city or the country that's able to provide the most. I also think there is a lot of value in being able to leave a place, so even in a case where Brighton was amazing for my career, I would want to leave at least for a couple of years. Not just the city, maybe even the country. Life is short, and it's really important that you get to experience different ways of life and as much of what life is, which isn't just Brighton.
\n\n
Where would you go for a few years?
\nThat's tricky. I always have conversations about this to friends, or to my boyfriend. It's really difficult to say. I've been very dictated by my career, and I'm really interested in tech law, so places like Germany are quite attractive for me, and Germany gets that bonus of being a little bit close to home. It's not super different from the Netherlands or England, it's kind of a blend in that sense. But if I didn't have to think about that, it’d be much trickier. I'd be open to anywhere if it's only a few years. I'm happy to just see where life takes me. That's how I got to England, right? My father made a career choice, I didn't, and it ended up okay. I'm happy to see where things take me. But as I said earlier, there's this home feeling of Europe. So if you're talking about settling down, I don't think I would leave Europe.
\n\n
So you don't know where in Europe you would settle down, but you do think it would be Europe.
\nYeah, maybe settling somewhere like Germany, because it feels so familiar. If I end up in England, I wouldn’t mind. If I end up in the Netherlands, I wouldn’t mind. I think it's important, especially when you're younger, to be open, because you never know what the perfect place is for you or whether it's somewhere you never thought to look.
\n\n
Okay. Last question then. Can you think of one artist from your culture – and I'm leaving that deliberately vague – that you particularly like, and that represents some of your culture as well?
\nI find that really interesting. I'm not super knowledgeable in the arts, which I would love to be more. I find people who are really aware and engage with that a lot really cool, even if it's film or music. But I've never been like that. I think, unfortunately, a lot of my years in the Netherlands and England were super influenced by the dominant American culture, which made it hard for me to connect with Dutch or English artists. If I think about my childhood, I think a lot about American TV shows on Nickelodeon, or American pop hits on the radio.
\nIronically, even though I don't feel part of my Moroccan culture anymore, part of me is thinking back to when I was a young child, like five, six, seven years old. I remember my family always putting Nancy Ajram on. She’s really popular in Morocco. She's a Lebanese singer, actually. It's funny, because she’s not even Moroccan, and I'm not even that attached to Moroccan culture, but it represents such an innocent memory of Moroccan culture. Away from my fears about not fitting in, or my lack of religious beliefs, or my opinions about my family. Hearing that on the radio, going back to Morocco, or even just in the living room in my house in the Netherlands… Even if I didn't always know what the lyrics meant, the joy of the sound of the songs, and the dancing of my family in the kitchen is a core memory of mine. It goes back to how it's not always about rationalising a culture, but the feeling aspect as well.
\n\n
![\"Nancy](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/15/nancy-ajram-crop.jpg\")
\nIn your own words, where are you from, where did you grow up, where are your family from? What's your background?
\nWell, I'm from Barcelona, and other than Barcelona, I would say I'm from Catalonia. Those are the terms that mostly describe where I come from. And yeah, my family, all of them are from Catalonia, my parents and my grandparents.
\nMy parents come from Reus, it's like one and a half hours south from Barcelona. My parents met in Barcelona during their studies, and then my sister and I were born there, and we grew up in Barcelona, in the city. But we still have a lot of connection with Reus – it's a smaller city – because our family is still there. So I also consider myself from Reus as well, because my family actually comes from there. But yeah, mostly Barcelona.
\n\n
Okay, do you see any cultural differences between these two cities?
\nI would say for sure, in the sense that Barcelona is such a big city, so there is no such culture as ‘Barcelona’, because nowadays there are more tourists or people that come from other places than actual Barcelonians that have been living there forever. So Reus feels more Catalan, or like… not Catalan necessarily, but it’s more on a smaller scale, and everyone knows each other a little bit, even though it's still over 100,000 people. But it feels different for sure, more traditional. There are still some traditions conserved there, more than in Barcelona, which is a cosmopolitan, metropolitan city.
\n\n
And you're saying Catalan then – am I to assume that you feel more Catalan than Spanish?
\nYes, indeed. Yeah, I feel like ‘Catalan’ represents me.
\n\n
Okay, and Spanish is not even a second identity for you or…?
\nI would never say out of my mouth, ‘I am Spanish’ or ‘I feel Spanish’, but there are people that don't know the reality or the difference between Catalonia and Spain, and they would say, ‘oh, you come from Spain’, and then I wouldn’t say every time ‘no, no, no, no, I am from Catalonia’. But when I have the chance to present myself, I would always present myself as Catalan, or as Barcelonian, and not as Spanish.
\n\n
So what would you say are the differences between Catalan and Spanish identity?
\nThere are lots of differences. Historically, of course, when there were the two kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. These were two different kingdoms with different traditions, even different languages. And then they united, but the culture and the history has always grown separately, like it was never really unified. Even though the territory unified, the people didn’t. So I would say there’s a historical component for sure, and also a cultural one.
\nYou just have to go there, like Catalan people in the way that they talk, and in the way that there are a lot of stereotypes that are specifically targeted to Catalan people and not to Spanish people. We have different festivities; we have different traditions for Christmas that only Catalans do. So there are different components that I would say differentiate us.
\n\n
Is your connection to Catalan culture something that's primarily about the traditions, the language, or the place itself? What is it that makes Catalan identity an identity?
\nFor me, definitely knowing the whole history and traditions, which is very linked to language. I would say language is one of the core characteristics. Catalan developed parallel to Spanish; we're all Latin languages, but there is still a difference, and from the language we have our own linguistic movements and our own ways of expressing ourselves. So I think that is a very important feature of Catalan identity.
\n\n
And is the language similar to other Romance languages or is it quite different?
\nNo, it's actually pretty similar. I would say it's a mix between Spanish and French. And in some cases, like grammar and how the words are written, it's closer to French than to Spanish, but the pronunciation is obviously very different to French. The pronunciation is closer to Spanish, but the way you write and the grammar is closer to French. So it's a mix.
\n\n
Is there a standard Catalan dialect or is it very diverse?
\nActually, Catalan Countries – you’d normally talk about Andorra, Catalonia, the Community of València, and the Balearic Islands – they all have their different dialects of Catalan. For example in València, they speak Valencian. It's Catalan, I understand them, but they have a dialect. In the islands it's the same, and even inside of Catalonia, the ones from the south or the ones from the north have small accents, but you would always understand each other. It's not that different that you would not understand it, they’re small dialects, but there is a difference.
\n\n
Growing up there, is it easy to use Catalan as a first language, or is Spanish sometimes more predominant?
\nThat's a huge problem actually. I remember in the past I could use it more broadly, but since 2011, let's say, when all the demonstrations started about independence, Catalan has been very much linked to politics. So very broadly, if you speak Catalan you're seen as independentist, and that harmed the Catalan language a lot, because a lot of people didn't want to speak Catalan because of politics. Before that it was actually very normal to speak Catalan in society, but nowadays when I go back to Barcelona? Forget it – I cannot speak only Catalan during the whole day, it's impossible, not even once.
\nIn Reus or in other places, in towns, for sure I would say Catalan is still very very present. You can go through daily life only speaking Catalan, but in Barcelona that is not possible anymore. And that's very sad, because it has been politicised, and it's now actually in danger of starting on the way to extinction. I know it won't happen, and I really hope not, but it's in danger, it's a fact.
\n\n
So in Barcelona is it the case that people still understand it but they don't speak it for political reasons, or…?
\nActually it's both. There is this part obviously, but I would say that’s everywhere in Catalonia generally. In Barcelona specifically, the problem is immigration. Not a problem in the sense that I don't want it, but that it's really like that. Mostly from Latin America, since they speak Spanish – and in Catalonia you can also speak Spanish, because it's bilingual; normally everyone that speaks Catalan also speaks Spanish, except maybe older people in the small villages – and since they speak Spanish, they don't make the effort sometimes to learn Catalan, because it's also not required in a lot of jobs. In public institutions it is, but other than that, normally it’s not.
\nIn Barcelona now also, the big, big problem we have is that a lot of people come as digital nomads, and they come for one or two years and they leave, and they obviously won't learn Catalan. And actually more than immigration, the problem is this temporary migration, these nomads that just come because it's a nice city and a technological hub, and then leave.
\n\n
You mentioned that everybody who speaks Catalan also speaks Spanish. Is everyone perfectly fluent in both, or is Spanish more of a second language for some?
\nI would say in cities, not only Barcelona but around Catalonia, Spanish and Catalan are at perfectly the same level. For smaller towns where they basically only socialise in Catalan, then maybe I would say it's not the same, Spanish is more like a second language. But mostly they speak both the same, and actually the opposite is more problematic. There are a lot of people that speak Spanish and know Catalan, but since they don't practice it, actually Catalan is the second language, even though they're Catalans and were born there and raised there and everything. They go to public schools in Catalan, they learn Catalan, they know Catalan, but they don't speak it, or they consider it as a second language.
\n\n
So in schools, media, things like that, is Catalan the predominant language?
\nIn public schools it should be, but the fact is that it's not. There was also a huge debate about public schools actually. Last year or a couple of years ago the Spanish government wanted to impose that public schools should be taught in at least 25% Spanish, because they were considering that Spanish was in danger in Catalonia since they only speak Catalan. But actually, if you go to public schools – and I know because my dad works in one, and I have family and friends there – the reality is that even though classes in public schools should be taught in Catalan, if the majority of people speak Spanish, the teacher adapts to the pupils. So actually, I would be happy if only 25% of subjects would be taught in Spanish, but the reality is quite the opposite, most of them are taught in Spanish even though they should be in Catalan in public schools.
\n\n
Where else have you lived outside of Barcelona?
\nI've lived in Germany for my bachelor's and now for my master's. I lived in Brussels for some months for Erasmus, I also lived in Mexico for almost a year, and now in Strasbourg, also for some months. As for living, I would say that's it.
\n\n
Do you think that those experiences have had a big influence on you?
\nOf course, all of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
\n\n
How so?
\nVery differently. I mean, it's not the same when you're eighteen and going to a different country as when you're twenty-three and going to Mexico. Germany was very much an experience that helped me mature a lot, because I was on my own at eighteen going to study. I didn’t have my parents nearby where I could go on the weekends, so there I learnt a lot as a person, and I also love my studies. Also, adapting to a different society. It helped me a lot to know myself, how I am and what I like.
\nFor the other places, I would say everything was also growth, but from a more mature place, and more just from gaining experience. They all were very valuable experiences for myself personally, and also to know where I want to work in, what my passions are, and what I really want to do in this life.
\n\n
And what is it that you're studying in Germany?
\nI'm doing my master's degree in International Relations: Peace and Conflict Studies in Frankfurt.
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And what is it that attracts you to that subject?
\nWell, actually because I really like politics, and because where I come from in Catalonia, you're confronted with politics. It's always this tension between Spain and Catalonia and all the politics. So I was always interested in politics, and then I started also being interested in international politics, and seeing this feeling of injustice. I was feeling it while I was at school, like ‘why are things unjust?’, thinking about migration and wars. I thought ‘I want to do something to make a better world’, but I really do want to inform myself more about what conflicts are going on around the world, and which instruments there are now to influence them.
\n\n
Do you speak German then?
\nYes, I learnt it at school.
\n\n
Do you speak any other languages?
\nI speak English, Catalan and Spanish obviously, German, and then I would say the one I speak worst is French. I learnt them all at school. When I was in Barcelona, I learnt them all at school, and then at university I continued with French.
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Having lived both in French and German speaking countries, do you think that speaking those languages is an essential part of understanding those cultures, or is it more just a way of communication?
\nCommunication is very important, to avoid misunderstandings it’s better if you share the same language, but I think culturally, if you're able to speak the language, you have more opportunities to engage in local activities. When I was in Germany, I knew many friends that came from Barcelona or elsewhere who could only communicate in English and not German, and they were very limited, most of them only had friends from their own countries. I also think Nordic cultures are a bit more closed, so it's even more important to speak the same language. The language tells much more about what expressions they have, how the humour is, how they express themselves. It tells a lot about how a society behaves, so I think that's important.
\nCatalan is also a very good example, because I think knowing the language tells a lot about the people. Which expressions they use, which references they make, that tells a lot about our socialisation and our history, so I think that's what makes it important for the culture.
\n\n
With Catalan then, what does the language tell you about the culture?
\nI think Catalan language historically – just the existence of the language – has been a sign that we're a society that doesn’t give up. It's a culture that doesn't give up. During the dictatorship of Franco in Spain, Catalan was prohibited, so at school, or in the streets even, you could not speak Catalan. So for the people that speak Catalan in their families, in their houses, it was a sign of resistance, a sign that we're not giving up. Through history there are a lot of examples, and for me even the mere fact of speaking Catalan is a sign that I'm not giving up on this language, and I'm resisting. But it also tells about Catalan culture, like when I speak Catalan to my parents, just the tone of voice, how you speak, and the expressions you use, I would say that is a very Catalan thing. We have a lot of phrases for everything, we use a lot of expressions. It's very expressive, and that also characterises Catalan people.
\n\n
Would you say Catalan people are quite open?
\nI consider myself open, but I wouldn't say actually that Catalan people are directly super open like you can imagine when you think about south Spain. Like Andalusian people, they would even speak to stones, you know? Like they would speak to a plant, they don't care. Catalans aren’t that sense of open, but I would say it's a very welcoming society. So I do think you get along, but maybe it takes some time.
\n\n
And you said you were in Mexico for almost a year right? What were you doing there?
\nI was volunteering through a Catalan organisation that cooperates with three cities in Mexico that are all border cities. It's very much about the reality of the border, and the challenges and complications that come with the border. They cooperate with this religious entity – they're called Escolapios – and then we went there to mostly work on local projects with youth.
\n\n
Would you say that religion is also an important part of culture to you?
\nTo me personally, yes. I wouldn't say our society. In Mexico religion is very present, everywhere where you go. I would say even in Latin America generally. In Catalonia or in Spain, I wouldn't say it is at all, at least for our generation, but I would say for me it's important.
\n\n
Why do you think it's not so important for most people in Catalonia?
\nWell, it's pretty obvious that there have been a lot of scandals. It's more linked to institutions, so if you link religion to institutions and not to faith, then obviously distrust comes, because humankind is corrupt and there are bad people everywhere. The institution is corrupting faith, so I think as a result of the scandals, it’s to go against that.
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You've lived all over Europe – can you imagine yourself ever leaving Catalonia forever, or would you be drawn to go back eventually?
\nI’ve thought about it a lot, and I know that those are my roots, and I feel very proud of being where I come from, and I want the best thing for Catalonia. It's difficult, but at the same time, I think if I were to go back now it would limit me too. Because the reality is that there are not so many jobs, there are not so many prospects, at least in the sector where I am now. So I think yes, I would like to go back, but at the same time I've also been building my network and my friendships in Germany now, for example, so I also consider Germany as a place to live. I think someday I will go back, but for now I do think that for what I'm searching for in my life, other places can give me other opportunities.
\n\n
Do you feel connected to Germany then?
\nYeah, yeah I do actually.
\n\n
Do you feel German?
\nNo, not ever. I could never feel German even if I had the ID. As we have been talking about, it comes with an identity, it comes with a culture, it comes with a sentiment, and my sentiment will always be Catalan.
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But I think the longer you spend somewhere, integrated into that society, the more that culture affects you.
\nFor sure, I've noticed also from the first year I was in Germany to now, I do some things now that I would never have done in the first year. So I'm adapting to the German culture, but still for me Catalonia, and my family there, is an essential part of my being. I'm very familiar with it, so I always love to go back home and want to go back home. Of course, I could adapt and I could very much feel at home in Germany, but I would never feel German.
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Do you have any examples of things that you've caught yourself doing in Germany that you wouldn't have done before?
\nWell, one silly thing about the weather – in Barcelona it never rains, so for me when it rains, I stay home. In Germany, at least where I was in Düsseldorf, it rained the whole time, and for the first month I was just not leaving home in the afternoons, because I was giving the excuse ‘no, it's raining, so I'm not coming’. At some point I realised ‘Glòria, you have to start doing things when it rains as well, because it's the reality here’, so then I started to accept the rain.
\n\n
Do you have any favourite Catalan traditions?
\nI have a couple, but I would say one of my favourites is on Christmas. It's basically a chunk of wood with a face drawn on – ‘caga tió’, it’s the chunk of wood and also the tradition – that you bring home one month before Christmas. You traditionally go, then, to search for them in the woods, and then you bring them home and give them food so that they eat a lot before Christmas. Then on Christmas Day, you cover them with blankets, go to the kitchen, and sing Christmas songs. Then you go back and hit them with a stick while singing a very specific song, and afterwards you open the blankets and see that beneath the blankets there are lots of gifts. So the logic is that the ‘caga tió’ has eaten so much that at Christmas he shits the presents, basically. It's amazing, I love it, we do it on Christmas and it's only in Catalonia, nowhere else in the world.
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![\"\"](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/13/image-3.png\")
\n
That's fantastic.
\nit is, it's very fun.
\n\n
And that's in all Catalan regions or…?
\nI don't know actually, I don't know if they do it in the Balearic Islands, or in València. I know in Catalonia for sure.
\n\n
What's the distinction then between Catalonia and the Catalan regions?
\nCatalonia is where Barcelona is, and Barcelona is like the capital of the Catalan Countries, and that's why Catalan culture has been pretty centralised in Catalonia only. Now they're trying more to also give a voice to Catalan singers from the islands, or from València, but normally the Catalan culture was coming from Catalonia, so that's why. It's also where it has been more preserved. For example, if you go to the south of València that's closer to Andalusia, there are places where they don't speak Catalan anymore, so that's why Catalonia is considered like the ‘capital’.
\n\n
How do you feel about Catalan independence?
\nThat's very political, this could be one hour more. I feel like every community has the right broadly to decide what they want to be, and I do think that Catalonia historically and culturally has grown separately from Spain, as I said, more than unified as part of Spain. So personally I am for independence, but beyond that, I am for the right of people to self-determination generally.
\n\n
And when you're thinking about independence – not practically but theoretically – is this for Catalonia or for the Catalan Countries?
\nAndorra is already a country. So there’s not so much to do there [laughs]. They managed. I think again, right of self-determination, everything should go through the people. People should decide, everything should go through a referendum I believe. I haven’t thought about that, so I don't have a strong opinion on how it should look, but if people want it, then it should be, and if people don't want it, then it shouldn't.
\n\n
So you don't necessarily feel so strongly attached to the other Catalan Countries, or…?
\nI feel kind of like brothers and sisters. Like we’re all the same, but I also recognise that historically and geographically there are differences. So I also acknowledge the right to self-determination, so that they can also decide what they want to be. But I do feel attached to Catalan Countries.
\n\n
Okay. Just because you're talking about each community having its own right to decide, but then that kind of implies that those are different communities.
\nYeah, that's true. But legally, they are different communities. We have autonomous communities, so Catalonia could only decide for Catalonia. If we wanted the Balearic Islands to be also on a referendum, the Balearic Islands would have to request a referendum to Spain themselves. So we're not unified now, it has to work separately. For now, because I was brought up and grew up in Catalonia, since Catalonia is the one concerned, then I'm fighting for Catalonia. If the Balearic Islands also want independence, I will fight with them too, but I cannot fight for them.
\n\n
Would you say you’re close with Spanish people in the same way that you feel close to the other Catalan peoples?
\nI feel attached to people generally, and Spanish bonds us too because I speak Spanish, so there is a bonding inevitably. I have Spanish friends of course, it's not like I have hatred or something against Spanish people, no. So it binds me in the sense of the language.
\n\n
But it's just because you speak the language and because you live there, it’s not that you feel close?
\nExactly.
\n\n
Okay. How would you compare the Catalan situation to the Basque situation?
\nWell I would say it's pretty different. Again historically, again with the relations they have with Spain, and the history with terrorism, and X and Y. It's very different from the relations that Catalonia has with Spain, and the history of Catalonia, so you can compare it in the sense of wanting independence, but it's a very different political struggle I would say.
\n\n
Is there a sense of solidarity between those two communities?
\nThat's the weird thing. I would think so, that it would be logical, but actually there is not so much. My intuition would say because the Basque Country gets much more out from Spain than Catalonia does. I think if the Basque Country really wants something it's more probable that the Spanish government will hear them, but the Catalan people not so much. I think also because Catalonia is more economically important to Spain, so they have more sentiment of keeping Catalonia than Basque. It's just a different relationship.
\n\n
Okay. And the cultures are quite different?
\nYeah, yeah, of course. I don't know Basque culture so much but I know it's very, very different.
\n\n
Okay. Coming from the UK, I'd say there are parallels drawn in the UK between the case of Catalonia to Spain and Scotland to the UK. Is there anything from your side? Do you ever see that compared?
\nYeah, you always see in the Catalan demonstrations on the 11th of September – that's our national day – there are always Scottish representatives with Scottish flags. Not so many, but some. And I don't know so much about Scottish history to be able to draw an analytical comparison, but I think there is a kind of comparison.
\nBut for us it's always seeing Scotland as the big brother, in the sense of ‘this is how it should look’, and in our case ‘this is the reality’. Great Britain for us was a democratic country that gave at least one opportunity to the people to vote on their future, and with Spain we are not dealing with a democratic country as we compare it. They don't give us the choice to vote. So we always see Scotland as a success story, or at least that they're dealing with a democratic country.
\n\n
So the situation in Scotland is seen more favourably then?
\nWell better in terms of… at least they could have a referendum. So looking up and working towards that, while knowing the realities are very different, the central governments are very different – like London from Madrid – the societies, and everything. But there is this belief.
\n\n
Okay. Do you think there's some solidarity there then?
\nYeah, yeah. Of course. There’s not solidarity in the sense that we really work together, but there is this collective solidarity where you would say ‘I understand you, I don't know so much about you, but I understand you at least’.
\n\n
Are there any other cases that you would compare it to?
\nWell, there's always the Quebec one, but I think that is also very different. Other than that, I would say those are the most common.
\n\n
Is there anything more you want to add before the last question?
\nI would just add that I've come across a lot of people who want to put this tension, like ‘you're independentist or not’ and link being Catalan with politics, or trying to create that tension between Spanish and Catalan, and for me it's not like a football team, you know? For me, you really have to understand the history and the culture everywhere. Not just in this case. But I think that's very important to understand, because there's never just black and white. There are always nuances and there are always good things and bad things in every decision.
\nSo if Catalonia would ever be independent, of course that would come with risks. It's not an ideal society. We would also have a populist extremist right, because we're not an ideal society, it's pretty obvious. But it always comes with risks, so you should not prejudge without knowing. You should always get to know the culture and the people, and talk with whoever is actually affected by those decisions, or what you're going through. So I would say that is very important, to not just get the headlines, but to try to inform yourself a little bit more.
\n\n
Last question then, could you pick out one artist from your culture – it could be a musician, author, writer, painter, anything – who really speaks to you, and connects with you on the level of representing your culture?
\nI would say a singer called Lluís Llach. He's probably seventy-something now. There are a lot of singers and Catalan artists that I really love, but he was the first one that came to mind, because during the dictatorship, during Franco, he was doing songs that were implicitly criticising it, but doing so in a very intelligent way. He was always fighting for the Catalan struggle from his artistic way, and was always fighting – and is still – fighting for a plural, inclusive Catalan society. And always with this sentiment that I've also tried to show, that we have a very unique identity – as everyone else does – but it's very precious, and to try to explain where it comes from, the roots, and the feeling. So I think he's a very good singer, he has very good songs, and he represents Catalan culture and Catalan identity very well.
\n\n
![\"\"](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/13/image-4.png\")
\nIn your own words then, just tell me a little bit about where you're from, your background, where your family is from, and where you grew up.
\nI come from Slovakia, my dad is from a small village in the northern part. It's actually the very last village in Slovakia, then there is the border, and then there is the Czech Republic. My mum comes from a very southern city where there is a very significant Hungarian and Roma minority. I was born there, but I spent my whole life in the northern part of Slovakia. My grandparents still live in the south, so each summer I would spend in the south with my grandparents. So technically I come from the northern part of Slovakia, but the village where I grew up and went to school is very distinctive, and I’ve never really identified with it. People in that village are very proud of being the citizens of the village, and I never had that.
\n\n
Is there a cultural difference then, between these different regions?
\nOf course. People in the south or southeast… I would say in Slovakia, the further east you go, the nicer people are. I think that would also apply for my mum's side of our family, that they are more warm-hearted. So yeah, for sure.
\n\n
And are you living in Slovakia now?
\nI don't really know, because for the last couple of years I have been studying in Brno, in the Czech Republic, and I spend more time there than in Slovakia, but my address is still in Slovakia, so I guess Slovakia is still my home.
\n\n
And do you want to stay there?
\nUnfortunately not. I love the country, it's my home, but the political situation has escalated enough for me to consider not moving back.
\n\n
If the political situation changed, would you want to stay in Slovakia?
\nIt doesn't come just with political change, because the country is so devastated thanks to our previous governments that it will take years if not decades to get it back on the right track. So I think I would consider it, but we already had a change of government, and the government didn't even fulfill the whole term, it just fell down, it crumbled.
\n\n
So where do you see yourself living if not Slovakia?
\nI think the Czech Republic.
\n\n
You mentioned the southern areas of Slovakia which have a lot of Roma, a lot of Hungarians. Slovakia generally is seen as an ethnic community, but of course there are Rusyns, Roma, Hungarians, historically Germans as well, Ukrainians, Poles. It's very multi-ethnic for a state that is supposedly mono-ethnic. So how do you see the relationship between Slovaks as an ethnic group and the national minorities within Slovakia?
\nIn the village in the northern part of Slovakia there were, until around 2018, no Romas. Nowadays there is one Roma family and they moved in in 2017 or 2018, something like that. So growing up in the northern part I had no interactions with people of minorities of any kind. On the other hand, in the southern part, it's completely normal to go to the shop and the vendor says ‘please’ in both Slovak and in Hungarian, and in my opinion that's beautiful. So over there I would say it's cohabiting without… I mean, I'm 23; I don’t know what was going on there in the 90s. But now, I would say there are no problems, they live together. The signs to say you're entering a certain village are both in Slovak and in Hungarian. But as I told you, I've never lived there permanently, I would just spend holidays there in summer or Christmas.
\n\n
Do you think that attitude is common, that the situation with the Hungarian minority is good or sustainable?
\nI think it is sustainable. Now we don't have any significant Hungarian political party, which is weird based on the number of Hungarians living in Slovakia. There was one, they were in government in 2018 or 2019, but then the journalist [Ján Kuciak] was killed and the government fell, and since then they didn't even make it to the parliament. There are a lot of smaller Hungarian parties, and they can't really form a coalition to get into the parliament. Politicians don't say anything about the creation of some kind of political bloc that would represent Hungarian interests, so that tells us that there is no need for some political force to pursue those kinds of interests, in my opinion. They have a lot of linguistic rights. There are signs both in Slovak and in Hungarian in the city where I was born. They can attend Hungarian schools. There is even one Hungarian university in Slovakia. It's not very good, but it is there. There are some Hungarians who live in Slovakia and never learned Slovak because they didn't need to.
\n\n
Is that something that most ethnic Slovaks are aware of?
\nI'm not sure. I grew up in a very mono-ethnic area, so I don't know. I'm happy I could spend some time in the southern part, which is completely different on these things.
\n\n
Assuming you feel a connection to your country and your culture, is that a connection to Slovakia as a place, and all of the people in it, including the Hungarians? Or do you feel more connected to Slovaks, Slovak language, Slovak culture and not so much the other groups?
\nI’ve never thought about it this way, but I don't think it would make any difference. I would say I’m connected equally to both. Maybe because of the historical awareness I have. Because, for example, Bratislava has never been a completely Slovak city. It was a multilingual, multicultural, multi-ethnic city. Only for the last couple of decades it's been completely Slovak.
\n\n
Speaking of history, how is the broader history of Slovakia and the Slovak people taught and thought of?
\nWe were always taught about Slovaks, the Slovak nation. We actually never learnt ‘what is the Slovak nation?’, or ‘what is a nation, how did they emerge?’, but we were always taught that we were the oppressed ones in every state we find ourselves in. Excluding the Slovak state during the war, but we were oppressed under the Hungarians, and even in Czechoslovakia we always played second fiddle. So we were always the oppressed ones.
\n\n
Even in Czechoslovakia? So the first republic isn’t thought of particularly fondly?
\nI would say that we definitely don't feel as warm towards it as Czechs. Maybe it's because of Masaryk, maybe it's because of Štefáník, who died very early. So there's nothing to connect those feelings to within the first republic. By the way, Masaryk's father was Slovak, but we don't really have this connection to him. Czechs call him daddy Masaryk, but we don’t really.
\n\n
Do you think of him as a Czech figure then, rather than Czechoslovak?
\nI would say Czechoslovak only to be historically accurate, but emotionally… I'm studying at Masaryk University, so it's different. Now I also feel some kind of connection towards him, but before, when I was in grammar school or in primary school, no, not really.
\n\n
Do you think there are other Slovak national historical figures that have been overlooked in favour of these predominantly Czech ones?
\nŠtefan Osuský for example, he was a diplomat in the USA and he did a lot for the creation of the first Czechoslovak Republic, and I think I found out about him only in grammar school, which is so late.
\n\n
How about Dubček? How is he remembered?
\nWe actually never learnt about him much. Maybe in the generation of my parents. But in mine, not really. I don't even know much about his life.
\n\n
Speaking of Dubček, how was the Prague Spring remembered, and the Soviet invasion? Would you say it's a different narrative to the one in the Czech Republic?
\nI would say no. I would say here we have a pretty good public consensus on this. I hope so. I feel that way, and I haven't heard any public reactions that would state otherwise, which can’t be said about November '89. But I think we will get into that.
\n\n
Well, we can get into that now. Do you think there's a difference between the way that the Czechs and Slovaks see '89? And how do you see it?
\nWell, I wasn't alive then, but I feel really connected to this day, given the fact that our government cancelled the public holiday this year. And you would say that it's not a big deal, but the symbolism of this day… people know the 17th of November, but not many people know that there was a big student demonstration in Bratislava on the 16th of November. And we have a prime minister who says that the 17th of November was planned by the communists, and that the revolution didn't start from the grassroots. But for how people perceive it, I would say my generation, even though we didn't live during the time, we can value the act that happened then.
\n\n
How about the split, then?
\nI remember asking my history teacher in primary school whether she thinks it was a good thing to split up, and she told me that it was better during Czechoslovakia, but I would say just because of the economics, that they were pulling us, because they were always bigger. But given the fact that it was a peaceful split, and there was no referendum, I think I read somewhere that if there was a referendum, we wouldn't have split up, because people didn't wish so. So there is no public debate about it. Just ‘it happened, here we are’.
\nYou mentioned this narrative that you were always playing second fiddle to the Czechs, and that you were always oppressed throughout history, even in Czechoslovakia. Why is it then that people didn't want to split?
\nIt's a very nice example of the way Slovaks think. Either it was good to be in the common state or it wasn’t, but Slovaks can say that it was bad and it was good in the same sentence and be totally okay with it. So I don't think we came to some kind of reconciliation with our history and how we perceive it, and that's why we might seem a little confused about it.
\n\n
That brings me to another question specifically about history. Milan Kundera has posited the idea that the difference in Europe between the small nations and the big nations is that the small nations are at the mercy of history, powerless against the tide of history that determines their destiny for them. In this comparison, Slovakia would definitely be a small nation. Do you think that's an accurate way of describing it, or would you say you're in a position to be able to determine your own destiny?
\nUntil 1989, I would say that we were at the mercy of history, because while we weren't part of the USSR, we were still their state. But then, when the communists fell and the USSR didn't exist anymore, and we were able to join the EU, join NATO, join the Council of Europe, I think there was a time where we could choose our own path. We did that, but we are also doing it now, and we did it in the latest elections, which were two years ago. And again, we chose our own path.
\n\n
Slovakia has never really had its own state before in all of history, excluding the German puppet state. With that in mind, do you think that influences Slovakia in the sense that it's a nation-state in its infancy? Are there still areas where its direction is still not set in stone?
\nSometimes we try to apologise for our actions or hide them in the fact that we are a very young nation, and a very young state, and our democracy is still young. But thirty years is not that little. It's enough, I think, for us to distinguish what's good and what's not for us.
\n\n
Okay. And you mentioned before NATO, the Council of Europe, the European Union. Do you feel connected to Europe?
\nSo much. I don't know if it's because of the fact that I studied European Studies. And I was born in 2002. We joined in 2004. So immediately I was able to experience all the good things that it brought us. Thanks to it, I was able to go to Erasmus. I was living in Spain for two or three summers. I'm studying in a different country. That's because of another international agreement, but it's still leaving my home country without any obstacles. So yes, yes, for sure.
\n\n
Do most people feel connected to Europe in Slovakia?
\nI don't want to say it's 50-50. It's still 52 to 48. Yes, but I would say mainly the younger generation who can experience Erasmus and these things.
\n\n
So do you think there's a generational divide between those who grew up with it and those who didn't?
\nI would say so. Yes, I grew up with it and I don't know anything else, right? I remember Slovak crowns. I remember when I was little, I was very sad that we won't be using Slovak crowns anymore. Now I'm so happy we are in the Eurozone. And I'm so mad at Czechs that they still aren't. But I don't think that some grandma in the very, very east of Slovakia is feeling the same towards the EU as I do. And I don't want to seem super Euro-optimistic with rose-coloured glasses on my eyes. I do see the problems and the troubles that are within the EU now. With its decisions and all the scandals. Yes, I can see it. And even during European Studies, my grandpa once said that they were brainwashing us. But that's not true. We were taught to criticise the EU as well.
\n\n
Why don't the older generations also feel positively about the EU if they can see positive changes?
\nI don't think they are really able to see that. Maybe it does have something to do with them living in the communist era and remembering that everyone had a job, everyone had a place to live. But they were never taught about the bad things that communists did. We never really came to terms with our communist past. I would say that in general the former USSR never really came to some kind of reconciliation with their history, like the Germans did for example with their Nazi era. So I would say this might be one of the reasons.
\n\n
Okay. Do you feel more European or Slovak?
\nOh, that's a good one. Right now I would say it's 50-50. Maybe that's because I'm here on my Erasmus in Strasbourg, which is a very important city for EU history. So I would say it's 50-50 now.
\n\n
So it's been shifting to more European?
\nYeah, yeah, for sure.
\n\n
When you do go back home, do you feel suddenly more connected to that community and to your home, or do you feel that you've changed in the time that you've been away?
\nThat's a question for my parents, whether I've changed or not. Usually when I get home, as I said, my parents live in a small village. So for the first couple of days I'm like ‘oh my God, it's so beautiful in here’. The nature, and my parents, and everything is lovely. But then I get bored. I get bored and I want to get back to Brno, which is a big city. But I still go to Slovak theatres or Slovak festivals or concerts. That's also when I feel Slovak.
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Do you think there's something about Slovak culture that's particularly special to you? Something that separates it from your neighbours, neighbouring nations?
\nMost of our neighbours are Slavic, as we are. There must be something for sure. But I don't really like these cultural divisions. Like ‘we are like this and you are like that’. For me, borders are so blunt. In reality, they are not that strict, they are not that visible. For example, when we go hiking with my parents, we actually cross the border. You can see the border stone, and we would make fun of it like, ‘now I'm in Czech Republic, now I'm in Slovakia’. So the borders for me are just something formal.
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So you also feel quite connected to the other Slavic groups in Central Europe then?
\nI think it's natural. It's not something I would do on purpose. It's natural.
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Okay, makes sense. There are, though, interesting differences between Czech culture and Slovak culture. Slovakia today is still very religious, and then the Czech Republic is one of the least religious countries in the world. Why do you think that division has emerged?
\nI have no idea, but during the census, if you state that you are a Catholic, it doesn't mean that you live up to those Catholic standards or that you live a Catholic way of life. During the last census I also stated that I'm a Roman Catholic, and I have never been to church. The next census will be in 2030, and I think I will just put that I'm not religious, I'm atheist.
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Do you think that Slovak culture then is represented accurately abroad or is it misunderstood?
\nHow is it represented abroad? You tell me.
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I would say it's seen as quite backwards in Western Europe. It's not necessarily looked down on, but it's poorly understood, definitely. And lumped in with Eastern Europe. It just comes under the broad category of 'Eastern Europe’. But do you think your close neighbours would see it differently?
\nWhen we think about ourselves, we also think about ourselves like we are still in the 19th century. Like, we are those people taking care of sheep and living in huts or whatever. We as Slovaks don't have this will to to be a modern nation, a modern country. We're going backwards. It's difficult with the government. You know, it's still not that bad as Hungary, but we are getting there. We're getting there, and we are not a reliable partner anymore. I don’t know how Polish people perceive us. With Hungarians, it might be specific because of the minority which lives in Slovakia, but with Czechs, there are still so many stupid jokes about Slovaks being stupid or whatever. So I think I would agree with you.
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What about the Eastern European label? Because in Western Europe, Slovakia is Eastern Europe without question.
\nNo, no, no, no, no. Central, Central Europe. Central Europe. I'm sure there are lots of aspects which a sociologist could tell you about, but I remember learning at school that in Slovakia, we have the most eastern cathedral, which is the one in Košice. And you don't have these kinds of cathedrals in Eastern Europe. So that's kind of a dividing line.
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Why do you think Slovaks are so keen to draw that line?
\nMaybe it's the last straw we can hold onto to distinguish us from Ukraine and Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria – who are better in so many aspects of their life now than we are, but yeah.
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What about relations with Russia? Are Russians seen as culturally very close, or is there more distance?
\nIt's very polarised. It's either Russia is our best friend, or Russia is our biggest enemy. There's nothing in between, I would say. I think it all comes back to the communist era, where some people still didn't understand that it wasn't a good era. We weren't prospering as a country. And also with the war and with the disinformation that we are now experiencing, and the hybrid war, which is crazy.
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Politics and culture aside, what's going on in your life, in terms of where you see yourself headed in the long term? Are you happy with where you are now?
\nWell, I'm going to do an internship at the European Commission next year. Then I need to somehow finish my studies. And honestly, I have no idea where I see myself. I don't think it's Brussels necessarily. I hope I will work within the EU institutions either in the Czech Republic or Slovakia. I really don't know. I have my life planned until graduation, and then there is nothing. I have no idea what I'm going to do.
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Last question then. Is there one artist from your culture that particularly resonates with you? It could be a writer, photographer, painter, anyone.
\nThere is one singer who was born in Bratislava, but she spent her life in the Czech Republic. Hana Hegerová. She died in Prague. Everyone knows her songs. One of her songs is like... I don't want to say ‘my song’, but I sang it a lot in the art school which I attended. And I also sang it at some concerts. So I have this personal connection to her.
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![\"\"](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/12/image-5.png\")
\nCan you tell me a bit in your own words about where you're from and where you grew up?
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I was born in Belgrade, I grew up in the suburbs of Belgrade. I'm deeply attached, in terms of identity, to the city, to its history and culture, much like my parents. I would describe myself as very much rooted in Belgrade, my family having changed locations numerous times, within the city and also outside in some cases, but we've always had a particular attachment to this city above all else, geographically speaking.
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What do you think of Belgrade then? Do you like it as a city and a place to grow up?
\nBelgrade has gone through massive changes over the years, over the course of my life alone, let alone during the lives of my ancestors. It used to be the very center, the core of Yugoslavia, a large, multinational state which, for its time, had an outsized influence on the world stage. Now, though still a big city, it's the capital of a much smaller country, and I think one can easily feel it.
\nI think the outside context, the context of the whole organism that is the country, influences Belgrade also, and the city has therefore gone through many changes, some of them good, some of them quite bad, a consequence of political decisions. I think what I like about Belgrade, and about growing up in Belgrade, is what I like about any other major European city, which is the sense of history, and a cosmopolitanism which you simply can't find in a smaller town. The city was built by various nationalities, not just Serbs.
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Are you drawn to any other major European cities then, if they'd have the same historical and cosmopolitan appeal? Or are you content to stay in Belgrade in the future?
\nWell, when it comes to Belgrade, what makes it stand out is that it was the inflection point of numerous great civilizations. Cities like Prague and Paris, both of which I admire, grew up mostly within a singular context. Everywhere in Prague, you can feel the Austrian, Central European influence, in the architecture, in the way the streets are shaped, in the public squares and the spirit of the city, and so on.
\nBelgrade, however, is a hodgepodge of different influences, and it has such a complicated history. You can feel the city's various occupations and its wounds just walking down almost any street. The city spent centuries under the Turks, and you can see the Ottoman influence in the city's central parts, the eastern bank of the Sava. Then, it was free, and it returned to European influences. On the western side, in Zemun, you feel like you're in any other Austro-Hungarian town, the exact kind of street layout common in their towns, with a main street and buildings with Baroque motifs. And then you have the historical influences - New Belgrade, built under communism, in Brutalist architecture. And then you have scars across the city due to the city's six times being bombarded, most recently in 1999.
\nVery few cities in Europe, I think, boast such a fascinating history. It has its own appeal, like any other city does. I am temperamentally closest to Western influences, so Paris, Prague, Vienna and the like feel spiritually closest to me, and I would feel at home there the most, as I do with such elements here already.
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So, where do you think Belgrade - and Serbia - sits in respect to these different civilisations now? It feels to me as if Serbia is still at the crossroads of East and West, now between Russia and Europe. Where do you think Serbia's place is culturally and politically?
\nI think it's fair to describe Belgrade and Serbia as quite the basketcase on the European and world stage. I think, at first glance, it feels like any other place in Europe, but then you dig deeper, and you look at the Serbian mindset, and I think you find that we have always resisted easy definition.
\nSerbia is nowadays portrayed, in some media, as a Russian offspring, but as a matter of fact, while there has always been a cultural and religious affinity, we spent most of the 20th century estranged from Russia, and culturally-speaking there was very much an affinity for America, for Coca-Cola, for blue jeans and rock music and so on. We have always I think been both that kind of ordinary European, Western-looking Serbia, and a Serbia that very much has its own, how should I put it, parochial, inward-looking ways. I think that tension exists elsewhere, but with Serbia it's especially palpable, because, to this day, our national identity actually isn't all that clear. We spent half the 20th century as socialist Yugoslavs advocating non-alignment, and now we're post-socialist Serbs gravitating at once both westwards and eastwards and nowhere in particular. I view Serbia as a culturally European country, and perhaps that influences my direction politically, though I'm not very concerned with it on a personal level. I believe political alignments of any kind are really ephemeral, that there isn't really an end to history.
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Do you personally feel any connection to a sense of wider European identity?
\nIn terms of identity, I have always felt myself to be myself first and foremost. On a personal level, what I dislike most is when people subordinate their individual identities to some social identity, whether it's for a national identity, or a generational identity, or an ideological one. I believe the end result, ultimately, is the suspension of thought, the disappearance of the individual. But I have always felt myself connected to Europe, on a deep level, just as I feel connected to Serbia, within Europe, on a deep level. I believe both connections go much deeper than merely blood and soil, because I am what I am and wouldn't have been the same had I just been born elsewhere, you know, a hundred kilometers to the west or to the east, or even elsewhere within my own country, or my own city. To have brought up individuality might seem like a digression of mine, but really, I feel any person's identity is grounded at once in himself and in all the layers that lead up to humanity as a whole, from the family, to the city, to country, to broader civilizational context, and yes, I see myself connected to the European one and the European line in history.
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In that case, could you tell me more about your individual circumstances? Are you working or studying, for instance?
\nWell, I'm doing both. Right now my studies are kind of on hold for various reasons, personal and non-personal, so I'm working at a major bookstore in the city center. I encounter lots of people, from all over the world, during the average workday. Working at a major bookstore, in a major national capital, is really good for cultivating a more global mindset, with the way it brings you into contact with so many people through mere circumstance.
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And what is it that you're studying?
\nEnglish language, literature and culture.
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Why did you choose that subject?
\nI've had a lifelong fascination with American and British culture, as I saw them, the aspects that I saw. My fascination with it has spanned various areas, including history and philosophy, where I from a young age admired the noble but imperfectly executed American credo and thinkers such as Emerson and Thoreau, through to music, with my love for jazz and rock, and literature, with great writers such as Orwell and Keats and Salinger, to name a thematically and temporally diverse few.
\nThe English language itself, which I speak well though I butcher it on occasion, has been the object of enduring fascination to me, for much the same reasons as outlined by Borges, when he spoke in praise of its diversity in vocabulary, its many colors and nuances, its grammatical possibilities that are inconceivable in my language ('spongeworthy' from Seinfeld comes to mind, you can't translate that into Serbian!). So studying English language, literature and culture has, really, been a continuation of a fascination that began when I was very little.
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Could you ever see yourself moving to Britain or America then?
\nWell, in some ways, my fascination with them has worn out, because they, like most cultures nowadays, have degraded too much into triviality for my taste. The same process is going everywhere, of a sort of cultural degradation, of, I think, the loss of depth and the spread of shallow understandings of everything, the spread of convenience and cheap entertainment, and a materialist, utilitarian philosophy that is not quite to my taste. I think America especially has become a culture of trivialities. I want to experience the world, really, and I think I'd move anywhere, at least for some time, right now if I could, to try things out, to see if some of my preconceptions are wrong, too. But on the whole, I find myself most comfortable in continental Europe at this point of time, perhaps France is closer to a beacon for me, although, really, any problems that bother me in America or Britain at the moment, they're nascent, to some degree, virtually everywhere in Europe as well, including in my country.
\nWhy do you think France and continental Europe appeals to you more?
\nThere appears to be a greater sense of history in continental Europe than in the very young America. This makes the difference to me. I think continental Europe has learned to see history not as something they shape, but as a burden, and has become exhausted from its history, as Cioran believed. Kundera once noted that the British, French and Russian anthems are thumping and speak of glory, while anthems like that of Poland, for instance, start with simply: \"Poland has not yet perished\".
\nI think history has weighed down on Europe (and, unlike Kundera, I include France and Russia, because, despite their size, their respective empires have been demolished badly over the past century) more than it has on America, which views itself as in control of history. Optimism for the future seems to me like their domain. Europe, at this point, I identify with pessimism and skepticism in infinite progress, and awareness of how ephemeral and uncertain life is (hence why some 'pessimistic' philosophies have sprung and become popular here, rather than across the pond). America feels too deluded about eternal splendor and 'manifest destiny' to me, compared to Europe, which had its glory days and then went downhill.
\nVery interesting point. Would I be wrong to draw a connection between that sense of being burdened by history and the recent past of Serbia and the Balkans? You're part of the first generation to grow up in a post-Yugoslav Serbia, after all. How do you think that has impacted your sense of cultural and national identity?
\nI believe there's something to it. As I mentioned earlier, individuals are shaped by their contexts, their backgrounds, what they do with the circumstances they have before them, and so on and so forth. I am somehow always aware of the fact that, just two years before I was born, this country was at war, and that lots of horrific things were happening, and being done in my people's name, not far away from where I live, and that some people had horrible ideas and horrible intentions in this very society. I think it is hard not to be affected by it. When you live in Sweden, you take it for granted that your country hasn't been at war since the Congress of Vienna over two centuries ago, and you can't imagine war, which is the greatest calamity that a society can experience. Somehow, I am always aware of the turbulent history of this region, and I am always aware that my life is just this one little life, that it can easily be taken away, and that I have no control over whether it will or won't be. In my specific case, it has heightened my sense of individualism. I think individualism comes when one either defines their own values and chases their own goals in life, in direct defiance of societal expectations, or adopts, very simply, a cynical attitude, of pessimism towards 'grand marches' (to borrow again from Kundera), the realization that much of life is, really, about luck and circumstances beyond your control. So the volatility of this society has really impacted my thought and my conception of the self.
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What do you think the deepest cultural legacy of those wars has been in your society?
\nThe omnipresence of nationalist motifs, which has become a scourge we cannot get rid of. I think nationalism has really poisoned the nation, including many of our young people, and when a nation as small as ours becomes so insular, narrow-minded and withdrawn, and filled with bitterness and spite, I think it can only be a recipe for disaster. I don't mean necessarily mean war or genocide. I mean simply the poisoning of the spirit, it kills the spirit both of an individual and of a society. Danilo Kiš, one of our great writers, said it best (I tried to translate, roughly): ''Nationalism is, above all else, paranoia. Collective and individual paranoia. As collective paranoia, it is the consequence of envy and fear, and above all a consequence of the loss of individual consciousness.'' This is a problem we still haven't solved, after so many decades, and I believe that this country and this region might not move beyond it for a very long time. When a person thinks with nationalist slogans more than with their own thoughts, there is a massive problem.
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Do you think that view is shared elsewhere in the region in your generation? Would you, for example, find yourself in agreement with most young Bosniaks, Croats, or Albanians about the need to overcome nationalism? Or are you in the minority?
\nI am personally pessimistic about younger generations, and I don't see much hope that they will be any better than the older ones. I think that despite the Internet, and despite the 'global village' it is said we live in, there is still too much parochialism in this region, what in the UK you'd call the 'Little England' mentality, and I think it's present even with young people. And when I look around the region, and see a tenth of Croatia attending a Thompson concert, who has peddled in a lot of vicious hate, I don't see things getting much better. I'm not all that certain that the majority of young people anywhere in the region are sufficiently free of nationalism. I think there's a whole spectrum between full nationalism and no nationalism, too. Somebody can seem like a liberal, progressive, cosmopolitan person, and then you find out they have some of the same poisonous attitudes as everybody else, that they believe bits and pieces of the same propaganda everybody else has been drinking.
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With that in mind, what are your reflections on the project of Yugoslavia itself as someone who has grown up only after its momentous collapse?
\nA noble idea, but doomed from the very start. I think it came at a too late point in history; Germany had unified over 40 years before Yugoslavia formed, as had Italy, and both of them had solid cultural foundations in place before their formation. The Yugoslav identity came too late, when separate national identities had already crystallized, and then, when Yugoslavia was formed, though there appeared to have been good will on part of all the nations, ultimately it was botched in execution. And then, in my view, to re-establish Yugoslavia after World War Two, after the genocide that had occurred, might have been a mistake. I think, without proper reflection on that chapter of history, things were never going to work out well, and when Yugoslavia collapsed in the 1990s, it was ultimately due to Croatia's lingering separatist aspirations and the Serbs' fear of a second Ustaše regime. Again, a noble idea, one that I wish could have ultimately been preserved, but unfortunately wasn't, due to a combination of the mentality of people in this region, our incompetent ruling classes, and historical bad luck.
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What do you see as the best path forwards for regional cooperation and reconciliation in the future? What model might be a better fit for the region?
\nNothing will get better unless we, as individuals, want to become better. Unfortunately in this case, but we are part of the world, and some of the same trends dragging us down here are in fact global trends. It is hard to hate your neighbor on account of their nationality if you are a well-adjusted person. When it comes to the ruling class, they should be doing more to bring us together rather than divide us, but their whole business model depends on us being separate and bickering. I don't think it's possible to talk of models there, really. It is I believe as individuals that we can make a difference. If we actively choose to reject poisonous ideas and treat each other as humans above all else, then I think society can become better. But I think this is difficult in the age of politicians who adhere to the maxim of 'divide et impera', and certainly difficulty with all the algorithms that appeal to people's worst instincts.
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Moving away from politics then, what is it about writing that appeals to you?
\nI think that writing is an attempt to make sense of yourself and the world. Writing is an attempt to get to know oneself better, and to investigate human existence. Writing appeals to me because I have always been an introvert who doesn't get to talk all that much in real life, though I am filled with thoughts and emotions I am always aching to express. And so, writing gives me the proper outlet, and the fact that it's such a solitary activity appeals to me. What's more, I like the absolute liberty of creative and confessional writing. Unlike in, say, academic writing, you are not constrained by the limits of the material world. In academic writing, you have to constantly justify everything you say with peer-reviewed sources. I believe the truth can be found through probing the depths of one's own self, that there is some sort of deeply personal, yet actually existing truth we carry deep within ourselves, and I think it comes out in moments of deep introspection. Oscar Wilde once said, ''The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value.'' In this age where everybody knows disconnected tidbits of information that are great for a game show but say nothing about the human condition, I think writing represents a highly intimate search for real truth, an attempt to eke some sense out of a senseless world.
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You mentioned a linguistic element to it before. What do you think are the differences between writing in English and Serbian, and which do you prefer?
\nI strongly prefer writing in English to writing in Serbian, though I sometimes struggle when writing in English because Serbian is better for conveying a certain feeling. This is difficult for me to do in English, especially as I tend to be overly concerned with syntactic correctness and somehow never work it out right. The main reason I prefer English is because it is much better for the expression of abstract thought compared to Serbian. What in Serbian would sound stilted and overly scientific might seem perfectly fine in English, at least from my point of view. I think Serbian is great for raw feelings, but English is much better for the expression of thought, and likewise, it appears to me, with Romance languages.
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Last question. Could you tell me about one artist from your culture who you particularly like, why you like them, and anything that makes them stand out as being uniquely embedded in that culture? A musician, painter, photographer, writer, anything you like.
\nAmong Serbian artists I greatly admire those who have, in one way or another, defied the spirit of their times both on a national level and on a global level. Among them I would place the writers Danilo Kiš, whom I mentioned earlier, and Borislav Pekić, both of whom remain memorable for their numerous writings in opposition to ideologues. I also admire musicians with a defiant streak, like Đorđe Balašević, who was a major anti-war voice during the 1990s. I don't know what 'uniquely embedded' would really be. Ultimately I believe that artists have very rarely changed the world, including their own nations. In the end, an artist's legacy is his or her quite helpful attempt to make sense of existence for those of us who are perpetually unsatisfied, who are hungry for more and know this trivial world offers little possibility of acquiring it. So, I suppose those are individuals I would single out.
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![\"\"](\"https://finnchapman.eu/media/posts/1/danilo-kis.jpg\")
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