Postscript

It has been one month since the Ben Franklin Transatlantic Fellows Reunion in Denmark. One month since our exchange of ideas and friendship. One month since the fellows re-ignited the fires of debate that were first started one year ago. During their stay in Denmark, their understanding of international politics grew from the lectures and meetings they attended. Most of the lectures focused on the world in the era of globalisation and that the world is becoming smaller and smaller due to advances in communication, such as the Internet. The BFTF is a true testament to communication power of the Internet. The Internet has made communication between the fellows easier and cheaper than in years past and some may say that the relations among fellows may not have been so strong without the Internet. Another aspect of globalisation that was discussed was the spreading values of freedom throughout the world. One lecture focused on the clash of values during the Muhammad Cartoon scandal unfolded. During all these studies the fellows had clashing opinions on many different subjects ranging from AIDS relief to war to global warming. While the debates raged on, several common underlining values were realized. The first is a common belief in the power of democracy and global cooperation. In the age of globalisation, the realization that some issues need to be addressed on a global level and that unilateral action is not enough is first step in addressing problems such as global warming. Another common belief is the value of free exchange and debate. This value of the diversity of ideas is an essential pillar in sustainability of democracy. A government in which there is no debate or no exchange of ideas is totalitarian government. On the global level this equates to open exchange among countries in forum such as the UN. While methods of how these global issues are to be solved may differ, as long as an open forum for the solution is available, then the eventual resolution of the issue is inevitable. Though the fellows have been separated from each other for one year the values of the Ben Franklin Transatlantic Institute were never lost. Time has not shaken the bonds of friendship among the fellows or their willingness to discuss tough and controversial issues that are in global spotlight. If the global community could discuss these issues with such openness and enthusiasm, then no problem would be too large or complex to solve. The Ben Franklin Transatlantic Institute serves as a model to humanity of what transatlantic cooperation could yield.

By Lendyll.

Brief summary of the content of our political lectures:

The first lecture was meeting Jacob Bundsgaard at city hall, where the fellows made me deeply proud by participating more than anyone could have expected. Also, it is not hard to understand what the fellows thought so fascinating about Jacob Bundsgaard and the lesson he gave us on Danish democracy and relations - in a global perspective. His speech was most informative, charismatic and well structured. I believe this was the reason that his words stayed with us and was debated several times subsequently. There was in particular one point that he presented to us which reappeared in many of our later debates: “Think globally – act locally”. The phrase turned out to be versatile and also interesting if you flip it so it states the opposite.
Bits of what we learned from Jacob Bundsgaard’s lecture:
Three mayor challenges that Denmark is facing are:
- Integration
- The environmental task: both globally and locally.
- Globalisation: how Denmark and Aarhus will get competitive in global economy. Two main tools are education and innovation.

New terms: Red ocean strategy and Blue ocean strategy.

Jakob Erle spent an entire day with us chatting as well as mentoring. The general theme was Democracy and Globalisation.
Bits of what we learned from Jakob Erle:
The history of globalisation and democracy
Supranational organisations: WTO, ICC, WHO, Kyoto-protocol. “United in diversity”

Definition of Globalisation:
Global exchange of
- Goods
- Capitol
- Culture
- People
Definition of Multilayered democracy:
Local – State – Federal – Global
Local – National – Regional – Global


New terms:
LPG: Liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation.
GONGO: Governmental organised NGO

Kim Hundevadt gave us a lot of facts about the cartoon crisis that were new to most of us.
We agreed on the fact that that the cartoons had not been published without a reason. They were published within a context. The question was rather if there was enough reason for publishing them.

We learned about a struggle of values: Sharia law > < Secular law.
Questions were raised: Should there be a law against blasphemy? Is the cartoon crisis an example of a general lack of respect for the Muslim minority? Were the cartoons tools in a political game?

New terms:
OIC: organisation of Islamic conference
The Arab League

Debate
Sergei Hoxha and Darya Ermolina taught us how to debate with the subject Legalization of euthanasia as an example of British Parliamentary Debate.
In this process we learned about formal debating, asking penetrating questions and the importance of being precise (much thanks to Lendyll).

By Aila Lonka.

Article in Aarhus Stiftstidende

On the 14th of July another newspaper article was written about our project. It is a full page story with several pictures and quotes from interviews with many fellows. The full article is unfortunately only visible online to those who keep the newspaper Aarhus Stiftstidende. Here is the link.
by Aila Lonka

Tuesday, 17 July

Today was the second and final day of our Århus tourist passes, which we used for art museums. First, we went to ARoS, Denmark’s new main art museum, with nine floors and a main spiral staircase. Kudos to Aila, who spent an awfully long time showing us different exhibits, translating from Danish, and giving us histories of many pieces in the museum (such as the interesting horse…). Ines and I decided to go all the way to the top, where there is a roof terrace and a great view of all of Århus. Then, while some went to get lunch and go shopping (Alex and Harald bought some more matching T-shirts…wery cute), the rest of us saw the Århus Kunst (art) building, which had a really cool exhibit about children and war.
We had been wanting to see the Harry Potter movie, so this morning we had booked tickets for an afternoon showing. Five of us went for that while the rest went shopping some more.
We all met back at Aila’s place for dinner, which Liselotte once again prepared and which once again impressed all of us. In the evening we finally, after being occupied all day, had some time to relax by practicing karate and wrestling on the beach, emailing home, sleeping, or doing whatever else needed to get done. This night was Jenny and Harald’s last night before they left in the morning, and we all felt that the reunion was in a way winding down, so we wanted to have some fun while not all, but at least most of us were still here. We had a great time and wound down with some good ol’ episodes of South Park In the end, we went to bed early enough to get up to see Jenny off at 8 am!

Love,
Dana
Minneapolis, USA

P.S.
A million bajillion gazillion infinillion apologies for taking so long to get this blog posted. I know you all have been waiting on bated breath to know what’s been going on. So, sorry again. I hope it lives up to your expectations…

P.P.S.
When Joline and Darya left, they said that the people who leave take 25% of the grief and those who stay take 75% of it. It must be true because the house seems so eerily empty without you all in it; we keep expecting to meet up with at least five more people. Just thought I'd let y'all know, we all miss you like hell.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Another day passed, two more fellows gone. It has not hit me yet though. I can see – with my own eyes – that arrivals are being replaced by departures, but my brains will not accept it…

Monday was a bit different. For one, bikes were replaced with the bus, because it would be a bit hard to bike across all those hills and never-ending kilometers, in the heat we did not experience before Monday. Our day started with nourishment, prepared by Aila’s parents. We walked towards the Medical Center with our full tummies, which would probably just get in the way if we were biking. In the Medical Center we saw an exhibition of pictures with different motives. These pictures were made by people who were living in that Psychiatric Hospital at some point - for whatever reason. Perhaps most known of them was Ovartaci. For more information click here.

Our tourist trip continued to the Moesgård Museum and its surrounding nature, which can be found south of Århus. We went for a short walk through the forest nearby, and admired the beauty of animals, and plants, and the environment they share. To satisfy our cultural curiosity we headed in the Moesgård Museum, where we learned the secrets of Grauballe man, who was killed more than 2000 years ago. Aside from that, some of us decided to use our free time and take a look at a special exhibition called “One World – A Thousand Stories”. The exhibition contains more than 40.000 items from all over the world. We were really tired after that, and it was time for nourishment once again before we headed to the bus. Of course Alex and Harald knew that all that unhealthy food would leave its mark on their muscular body, so they ran back to the museum because they had forgotten their bags – once we were already on the bus! Luckily the bus driver was understanding, and he waited for them (once he had yelled “30 seconds” after them).

The bus took us to the Danish Queen’s ‘cottage’, which looked like a villa to me. We saw her summerhouse, and its enormous surrounding area (including Queen’s Rose Garden). Overwhelmed by the beauty of everything that we saw that day, we headed to the pool just to find out that it was closed.

The evening was spent relaxing in front of the television/computer, listening to music, or playing a “w”iolent game of “Pass the Jellyfish”. Evening quickly became early morning, and it was time to say SEE YOU LATER (not goodbye) to our two fellows, Joline from Sweden and Darya from Russia.

Ines Kavgic,
Slovenia

Sunday at the BFTF 2006 Reunion

The day started off pretty lazily. We were all recovering from our late night and the return of our dear friend Patricia early that morning. Shortly after a much needed breakfast the group decided to go off and take care of their personal errands such as cleaning their rooms or showering. At two in the afternoon there was a presentation by Sergi and Dasha about the intricacies of English Parliamentary debate. Joining us for the informative lecture were Danish students who were interested in the formalized exchange of ideas. After learning the process of a formal English Parliamentary style debate, we divided into two separate teams and hosted our own Parliamentary style debate on euthanasia and its practice in the medical world. The government team centered their defense of euthanasia around humans ability to control every aspect in their life and, through euthanasia, their death. The opposite party focused their attack on the slim line between suicide and assisted suicide, while at the same time trying to zero in on the moral dilemma that the doctors face when administering the euthanasia. After about an hour of intense political exchange the judges decided that the time that did best debating was the opposite party did the best debating, but in the tradition of T-Ball games across America, who won did not matter. What truly matter is that we all shared scones in the end. After debate some went off to play volleyball while others worked on updating our blog. Dinner was served with help with the girllmasters Jenny and Lendyll. After dinner everyone went off to their separate projects. Some watched South Park while others just chilled upstairs. Compared in the other nights this was a quiet night in Aarhus.

-Lendyll

Saturday, 14 July

We started off oversleeping, beginning our day with a traditional Danish breakfast which Aila’s parents had been planning. In the afternoon, we did all sorts of activities, riding into town for shopping, watching movies, etcetera. Finally some free time! But for 6:00 Aila had managed to arrange a lecture with a Danish journalist who researched the Mohammad cartoon crisis and wrote a well-known book on its effects named Kim Hundevadt. He gave a great lecture and sparked meaningful discussions. Once again, Aila’s parents made a spectacular dinner—tonight, Danish hot dogs. We thought it would be fun to see the Århus night life later on and so went to a foam party. It was sudsy, wet, and a lot of fun, although bittersweet because it was Patricia’s last night with us. Because we wanted to spend as much time with her as possible, we ended up staying awake all night so we could say goodbye to her at 5 a.m. We love you Pat, you crazy Texan!

Fred

Joline (from Sweden)