no further words needed …
Crying Twice – The Africa Bug
4 November 2009 at 2:51 am (Global Economic Crisis)
Tags: Austria, Germany, Israel, South Africa
Hello everybody,
I just added a new link to my blogroll. The African Bug – aka. Another Tragic Victim of the Africa Bug – great blog by a US born woman completely fallen for Africa.
The problem is that as always, when I go to leave this place, it’s like someone has tied my very soul to the hills here, and just the thought of not being here sends me into spasms of agony.
she wrote less then a month ago and, in her bio, adds a quote by an unknown author:
Everything in Africa bites.
The lion bites, the mosquito bites, the tse tse fly bites.
But what bites the most is Africa herself,
and when she bites,
she never lets you go.
There is another one I learnt from my fiancée, who used to live in some remote place in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert for more than a year:
They say you cry twice in Africa:
Once when you get there for everything is so strange
and once when you leave again.
I have never been to South Africa myself - so far – though we had nearly moved there some months ago. But I see the look in my boyfriend’s eyes when he tells about South Africa. A lot about food, of course, about Biltong - dried, seasoned meat – and Braiis - BBQs - and over and over again about gorgeous African sunsets and nights full of stars yet at the same time so dark you can’t see your own hand. I miss those nights. I grew up a countryside kid, with breathtaking nights full of stars but since I moved to the city as a teenager have hardly seen the milky way. When we moved to rural Germany in January I thought it would be a little like my childhood again. But in Germany there is no milky way to be seen nowhere. There is light pollution everywhere. There are people everywhere. No space. No air to breath, I sometimes feel.
With the economic crisis keeping us in Germany fleeing abroad has become a desperate dream and, for going back to Israel is not an option, South Africa its symbol. I have never been there, and everything I’ve heard and read about it indicates it likely isn’t quite a place for me to be happy. The pure idea of having to watch every step I take freaks the crap out of me – though of course it’s not as bad in the countryside, my partner has often assured, and how he could move without reconsidering in his village, though his stories somehow give me the opposite idea. Stories of how whites are suicidal if they interact too closely with blacks scare the crap out of me. And still the promise of space, of air to breath is tempting enough to make me dream away sometimes … it’s a strange kind of a far-distance relationship, really.
Whats worse, though, are stories of people giving you a warm welcome. Of such a basic thing as neighbours dropping by just to say hello and offer help with moving or whatever should arise. Here in Germany, though we happen to have great landlords, after three months still nobody has come asking why there are two Austria licence-plated cars in the street. Nobody gives a damn. And if my financée or me tell about the places we have been, the things we have experienced, nobody as much as lifts a brow. There is no interest in another. Or perhaps nobody dares to be interested. For so many reasons everybody is living in fear in Germany. And though it is such a safe, wealthy country I sometimes feel their fear is way more devastating then any fear of terrorist attacks, wars, even annihilation in Israel could have possibly been.
When I had just moved to Israel it was Pessah, and in the short time I happened to be left over for the holiday. It sure was a difficult evening being alone with everybody else sharing the night with their family – especially if you are a young woman thousands of kilometers away from all your friends and family – but it was nobody’s fault. Somehow everybody had just assumed somebody else had invited me over. Of course the day after people realized I hadn’t had an invitation. They were terribly sorry. Sorry in an honest way. I don’t think any German would possibly ever give a crap about what I am doing at christmas.
I, too, cried twice in Israel. Once that Pessah night, for I was so alone and everything was so strange to me. And another time on the plane back home. I still do every time I come back from visiting.
a pretty thoughtful,
Migdalit
The Generation that tried to Fit In
3 November 2009 at 2:58 am (Global Economic Crisis)
Tags: Austria, Europe, Individual Responsibility
Hello everybody,
I haven’t been posting in a while which is mostly due to my very personal fight against that freakin’ never-ending economic crisis. One is for sure: By the time my children will learn about what happened this year in school I’ll have quite a lot to tell them about it. Still, I’d rather have spared myself and so many others the experience.
However my mom suggested I go back to blogging about “other people’s problems”, even though I feel I have no brain capacity left out of brooding over my very own set. “Sometimes,” she claimed, “writing about other people’s issues will get your mind off the ever-same set of problems!”. I’ll give it a try today, so you guys just go ahead and send your thanks to a woman who has not always been easy to get along with but still is and always was a wonderful and inspiring woman full of strength.
For twelve days now auditoriums at Austrian universities have been occupied by students. On October 24th it started with Viennese Art students but has meanwhile spread to most other major Austrian universities. It’s a grassroots movement, triggered not by the official student union – the ÖH – but by individual students. Their message is very simple and very clear.
“Der Hahn gehört gerupft”
The cock has to be plucked. Referring, of course, to Austrian Minister of Science, Johannes Hahn, who’s last name in German mean’s cock.
Whilst international hardly any non-socialist newspapers or homepages have covered the protests – even here in Germany, where many of the students at Austrian universities come from there’s hardly a word about it – the Austrian media has reported surprisingly extensive on the happenings. And though it is most likely due to little else to report on the coincident is the best that could have possibly happened to the students. As one journalist put it: Though they will eventually leave the auditoriums without having achieved their goals but “every day they stay will put more emphasis on their problems.” And problems there are a lot.
I came to Vienna University after my Tel Aviv stay in fall 2007 and was soon completely disillusioned by what I found. It hat little to nothing to do with how one would imagine life at a University the size of the one in Vienna. Basically student life was centered in getting one of the little places in over-filled classes. No dreaming about actually choosing what classes somebody wanted to take. No dreaming about choosing your own path or your own career: You had to take what was there. And that was little. And money was missing everywhere. As one student put it at a Vienna University toilet:
“Tuition fees and they can not even provide toilet paper!”
It didn’t take long until everything I wanted was to graduate as fast as possible so I could get out in a “real life” I hoped would be better. There just is no space for humanist education in a place like Vienna.
In short: I fully support the protests as do – as a recent survey showed – some 60 % of the Austrian population. Including such as Georg Winckler, rector of Vienna University himself, who, only some months ago has sent an email to every of his students stating that he opposed the budget decisions of the government for he didn’t know how to guarantee for a reasonable university routine with the funds available.
However, as I stated the media is full of reports on the protests – as the Swine Flu just isn’t panicking Austrians as much as Germans – and I am following it quite interested. One thing that seems to be reappearing is a sentence that sent me thinking:
This is a Generation that tried to do everything right, that tried to fit in, and got no reward for it.
And thinking about that friend of mine who went from her M.A. direct was to social welfare and of that other friend, an MBA student, who is still making his living on daddy’s money for all he can find are little-paid internships, and all the other fates I have encountered I have to see it’s true. We have done what we were told: We have made our way to University. We have stayed in school, even if it sucked. And now that we’re there is no reward. Neither at university, where one third of Austrian students life beyond the line of poverty, nor afterward, where there are little jobs even for lawyers and MBA graduatees. And now, finally, it’s been enough even for the generation that tried so desperately to fit in.
Yet being hundreds of kilometers away from home all I can do is support the students with some lines. I hope the protests will move something. Make some people think. It really is about time!
yours,
Migdalit
To the Girls
26 September 2009 at 10:35 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: General
Shabbat Shalom,
because there are too many naked women out there to be evened out by naked men here’s a little something for all the female bookworms out there. And of course all the other females and males too 
yours,
Migdalit
The Dagger
23 September 2009 at 10:33 pm (Global Economic Crisis)
Tags: Austria, Europe, Germany, Global Politics
Hey guys,
Right as I am writing this tonight something terrible is happening. Well, it has been happening for some months now. And it is happening right in front of all our eyes, too, however I doubt those who aren’t involved have already found out about it. Actually I doubt those in the midst of it have gotten the clue that they’re not alone but only one of a mass of people.
Do you know anybody who has graduated from university lately? And if so do you know anybody who has been able to find a job in any branch? I know a lot of promising young people who don’t. Many of them have brilliant C Vs featuring internship, stays abroad and the kind and it still doesn’t help. All they get are rejections and that’s not because something was wrong with them, but because something is wrong with our economy. Whilst in most western countries major lay-offs haven’t taken place so far (though I’m only going to believe in it once the German election next weekend is over) companies all over the place have however reduced their number of employees. So how do you reduce your human resources’ costs without actually firing people, which would look bad in the media (and some suggest there might a secret pact with Governments forbids the companies to lay off too many employees in order to keep the order of state)? Right: You just stop recruiting. Retirements will do the rest for you. And that’s exactly what is happening right now.
Major multinational companies might still feature those glossy recruitment programs, yet if you try to apply for those jobs you might find it curious that, no matter for how many of them you apply and no matter how well you fit the requirements you will never get as much as an appointment for an interview. Is this due to a too big number of graduates as opposed to the (normal) number of jobs available? With a little knowledge about the number of graduates each year in certain disciplines I doubt it. Plus was it the pure number, it would mean the job hunt to take longer. Not forever. Though I have gone with believing those job openings were for internal recruiting only others have suggested they might be no more then a hoax posted for the media so everything looked fine.
Contacting some of the recruiting offices HR personnel was fast to add certainty to those theories: a majority of medium-sized companies has canceled graduate intake programs at all whilst the huge multinationals have reduced them to national intakes with a limited number of positions available, where in any normal year there would be a huge international campaign for talents. Normal recruiting has been halted nearly everywhere with many HR offices sending back automatic emails featuring there were no available positions “matching your skills” even if I didn’t even indicate my profession. Whatever the reason the outcome still is there are thousands of brilliant minds out there not able to find a job.
As far as Austria goes there have been studies about graduate unemployment, too. However those mystical disappeared from major online news platforms just hours after publication. I’m not a friend of conspiracy theories – I think most leaders are just to stupid to support a major conspiracy – still I have been wondering whether there might be information held back by the government in order to avoid a panic among students and graduates.
So if you happen to be one of those 2008 and 2009 graduates who have been desperately looking for any kind of a job for months now without success I’d want you to know that you are not alone. All around the place highly qualified young people are sharing your faith. It’s not because of your degree. It’s not because of a lack of networking (even that doesn’t help these days anymore as I have learned). And it’s most certainly not because of your qualification. It’s because of the fucked up minds of HR managers. Nothing else.
I wish I had a recipe to overcome this. A recipe where to find a job these days. But in the end we all know just too well that sustainability and company-society responsibility are unknown words to most economic and political leaders these days. Doing so they destroy our future and their company’s and nation’s just along. What it all comes down to is that it will be exactly those graduates of these days who will be paying the bill- again.
yours frustrated,
Migdalit
