In the framework of our editorial mission Multikulti on the Ground , cafebabel.com is posting over 40 young journalists and photographers 'on the ground' in the context of multiculturalism in European societies.
Multiculturalism in Italy: a Roman cocktail
Is Italy racist? This is the question posed by European media, some of which don’t hesitate to point to a lethal dose of racism particularly following the murder of two Senegalese in Florence. However, four journalists and a photographer sent to Rome by cafebabel.com chose instead to talk about the multicultural imprint of a nation which counts 5.4 million immigrants from non-EU countries. Of course, it’s not all sweetness. The Roma continue to battle for a decent future, while young Italians are fleeing a country which is losing its identity. However, second generation immigrants are aware of the civic role which they can play, while the piazza Vittoria in central Rome is a multicultural epicentre, a mixed drink shaken up in the most open of kitchens. In the view of these diverse facts, cafebabel.com is serving up a Roman cocktail which will warm you to embrace the ‘other’, turning away from the bar-side brawls stirred up by press-gang headlines. (Image: © Ehsan Maleki)
Vilnius, Вiльнюс or ווילנע: spotlight on Lithuanian capital’s tiny ethnic communities
Lithuania has enjoyed a rich multicultural heritage since being part of the Grand Duchy. Independence was restored for the third time in its history after the collapse of the soviet union in 1990. The motto of this second republic echoes the European union, which the northern country became a member state of in 2004 - ‘Tautos jega vienybeje!’, or ‘strength through unity’ (to the EU’s ‘united through diversity’). A Spanish-Italian-French-German-Russian-British team of journalists and photographers take the temperature of multiculturalism in ‘Vilna’ by focusing on the Jewish (0.3%), Belarusian (1.3%) and Baltic Roma (0.1%) populations. In the capital, Vilnius, dynamic 'foreigners' gradually make a name for themselves in institutions as varied as universities, NGOs, bookshops and nightclubs. In images, we draw multicultural parallels with the buildings which occupy just under a third of the city’s area (Image: (cc) Severin Sadjina/ flickr)
Seville dances, plays and eats to rhythm of multiculturalism
The crisis in Spain falls mainly on the plain; it didn't just affect the country's natives, but also its immigrants. They saw a stable territory in the Mediterranean where they could finally prosper, a dream which they had to let slip of slowly, but not so surely. Seville is one of the Spanish cities which remains a challenge for its mixed set of citizens, despite the high level of integration there. The Andalucian capital may stay anchored in its regional traditions, but sectors such as gastronomy and sport are opening up to the wider integration of Latin American minorities. Flamenco might be the howl of identity, but its echoes resound to the hip hop beats of the city's multicultural and musical underbelly. Read the special edition which is part of cafebabel.com's award-winning flagship project for 2011-2012, 'Multiculturalism on the ground' (Image: (cc) jiuck/ Flickr)
Multiculturalism in Athens: a climate of one's own
The capital of Greece lies in a basin surrounded by four mountains and the gulf to the south. Athens, a product of internal immigration, is a city built in the fifties, its buildings true to eastern Mediterannean styles. The 2004 Olympics was probably one of the peaks of it most recent history, yet not even a decade later it has been fitted into a straitjacket it had not quite counted on. Immigration is one of those wretched restraints on the garment of Greece, a phenomenon dating only two decades back, and now uncomfortably zoning in on the touristic but poor centre of the city and its rising crime levels. As a member state of the European union, Greece is in strict charge of processing its own asylum applications and dealing with its own ethnic minorities. Of the latter, elements seem to work in relation to the time of integration of said community. For example, take the popularity of Turkish soap operas and Bulgarian-Albanian street dancers, with the deadlocked demands to give this European capital a mosque. Ultimately, Athens has many other basic problems at this moment in time, and Athens is also not Greece - read the pulse we have taken of its multicultural climate, some weeks before the elections on 9 May. Read the special edition which is part of cafebabel.com's award-winning flagship project for 2011-2012, 'Multiculturalism on the ground' (Image 'Apollonian Resonance'. (cc) AlicePopkorn/ flickr/ alicepopkorn.de/)
Multiculturalism in Copenhagen: naked truths
Despite the chilly climes of February in Copenhagen, hip youngsters from a university student union were slipping out of their jackets and shoes for us so we could catch a glimpse of where their outfits had originally been fashioned. China, Bangladesh and Turkey provided the look of the young Danish metropole. Multiculturalism is imprinted in Danish society just as it is on the labels of their clothes. It's not so visible though; for example, Greenlandic cinema remains a niche art form in a country with a Greenlandic minority. On the outskirts of the city, refugees from the Middle East live almost forgotten in an accommodation centre, Sandholm. Even the hippies from the commune of Christiania close themselves in from mainstream society. It's a sympton of the last decade in Denmark. Events such as 9/11 or the uproar over the media's publication of the caricatures depicting the islamic prophet Muhammed marked a coalition of the right-wing and conservative liberals, who established strict immigration policies and the like until a new social democratic government took over in 2011. Can the proclaimed happiest people on earth loosen up finally, or should Denmark's pocket communities keep worrying about wrapping up warm? (Image: (cc) LarsDaniel/ Esben Bøg/ Flickr)
Berlin, the multicultural mashup of mashups
If football is a mirror of society, then Germany is defined by its multi-ethnic national team who bowed out of the Euro 2012 quarterfinals in June. Entire districts are Turkish, like trendy Kreuzberg. The expats, be they Mediterranean students or Scandinavian musicians, respond to the appeal of a city which is a temporary home away from home. Like its Mannschaft, Berlin is as Ghanaian as it is Polish. These cannot be passing fads in the capital, part of which gained a new identity after living under the communist former GDR, and which is unified through concepts as diverse as skates and soil. Follow our Finnish-French-Bulgarian-Italian team through the German capital this summer (Image: © Maria Halkilahti for 'Multikulti’ aka ‘multiculturalism on the ground by cafebabel.com, Berlin 2012)
Multiculturalism in Warsaw, not much
Pop quiz : which of the following adjectives best describes Poland : Anti-semitic? Racist? Communist? Those were some of the thoughts flung at the central European country and neighbour to Ukraine, Belarus, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Lithuania and Kaliningrad this summer, when the European football championships took place on Polish soil. Spending four days in Warsaw as part of a ‘Multiculturalism on the ground’ mission is not long enough to even start to dispel many of those ideas, so what is Poland a victim of – its past? The European Union? Religion? Alcoholic bias? A Franco-Italian-Spanish-German team get cracking for the seventh edition in our special series (Image: (cc) jef safi/ Flickr)
Multiculturalism in Vienna: dance, pray, vote
The Austrian capital may claim to have the highest quality of life across the globe, and be one of the most eco-friendly capitals in Europe, but its record in multiculturalism does not score nearly as high on the lists. It streets, buildings and social habits are coloured by an imperial heritage which, along with its increasingly strict migration policy, conspire to fashion a restrictive city out of Vienna. She can sometimes be one of the most rigid partners in a ball, let's say. The far right party, paradoxically called the 'Austrian freedom party' (FPÖ), is the second biggest political force in the city with 27.2% of the registered votes in the last municipal elections in 2010. Nevertheless a fair sector of people are fighting for the integration of groups who are discriminated against on the basis of their gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. After all, over 70% of voters are not tuning into far right policies - so who are they? Follow cafebabel.com's Franco-Spanish-German-Irish reporter team on a musically enhanced drive through Vienna for 'Multikulti' aka 'multiculturalism on the ground' 2012 (Image: (cc) Nathan F./ Flickr)
Strasbourg pilgrimage: Erasmus, Germans, Muslims and Roma
The European community needs new challenges. It’s the perfect opportunity for a pan-European team of journalists to write from Strasbourg. The city is commonly evoked to illustrate the warring relationship between France and Germany - but just look at its good products, such as the two-decade old unique television station Arte. Strasbourg is also the headquarters for the immovable European parliament, but everything circling it is in perpetual movement. New Roma camps mix in with a general mood of recognition for old and new religions, whilst the expat-erasmus scene of foreigners who define this city explain why it is their home away from home. Strasbourg’s frontiers definitely stretch beyond the political to the social and cultural. Special edition for ‘MultiKulti’ aka ‘multiculturalism on the ground’ via Polish, Italian, British and German eyes (Image: (cc) alex dram/ Flickr)
Ljubljana's latent multicultural layers
Religious minorities, foreign artists and understanding a nationalist self: these are some of the elements explored during cafebabel.com’s final mission to Slovenia in 2012 in the framework of the ‘MultiKulti’ aka ‘multiculturalism on the ground’ special series. The central European country’s history started within the vast Austro-Hungarian empire in 1848. Since then there has been an impulse for a national identity, for obtaining one nation state. Yugoslavia dissolved on 25 June 1991 when many of our generation and contemporaries were still children. A country became independent and had to decide between east and west, opting to join the European union in 2004 with a flood of other central and eastern European states. As it balances its European and Balkan identities, a team of Spanish-Bulgarian-Brazilian-German-Italian journalists, videomakers and photographers tried to delve deeper into its multicultural soul (Image: © Eloisa D'Orsi for 'MultiKulti' aka 'multiculturalism on the ground', Ljubljana 2012)
