The 5th European Youth Congress was held by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Gdańsk, Poland from 23rd to 26th July 2017. The event was organized by our Warsaw office in cooperation with the Green European Foundation and the European Solidarity Centre.
The annual conventions are based on a well-tried and successful format, but every year the event is organized at a different interesting location in Europe. This time, owing to our excellent contacts in Gdańsk, we had the privilege of welcoming our participants, speakers and guests to the European Solidarity Centre. Its modern museum and conference venue were the perfect stage for our debates on current and historical topics. The combination of expert panels, which were both open to the public and broadcast online, and practical workshops for young participants attracted many enthusiastic people from over 25 European countries.
During the event, extensive discussions were held on hot topics such as the rise of nationalistic and populist movements, social identity crises and the future of the EU. But this was not all the Congress had to offer. Workshops entitled Telling Engaging Stories (Pełne Zanurzenie Foundation [Polish for ‘Full Immersion’]) and Education for Green Activism (Green European Foundation) taught social media, campaigning and political education skills for socio-political engagement. Under the guidance of the European Solidarity Centre staff, another workshop group produced art to create a more friendly atmosphere in the rooms of the Gdańsk Immigrant Support Centre. Even though the event has already come to an end, it is still possible to learn conclusions from the fruitful exchange of opinions between speakers, as well as from questions and comments from the audience watching the recordings posted on our YouTube channel.
The discussion entitled Positive Visions in Difficult Times held between the Green member of the European Parliament Reinhard Bütikofer and the Polish feminist politician Barbara Nowacka (Initiative Poland), and moderated by Irene Hahn-Fuhr, the director of the Warsaw office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, from the very start promised to be thrilling, given the current political situation. Actually, it was paradoxical that Barbara Nowacka talked about the potentially positive social effects of the increasingly nationalist spirit in Poland, which might create room for progressive countermeasures in the future and contribute to strengthening civic engagement. With the European youth in mind, Reinhard Bütikofer encouraged people to take a cool-headed and confident view of the future in spite of all the current challenges. Also, the essence of the discussion about populism and security policy focused clearly on active support of progressive thinking as an answer to backward strategies devised by conservative politicians.
As expected, the young audience was mostly interested in topics such as identity, helping refugees, and getting involved. As regards topics such as displaced persons and asylum seekers, the discussions focused mostly on demonstrating empathy and applying promising art and media related methods to influence public opinion. Using his own example, the Czech Romani artist and European LGBT activist David Tiser (ARA ART) emphasized the rich complexity of modern identities whose national, religious, social class and sexual dimensions overlapped and complemented rather than excluded one another. He also mentioned that given the rampant islamophobia also spreading across the Czech Republic, he himself, as a Romani, more and more often faced previously unusual, ambivalently positive reactions in his everyday life (‘Unlike the Arabs, the Romani belong here!’). Agnieszka Wiśniewska (Political Critique) used the example of the current polarization and civic protests in Poland to describe the slow process of positive re-adoption of national and state symbols thus far appropriated only by conservative and extreme right-wing movements. As interpreted by Barbara Nowacka, the rising authoritarian and illiberal movements in Europe could be seen as also being forces belonging to a wider nation-building process whose outcomes remain unpredictable and which we should be shaping in an active and progressive way.
Recorded live streams of a selection of discussions held during the event are available at:
Positive visions in different times, 24.07.2017
Role of Emotions & Conflikt in Development, 24.07.2017
Popular Security & Security Populists, 25.07.2017
Welcoming the other & The legacy of Solidarność Movement for today and tomorrow, 25.07.2017
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