"Minorities in Europe“: The second (virtual) meeting (19.04.2021)

25.08.2021

For the next meeting substantial time was needed. The group met again via Zoom in the afternoon of April 19, 2021, this time with considerably more participants.

Barlaeus High School followed up on their promise and informed the other participants on the situation of the Friesians in the Netherlands. Some differences with respect to way of life and perception and social intercourse with respect to the situation in Germany were shown. Moreover, the Barlaeus participants showed on what they were working in groups: The situation of gay people in the Netherlands, which seems to get worse right now; one student with Friesian grandparents wanting to know more about them; the Netherlands as multi-cultural country and the reasons for that. Students from the partnering schools interested in that subject matter were kindly invited to put questions or to join the research.

The Liceo Classico “Walther von der Vogelweide“ from Bolzano informed about the “pyramid of hate” and how mutual aversion is increased towards acts of brute force. The students also presented psychological experiments to demonstrate how to make someone into somebody feeling inferior. Alex then talked about Uighurs and how this ethnic group presently is suppressed in China.

For the next meeting, the schools from Amsterdam and Thessaloniki promised to make some contribution (the exact topic for the Greek presentation were not available at that moment). The Bolzano teachers suggested to address together the present situation in Bosnia and the planned modification of the frontier and to discuss about it.