Whatever intergenerational contracts may have been in place – spoken or unspoken, real or perceived – are largely gone. The promise and hope of previous generations—in the Western world at least, the majority of young people around the world could never dream of such things to begin with—to lead a better life than their parents is a flickering image of the past.

But it’s not the lack of economic prosperity alone that infuriates young people. Not that it wouldn’t be reason enough: close to 90 million young people are unemployed, constituting about half of all unemployed people – and also roughly half of all young people interested in working. And that’s the average – in Syria, to quote but one example, the unemployed young people make up nearly 80% of the working-age unemployed population. The growing youth employment crisis, earmarked by these ballpark figures, has been largely ignored.

Add the unsustainability of the current growth-and-screw-the-environment-mantra and the massively rising social injustice to the colossal employment mess, and you get a highly explosive mix, which keeps bubbling to the surface on the streets across the planet. Young people have to watch how the world as we know it, its economic, social and political fabric, disintegrates, day by day. They don’t like the mélange of the cocktail of political, economic and social disfranchisement, and have begun to show their anger about being robbed of their own future with what Heribert Prantl calls “the sacred rage of the young.”

A global youth revolt in the making.

The exploding and imploding inequalities are one of the most impactful consequences of a well-known dilemma: what Zygmunt Bauman calls the tripod of economic, military and cultural sovereignities has long lost its stability. Economic globalisation and the deterritorialisation of capital and labour leave current political structures crumbling and humbled.

As Bauman puts it in his newest book “Collateral Damage. Social inequalities in a global age (2011)”:

“…the exclusive compound of growing social inequality and the rising volume of human suffering relegated to the status of ‘collaterality’ (marginality, externality, disposability, not a legitimate part of the political agenda) has all the markings of being potentially the most disastrous among the many problems humanity may be forced to confront, deal with and resolve in the current century.” (Bauman 2011:9)

Current events only seem to underline Bauman’s grim analysis:

• whether it’s the civil unrests in 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois, in 2007 in Villiers-le-Bel or in 2011 in London;
• the England riots and the United Kingdom anti-austerity protests;
• the grassroots protests in 2009 in Iceland, 2010 and 2011 in Greece, 2011 in Portugal and Spain;
• the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt;
• the civil uprisings in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen;
• the protests in Algeria, Chile, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Oman;

- and the list doesn’t end here! The calls for change—various kinds of change, for different sets of reasons, caused by different triggers, each unique and standing in their own right—have a decisively amplified tone, scale and intensity.

Much has been written and said about all of these events,

• from different, diverse and disputed opinions on the London riots
• to the role of young people and the role of social media in the Arab spring,
• from the Spanish grassroots protests including nolesvotes.org, the Democracia Real Ya collective and the acampadas
• to the clash of generations in Greece.

Probably Slavoj Žižek has, with this observation:

“Opposition to the system can no longer articulate itself in the form of a realistic alternative,”

offered an analysis widely shared across countries and contexts.

Without wanting to or claiming to offer a definite understanding for the various protests and movements across the globe, Manuel Castells summarises more drastically what seems to be happening:

“The disgust becomes a network.”

The note says, in Catalan, "I want to grow up in a better world"

There is a determined and unifying No! to the increasing inequality and a loud and clear Yes! to much-needed change and a different way of living, and living together. It’s obvious that young people, who are expressing their anger and frustration as much as their desire and hope for change so forcefully these days, are determined to shape our times.

“Will it be revolution, evolution, or resignation?” -

so wonder the minds behind One Young World, the global youth leadership summit, in their new 2011 White Paper Beyond the Long Spring of Dissent.

It certainly doesn’t look too much like resignation right now…

In his article The dead end of globalisation looms before our youth, Pankaj Mishra argues that we are witnessing a fresh political awakening, a world awakening with rage about “a condition of prosperity without equality, wealth without peace.”

Wolfgang Gründiger of the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations makes an equally strong statement when he writes, and warns, that

“all those who claim this generation is apathetic should know: the revolt of the young has only just begun.”

Current events certainly suggest that Mishra and Gründiger are spot-on.

Yet, the question remains:

Where are we headed?

Image credits: David Barrero, Maxi Failla, Muhammed Muheisen, Dominique Faget, Sara Noorbakhsh and Alex Ballesta.

So Europe’s future lies in the hands of young people? Young people don’t even feature in this onanistic animation of EU legislation over time. Go watch it, it’s cool to see the bubbles grow – and an entry in the open data challenge to boot.

And the confusion lingers…
Photo by doctabu on Flickr

A training kit on intercultural learning has been published, there have been many training courses and even long-term training courses, and last but not least an expert-seminar (report: pdf) tried to deconstruct and reconstruct intercultural learning, searching for ways forward.

Ironically, in none of the publications available you can actually find a definition of intercultural learning. And there are signs that the interest in intercultural learning is waning: not much has happened after the report of the expert seminar was published in 2009—two years after the seminar itself—and the T-Kit on Intercultural Learning, while it has been heavily criticised and could definitely use some updating, remains untouched in its tenth year of existence.

At the same time, a new term, yet not so new concept, seems to be entering the European youth field: intercultural competence.

And the confusion lingers…
Photo by pfaff on Flickr

Intercultural competence is an old star of international business. First definitions appeared around 1960, when the first steps of globalised economy were taken. A person who is interculturally competent, according to some researchers in this field, is rich in skills, knowledge and attitudes expressed by (among others): frustration tolerance, patience, communication skills, openness, tolerance of ambiguity, has self distance, speaks languages and so many many more characteristics that essentially describe an unachievable super-human perfectly equipped for any kind of social interaction, regardless where those that are interacted with are from. A problem of vagueness that in it’s core seems to be strangely familiar to the debates around intercultural learning, isn’t it?

One idea of putting intercultural competence at the focus of international youth work is that it is regarded to be the result of intercultural learning. Linguistically this seems to be quite logical. If learning leads to competence than evidently intercultural learning must lead to intercultural competence.

Not to step on anybodies toes, but it is difficult to fight back the thought that both concepts, learning and competence, are so conveniently vague (and can be so nicely attributed with ‘intercultural’) that by putting competence at the focus of discussions now, one can pretend to have progress in the discussions, while the confusion continues.

What is both interesting and confounding about intercultural competence is that definitions change from field to field (just as definitions about intercultural learning differ).

And the confusion lingers…
Photo by marcoarment on Flickr

Economists refer to different sets of personal attributes than those active in developmental co-operation and probably those would again be different in the youth field. In fact, it is difficult to actually find definitions from the youth field. Is this simply owed to intercultural competence being a relatively new concept in the youth field, with many people not yet knowing what to do with it?

Simultaneously, the question arises whether intercultural competence is the purpose of international youth work. Since it is widely considered a key soft skill in the business field, this would make a lot of sense with regards to employability – admittedly a key motivation for the public support for international youth work.

And yet, scholars argue that intercultural competence is highly context-specific and context-sensitive and that using the term in a generalized manner only feeds the confusion already attached to the notion – among them Prof. Jürgen Straub in his German handbook on intercultural communication and competence.

Guo-Ming Chen and William J Starosta define intercultural competence as

“effective and appropriate interaction between people who identify with particular physical and symbolic environments” [source]

However, what is effective and what is appropriate does not only change from ‘culture’ to ‘culture’ but also depends on the specific context and the connected values, habits, implicit and explicit rules that are embedded implicitly and explicitly in these contexts.

And the confusion lingers…
Photo by kanpeki on Flickr

In a business context, effective may mean to seal a deal quickly and sustainably and employ appropriate means to achieve that goal. But what does effective really mean in international youth work? And what does appropriate mean in international youth work?

Can intercultural competence acquired in the youth field— inyouth exchanges, seminars or training courses—become operational in an international business setting? Could it, possibly, even be contra-productive for the current economic system to be interculturally competent in a youth work style?

It is, this much is clear, a tricky and brave undertaking to put a fuzzy concept from one field and apply it to another. Let’s start to question some of the fuzziness.

A concerted collective effort is currently underway to define non-formal education and non-formal learning.

It is exciting and informative, but at times, it almost seems like a catch-22…

Defining the meaning of words is essential to begin to understand the different contexts and connotations. Definitions, though, must be universal: they must apply to all aspects and meanings of the definiendum…

Definitions in European—let alone global—contexts can, therefore, not be normative (in the philosophical meaning of the word), but can only attempt to be descriptive and explanatory – while avoiding ambiguity through getting lost in details.

If definitions are understood as explanatory statements that capture the meaning, the use, the function and the essence of a term or a concept – how can definitions of non-formal education and learning be produced that hold true for so many heterogeneous contexts?

Defining NFE – Catch-22?
Photo by buriednexttoyou

One way or the other, it seems necessary and adequate to not cling to any of the established classes of definitions – such as, say, stipulative, or ostensive.

Most of the elements of definitions for non-formal education and non-formal learning variedly include several elements: some are more reportive (i.e. attempting to capture the essence of a concept as in use today), others are more stipulative (i.e. give a term a new or expanding meaning in a European or global context), and most are a combination of these two.

I am quite curious what definitions will be constructed from this collective undertaking of TALE and TOT and NONFORMALITY.

Join the fray if you like!

Right.

It all started with the succint observation that

» tolerance is so yesterday

by Bastian at half past five in the damn early morning, after what apparantly was a night of working on an application for the lovely & beloved June 1 deadline. An hour and a half later Snezana signals agreement:

» tolerance is passé!

Another thirty minutes later Darek asks with lapidarity equivalent to, I guess and digress, electronically raised eyebrows:

» Is it? Why?

Whoosh! And off took the debate…

Photo by ~C4Chaos on flickr

Before you re-live the discussion and chip in with your own two cents, let me throw in some definitions of the English words that we discuss.

I am fully aware that, on the one hand, these definitions can be disagreed with; and they should not resolve the matter or stifle the debate. But, on the other hand, our discourse often originates from—and gets stuck in—the different meanings of words in our respective mother tongues as well as different socio-political spaces.

tol‧er‧ance

     the ability, willingness, or capacity to tolerate something.
     Origin: from Latin, tolerare (see tolerate).

tol‧er‧ate

     1. allow the existence or occurence of (something that one dislikes
         or disagrees with) without interference.
     2. endure (somone or something unpleasant) with forbearance.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th edition 2008.

To me, the problem seems at least partly caused by the attempt of the United Nations to instil a philosophical meaning into the word tolerance that it doesn’t seem to carry linguistically.

Take the Declaration on the Principles of Tolerance by UNESCO, which offers a philosophical definition of tolerance like so:

“Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance is harmony in difference.”

Wikipedia, to refer at least once to everybody’s favourite dictionary of our times, describes tolerant as moderately respectful – and that is, as the Oxford Dictionary definitions from above, pretty different from the UN, I would say…

So, here comes the debate (as of June 2, 2009 at 17:00 hrs) — read it from the bottom up, as the most recent entries are on top [UPDATE: It seems that Twitter is not really able to sort conversations chronologically—please don't ask why—but you'll probably get the picture despite the confusing order...]!

What do you say?

Time to re-think a few courses, isn’t it?

Facts about African immigration to Europe |
More photos at the Big Picture

Time to re-think a few courses.

As the co-ordinator of the ultimately cool moderation and trainers team, I had some fun playing around to make a short promotional movie (see larger version here):

If you are interested, head over to the ESP Platform, register and discuss away!

This year’s main topic will be “energy” – a topic concerning every single one of us. Do you always take the car? Do you save energy? Do you ask yourself, how long our energy feedstock will last?

Discussions are organised in five thematic areas, namely technology, geography and politics, society, economy, and individual responsibility. The discussion forum will take place on October 9 and 10, 2008 in Aachen.

Who knows – maybe see you there?

Every. Single. Day.

Today, I turned my back on on the more than 60 million users of Facebook, and the millions expected to join the social networking paranoia. Sorry guys, nothing personal.

Why, you wonder?

It all started here, where the Economist debates what changes social networking technologies will bring to education. Ewan McIntosh argues that social interaction is essential to learning how to learn, to lifelong learning – and that social networks offer a better chance than ever of encouraging independent learning beyond smokestack schooling. Michael Bugeja counters that social networks exist for revenue generation – and the fact that users continue to manipulate their own images without seeing that motivation should be proof enough that the change to education can’t be very positive.

This got me thinking. And reading.

I stumbled over Tom Hodgkinson, who analyses the politics of the people behind the site. The Guardian article reveals venture capitalist and futurist philosopher Peter Thiel as one of the key funders and figures behind Facebook and concludes that

Facebook is another über-capitalist experiment: can you make money out of friendship?

I learned that one of my favourite musicians, Canadian human rights activist Matthew Good, has just recently left Facebook – caused as much by Thiel as by Facebook’s privacy policy. Which I began to read.

And let me tell you: it is as bad as rumours say, and worse. It essentially tells you that you don’t have much privacy. Two of my absolute favourites:

«Facebook cannot and does not guarantee that user content you post on the site will not be viewed by unauthorised persons.»

«Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service … in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalised experience.»

Thank you so much, very kind of you.

Check out this short video on youtube for more information.
And there is more Facebook criticism around.

But most importantly, I found this article by Danah Boyd, giving my own thoughts about the educational potential of Facebook a much-needed focus. Danah says that

«Social network sites do not help most youth see beyond their social walls. Because most youth do not engage in ‘networking’, they do not meet new people or see the world from a different perspective. Social network sites reinforce everyday networks.»

It’s true not only for youth: I have made that experience, too. My list of contacts consisted of colleagues, participants, school mates, and friends. Every single person on my contact list I had met before in person, and the only thing Facebook could do for me was to calm down my bad conscience for being such a lousy communicator.

But beyond that, I got very little – educationally and personally. Lots of invitations to be a vampire here, dance with someone there, test my movie knowledge here, find out who is smarter than me there… And lots of ‘IGNORE’ buttons to press – one by one.

Danah puts forward another observation helping to explain things better. She writes that Facebook is about

«the kind of informal social learning required for maturation – understanding your community, learning to communicate, building and maintaining friendships, …»

When I grew up (not to say I am matured eh!), this still worked differently. Which is not to say that I think young people are silly today when joining Facebook. On the contrary – because we have, as Danah rightly observes, taken most opportunities for socialisation systematically away from young people, as so many other things.

«Youth are trying to take back the right to be social,
even if it has to happen in interstitial ways.»

And I wish them all the luck of the world. Take back your rights, but do me all a favour and, once in a while, keep your eyes open in the old-fashioned non-electronic world, where a couple of idealistic trainers try to create spaces for collective learning and socialisation that are, at times, almost as cool as Facebook – and less intimidating and commercial, at that.

For my own friends, I stick with Tom Hodgkinson’s conclusion:

«And if I want to connect with the people around me, I will revert to an old piece of technology. It’s free, it’s easy and it delivers a uniquely individual experience in sharing information: it’s called talking.»

Expect your phone to ring more often, out there.

And Facebook, eat your heart out!

Cartoons by Hugh MacLeod of gapingvoid.

If you really do need me online – find me here.

Back in the good old days, a training course would start with an evening of ice-breakers, group-building exercises and inspired chit-chat lasting through half the night. And it would end with a party to remember, organised by participants for participants: a night worthy of the next day’s hangover.

(Not to dream of the nights – and mornings – in between.)

Today training courses still start with an evening of ice-breakers and group-building exercises, but at the end of the official programme of that very first night people rush to the next computer, start up skype, icq and facebook and stay right there until they go to bed.

And the farewell evenings are not much different: there might be some sort of a small programme, but as soon as that is over, everyone is sprinting to their beloved computer to join those who didn’t even come.

(Not to speak of the similarly dreadful nights in between.)

Here is the irony of this situation: in a recent training course, people had created a group on facebook and become virtual friends with participants that sometimes they had, in real life, not talked to at all.

How weird is that?

I can’t put my finger on the reasons for this development. Does the current generation of young people have party angst? Are we mostly gathering nerds these days who need the keyboard under their fingers and the spike of seven simultaneous windows for pure survival? We might indeed be the first zeitzeugen to experience the ultimate wave of NADD!

Consequently, I am not sure how to respond to this phenomenon of individualism and web 2.0 addiction. Has it now become the responsibility of the team to organise evenings that are fun? Should we run our trainings through skype and facebook instead? Should we announce our courses on paper only again, to reach people who can still talk without a computer between them?

Or should we simply add a new qualification to our profile of participants:

» Applicants need the ability to socialise with real people.

Bath, Columbine, Erfurt and the Amish School are just a few shootings on the horrid list of school massacres, now extended by another shoot-out in Germany.

Sebastian B., an 18-year-old school student, ran amok in his school in the Northwestern town of Emsdetten on Monday, November 20 and injured 37 people before killing himself. With three guns, 12 pipe bombs, several smoke bombs and a knife he seemed rather fully equipped for what could have easily become another shooting spree.

According to claims by some of his former schoolmates, the young man was a fanatical player of “Counter-Strike.” According to Wikipedia, with more than 200.000 users the game currently is the most widely played tactical first person shooter in the world.

Absurdly, German politics and media are wildly debating a presumed relation between users of violent computer games and individuals resorting to violence. The Christian Democrats in particular insist on violent computer games being banned – yes, not regulated: banned.

In an interview with the German media, Brandenburg Interior Minister Jörg Schönbohm (CDU) scapegoated computer gaming by saying that “killer games” do encourage violent behaviour and are contributing to an escalating rate of brutality among young people.

Counter-Strike is violent alright, no question about that. On the other hand, the vast majority of counter strike players do not go out to shoot their fellow school students. That common-sensical truth seemingly does not irritate German politicians in their moronic crusade:

“If it really is true that the perpetrator played such killer games over a long period, then lawmakers finally have to do something,” said the deputy chairman of the Christian Democrats, Wolfgang Bosbach.

Isn’t this argument so daft that it qualifies for ‘one beer short of a sixpack’? Let me brush it aside with Sociology Professor Klaus Hurrelmann of Bielefeld University, who leaves no doubt in a recent interview that “a causal relationship between video games and violence does not exist.”

Thank you.

But where from here?

Apparently Sebastian left a message on the internet suggesting the mayhem was retaliation for being mocked at school according to the English edition of “Spiegel Online.” One of his letters is quoted to say: “The only thing I learned intensively at school was that I’m a loser.”

Is society to blame?

Nothing justifies a revenge rampages, whether in Emsdetten, Erfurt or any place else. Yet, Sebastian’s manifest frustration with his school does suggest that something with our education system is fundamentally wrong.

I admit:

I have no idea how to open up the box of societal responsibility for this tragedy. I really don’t.

The education system can clearly not be blamed for everything. And yet:

As long as

• our school and university system considers young people like modelling material which can be formed arbitrarily into any shape as is considered best at a given moment in time,
• young people remain the playdoh of a system with distorted power relations in which physical and mential violence is normal and abuse is regular,
• ten percent of school students are thrown out of school with no degree, doomed to never get anywhere in this society,

Emsdetten will not be the last entry on the most disgusting list I had to look at in a long time.

What we need is not a ban of computer games, we need a fundamental change in the way in which we allow ourselves to be treated – in school and outside.