Today I went down to University College London and met a few people. It was really a very nice campus and overall I found the people to be a lot kinder than at Trinity. Maybe its because it wasn't raining and exams were mostly over. Either way had some very nice discussions. I also have found London to be a very international and multi-cultural city. The people I casually talk to who I think are locals are new in town and others I think are just travellling through...and they've lived in the city for thirteen years and have dual citizenship. Don't judge a book by its cover, I guess.
Chrissia told me she was ethnically Lithuanian but was born in Russia. However she has spent most of her life in the EU in France and studying in London. She had a bit of a mix of feelings on her individual identity since she felt she was from many places, not all of which were in the EU.
She feels that the future of the EU is either it must get bigger or smaller, but probably smaller. Because there are already countries which are bringing down the EU and it isn't going to last like that.
When I asked about how social issues, such as climate change impacted the overall unity of the EU she had some first hand experience. Her work involves studying the impacts of the legislation and she sees first hand how climate change legislation does have an impact on the bigger scale.
Ralph
Ralph has a man bun, which is important for some reason, I'm sure. Anyways, he had a very positive view of the EU. He viewed himself as being British and European (he is a Londoner born and raised). His positivity seemed to stem from being able to travel around freely and see other city centers and cultural hubs and that has allowed him to meet people and make friends all over the EU.
We talked about how he thinks there is a socio-economic level to how people view this idea of being European...if someone does not have the means to travel or leave the city then why should he/she feel apart of the whole? Especially if parties like UKIP are villianizing the other countries and listing that as a reason as why these people are not well enough off to have the luxory of traveling. He likes how the EU has investeda lot in the traveling though, he thinks that has broken down a lot of barriers.
When we talked about the bad things in the EU, corruption and lack of democracy were his two main talking points. He has said that in his experience of meeting people that work within the EU structure that the jobs do not appear to be taken that seriously and that it is easy to help yourself more than helping the organization.
Fighting climate change and other social issues do have to come from the bigger organization.
Ralph told me to travel around the rest of England and I would have interesting results. Thanks Ralph, but unfortunately I do not have the time right now. Luckily Northern England appears to be where most of my survey results have come back so far so I think I do have a little bit of info. (the survey update is going to come when I get back to America and have my laptop again).
When I asked about the legislation and particularly climate change he said that it was inconsistent. France and Britian are pretty on point with where they are supposed to be in terms of cutting back but countries like Croatia, who have just joined the EU, have been thrown into the middle of things and don't have too much say or understanding in this legisation and enforcing it is difficult.
Pier
When I asked Pier if I could speak with him and explained my project he immediate said that he wasn't British that he was Swedish and if that was alright...it was fine. I asked him if he identified as being European and he said that he didn't think anyone in Europe would identify as being European (which isn't true by the way as we just say with Ralph). And that the only times he is refered to as being European is when he either leaves the EU or comes to England...where British people will refer to him as European as though they were not. He does identify as Swedish, French and German...because that is what he is. (Pier came with some sass btw)
I asked him about what he thought about the future of the EU, to which he said it had a very promising future! I pressed and asked him why he thought that people within the UK were so against it and he very strongly believed that it is a big flaw in the British education system...they are not required to learn EU history and that almost every other country within the EU has a curiculum that makes students learn about the entire history and future of the EU for 10 years! So, according to Pier, all the people who claim that the EU cannot survive are not properly educated on the issue.
Three very interesting and thoughtful talks today and I really enjoyed them. However, I did notice that the topic of refugees and migrants did not want to be talked about at all here, which is interesting especially compared to have emotional some of the Irish folks I talked to were. Maybe I'm just talking to the wrong people
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