POLYHEDRALPAST

RE:COORDINATORIAL

Coordinatorial� is is a magazine published for, during and because of ASK 2014: Agora on Security Kyiv. We are discussing this topic because security is problematic – in fact, it has always been. Hacking old paradigms, eh? Well, we are not the only ones doing so. � ere are hackers � ghting both for and against security, being always one step ahead of the ones hacked. Hackers, you see, have an advantage, as they exist further in spacetime than the object of their attention – they only need to look into the past to see what is already there and how it works. When one understands how something works, they can fully understand the e� ect of the past on the present. It is the � eeting and ever-evolving „now“ when the past reveals itself and pushes us in various seemingly chaotic directions. � e slightest push in the past could have ended up becoming a pow-erful force in the present, that in turn becomes the past, having new in� uences, silently kindling the existence of potential futures. In the case that the push is lacking, nothingness can wildly burst into � ames, creating all the more nothingness and reduce the lack of security.

� e ASK Media Team will go on a ride through space and time, through culture and nature. � e � rst magazine will do what we, hackers, always start out with – look into the past. � e second issue will observe the present, and the third issue – together with your collective help – will go beyond and bravely gaze into the future.

Fasten your seatbelts and, please, do enjoy the ride!

Your Media Coordinators

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kaarle olav varkki

nataliia kalyn

RE:TEAM

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Brought to you byMedia team

Simon Forsgren

Caroline widmer

Amy Campo McEvoy

monica maurelli

justine leitarte

annemari sepp

laura kapitza

valentina semenikhina

RE:LEARNING

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Learning from the past: The walk through the League of Nations (LoN)

Security now faces more issues than ever owing to globalization and complex international politics stage. Countries tend to seek the ways for achieving safety through interdependence. International institutions are o� en the way to bring the bene� t for all because the more sides hold self-interest, the more cooperation between sides there will be. � roughout history there have been international in-stitutions that, one may argue, are di� ering not only in the features of decision making but also in the concept itself. Evaluating empiri-cal evidence and connecting them with political theories that explain why actors

involved in the issue tend to do what they do, what they do can help to understand that is the ra-tionale and interest that stands by the decisions regarding security. Correlation between main beliefs of realist and liberal school and context in which institutionalism came about are both signi� cant in order to understand the di� ering perspectives in which these the-ories view nature of international organisations.

One’s identities and interests forms a relatively stable structure on which institutions are built upon. Organisations are structur-ally subjective establishments that do not subsist without one’s ideas

and explanations about how the world works (Wendt,

1992, p. 399). On that account it can

be assumed that inter-

nation-al in-

stitutions are creations based on political theories like liberalism and realism in order to utilize their views and beliefs of the world (Grigorescu, 2005, p. 35). To illustrate the previously stated argument it is possible to anal-yse United Nations (UN) and the League of Nations (LoN) by dis-tinguishing between the main fo-cuses of both organizations. Using the context of the time in which these institutions were formed it is possible to explain why one of them seems more liberal while the other is usually perceived as driv-en by realism.

It is argued that the League of Na-tions as international institutions’ blueprint was built upon liberal ideas because the League’s main focuses were to encourage inter-national cooperation as well as safeguard collective security and peace (Benes, 2004, p. 66). 1920s was post World War I therefore priorities of LoN were to min-imize violence though global governance. Former President of the USA, Woodrow Wilson is be-lieved to be one of the founding fathers of LoN. Notably, he is con-

sidered to be liberal. Critiques of liberalism denounce the League as a failure because it did not

manage to serve its purpose – to prevent yet another world war. It is argued that the failure occurred when Britain and France were unwilling to take action towards fascist Italy and Nazi Germany which at the time had illegally invaded Abyssinia, even though Britain and France, by being part of the League, had committed to

By Justine Leitarte

RE:LEARNING

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� ght the aggressor (Forbes, 2003, p. 33). Con� icts like these led to misunderstandings and mutual distrust between the world pow-ers which Khodnev (2001, p. 24) believes caused WWII.

Nonetheless, LoN did have suc-cess stories where with its liberal approach it managed to prevent con� icts. Liberal success can be exempli� ed by LoN Council’s di-rect intervention in the con� ict between Greece and Bulgaria in 1925. Greek government is-sued orders that its Army Corps could invade Bulgarian ter-ritory (Davies, 2012, p. 417). � is incident was of dangerous nature because Balkans have history of major con� icts like the Bal-kan Wars in 1912 and 1913 which consider-ably initiated the Balkan crisis of 1914 and there-fore was a prelude to the World War I (Hall, 2000, p. 21). Consequently, if this Greek and Bul-garian dispute had not been resolved it was very likely to es-calate quickly and be-come another Balkan crisis. LoN was aware of this unwanted and poten-tial outcome so the Council took immediate steps through negotiations and settled Balkan disagreement. Although, re-alist critique the League based on its failure, it is essential to recognize its successes and the fact that Unit-ed Nations as its more successful

descendant was advantaged in a way that it could learn from LoN’s mistakes.

� erefore, the founders of the United Nation’s took the League’s model as a starting point. � e structure of UN consisted of LoN features – council and an assembly, but on the other hand, founders decided to replace the p r o c e d u r e s of decision

making that were believed to have caused the failure of the League (Stein, 1999). Also, some partially blame LoN’s failure on the United States absence as member state. � erefore, UN headquarters were built in New York City. It was a symbol of America being a part of the international body and step-

ping out of its isolationism

RE:LEARNING

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(Forbes, 2003, p. 33). As the UN was built upon LoN model with changed features that would most likely prevent another failure, it can be argued that UN is owing its success to the LoN’s failure be-cause UN could learn from LoN’s mistakes. � e argument that, United Nations is realist organi-sation can be illustrated through one of its � ve main bodies – Secu-rity Council.

For the realists, international or-ganizations are a tool in order to implement their power poli-tics and gain maximal self inter-est (Rittberger & Zangl, 2006, p. 15). To demonstrate this realist assumption in practice – UN Se-curity Council (UNSC) consist of non-permanent and permanent members also known as P5. � e permanent members which are US, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China all hold pow-er of ‘’veto’’, which is immediate block to any UN security relat-ed action. Some see the ‘’veto’’ power as logical, because if P5 gives its approval, institution is sure that when it acts, it does so with support of strongest powers in international system (Frieden, Lake, & Schultz, 2010, p. 194). However the counterargument is that ‘’veto’’ is a power tool for dominating nation priorities (Mammadova, 2013, p. 37). UN is unlikely to attempt missions that can undermine powerful states’ self-interest. To illustrate, UN ef-forts to enforce economic sanc-

tions on the Sudanese govern-ment as a response to genocide in the Darfur region, were blocked by China. China’s self-interest was unity with the aggressor because ‘’veto’’ state is a big buyer of Suda-nese oil. Furthermore, when ana-lysing case studies on Rwanda and Sierra Leone crisis realist explana-tions of UN’s ine� ective response was the fact that these states had little interest in the hegemonic powers at the time. In contrast, the Korean War had signi� cant support from United Kingdom, United States and several Europe-an countries because their inter-ests were at stake. � erefore, UN acted operatively to make sure that security in Korea is restored (Weiss, Forsythe, Coate, & Pease, 2007, p. 93). � erefore, it can be estimated that UNSC, by applying realist measures, can successfully deal with con� icts, thus only, once it is in major states’ interests to do so.

To what extent international institutions can a� ect the ways how global issues are dealt with?

RE:ASK

Words to feed the mindBy Amy Campo McEvoy� e Opening Ceremony yesterday evening celebrat-ed the start of ASK in the best of ways it can be done. We were lucky to count with the participation of “friends of EYP” and “friends of EYP Ukraine,” as described by the Project Leader, Anya Suprunenko.All speakers emphasized the uniqueness of this event, of the location and of each participant, and some had their say on security.

“� e risk of losing your electronic identity is also a problem, it may not be now, but it will be in the fu-ture”Oleh Malkin, chairman of “Open Hearts Founda-tion.”

“We know what is happening in Eastern Ukraine, it reminds us of former Soviet Union (…) things are being repeated”

“Europe’s security situation seemed stable – but re-cent events show that political discontent can lead to a security problem”Gabriele Baumann, head of the KAS O� ce in Ukraine.

Let these thoughts be a source of inspiration. Re:con-sider your views. Be challenged.

Re:think security.

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RE:ASK

ASK the PresidentASK 2014 is in full motion, and at this point the general idea be-hind ASK is clear to all, however, there are ideas and visions behind ASK that have not yet been fully unveiled. Martin Ho� mann is the President of the session and the man behind the innovative struc-ture of ASK.

To � nd out more about Martin’s ideas and hopes for the session, as well as hopefully share some of his rigorous intellect and background with the people involved with ASK, I sat down with Martin in the cafeteria of the Kyiv Olympic Stadium for � � een minutes and asked him a few questions.

What is your academic and pro-fessional background?

I graduated from a Bachelor in cultural engineering which is composed of cultural studies, knowledge management, and lo-gistics. It is a rather interdisciplin-ary � eld that is not super academic in the traditional sense, but teach-es you how to think systematic, to deconstruct things, to put things together, and to understand that most things, culture, economics etc. is interconnected. And so I graduated in that a cou-

ple of years ago, and started work-ing as a business consultant, while all these years I did a lot of youth work, mainly EYP. I started work-ing as a business consultant, and then decided to still do another voluntary service in media educa-tion, that led me to start a Master’s program in that � eld this year.

How do you relate your back-ground to the session and the session topic?

I would de� nitely relate it to the session from the conceptual per-spective. I would not consider myself to have a strong academic background in terms of structure. I am not a good researcher, but what I have learned is to see, an-alyze, read, and change systems. How people get together and cre-ate structure, in whatever formal-ized way, and how to change them. � is is why I got this combined passion with my youth work for education and educational design. How do you suit the needs of the people, how do you actually change things, and this is very much re� ected in the process of the whole event. Security was one of the topics the organizers approached me with and which at that point made sense to me be-cause it is a very systematic issue. � e major question we were striv-ing to answer with the event and the concept was what do people need in the 21st century to feel secure.

I believe personally that back in the 20th century it was very sim-

ple, you put up a border and some soldier to make people feel secure. In our modern globalized world it doesn’t work like that anymore. You can’t formalize a feeling of se-curity anymore, so you need to re-late it to personal needs, dialogue and participation. When you say security most people would think you mean security policy making, for me it has more to do with a human interaction based level, how interaction between society and the individual works. What do you want to do di� er-ently with ASK compared to a regular EYP session?

I have done EYP since 2003, and although I haven’t been that active in the last years I still have done pretty much everything you could do. I like how EYP works and the basic principles of it, however, having done a lot of EYP events I have realized, not only for myself that I want to experience some-thing di� erent in that framework. Also I believe that some things, I don’t want to say necessarily be improved, but that don’t � t with my values anymore. One of these things is the traditional system in EYP with selection conferences, as they are very competitive. Usually you would be in your committee, working on your topic for a week, and only then actu-ally going to the GA and talking to other groups, so the exchange only actually takes place during the GA, however this GA format is very competitive, you have the attack and defence speeches, open

By Simon Forsgren

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RE:ASK

debate, and then there is a vot-ing, and it’s all very competitive. I � nd this a pity because we have all these young bright people and interested people from all over Europe, who have so many ideas.

Why don’t we then create a forum where people can exchange all of these ideas, passions, and inter-ests beforehand already, which is both an enrichment for them personally, but also for the group work they do. � is is why we said we were going to do the barcamp, the world café, as well as other formats. � e second thing is that I believe that this is very much a value based question, I moved personally a bit away from the notion that because that the ma-jority thinks something, and that because something is right some-thing else is wrong.

Any kind of decision we make as mankind is a negotiation process, and a decision process, and deci-sions should be based on the best information we have, but we will never be able to know the truth. Because our knowledge as human beings is limited, and this is why we said that we will still have discussions, however only to en-rich the product and the process that people have gone through. � e � nal report is not consensus based but instead documentation, so instead of the committee saying that they will write what they all agree on, we can say that to some issues there are many sides to it, and saying that we don’t know the best thing to do, but these solution would have these di� erent conse-quences and they would have to balance each other out.

� is is a way that is much more honest, deep, and understand-

ing. All the groups should be understood and there should be a statement saying that we as the participants of ASK say that this is something that we mutually have created, instead of saying that we were in di� erent committees. � ese topics are strongly intercon-nected, and having the format this way will make people understand that this is all interconnected.

What are your hopes for the ses-sion?

� is is most of all an educational event, and I mainly hope that all of the participants can take a mes-sage with them, so � rst of all to understand how important de-constructing it, and the impor-tance of interconnection, and knowledge sharing. If every-body have understood that, that would be my � rst aim, and also that some of the ideas that are produced already show that people have taken that � rst step, who knows, mainly we will really come up with innovat ive solutions. I know that this is dif f icult because t h e

things we are talking about have

been on political agendas before, and there are hardly any experts among participants which is � ne, but I still believe in the collective

power of knowledge, and this might spark some enlightenment at some point. Nevertheless, I hope that people enjoy this ex-change on a content level but also on a personal level, because this is an amazing session in terms of its organization, so I hope that people have fun and enjoy their time here and take something with them.

RE:IDENTITY

IDENTITY FOR SAFETY

� e impact of the formation of Israel on Yosef was a change of house, country and a loss of his teddy bear, but events like this one, which were triggered by the imperialist drive of European powers, also led to serious security challenges which have lasting

impacts to the day.

European powers had had economic, political and even military presence in the Middle East, to a larger or smaller extent, since the 19th century, and had prevented the development in the region in the sense that self-government was not permitted nor were any decision making tasks delegated to native o� cials. However, Wilson’s “pronouncements on the virtues of self-determination” in 1918 made

protectorates, which had been the means by which imperialist powers retained control over their colonies, an unviable idea. � e result were mandates, which were supported by the League of Nations and had the aim of helping these countries become free nations, have a constitution and a free government in the shortest delay possible.

It was clear that the � nal aim of this decision was to build nations in the Middle East, which are

By Amy Campo McEvoy

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On the 14th of March 1948, the British mandate ended and the establishment of the state of Israel was declared. � is decision had immediate consequences on the peoples of Palestine and the surrounding areas, but the consequences are ongoing and continue to threaten national and international security every day.

THE DIARY OF A PALESTINIAN BOY:

15TH March 1948Today mummy and daddy didn’t wake me up, which is strange because mum and dad always wake me up when it’s my birthday and bring my presents to my bed, so I decided to wait for them for a bit.

Then I heard mummy coming up the stairs and I thought she would be bringing a big cake with 8 candles, so I hid under my covers and started snoring so that she thought I was sleeping.

But when she came upstairs, she forgot to say happy birthday to me and was looking really sad. I went to hug her and she was just throwing all my clothes into a bin bag she had. I think that she was sad because yesterday I gave daddy a longer hug than her, so I hugged her and she just looked at me sadder. I said: what is the matter mummy?

She said “Yosef, we are going somewhere that is not home for a while” and now we are in a strange person’s house. I am worried about my teddy bear, but I think we will come back tomorrow.

RE:IDENTITY

de� ned by the Oxford dictionary as “a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular state or territory,” and to allow these nations to have self-rule, however the colonial powers failed in their task of building nations, an example being France’s failure to promote independence in Syria and Lebanon or Britain’s maintenance of control in Transjordan even a� er they had physically le� the country. However, the international community’s biggest mistake was arguably considering that a nation could be designed and created, ignoring the language, culture and history factors.

When Yosef, the ten year old Israeli, had to emigrate to a new land, he became a citizen of a place with which he shared no background. � e borders had been created by European orientalists, who knew nothing of the region and failed to consider the tribal system, the religious divisions or the class system, amongst many factors. It did not allow people to know what their identity was. � e need to build a sense of self and have some self-awareness was not ful� lled, and instead, what was le� on the colonial states’ departure was a collection of arti� cially created states with no unifying point other that resentment towards the European colonial powers, and hundreds of problems to deal with.

� is lack of common identity has led to

problems in the region since. � e rise of nationalism, such as when Nasser was in power, has threatened the economic stability of countries, and continues to do so. Internal instability due to the di� erent religious communities living within one state has led to war and con� ict being a constant feature of the Middle East, and this is then always followed by migration and disease. � e lack of democracy has led to political discontent, and the combination of these factors has made the Middle East an area de� ned by con� ict, turmoil and political discontent.

Yosef grew up to live in a state hostile towards his birth country, Israel, and wars over the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, Lebanon,

the Gaza Strip or the Golan Heights became a common feature in his life. Identity has always been essential, and a sense of belonging primordial. A state needs to incorporate all the ethnicities and, if they fail to do so, security will always be at risk.

*Disclaimer: � e characters in this story are � ctitious and created solely for the purpose of this article.

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RE:THINKING

Re:thinking the term crisis compared to Second Cold WarA comparison of the Cold War and the situation in Ukraine. Has the Maidan been the origin of the Second Cold War?

� e 20th century was marked by several wars, most lately and im-portantly by the Cold War. One distinctive element of it was the military security dilemma. � e main elements of a security dilem-ma are fear, prevention and mis-understanding. During the Cold War the United States of America (USA) increased their weapons and in this way strengthened their army. � e Soviet Union consid-ered this behaviour as a threat and as a counter-reaction they tried to overreach USA’s actions. In the end it led into the vicious circle of the Cold War.

Not even 25 years later, in 2013 a Second Cold War starts accord-ing to the German newspaper Der Spiegel. � ey explained the change in the relation between Russia and Ukraine with the following: Rus-sia does not only want to have the Krim back but to re:establish the former Soviet Union. � e � rst

step to do so is declaring war to Eastern Ukraine and in this way to mark the beginning of the Sec-ond Cold War. Die Zeit, another German newspaper, describes the situation with the following words: “Back into the future.

Another opinion concerning the current situation between Ukraine and Russia, and the Cold War is that the Cold War has nev-er really ended, or how the French newspaper Dernière Nouvelles d’Alsace writes: “� e Cold War (…) is defrosted again (...)”. � eir main argument is that the current situation represents the � rst attack of the Cold War, which includes military actions a� er 25 years of economic and political actions, such as Russia granting asylum to Edward Snowden even though the USA demanded his extradi-tion. As a counter-reaction, the meeting which would have taken place to strengthen the co-opera-tion between Russia and the USA, was cancelled by the side of the USA. However, Russia was not the only one that interfered in the crisis taking place in Ukraine. Yet also the USA did so as they want-ed to reduce Russian impact on Ukraine. Legal and illegal meth-ods were used to achieve this goal. Several eastern businesspeople re-ported that Ukrainian people were paid by the USA government for participating in the Maidan pro-test. � e aim of the USA was al-leged to be that the protests would

By Caroline Widmer

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RE:THINKING

not stop, and in the end, ideally, Ukraine would not be under any in� uence from Russia. One of the o� cial methods of the USA was to impose sanctions against Rus-sia. In March 2014 they declared an entry ban for the prime minister, which was followed by several more sanctions. It is probable that more sanctions will follow due to the controversial voting in the East of Ukraine.

But is it adequate to call the sit-uation right now taking place in Ukraine the Second Cold War? Personally, I am convinced that it is not. My � rst argument is that the USA did not work on its own but together with other States or Unions. � e United Nation (UN) openly declared to condemn the shooting of the Malaysian air-plane. � e European Union (EU) also imposed sanctions against Russia such as a fortune ban for certain Russian people, and is willing to expand the sanctions as the newspaper Die Zeit says: “� e EU will give Russia one week”. Furthermore there has never been a threat for the whole world or for Europe, which was a crucial char-acteristic of the Cold War where an important element was fear of the outbreak of an atomic ware. Even though Putin mentioned this September that he would not be afraid to use atomic weapons, I never considered it as a real dan-ger. Worldwide, there are � ve o� -cial nuclear powers in the world, among whom is also Russia. � erefore, I do not consider the

threat as innoc-

u o u s due to a lack of resources. My opinion is based on the consequences the use of an atomic weapon would have for Russia. � e action would be convicted by most of the coun-tries which would make Russia isolated. � is would be unaccept-able for them. � is opinion is the most common worldwide. Most important for me is that the main target of the USA is not to expand their power inside Ukraine, but to � nd a friendly solution, includ-ing Ukraine and Russia. In case they wanted to expand their pow-er in Ukraine, they would have sent troops in or supported the Ukrainian side directly. � ere-fore I would call the situation in Ukraine de� nitely not a Second Cold War but a crisis.

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RE:DEFINING

Our Matryoshka identity - What does “being European” mean to you?

According to an ancient biblical tradition, the inhabitants of the city Babel tried to build a tower in order to reach God’s height. In the mindset of feeling supe-rior to all the other populations, they pursued their arrogant aim to the point that they forgot to be respectful and comprehensive to each other during the progress of the project. For that reason, God decided to punish their ambitious nature by mixing their languages; all of a sudden, the inhabitants of Babel were no longer able to understand each other and were therefore obliged to abandon the construction of the tower.

� e legend exempli� es how the act of creation should necessarily result from di� erent factors. Even if diversity might lead to some misunderstandings, it is essen-tial, as it represents the salvation from the potential fanaticism that can come from lack of diverse thought, in� uence, and dialogue.

Europe perfectly embodies the im-portance of diversity; our di� erent languages, traditions and national identities inspire us to cooperate and improve our willingness to understand each other, and unite

in diversity. If we imagine our identity like a Russian Matryosh-ka doll, namely a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other, we can say that our common European cul-ture is the wood from which our identity is created. Dante as well as Cervantes, Shakespeare, Ka� a, Hugo and Bergson belong to our cultural heritage. � e multiple faces of our Matryoshka identity perfectly embody the richness of diversity in our life: our identity is at the same time regional, na-tional and international: di� erent social environments and knowl-edge combine together to build our personality. In the same way – as positive feedback - the chaos of our personality should allow us to bene� t from and understand the complexity of our European identity. � is shows that the key concept of the diversity of Europe is the expression of the individu-al, and the European integration is the e� ect of the construction of each citizen’s personality. � e UE, as a democratic institution, mir-rors individual behaviours.

As individuals, we always feel a deep need to change as time goes by and to broaden the spectrum of values which concur to the

By Monica Maurelli

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15151515

RE:DEFINING

Our Matryoshka identity - What does “being European” mean to you?

building of our personality. We are rarely satis� ed by our skills and competences, since every time we achieve one of our aims, we establish a new target to reach. Our instinct urges us to always take a step forward with a deeper consciousness of our weaknesses and our strengths. Curiosity and innovation represent the basilar elements of the progress of the humankind; throughout histo-ry, the hunger for knowledge has brought us to � nd new things, to connect them in various ways and to share our discoveries.

� e European project is now working in the same way, still aiming to enhance integration through shared, innovative ideas.

As soon as the European project was born, the French diplomat Jean Monnet a� rmed that “the cooperation between nations does not provide, on its own, a solution for the big problems that hound us; what is needed is a real fusion of the interests of the European peoples and not only the mere maintenance of the balance be-tween these interests”. Nowadays, in the globalised world, based on interconnections on a large scale, the Member States (MS) of the EU

should deeply understand how their well-being depends on the relations with the other European countries. As Karl Popper pointed out during the � rst twenty years of the European integration, democ-racy is the product of a common activity, of a community formed by people who come together like the intertwined pieces of a puzzle. One individual, on his own, can-not solve a complex problem; but 5 millions of citizens, together, can not only face it, but also create something more.

� is is the reason why participat-ing in a European project such as a session of the European Youth Parliament is like becoming one of the instruments of a “Europe-an orchestra”, in which di� erent tones and rhythms blend in order to create a melody, always able to maintain its harmonious equilib-rium within the diversity of the sounds. � e European reality can be actually compared to a Jack-son Pollock’s artwork; as the artist said, “you should not watch the canvas, you have to go in the can-vas” to really understand it. You have to be one of the little spots that create the colourful painting to really experience the value of cooperation.

16INITIATED BY:

Thank you!

© Media team of ASKyiv2014