These things are not connected, I should start by saying. But it’s been a busy couple of weeks, starting with a unique event to encourage young people to vote, run by EU40 and MTV Voices, at the European Parliament.
As part of the event, MEPs and professional freestyle rappers worked together on ‘rap battles’ covering EU policy areas of particular interest to young people. They clashed over immigration, didn’t have much to say on innovation and competitiveness, and then broadly agreed that youth unemployment was a bad thing. They even had powerpoint slides.
Personally, I’m kind of of the view that if your freestyle rap includes the phrase “we need greater fiscal union”, you might need to rethink your life choices, and it turns out that freestyle rap on EU competitiveness is not as easy as you’d think, but the event as a whole was a courageous attempt at engaging with people in new ways. Credit to the organisers for getting everyone to take part, and look like they’re having fun. Particular mention should be made of the brave representative of the youth NGO for the last question, who rapped his question. Hopefully youth turnout will be higher than ever! You can watch the whole thing here, if you’re interested. (There was free beer at the event itself; I recommend finding an alcoholic beverage of your choice before watching the video, it does help).
I came across a website with a similar aim – to encourage people to vote in the upcoming European Parliament elections – set in Brussels, which I actually liked. It’s not freestlye rap, which is a bonus as far as I’m concerned. Plus you get to see lots of Brussels:
The first half of last week was taken up with my in-laws visiting us – it was lovely to see them (just in case they ever find this blog ;-) ) and we spent a few days doing touristy things and walking all over Brussels. (Seriously. Kilometres and kilometres. I had no idea Brussels was that big…) We saw the Atomium, and Bruges, and went to Pierre Marcolini, where I bought super-classy dark chocolate for Easter. (I can’t eat nuts, so all the pralines are out of bounds for me. I weep for the lack of praline in my life, especially since moving to Belgium. I’m still not sure if I can eat ganaches. I suspect not, because of the risk of cross-contamination. Woe is me. #firstworldproblems.)
Easter isn’t really a big thing in our household, so we haven’t done much over the long weekend, except eat bits of chocolate and enjoy not having to work. Which has been bliss. Sunshine, long lunches, sitting out on the terrace, it’s been lovely. I am not looking forward to having to go back to work tomorrow at all…
Lastly, food banks. Those of you on Twitter probably saw the outrage over the Mail on Sunday’s article in which their reporter lied to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and took food from a charity running food banks, to try and prove that it’s possible to defraud a charity. Or something – I’ve tried to understand what the point of the article in question was, other than “MoS journalists are good at lying and able to con people who want to help them”, and I think it must be that the MoS believes that only some hungry people, specially deserving hungry people, should be allowed to have free food given to them, or else Armageddon will somehow occur if anyone who needs it can just get free food by asking.
I think we’re supposed to feel outrage that not enough checks are being done, and people are being taken at their word if they say they need help feeding their family. Because God forbid we try and treat people in difficult situations with compassion and kindness, rather than treating them like lying scum from the outset who need to prove themselves worthy of benefiting from generosity and support. The starting point should not be to assume people are lying in order to get free food unnecessarily – no one goes to food banks because they don’t feel like going shopping. (Unless perhaps they’re MoS journalists, who clearly don’t go there because they’re in need. But not everyone lies professionally, and the MOS is wrong to assume everyone is happy to behave like they do.)
These organisations are charities. People choose to donate to them, knowing what use will be made of their donations, and the ethos that the charity espouses – which, in the case of the Trussell Trust (the organisation that runs the food bank visited by the MoS), is made absolutely clear on their ‘mission and values’ page. They aren’t a part of government and aren’t subject to the same spending rules as government – though there is a discussion that could be had over whether this is a function that governments should be providing, through the welfare state, rather than leaving it up to charity and people’s better nature. But currently, these services provide help to anyone who says they need it, based on trust. That’s the kind of society I want to live in – it’s a shame it’s clearly something alien to the Mail on Sunday – and I applaud the people who give up their time and money to help organisations like this. if you want to donate to the Trussell Trust to support them in their work, they have a justgiving page here. One good thing that came out of yesterday’s shameful Mail story was that many, many people took a moment to give to charity – apparently 250ish people had donated previously via that page; in the last 24 hours that has shot up to 3800, with total donations of more than £43,000 so far.
ExpatinBrussels 