Le Parlement Europeen!

In my last post I sounded pretty down, but the rest of the week has turned out to be much better!

Wednesday was the highlight - I went to the European Parliment! Ever since I found out they were in session this week I had been excited about going, and three other students from BCA ended up coming with me. We skipped class, but it was totally worth it! Normally I would feel really guilty about skipping class, but here I don't want to spend all of my time in a classroom - I think I'm going to learn so much more by going places and taking advantage of these once in a lifetime opportunities! It felt good to not do what I should for once in my life, and instead seize the moment and take part in something extraordinary. Lyrics to Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway" and Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" were running through my head all afternoon :)

My first glimpse of the building was awe-inspiring. It wasn't just the architecture (which was impressive) - it was a sense of the incredible amount of power concentrated here, the world leaders in this building at this moment making decisions that will impact people around the globe. It's hard to explain, but it gave me the chills.... When we got inside we found out that although they were in session it was not open to the public until for another hour and a half. We ended up killing time by walking around - it was a beautiful day, and we discovered a lovely little park nearby. What could've been a really frustrating wait ended up being a really wonderful afternoon :)

When we finally could go into the Parliment session, it was amazing! They were debating the situation in Kenya, which I had just read an article about in TIME magazine. In case you're not aware, there has been a lot of conflict in recent weeks following their presidential election at the end of December. Violent protests erupted after disputed election results were released, and over 600 people have died so far. The killing has been mostly along ethnic lines, making swift action even more imperative to stop it from spiraling into the kind of ethnic cleansing that has plagued other parts of Africa. Already 250,000+ people have been displaced, most fleeing to neighboring Uganda. The debate in the Parliment about this was fascinating, and centered around what to do about the European Union's budget. One day after the election $40 million had been transferred to the Kenyan government, now largely believed to be corrupt and potentially illegitimate. Some members supported cutting off funding, saying that the European Union needed to make it clear that good government is a prerequesite for financial support. Others said that would be inhumane, and that funding should continue with better monitoring and transparency. Still others argued for re-routing money to agencies that provide services directly to the people instead of putting it into the hands of the government. I think I like that option best, but no specifics were discussed as to how that would look on the ground. I definitely agreed with those who said that the root of this conflict is poverty - although the country as a whole has experienced economic growth, the wealth created has not been evenly distributed, leaving the vast majority of the population in abject poverty. The EU (and presumably the US also) had sung Kenya's praises for being peaceful and democratic while turning a blind eye to its corruption and social ills.

On the tram ride back we were discussing the session, particularly the dilemma of how Western nations should involve themselves in conflicts in parts of the world where their colonialism and neocolonialism created the situation in the first place! One representative had been adament that the EU should not impose its solutions on Kenya, seeing it ultimately as a Kenyan problem that needed a Kenyan solution. Although I certainly agree that Kenyans must be actively involved in reaching a solution for their country, I don't think the EU (or the US) should just pass it off as a Kenyan problem, when the roots of poverty and inequality can be traced directly to our meddling there. I feel like we have a responsibility to fix it - yet if we have screwed things up in the past so many times, would we really do more harm or good by being involved now? I don't know...