Top experts and public figures gathered at NYU Prague to discuss the Europe’s most pressing issue at a conference entitled Tackling the Refugee Crisis in Europe. The Havel Classroom at NYU Prague was full to bursting to hear international experts discuss the topic, and an audience far beyond Prague participated via live streaming.
“As an American academic institution with numerous bases in Europe, NYU is in a unique position to open up this topic. We felt it was our responsibility to provide a space where ideas could be exchanged between academics from different cultures and professionals who are dealing with the issues directly,“ said Vanda Thorne, Assistant Director for Academics at NYU Prague, who organized the conference with Associate Director Thea Favaloro and NYU Prague Professor Salim Murad.
“Our crisis is a crisis of fear of the possible future – the idea of losing European values, though we don’t quite know which values we might lose,” said Czech Minister of Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Jiri Dienstbier. Fear is widespread in Europe and being used by many politicians to boost populist messages, he noted, and by a media to make sensational headlines.
“Panelists were afraid of the word xenophobia, and they used the word fear instead,“ criticized NYU Prague student Ashley Sweeney, who spent part of her fall break volunteering on the Serbian border. NYU Prague Director Jiri Pehe challenged the panelists on their definintion of xenophobia – which, he noted, is defined as “fear of strangers.“ Minister Deinstbeir responded to the challenge by saying “I believe there is a difference between fear and hatred. But it may change very easily if we don’t offer good answers.“
The international voices included that of NYU’s Professor Rodney Benson (Steindhardt), author of an award-winning book comparing French and American migration. He joined leading political analysts Jacques Rupnik of Sciences Po in Paris and Muriel Blaive of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, as well as Arndt Freiherr Freyag von Loringhoven, the German Ambassador to the Czech Republic.
The conference was split into three panels, each looking at the issue from a different angle: the media portrayal of refugees, how the crisis has shaped concepts of national identity, and the governments’ role in communicating the refugee crisis to the citizens.
The conference was not only for students at NYU Prague. NYU Prague invited other global sites to join us by screening the panels at other sites. “We want to make what we do here accessible around the world,“ said Martina Faltova, Assistant Director for Student Affairs at NYU Prague.
Videos of the conference have been posted on NYU Stream as well as the YouTube channel of the NYU Prague Institute for Democracy, Education and Culture. Please note that to access NYU Stream you must log in using an NYU Account (the YouTube videos do not require you to log in).
Tackling the Refugee Crisis in Europe – November 9, 2015
NYU Stream
Panel 1 : Media and Society (Chair: Salim Murad, Panelists: Rodney Benson, Tomas Lindner)
https://stream.nyu.edu/media/Tackling+the+Refugee+Crisis+in+Europe_Conference_part_1.mp4/1_dsvyfh27/20734521
Panel 2: Nations and Borders (Chair: Jiri Pehe; Panelists: Jacques Rupnik, Arndt Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven, Muriel Blaive, Jan Urban)
https://stream.nyu.edu/media/Tackling+the+Refugee+Crisis+in+Europe_Conference_part_2.mp4/1_d5rd1lmo
Panel 3: Government and Citizens (Chair: Pavel Fischer; Panelists: Minister Jiri Dientstbier, Jan Machacek, Simon Panek, Tomas Zdechovsky)
https://stream.nyu.edu/media/Tackling+the+Refugee+Crisis+in+Europe_Conference_part_3/1_tgwv9wxp/20734521
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-nA4hzkJbBN0-IVrmu0burTbzz00NrAl