United in Diversity

March has not only seen a rise in temperatures, but also the dawn of Luxembourg’s presidency of the UN Security Council, and what a month to start. Luxembourg’s first action was to hold an emergency meeting on Ukraine during their very first day in office, and it has been all systems go ever since, what with the Benelux Foreign Ministers' visit to Kiev, and a heavy existing Security Council agenda. As a result, there has been much interaction with the Foreign Ministry, which has provided me with a remarkable insight into diplomacy. The best way I can describe this is that it reminds me of a wicker basket being woven, but where each individual twig is being woven by a different country: all weavers have the same goal (to create a basket), but each has a slightly different idea about the pattern. It’s all about the weaving process: how they work off each other, communicate, cooperate, compromise, and deal with clashes. At any rate, even if that made no sense, take my word for it that it’s fascinating.

Diplomacy in its figurative form. Image credit: prestigewicker.co.uk.

As well as this more politico-centric activity, the Embassy has been kept busy with its first Consular Outreach Reception, which took place on the second Tuesday of the month. It was a great event: firstly, it gave me the chance to understand the role of our consular services in far greater detail, and secondly, the Embassy was able to celebrate some extraordinary people, such as volunteers at homeless shelters and leaders of groups for women in distress. Not only did it allow our consular team to establish contact with local support groups, schools, hospitals, police forces, and charities, amongst others, but it gave all these the perfect opportunity to meet each other as well!

Networking. Image credit: ekaterinawalter.com

To further consolidate the Embassy’s relationship with local organisations, the Ambassador has also been to visit two of the local schools, and I accompanied her: one was an international school, where the Ambassador gave a careers talk to some keen sixth-formers, and the other a Luxembourgish school, where pupils in their first year of learning English wanted to learn more about the Ambassador’s role and be inspired to work hard at their English. They were using vocabulary and grammatical structures that were astonishingly advanced for the short length of time they had been learning; the teacher informed me that their grammar had been grounded the previous year by a course in Latin, and I suppose their exposure to an abundance of English media and American television must aid their language retention. Still, it was impressive. And it underlined another positive facet I’ve noticed of Luxembourg: that it seems to be a great place to bring up children; certainly, the advantages they’ll gain from such a fabulous education in languages are innumerable.

Image credit: worldnomads.com

These bonds with Luxembourgish professionals, which the Embassy staff work so hard to establish and nurture, have even proven themselves useful for one of my assignments. Part of my remit over the past few months has been to plan a commemorative exhibition about the bilateral relations between Luxembourg and the UK during the First World War, and recently the planning process reached the stage where we were ready to go to external organisations and enquire about potential artefacts we might be able to borrow. Amongst those organisations contacted were the national archives, the city archives, the photo archives and the Military History Museum in Diekirch, a town north of Luxembourg City. The particularly great thing about this stage of the process was that I got to visit all these places and rifle through their fascinating material myself. My now extremely high expectations of Luxembourgers’ charm were not disappointed; everyone I met at each of these institutions was intrigued by our narrative and eager to help. It will be exciting to get the chosen material together in one room later this year.

  

National Military History Museum in Diekirch.

 On the subject of historical war, I should mention that Luxembourg has been playing host to a home-grown cinema hit. The film, Heemwéi – Eng Odyssee (translation: Homesickness – an Odyssey), is the result of a seven-year independent project that cost just €25,000. It was realised by a team of volunteers, amateurs and local professionals in Luxembourg. Having wanted to watch it since its release in January, I finally did, and was duly impressed. The film revisits Luxembourg’s ambiguous WWII history, where the line between friend and foe was exceptionally vague. There is nothing sensational or condemning about the story; the depiction is realistic and gritty, and this translates into a thought-provoking production. I found it an interesting window into Luxembourg’s relationship with its past.

For, although Luxembourg is an extremely modern place, full of innovation and enterprising, it does still retain a link with its history. This I was fortunate enough to experience last weekend (the second weekend in March), when each commune held a traditional – in fact pagan – ceremony to cast off the throes of winter and welcome in the spring. This ‘Buergbrennen’ took the form of a gigantic cross-shaped bonfire, accompanied by much food, drink, and merriment. The one I attended was lit by a troop of intrepid children and run by the scouts, and it burned rather spectacularly. Bonfires in other communes were even supplemented by fireworks and music. Essentially, it was nice to see that, in spite of the patchwork nature of Luxembourg’s population, a healthy native community spirit has remained intact.

Buergbrennen in Beggen.

Since being here, I’ve been struck by Luxembourg’s diversity; in more recent weeks, the interwovenness of this diversity has really made itself apparent. It is not a school canteen, where the groups and cliques are distinct. Here, old sits with new, locals sit with expats, people of various professions happily share a table. Luxembourg thus seems to have successfully implemented the ostensibly paradoxical motto of the European Union: ‘United in Diversity.’

The English Pronunciation of 'Ukulele' is Illogical.

Last week, I was delighted to attend a talk given by Sir Nigel Sheinwald. The former UK Ambassador to the USA (and former UK Permanent Representative to the EU) was in Luxembourg to give a talk for the Oxford University Society of Luxembourg, on the topic of ‘Britain, Europe and the World: present dilemmas and future decisions.’ It was very interesting to hear his perspective on such matters, especially given his professional proximity to the people, organisations and countries involved in many of the issues of which he spoke.

University of Oxford

In the discussion that followed, British people’s perception of the EU was discussed. As this group of predominantly older Britons and Luxembourger Oxford graduates discussed why there were so many eurosceptics in the UK, and to what sort of information young Brits were being exposed, I felt like I ought to raise my hand and say ‘hello, young Brit, here…’, but they actually nailed the issue on the head without my help: the usefulness of the EU is barely publicised in the UK, whereas its few disadvantages are preyed upon and strung up as a grim – and slightly misleading – warning to us all. It seems to be a matter of awareness, and it’s a shame that such discussions aren’t had on a broader scale in the UK itself.

The European Union flag

After this talk, the British Ambassador hosted an informal dinner at the Residence in honour of Sir Nigel, which gave those present the opportunity to discuss in further detail the ideas brought forth in the talk (amongst other things, of course). There were fourteen people present, and every single one of them had an entirely unique perspective on every topic of conversation, having come from all sorts of different backgrounds and had a variety of completely different experiences. That is one of the things I have found about Luxembourg: there is a wealth of diversity here, and it is great.

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This diversity is visible in every single vein of Luxembourg life: I went into a shoe shop the other day, and after confessing to the sales assistants that I spoke no Luxembourgish, was promptly re-greeted in English, and good English at that! Not only that, but most films at the cinema are shown in their original language, with a relevant combination of English, French, German and/or Luxembourgish subtitles (which is a great excuse to go often, because it’s therefore technically educational…). There are ways of settling into this place no matter where you come from or what language you speak (well, ok, there are some limits to how multilingual everyone is).

EU flags flying before the European Parliament

This is great for places like the theatre, as I experienced in my first week at West Side Story, but also for the Luxembourg Philharmonie, which is able to welcome a vast array of English-speaking talent without worrying about a drop in ticket sales. This was evidenced by their hosting of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, who only went and, you know, sold out.

Luxembourg Philharmonie

I was very excited to go along to this, because some friends of mine are Ukulele players, and I had therefore heard good things about the troop. Good things which turned out to be true, I might add. The colourful range of songs on their set list and their witty choreography were only outshone by two further aspects of their performance: firstly, the complexity of the layered arrangements, at which one could only marvel (think Pitch Perfect, but with EIGHT SONGS ON THE GO SIMULTANEOUSLY); and secondly, crucially, their bewilderingly enduring manual stamina! The non-stop speed at which they twanged away together was unbelievable, and that is without so much as mentioning the rapidity of the solos and the fact that each member had to sing as well. They deserve serious kudos. However, it was not just awe at their skill that made the evening enjoyable. Despite having been playing together for nearly thirty years, their material was fresh and buoyant. There were songs by Adele and Daft Punk, featured amongst hits by David Bowie, Lou Reed, and even Frank Sinatra. There was even a whistling interlude. Possibly my favourite rendition of the night, though, was an acapella ‘folkalisation’ (yes, that is a made-up word, but how else will language evolve?) of The Who’s ‘Pinball Wizard’. You’d have thought the song had originated in medieval Scotland, or had been written for the soundtrack of Braveheart. ‘Twas bonnie.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

The second two weeks in Luxembourg have proven themselves well up to the task of following the first; I’m discovering ever more about this small country, and, so far, I like it.


Note with reference to the title: we Brits pronounce each of the four vowels differently: 'you-kuh-lay-lee'. German is far more logical: it goes 'oo-koo-lay-lay'. Something I realised when talking to a German friend who was baffled by our linguistic silliness.