Krakow, a fairy tale city where snow falls like pieces of heaven to decorate the trees and touches people’s skin, not to make them shiver, but to make them love. A city where each brick in the streets tells you a story. A city where the pigeons fly every day from the market square as a sign of peace, love and freedom. This is the city where the Beyond Europe project organised a heartwarming meeting of cultures.
December 2012, in this ideal atmosphere, a group of 14 Egyptian boys and girls arrived from Alexandria, Egypt representing SHIFT-Network. They started a democracy case study trip to Krakow, coming from more than 20 degrees heath in Egypt to the below zero coldness in Poland. In spite of the coldness of Poland, the Polish organisers in AEGEE-Krakow made it very warm for us due to their friendly spirits and hospitality.
For one week, Egyptian and Polish participants moved around all over Krakow to experience the city. From day one, we had lectures about innovation, stability and about how the system of decentralisation works, about how the system in Poland developed in 12 years from one level of communities to three levels of decentralisation to form its central Government. We also learned about how they joined the European Union and how they benefit from that.
Asking about the separate line between decentralization and chaos and about how Polish people managed to change their system over the past decade gave us an idea about the struggle to reach an order that the citizens can benefit from.
Krakow trip would not be the same unless we had the Polish and the Arabic languages workshops. It was really interesting
to see that two of the Polish organisers were already learning Arabic and pronouncing it with a beautiful accent, which gave us the motivation to teach them more.
The mountains of Zakopane were the perfect place to have (City of utopia) workshop. Even though we do not live in an utopia, it was fascinating how the Polish and Egyptian participants imagined how their future can be like.
All the way from Zakopane, with its shinning snow and its rich culture, where we had our first snow fight, to Nowa Huta with its Communist history in the buildings, you can understand how Polish people have lived.
When you walk through Poland, you can smell the blood of martyrs who sacrificed their lives for Polish freedom, the same which happened with the Egyptian revolution in Tahrir Square, which was presented to the Polish youth to show them the greatness of the Egyptian revolution; how 18 days changed the life of more than 90 million Egyptians; and how we are continuing our fight against corruption to build a better future and to write a new chapter of freedom, for us to tell to our children and grandchildren.
It is really inspiring how the Egyptian and the Polish revolutions are so similar in their core and in their aims, with all their drawbacks, ups and downs. From our common history and from our mistakes we should all learn to be wise enough not to repeat them. Starting from getting the regime down, fighting for freedom and achieving justice, one can feel how 1991 in Poland was very similar to the 2012 in Egypt. It is interesting to know even that the party ruling in Poland after the revolution was called “Law and Justice” and here in Egypt is called “Freedom and Justice”.
The life we had in Krakow was full of adventures. Sometimes it was nice to get lost in the city and stop to eat Oscypek with the cranberry sauce to heat yourself up in the cold weather. It was so nice to stand in the Main Square to watch children signing Christmas songs with their sweet voices, giving you the warmness of the family.
Now, I have to go because I can hear the sound of Hejnal from Saint Marie church tower announcing a new hour to be spent in the streets of this lovely city.
Special thanks to Bibliotheca Alexandria (unit of Futuristic studies) and “Youth in Action” program for helping us to implement the event.
Written by Dr. Karim Gaber, General Coordinator of the Euro-Arab youth initiative Alexandria
Pictures provided by Mohamed el Dallal and Haytham Basuony