[Nettime-bold] re: Commander Europa

[Calliope Witherington <calliope.witherington@world-economic-forum.com>]

Dear Mr. Reinprecht,

I am very grateful for your answers. These will substantially aid me in
developing an intelligent evaluation of the Commander Europa book within
the context of a broad comparative study.

I would like to ask you just a couple more questions, if I might--a bit 
more specifically about the book itself.

1. I note, examining the Commander Europa text as published, that there do
not seem to be any enemies in the illustrations. Everyone is smiling and
agreeable. Is this a lapsus?  Generally, when there is a superhero like
Commander Europa, who can fly and perform miracles, there are also evident
evildoers who must be squelched and destroyed. I admit I have not read the
whole thing, my German being at a mediocre level. So if you could assist
me: If these evildoers do appear in the book, who are they and what is
their nature? If they do not appear, are they implicit? Who, precisely,
are the implicit or explicit evildoers in the Commander Europa picture?

2. In the written press one can find references alleging that the question
of Europe is a political question--that is, that the European Union and
its nature and power are *not* simply givens, *not* matters of basic fact
like, say, the alphabet, or evolution, that should be taught uniformly to
all children. That, in fact, there are many questions regarding its nature 
that have not yet been given consensus.

It is of course true that the authors of these references are the very
ones who have doubts regarding the value of liberal, commerce-oriented,
free-trade policies, such as it has been the function and mission of
Europe to promote.  They have not read all the references, so to
speak--all the Hayek and Friedman. It is only natural that since the EU's
primary function has been to liberalize trade and eliminate national
protectionism, sometimes to the momentary detriment of the commonweal
and/or social welfare, these people might find this question political.

One possible riposte to these accusations, of course, is to say that
*some* people would say the same thing of evolution--that it is not a
matter of fact but of belief. Perhaps in the case of the value and
direction of Europe, we can think that it is more reasonable to doubt its
foundation in solid reality--but perhaps not.

Would this be your answer?

3. Such "doubting Thomas" people might say that a book sporting a cover
with such a figure as Commander Europa arcing into the sky with fist up
high and a small male child hanging onto his cape promises (with this
image) to be quite laden with political intent, leaning in a particular
direction and not any other, and that in fact it might not be appropriate
for universal distribution in the guise of objective education, to form an
important bone in a young mind's skeleton, so to speak. The image, they
might say, does not scream objectivity.

What would you say to that thought?

4. In any case, in a broad sense, I am interested in knowing: What does
the Commander Europa book say about the future and direction of Europe,
vis-a-vis the question of a political direction for that entity? Does it
address the question of commercial representation and so on, or is it
simply a facts-on-the-ground kind of book, intending to convey to children
a positive emotion around the phenomenon, E.U., without worry for the
particulars?

5. On a more personal note, I am required to observe that in the Commander
Europa illustrations, of which there are perhaps thirty or forty, there is
not one single instance of any female person in a position other than that
of mother, applauding nymph, timid subaltern, etc. What is the meaning of
this? Is this choice not in itself political? Or is this simply a fact on
the ground, as well, spoken of but with no elaboration required? Given 
that this book is distributed to *all* of the 10-14 children in Austria, 
and not just the boy-children, is this not a lapsus?

6. On a less personal note--I am entirely white, of excellent parentage,
and quite affluent vis-a-vis my confreres--I must note that every single
personage in Commander Europa, without exception, is as white as I. In 
this it does even more poorly than Captain Euro (www.captaineuro.com), 
which has one brown person with an indeterminate role, and several 
Gypsies among the evildoers.

Is this lapsus because the audience is Austrian, and therefore rather
entirely uniform in its ethnicity--rather than, say, French or German or
English (I am English, but have many brown colleagues here in my country)?
If so, it is of course understandable--but then the image of Europe that
is given may not be very accurate?

And again, where are the evildoers in the Commander Europa book?

7. Finally, if it would not be too much trouble, I would like a very brief
summation of the primary plot-action occurring within the Commander Europa
story. I thank you for your summary of the primary themes, but a short
count-by-count of the upwards and onwards, so to speak, would be very
helpful. I will of course be making my way through it with the help of a
native speaker, but in the interest of expediency it might be healthy to
have a summary first!

With very best wishes,

Calliope Witherington
Child Information Study Group


On Mon, 11 Mar 2002, Michael Reinprecht wrote:

> Dear Ms Witherington,
> 
> thank you for your mail and your interest in our publication Commander
> Europa. Let me answer your questions as follows:
> 
> * As representative of the European Parliament you have a great
> responsibility to assure that the materials that best and most clearly
> convey the spirit and aims of the European Union reach the children of
> the member states. You evidently feel that Commander Europa does this
> quite well, at least so far as Austria is concerned. Could you cite
> specific examples from the book that convinced you to choose it?
> 
> The idea to write a book for children of the age of 10 to 14 explaining
> in simple words the European Union was born in our office. We'd first
> written down all factual information we wanted to include and we then
> contacted M. Brezina (as he is a well known Austrian author of
> children's books) asking him if he was interested to write the story.
> Commander Europa is the product of a broad cooperation between M.
> Brezina and our office. Therefore I can assure, that the book meets the
> spirit and aims of the European Union.
> 
> * You say, at
> http://archiv.kurier.at/archiv/display.php3?PIC=testtextarch/j2002/q1/m02/t11/s003/001_001.dcs,
> that "For years we have been bringing older pupils to Strasbourg. For
> younger ones there is nothing, that can make the EU more understandable.
> Now, with this book, we are doing something for the voters of tomorrow."
> Could you be more specific? What ist the effect you would like to see
> Commander Europa have on the voters of tomorrow? What elements of the
> Commander Europa book might accomplish this? Specific examples would
> help us greatly in our evaluation.
> 
> The effect is a very simple one: We want to help the voters of tomorrow
> to understand what the European Union is. And the book does nothing else
> than to explain how it works (common market, decision making process,
> enlargement, subsidiarity ...) by using examples which are easily
> understable and in which children of this age are (may be) interested
> (e.g. decision making process: environment; common market: mobiles ...)
> The European Union is still for most of the people a big unknown.
> Brussels is "so far away", the desicion making process "so difficult to
> understand", catchwords like "big bureaucracy", "mismanagement" etc. are
> on people's minds. A lack of understanding makes information difficult.
> The second effect we hope to see is that the interest in European Union
> rises. And as a result, more people will participe in the elections of
> the European Parliament.
> 
> 
> *With which of author Thomas Brezina's other books does Commander Europa
> have the most in common? Dragonheart? Knickerbocker-Club? Tiger-Team?
> 
> NONE
> 
> *Do you hope/expect to see Commander Europa translated into other
> European languages, or is it specifically appealing to Austrians, in
> your opinion?
> 
> Commander Europa is not specifically appealing to the Austrians but as
> far as we have only the rights for an Austrian edition the question of
> translating it into other European languages has not really come up yet.
> 
> (Commander Europa has become a big success in Austria, already 65.000
> pcs. have been distributed to children either via the Ministry for
> Education (35.000) or by direct mail (orders). And we still have a lot
> of demand ...)
> 
> 
> 
> *What is your opinion of Captain Euro (http://www.captaineuro.com/)
> another text product geared to clarifying pan-European economic policy
> for young children? Is there any relationsship between Commander Europa
> and Captain Euro, on any level, in your opinion?
> 
> I did not know Captain Euro. But after a short look at
> www.captaineuro.com I may say that there is no relationship at all.
> 
> Best regards,
> Michael Reinprecht
> Head of EP-Information Office Vienna
> 





----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 17:54:39 -0500 (EST)
From: Calliope Witherington <calliope.witherington@world-economic-forum.com>
To: Michael Reinprecht <epwien@europarl.eu.int>
Subject: Commander Europa

Dear Mr. Reinprecht,

I am overseeing a committee charged with cataloguing, classifying, and
analyzing the dissemination of information concerning supra- and
transnational political and trade entities to young people around ten
years of age.

We are especially interested in studying any and all texts by Earth's
largest trading blocs that aim to clarify to young children the policies
of those blocs, especially as regards their goodwill and concern for the
citizenry and for children in general.

We have already performed several highly respected comparative and
analytical studies on texts in this category. Such texts include, for
example, the Organization of American States' "Chant to the OAS," which
conveys the OAS's benefits to children everywhere through the use of
rhythm and rhyme (http://www.oas.org/children/chant.html). 

Others include the World Trade Organization's recently commissioned
graphic novel, "Never Better," that cleverly explains to poor African
children, through the use of football metaphors, the benefits of free
world trade and the evils of protectionism; NATO's 1999 "Here's Where They
Fall," a beautiful alphabet picture-book communicating to small Serbian
children the purpose and value of the NATO bombings; and "Color Me
Free"--"Colorame Libro"--the IMF's coloring-book explanation of modern
economic policies for young South Americans.

It is in this spirit that we are very interested in your use of the
Commander Europa item of which I have recently read an account (at
http://minorities.orf.at/austria/en/archiv02/010521_en.htm, half way down
the page). As head of the European Parliament's Information Office in
Vienna, your choice of this book is very interesting to us, especially in
light of the fact that it is being distributed to all Austrian pupils from
10 to 14.  

The following questions will help us to accomplish our analytical task:

* As representative of the European Parliament you have a great
responsibility to assure that the materials that best and most clearly
convey the spirit and aims of the European Union reach the children of the
member states. You evidently feel that Commander Europa does this quite
well, at least so far as Austria is concerned. Could you cite specific
examples from the book that convinced you to choose it?

* You say, at
http://archiv.kurier.at/archiv/display.php3?PIC=testtextarch/j2002/q1/m02/t11/s003/001_001.dcs,
that "For years we have been bringing older pupils to Strasbourg. For
younger ones there is nothing, that can make the EU more understandable.  
Now, with this book, we are doing something for the voters of tomorrow."  
Could you be more specific? What is the effect you would like to see
Commander Europa have on the voters of tomorrow? What elements of the
Commander Europa book might accomplish this? Specific examples would help
us greatly in our evaluation.

* With which of author Thomas Brezina's other books does Commander Europa
have the most in common? Dragonheart? Knickerbocker-Club? Tiger-Team?

* Do you hope/expect to see Commander Europa translated into other
European languages, or is it specifically appealing to Austrians, in your
opinion?

* What is your opinion of Captain Euro (http://www.captaineuro.com/),
another text product geared to clarifying pan-European economic policy for
young children? Is there any relationship between Commander Europa and
Captain Euro, on any level, in your opinion?

I thank you very much for your attention and help in this matter, and wish
you the best of luck in the complex and gruelling task of conveying the
right information at the right age.

With very best wishes,

Calliope Witherington
Child Information Study Group




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