Egalitarian Hypocrisy

Following a shooting by Israeli forces on ships sending aid to Gaza, a massive protest took place in Uppsala in June, earlier this year, with the protesters calling to boycott Israel and measures in Middle East. The protest was large by any standard for city a like Uppsala and that international awareness was amazing to see.
Indeed, parallel to its highly active role in international affairs there is a lot of talk in Sweden about egalitarianism. And as one might expect, Milton Friedman is far from being particularly the most popular economist in this country. Yet, there is truth in his arguments that often those organizations that claim to be working for the public or general good, end-up doing much worse than those pursuing self-interest.

It is perhaps in this light that the decision of the Swedish Government to employ fees for university studies for overseas students should be understood. Many felt sympathy on the decision especially because it is applied by other European countries with high education standards. But it is surprising that EU governments treat Balkan students as the rest of the “overseas”, when the block has promised EU perspective on the region and an integration process is actually underway. Ironically just when this decision was being taken, Mr.Carl Bildt was having the rolling chairmanship of European Union Council of Ministers.
Under the new arrangements, if for example a Balkan student wants to have a two year Master program in sciences in a university like Uppsala, he should consider approximately 50,000 Euros for studies and living. Take that in a country like Kosovo where there is no loan fund, rampant unemployment and an average salary of 250 Euros. Just consider how much it would take to make all that money. Maybe a life working time ...

The argument is especially relevant in Egalitarianism perspective: what about equality or equality of opportunity in the European Union? Isn’t there a quite large agreement between egalitarians that it is particularly to the equality of opportunity in education that lays the quality of economy or leading organizations
Actually, there is so much engineering happening in the Balkans with “European values”, surprisingly too nbsp; far from things like equality utopias. To note the example of Kosovo once again, it is probably one of the most isolated areas in the world. In May 2009, I needed two visas to go to Prague, which is as close a country as Germany is to Sweden.
Why should that be such big a burden for EU education systems when all Western Balkans together is population wise approximately same with Istanbul itself?
It’s a while since countries like UK, Ireland, Nederland, Belgium, Italy applied such tuition fees for Balkans just as if this region was located in India, China or Brazil. Someone had to change this trend and it was bitterly surprising not to see Sweden in such a role having in mind the values it promotes and mentioned here above. It unfortunately joined the other side and right at its top.

A couple of years ago, ex-EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, Javier Solana, was sarcastically saying that if somebody from planet March came and saw how much investment is made in Kosovo and so little results, he would be astonished. Well, it also true that it doesn’t take more than a journey to countries like Kosovo to perhaps see European Union in a lighter perspective.

nbsp;

Artan Mustafa
Kosovan journalist,
Master student
at Uppsala University