Day 10: Luxembourg University and Parliament

Today we visited the fairly new Luxembourg University to learn about...well, Luxembourg.

The view from outside. 

Yeah, I wouldn't have believed this was a library, either.

Luxembourg University is the first university of the country, founded in 2003. Even the Vatican City had a university before Luxembourg! In previous years, Luxembourg students would have to go to university in neighboring countries. The university was founded partially as a response to the possibility of global financial crisis and the dependence on the financial sector as an attempt to broaden the spectrum. It's a very international university, as many of the students are foreigners from the bordering countries. While some members of Parliament were originally against the idea, it ultimately benefits the population: more than 55% of jobs on the Luxembourg market require some sort of university degree.

Luxembourg itself is a fairly international country. Located in the middle of western Europe, around 200,000 people commute here daily for work. Around 60% of the city center's population is made up of foreigners. The city is divided into two parts: a medieval city which was made into a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the modern capital. It is in close proximity to the financial center and other EU institutions. The country itself is very small, though. It is 999 square miles (compare this with Alameda County, which is 821 square miles). It currently has a population of 512,000, around 40% of which are foreigners. It is a Grand Duchy with a parliamentary monarchy. Now, most people recognize Luxembourg as the wealthiest nation in the world. Luxembourg boasts a GDP per capita of $108,832 (for comparison, the United States of America's GDP is $47,284).

When was Luxembourg started? This is actually a difficult question to answer, as many people will tell you many different things. Historian Pit Peporte gave us a lot of dates:

• 963 AD: Some will say that it started with Siegfried, considered by many as the first count of Luxembourg. Was that really the case? Siegfried never actually lived in Luxembourg, or built the castle within for that matter.
• 1309 AD: Others will say that Luxembourg began in the Middle Ages with the rule of Count John the Blind of Bohemia, regarded by many as a sort of "national hero". As it turns out, John the Blind didn't even consider himself from Luxembourg, as he ruled over a much larger portion of land known as Bohemia (the western two-thirds of the modern day Czech lands). He also died pretty early, so there's also that.
• 1443 AD: Still others will claim that Luxembourg was started during its rule by the Hapsburgs. However, this was considered one of the darkest times for Europe. Honestly, why is this even considered?
• 1815 AD: Well, surely Luxembourg then came to be with its independence in the 19th century! When was this, though? It is usually considered that independence came around with the 1815 Treaty of Vienna. However, this "independence" came about as the result of a compromise of partitioning of land ownership, and Luxembourg was still ruled by the king of the Netherlands. Really, can we attribute the founding of a country on events comparable to the Scramble for Africa?
• 1839 AD: How about the partition of Luxembourg? Is that really something you can consider a moment of independence? Ehh...not really.
• 1890 AD: This date is associated with the House of Nassau-Weilburg. When the previous leader died out, this house became the new leaders of Luxembourg. However, the constitution (and thus state of ownership) still remained the same!

So in the end...um, I guess we don't know.

The geography of Luxembourg is somewhat split: mountains are in the north, an industry belt is located in the south, and the vineyards are located in the east...all with the capital at the center. As for the place on the map of Europe, many will say that Luxembourg is in the "heart of Europe", or the "heart of the greater region". If we were to take this literally, the "heart of Europe" would be somewhere in Poland. So you know, there's that.

Luxembourg is essentially trilingual, which I think is really awesome. French is used by cross-border workers and is the written language of administration and government. German is the main language of the media, so you don't hear it too often on the streets (unfortunately for me). Finally, Luxembourgish is spoken by most of the population. It is the language of text messaging, email, and local literature. Also, the trilingualism of Luxembourg has no regional component, unlike Belgium or Switzerland where the language divide is regionalized.

Luxembourgish is a mix of the other two languages with influences from Dutch and English. The people hold great pride in their language and will give a number of times when the language was created, from the 13th century to after WWII. The truth is that Luxembourgish wasn't officially recognized until 1984, when Luxembourgish was made a language by lol law (wow, that's a genuine typo I made).

The fact that Luxembourgish is trilingual leads many to believe that all citizens are fluent in all three languages. This was the intended goal of the education system, too: a student begins by learning German at the age of 6 through all of primary school, then learns French with the start of secondary school, and finally learns English at the age of 13. Many also choose to take up a fourth language, such as Spanish or Italian. Luxembourgish isn't really a taught language...people just assume you know. However, most people just have a good passive knowledge of it. There are a few who come out proficiently fluent in all three languages, but this is pretty rare.

There are some issues with this system, of course. First, there is a lot of homework. Second, you can imagine that it's very difficult to learn a lot of foreign languages at a proficient level, and with many of the lessons being in one of these languages, it could be extremely detrimental if you don't learn a language well enough. If you suffer in a language, you could also fail classes taught in that same language.

And here I was hoping I could kind of coast on my high school knowledge of German. The food places are in French here, and so ordering something can be a bit of a challenge. I tried ordering what I thought was chocolate ice cream. I got strawberry instead. I didn't want to make the guy redo the order, so I just paid for it and ate it. It was not yummy. :(

We then visited the Luxembourgish Parliament. The building was built between the years 1858-1860. It was then renovated and completed in 1999. The history of Parliament itself goes back to 1848, when voting was a somewhat selective procedure. You had to pay to be elected and to vote, so voting was usually limited to the privileged elite. This changed in 1919, when voting became universal and a social obligation. Nobody actually works in the building we toured (work is usually restricted to the administrative building on the opposite side). The building is more used for public sessions in a certain room. We actually got to sit in the seats of Parliament in this room. I believe I sat in the seat of Angel Marc, a member of the LSAP party.

Cool!

There are 60 members of parliament and 15 members of the government. Elections take place every five years. There has always been a coalition government, meaning that two parties make up the majority of power. Currently, the coalition is between the Christian Socialist and Socialist parties, with the largest opposition being the Liberal party. Figures as much. There are three vice presidents, a president, and a secretary general, all of whom preside over the entire conference. Parliament has sessions Tuesday through Thursday, although now they are on break until the second week of October.

After that, we visited the Pauvre Luxembourg? museum. This translates to "Poor Luxembourg?", and you're probably wondering the same thing: how can Luxembourg be poor? As it turns out, there are a lot of definitions for "poor" that vary among the Luxembourg population. Within this museum, there is also a historic Luxembourg museum. This museum is actually located a couple of floors below the ground in the building! It was interesting, though. While we learned the deconstructed history of Luxembourg earlier in the university, the tour guide admitted he had to tell the "reconstructed" version that is more appealing to visitors.

I got yelled at after taking this picture. But the other guy said we could take pictures! D:

I think that's all we really did for now. We're not spending a lot of time in Luxembourg, so I should probably make it count!