Creative Writing Exercise #2

'MAN'-SCHAFT

(fictive dialogue based on two real interviews[i])

by Laura Lai/Uncategorized

Scene: A locker-room, T-shirs, sports shoes, etc. some time before the start of a match. In the middle of the locker-room there is a big table with different colorful fruits. The Mannschaft’s players and the trainer are having a discussion.

TRAINER (standing, serious). In the last game we saw two different half-times! In the first half-time it was not very easy for our team, and one could notice that we still lack some automatisms…

ILKAY GÜNDOGAN (interrupts). In the first half-time was each ball easily lost. Sometimes one must be more patient.

TRAINER (standing). Good point, Ilkay! In the second half-time we mastered most of the game, we created us many chances and played upfield. In which concerns the game mentality, this was a very good and very strong signal. On this issue I’m very content! We could have won!

LEON GORETZKA (nervous). This draw is too little! When you look at how many chances we had, we should have won the game! In the first half-time we lost the construction game while looking for spaces in their defensive line, but in the second half-time we found better the spaces between the lines.

TRAINER (makes a few steps and sits next to Leon). It was obvious that the automatisms against such a profound adversary do not function well, yet. We had some coordination problems. (he stands, speaks encouraging) In the second half-time we had a better speed, more chances, but at the end we lacked the consistency to finalize the whole construction with a goal. At this level this is sometimes a whole process whose improvement comes with experience. I’m very content with the mentality of the Mannschaft!

(Manuel Neuer stands up and picks up a big bunch of grapes from the table. 
He sits back. Leroy Sané sitting next to him wants some, too. 
They share the bunch of grapes. Some grapes roll on the floor.)

I wanted to give the younger players the chance to show us what they can do. I know what Reus (he points him), Toni Kroos (he points him) or Antonio Rüdiger (he points him) can, because they are part of the Mannschaft for quite some time. (Pause) I wanted a good insight about the playing behavior of the young and newly formed Mannschaft. Lukas Klostermann accomplished his tasks very, very well; and so was Marcel Halstenberg on the other side. I want to underline: I think that Klostermann did a very good game, had a very good speed, and was a very strong defensive player, too. I’m very happy about it. Such a beginning is extraordinary.

(Timo Werner sitting netxt to Klostermann start applauding. 
They all cheer Lukas and Marcel.)

MARCO REUS (disappointed): In general it was too little!

TRAINER. You mean the cheers, Marco?!

(Laughter)

MARCO REUS (smiling now): I mean the result, Jogi! We are Germany’s football team, for God’s sake! The motto should be to play better and to win! We had good goal chances that we did not transform in a goal. We need to play more near their defensive line and move more, then we’ll get to goal chances.

TRAINER (stands and makes a few steps, happy). In the last years we missed Marco as he could not join the Mannschaft. When we see his qualities and his professionalism, we know that we needed him in lots of previous games. His game is now more mature, he constantly asks for the ball regardless of his position and he constantly keeps his calm. This helps a lot the Mannschaft.

(They all cheer Marco.)

           Now that we all understood our strengths and weaknesses from the last game, you all know what you have to do for the next one. Good luck! (They all prepare to exit.) 

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[i]  Following the football match Germany vs. Serbia (1-1) on March 20^th, 2019 the Mannschaft’s trainer, Joachim Löw, gave two small interviews for the Deutcher Fussball-Bund (Löw: “Mit der Mentalität bin ich sehr zufrieden” and Löw: “Klostermann hat richtig gutgespielt”). For this creative writing exercise, I used almost ad literam the two interviews in a scene framework, in order to emphases the bound in the Mannschaft on vertical (trainer-player) and on horizontal (player-player). As the interviews were in German, so was my newly creatively written text. The last step of this exercise was to translate the document from German into English. If any of the protagonists feels offended by this creative writing exercise, I would like to apologize in advance.

Mannschaft’s Road to the 2020 Football Finale

Source: Deutcher Fussball-Bund on www.dfb.de

by Laura Lai/ Comment

Long time, no see! Whom? My favourite football team – Die Mannschaft. Each fan considers its team as the firm favourite to win the cup. And I am no exception. This time it is about the UEFA Football Championship 2020.

The Union of European Football Association (UEFA) is a football administration with mostly European members, but not only. Countries such as Azerbaijan, Israel, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkey are among its members situated on another continent than Europe. It was created in June 15^th, 1954 in Basel, but its headquarters is nowadays in Nyon (Switzerland). In 2019 UEFA turns 65 years old. And this is an excellent reason to celebrate!

The party venue is… in 12 locations on two continents: Amsterdam, Baku, Bilbao, Bucharest, Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Glasgow, London, Munich, Rome and Sankt Petersburg. The party starts on June 12^th in Rome and it will end on July 12^th, 2019 in London.

        All football teams are in the qualification phase. My Mannschaft is in Group C (Belorussia, Estonia, Germany, Northern Ireland and The Netherlands). After this phase there will be only 24 football teams that will be divided in six groups (from Group A to F). If after this qualification phase, my Mannschaft will be in Group A, it will play in Rome (Italy) and in Baku (Azerbaijan).

            Then there will be 16 football teams left. If my Mannschaft wins the Group A, it will play its first eliminatory game in London (UK) on June 27^th. When there will be only 4 football teams left, my Mannschaft will need to play the quarter-finals either in Sankt Petersburg (Russia), Munich (Germany) or back to Baku (Azerbaijan), or back to Rome (Italy).

            The semi-finals and the finals will be played in London. What a relief that these parties will be in one place! Just that the participant teams will need to come to London from either Russia, Germany, Azerbaijan or Italy.

A celebration party whose venue is in 12 places on two continents is definitely an original idea. But is it a good idea to travel in such a short time on two continents on slightly different time zones (different temperatures, too) from North to South, and from West to East? I wonder if this is the type of party, to which an invited guest is allowed to decline the invitation… .

There is one thing I am sure about: All football teams will be doing a lot of travelling in this time period. Let us still hope that the participant football teams to the UEFA Football Championship in 2020 will still be able to impress all of us with their physical shape, well training, great results and outstanding games. And that so will my Mannschaft! 

UK: From Margaret Thatcher to BREXIT

For a maximized image, please click on the cartoon.

by Laura Lai/ Essay

To have or not to have a deal on March 12^th, 2019 in the UK House of Commons? This is the question! To have an extension of the Article 50 or not to have an extension of the Article 50? This is another question. How long should the extension be? This is a secondary question, but not lacked of importance, because in the ‘extended’ time period, the pro-EU activists can push for a second referendum. And a referendum after referendum until one gets the results which suits him best is not only undemocratic, but the country itself cannot stand anymore as an example of liberal-democracy to be studied by political science students in political transition countries.

To leave on WTO terms is more a suggestion than a question in this context, which changed since Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) was UK Prime Minister (1979-1990). Although the UK had initially declined the invitation to join the European Coal and Steal Community (1951), which became the European Economic Communities (1957), it became interested in joining in the 1960s. Its strongest motivation was trade. After constant opposition from France, the UK succeeded in becoming its European membership in January 1973. Nowadays, 46 years later, the UK is trying to leave the EU (the former European Economic Communities). One of its strongest motivations is freedom to trade with the US, the Commonwealth and with the world.

Margaret Thatcher had constantly argued that working together does not necessarily needs to imply a concentration of power in the hands of ‘some bureaucrats in Brussels’ willing to create a super-state to exert ‘dominance’ (For a complete definition of the word ‘dominance’ and its synonyms, please click here.). Her opinion was that Europe is stronger if ‘France is France’ and ‘Britain is Britain’, etc. Despite her opposition to the creation of a European Parliament above the national parliaments, of a European Commission as a European Government and of the European Council as a European Senate, these institutions have been created, have been functioning and have been paid from the UK tax payers’ money, too.

            And if she were still among us nowadays, she would learn that another institution has been created: The European Prosecutor’s Office (April, 2017), with the power to investigate fraud with the EU money, which means fraud with all the European tax payers’ money. No, this prerogative was not added to the already existing European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), but the creation of a new super-state institution was preferred.

            The creation of the European Prosecutor’s Office is a public acknowledgment of the fraud with the European tax payers’ money. The question is: Who is manipulating huge amounts of European money? A jobless drama student? A rough sleeper? An old lady selling flowers at the corner of the street?

Sooner or later, when the UK will leave the European Union, it will be the first of all Member States to have exerted its democratic right to make its own financial policy decisions and to run its own external and trade policy. It will remembered as the only EU former Member State to have brought a substantial contribution to the reform of the European Union: The Common Agricultural Policy. However, on its way out from the Union, the UK stumbles on the so-called ‘backstop’.

            This concept, which entered in the political vocabulary from baseball, refers to the only land border that the UK will have with the EU after BREXIT: the border between Ireland (a EU Member State) and Northern Ireland (UK). Both the UK and the EU want to avoid a return to the hard border between the two, meaning a physical checks of traded goods, which would also imply time and, consequently, border lines, delivery delays, etc.

         A recent Irish proposal can make the UK the first country with an e-Border. According to this proposal, all companies and drivers transporting goods between Ireland and Northern Ireland must first register in a database of ‘trusted traders’, after having previously passed all standard quality requirements. All goods’ checks are done at the companies’ premises or by so called ‘mobile inspection units’. At the border, the lorries are surveilled by CCTV cameras or Automatic Number Plate Recognition. The driver is identified through mobile phone identification system or the Radio Frequency Identification. The driver gets its permission to pass on its mobile phone. And the import country gets a notification on this issue.

That would be the e-Border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. But the flowers at the border will be real. No question about it!

David Hare: The ‘Vertical Hour’

For a maximized image, please click on the cartoon.

by Laura Lai/ Review

David Hare’s play ‘Vertical Hour’ was published at Farber & Farber in 2008. It had its world première on November 30^th, 2006 at the Music Box Theater in New York City. Its first British production was at the Royal Court Theater London on January 17^th, 2008.

Readers become acquainted with David Hare’s political philosophy and his view on global politics through the two acts and the five characters of the play: Nadia Blye (mid 30s – former war correspondent, currently teaching international relations at Yale University), Dennis Dutton (student), Terri Scholes (student), Philip Lucas (Nadia’s boyfriend) and Oliver Lucas (mid 50s – Philip’s father).  

The play starts with love, when Dennis discussing his written essay tells Nadia that he is in love with her, as well as with the unfairness of the human nature: ‘We know for a fact that human life by its nature tends towards unfairness’ (p.4). And as politics is made by people, politics needs a checks-and-balances system. This constitutes one of the differences between the capitalist and the communist systems. But it is not the only difference. The liberal democracy’s (or the ‘consumer democracy’) idea for Hare is the freedom of discussing and of freely exchanging ideas. He also acknowledges that ‘In the West, we no longer become famous for what we do, simply for what happens to you. We celebrate victims, not heroes’ (p. 23).

          Nadia’s trip to Wales together with Philip, in order to visit Oliver Lucas is an opportunity for the reader to discover new details about Nadia’s past, or the reasons why Philip chose to go to the United States. The reader learns from a father-son discussion the way the two lovers met: ‘The first time I met her, she was carrying a book ‘Pas de pshychologie, pas de psychose’. For David Hare it was an opportunity to introduce us his political philosophy and the concept of ‘patriotism’ and the role of the politicians: ‘An appeal to patriotism is a contradiction in terms. Especially when made by politicians’ (Oliver, p.32). ‘Politicians only speak to please. Or to pre-empt an argument. Or to fill an uncomfortable silence’ (Oliver, p. 65).

The play ends with the breakup of Nadia (from Philip) and the fragility of the human nature, as Terri (in her 20s) while discussing her essay with Nadia confesses her breakup with her boyfriend and how she wants to give up university (despite Nadia’s encouragement not to) because everything in campus reminds her of him, and because she can’t stand seeing him with another girl. Terri is African-American and is described by David Hare as ‘a highly intelligent person’ (p. 106). For David Hare this teacher-student discussion is an opportunity to tackle the superficiality of students in writing political essays, viewed as being a ‘serious discipline’ and not a talk show or some sort of ‘Let’s go into a studio and say stupid things’ (p. 107). Through the teacher – student discussion on a written essay, David Hare makes his readers acquainted with his view on global politics, in particular the Iraq War during President George Bush:

‘Iraq was irrelevant to the war of terror. The point of the action was its very arbitrariness. To demonstrate to any possible enemy of the US that no one should ever consider themselves safe.’ (p. 107)

This play makes references to Richard Nixon and to the Balkan War, too. I am personally delighted to have chosen from the shelf of the Oxford Public Library this play: the ‘Vertical Hour’. David Hare is a recommended playwright for both experienced and novice drama writers. I was personally interested in ‘studying’ his play as a novice playwright, but I discovered that it was interesting for me as a political scientist, too. It also reminded of me, when I was Terri’s age and had my chance to go to Yale University. But the opportunity came in one of the worse moments, when my mother was severely ill. I reflected well upon the impact of such a news in such a moment and I have decided that although I have the head to go further, I don’t have the heart for it. If something bad had happened, a diploma would not have helped me to forgive myself in front of my conscience for having been selfish. David Hare’s character, Nadia, reminded me of that episode:

‘It’s a choice, isn’t it? How we live. How we behave. You make a choice. At some point in your life you think: there must be an intelligent way to live. And you make a choice. Maybe you don’t even remember. Everything conspires to make you forget. But the choice is there. You made it.’ (p.14)

Indeed, I think: Did I make the choice to read this particular book, or the book chose me to read it? Whatever the answer, David Hare’s play, the ‘Vertical Hour’, motivated me to deepen my writing studies and inspired me to write political dramas.