Keep calm and #chooseBulgaria

I told you that I can’t keep calm, because I’m a Bulgarian. 

However, I decided to calm down. Not that I have changed my views about the ridiculousness of the #avoidBritain campaign, which will aim to discredit the UK in front of Bulgaria and Romania, so that we don’t “invade” the country in January 2014, but I think that there is no point to get angry.

#AvoidBritain doesn’t humiliate Bulgaria or Romania, it humiliates the UK. Moreover, I have to underline that it has nothing to do with the majority of the ordinary people in either of the countries, but just with a group of British politicians. So, maybe it is logical to say, that the only ones that should feel humiliated in a way are exactly these UK politicians. I can’t imagine that an adult, even more, an adult who has interacted with other people before, will think that #avoidBritain might work.

So having calmed down a bit, despite being a Bulgarian, I want to tell you what a great idea a group of Bulgarian youths have – to show the world why we #chooseBulgaria. The site is only in Bulgarian, but in the end, one of its main aims is to calm us down. It has managed so far. Many Bulgarians are sharing their views on why they #chooseBulgaria and this certainly unites us.

I really enjoy to watch how politics and media are bound together. All that is being said about the future “invasion” is drawing away the attention from many other problems that the UK is facing. I wouldn’t have minded that so much, if it wasn’t the fact that the media is missing the point with the awful situation of the Bulgarian and Romanian students in the UK. I emailed so many journalists to remember them that it is not a good way of doing journalism, if you don’t present all sides of an issue. No one answered. Does this mean that the media here prefers to cover only the topics that the politicians want to talk about?

I would even not accept an excuse about how busy the journalist are, because in the letter they read the whole information that they might need, even quotes from the law.

To summarize the problem with the Bulgarian and Romanian students once again, we are being discriminated even in comparison to non-EU students, as only we need the magical “Yellow card” to be able to work and finish our studies. If you are lucky, you need to wait 6 months to receive it (a month ago this number was 11), although the work permits should be issued in 20 days, as we qualify as “highly skilled”.

Everyone can support us with this petition.

Because of the lack of information in the UK media, I feel obliged to tell you that our Ministry of Foreign Affairs is doing its best. Today they have talked once again with the Boarder Agency and the UK Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in two weeks time a commission should decide if the  UK will apply the measures that we proposed.

I have the feeling that the outcome will be clear around the middle of March, so let’s not get overexcited about these “two weeks”.

Having said all that, I want to tell all Bulgarians and Romanians, reading my blog, not to get anything that is going on in the UK too personal. As I said yesterday to Channel 4, the point of the EU is to travel around freely. 50% of the British trade is with the EU, so they will never leave it. These means that Farage and Cameron can talk as much, as they want about us, but they will hardly do anything. Especially something as pointless, as #avoidBritain.

So… keep calm and #chooseBulgaria.

I can’t keep calm, I’m a Bulgarian!

Today was a great day… until I started reading the newspapers! As a journalist student, I can’t really prevent myself from doing so.

I am from Bulgaria, so people say we can’t keep calm. We tend to be quite emotional. I can’t say if this is positive or not, it is just a fact, so I am not really trying to change it.

And? 

I don’t know if this answers the question why am I taking all that has been written today in the newspapers so personally, but I just can’t keep calm when someone is seriously talking about launching a campaign in Bulgaria and Romania which will aim to show the drawbacks of the UK, so that people will give up coming to Great Britain.

Everything started some days ago when this sweetheart Nigel Farage told that if he was a Bulgarian, he would have already started to prepare his luggage, so that he can move to the UK on the 1st of January 2014 when the work restrictions for Bulgarian and Romanians will be lifted. He continued with different numbers that had nothing to do with the reality.

But, keep calm, this is just Farage! You can’t expect anything else from him!

However, this was just the beginning! The first thing that I read today was Guardian explaining how the government will start a campaign to put off Bulgarians and Romanians to come to the UK. This is infantilism! At first I was so mad at them, but now I can just laugh! Seriously, if we consider that there are indeed 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians (the population of the two countries + all people with BulRom passports from around the globe) that will land in London on the 1st of January 2014, can you imagine a poster or even a TV ad that will stop them?

Good point!

The lovely day continued! I had lectures and a workshop where we were supposed to look in the newspapers for particular articles… and the first thing that I noticed was The Times with a similar article. This was the moment when I started thinking that this joke is going on too far. If you are just an ordinary Brit, you don’t know anyone from Bulgaria and Romania, but you see a series of articles about how they will flood your country, won’t you get alert? I will. And if you then meet just an ordinary student from Bulgaria or Romania, won’t you have prejudices? I will.

Don’t get me wrong, I know quite well that this is just because of the elections. I am coming from the country of the pre-election promises that are never kept. But even there you will never use other people that don’t have anything to do with politics in this way. You will never accuse the population of another country, just to try to win some votes. Everybody will think you are funny!

And you will be funny! So are articles like this that are asking the audience to email ideas for posters to be put in Bulgaria and Romania. I am so interested what are the results going to be! What are the things that Brits don’t like about their country? Is there a way to accuse us even for those things?

Certainly!

However, because I don’t want to be as the journalists that gave only the one side of the issue (I have emailed some of them, asking for follow-up; everyone else writing on the topic is also welcomed to contact me on julia.kosharevska@gmail.com), I will give you some positive news about #AvoidBritain.

The first one will be a re-tweet of

Andy ‏@andyandmariet

@Yuliya_K_BG this is just one reason on top of many more to#avoidBritain , can’t wait to leave it behind

referring to the stimulating campaign. One of the many examples how people move from the UK to Bulgaria : )

The second one is that BGN Securities Group Limited, an English company, working across Bulgaria, announced that it is starting a campaign to promote  job openings within it’s UK operation in Bulgaria. The company wishes to give the opportunity to Bulgarians to live and work in the UK.

Farage, Cameron, excited to see the ads? : )

I hope so! And I hope people will understand that you are just trying to win some extra votes and in the end you won’t. Don’t get it personally, but it’s just not fair to treat us in this way. xx