Culture Shunt

In the middle of London Bridge train station, (one of the busiest in the UK), is a small, unmarked door, passed and ignored by thousands of people every day. Without warning, at around 8pm on Fridays, a large queue forms outside, and after a tantalising wait, the door opens, and people are slowly granted entry. The queue can be extremely slow (an hour to travel 10 metres is not uncommon), and people often don't get in at all. But if they do, they will experience the weird and wonderful world of Shunt.

I went last weekend, and took my Tajik friend, Tonya, who's in London studying. She's never been to a nightclub until a few months ago, and I wanted to show her what I think is one of the best, most interesting clubs in the city. I was curious to see what she made of it.

The space is phenomenal. It's a huge complex of underground vaults and passages, eerily lit and filled with bizarre and wonderful items. It has a large cinema continuously screening strange cartoons, as well as a huge bar with DJ and dancefloor, and a large stage for bands. Often there are additional intrigues - last weekend there was a large maze filled with obscure quotes from well known figures, and a room of people dressed as victorians, sitting around a large, lavishly laid dining table, offering people charcoal and paper to sketch with, and pinning the various works on the wall.

But the most interesting part are the various happenings. I was drinking in the bar when the music suddenly stopped, the lights dimmed, and I turned to see a woman, replete in stunning robe and ornate mask, begin a slow, hypnotic dance involving enormous flaming pronged paddles attached to her hands, as gentle waltz music drifted into the room. The revellers, beer bottles in hand, stood stunned while she performed, before she finished with a heart-wrenchingly delicate flick of her hips, and extinguished her talons. The previous music returned as she drifted away, and I wondered whether I had seen a ghost.

It's a pretty surreal place, but it's not always subtle. Tonya and I were watching a mind-bending cartoon when a band suddenly began crashing out a jarring synth beat in the next room. As we walked towards the stage an enormous black man, dressed like a stripper (i.e. wearing trousers, cuff links and bow tie, but no shirt) jumped onto the stage and started stalking around the mike stand. He squared up to it and started chanting 'Super-thriller, mother-fucker', as the beat grew in intensity. Tonya was stunned, and positively aghast when I explained what he was saying. Her only response, as her shock gradually softened into a cautious, mischievous fascination, was "in my country you could be arrested for this".

The band then proceeded to sing a series of bizarre and wonderful songs with strap lines such as "I bet you got high with your hairdresser last night", and "my girlfriend's got a fat ass, fat ass", while the synth pop rhythms seduced the sizable crowd. The uncomplimentary song about the girlfriend's behind, a duet with a slim lady responding with gusto to the lead singer's slurs, ended with her lifting her dress to flash said behind.

Shunt will be closing down in a few weeks, to make way for the Shard, which will be one of Europe's tallest buildings. They are hoping to re-locate but will surely struggle to find another venue as cavernous and labyrinthine as this. 

Walking home, Tonya and I mused over the various insanities we had witnessed, and she asked if all clubs in the UK are like that. I'm not sure if there are many in the world like that, and in a few weeks, there may be none. The world will be slighty less interesting as a result.

Balkan roadshow - Slovenia (6/6)

The final leg of our roadshow took us to Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, the biggest economic, political and social success story in Eastern Europe. It's hard to imagine that just 18 years ago, this pretty, clean, highly advanced, (and some say smug), country was part of Yugoslavia, along with our first four roadshow destinations. The differences are huge.

Ljubljana is extremely picturesque: a perfectly preserved old town, with a castle on a hill in the very centre, and ringed by beautiful, snow-capped mountains. And the country is incredibly efficient, a legacy of its Germanic influences, perhaps. A first class letter posted in the morning will be delivered anywhere in the country by 3pm that day.

Slovenia is the model for the rest of the Western Balkans; the dream they aspire to. It has extremely good relations with the other countries of the region (despite a minor border tiff with Croatia) and is the strongest advocate for the EU to take them in.

We were here for just 24 hours to meet the government, and launch another sister organisation.

In the morning we met with the State Secretary for European Integration, at the Slovenian Cabinet Office. Though sleepy, he was enthusiastic about our role in Slovenia, and the Western Balkans more widely. We will send him our much anticipated report following the trip and he will tell us how the Slovenian Government will fund our work. Sounds like a good deal.

In the afternoon we attended the launch of the Slovenian Association for leaders. This is the third body that we've helped launch, following Nigeria and Italy. Japan will launch theirs in September.

Following the launch (where my boss delivered another stellar performance, while I devoured the cakes on offer), it was straight to the airport.

It was a great trip. We've learnt a huge amount about the state of civil society in the region, and made hundreds of new high-level contacts. We've also learnt how to pronounce words without vowels (such as 'Trg'), read the Cyrillic alphabet, and Carlo's learnt to chain smoke.

The trip was a success. As we wait to enjoy the delights of another Easyjet flight, it's with great satisfaction that we can say six down - mission accomplished.

Balkan roadshow - Albania (5/6)

The fifth leg of our roadshow took us to Tirana, Albania. Unlike our previous destinations, Albania does not have an identity crisis, but it suffers from the worst reputation in Europe. Known for its lawlessness, Albania is the European hub for people trafficking, drug smuggling, and any other form of gangsterism you can thing of. Albanians told me they were unlucky to have been colonised by the Italians. The government here is seen as weak and corrupt (last month the Culture Minister was sacked after offering an undercover journalist a job in exchange for sex), while the mafia is very strong (every second car is a Mercedes with blacked-out windows).

It's not just organised crime though; petty crime is rife as well. George Bush, when he visited last year (to thank the crooked government for allowing the extraordinary rendition flights to land here, no doubt) famously had his watch stolen as he shook hands with the adoring public.

But the place has more to offer than crime. It's a fascinating mix of influences: Balkan, Italian and Greek. The morning call to prayer at the nearby mosque compete with the desperate shrieks of the traffic police. The people ignore both.

Not that we had any time to enjoy the local culture. We were here to run our two events as part of our FCO project. To our great surprise, both events went extremely well. In fact, the conference was probably our most successful international conference ever. The topic was the relationship between government and civil society, and it was the first time such a debate had been had here. We also presented research into the challenges facing Albanian civil society, the first of its kind.

We received strong support from the British Ambassador here. He hosted a reception at his residence, then spoke glowingly about us at the conference (his speech was later shown in full on national TV), and met with us this morning to talk about the project in detail. He's very keen on what we're doing here. Sadly he will be retiring in a month - hopefully he'll tell his successor about us.

Everyone was very pleased in the end, but the true impact of what we're doing here will take months to see. This is the start of a long-term process, but at least we've started well.

Our exhausting marathon is almost at an end, but not quite. As we wait at the painfully slow passport control, ready to fly to the final leg of roadshow, we're on the verge of having completed a very successful trip. But I shouldn't tempt fate. Five down, one to go.

Balkan roadshow - Macedonia (4/6)

In a region of uncertain national identities, Macedonia - the fourth leg of our roadshow - trumps them all with numerous overlapping identity crises: its borders are not agreed with Kosovo, its church is not recognised by the orthodox hierarchy in Serbia, its language is not recognised by Bulgaria, and its name is not recognised by Greece. The name issue may sound trivial but remains one of the biggest obstacles to membership of the EU and NATO. UN membership was only possible using Greece's preferred name for the country: the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM. (Needless to say, the Greeks are not popular here.)

Upon arriving in Skopje, Macedonia's capital, we were struck by the comparatively high standards of the infrastructure. But the third sector here is the most divided and undermined we've seen yet, for one reason: politics.

Macedonia's populist centre-right government, when not erecting enormous flags (which are everywhere) and multi-million euro statues (one of which will be 12 stories high), creates NGOs (government NGOs - GoNGOs), or co-opts existing ones with grants. They accept absolutely no dissent, and any NGO which dares to criticise immediately loses any funding they may have had from government, and often has its leader branded a Greek spy.

Furthermore, there are three distinct camps within the non-GoNGOs: the European-funded, the American-funded, and the Soros-funded. Rivalries here are intense, and there is virtually no cooperation among the major players. Every leader we met claimed to run only independent NGO, and accused every other organisation of being politicised.

Of course we're above all that, and met with leaders at the three main non-GoNGO organisations: CIRa (US-funded), MCIC (European-funded), and FOSIM (the local Soros outfit). The latter two were initially suspicious of us, but gradually warmed to our proposal of creating a non-partisan group of leaders.

As in Podgorica and Pristina, we held a presentation of Euclid Network to leaders in Skopje. Here the questions and discussion were much more lively than in the previous presentations. It seems that leaders here are tired of the divisions within the sector and hope that we can bring people together.

The same sentiments were expressed in our two most successful meetings here, with the British Embassy, and the EU's Ambassador. The latter is one of the most powerful men in the country. When we met in his enormous, immaculate office, he couldn't stop agreeing with our assessment of the situation, and the way forward. Despite Carlo telling the Ambassador that one of our members runs the association of drug dealers, (he meant drug addicts), we are confident that both the EU and the FCO will invest in our activities here.

And so after three days another country was conquered, (partly), and it's time to move on again. As we speed west towards the mountains and the Albanian border, where we will run two events as part of the FCO project, we know we will be very busy with the results of this trip. Four down, two to go.

Balkan roadshow - Kosovo (3/6)

As the burly, pistol-packing border police welcome us to Macedonia, I'm happy to report further success from the third leg of our trip: Kosovo.

Kosovo is a fascinating place. Recognised by just 50 countries, and crucially only 22 EU member states, it is a country in waiting.

It's one of the only places in the world where the US and UK are extremely popular. George W Bush has a boulevard named after him, and there are stars and striupes everywhere. The only flag more ubiquitous is the Albanian flag (far more evident than the Kosovan flag, though that may be because it's so new and not enough have been produced yet), which worries many who feared that Kosovan independance was just a halfway measure to creating a unified 'greater Albania'. Macedonia and Montenegro, each of which has substantial Albanian minorities, are specially concerned.

Kopsovo is run by a complex web of overlapping interests. The UN, EU, Kosovan Government and various international donors (both governmental and independent) each have significant control. As someone told us, Kosovo suffers from 'too many cooks in the kitchen'.

Despite the outward signs of development - the last decade has seen shopping centres and petrol stations spring up like mushrooms - the country boasts Europe's worst economic stats. Remittences from abroad contribute around half of GDP, and much of the rest is either the informal or illegal economy. 80% of government revenues come from one broder crossing with Macedonia; if the border is closed for just a week, teachers will stop being paid.

There are also huge challenges in the Serb-controlled north, where everything is massively more complicated than everywhere else in this bafflingly complex place.

And the whole thing is presided over by an inept government of former KLA fighters, who don't know a thing about politics. One government technocrat told us the Prime Minister is stupid and lazy, he just sits in his office all day watching TV. Apparently his brother is smarter - he's made himself rich through building a local mafia empire.

Kosovo is not the easiest place to work then, I hear you say. However we had a very warm reception. As well as meeting the British Embassy, we met with most of the big fish of Kosovan civil society. Though they painted a bleak picture for the country, their charisma, insight and generosity in explaining the local context was truly impressive. They especially liked our approach of working with them as Europeans within a European network, rather than as helpless victims of a failed state in the making, and were all very keen to work with us on concrete initiatives.

Our last meeting was with people from the Kosovan Government Agency for European Integration, who asked us to write a plan for a national third sector umbrella body and an office for the third sector, for the prime minister. Not bad for an hour's work!

We'll clearly have a lot of work to do here, but no time for that now, we have another country to conquer. Three down, three to go.

Balkan roadshow - Montenegro (2/6)

Following freezing, polluted Belgrade, our roadshow took us to the much more palatable Montenegro. Smaller than East Anglia and with a population equal to Sheffield, this surreal micro-state would be a forgotten backwater were it not for it's stunning Adriatic coast and comfortable Mediterranean climate.

Unfortunately we weren't here on holiday, but to work! We met many of the main players in Montenegrin civil society, including the government minister for NGO cooperation (who's tiny office was located in a shabby block of residential flats), the CEO of the biggest foundation in the country (George Soros' OSI, which last year spent just $700k here), and the people in charge of civil society issues at the EC Delegation (who were so impressed with our presentation of our work that they virtually promised to fund our activities).

Montenegrins are famous in the region for being relaxed, and laxy. We've been told that the conference we will hold here must finish by 3pm so that evveryone can have a nice lunch. Of course they will be too tired to go back to work after that, we were told, so there's no point in asking. But with a beautiful country and wonderful weather, it's hard to blame them.

We also met with our lead partner in Montenegro, who runs a powerful think tank (also housed in a modest residential block, but boasting the former PM, former Foreign Minister and current Ambassador to Washington on it's board). He is our Montenegrin partner on our major project in the region, and besides discussing that and our planned follow-up, we also held a joint presentation of our work to 25 local civil society leaders, the British and US Embassies, and the EC.

Our final official meeting of the trip was a lunch in the stunning coastal resort town of Budva, where all of the country's conferences take place. (Why just have a conference when you can combine it with a holiday?) We were invited to a lunch that was taking place as part of a high-level meeting about the future of civil society in Kosovo. After a few serious questions about what we can offer (and the useful advice that we must not treat Montenegrin organisations as if they are 'feebly minded) we were asked our most important question: would we like red whine or white wine?

So as Carlo and I make our way over the potholed roads to our next destination, we're left with an ever increasing list of contacts to follow-up on, ideas to develop, and expectant potential partners not to disappoint. We're making lots of work for ourselves here, but as we head for Kosovo - the world's youngest state, and one of its most controversial - we are encouraged by our progress so far. Our machine marches on - the next leg may be much more challenging, but for now it's two down, four to go.

Balkan roadshow - Serbia (1/6)

As our creaking overnight train to Podgorica pulled out of the station, I was relieved that our six-country Balkan roadshow has got off to a promising start. We were in Belgrade to get the low down on Serbian civil society.

It was my first time in the city that just 10 years ago was bombed by NATO. It is a fascinating place. Widely seen as the capital of the Balkans, it's a sprawling mix of grey concrete and shining towers, and boasts one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world. It still prominently displays the huge government buildings, destroyed by NATO air strikes, standing as a disfigured testament to the callous West. They are just yards from the sprawling US Embassy complex, where one can find all-American GIs running around in full gear.

As well as visiting the US Embassy, we met people at the British, Canadian, and Italian embassies, international NGOs, and Serbian organisations big and small. We were even granted an audience with the 'father of Serbian civil society' (who modestly states that he prefers to be called its 'voice').

The aim of out visit was to learn more about the exact context for Serbian civil society (which turns out to be extremely complex), raise our profile in Belgrade, and make a definite plan for our takeover of the country.

It quickly became clear that this will be a very difficult market to crack. There is a simmering resentment towards the West, and especially the US and UK, over their scapegoating of the Serbs over the wars of the mid-90s, and the recent shotgun independence of Kosovo. They have a point: the Croatians and Bosnians 'got away' with their war crimes, and Kosovo's independence marks a dramatic and dangerous precedent for international diplomacy, being the first time the international community acknowledged a unilateral succession. Many countries are deeply concerned by this, including Spain, whose Basque and Catalan regions are clamouring for independence.

Kosovo has given Serbia an unenviable choice: between its identity and its future. Milosevic built a fervent Serb nationalism with Kosovo at it's heart, and many Serbs now see it as integral to their sense of nation. However the only viable future for Serbia is in the EU, and that will not be possible without giving up its claim to Kosovo, something most Serbs see as inconceivable.

But despite the broader political grievances, our proposals to connect civil society leaders to their peers across Europe went down extremely well. We were given some very good ideas and are certain that once the dust from our whirlwind trip has settled we will write a masterplan, likely to revolve around addressing the major challenges for the sector here: sustainable funding, and improved governance.

The great and the good of Serbian civil society are eagerly awaiting our proposals, so I think we've done a good job so far. Next up, following a 3am passport check at the railway border post, will be Montenegro. One down, five to go.