I’m a graduate student in Luxembourg. When asked why I decided to go to school in a tax haven I have always shrugged my shoulders. I politely inform interlocutors that when I think of an answer – why did I travel across the world in the middle of a pandemic? – I will let them know. Why I went to school here does not matter, at least to me, whatever strange forces dropped me here must have a reason, although I remain ignorant of them.
The University recently had its “Welcome Day.” New students were invited to the campus to explore the area, learn about their surroundings, and meet new students. All of this being COVID safe, of course. Luxembourg has a vaccine QR code system where they are able to scan a document for proof of your vaccination, much better than our measly American cards. Unfortunately, the tax haven did not see fit to allow foreigners into their vaccine registry, so when I arrived, I was forced to wave around my flimsy American vaccine card begging to not have to take another COVID test. I had had two that week, my nose could not handle too many more.
Waiting in what I termed the “anti-vaxx” line I wondered what is going to happen in a few weeks’ time. My test was free, but that will soon not be the case, Luxembourg and France have both announced that people will soon have to start paying for their own COVID tests as a way to pressure people to get vaccinated. Most of my comrades in the U.S. are thrilled by the suggestion, I remain horrified. All I can see is neoliberal governments stripping away universal healthcare.
After wading through the lines to actually enter the event I was able to participate in a guided tour of the campus. I was only able to participate because I had the sense to pre-register for the tour; less fortunately the only available tour was in French. The tour guide was a local history student, he was excited to find a companion in the field, I was unable to hear him through the crowds, the masks, and the language barrier but the deafening silence that would follow after he told me about a specific history class in this or that building was enough to make sure I knew I was being asked something. I’m sure he thinks I’m an idiot.
The campus itself is something to behold. The south of Luxembourg – where I and the university reside – used to be a steel town. The last blast furnace was closed the same year I was born, 1997. It was only in 2001 that the area was redeveloped. I knew all of this before arriving on campus, what I did not realize was that it was not redeveloped for a university.
There is a big red monolith in the center of the campus. It dominates it. The largest building is sleek, modern, and painted a bright, firetruck, red. You cannot try to miss the building; it dominates every part of the campus plaza. Students must walk up what feels like stairs that were made for larger beings underneath a skyway between two halves of the great red beast that dominates campus. When I first saw it, I assumed it was the library. The only university signage near it declared so.
It is not a library. There are no classrooms inside of it. It is a bank.
The Royal Bank of Canada’s offices – built there to facilitate tax evasion – feel like the focus point of the development. The university is to make working at the bank more aesthetically enjoyable and the whole area is built for bankers, not for students. Meals are expensive, student discounted meals at nearby restaurants cost around $10.44. There is a mall, a gym, an Aldi, and newly built apartments – located a respectable distance from the working-class town, of course. Luxembourg is worse than the United States in its car usage, but thankfully public transit is free, if not wholly reliable.
But the bank is not the whole story. While it is imposing and modern it is only one-half of the campus’ story. The area was redeveloped from a steel mill, and it shows, accenting the campus are old industrial chimney, pipes, and structures that make the student (or banker) feel small, the campus library (which one must separately register for outside of their regular enrollment!) is accented with old industrial beams and pistons highlighted against the sleek and modern designs of the university buildings (glass and concrete, glass and concrete!). But they are temporally out of place. They are meant to be homages to the country’s industrial history but feel like paraded corpses. University bureaucrats guide gaggles of foreign students, the sons and daughters of middling bureaucrats whose French is only worse than their English (the two languages of the campus) through the campus, ignoring the still operating steel mill 2km away.
The juxtaposition was glaring. On the train to campus, we were passed by another train, carrying freshly made steel I-beams. I could not believe my eyes, actually existing industry, in Luxembourg! The campus goes to great lengths to assure the student that the steel industry is dead, it is not. The actual city I live in, Esch-sur-Alzette, is thoroughly working class (and a significant portion Portuguese), and I wonder how the workers feel about us, the students. Did we kill the jobs in industry? Perhaps just the bankers? Do they care to see the difference? Homelessness exists, Luxembourg is not a social-democratic paradise, but it is better than most places I have been, if there was no university would they be able to get a job at one of the extra steel mills? What if we shifted the university over, and seized the Bank of Canada’s offices?
The university is a microcosm of the country. I hope that I am able to find the parts that they keep hidden, Luxembourg is much more working-class than one would imagine.
Signed,
Andrew (Pfannkuche)
Normal Thoughts 