While reading the Saturday edition of De Volkskrant, my eye fell on an essay about student associations. It mentioned Barend Last’s latest book, The Art of Hazing. Barend used to work at this university and wrote a few columns for Observant. I snapped a photo of the page and sent it to my work email as a reminder – perhaps we could use it for a story in our own paper. I read on: about the link between football headers and brain damage, and about the decline of religion. Maybe there’s a neuropsychologist at UM who could comment on football headers? And what about faith among students in Maastricht? Another note to self.
As a journalist, you never switch off, whether you’re leafing through another newspaper or cycling through the city. It keeps you sharp and curious. And sometimes, it makes you take a giant step out of your comfort zone. I remember the death of a UM law student, more than ten years ago. She had been killed by her mother in their family home. As she was about to become secretary of her faculty’s study association, I asked two board members, friends of hers, if they would speak to us. I found it very difficult to approach them, but we wanted to tell her story and capture who she was.
Then there was the murder of a secretary at what is now the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in her office on Kapoenstraat, killed by the man she was divorcing. The editor reporting on the story at the time (1996) was accused of sensationalism, unworthy of a university newspaper. But the article was measured in tone – and surely it would have been odd if we hadn’t written about it at all? Pursuing stories like that is part of the job, even when you feel conflicted as a person and have to push through hesitation.
Nourhan Attallah is one of five students from Gaza who have received a scholarship to study at this university. At the end of August, she was evacuated from Gaza with her younger sister and brother. Dutch media reported widely on the story last week, focusing first and foremost on the fact that Nourhan’s little sister has a global following on social media. From what we’ve read, a few journalists tried and failed to speak to her. The question came up at Observant as well – what would be the best way to reach out to these students? It would have been fitting to interview one of them for Peter Doorakkers’ article on refugee students this week. But it didn’t feel right. They’ve just fled a war zone, leaving family behind, and are finding their feet in a new country, at a new university, in a whirlwind of impressions and emotions. Insiders have told us they need time and space. The last thing they need is journalists.