Rural Europe on the move English_E_version_all | Page 163

Epilogue
T
ime is a strange thing. It feels confronted with rural depopulation,
strongly condensed in our biodiversity collapse and climate
memories. It seems to evaporate change. We wanted to do them
in our daily routines. And it often justice by looking forward too: at the
balloons in our hopes and aspirations. challenges facing the people of this
Any given moment in the present continent, but also the opportunities.
includes memories of what came Where can we find hope? We see
before and hopes or reservations pockets of resistance and creativity all
of what is ahead. Perhaps we can over rural Europe.
think of these other temporalities as
We two, Hannes and Helene,
‘folded into’ the present just as actions have forty years difference in life in the present have consequences experience between us. As editors, which ‘unfold’ into these other we have tried to meet in the middle: timescales, altering their nature. In Hannes has been here since the creature like Forum Synergies is
some indigenous American traditions, beginning of Forum Synergies and not moving forward in a linear way,
any decision in the present must has quite some experience with from one point to the next. It grows
be justified by its implications six European politics. Helene does not, and contracts and spreads out over
generations into the past and six into but she’s in it now and she’s worried space, depending on where the
the future. Here we see clearly this about where the continent is headed. energy for change is. This energy is
folding of time, its circular nature. Together we’ve found a balance. concentrated around the individuals
We’ve made a good team. and movements that take their destiny
We wondered for a long time
how to do justice to these different
Just as Forum Synergies was an
What we have found is that a
into their own hands and imagine
temporalities in our own story. experiment, so too was this collective and create a better, more enjoyable
Leafing through the bountiful Forum writing project. In weaving together rural Europe for their fellow humans,
Synergies archives might have these stories of the past, challenges present and future, and the natural
brought to life some of the strong of the present, hopes and fears of the world. These individuals are the ones
moments of our organisation’s history future, we were lucky enough to have that Forum Synergies has gravitated
as well as that of this continent. at our disposal the rich expertise and towards, that have kept this living,
Describing the current state of the dedication of our authors. Coupled breathing network alive and take it
rural world, and the many exciting with the seemingly endless reserves into the future. Some of them are in
projects in it, might have helped of the Forum Synergies archives, we this book.
to highlight the complexity and realised we had a bounty of material.
Our gratitude goes to Forum
scale of issues that a civil society We knew we had to condense the Synergies and the authors of this book
organisation like Forum Synergies has stories of the past, choose wisely for their continued confidence and
to deal with. But that would not have from the activities in the present and support in this editing process.
gone far enough. Young people are leave enough space for the future to rightly concerned about their future, expand into.
Helene and Hannes
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