THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU
Something strange happened to me: I fell in love with birds! I didn’t like this
at all, bird watching is un-cool, because anything that smells of a passion is
by definition un-cool. It started with me writing lists of birds I had seen and
trying to find as many different ones as possible. It went so far as making me
even feel love for the pigeons.
What I am trying to say is, once you love something, that is when problems
start, because once you love a part of nature you are getting more
concerned about the environment.
Those who only stay at home shrugging their shoulders, saying that there is
nothing that can be done, are getting no-where, you have to get out and
form relationships with real people and animals. But, again, there is a danger
that you might fall in love, and who knows what might happen to you then.
(Jonathan Franzen)
THE END OF FUNDAMENTALISM
The cultures of the world are coming nearer to each other and have to try to
live with each other and to talk. That has been called a ‘Dialogue of
Cultures’, yet cultures cannot really have dialogues, only people can do so.
The better these people can give account not only of their own culture but
also can think ‘into others’, the better they can talk with each other.
A real dialogue can only happen when people take each other seriously. It
can only start when there is a feeling for equal worth and equal dignity.
Those who have started to have such a dialogue have already made an
important decision; they have recognised that they might not be in
possession of the whole truth. They acknowledge that the other one could
be right. Once you enter into that kind of conversation it is the end of
fundamentalism.
Things that do not matter to me don’t demand tolerance of me, only when
the ‘other’ touches my thinking and my feelings, when my own traditions
meet those of other traditions.
Tolerance is something active; it needs knowledge and understanding,
including that of your own identity. It can’t be guaranteed once and for all,
but will again and again be challenged by new questions.
(Johannes Rau,
President of Germany in a speech 11 April 2001)
Brigitte Williams
StOM Page 7