Call for Understanding

These days a friend of mine, German sociologist Bodo Weber, published a very important article about the looming political disaster and very possible outbreak of ethnic violence in my country. Bodo is an area expert for Balkans and a senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council - a global initiative for accountability in democracy promotion. This article is one of the few remaining calls for solidarity on a larger scale and for a joint effort to correct the errors made by international politics in Bosnia. Solidarity through understanding and awareness is what Bodo advocates, and I am grateful for a voice that tries to understand the planetary human trapped in the vicious circle of ethnic interpretation of Bosnia's problems – which is the European interpretation, and now also a part of a growing «the hell with it» sentiment in American foreign policy. It is important to see that this call for understanding has a history. Deeply rooted intellectual history, connected with the problem of Europe as whole, and Europe aware of the world.

In the 1990s Bodo was the editor of the German student magazine «Perspektiven» from Frankfurt/Main, which saw the light of day some time in 1989. It covered the topics of the emancipation movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The attempt of editors was to promote the feeling of international solidarity among students, especially for «adequate distribution of wealth».

What serves here as a reminder is the editorial from the first issue.

"So versteht sich PERSPEKTIVEN auch als Forum für eine Wiederaufnahme der Diskussion um den Internationalismus-Begriff, dessen Konturen seit den späten 70er Jahren zunehmend unscharf geworden sind. Die Arbeit der Redaktion läßt sich von der festen Überzeugung leiten, daß Chancen auf Änderung nur dann bestehen, wenn auf breiter Ebene die unmittelbaren Zusammenhänge zwischen schier grenzenlosem Wohlstand und entwürdigem Mangel bewußt gemacht und in der Folge endlich die überfälligen politischen und wirtschaftlichen Konsequenzen gezogen werden."

Which, roughly translated, is:

«Perspektiven are understood as a forum for reinstatement of discussion about the reach of internationalism, whose shapes have become blurred since the late 1970s. The editorial work is led by a belief that the chances for change exist only when the direct relationship between seemingly unlimited wealth and disgracing deficiency is made aware at a larger scale, leading eventually to political and economic consequences.»

Source: Perspektiven, Editorial 1/2 1989, 2

«...whose shapes have become blurred since the late 1970s.» This is an important meme, and there is a deeper meaning to it. Not only in terms of the paradigm change at the end of 1970s, but in terms of awareness and solidarity at a larger scale. Was it first lost in theory or in practice? This meme was a mediated reminder in 1989. It resonated back then and it resonates now. It is a part of the awareness that things were different beyond one point in time, the gestalt of which is blurred, somewhere on the horizon of history. I am still unable to find anything deeper than these mediated reminders, which I have introduced in my previous posts as a category in a lack of a better reference, but there is an entire language behind them. This is not apophenia. There is a planetary language behind this! Traces of this language are in the call that Bodo made. Is there anybody to read between the lines and recognize it? Or at least become AWARE of it?