against my better judgment

This time I write from sunny Belgrade – a city in all its Spring splendor, on the morning of May 1, the Ultimate socialist holiday when one celebrates all the diligent workers in the country. Belgrade is also where the Sava meets the great Danube River creating what is popularly known as the Usce (or Mouth); the sight where i spent the afternoon the day before.
From the Balkan perspective, one is taught that Belgrade is an important intellectual and political centre in the region – which in the past decades has created intense sentiment of intimidation, pride, hate and love for the city. As the biggest city in the region, it was the joint capital for now 7 independent countries, and an impressive establishment of the most radical and liberal movements to take place in this region.
To me it always seems like the city breeds on a feeling of lost glory and significance from the past, though the intellectual asset of the people still remains impressive.

I spent the whole day yesterday walking around Belgrade in admiration, and disappointment. It made me think a lot about what Belgrade has turned into in these past three decades. It even brought me to a time which I do not remember as well – when Belgrade was also my capital city. Unfortunately today’s reality in Belgrade is such that one cannot escape the almost daily protests on the Square of the Republic (Trg Republike) - with banners chanting praises for any one of the war crimes perpetrators in the wars of the Former Yugoslavia, or Serbian religious leaders staging anti-NATO and anti-EU gatherings bearing the portraits of Slobodan Milosevic, and the famous duo Mladic/Karadzic. In Serbia religion seems to contaminate the taste that Belgrade living offers to the world.

A few weeks ago, on Easter, I decided to do what is now very fashionable in Macedonia – to go to Church for Easter. An occasion which creates a discomfort with some people of my parents age who in the past times were more keen on an event marking the rational Communist achievements in society than the religious manipulation of the church.
I am not religious, but on such an occasion when so many people get crazy over painting eggs and chocolate bunnies – it woke my appetite to be part of the euphoria.
At the main Orthodox Hram Church in the Centre of Skopje, I stood to look for God. I waited to see my spirituality light up to me in any form, to communicate my verbal wish list on the occasion of Easter. For some reason that afternoon, I had the feeling God was present in the corner of the church, rather than in the richly ornamented altar where my eyes were squinting from the light’s reflection off the golden frescos. So I walked to the dark corner in the inner part of the East Wing of the church.
There I stood looking up and contemplating where to start. And then I heard an older lady sobbing on the opposite corner. I could not see what she looked like – to be able to immediately label her as mad, or sad, or simply in the Holiday blues.
My curiosity made me get closer to the wooden row of seats where she sat with her head hanging over a small piece of cloth she had entangled around her fingers. ‘She has made contact’ I thought. After a few moments my slow steps brought me closer to her spot where I stood next to her. I felt like I would share her sadness.
From that distance it seemed so universal, and so easy to identify myself with her sorrow. She suddenly started to speak out loud, which gave me good reason to turn my head towards her and stare – opening up a window of judgment.
‘Do you think I deserved it in this way?’ she said. At that point it felt like she was talking to me. It felt ominous to be mistaken for God. I realized she was looking up. Why was God ‘up’? Are we not ourselves the embodiment of God? Or do our unquestioned archetypes simply dictate such nonsense?
She had decided to go head on with Thy God in Heaven, and verbally communicate her earthly sorrow for the whole church congregation to hear.
She was disillusioned, and in utterly despair. She was broken by what her life had done to her. But in all that brokenness she did not lack hope - the hope that her God would listen and make it easier on her.
It seemed she had made a big mistake in her life, which was inexcusable even for God’s taste. She communicated her feelings completely but not the reasons for the feelings. And yet she seemed truly repentant. She was there, penitent, emotionally naked for the Heavens, under the many icons which looked down on her.

This event came to my mind here in Belgrade and since then has made me think: Does religion turn us blind towards the reality we have produced? Does it make it easier on us to deal with our emotional past entourage?
While i stood on at the Mouth of Belgrade watching the waters of both Rivers flow into one - I thought about my own mistakes and wrong doings. How unforgivable do I think they are?
The intellectual capabilities dictate the ways how we deal with such emotional difficulties in our own way. Some people cry hysterically, some repent and ask forgiveness to the Lord (inside or outside of a church), some think them through and internalize their emotions, some decide to always be right and simply blame it on someone else. In any case it is because the truth hurts too much that we are not able to always let it in. And yet when the truth hits us on the face – the truth then also sets us and our emotions free.

The truth is a realization, almost a revelation which we decide to acknowledge and recognize. We are all looking for something we want which we are convinced we do not have (any longer). Because the truth is usually a conception of our own imagination – it speaks to us on an emotional level. And the realization that we are incomplete – or that our own fabricated truths are violated - is what drives us to dire desperation to salvage what emotional collateral we can.

My short holiday in Belgrade was a last minute decision and was made against my better judgment. Do we ever decide that we will stop looking for that which we are convinced we do not have? Eventually, when I look back, what I remember best in my life are the things I did against my better judgment. Like the old lady in the church, I had to find my own emotional outlet, and go against my better judgment - because deep down no matter now broken we might seem - hope is never permanently broken. The emotional memorabilia is what makes Holiday blues easier to manage – because there is hope that more such memorabilia are there waiting for us behind the corner of the street, or even perhaps in the clubs of Belgrade.

At the Church in Skopje it seemed like time had stood still. It was not clear how long one must mourn, and be in sadness, it does not say at the Church entrance where one can read the Church Code of Conduct. How long must we pray for that prayer to count? Regardless, in hard times sadness and the hope do not recognize any category of time.
When she deemed it right, the lady simply stood up, dusted off her long purple raffled dress and took a deep breath. She then walked up to one of the bigger icon paintings on that Wing of the Church – bowed down and kissed the painting at the feet of the baby Jesus. “Jesus has Risen” (or Isus Voskrese), she said, to mark her belief in the Easter Holiday, and that in all hope miracles like that of the Resurrection do happen to the good, and to those who repent strongly enough.

Finally, the feelings we develop and those that we lose, the moments we believe we have lost, and those we decide to let go of, those which we are constantly looking for, convinced we do not have – none such situations change the world around us. They change us, and who we are in the world, and how we decide to place ourselves in that world. Because each experience is a lesson – so is our willingness to be open to those new situations – even if this means once in a while going against our better judgment.

Naming my New Year’s Resolutions

The year is closing its books on us yet again! The December page is full of reminders for celebrations not to be forgotten. We rush to be part of the euphoria in the air, with presents to show off the stench we have left on the passing year, and remind others how we hope to do even better in the year to come.

As always in December, it seems that the holidays give a boost to our self-confidence and esteem. We seem to stop talking about wants and hopes, and start talking about resolutions.
My New Year’s resolution is not as selfish and modest. Apart from the obvious: do more for those I love, love harder, live merrier, listen longer, talk less – I also have a special declaration on my wish list to Santa:
My resolution is to imagine, and imagine;
My resolution is to bring imagination back to the mind;
My resolution is therefore to give a resolution to the problem of the ‘truth’ I so often hear about. It is this truth which killed my imagination to start with.
In 2009 I am out to get it back.

To those of you who will be reading this – I wish you: more imagination to be daring, more creativity to be different and more willingness to remember who you really are in 2009.
Having said this, I also have something to say to my friends from Macedonia – yes the same patriotic people in the country, my country, which goes by the bizarre name of FYROM.
Patriotism has killed our Imagination because it has taught us that who we are depends on certain traditions, moral value and historic ideology – and not the flesh and blood which made us all lethargic, uninspiring and unimaginative in 2008.
It teaches us that we are ‘Timeless’ because we have a rich history – of people dancing funny archaic dances, of women folding white linen on their heads and men going at it with axes. Timelessness and patriotism are not blind history but the ability to create and recreate one’s own personal creativity, to preserve one’s ideas which will always be one’s own – the very ideas which live on in the very imagination we have lost.

Dear reader, it is about debate, it is about sharing and not about fear of ideas and people who defy what is ordinary and normal in society - To bring out opinions and one’s own personalities from imagination in order to write our own contemporary story which we are all accountable for.

Today we remember Ancient Egypt because of the people who in that time Created with a daringness to Imagine new realities, greater horizons, a better vision and the power to define formidably their own existence when the world around was still all barbaric.

At present we have unique possibilities to leave such footprints in the ‘timelessness’ of our own surrounding. It is very simple and moreover, it is our obligation as people who share the same creative space such as this. This note/post is thus an attempt to leave such a footprint with flavor à la Bertan.

Consequently, my resolution for 2009 is to come out of the societal hypnosis and act to create, to recreate and to share my space in an environment which is inherently open to influences. Next year I hope to create more for others to follow suit, to dare more so others will dare follow, understand myself better so I can also better understand others.

Yours truly and timeless,

Fragment from my short story

I don’t think I would make anything up; I would say it as it is!

There was nothing extraordinary about the chiming clatter of the trams passing by his window that early November morning. He’d woken up to his habitual early morning frenzies – his thoughts seemed to be crossing through his mind without a dose of significant revelation. He tried to remember all the things he wanted to do that morning; the thought of his probable failure to succeed in all ambitions seemed too painful to even contemplate. Something about the day’s whim seemed to bother him… He could still sense the smell of aged beer in his mouth, which would not be erased with the morning shot of cold water. He was disappointed that he had no real control over himself.

He liked his small morning habits. They made him seem as though he had a cause to follow. There was something erotic in a morning shot of cold water which would stream down his throat through his esophagus. It was pleasurable pain – as the cold water traveled through him cleansing his body from the evening’s distress.

The day’s ”to do” list seemed to have no hierarchy. He had made all triviality the key dependency to sustain his sanity - to make his life seem all worth it – to have a cause.

He was tired of it all! Even his friends could not appreciate his utter genius.

“Drunken glory,” he muttered to himself.

He reached out his arm to grab his pouch-bag. A puff of smoke would always do the trick.

“Air is anyways lighter than water” – he thought silently.

He was not someone who would lounge about the house in idleness. There was no point in thinking of the past. No one has seen any benefit from that, his father had once told him.

He was a hard worker like his dad, but an even harder thinker, proud of what he was and where he came from.

The sun’s radiance had created a hazy patch of illuminated surfaces in the room. He smiled back at the particles of dust dancing around the wooden floor, as he remembered how he had danced so passionately the night before. It saddened him to think that such nights could wake up to such cold, unforgiving mornings. It made the dimmed bar-lights of the evening seem so murky and inconsequential. It was the regular agony of ‘the next day’ which he so dreaded. It was worse than putting himself to sleep in the evenings.

He was not really a smoker as one would define it. He could smoke avidly for months on end, then, quite suddenly, stop. It would even be years before he revisited the habit. This time, he thought he particularly liked his smoking inclination. Not because it was decadent and unpleasant, but because, for the first time, he felt the thrill of addiction to the habit.

He believed in ideals; in an ideal life which he had created for himself. He hadn’t made it up. He had simply used life’s circumstances to his advantage. He believed that all people and events were there to justify his own existence. A sort of a probation ground to prove his celestial nature. His beliefs in his own theories were zealous when he felt they were convincing!

Religion had never really been prevalent in his life. Though it had cemented his notion of life’s destructiveness which made religion extremely dull and one sided for him. He did not like being told what to do and when to do it, though when rules were in place, he was very careful to obey them utterly.

He believed his life was his own affair. Nothing more than he, could tell him what to think. In his view his external behavior was very different from the person whom he really was in fact, inside. He never really knew which aspect of his being was the more prevalent or accurate, or which he seemed to like more. He was convinced that the only thing he wanted to achieve fully was a piece of mind with himself.

He lived for the day which would come. He was infatuated with the future and its uncertainties. The past was where it belonged – in the past. The future would take him further than where he was the day before – it all seemed to offer so many opportunities. And opportunities signaled a sense of wellbeing and hope for his changing personality.

Life is in the details

How often do you question the small details in life which give charm to the environments you spend time in?
Seldom I would say!
Whether it is because I am chronically tired, or possibly too focused (some would say anal), at times, on details, or simply looking for an exciting moment in the ‘familiar’ – I seem to have had such small enlightenments recently, simply by realizing my own surroundings.
Some might say it is the sense of life in objects or things surrounding us which make them come alive; or the charm in the thought behind a pattern, which might generate a certain passion; or simply the art of life whose mysticism adds to a longing to be even more inquisitive and demanding.
It is not only that physical creation is gifted with innate charm. It is the amount of love and relevance we attach and radiate to things which make them live with us. Either it is a moment’s memory reminding us of passion, loss or happiness, or it is the direct attention we give to things which simply seem to attract out mind and appeal to our sense of what is art and what is simply beautiful. It is through our own openness to feel for things, that that feeling is transmitted and acquired by the object of out affection. In essence, we give life to inanimate objects by simply taking the time to realize what they mean to us, and hence being passionate about ‘the small things’ in and around your life.
In many cases in the past I have found myself simply registering and never recognizing all the crap which surrounds me on a daily basis. It is remarkable how this affects our subconscious and our comfort (gezelligheid, as they would call it in Dutch), and mood when we are in such a situation.
It is that objects around us not only acquire the feelings and passion we invest in them, but it is that the same objects then radiate the same feeling, passion and love back to us, in the same intensity and sometimes even more, when our own moods are down and in the blues.
To be simplistic, one must love Pinocchio, not only to bring him to life, but also to have Pinocchio love us back as a child does its parents!
In essence it is the stuff that lightens our spirits, giving our own surrounding a living spirit and a certain flavor (Шмек – is more the word I was looking for). It is a personal Feng Shui circumstance which you purposefully and consciously must condition around yourself to make anywhere feel a little bit of home.

Finally in my own personal context, I have decided and in certain ways understood that a lot of things in my life in Amsterdam have been intentionally set to quite a temporary mode of existence. From furniture, to books, to my daily rhythm, to my own opinion on Amsterdam – I seem to have never invested much in the past two years, thinking I will leave soon anyways. this is probably one of the reasons for my discomfort with Amsterdam in the past months.
As a foreigner in this city, no matter how long I might be living here, there will be times when my sense of home will seem very distorted and disorienting.
It is exactly because of this that I have decided that I will invest quite a lot in the quality of my surrounding. Therefore like any good Dutchman, I have decided I will spend a crucial part of this Sunday afternoon at the Bijenkorf. There I will look for things to buy which will freshen up my surrounding.
In cases like mine, when one is trying too feel more at home, I suppose it is easier to base your decision to buy stuff out of attraction, appeal or because they remind you of something in the past (preferably a pleasant experience/memory).
Only after a few months will these same objects acquire a spirit and a flavor (again a Шмек) of their own. They will begin to remind you of situations, or times in the day, pleasant of unpleasant, with their own charm. Of course the unpleasant ones we can always chuck out and concentrate on the good things in life.
If nothing else, the feeling that something is yours (sort of created by you) in its entirety, can be a source of unparalleled satisfaction in a dull rainy Amsterdam winter afternoon.

So my tip for you on a Sunday is: Go to Bijenkorf (or your own local equivalent) - Because life is all in the details!

Yoga Business

For the past three months I have intensely been taking Yoga lessons (a group of ancient spiritual practices originating in India). It is starting to become one of my big passions, and one which I am ready to recommend to everyone who reads this. One expert in Hindu Studies has defined Yoga as referring to "technologies or disciplines of asceticism and meditation which are thought to lead to spiritual experience and profound understanding or insight into the nature of existence.” After three months of passionate Yoga exploitation, I couldn’t agree more with the above statement…

My first encounter with Yoga was 4 years ago when I traveled to the Shivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat at Nassau, Paradise Island of the Bahamas. (An Ashram refers to an intentional community formed primarily for spiritual uplifting of its members, often headed by a religious leader or mystic, often referred to as a Yogi).

It was truly magical, I remember, to be in such an isolated island in the Bahamas, with overwhelming natural beauty all around, conducive to spiritual instruction and meditation.

In 2002, I was asked by a friend I had met in New York whether I would be interested to travel to the Bahamas and give a sequence of lectures to people training to become Yogis, on peaceful conflict resolution and mediation, based on my own work with conflict resolution in South Eastern Europe. Essentially, she wanted me to talk from the point of view of a young man, who has experienced and also worked arduously with other youth in conflict environments. She was, of cause, also responsible for the Forum of World Religions within the UN, and had chaired the Committee for a longer time.

Without thinking twice I accepted the offer which at the time sounded too good to be true...

Now four years on I am once again confronted with Yoga, but this time I feel I have a refined, more mature awareness and sensibility to its teachings.
Even 4 years ago the Ashram itself was full of incredible and fascinating new discoveries.

I will never forget the scary episode which happened to me in the Bahamas a la E.M. Forster’s character of Adela in the Marabar Caves, from his novel “A Passage to India”. It was a terrifying experience of realization of my own lack of spirituality - comparable to a spiritual Pandora’s Box!

Caucasian stories

In the beginning of August I returned from a two week stay in Georgia and Armenia in the Caucasus. It was a great learning experience albeit an equally challenging venture into the East.
It has taken me a longer time to put my thoughts together and try to verbally transit them. A tedious task since I have come back even more confused and with a feeling of cognitive desperation.
There is no, one, right, way to describe a mood – it is to be experienced and felt in a moment in time. I also do not dare to generalize, but simply to speak of my point of view in reference to my own contexts and other previous experiences of seemingly similar situations.

Georgia is a classical case of post-Soviet Communism, with a devastated economy, whose people are convinced of their European heritage and identity. A country where food is not merely a means to nutrition and life, but an outright science – where quality is also assessed through its abundance - Fit for a king (or should I say Stalin)! A phenomenon that stands in stark contrast to the overreaching poverty in the country, so visible on the main streets of its capital city, Tbilisi.
Highlights were: indeed, the excellent food, the sulfur Hamam-like baths, the folklore, the architecture, its proud people, and possibly most of all the protracted, heartfelt and wonderful toasts given at a traditional Georgian dining table.

Georgia is a country of firm and die-hard believers in Georgian Orthodoxy. I had the opportunity to also visit the seat of the Georgian Orthodox Church in Mshketa. I have never in my life seen such zealotry as that manifested by Georgian church goers. The ecclesiastic protocol is such that one goes around the church and shows one’s devotion by praying at virtually all frescos including kissing the martyrs’ feet portrayed in the images - lighting a handful of church candles, (for women) wearing a head scarf, special prayer at the church alter and finally lingering on in the church, leaning on one of the columns in contemplation before going about one’s business.

All in all, a fascinating image, which to me seemed more like hypnosis – a mass of disillusioned and broken individuals under a spell in search for metaphysical salvation from the cruelty of the material life.


It was difficult to be there, to witness my own obliviousness to the human need for direction and spiritual revelation.

Work wise the meetings which I organized in Georgia shed some further light on the overarching familiar disillusionment resulting from a failed political system.
I had the opportunity to meet many interesting, bright, young people in Georgia.
Before departing a rush of powerlessness and hopelessness came upon me while I was packing my bag.

The next morning with a happy face my colleague and I set off to Armenia to continue what we labeled as an adventurous holiday in the Wild, Wild East. The six hour car ride worked up a storm in my stomach. My advice: Don’t drive in the Caucasus – find a driver… it is part of the experience to be driven.
The car ride was like my own personal formula 1 rally, bump ride. In Armenia cars, (probably due to size) have the absolute right of way! Pedestrians are mere bumps on the road to TRY to avoid if possible, but by no means to stop or slow down.
After stopping for a break (read: a throw up session) we continued the Tbilisi-Yerevan ride in the big black Mercedes through the magnificent mountainous terrains of Armenia and its completely human-depleted regions.

It was like passing one ghost town after the next. My tour guide (read: Lonely Planet Guide) mentioned something about 2/3 of the 4 million Armenian inhabitants living in the capital Yerevan, and the rest in the impoverished countryside. Though it was like a time-machine (traveling a zillion miles a minute) I was happy to be in the big bad Mercedes car heading for Yerevan.
We arrived in the hot afternoon to a sizzling 42 degrees. I found Yerevan to be much more of a Mediterranean city (or European if you wish) than Tbilisi. An architectural combination of classical modern (Communist) architecture, and contemporary architectural designs. It felt like Yerevan was built after the Cold War, only to find out that old classical Armenian architecture is no longer ‘in’ among the nouveaux riches of the architectural elites of Yerevan. So, old buildings were simply torn down and replaced by huge glass monsters.
Armenia is known in the world for a number of things. Among others are: Cognac, especially the Ararat brand (which Stalin would have shipped to Churchill in crates during the Cold War – a MUST for tourists to try), its diaspora (which makes up for three times the population living in Armenia today), the Armenian Church (not to be mixed up with the Coptic Church).

Economically it was very clear that Armenia is better off than its Georgian neighbor, and yet politically more problematic given corruption in all levels of government, contraband, and its links with Russia (satellite state) and Iran (oil/energy).
The economic revival has been mostly attributed to Armenians powerful and relatively wealthy diaspora (mostly living in the USA, Russia and Europe) that injects millions of Euros back into the Armenian economy through real estate ventures, private endowments, sponsorships and direct government support.
A few things I enjoyed a lot were: the lavish fruit assortments served with a glass of Ararat Cognac, the extremely friendly inhabitants of Yerevan, the market next to the Iranian mosque, and spending time with my colleague/friend Isabelle indulging in the galore which is Armenian salads and fruits.


One thing which is inescapable in Armenia is the topic of the Armenian Genocide which was carried out by the Turks at the beginning of the 20th century. What Armenians call ‘European Armenia’ is currently part of the Turkish Republic. The famous Mountain Ararat (as in the Cognac brand) is an inherent part of Armenian identity. Today this mountain territory belongs to Turkey. It is ironic that Armenians are reminded of the genocide and the geographical partition of the country by this very mountain which overlooks Yerevan from beyond the closed off Armenian frontier with Turkey.

Armenians claim that more than 2 million Armenians were massacred by the Turks, whereas Turkey refuses to recognize the crimes as genocide and claim that a mere few thousand Armenians were non-systematically killed.

November will be the next time I travel to the region, this time to Georgia for the Arts Festival organized by the Stichting Caucasus Foundation, and then to Baku, in Azerbaijan for a few meetings with colleagues there. I will be very curious to see Azerbaijan, especially after my travels to Georgia and Armenia.

Recently I read that Azerbaijan holds first place in economic grown in the world, with a whooping 26% economic growth in 2007.

The art of art

It always inspires me to listen to artistic convictions and enthusiasm. Yesterday I attended a workshop in Amsterdam organized by my foundation. The topic of this small informal meeting with a few dozen participants was conflict resolution through cultural collaboration in the Euro-Med space. I always underestimate small gatherings.

When working for a relatively bigger cultural foundation, size DOES matter, therefore number of participants too.
At this relatively small gathering a lot was said about the different activities that individuals and organizations are undertaking in the countries of the Mediterranean basin, European, African and Middle Eastern.

Within one of the workshops a Dutch artist shared his experience of running a (brilliant) project in the divided city of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. Basically, this project was about creating an improvised orchestra, using artists and non-artists on both sides of the wall dividing the Turkish and Greek parts of the island. Speaking about his ambitions he said he wanted his art to transcend its artistic nature and transform as well as deform reality; or in other words, enabling reality to become art through spontaneity. It all sounded quite odd to me!

Imagine, he said, if one could create an impeccable musical harmony by having a whole city neighborhood, in all its habitual existence, all of a sudden burst into song. So you would have people on the street, people in homes, people in cars, and people on bikes singing in perfect group harmony and synchronization - sort of a musical like thing, I guess.

When he saw that I was looking at him like a “chicken looks at a sewing machine” (see earlier posts) he told me a short story he had experienced: There was once a musician from rural-land China that was brought to Western Europe to attend a classical music concert. He had never been in Europe, never seen a concert, nor had he ever the chance to listen to musical instruments which are used in classical concerts. At the night of the concert he was sat at one of the better seats, with optimal acoustics. A 30 minute warm-up or the orchestra preceded the concert of the famous Beethoven piece due that night.
At the end of the protracted classical concert, the Chinese guest was asked which part of the Beethoven piece he like best. He replied, “The first part - before the lights were dimmed!”

Beauty is not always to be found in the art or art!
This made me think how we live our lives today, under codes of conduct which we have established ourselves through our society – making life monotonous, predictable and simply dull.
I respect artists because they have the ambition and creativity to draw our attention to the many things which we have stopped questioning, and realizing. And by doing so they give us a mental slap on the face (and brain) and smile kindly at us saying: “but how could you have not seen that before?!”

Amsterdam lifestyle

It’s funny how some things turn out for the better. Yesterday when I woke up I didn’t really have big plans for my day. It was sort of the classic: work, possibly gym, and in the evening meeting a friend for drinks.

So I went to work, ended up in a longer meeting and not really working. After the long meeting I thought I would go to the gym and run it out. When I got there I sort of accidentally ended up going to a yoga class, which was great though.
Upon leaving the gym I saw I had a few missed called from a friend who I had not seen in a long time. So I listened to my voice messages, only to find out that he had called to invite me to a George Michael concert in the Amsterdamse Arena (basically the football stadium where the Ajax club do a lot of partying). His neighbor had given him two tickets for the concert.

When I saw the time I realized the concert had already begun. I gave him a call anyway to thank him and say how MUCH I would have loved to go…

Long story short he was in his car sort of on his way there, so he drove by and picked me up and we went to see George perform Outside in Arena!
It was a great concert, I didn’t stop dancing. My friend was so very kind to offer me his spare ticket, since his loving half was not able to go.

It’s strange how when we really want someone to be there next to us, to enjoy - we almost imagine that one is there next to us also enjoying it. This way I had a feeling that they were in fact both there with me dancing, enjoying, and making nasty comments about what George was wearing.
Though age has caught up with the reformed pubic WC-cruiser, his voice seemed to be unaffected!

So at the end of the day I ended up not having a real working day, also not really working out at the gym, and finally not meeting up with the friend I had planned to. But in any event, it was a fantastic day. I wish Amsterdammers were not so obsessed with making appointments so much. Would make life so much more spontaneous and immediate.

I love my friends because in unexpected places in unforeseen moments, they simply give you the world, without being aware of it. In this case because of my friends I had the privilege and excitement of an unplanned day, of fun, laughter and leisure.

A Royal Affair of a Hero

Yesterday was an extraordinary day. It is not often that I have the pleasure and honor to lunch with a Princess – and I’m not talking about any of my Amsterdam princess-friends.

HRH Princess Margriet, the sister to HM Queen Beatrix der Nederlanden, until recently served as the President of the European Cultural Foundation, where I have been working for over 2,5 years. Her tasks have now been taken over by the Queen’s daughter-in-law, Princess Laurentien van Oranje Nassau. It was my first time to see her in a more informal setting and have more time to enjoy her company on a low-key occasion.

It turns out Princesses der Nederlanden can also enjoy a simple sandwich for lunch, with a glass of average wine. It totally shattered my childhood impressions that Royalty simply do not eat!

After the welcome speech, we went through the informal protocol of talking about the weather, and the beautiful building in which the European Cultural Foundation is housed in Amsterdam.

Highlights of the day were definitively the lavish photo sessions with the Princess in her dress - a light, summery 60s/70s dress with a beautiful flower print of prevailing pink and red colors.

After some tasty bread crusts and boozing it ont with wine, a few semi-professional-choir-singer colleagues of mine decided to give ‘Madam’ a treat to her ears. It was great a real Pride and Prejudice moment on a sunny Thursday afternoon. After a wonderful adaptation of Empty by the Cranberries, I was quite astonished when HRH made a comment indicating that the only place where she likes singing is in the shower. How wonderfully down to earth of her.

Upon departure, while thanking everyone individually Princess Margriet was fortunate enough to be holding my hand when she slipped on the garden step. I was so relieved she didn’t fall in front of me, and proud I succeeded to hold on to her! She humbly thanked me and complemented my strong arm that helped her hold on and not trip over. I felt like a real hero who saved the day!

For him the bells tall

My brother got married last week. It was one of the happiest days in my life! Without a doubt it was also one of the most stressful.
Seeing him immaculately dressed, composed, happy - with his beautiful wife by his side - was like seeing myself in a mirror!
Growing up together, knowing him inside-out my whole life, having the worst fights and the best laughs - I felt like it was me who got married.
A week after the wedding I am now back in Amsterdam again trying to reflect back on memories and on our delphic connection. Letting go of a memory to witness growth and love is probably one of the most fulfilling images and impressions I have experienced from my last trip to Macedonia for this wedding.
The wedding was beautiful – it was loud, it was tasty, happy, drunk and exhausting… everything a perfect wedding should look like.
Apart from the fantastic aspects, it was a big meat Market – like any other mass family occasion, a wedding becomes a platform where one promotes and shows off one’s children who are at a “ripe” age to get married. In that same fashion I was introduced to around 10 beautiful women – friends of the family or distant enough relatives for a “connection” to be acceptable and permitted by law.
I miss Macedonia sometimes, usually mostly for the trivial and unimportant, crazy small reasons.
Knowing one’s roots and appreciating one’s own character as a nourishment of those roots is a key to be able to overlook the craziness and hilarity - and simply be proud and content with oneself, one’s family and one’s family’s friends.

But today I am most proud of my brother and his beautiful wife, the newest member of the house of Selim!

A brave new world

I have never been a good writer of thoughts. It has been difficult to trace my thoughts and ponderings of the past period because they have been manifold and completely scattered. In the past few weeks I have felt like I have been living in a bubble, a bubble full of me. It has been a period of deep thought, strange situations, new people and awkward discussions. There is something unusually unfamiliar about this specific context in which I write today.
These thoughts, the priceless discussions, all sound different when the tone is low. Alas things are different, things have changed!
Change is what I have been preoccupied with lately - more like fascinated and terrified at the same time.
Change is an archetypical notion indoctrinated within human existence – to be aware and proud of change - to see change as a positive development! In fact change is almost congruent to progress, improvement and enhancement.
Perhaps, for the many writers who have treated the theme, change was too much of a painful endeavor. To some it was simply a loss of an ideal. Not a matter of positive or negative occurrences, simply a matter of anguish, sorrow and pain.
Romanticism was one such time in literature. The likes of Wordsworth, Byron, Dumas, Poe, Pushkin saw change happen too fast – they simply chose to go back in time to rebel – to fight change in their own minds, preserving whatever was ideal and beautiful.
For them whether imposed or initiated, change saddens the heart to a fundamental level of disaster. Pathos was therefore the engine of their drive to create and create - to produce art out of an ideal and out of remote beauty. Adapting to change was succumbing to loss of beauty – romantics chose to fight it and found enlightenment in the sheer sadness – the power to display all beauty, when it is no longer there.

It seems there is one thing more terrifying than the rest. In change one sees truth - truth which becomes unbearable without the familiar. What is worse, there is an inherent unflattering certainty about that truth – a realization that truth is consequential. No matter the change, the world keeps on turning.

Have I seen the truth, or am I just a lost romantic, lost as ever?

A friend of mine read out a poem for me, written by Wystan Hugh Auden called “The More Loving One” which perfectly illustrates this post:

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

W. H. Auden

Speech given at Cultural Centre of Belem, Lisbon 28 April 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Two years ago I moved to the Netherlands. This change of cultural and geographical context constantly challenges me to not only adapt and adjust but also question my own values and principles, as well as assess Dutch societal dynamics.
Recently a friend of mine told me: the best way to fit in in the Netherlands is to be ignorant (mostly mistaken to be tolerance).
These words continue chiming in my head.

Though pragmatic, I am a terribly curious cultural manager, I will bring in my experience from working for a rather unique organization in Amsterdam, the European Cultural Foundation - an independent organization committed to culture, the arts and Europe.

Before I go on please allow me to briefly tell you about some activities of the European Cultural Foundation (ECF) in the context of today’s topic:

- Since 2006 the ECF has streamlined most of its activities toward intercultural dialogue. This means that the ECF explores people's actual artistic and cultural experiences of diversity. ECF campaigns for cultural policies and conditions that help to make these experiences positive ones.
- Last year ECF with partners launched The Civil Society Platform for Intercultural Dialogue to help ensure that the 2008 EU Year of Intercultural Dialogue has much more than merely symbolic importance.
European cultural organizations and networks, as well as organizations dealing with related issues such as migration, education, youth and social affairs, are part of the platform. The platform's aims are to map, exchange and disseminate best practice throughout Europe; produce content, policy analysis and recommendations; act as a consultative body for the EU in its preparations for the Year of Intercultural Dialogue; and to make its own contribution to 2008.
The platform will meet twice a year during an initial 3-year pilot phase.
- Another interesting programme is ECF’s Mobility fund called STEP beyond, which stimulates and supports individuals in cross-cultural creative projects throughout the European continent. This fund motivates young artists and cultural practitioners to explore, experience, gain inspiration and stimulate innovative creative connections through:
§ Exploring unknown grounds and discovering different ways of working and networking as well as
§ Collaborating and exchanging views and ideas
- Apart from its regular Grant Programme supporting European projects the ECF is currently also developing a new project that will be launched early this summer. It is an online community for people and organisations working in the field of culture in Europe. The project is a network of cultural users connected to other users to share: projects, information, contact details, personal opinions, etc.
- Through European experience we at the ECF focus on the ‘migration of minds', we explore the potential richness of ‘trans-cultural' identities and advocate the best conditions for developing intercultural competence.

Today people are increasingly less interested in organizations. They are interested in causes. Causes they can now engage in, in a variety of ways.
Today we will of course try to go beyond plain words and discuss causes such as global citizenship, cultural mobility, education, and cultural diversity.

Increase in worldwide migration is presenting new challenges to civic, cultural and human rights education. Countries in Europe have become migration societies characterized by ethnic, religious and cultural diversity, but also by manifold and complex national, cultural and social traditions. It is due to migration and other social dynamics that: education, knowledge and facilitated mobility are becoming crucial in fostering a shared European Citizenship.

Ladies and Gentlemen, today is not an ordinary day. Think of the speed in which we today access information. We live the NOW generation, the age of the impatient person. According to a recent survey, the patience of the regular internet user waiting for a website to be opened does not exceed more than a few seconds.
Information is simply a few seconds away. However, this does not mean that our world today automatically makes anyone an expert.

Though internet can bring people together around subjects of common interest, it cannot replace social or geographical societies. Face to face communication is crucial in rapidly changing societies. Mobility is the engine of democracy today through which individuals gain knowledge, experience and comprehend today’s current social dynamics.
European educational programmes like Leonardo, and Erasmus for students have been indispensable for creating vibrant and globally competitive citizenship.

As the world seems to be getting smaller and mobility an ever common occurrence, participation in global trends and indeed new developments is also becoming an Everyman business.

There is something inherently wrong with our system of governance, as we heard yesterday. Freedom to move, to be mobile, is one of the four fundamentals of economic freedoms. It results in: Learning, Objectivity, Earning, Openness and Broadening of horizons.
Mobility is a right of every citizen and it is therefore a constituting pillar of citizenship.
Mobility is essentially the stuff that citizenship is made of. So what went wrong?

When talking about mobility, it would be remiss not to point out the obvious: The clear political connotation difference between the terms immigrants/migrants in Europe (with a negative undertone) and communities which are mobile in Europe (with a positive undertone).
It seems the term FAIR needs to be associated to freedom of movement – to create and foster a global European citizenship.

Intercultural dialogue, and mobility serve to engage people not just as spectators. Culture and mobility, in tandem, spell out a win-win situation for European integration. Therefore positive implications of mobility must also be very closely considered. Coordinated actions through independent educational projects with this aim can make a great impact on citizenship education in European migration societies.

Today some countries in the EU look on to incoming migration (even to migration resulting from EU enlargement) with fear, desperation and impossibility.

Mobile individuals or migrants (whatever you prefer!) with hybrid cultural backgrounds play a central role in the process of education, culture and integration. However what we lack today in Europe is an institutionalized infrastructure out of which individuals can learn and have their voices heard. What we lack is an anthropological approach to integration and migration policies.

Therefore, efficient and improved information on mobility is crucial. Cultural studies and studies on impacts on mobility/migration should be incorporated within extracurricular activities and taught to young people in Europe - to create an equality of citizenship among all Europeans.

The software of citizenship also needs reexamining, in order to foster more accountability and responsibility among individuals and communities. Our aim today is to create a MOBILITY CULTURE as well as a culture of being mobile. Cultural education in this sense is a way to provide migrants with political curricula - to connect citizenship education to migrants.
There are a number of commendable organizations which are currently running inspiring projects: facilitating acceptance, accountability, redefined cultural identities and a new social cohesion.

Europe would not be what it is without its diversity.
Ladies and gentlemen, without migration in Europe (or mobility) I would also not be here today and have the honor to introduce to you this session.
Migration has given Europe a myriad of advantages, opportunities, progress and competitiveness – positive impacts to which many politicians remain oblivious and dismissive.
Unfortunately, we live a new form of modern apartheid. Today’s apartheid defines inclusion and exclusion along ethnic and social borders. A new class system of cultural and political citizenship levels has emerged, thereby creating varying degrees of social stratification.

There are also many examples successfully combating these new cultural frontiers. Yet, diversity, for long a core mantra of Europe, has become ambivalent, a source of politicised discomfort and individual insecurity.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Today I can still not give you a simple universally accepted definition on what it means to be Dutch. I am still struggling as a newcomer in the Netherlands to position my own identity and therefore find my own space in Dutch society.
Perhaps, in the end, my Dutch friend was to some extent right. Perhaps we are all sometimes slightly ignorant (which we camouflage as tolerance). Perhaps, as a Macedonian living in The Netherlands, I will always remain Macedonian. One thing I know for certain; being in the Netherlands I have still not got used to Dutch food. Though living in the Netherlands has given me perspectives which I otherwise would have never had. Mobility has enabled me to become objective toward my own culture and has emphasized my sense of citizenship.

Mobility is a fact of life in Europe – and Europe needs an accelerated view on mobility, migration, education and culture. Citizenship education develops a common sense of purpose and belonging which European societies desperately need.

Thank you!

Life laundry is necessary

Today is my last day in Lisbon.
I came to Portugal for a conference on Citizenship education, migration policy and mobility in the EU. All in all good times, and interesting discussions.

Meeting new people is also part of mobility and through meeting new people finding out new choices. Speaking to a colleague yesterday about professional ambitions, we ended up talking about so called LIFE LAUNDRY.
Life laundry in essence means assessing one’s life goals, and basically filtering out what is necessary and what not.
After thinking about my own wishes, needs and expectations, I find a lot of things that compose my day to day life might be a little too redundant. So I have decided to make some changes, and focus on personal development. Apart from fully throwing myself to learning more about the process of identity building in the Netherlands, I have decided to also work more on personal education, on matters which I work with but on which I am not theoretically educated. To some extent I would like, as much as possible, to get rid of certain insecurities but also base my practical, and empirical results and outcomes on proved theory. Perhaps going back to doing a second MA would be a good step and a logical way forward. I realize more and more that what I would like to learn more about is policy development and comparative political dynamics in the EU. Of course I strongly believe that South Eastern Europe should remain my domain since to this topic I also bring in my personal experience which means a more anthropological approach to developments in that region.
My time in Lisbon made me think more and more about a necessity to carry out “laundry” initiatives on more aspects of my life. To in a way optimize performance through introspection, which also means to take courage to localize my deficit and act upon it. It definitively does take guts to do so. Since once one identifies a deficit it becomes very difficult to go on without making bigger changes in life – at least this is the case with me.

Thanks to my current job at the European Cultural Foundation, I am lucky to be able to travel as much as I do and to have this opportunity to self-assess. In the next post I will publish the speech that I gave at the Cultural Centre of Belem on 28 April.

On...a little more truth

There is something bitter-sweet in every tragic moment. There is also a good reason why for a longer time I have refused to watch tragic films, the ones which serve to make people extremely sad and nothing more. My explanation is that I feel like I never wanted to see other peoples’ sufferings and pains. I was plainly never interested. It is almost out of fear that it might happen to me just as easily as to the characters in the film.
This is probably a core trait of pathos - the fact that sympathy and catharsis are achieved only in situations where subconsciously the same thing might at well easily also happen to us. It is the realization that showing sympathy for the characters in a film is essentially showing our own sadness of the same happening to us, if it has not happened to us already.

Departing physically and mentally from an unwanted situation is escaping a reality which we predict and therefore assume will befall us in the future.
Escaping is reacting to a human need to understand why otherwise we would have been unhappy. It is embracing one’s fear of making a grave mistake and understanding the sheer capability of us being completely wrong which adds to the calamity and ruin, and therefore the sheer romantic tragedy.

For better or for worse, I am happy I can stand up straight and be proud of having been honest to myself and the people who I care, about who I am and what I believe in. Ultimately it is about knowing and responding as you have seen fit in that moment of disaster, but also allowing the moment to be overtaken by the next moment, with its own reasoning and argumentation. It is about remaining open and flexible and considering the possibilities and opportunities.
Finally, it is about being yourself, to look yourself in the mirror and say to yourself: “I know myself slightly more today than I did yesterday”.

It would seem like tragic films are not my thing. However I choose to stay open to seeing more of them and deciding how far I want to watch. Possibly, maybe because it brings me too close to the realities and my own past which have layered within my conscience and compose the annals of my experiences and remembrances! Thoughts, and times I might not be so willing to remember and re-entertain.
I would like to make my own mistakes and not have others to refer to as an absolute, and a pillar of existence, which become subconsciously what we constantly strive to accomplish in life - the eternal truth.

All roads do lead to Rome?

Today a very dear friend of mine told me something I have been contemplating the entire day. He said: In life we usually acquaint a friend who changes us completely, who gives us new insight and who echoes your own insides which you did not know were there.
We want these friends to constantly be near us, with us, in us! And when they leave us, when they depart – we remain still ever happy.
It might not be the most brilliant construction, but for me this idea worked.

In that given time of day, in that given mood of the early afternoon, in the sunny outlook view from my dark office - it all made sense to me. It brought it home.
I tried to identify the people in my life which have had such an impact while biting my bottom lip – catalyzing the thinking process. this friend, he was undoubtedly one of these people from me.

In the happy weather which Amsterdam had on sale today, after work I decided to go to the gym to oil up my thinking engine on this matter. I realized that in the gym I constantly see the same people - over a dozen – which I have seen for the past year and a half, ever since I joined this same gym. Not for one second, in one day, in one moment in that same dusty, brightly furnished gym-space did any of those people make any different for me.

It seemed like they were all the usual by-standers, references which sort of add drama to one’s life. As if they were there to fill in space to stimulate the chronos, to emphasize and stand comparative to anything one would undertake in life. Today that was a sad realization. Am I not open to these new people, to meet them, the new experiences which could come from knowing them more? Or is Amsterdam simply too damp and wet to make you want to actually give a damn?

I set off towards home with a content mind that I had done something for myself, my own health and well being. “If you want the job done: Do it yourself!”, I whispered. As I was biking, something in me kept telling me: “Take the other route to go home. Don’t get into a routine. Change it for once”.
The feeling grew inexplicably stranger and stronger as I approached the crossroad where I would have to decide.
Should I have taken the same less-busy road, the very familiar, comfortable and easy to bike road? Or should I have taken the busier, wider, better lighten nicer Bilderdijk straat?

I came to the traffic lights, and as I made my way, I looked at the Bilderdijk. At that moment it was empty, one or two bikers, the street bare without any of the Christmas relic.
I kept biking towards my “good old”, “same old” canal. I looked back, there was no more regret, although my heart still kept beating harder and harder.

I suppose all roads lead to Rome!

Now in the comfort of my overcrowded home, as I write, it all makes sense.

We meet incredible people few times in out lives. Or in the spirit of my friend: as many times as we are mature.
I justify my inability to meet more such people. Just like the bare road of the Bilderdijk straat, sometimes the chemistry between two people is simply dull. It is plainly not there any more, it is bare and it is not interesting in that day. In a different time, in a different mood, in an instance when the Sun would shine from the left, then that could have been different.

Like the road on the Bilderdijk straat, we see what is not there, and in an instant our internal sanguine chemistry tells us to go on, to continue biking on. Usually it’s the nicest streets in Amsterdam which I have found completely unexpectedly - as a result of looking to the sides.

By not looking straight while biking I could have caused an accident. But I would have missed the many beautiful Amsterdamesque canals dressing the filthy canal waters of the city.

My message to myself is keep looking left and right because there are many roads out there - those which we are meant to take and those which we are not even meant to ever discover!
In the spirit of the tragic hero that I am, I will sleep tonight lamenting and contemplating the canals, the people beyond the people - the canals on the other side of life, which I will never know.

The spiritual seek

It has been a long time, truly.

The past few months have been a time of reflection and expression. Like all shy creatures, it has been awkward to share my thoughts, and describe occurrences. I have been expressing myself without expression. I have been consumed with trying to identify the current loopholes in my life in order to be able to fill them in and act on improvement, a sort of self-improvement; regeneration if you will!
Half way through this internal expressionless-expression, I came to my resolutions. They do not seem to be too revolutionary, though, at all. In fact my resolutions are not at all flavored with the sensationalism which I would have wanted them to be. After all, following a longer time of spiritual pondering, that should be the logical mood.

In any case, the list grows longer, and time seems to run ever shorter.

A few weeks ago I had the time to finally read the Nobel Lecture of the Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 2007, the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. His speech centers on a suitcase full of written work that his father left for him to open once his father had died. This suitcase becomes a central metaphore in his speech which in fact will represent more that just history, it is his own existence!
The intense feelings and the curiosity Pamuk generated around the suitcase which lay in the corner of the library room in his Istanbul house were incredible. The suitcase was almost glorified and idealized like all romantics in his place would have probably also done.
Half way through the lecture Pamuk explains of a feeling he has always had – a feeling of pride to be who he is - a feeling of extreme happiness and utter conviction that his career as a writer was the most serious of businesses ever. These feelings were reinvigorated by the image and the symbol of the suitcase.

The suitcase was heavy, it was old. It had within it a vast collection of ancestral wisdoms and writings. Manuscripts from his father writings and literary attempts to put on paper what he found more dear – life itself!
To Pamuk the suitcase was a venture through his own literary achievements - a blissful proof that there was literary talent running through his bloodline beyond his comprehension.

Few months later his father comes for a visit to Pamuk’s house. Typically they have tea served in Pamuk’s library. Surrounded by the many hanging volumes the father remembers his will and the suitcase. As he turns his head towards the library door to localize the heavy suitcase he had given his son to keep and cherish, he realizes the 'unmovable' suitcase has been moved. To this movement Pamuk makes no remark. They keep sipping on their teas, while the silence of the chamber utters the fate of the marvellous suitcase.

According to Pamuk, the materials in the suitcase were a collection of stories, ideas, and bold literary attempts by his father to create literature - a masterpiece which never succeeded.
Like my own contemplation (introspection) of the past months, Pamuk’s opening of the suitcase created no ‘Big Bang’.
There was no loud realization and indeed no masterpiece came out of the suitcase. It was exactly what he had feared and therefore (unwillingly) expected, but which he had not dared recognize. He simply had hope it would be otherwise.

This brings me to my final point for tonight. Hope! Hope - the one world which unlocks a myriad of unfathomable actions and impossible beliefs, and at the end brings both together, and still make complete sense.
I finish this post with a realization. When I subconsciously and unintentionally entered a cycle of introspection I realized that what I was looking for was Hope! What do I hope for? And what I am doing to achieve my goals – in other words what are my unfathomable actions and impossible beliefs?

Ultimately when my animus met my anima, I realized that it was all shockingly simple – all the things I wanted to achieve. Therefore my resolutions are equally shockingly simplistic and plain.

It is to have more love, more understanding and more drive for myself and for those around me. In principle this is also where my thoughts collide with Pamuk. Essentially and eventually, this was what he achieved with his writing, and what he wanted to also find in his father’s manuscripts, which he ultimately did not!

Except, unlike him, I have not yet won the Nobel Prize for Anything! I am still in the process of determining whether it will be Literature, Peace or possibly Science.

Flying memories and Macedonian salads

I strongly believe that Macedonians are probably the only nation in Europe who still clap at the pilot once the plane has been finally been landed, especially in the event of greater turbulences.

It might just be that I have also changed in many ways, and now all that is more or less Macedonian seems too foreign or annoying to me! However, that I cannot say for certain!

I write this post from somewhere in the air. I have been in Macedonia for the past three weeks.
This time around my trip to Macedonia was not so enjoyable.
It was a mix of unpleasant feelings, surprising encounters, and unnecessary drama.

This time round I feel I had too much time on my hands. To much time to think about and identify/realize things about many people which purely bother me.
Solution: I decided I would not go to Macedonia again without someone to accompany me, be it a friend or something more or something less. (Who am I kidding!)

In any case it makes me think about the difficulties one faces when returning to a culture which is seemingly so familiar and yet apparently quite shockingly perverted: A country of contradictions, and inconsistencies. It has become difficult for me to keep up with all the changes, and the whim of the people who populate the country.

Three is a Crowd

It seems the last period I have been very busy doing nothing. Nothing too productive at least, in the conventional sense.
I recently finished three books I was reading (even)!!! What happens is while I am reading one book I also start the second one and usually I get upto three and simultaneously try to drag them all through. It rarely happens that I finish all three at the same week though. This time though I miraculously did.

I will give you an account of the wonderful x3 experience I had with reading each one.

Book no.1 is ‘The Netherlands 2006 – The Mood After the Hysteria’. It’s a chrestomathy, a selection of stories, accounts from different authors intended to shed light on Dutch culture, in order to justify the political occurrences in the past period in the Netherlands.
Here is a flavor:
‘In 1998 a survey by SCP revealed than an astonishing 80 percent were satisfied with the government and 67 percent thought government agencies were doing a good job. The Netherlands is seen from an international perspective as being a country where the citizens have high levels of faith in government, but even in that context those figures were exceptional’.
According to Dutch economist Geert Hofsteden the Netherlands s in the s called Scandinavian cluster. Dutch values have much more in common with those of the Danes and the Norwegians than with those of the Germans, the British or the French. Like the Scandinavians, the Dutch have a relatively feminine culture, with only small gaps in levels of achievement.
‘A cultural discomfort has been building over the past fifteen to twenty years. The steady increase of immigrants during the 1990s has obviously been one factor responsible. In a survey on the day of the referendum on the European Constitution Treaty, voters said that the most important motive for their ‘no’ has to do with Dutch identity.

Book no. 2 is ‘Identity’ by Milan Kundera. A magnificent book with a mind boggling story of identity, confusion, love, panic and disillusionment. A story of everyman!
Sometimes – perhaps only for an instant – we fail to recognize a companion; for a moment their identity ceases to exist, and thus we come to doubt our own. The sheer possibility of practically losing a companion we know so well is terrifying. The effect is at its most acute in a couple. We give connotation to our life, and comprehend it objectively through another. Our existence is given meaning by our perception of a lover, and theirs of us.
With his astonishing skill at building on and out from the significant moment, Kundera has placed such a situation and the resulting wave of panic at the core of this novel. In a narrative as intense as it is brief, a moment of confusion sets in motion a complex chain of events which forces the reader to cross and recross the divide between fantasy and reality. A novel where time stands still, where reality is our own fantasy working, and where fantasy is all that life has to offer to make our lives enduring!
I cannot recommend this book strongly enough to all lovers of books that talk of life revelations!

And finally book no. 3 slightly more challenging to the political mind ‘Turkey Sweden and the European Union – Experiences and Expectations’. Again a compilation of different authors writing about Turkey’s integration and the difficulties it will face, from a Swedish perspective. Lately I have been very interested in Turkey’s EU accession bid, simply due to its complexity, and utter political/cultural facet. More and more Turkey is fed the absorption capacity story… more and more the EU deepens its own political divide.

Seven is Heaven, Six is Dicks, Fours are Whores

With mixed feelings, a passionate outlook, more enthusiasm and high hopes -- the New Year is finally with us!

I spent New Years with some of my American friends in, basically, the middle of nowhere also known as Corkscrew in Florida. It was spectacular and yet extremely rustic; it is like I was in the movie American Pie! It started with a warm up party which my host organized to teach my friends and I the wisdom behind American drinking games - which like the Olympics, happen on a fixed interval, basically, Every Day (especially during college). It was great, and it was even better now that I can throw my very own American drinking game party back home!
New Years was therefore a lot of drinking and eating wonderful home-made Chilly and a spectacular show of amateur fireworks and people jumping fanatically over a massive bonfire. I was happy to see it all and spend most of the night outdoors on 24 degrees sipping on cocktails, good beer and cheap beer. It was a beautiful, clear night and completely bizarre like a summer barbecue get together – it did not feel like it was even winter.
After a long day of traveling from Fort Myers in Florida I am back in Philadelphia now, before I leave for Amsterdam tomorrow. I feel sad to go, but also curious to see how different Amsterdam will seem to me after these fantastic few weeks.

Coming back to Philadelphia and spending approximately 12 hours at Airports (since I flew via St. Louis) it taught me a lot about Airport culture in the US. While I was at St. Louis Int-l Airport I heard over ten times (and I am not exaggerating) the announcement “Mr. Andy C. (John G., Sarah K., etc etc, the list of names went on) Please call home now” on the public announcement at the Airport. This was followed by “Ms. Chester Please return to the Starbucks to pick up your passport and boarding pass!”. This was followed by “Whoever has parked a blue Honda at the entrance of the Airport is to remove it immediately; this is an announcement from the Police”! This was followed by “Would whoever has forgotten a small blue computer mouse at the La Manga Restaurant please reclaim it at the Main Information Point please!”. This was followed by “Whoever JUST forgot their wallet at the Tie Rack please go back to pick it up”!

I kid you not! It was hilarious. At one point I even turned my (pseudo) Ipod off to listen to these hilarities and have a laugh. It was definitively a good way to chat up the people around me who were also having a laugh.

Seriously, there is no place like the US of A!

Sunny Side Up and Florida Oranges

It’s a great day. 26 degrees Celsius, sunny, warm, hanging out next to the pool, with a fresh cocktail and fresh juice – it sounds like I am in Heaven. Well, Close Enough!

I write this post from the wonderful city of Fort Myers in Florida. it is like nothing I have seen before. Three years ago when I went to the Bahamas on a seminar, I passed through Miami – I was not too impressed. So I did not expect too much from Ft. Myers. To my pleasant surprise it totally surpassed all my expectations. It is MUCH better!

My coming here was a surprise to many of my friends who decided to have a small get together and a sort of a reunion. I studied with these guys at Uni in Amsterdam. They are all special and remarkable at the same time.
They were shocked when they saw me here since no one expected me to come down here from Philly.

all we do is lie around the pool in out swim suits and take it easy swim, and hang out in the spa, which gets up to 40 degrees. Exquisite!

I love the US for so many reasons,
My hosts where explaining to me the other day how the house we are staying in – a massive BEAUTIFUL and completely cool Florida family house – is very close to the main river. – which a few can actually spellJ.- Caloosahatchee!!! FYI the Caloosahs were an Native Indian tribe and Tchee in Native Indian language means Water.
So my immediate reaction was that the house has a view to the River. My host was quick to correct me and want on to say: No we have a ‘River Awareness’, not really a River view…
Amazing, the fact that one would even find a word to describe proximity of real estate to a river,
So just to note other proximity categories of description include: River Proximity, River Front, etc.
Today my host will be taking us all to the Swamp to see Alligators and life in the farm. December is also the season when Citrus fruits are ripe and could be picked.

All in all to me it seems like a Safari Experience with a lot of rich exoticism attached to it. All that is missing is probably Lions, Elephants and more European tourists.

Its great to be in a place which is so incredibly hot in the end of December. It makes it all the more difficult when I think of going back to the cold Amsterdam air.

Christmas bells are ringing

It is Christmas day today. It started with a huge brunch at 9am, and will continue with an even bigger early mega dinner at 3pm later today.

I have never experienced Christmas like I have in the US. It is a BIG thing, usually with a lot of unnecessary decorations and overdone lightshows.

Last night my host took me on a typical Christmas Eve’s tour. We had a big dinner. Then after that we did what all traditional Christian Americans do – we went to Church where everyone is so happy that the whole Christmas celebration and fuss will be over in a few hours.

Christmas, I feel, is so much more about tradition in than it is a religious thing in this country. This is like quite a bit. This way you avoid the unnecessary biblical tat and get on with the good stuff – food and drinking and a big laugh! This might not be so true about immigrants who from more recently have been living here I guess.
A county with such a new history relies on things like Christmas it seems to give it a distinct identity, a meaning and a reconfigured history.
For me it is like a day with a lot of food – in other words, more or less, a normal day at my parent’s house in Macedonia, where everyone gets nervous and stressed when dinner time comes. With much alcohol on the table, this immediately reminds me of my father, and with a lot of decorations, which immediately reminds me of my mother. Always worrying whether everything is prepared on time for dinner and whether nothing has been forgotten from the dinner table. In other words, Christmas is in its own way and charm: a little bit of home for me!

What I miss is the frenzy of the New Year. But I am happy I will be in a good place for that occasion too. SO the frenzy I will keep inside and be patient until the 30/31 December.
Merry Christmas to all who believe in tradition.

New York, New York

I arrived to New York quite early. The city that never sleeps was quite quiet and calm. With many decorations dangling from the window shops of major brands it looked like most people had left the city.
I sat down at the Starbucks where I would always have my morning coffee in New York, the one on Broadway and Bond Street. A sudden Sex and the City sentiment hit me that moment.

It was too early for everyone, even the sales person at the Starbucks. I ordered an extra-large plastic cup of black tea, with lots of caffeine. Instead I was given a super-sized paper cup of black intense coffee. Good thing about the US is that if you are not happy – COMPLAIN, and you get refunded and a sweet apology on the top, no matter how wrong you might be. American rule number one: the customer is ALWAYS right.

After wondering around in the places which were all too familiar I met up with my friends and did what all Americans do in the early afternoon. We sat down and had Brunch!
It was so nice to catch up and see all those people I had not seen in a while and chat about everything and nothing.
All of a sudden I looked out of the window of the diner where we were brunching. I realized that New York had come to life again. Thousands of people on the streets rushing past you, some with an ‘excuse me’, some with the usual New York elbowing and pushing. Again a sudden rush of Sex and the City nostalgia hit me! It was a great feeling to be back in New York!

After brunch my friend and I walked for about 60 blocks down to the downtown area – to illustrate, this is NEVER done by any New Yorker – it is simply too far. But in light of the beautiful day it was and the brilliant discussion on inter religious dialogue, and religious philosophy, we made it without realizing we had been walking for almost two hours.

When night time comes in New York, it is all about being at the right places. This means being at where ever there is happy hour. This is exactly what I did once I met up with two friends of mine from school. We studied at the same school in Amsterdam! It was fantastic seeing them in their natural habitats. Amsterdam can very much be a zoo when you find yourself in a company of foreigners. In New York it all made sense to me. I could understand who, how and what it all meant. who these people were and more improtantly why they were who they were!

The night started with the classics: Dirty Martinis with extra olives and Cosmos - enough to hammer you to a seat for more than three hours. When our stomachs started growling so loud that we couldn’t hear each other speak, we decided it was time for food. So we went to the sushi bar next door right off Bond Street where I had been staying four years ago. It all came back and made even more sense!

It was a great night. Although we were all super active and fun, unlike New York we needed to sleep. I stayed in Queens for the first time which was an experience in itself. Taking the N line subway is like bingo: You never know when you will get it, but you keep standing on the platform at 2am hoping it will be soon.

Time can be bought!

Being in a foreign country makes me thing and judge more intensely, actively and more consciously the places which I call home. I realized that after eight hours I was able to go half way around the world almost. I thought about Macedonia. How lucky I am that a flight from Amsterdam to Macedonia takes a little over two hours. At the same time it made me think how time and internet have completely changed the world we live in.
Let me tell you how it all comes together.

On the plane coming to the US I was reading an article about Macedonia. Macedonians are quite restless and agitated with waiting for EU and NATO accession, for liberalization of visa regimes with the EU etc. Who can blame them.
The use of internet has drastically changed how we perceive the notion of time, and how well we deal with waiting. Just recently I was reading an article about avid internet users in the world. When users look up websites on the web, lets say via Google.com or so, most fanatics will not have the patience to wait longer than 2,5 seconds for a website to open. If it takes longer to open, the contemporary internet surfer would simply cancel the activity and move on to the next site. This is why in places like the US, big companies are investing billions of $ in their computer servers to allow this commodity of time to their users and costumers. I guess it makes sense that in the same way waiting for four or five years to a political achievement seem all too long for today‘s circumstances.

New York, 23 December 2006

Big-Bara-Boom

When I got on board the HUGE plane in Amsterdam to come to the US, I felt quite small and powerless. It was the first time I had been in such a massive airplane in my adult life. Last time it happened was four years ago. Then it seems I cared more about the result (being in the US) than about the process (traveling to the US). The notion of being and seeing the US was more fascinating than the means to that end.
Working with artistic mobility in Europe it seems I have developed a severe case of professional distortion.

A big animal, I thought! A monster! How did we manage to make it? How is it possible that we are in the air and still feel completely all right with it? The human perception for certain notions like flying - which before would have been too scary to imagine - are now a reality and a completely normal experience.
Human technology has altered fully the way that we see life, but on the other hand we are so absorbed within it that we stop questioning it. It has all become normal, or as the Dutch would say it een Gewoonte!

Up in the air, 10,000 km high up, for me it was about being aware that I was in the sky. Being actively aware of that fact! I felt like I was a fish. I felt like I had come out of my aquarium and realized that I am out of my natural habitat. Even now it continues to scare me, and at the same time it fascinates me.

Within nine hours I made it to the Philadelphia International Airport. I was what they call here “a legal alien” for the US Immigration police officer. It was a funny parallel. First a fish, in an environment where I did not belong – the SKY, then an alien on Earth, in a country which is not mine! All in all a funny overlap.

I was surprised to find that despite all the rigorous not-any-more-so-new immigration rules for travelers to the US, still the cues all seemed to be quite manageable. I think this time round, I got by immigration procedures faster than I had done before when I traveled to the US.

Philadelphia, 22 December 2006

Easy Come – Easy Go

Many things to say and yet so little time.

This time I write from the lovely city of Philadelphia in the United States. Here purely on holiday for two weeks, I am visiting friends and people who have become like family to me. It is definitively a privilege to be able to stay with so many great people, but on the other side I also sometimes feel a little guilty of not being able to see everyone I would like to see.

Tomorrow I will be going to New York to visit other friends. I am very excited to get to see New York again. It seems to me the more I am in the US the more I realize that the best thing I love about it (location wise) is New York, for sure.

Coming back to the US after four years I feel I had forgotten just how MASSIVE everything here is… but also I had forgotten just how kind and sweet everyone is to you. People here take their time with you. The are not irritated and inherently angry like in some places i know in Europe.

Before i go on making parallels here's a weird story. A very funny one indeed. My friend who I am currently staying with took me with him to a Rotary Club Christmas lunch (a very American thing to do if you are older than 50 and have a lot of time on your hands). After listening to the fantastic semi-professional children's choir they had organized (the Philadelphia Children’s Choir), a small BINGO game was organized by the Rotary folk. First of all (except for the children in the choir) I was the youngest there. Secondly, I was the only foreigner attending the lunch. And most importantly, THIRD, guess who won the BINGO.

When the guy in his mid 50s read out the number which i held in my hands, I did the usual double-take and repeated several times in my head… it’s my number.. wait, it’s MY number… Shit, it’s my number!!! Etc, etc, until I didn’t timidly start to slowly stand up and wavy my coupon at him.
I almost felt guilty. The foreigner has taken the 50 Dollars prize from the regular Rotarian of Philadelphia. It was not so much for the sum, as it was for the satisfaction. The stranges thing was that the last time i was in Philadelphia - four years ago - i also went to the same Rotary Club Christmas lunch, with the same friend and won even then this prize -with almost the same amount of cash!

After the lunch ended i was approached by a (of course Older) couple. The lady said something which to me sounded like very foreign Macedonian. She went on in her very heavy accented English to explain that she was originally from Florina (in Northern Greece, Province of Macedonia). Apparently a cross between Macedonian and Greek. Both her husband and her were delighted to meet me. They were both greeks but with family in Macedonia. In the mits of all the Americanness in the Rotary Club this lady grabbed me like any other Mediterranean woman, and gave me a big sloppy South European kiss - like the ones i would get from my grandma (to illustrate).

It was a good day. In any case I won some pocket money, and then I spent it all within the next few hours. Very easy to do in the country of Easy come – Easy go! The Macedonian experience on the other hand made it feel even more natural for me - like it was home.

After the big lunch, my friend and I did what more people in this country should consider more seriously – we went to the GYM! What is great about US gyms is that they are to be found everywhere, for a really low price. What is bizarre is that in every gym there is a vending machine selling sweets, chips, sugar stuff and unhealthy food. Enough of it that would make you sick!

But you have to hand it to the Americans, there is nowhere in the world where there is more choice. Here everything is possible, and there is also an abundance of it to be found, if one knows the right people/placs and of course has the right amount of dosh.

21 December 2006, Philadelphia, USA

Of myths and Serbs

This is a piece i wrote a while ago during my student years in Amsterdam for a course i took in Multunationalism and nationalisms. In light of the elections in Serbia, i feel that some history needs to be revisited. That same history is still omnipresent in Serb political discourse, and is also a fundamental part of the Serbian self-image and Serb identity.

It has become commonplace to hear that the cause for the break-up of the former Yugoslavia was militant nationalism which had succeeded in imposing a cult of history upon society.
Indeed the roots of most of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia could in fact be traced back to the nineteenth-century Serbian nation, state and nationalism which have all in turn been built on a hegemonic integral nationalist ideology. This ideology created a myth from the medieval battle of Kosovo as a nationally-defining historical and spiritual event. It bases the national identity of Serbs on indissoluble ties of blood (ethnic belonging), language, and history, dismissing the other existing nations such as Croats, Bosnians, etc., by claiming they are in fact Serbs, who are unaware of it.
This myth created from the infamous Battle of Kosovo depicts Serbia’s history as a long story of united suffering, oppression, martyrdom, and struggle against powerful enemies; A notion that depicts unity among all Serbs for the sacred Serbian cause and Serbian soil as the highest good, whereas betrayal of it the worst crime.
During the conflicts in ex-Yugoslavia, this ideology resurfaced and incited Serbian nationalism by evoking history in order to bring the Serbian population to arms and fight against the enemy, be that the Croats, the Bosnian Muslims or the Albanians of Kosovo. Serbian nationalism has been further nourished through the many myths, heroes, folklore and songs, in order to retain and emphasize Serb legitimacy in the developments in the Balkans during and after the break-up of Yugoslavia. Consequently, the evocation of history, nationalism, folklore, long-deceased Serbian heroes, myths and so on have helped in not only legitimising but also justifying ongoing Serb atrocities during the wars in the Balkans in the past decade.
The roots of so-called ‘Serbian genocidal behavior’ can be found above all in the mythology that arose to explain the battle of Kosovo of 1389. How can it be that Serb nationalism remained so strong for so long into the twentieth century? How was it possible that a whole population was mobilized in arms by the idea that history has made this step legitimate for them?
Today while we predict the outcomes from the regionally crucial parliamentary elections in Serbia, the attitude and behaviour of Serbian politicians seems to be symptomatic to a Serbia of the past. In Serbia history continues to be evoked in order to substantiate claims of a political or territorial kind even in the case of lost dreams and unrealistic demands, such as Kosovo and its independence.

In several instances a connection to the Serbian ideological past has been explicitly sought from within the horizon of the present. During the wars in former Yugoslavia this ideological past was found in the Battle of Kosovo and the subsequent Myth of Kosovo which came as a result. Also this mythical past was emphasized even more thoroughly by the literary writings of the Serbian Romantic writers who wrote about their ideas of Greater Serbia, and of a all-Serbian unity (both territorially and ethnically).
This renewal of ancient myths is almost always politically motivated by the desire to construct a putative continuity between certain ideas and goals.
Wars and conflicts have therefore been waged for historical and ethnic reasons, whether in Kosovo, where the fateful Battle of the Field of Blackbirds in 1389 allegedly established perpetual Serbian rights or in other areas of former Yugoslavia. And this variety of historical arrogance and ignorance did not only have the intention to underpin internal solidarity and the integration of a nation, but it was also intended to provide evidence for more ambitious claims.
Taking this into account, it seems that the wars in former Yugoslavia were a mere continuation of past history, or more precisely, a plain repetition.
Having said this, it seems that the motivating force that brought about the appearance of a sense of Serb national identity have been the wars, battles, enemy occupations, graves and killings, and a sense of collective humiliation of the Serbian people throughout history. It was the powerful nationalistic sentiments provoked by the Kosovo Myth as a direct result of the glorification and romantic depiction of the Battle of Kosovo in the fourteenth century. This seems to have been in turn accentuated by the Serb Romantic writers, with their literary texts and ideas, who put the ideas of the Battle of Kosovo (and thus the Kosovo Myth) on paper.
Therefore the influence of literary works such as The Mountain Wreath as well as the Nacertanije should not be underestimated. Today they are still celebrated as pinnacles of Serbian literary achievements.

As a result of this mythical perception of time and space, glorious ancestors and heroes of all epochs, including mythical or legendary figures from the history of the Balkans reappeared, were evoked or resurrected in public discussions.
During the wars in former Yugoslavia, Serbian political and military leaders were constantly surrounded and protected by an abundant entourage of the most important names from national history and folklore. In this sense the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian Academy of the Arts and Sciences have played a complementary role in emphasizing and contextualizing these important names from national history and folklore.

To this day history is still being invoked in order to substantiate claims of a political or territorial kind, whether in the case of the Serbian defeat in 1389 on Kosovo Polje, the Field of Blackbirds, which were used to justify the repressions of the Albanians up to 1999 or some other instance. The historical memory of the nations is liable to teach them murderous lessons.
It is not my aim and of course it would also be imprudent and plain unfair to conclude from thus Serbs harbor genocidal desires. But does our propinquity to the people and dealings concerned make it unfeasible to shun the conclusion that, rather than being Milosevic's willing executioners, today's Serbs are really Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men, people who would carry out, endorse, or ignore genocide only under specific conditions?
Or as Victoria Clark puts it in her (1995) The martyr complex of the Serbs,
’[t]he Serbian mind-set is deeply coloured by a 600-year-old national myth which teaches Serbs that their past, present and future consists of endless cycles of Christ-like passions, deaths and resurrections.
Since their defeat in 1389 by the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo, the Serbs have perceived themselves as perpetually suffering, abused and attacked by their enemies: Ottoman Muslim, Austro-Hungarian, or fascist Croat or German. But ‘Serbdom’ – more of a state of spirit than a political entity – always survives. Serbia is always resurrected’.

Whether ‘Ordinary Men’ or not, this question remains difficult to answer.

It is difficult to think how Serbia will try to redefine itself after its elections. No matter who will win the elections and which parties will be in the government, Kosovo will still in one way or another, be independent.
With all political parties at present using Kosovo as their main propaganda tool to woo the electorate, I wonder how the eminent loss of Kosovo (or its independence, I should say) reconciles the promise, the myth and the hope, with such an obvious loss.

The art of storytelling and defining truth

I have just finished a wonderful book I have been reading. I started reading Foe by the South African writer John Maxwell Coetzee while I was in Malta, and finished it in upon coming back to Amsterdam. This Nobel Prize winner author does a marvelous job in reinventing the archetypical story of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe – the white man stranded on a deserted island later saved by his glorious compatriots and taken back to civilization.
Coetzee deconstructs this story and adds missing elements from the original text. He is a master in storytelling using language to seduce the reader into ultimately reassessing and questioning the truths which lie behind stories and narratives.

The book treats several themes among which: isolation, story telling (and imaginary creation), speech, and gender.

The core focus of the novel is on the art of storytelling. For the most part it examines the subject of narrative "voice", who is telling the story. Coetzee turns the narrative, personae, and subject positions of Defoe's novel upside down - disrupting notions of truth, trust, and storytelling. The major recurring questions throughout are: 'Whose story is the right one?' Is there ever one right story?

The focus alternates from Susan's thoughts, to the thoughts that could be in Foe's mind. Coetzee transforms Susan from an actual character and eye witness to merely the muse and inspiration that compels Foe to write his book.
Ultimately, the reader is witness to how a story changes before it comes to its final form. Foe demostrates how truths and the storylines not incorporated within the true final story - albeit compose the process of its creation - are equally relevant and existential parts of what is eventually served to the reader as the true, real version of the story.
Foe is essentially a story of how Susan’s own story is transformed – it is an account of the process of story writing which Coetzee himself is writing. It is a portrayal not only of how Susan’s story is (re)created, but also a portrayal of the many truths and storylines in contemporary issues like Apartheid in South Africa.
Thus Foe becomes a contemporary mockery of the English novelist Daniel Defoe.
Coetzee has wisely chosen the name Foe to his book. The word itself is ambiguous. First of all it was Defoe's real name before he juppified it by adding the prepositional ‘De-‘ to gain in social stature. Additionally it has a strong religious undertone; Foe is a synonym of "enemy" and even Satan.
The term was also exploited in literature and history by English speaking colonists in order to denote the colonial inhabitants. By doing so, the inhumane and exploitative actions over the "uncivilized" people in the colonies was justified and legitimized.
In the book, each person it seems is the other person’s enemy. The creation of the true storyline and true chain of events is a battle for words, images and beliefs. It is a battle for and of truths.

Moreover, the concepts of gender, class and race are constant themes which cause the processes of cultural inclusion and exclusion. To do so language is used as the most powerful device in defining and facilitating the inclusion/exclusion dynamics.
Friday's mute and mysterious presence overpowers the narrator. His non-verbal interaction "passes through the cabin, through the wreck; washing the cliffs and shores of the island, it runs northward and southward to the ends of the earth" – therefore his non-verbal narration and inability to share his version of the story make his version the prevalent and true version.
Friday's ominous silence wins in the end on all narrative accounts. His sole power against cultural hegemony is to remain silent, to turn his back to the (foreigners') attempts to have his story told. Ultimately Friday’s story cannot be told by Susan because it is not understood, because Friday does not verbalize it, nor is he able to learn to write English in order to transmit it.
Friday therefore remains silent and in doing so overpowers all other narrative attempts by other characters. Although he is fully obedient to his masters, he still succeeds counter domination. He is the only character whose story is not broken or infiltrated by the others and so his story will not be told by them. This is therefore the only way to counteract possible cultural domination and assimilation.
In my view, Friday’s character comes alive in the book. His inabilities and deficiencies, and the author’s mastery in depicting them, makes Foe the work of a genius.
In the book, Friday’s tongue has been cut out of his mouth. He is deprived of the sole faculty which differentiates man from beast. He is therefore unwillingly subordinated and subverted. The mutilation in Friday’s mouth is constantly mocked and loathed. His muteness is symptomatic of black-African cultural castration by the white colonizers. It is the inability to see through what the white man has identified as the indefinable The Heart of Darkness.
I strongly recommend Foe. It treats one of the most intriguing linguistic and rethoric themes in a most excellent of ways.

Malta is sinking, Malta is sinking

It isn’t really! But it is definitively a way the Maltese would like to attract more attention to their splendid petit abode, which they have called home for the past centuries.
This time I am in Malta, the magnificent island in the Mediterranean Sea where the weather is (unfairly) always beautiful and warm, it seems, even in November.

I have been astonished to learn so many interesting things about the country in these past 3 days; For example, I always thought that the Maltese spoke English only. To my surprise, upon arrival, I found that everyone here speaks a language that to me sounded like Arabic. Firstly I was amazed thinking that Malta probably has tons of immigrants from the southern Mediterranean - only to find out later that I was starkly wrong. In Malta, in fact, one speaks Maltese (which together with English form this bilingual state), apart from the fact that almost everyone also speaks Italian (due to proximity to Italy). Maltese is the first language that one learns in school, although, in Malta everything you see on the streets is written in English, everything!
English in Malta is what French and Latin were in Europe in the Medieval times.

Maltese sounds like Arabic because, like Arabic, Maltese too belongs to the Semitic group of languages.

Now I will make it even more complicated: The Maltese have the same physical features as Arabs. In combination with the Arab-sounding language, it becomes difficult to imagine that the majority of the Maltese are fanatically Catholic. There is a blockage in my brain immediately which prevents me to hear something which I think is Arab, in an environment so much overtaken by the Roman-Catholic (Christian) religion.
I have felt that many people in Malta have (the classical island, isolated, we-are-on-the-edge-of-Europe) complex regarding their history, connectivity, proximity and commonalities with the Arab (read: Muslim) world. Of course they have tried to distance themselves in many ways from the Muslim Arabs. In time, like every nation in its creation and defining, the Maltese have sought to create myths, some of which have distinguish them from the mainstream Arab history and legacy. One such myth says that the Maltese are the direct original descendants of the ancient Phoenicians.
Coming from Macedonia (where myth has created more problems than solutions in identity forming and determination), I found it quite difficult to immediately believe this myth and take it for granted.
An acquaintance of mine put it very well when he said: “we Maltese need our stories to go to sleep at night in peace, with an icon of the Holy Mary above out beds, and the village patron Saint placed at the head of our night tables”. In fact, the Maltese are historically a related people to the Lebanese.
Despite this historical connection, Malta has strongest connections to firstly the UK due to colonization history and then to Italy related to relations during World War Two.

Now some facts on Malta from the good old not-so-lonely-planet of Amsterdamov:

Malta was essentially built by the Knights Hospitaller of the Order of Saint-John of Jerusalem, with the Grand Master Knight as a sort of ruler. Before settling in Malta, these Templars were sent by the Pope in Rome to fight in the Holy Lands from the advances of the Turks. However, when these Crusaders were defeated and the Turks subsequently took root in the Middle East, the Knights’ Templars retreated to Malta which they promptly fortified: “a rock with no natural riches, only farmers”.
Valletta the capital city of Malta really owes its birth to its arch enemy, Grand Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Essentially, it was the Order of Knights that built the Islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino (the islands that make up the country) in a very characteristic Baroque style and great fortifications to prevent the Turks from advancing further into the west and Italy. The famous Italian painter Michelangelo Caravaggio also joined the Order of the Knights, who by the way created some marvelous works of art which now decorate the St John’s Cathedral in Valletta.
Thus Malta was created!

Now Modern Malta:
In Malta, it is normal that during a meeting, no matter how relevant or formal, it is perfectly fine to pull out your mobile phone and text message a friend, and if necessary answer your phone. It seems in Malta putting your mobile on silent mode is relative to a sin. And of course when the mobile phone is for some odd reason not being used, then it is exhibited always on the table.

My favorite: whenever I have the pleasure to use public transport in Malta (buses), it is quite an experience. First of all, here they drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. On top of that, honking is encouraged in order to make yourself known to other drivers in your vicinity. And finally every bus driver plays a variety of assorted music songs in the bus at a VERY high volume. Literally like in a bar…

Although Malta is as south as one can go in the continent, the Maltese have a distinct northern mentality when it comes to timekeeping, and starting on time. I was surprised to see that at the conference where I was speaking, that not only did the conference start on time, but everyone was there well before the conference was due to start.

Malta is also known as the jewel of the Mediterranean, and a big part of the island is on the UNESCO list of protected heritage sites.
With its tiny 370,000 inhabitants, Malta is like a small village, where there is a general family feeling all over and people are extremely friendly and relationships are strongly centered on solidarity.

Also although the Maltese make it their job to complain, in Malta there is no real poverty, there is only relative poverty to the rich countries within the EU.

And finally I will now endeavor to explain the long confusion regarding the ‘real’ name of the capital city of Malta, Valletta. It is very simple:
Valletta is named after its founder, the respected Grand Master of the Order of Saint-John, Jean Parisot de la Valette.

St. Julian, Malta, 22 November 2006

Europe à la Macédonie

Also known as: The Sun, too is a Star!

From the three current candidate countries, Macedonia is the only one to have not yet started accession talks with the EU.
Pessimism seems to be growing in the international media coverage regarding Macedonia’s bid. Just recently in the October issue of the influential political magazine The Economist, an article on Macedonia and the European Union spoke about how Macedonia is constantly left out of the group of EU candidate countries. The article goes on to discuss how Macedonians have got used to being unloved and unwanted, and only noticed when bad things happen.

To improve its political chances and image as well as to come out of this black hole associated in the west with the word Balkan, Macedonia will have to redefine its own position in the region and Europe as a EU candidate country. The country seems to have the necessary prerequisites to become a regional leader even comparative to Croatia. However, to do so, it will have to think ambitiously, act responsibly and decisively.

Since the new centre right government came to power in mid 2006, there has been a drastic rationalization in the Macedonian state/government discourse vis-à-vis its European Union and NATO bid. The promises of the past with whimsical dates when Macedonia would join the EU and promises on accession negotiation talks are over.
The new VMRO-DPMNE-lead government has learned well the lesson from its Social Democrat predecessors. False predictions and premature wishful announcements on EU integration work against the popular politics of motivation. In the short term, misleading the public on the European agenda indeed might rally some support for a domestic political cause. However, in the long run it could have a negative impact on the local politics and mood of voters in election turnouts.

Macedonia compared to Croatia is still lagging behind in its political and social reforms due to its complex social and political ethnically divided structures. This has also made the decision making process and compromise much more difficult. This has also been stated diplomatically within the European Commission’s latest annual report on the countries progress. The report has urged the government to exercise an ongoing dialogue and cooperation with the opposition parties in Macedonia. Corruption, a problem inherent to the region, is still at an alarming level in almost all levels of the state, and there still seem to be no serious government attempts to deal with it.
Reforms in fighting corruption are proving to be a difficult task and are therefore developing sluggishly, although at least on the declarative level the government supports anticorruption policies.

It has also become popular among Macedonian politicians to constantly reflect on the EU approach experience of other states currently member states of the Union - especially Slovenia and Austria.
The recent appointment Austria’s, Erhard Busek, head of the Stability Pact Initiative for South Eastern Europe, as senior political advisor to Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has been a witty move by the Macedonian government to utilize the Austrian influence/lobby, Macedonia’s new best friend, its diplomats and its economic interest groups who invested in the Macedonian energy market in early 2006.
Austria was indeed also the main agent whose international lobby and pressures eventually yielded a positive decision for Croatia to start negotiation talks for EU accession, despite Croatia’s failure at the time to cooperate with the ICTY.

It is one thing to learn from Croatia’s reform experiences - it is quite another to transpose the Croatian mode of development and progress and hope it plays to your advantage.
Macedonia is not Croatia! Macedonia does not have the same historic, cultural, religious and economic links to Austria, as the Croats do. Macedonia should not borrow directly from Croatia’s examples and experiences. Doing so would be unserious, immature and plain wrong. The conception of development and progress, of freedom and reform, which might be suitable in one bilateral framework, might not be suitable to the local conditions and traditions of another. Although Macedonia and Croatia belong politically and geographically to the same region, they will have very different experiences in the road to EU membership.

Europeanization in Macedonia, as in almost all countries in the region, signifies a not-so-easy transition from a Hobbesian to a Kantian state. A Kantian state, as opposed to a Hobbesian one, is to put freedom before security and morality before politics. Macedonia, in the process of modernization and Europeanization, must go through processes which other EU members would have gone through in the more distant past.

European integration is a fundamentally intergovernmental process, a process which should be pragmatic. When seeking support from EU members in its bid to join the Union, Macedonia needs to develop a country-by-country approach strategy in order to lobby the member states individually. Accession within the EU is not a one-way move. At the end of the day it is a negotiation process involving a lot of tit-for-tat.
“What one taketh, one must giveth back”
This approach must be well devised, with sound political and strategic benchmarks, with in advance prepared feasibility strategies.
The challenge for the government will be to firstly polish up the negative image of Macedonia and try to put the country in a more positive light, a pragmatic frame and a helpful/usable format for the EU.
In a study on the enlargement fatigue in the Netherlands commissioned by the Dutch foreign ministry published in the beginning of 2006, Macedonia enjoys a little over 40% support for its EU bid after Norway, Switzerland, Bulgaria, and Croatia.
In the Netherlands, as with the public in other EU countries, Macedonia is still associated to a dangerous, dark, gloomy country with very little to offer even to the average European traveler.

Macedonia must create a “working list of pragmatic advantages” of at least 10 exotic specificities which it can sell to the regular EU citizen traveling to Macedonia - starting from exceptional tourist and economic benefits, to a unique business climate - which are appealing, creative and exclusive to the country in this region.
Therefore, the government will have to deconstruct the current discourse on the strategies on EU integration and use its top diplomats and experts to reassemble a politically sound, acceptable and culturally sensitive redefined notion of the country and its positive traits.
To join the EU one must speak the EU language. Therefore Macedonia should label itself in a package “à la Europe”, with European arguments to its EU bid.

Here Macedonia should create the infrastructure to pioneer the political so-called “Macedonian Model” - enabled via the Ohrid Framework Agreement. It should further institutionalize this political constitutional framework model and make it sellable and attractive to the West, especially as a usable format for Kosovo’s future political structure.
To do so Macedonia will have to move swiftly, in the Kantian spirit, to announce Albanian as the second official language of the state, first of all because it is the right political climate to do so. Secondly because it will anyway eventually happen due to pressures from the EU – it is simply a question of time. Most importantly, such a move would send off a very positive regional signal of maturity for Macedonia and will be an overall stabilizing factor in all the Albanian dominated territories in the region. This would also be a counter balance to the imminent independence of Kosovo. Recognizing Albanian as the second official language on a state level in Macedonia will stimulate further development and motivation for loyalty among the Albanian ethnic minority in the country which is proving to be very problematic for the VMRO-DPMNE government to control and have a constructive relationship. The government has made a smart move in designating one of its Vice-Premiers, Imer Selmani, to be in charge and overlook the course of implementation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement in the country. Moreover the ambitious tax cuts to a standardized 10% by 2008, that the government have announced so far are also declaratively a positive step in this direction for stimulating direct foreign and domestic investments in the economy and make Macedonia a regional leader in low tax for businesses which could take advantage of the CEFTA agreement.

Creating a template of the Macedonian Model which might be used globally, albeit primarily for Kosovo’s political framework purposes, might not grant Macedonia the immediate EU membership it so desperately desires. It will, however, certainly put Macedonia back on the European “white list” map as a positive example and a successful model for a systems export on the political level.

Until today the EU has had to expand and take in new members to justify and endorse for itself the changes it had induced within the former eastern block.
For the 10 countries which joined the EU in 2004 it was to some extent good timing, to some extent a need of the EU to restructure itself and add new political and economic incentive to the economies of the former EU 15. Of course to some extent it was also the undeniable formidable progress and magnificent transformation of the societies in the countries in the East.
Today the political reality within the EU is very different. Unlike in the pre 2004 era, today the EU does not have to admit new members. This is no longer a political or economic interest to do so from the EU side.
Macedonia will not enjoy such privileges easily, as countries which joined the EU in 2004 due to the current political turmoil with the EU on the one hand, and the growing uneasiness of member states on Turkey’s approach to the EU. It will have to create a strategy, a creative solution, and a witty lobbying campaign for its own purpose.

Macedonia, a politically wobbly, economically insignificant, and socially problematic country, is not so attractive for the EU, and even slightly risky for NATO, to have unreserved interest in absorbing it. Indeed Macedonia with its 2.1 million inhabitants is technically an easy bite for the EU to swallow however it is the political will which is lacking on the EU side. Moreover Macedonia cannot attach its membership bid to a more developed “big brother” country which would drag it into the EU as was the case with some countries in 2004. Clearly, Macedonia will not join the EU in tandem with Croatia due to the EU’s “each country assessed separately according to its own merits” approach. In fact, Macedonia is too interconnected, even interdependent, economically, culturally, politically and socially to its neighbors - especially Kosovo, Serbia, Albania. Integrating Macedonia into the EU individually or maybe even in possible tandem with Croatia, without Kosovo, Serbia and/or Albania might therefore create an even more complicated and unmanageable situation in the region and might further isolate some of Macedonia’s neighbors.
However, undeniably and undoubtedly, a firm date for Macedonia’s start of accession negotiations with the EU and eventual membership as a pinnacle of achievements would send a very strong political message to the region on the positive approach of the EU on further enlargement – and can be a further incentive to conditionality and accelerating reform especially in Kosovo and Serbia. This will indeed be a stabilizing force in the region and consequently bring the region closer to the EU mainstream. It will be a great challenge in this direction for the EU especially to detach a Balkan enlargement from Turkey’s EU bid with convincing objective arguments.
In any case a Balkan enlargement round would become the regional extra incentive regarding political reform, social engagement (civil society) and flexibility towards demands by the EU, possible also for Turkey, and especially for countries like Moldova and Ukraine.

Liberalization of the visa regime with the EU can also work on the same level albeit to a lesser extent. If the EU finally stands on its feet and unanimously agrees to do the right thing and liberalize, firstly through facilitation, the visa regime for a select profile of citizens, and shortly after to the entire nation, the visa regulations for Macedonian citizens traveling to the Schengen countries. This would in turn boost, refresh the Union’s political strength and influence in the region. The EU member states must come to terms with reality; the visa regime is no longer manageable and sustainable for the countries in the Western Balkans, being surrounded now completely by the EU.
The Balkans must not develop into a Kaliningrad stalemate, trapped within the EU borders.
When it comes to Macedonia, it will have to redefine its role within the EU, starting now. If Macedonia is to convince the Union members of an accelerated membership track, it will have to serve a big fat compensation or have something smart and tasty to offer back the EU in return. The regular pot of Ajvar complemented with Macedonian Wine is not enough.

Macedonia can give the EU a taste of its own medicine. Macedonia, a tiny country, with an equally tiny underdeveloped economy could still teach the EU a valuable lesson on interethnic and interreligious cohabitation. Both terms are inherent within its comprising society(ies). This could become especially important in light of the Turkish accession process and the cultural components in the negotiation process which are yet to take full swing between the EU and Turkey as well as the diversity within the societies of some EU states due to immigration etc. In this respect Macedonia could set a positive example and serve as a “European” case study – à la Macédoine – for a redefined Europe.

At the end of the day it is the citizens of a country who define the substance of a nation. Macedonia’s citizens are unfortunately still very reluctant to seriously engage in civil society without firm assurances or a rough prediction for progress in the economy. The EU accession by default translates into popular lingo as “improved living standard” and “economic growth”. Who can blame them! Look at what the EU has done for countries like Slovenia, Poland and the Czech Republic. This is where the EU will have to do some of its own giving with practical and concrete steps to support and further stimulate changes within the Macedonian society. For the time being, such extra social incentives for such social engagements are simply not there. Indeed, on the other hand, the EU would in effect improve a growing economy which the Macedonians would first have to stabilize and create themselves. Macedonia, being in the weak position it is, will always have to make the first steps forward before the EU can do something positive in return to assist the country.
In 2014 Europe will celebrate 100 years of the death of Franc Ferdinand. It will be a time when “United Europe” will become the new hot sexy mot du jour. Countries like Macedonia, however, should not depend merely on history and such obvious dates to inflict the necessity positive mood for enlargement within the EU. As Vice-Premier Gabriela Konevska-Trajkovska said in November at Bitola “we do not wish to get the EU membership as a gift, but to deserve it, which means to do our homework”.

God bless Finland and the Finnish people

When one travels for conferences and meetings, it is usual that one creates immediate strong impressions about the host country.

Today I write from the winter city of Helsinki, the capital of freezing Finland which proudly holds the current six month Presidency of the European Union’s rotating six month Presidencies.

This is the third time for me in Helsinki. Bizarrely enough, for EU capital standards, Finland is not a popular destination for tourists. It is even funnier, how upon returning home, we become experts in cautioning or recommending to our friends and loved ones on countries we have experienced.

In this respect, being the veteran traveler to the country, I take the liberty of put forward my very own gained impressions of Finland and present them as absolute truths.

These recollections, courtesy of the not-so-lonely-planet-of-Amsterdamov I have decided to entitle:

The “Several steps to a three days tourist trip on a business mission to Helsinki”

Here are some crucial facts:

1.The Finnish are ACTUALLY the world’s number one instant coffee consumers – Who would have thought! Apparently - having been told once on the plane coming here, and the second time reaffirmed by a friend who I trust more than the absolute Finnish stranger on the plane – the Finnish drink an AVERAGE of SIX MUGS of instant coffee PER DAY PER CAPITA. Ask any Finn, they will be very proud to confirm you this fact!

2.When in Finland, please do as the Finnish do. Please leave your company of friends without a kiss, or a hug, without a handshake, and if not in the mood please feel free to leave without any verbal or physical sign whatsoever. Here this is normal, it is the Finnish way!

3.Lapland is part of northern Finland = the land of Santa Claus and the reindeers.

4.Finland is like a big Adventist Church, where after the two lines for passport control reading:

EU and OTHERS,

you see an even bigger sign that reads:

SILENCE PLEASE!

Yes the Finnish are said to be a very quite people. Not too talkative (hence the observation above), and not prone to creating commotion.

Act II, Scene iii
Enter: The National Alcohol Problem!

5.God bless the Finnish for their weakness for alcohol. Any sort of alcohol so long as it gets you drunk.
After it gets dark, which could also be 1pm or even earlier in the Finnish winter, the big Adventist Church (i.e. Finland) takes the shape of Happy Hour at almost any local trashy American Wild West Bar. The evenings (or as I like to call it the Happy Hour) are a time when Finns like to “let go”, loosen up and let the wild animal free.
6.Even though Finland is way in the east of the European continent, in the same time zone as Turkey, Byelorussia, Ukraine, and even Israel – Finland, and the Finns are a truly European people.
7.To complement the above, I shall endeavor to define Finnish identity from my personal point of view in one sentence. It is simple: We are not Russian – although we would like to be more like the Swedes!
8.Mother Nature has granted the Finns the privilege to enjoy a whopping 23 hours of sunlight in some parts of the country in the summer, and has equally punished them to a miserable 23 hours of darkness in the winter. Oh, and yes, suicide rates in Finland are among the highest in the world.

Come see Helsinki for yourself, and experience the crispy cold air of the north, where people are friendly, where human design has achieved perfection, and where at least every fifth person works for the national pride – Nokia,

Helsinki, 10 November 2006

Of Chicken and Sewing machines

“They looked at me like a chicken looks at a sewing machine”

Don’t we simply love the French for their most peculiar idioms, phrases and of course insistance to speak French including in situations when one speaks perfect English and is speaking to a not-so-fluent French speaker.
I sat in a meeting of the General Assembly of a Fund that my foundation supports.
First exotic point, I represented the biggest donor in the meeting. Second exotic point, the meeting was in Lisbon. Third exotic point, and to no (great) amazement, the meeting was conducted completely in French. And last but not least, fourth exotic point, my contributions were made in English (how shocking indeed!).
The meeting started with the remark made in French: “Bertan, I think you have no problem if we go on in French”. The meeting continued in such a way that each speaker attending started his/her speech (in French) by asking inquisitively “Ça va, Bertan, si je parler en français, non? Vous me direz si vous ne comprend pas”. Humbly, I went on with a smile “mais, bien sure monsineur/madame”.
One of the first contributors to the meeting spoke about making proposals for fundamental policy changes on a high political level in France. He went on to explain how when he approached Chirac´s people with the idea, “they looked at [him] like a chicken looks at a sewing machine”. Charming analogy I thought, but what a funny way of saying it.
When it was my turn to give an opening, I started with the usual “Désolé (que je dois parler en anglais)” and went on in English to comment on the day's agenda. I could not help but notice how the charming French analogy suddenly came to life before my very eyes: “They [really] looked at me like a chicken looks at a sewing machine” – the fact that many agreed with me by nodding with their heads, swaying back and forth, reinvigorated the feeling even more.
A wonderful sight to behold!
In a city like Lisbon where very few seem to speak English (I can use this generalization since in am here for the first time, and using the last days to enhance tourism in Portugal) more and more I get the “chicken” feeling. When I approach people on the streets with my questions on directions in English and after the usual response “non, igiles” me continuing with “et français, peut-être?” I cannot help but again notice how I have become the sewing machine, (a bizarre Portuguese-looking person who has no understanding of Portuguese).

Lisbon, 3 November 2006

Europa is lost

It has become the fashion of the day to talk about Europe: what it is, what it stands for, and of course come up with even better, and more refined reasons to its current problems and turmoil.

(Walter Hanel: "And I always thought Europa sat on a bull", caricaturePhoto: Haus der Geschichte)


With a mighty swing of its blue wand with yellow star, the EU designated the year 2008 as the Year of Intercultural Dialogue (better known as the Year of Celebrating our Self-induced Identity Crises)!
Essentially the EU has done what it does best – it has opened tenders and asked others to feed it information/projects on how to propose solutions to solving problems within its territories.

The more Europe strives to define itself - to find an identity of its own – the weaker it becomes. In this growing Union it is becoming ever difficult for members to take a defining role without creating suspicion.
The state of living organisms is not always apparent from the inside alone. The EU should be observed by how the outside reacts to it, and where it is itself situated.
Like a giant overworked and spirit-broken elephant, the EU is slowly, yet with aggressive moves, walking its death march - to die alone and let its parts disintegrate to naturally create smaller units, possibly regional more powerful players. The EU is going through major turbulences at a time when the global dynamics are being redefined. It is missing the opportunity to define (and strengthen) itself by imposing its own agenda and interests.

How much power does the EU currently have as a whole?
Still a lot!
Although that power is fading away - fast! In today's politics the necessity to redefine translates as weakness to act and internal discord.
The strongest tool that the EU has had within the European continent for decades has been its conditionality towards its neighbors and aspirant states. Due to the internal self-induced turmoil and the lack of leadership the EU risks losing this power to Russia. Not necessarily because Russia is the stronger player (with almost no conditionality powers), but simply because the many smaller, weaker countries on the “outside” need a big brother to look up to and to guide them through the global game. When the choice and hope (which makes conditionality possible) is there no longer, necessity and survival instincts take over.
Presently, if Europe is the Denmark in Hamlet, then Russia is the Venice in the Merchant of Venice.

Europa, (who in fact was an Asian chick) was snatched from her girls-night-out in Asia, tricked and mesmerized by Zeus, disguised as a beautiful white bull, who carried her off to Crete.

Today’s recreated Europa is surviving on life support – with no real doctor to perform surgery on her:
1. because no one knows where the operating theatre and the instruments are to be found,
2. what surgeon is the best to perform?

Like many situations in history, this one will also have to be overcome with a big bang and a huge cover up scheme. At least with a conceptual bang/scheme; one that would change the internal software of the EU. To solve all her problems would mean allowing the creation of a unified superpower, with many different identities, by pooling the same into a supranational body(ies). It would foremost entail an understanding of what the EU has become (rather than what she was meant to be) and the creation of a new mentality whose rationale would not be driven and limited by national interest but by global EU (not the more general European) interest.

It seems that over 3000 years after Europa’s exodus, not much has changed in the land where the sun sets. Europa is still lost in the halls of the Commission, and we who are living her loss have nothing to remember her by, except the name whose identity we still do not own.

death is a confusing occasion!

Whether an end or a beginning, it is in any case also many other things: a time of overwhelming realization, fundamental reflection, ominous fear and great hope. It is by far a universal uniting factor to all living things - the ultimate mystery to people which religions have constantly attempted to (re)define. Will I wear a white happy silky robe and chill with the saints or laboriously push the stone up the hill in naked clothing?

It was a tragic sickness in my family last night which for the first time pushed me to ask my brother about his views on the matter. Although we always feel we know someone well, it seems quite difficult to find a sound analogy in ones character with ones notion of the afterlife. Having known my brother my entire life, it was quite the realization for me to find out his perceptions on life through death (or vice versa) and indeed to discuss a notion so serious and scary as death is.

It is in death that all things hold their peace, it seems. It made me very tranquil, the very thought of me being on my death bed, and imagining whether it would be pain, or sorrow, or fear, or joy that I would feel minutes before I would enter the carefree afterlife.

Last night, for the first time in my life I was confronted with the realization that I might not after all live eternally.

To think of all the loss that the world would endure with my passing, is simply tragic. The realization that that loss might (after all) not be so fundamental seems even more tragic.

I am not sure how I would like to be remembered or spoken of once I cease to exist.
In all honesty I at least know I would like that my loved ones celebrate my life, rather than mourn my death - that we remember the good times rather than the pain.
Confusing as death might be, it is the person who has passed away that adds some sense to the balance.
The real moments, the good times and the heartfelt laughs make death all the more real. It is the deceased who gives clarity to death. It is our memories thereof that adjust the level of difficulty for enduring the pain – for getting over it. It is above all love, the human touch which makes a particular death unconfused.

Finally, it is about wishing that more people in life would have been as loving, as caring, as funny and as beautiful as Mehrije Hoxha Kelmendi – Tota.

I dedicate this confusing day, this confusing moment, and all my unconfused love to her, my auntie!

on mobility of minds

In hard times there are many lessons to be learned – and of course, hard work seems to always, as a rule, pay off, no matter how irritating, difficult, lame or trivial it might seem.

Last weeks big mobility meeting which I organized and chaired, discussed the importance and urgencies of cultural mobility in Europe. Remembering back when I first started working with mobility and movement of artists, I questioned quite extensively the notion of mobility. It took a whole year of irritating assessments, trivial analyses, complicated EU reports on labor mobility and sustained labor with mobility funds to devise my own understanding, and be able to at least make some sense of it.

But of course mobility can only be understood properly when one has a personal framework upon which to judge and draw ones own conclusions.
Today I write from Skopje, Macedonia. During my three hour layover in Vienna two things kept chiming in my head:
1. “Your subconscious is a whisper from God”;
2. Mobility is relevant for Europe.

Believe it or not, both miraculously come together (I would like to think).
Number one is credited to Oprah (in all fairness), the Goddess of smart catchphrases and wonderful life revelations. My very good friend who is a major fan (who let me in on these Oprah teachings) warned me:
When the bell within ringeth, Lo! Ye behold, for that is the Lord who speaketh!

Thanks to Oprah, and even more to my mobile American friend (whom Amsterdammers often ask “but where are you originally from”), I was able to entertain the dichotomy: Bertan vs. mysticism.

As I was staring at the city names on the transfer info monitors in the Vienna Airport (and wishing to go to ¼ of the listed cities) it suddenly hit me like my morning hangover.
Mobility is more than travel. It is a transmission of ideas, a dissemination of thoughts and a mental liberty with physical boundaries. It is above all a necessity for understanding better the world we live in, and to have a healthy background to judge those opinions from others - like Oprah - who come from a different context, background, age – and finally culture.

Four hours in Vienna were the direct reason for me to put both points on the same plate and do the maths while stuffing down a Starbucks (not so delicious) muffin. How do these two things come together? Where do they meet, and do they in fact make sense together?

Actually they do not! However, in the end it all miraculously made sense (or indeed it might have been a manifestation of my own professional distortion, or in all honesty, simply the alcohol from the previous night talking)! Either way, it is now here to read, to understand and to disagree.

Ultimately, this is a post from Macedonia, written by a person residing in Amsterdam, having flown and transferred briefly (without my fault) via Vienna, talking about an American experience of a spicy South American friend. Above all, it is a mobile thought, an experience and entanglement of many cultural clashes and my own understanding of them.

My blog is my personal mobility tool, to channel my ideas, my hangovers, my revelations and strange analogies.

Genesis of the Future

A while ago I met for the first time a man whose name I had heard of many times.
Meeting a behind-the-screen professional acquaintance – when one is lucky to do so – always entails a dose of heavy disappointment and preconceived judgments of who that person is.
Bohemian, dreamy, irrational were the first few notions I related to him.

Half way through the meeting he proposes an idea he has had for a project. Future of the Past he says; my mind goes into a foggy blur as he went on talking, explaining his project to me. What is the “Future of the Past”?
My mind comes back into frequency – he wants to create an art project whereby one assumes a diachronical point of view to the art work.
Essentially, it seems, it is about future situations, art, architecture, life as such – being assessed from an even deeper point in the future.

Writing this blog now it makes me wonder how my future thoughts will be assessed, analyzed and understood in an even more distant future.

Ultimately, like when emailing with a cyber acquaintance – with all impressions, and preconceived judgments that go with that - there is a lesson to be learned and an interesting idea to be shared.
In my case, I was right! Mr. Professional acquaintance was dreamy, creative, bohemian and sometimes irrational. and yet he taught me a lesson with which i begin my blog.

He taught me that my blog will be about a recollection of an interest. It will be a footprint of who I am, how I am and why I am in a world that continues to be regardless of whether I am or not.