It’s really strange. Imagine that you have ever seen youself in front of only one mirror. All the time the same one. And once, you don’t really know why, you are suddenly in front of another mirror. Or maybe the same but, something has change. You, and the world around you is not anymore the same. That’s how we come back form an experience such as an EVS.
One month ago, I was in Poland, country in peace where all people look like each other : same history, same heritage, same religion, same language, let’s say … the same look. Now, I am back in Belgium, and have to cross Brussels every day to go to work.
Brussels. It suddenly appears strange to me how very different people are living there, all together, without knowing each other. Media says it’s cosmopolitan city. Actually, we are far away from a « living together ». Of course, we share the same city, the same streets, the same train, tram, metro and buses. But.
But I can feel that everybody has got his/her own bubble. People don’t really live together. Don’t know each other. They don’t speak together. Or really few. Citizen are all anonymous. Together alone.
And, suddenly, Brussels is not the same as before my trip in Poland. Every morning, I can see soldiers. Even if it’s not (yet?) war. Does it mean that war is coming? I guess, but I hope I am wrong. War is not far away from here. It’s our neighbor. It lives inside us, among us. Government act. We all would like to believe in them. We all would like to avoid a war (1).
Every year, we remember first and second world war… We wanna show that we have won the wars,… We finally forgot about everything we have lost. Individually. I wonder why to do such a commemoration, if we just don’t learn and repeat the worst part of history? Why do people want to fight again? What kind of people desire war, fears, sadness, darkness, destruction, death? What’s wrong with them?
I have been nine month in Poland, building Europe, building a brand new world where people from every part of the globe can live together, in peace, really, and try to do steps one to the others, try to understand other’s point of view. Open their minds to different way of living together.
And suddenly, I come back home, and people around me are speaking about war. (2)
Does it make sense to send young people abroad, speaking them about brotherhood of man, and then, suddenly ask them to fight together again another enemy? Do we build peace in order to be stronger if an other war appears?
Unfortunatey, Yes. That’s actually exactly why European Union has been created (3). Such a pitty.
I still would like to build peace here. But you cannot build peace with someone close-minded, that cannot imagine another point of view as a good one. That doesn’t want to open his/her mind.
Yes. Government should continue to send young people abroad. All of them. All of us should have one year of Erasmus, far away form his own culture, to think about what is « good » or « bad » by himself. To consider wearing another pair of glasses to see the world.
Cath.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLQs0OrHiPY
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhHwdFeyt_A
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union#History