Building Bridges!
By Fashionoffice's publisher Karin Sawetz
Building bridges, celebrating humanity are the central messages of Easter. But who needs a weekend like the last except the contemplation and celebrations on Holy Saturday (Karsamstag) and Easter Sunday?
I can't remember an Easter weekend with such an accumulation of crucial political events like in 2017. On Saturday, the whole world looked anxiously at the parade in Pyongyang, North Korea and listened bewildered the discussions about nuclear weapons in context with inter-state provocations and revenge. And then on Sunday, people who consumed global news about the election results concerning the referendum in Turkey became aware that an ambitious partner of Europe is building new bridges; bridges that lead into another direction.
And in between the events in North Korea and Turkey, a bus convoy was hit by a bomb attack nearby Aleppo in Syria and killed more than 60 children - in sum more than 120 people. Horror news from Syria are almost a daily routine - and it seems that nobody, even not the states with the most powerful military equipment and specialists can stop it.
Some days ago, the new abbreviation MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs) appeared in media. Now, even the ones who aren't interested in war weapons know something about military decisions. This isn't a critical statement; it's positive that even such decisions are communicated publicly. The world has grown together and people are interested in incidents which happen outside of their homeland.
Growing together and homeland are also keywords in the case of Turkey. Not only Turkish citizens who are living in their own country, even many expats voted at yesterday's referendum and fixed the future of the state which is located in between Europe and the Arabic world. More than 70% of the votes of Turks who are living in Austria favored the winner. The number opened at once the discussion about integration and what went wrong that one group prefers an absolutely other society than Austria stands for. I think this attitude surprised also the ones who confused many during the last years with the meaning of 'multi-cultural society' as a form of living together in one society despite other basic rules and basic values - basics which are the foundations of our legislation.
I'm curious to see the impact of the decision of so many Austrian Turks on the Austrians' skills to build bridges between cultures.
fig.: The image shows me at a wooden bridge in a garden nearby Vienna. Building bridges is an important mission of my work as journalist. At Fashion.at (first and most important domain of Fashionoffice), we are working since more than 20 years on a better understanding of the country's traditions and value systems through the communication of the people's output in design, creativity and art for the mediation between cultures. That's even the reason why the content is published since 1996 in English.
Building bridges, celebrating humanity are the central messages of Easter. But who needs a weekend like the last except the contemplation and celebrations on Holy Saturday (Karsamstag) and Easter Sunday?
I can't remember an Easter weekend with such an accumulation of crucial political events like in 2017. On Saturday, the whole world looked anxiously at the parade in Pyongyang, North Korea and listened bewildered the discussions about nuclear weapons in context with inter-state provocations and revenge. And then on Sunday, people who consumed global news about the election results concerning the referendum in Turkey became aware that an ambitious partner of Europe is building new bridges; bridges that lead into another direction.
And in between the events in North Korea and Turkey, a bus convoy was hit by a bomb attack nearby Aleppo in Syria and killed more than 60 children - in sum more than 120 people. Horror news from Syria are almost a daily routine - and it seems that nobody, even not the states with the most powerful military equipment and specialists can stop it.
Some days ago, the new abbreviation MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs) appeared in media. Now, even the ones who aren't interested in war weapons know something about military decisions. This isn't a critical statement; it's positive that even such decisions are communicated publicly. The world has grown together and people are interested in incidents which happen outside of their homeland.
I'm curious to see the impact of the decision of so many Austrian Turks on the Austrians' skills to build bridges between cultures.
fig.: The image shows me at a wooden bridge in a garden nearby Vienna. Building bridges is an important mission of my work as journalist. At Fashion.at (first and most important domain of Fashionoffice), we are working since more than 20 years on a better understanding of the country's traditions and value systems through the communication of the people's output in design, creativity and art for the mediation between cultures. That's even the reason why the content is published since 1996 in English.
