Dear friends,
I come to you as a visitor. I joined the RfR Peace Work Institute only lately in summer 2014 when I participated in the Study visit to Nagorno Karabakh. I was deeply impressed with the country and I can admit that I fell in love with the people. Since then, standing in front of you today, I have to admit that I am also very impressed by your achievements.
I see many familiar faces from other YMCA activities in Europe. I am involved on the European stage since 2005 so I had an opportunity to meet many of you before. But I can also see many unfamiliar faces which is a great seeing! I see many young people from so-to-say young countries, such as mine, which is only 22 years old. We all and you especially are our future. Not only of YMCA Europe, but you are also the futures the whole continent which we share. Europe used to be not long ago a continent of walls: maybe all of you know about the Berlin Wall, which divided a once great city of Europe. It divided families, it torn friendships and lovers apart. It separated people from the graveyard of their relatives, from their childhood playgrounds and from the place where they shared their first kisses with their loved ones. It also forbids people from travelling freely to other places. This wall is gladly long gone and for 25 years now we can visit it as a tourist memorial. However, some walls still persist.
In Cyprus, a wall called the Green Line separates the ancient city of Nicosia, and I am happy to have some friends from Cyprus to testimony this fact. In Morocco, people trying to reach Europe have to climb many physical fences to reach the Spanish possessions on the coast of Morocco. In Europe, we have also legal barriers such as the visa regime which makes it difficult for people to reach other countries. I am sure many of you have to undertake a difficult and painful process of applying for a visa and can be denied participation at a project for any reason. Also, some places are not recognised to "be a country" and therefore have even limited rights.
The YMCA struggles hard to make Europe a continent of bridges. What does a bridge do? It connects people over valleys, rifts, rivers and differences. It can also connect over conflicts and ruptures in a metaphorical way.
Do you know the city of Mostar? It joins the sides of river Neretva in Bosnia. It was destroyed during the Yugoslav Wars and rebuild 10 years ago then in a joint effort of many European countries, including those who were fighting earlier in the area. It is a great example of reconciliation initiatives! Bosnia, once the stage of worst humanitarian catastrophes after WWII, is now a fairly stable country, as can Mladen here confirm.
And has anybody been to the city of Gorlitz? It is situated between Poland and Germany over a river. It was also the location of one of our Unify Spiritual conferences. Formerly, it used to be a border town with limited possibilities to travel between the parts of the city. After 1989, it has become a place for young Europeans to meet and to learn about their neighbours.
Let me conclude with a calling: let’s become part of the YMCA movement. Let’s help the movement to build bridges and destroy walls which separate us. Let’s instead build our movement to focus on what connects us. The Peace Work Institute is a great initiative which contributes heavily to this strategic aim. Don’t fall back to what separates us, be it nationalism, different cultures, diverging religious views or political problems. Don’t build walls in your heart and in your realities. Please, build bridges so that your rivers of life, which I can see all around you, can flow freely underneath. Make the YMCA a movement of bridge builders!