Newsletter Dec 2016

Athens

Broom-X-Mas tree at Savigny Square, Berlin

Editorial

It is that time of the year again when the radio sends constantly Christmas songs. The outreach of American culture is here most evident. It has led to a widespread commercialization of the Christmas idea. Undoubtedly this has led to a confusion as to the meaning of bringing gifts. Forgotten is quite often the greatest of all gifts is peace along with freedom to live happily as a human being. There is much afoot at the of 2016 with many more people afraid about what will give shape to world security and peace. Already the BBC has made out five landmines which can explode any time in the face of President elect Donald Trump. Already his ready use of the Twitter is spreading more confusion than reassurance he is the man who shall get things done. China is already saying he should stop playing the political rocky that he is as he has no political experience whatsoever and, therefore, can behave like a bull in a China shop. In Europe things have been twisting and turning with always the voters throwing hard balls at the politicians. However, this was not the case in Austria when not right wing candidate Hofer won, but the soft spoken Green candidate van der Bellen. Another case happens to be the outcome of the Italian referendum where Renzi lost and needs now to conclude a reform process before there can be a call for new elections. In the meantime, Merkel stands firmly as candidate of the Christian Democrats as cancellor candidate for the upcoming federal elections in September 2017. That firm stance has translated itself into ever harsher measures being taken to ward off a refugee crisis, and thereby it will definitely undermine the key riding horse of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party by which they hope to solicit votes. Thus the refugee crisis has become something like twisted metal if one thinks only on how the jungle in Calais was cleared out. At the same time, Hollande in France took everyone by surprise since he will not stand for re-election. That is unusual for a standing president but his ranking in the opinion polls is so low that he saw no chance for a vindication of his efforts while in office. It seems that the wrong people get the worst punishment for attempting to do a decent job. But getting a decent paid job especially by the young is completely another story.

Hatto Fischer

7.12.2016

European Capitals of Culture

San Sebastian 2016 and Wroclaw 2016

Future ECoCs

Aarhus 2017 and Paphos 2017

Valletta 2018 and Leeuwarden 2018 in Holland

Matera 2019 in Italy and Plovdiv 2019 in Bulgaria.

2020 Rijeka in Croatia

http://www.rijekaepk.eu/en/

2021 In Greece Eleusis, Kalamata and Rhodes had been short listed, Eleusis 2021 was selected on 11.11.2016.

2021 Timisoara 2021 in Rumania and Nova Said 2021 in Serbia will also be ECoCs.

ECoCs in 2015 were

Mons 2015

Pilsen 2015

Search for peace

- Peace efforts
- Warum ist der Krieg stärker als der Frieden / why is war stronger than peace?

Deutschland / Germany

Flüchtlingsgespräche / talk with refugees

Humanistische Werte in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft

Siehe auch Bericht von Andreas Müller-Hermann über die Arbeit der Freiwilligen auf Lesbos:

Europe and the refugees - crisis or challenge in 2015 - 2016

26th World Poetry Festival in Medellin, June 18 - 25, 2016

Poets presenting themselves to the press on opening day, June 18

www.festivaldepoesiademedellin.org

www.youtube.com/revistaprometeo

Dichter für den Frieden –

Poets raise their voice against war

Action by World Poetry Movement

in October 2016

http://www.wpm2011.org/node/959

Previous actions:

Poetry Connection: Poets and the Olympic Truce 2004

In Search for Peace, Marsaxlook, Malta 7.Sept. 2014

The poem "Silence" by Dileep Jhaveri, written on Feb. 24th 2016, followed The poem 'democracy'

Poesie und Philosophie - der Bogota Vortrag 2016

Poets for Peace - Action of WPM in October 2016

The uneasy relationship between poetry and philosophy in the global age

Spuren eines ungezähmten Lebens / traces of an untamed life

Space and Colour by Roger David Servais

Roger David Servais

versteht sich als jüdischer Maler in Berlin als jemand der durch Brechung von Farben Nuanzen hervorbringt, und dies im Raum zeigt.

Roger David Servais as Jewish painter living in Berlin knows how to break colours so as to bring out nuances of differences thereof within space.

Guernica Youth

Kids' Guernica – Guernica Youth meeting in Wroclaw, May 13 – 16, 2015

The Russian-Ukranian-German mural: intercultural dialogue in Berlin 2015

Flüchtlingskinder / Refugee children in Hotel Präsident, Berlin 2016

Children and war

Children and War - photo collection of Reinhard Schultz


The artist Sonia Goggisberg and Ariana Rocha, director of ONG taking care of 270 kids per day, have started together in August 2015 a Guernica Youth Action in São Paulo 2015, Brazil. The mural was completed in 2016.

Greece

Tsipras

The children of the Memorandum experience no longer early adulthood, for the transition from a life with promises for the future to a life in misery understood not in an abstract, but concrete sense from child/youth to being the elderlies of society has been captured in one poem.

The Way We Live Now

The way we live now is
the way we used to live,
only now we have
more ways of knowing it,
and fewer ways of living it.

Vasia Tzanakari

The Bogota lecture by Hatto Fischer about the relationship between Greece and Germany

Das Verhältnis zwischen Griechenland und Deutschland
- Verhältnis Griechenland Deutschland Teil II
- Verhältnis Griechenland Deutschland Teil III

Conferences 2016


27 - 29 March "Culture and Democracy" conference in Teboursouk, Tunisia

19 - 20 April European Culture Forum in Brussels
             – which was postponed in November due to force majeure - 

20 - 23 June "Traces of Multiculturalism in Central Europe" International Conference organised by the University of Alberta, Canada at Wroclaw University
 www.wirth.ualberta.ca 

10-13 OCT /2016 LA RENCONTRE DE SAN SEBASTIAN
CULTURE AS AN AGORA /THE LINK BETWEEN CITIZENS, TERRITORIES AND CREATIVITY http://www.likeculture.eu/ 

16 - 18 October UNeCC conference in Wroclaw http://uneecc.org/conference/conference-program/ 

18 - 21 October 7th World Summit on Arts and Culture  of IFACCA in Valletta Malta

8 - 9 November CULTURAL IDENTITIES ON THE MOVE "Soul of Europe" conference in Berlin http://asoulforeurope.eu/asfe16

23 - 25 November "Cities as Community Spaces" - Third International conference on Cultural Relations in Europe and the Mediterranean in Valletta, Malta http://conference.valletta2018.org/about

Publications by POIEIN KAI PRATTEIN 
Catalogue "Imperishable Water", 2012 with Haroula Hadjinicilou, Anna Arvanitaki, Hatto Fischer (ed.), Athens ISBN 978-618-80160-0-2  
Hatto Fischer: The poem 'Destiny still flows' by Katerina Anghelaki Rooke - this concerns a discussion of the poem which inspired the action on Rhodes last year
 "Nation and Identity" by Kreisau-Initiative, with introduction by Hatto Fischer is crucial for answering the question whether or not Patriotism is an alternative to Nationalism. Youth met first in Kreisau, Poland and were inspired by this example set by the Kreisau Circle which went into resistance against Hitler on the basis of a non discriminatory approach for the day after Hitler fell.
Article by Anna Arvanitaki and Haroula Hadjinicolaou, "Action on Rhodes" in Journal "Nissides" (small islands). Rhodos, Vol. 9, 2012 
The poem "strong images" by Hatto Fischer was published on August 18, 2015. See http://labloga.blogspot.com/search?q=hatto+fischer.

Poiein kai Prattein is member of the Mediterranean Directory organized by the 
René Seydoux Foundation
http://www.fondation-seydoux.org/repertoire_presentation.htm
Mediterranean Directory

Currently a group of poets with Yiorgos Chouliaras and Hatto Fischer as editors are preparing a READER about Greece to be published by Paperwall, Mumbai, India in 2016.