The mentioned platitude gives the answer. Where danger grows there also grows the solution, wrote a German poet who intensively reflected on the fundamental conditions of the temporal life of a poet as the founder of man worthy of life (and of a wholly constructive social existence). Here opens a crack and it is possible to glimpse a track, as the French philosopher Derrida would put it. The movement of the track means the differential gap in which the movement of the difference is the basic condition for formulating speech in order for the language, as such, to occur. The peaceful coexistence of differences, as a form of creative dialogue, which is being established as such. We must reach where the Balkans act as a field of source points, a field of an individual’s consciousness (may it be a Balkanite or a man of the world), which will open up to be “ethically reconstructed”. And this happens and is happening in the field of culture. Here, in this sphere are shaped the primordial images of the world, on the basis of which is shaped the spectrum of the ways of actual coexistence. These diverse images must be given a chance for dialogue, encounter and familiarisation with other images. The possibility for a constructive and fruitful exchange of global ideas must be given. This will attract the most prominent creative people, the visionaries from different walks of life and through them networks of functional communication between different cultural practices will be set up to formulate patterns of the future peaceful coexistence of differences. This will not be built on measuring each other’s strength and on the monopolies of violence, but rather, on the recognition, knowledge and understanding of the other and at the same time on the assertion of one’s difference, as an equitable expression in the conversation of many. We must redesign the space of dialogue and find every possible form of cooperation in the cultural sphere, which will be followed by all other areas of endeavour (politics, economy and so on). We must realise that culture is not some kind of addition to everyday life and to other spheres of existence; it in fact represents, in the entire pervasiveness of the existential practice with all forms of being in the world, a specific expression of the state of everyone and, at the same time, the possibility of self-correction and creative self-development. A person is what he is because he has a self-corrective faculty, which is manifested through what we call culture. Culture is not a concert of classical music, which only a highly cultivated audience can enjoy. Classical music points to the scope of people who recognise themselves, and the breadth of their expression, in the highly developed articulateness of music. Cultural products are not a useless subsistence of people who have nothing to do, but rather, a materialised, high-level self-understanding that we shaped through hard work in our need for a comprehensive approach to the conditions of our work and life. A cultural product is the indicator and the result of our abilities in our everyday deeds and not a snobbish privilege of the spoiled and the blasé. A clearly discernible trait, which can be recognised in the lack of taste of the nouveau riches, who decorate themselves with exorbitantly expensive, yet worthless kitsch, because they are unable to differentiate between the seed and the weed, clearly shows this. Every age has its Thyrmachionas. They look at the price and think that money, and general envy (inaccessibility), guarantee the quality of the product. They think that culture is a matter of trade marks and not a matter of the product’s quality and depth or completeness of personal “aesthetic” experience.
To sum up, the Balkans are a state and a place where peoples who differ from each other live, and their differences are due to numerous historical, ethnic and other reasons. Essential in the untying of the knot, that was created, is not only material assistance from outside, but also the option to develop civilized forms of productive, peaceful coexistence, which will enable the necessary exchange and cooperation among the different groups of people. This alone can bring about progress and the need for independent creativity. The essence of understanding each other is the respect for being different. Respect means communication, understanding, agreement and acceptance. This is enabled by language and by cultural institutions, which bring together the different languages in productive dialogue. But language is not only a means of communication; it is the entire world (language is the world, said Humboldt), as it appears and occurs in the thoughts and conceptions. One of the primary fields of openness and display of the innermost truth of oneself, as a thought, a conception or an original experience of the other, is literature (poetry). Poetry represents that window where the truth of the author steps into the reader in a very special, “istinit” (logos alethes) way. This of course is not the only area of the revealing speech. Poetry is joined by other arts, philosophy, science and, finally, also by religion, as intimate inspiration and not as an ideology of exclusive, power-hungry institutions. And so on. It is therefore important that, initially, the best individuals, which means the most open, articulated and ethically fulfilled individuals, from various walks of life meet at different forums and begin in-depth discussions on common concerns. Each one brings from his specific original background a treasure, representing a singular future detail in the spectrum of the new, united world, a world made possible by the new joint representation of the world, formulated as a result of such meetings. What would be absolutely necessary at this point is a new “Korčula school”, or a new, permanent, prestigious meeting, which would attract the mentioned individuals from this region. These individuals must be respectable people who have not been compromised, that is, they are not motivated by the thirst for power, personal privileges and chauvinistic or selfish inclinations. Regardless of the various current needs of the dominant world trends it essential for the world to have a place where people can speak out without fear. In this way, they will disturb the prevailing image of the world and elicit the fury and retaliatory action of the demagogues and power-mongers who propagate it. Such a place of “pronouncing the truth” is of priceless significance for the world. And may this happen as a “trace in motion”, as an equiprimordial project, which will take shape only in the course of the events themselves. May it happen as a formal, institutionalised possibility of truth, which is uttered, but not declared, because the truth never utters the last word. The truth is something open that flows. With this possibility of transcendence, we can restore to the Balkans their former traditional world character. We can thus repay the debt that was incurred for us by Serbian and other similar academics. And let time show that we were in the right.
Translated by Marjan Golobič