Volume 4 No.1 - 2000
EDITORIAL
K. Cameron
If you are reading this editorial it is because you are interested in European affairs or have happened to light upon this particular URL. Whatever the reason, welcome! The journal has been in existence for seven years. It started life as a printed version but then, it was decided to open it up to a universal audience. It is true that it is only relatively more recently that the www has become so widely accepted and so conveniently accessed. This is gratifying because it means that not only those who are dedicated readers of the journal but also those who serendipitously discover these pages are able to read about issues of European interest.
In this issue we touch upon various subjects - the Balkans, Policing, Health Care and Art. It has evolved that these are subjects which are close to the preoccupations of Europeans at this time and are of general interest to the world at large. The Balkans, and not only in the twentieth or the twenty-first centuries, are a constant source of anxiety. They represent from a distance the turmoil and the tribulations of a power struggle. Other nations may interfere in their internal politics in the name of humanitarian procedures, but when all is said and done, it remains to these nations themselves to solve their problems and to work out a modus vivendi and a modus laborandi. Knowledge of what those elsewhere think and their views on the future of Europe can be powerful factors in helping those who live in the Balkans to identify their aims and to achieve them.
The road towards European unity and European peace is on paper an easy one. All it needs is for the various countries to sign an agreement and all will be, as some would have it, hunky-dory. The reality, however, is somewhat different. It is just and normal than other countries should express their distaste and disapproval of certain practices but they can only do so from a distance. When one is on the spot there are so many other factors - cultural, political, social etc. - which are unfamiliar to the foreign observer and to which often not sufficient importance is given. All we can hope is that the inhabitants of the countries in question will succeed in achieving the form of democracy that they want. One might even be tempted to question the benefits of democracy. The wish of the majority, given the spurious ways in which that wish can be fomented, may not always be for the greater good of that majority. The gist of what I am saying is that we should perhaps exercise more tolerance and try and familiarise ourselves more with the cultural context of our European partners.
Against this background of unrest in certain parts of the continent may be placed a definite effort by certain governments to promote art and to place it within the reach of the so called common man/person. It is often assumed that art is the privilege of the educated, and, in our system of values, educated in this context means wealthy. But is this true? If we consider that art is a medium utilised by the artist to communicate with another without using the normal verbal forms of communication, then art should appeal to all those whom the artist wishes to reach? The problem is that many artists use a code which is unfamiliar to many of those who look at their work, whether they be rich or poor, educated or a philistine. The need may be to explain that code. To explain it, one has first to understand it. To understand it, the aim of the artist has to be clear. There may, therefore, be a need for the artist to use a code which will reach a wide public, irrespective of the social background or the respective incomes, or, for us to accept that not all art will appeal to everyone. It is a step in the right direction to make art available to all but there is a need for an even greater educational support. It is difficult to tell people, irrespective of their social background, that X is good because it is different, if they are unable to appreciate what is good and what is different!
The theme of this editorial has been ways of looking at things. There is the view of the person who 'does' and there is the view of the person who 'judges'. These perceptions are not always identical, or even, often, compatible. We have to learn how to accept this and while we condemn we should also contemplate that the point of view of those whom we are condemning, or refusing to appreciate, may well be different from our own. Living in Europe, as in the World at large, is a daily lesson in tolerance and in trying to understand the other.
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