Dr. Slobodan Lang headed the list of candidates for the Joint Movement of Good that ran for the European Union Parliament elections in Croatia last month. Although the group of candidates did not succeed in achieving seats in the EU Parliament the underlying election platform of the group lives on, in the hope that future will mean the future of Good for Europe and the World.
Dr. Lang has written the following reflection and invitation, published in tjedno. com (weekly.com) a couple of days ago and I (Ina Vukic) have translated it into English for the readers of this Blog and for all those interested in spreading the idea of creating a Good world for our children and grandchildren… in contributing to creating a Good future.
Let’s Create the Europe of Good
“We are entirely unimportant – but joining into a Europe of Good is critical.
Let’s commence immediately with the joint creation of Europe of Good, from the leading people of all religions and convictions, knowledge, ecology, media and politics, to all nations and states, all towns and villages, institutions, associations and organisations, across Europe, to every family home and individual – the vision needs to be fulfilled with individual and joint action, knowledge, arts, economy, faith and humanity – let’s start the life of good and realisation of a better world.
The colonial Europe has committed terrible crimes, murders, slavery, plunder, obstructing development and denying freedom all over the world. Because of that I contritely apologise here today. I am unhappy and I accept responsibility so that such things never happen again. I propose that a competition for raising a monument to the so little yet so large Gandhi be initiated immediately as a demonstration of such commitment. I propose that the competition includes all children and all artists of the world equally, and that the choice of the place where the monument would be erected also becomes a part of this competition. And when we eventually raise the monument, let’s start with real creation of good in ourselves and in our actions.
Still, we know that we cannot do as much harm to others as we can to ourselves. Every country and the whole of Europe can do more harm to themselves than to others or others to them. Today’s European politics are not creating good. The bearers of responsibility, planning, adopting and implementing the politics perhaps do not mean to do harm, they may themselves be confused and unhappy, even frightened at the face of the future. I believe it is like that. But I know that they did not wish hard enough, that they did not believe, imagine, learn, try and organise the Europe of Good hard enough.
I believe that there are very few leading and prominent people in Europe who regularly invite into their homes or visit the homes of the poor, the sick, the foreign, the unhappy … Leading persons of Europe do not know how to cry. The greatest debt Europe has is tears.
In June 2011 Barack Obama presented Angela Merkel with the President’s Medal of Freedom. At the ceremony, in the Rose Garden, she spoke of the moment when the Berlin Wall was raised: ” I was seven years old at the time. Seeing grown-ups, even my parents, so stunned that they broke out in tears, shook me to the core. My mother’s family, for example, was divided by the building of the Wall“. On the same day I, 44 years old at the time, walked through the wall and spent the night with women of East Berlin. To my admiration they united Europe non-violently, these women and mothers told me: “Doctor, we did that for the future of our children, and in twenty years times our names will not even be mentioned”. I speak today in the name of these women and in their name I ask that we create a Europe of good.
I am a Croat and a Jew, and through the Balkan wars of the nineties, I constantly placed my life in jeopardy through those ten years so that I could tell you today, here, that we have saved the lives of thousands of Albanians, Bosniaks, Croats, Roma, Serbs, Jews and the life of everyone else that was endangered. For them we placed our lives in jeopardy and I ask that you place yourself at disposal today and that you abandon the false morals, selfishness and power – that you engage yourself for the youth of today, for the future of Europe.
At the beginning of these wars, in Summer of 1991, I asked Mr Henry Kissinger for help. He told me that the Europe of that time did not know the Balkan, allows prejudice and does not have enough humanity to stop the war and suffering. He told me that our only real ideal is the experience of suffering, revolt and defence of people in the Warsaw ghetto. We commenced our “Challenge of good” program basing it upon these experiences.
I served the Wounded Christ during the wars that have passed, and I had not abandon him when they judged him nor when he carried the cross. The Wounded Christ stayed alive in Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Mostar, Knin…
At the Copenhagen summit in March of 1995, I asked all the heads of states to protect “the most tragic of Europeans”, to protect Srebrenica. They did not understand what I was talking about. The criminals have been convicted for genocide. Serbia has also been convicted for not preventing genocide. But no one put the question about the United Nations’ and the international community’s responsibility.
When I discovered a group of disabled children in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a 12 year old girl told me – “Doctor, we loved you all, even when you did not love each other or us, or yourselves“. I remained quiet and wept, and I’m giving you her message – do not forget to love other people.
I have learnt that the state where people are killed occurs when those involved do not know each other, and those that do not know each other send them to war.
In 1965, in Czechoslovakia, professor Ota Sik described to my father how they would attempt to achieve freedom and that they would not succeed. At my question – why attempt it then, he said to me ‘We owe it to the future to try‘.
My father, an economist, was involved at the university in the then West Germany in a debate about how large should German compensation be. After the financial appraisals by Germany economists, they asked him how much does Germany owe. He said that Germany itself must decide how much the lost lives are worth.
The European youth of today do not want to have colonies, they do not want to exploit others, they do not want to hate, accuse, enrich themselves. They are tired from evil and want to be the generation of good, they want to create new life, children, family, their villages, cities, countries and the whole of Europe.
All the powerful people are in the right when they say that the young are often not in the right, but it is a sure thing that every society that is against its young becomes itself entirely wrong.
I’m asking you here today not to think through money, allow yourself the right to be a human being, to release a tear, to want to do good and to send that message to all the countries and nations, to every home and every young person. Do not be afraid! We need you so we can create the Europe of Good together, so that you could learn, work, have children, joyfully look to the future.
There, that’s why we have united into the joint movement of good and entered our candidacy at the first Croatian elections for the European Union parliament. We did not succeed, but that is not important, because 6,000 people across the world voted for us and each and every one of them has the right to have their say for the creation of Europe of Good. All the elected members of EU Parliament from Croatia and all those they’ll meet there can pass on our message, and make it stronger, better and cleverer. We need all the people and states, which are not yet part of Europe, to create the Europe of Good together and as equals.
These are the words I wanted to say to Europe, with my belief, my actions, my knowledge, my inheritance and my experience.
Abandon money, aggression, hate, power and all false gods, they spread fear and they do not spread safety, they demolish and don’t build, they take away the present and do not open the future.
Tears, knowledge, work, youth, family, humanity and faith are the true values. Let’s create the Europe of Good upon them!”
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Another great piece of work from Dr Lang.
HALLO, RESPECTED FRIEND!
While in ceremonial silence and gloom of the Zagreb Cathedral, late afternoon 27th prosinca 1993rd photojournalist Globes carefully recorded the striking bearded man uzrelim years, dressed in a festive but modest civil suit with a black tie, a group of believers it was hard to find anyone who is in the form of outright did not recognize the honorary president of the actions White Way Dr. Slobodan Lang. Having come to worship the mystery of Jesus’ birth, they found there, the newly appointed Croatian Ambassador for Human Rights and Humanitarian Action. All they could easily conclude that the famous Croatian doctor, a fighter for peace and human rights, is the right place. In this time of war and death, at the time overwhelmed by hatred, aggression and blood of Dr. Slobodan Lang has become a symbol of hope, peace and good. In some ways, today is impossible to speak about Dr. Slobodan Lang as a distinct cultural phenomenon, which testifies to how the value of each individual, in the end, however much his deeds, not mere words, promises, background, knowledge, beliefs … Works of Dr. Slobodan Lang and his human nature, turned into worthless trash every attempt of various “suspects” that by digging into his (or someone else) biography reveals (horribile dictu) once traditional fanatical fans of Josip Broz Tito and Ivo Lola Ribar Yugoslav Communists. Specifically, when a comprehensive 25-year political and professional discourse Dr. Slobodan Lang read today, and subsequently critically (writing this review, I was pleased to read fifty articles, discussions, open letters, debates and interviews that he was the author), and when reading benefit from a subsequent sense, it provides a biased reader really different, even (mis) porabne, options. First, selection of suitable thoughts, reflections and prophetic anticipation, the analyst would be easy since Slobodan Lang could create brilliant prophet and political genius, who was ten years ago, shocked the atmosphere that is found by visiting the very bowels of the Albanian hell, dropping, as the leader of a group of doctors, at 800 meters depth in the Stari Trg mine, accurately foretold the evil and crimes, but all good things that happen to us last year: the fall of communism, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, war and disaster Albanians, Croats and Muslims. Secondly, in contrast, a similar procedure, the mood would Analyst easily managed, based on the same empirical material, to produce a negative, even demonic, conceptual and political image of Dr. Lang, proving that he was bigoted titoist, militant unitarianist and ardent communist, who humbly believed all communist nitty gritty of brotherhood and unity, the free exchange of labor, non-alignment, class struggle, etc.
Sincerely
I have a great deal and respect for Dr Lang’s insight and knowledge and more so for his commitment to a Europe for good. One has to have respect for anyone who would spread the word and risk their lives as Dr Lang has and could only hope that someday we can all live it and see it.The reality of it is different though and may take a long time for it to change.Europe like the United states and elsewhere have people that do not care about the freedoms or respect of others because greed and power is a number one priority over anything else.From greed and power comes resentment which forms many different responses for different reasons whether it be from repression, to incarceration, death or war.Europe is in a difficult situation that will take a very long time to heal. The EU was formed as a way to collectively add countries to its membership to eventually have all of the countries as states that are controlled by one central power. Such as the individual states in America.This in itself will never allow for the vision that Dr lang has described because in itself there are many people who do not want to lose the way of their life , culture and history which we will all have to give into.As the EU expands many countries will be forced to take in people from 3rd world countries which will only alter the way of life for many and make many changes to ethnicity and religion in many areas that will foster racism and hatred not to mention economic distress for some countries that it will not allow a Europe for good.We have seen a similarity in the United States where people from all over the world live in so called harmony and freedoms. As you can tell that is not really the reality in the USA either.The United States experiment has turned people here against one another for many reasons and has become one of the most violent countries on earth.The United States role in the world of forcing democracy and its so called laws on other countries has turned out to be a disaster not only for the USA but those who are following in the USA footprints as we see the EU is doing.This could possibly become the same for a Europe at large as we see already the way things are brewing in France , Germany., Hungary and other places.Dr Lang’s vision for a Europe of good can be achieved through individual countries only if they are allowed to have their own laws and forms of democracy based on the best interest of the people of that country and what works for them rather than one central government (EU)trying to force its will on all countries as a whole.At some point the EU will have an independent president dictating to EU member states the laws of their land.This will be enough to end Dr Lang’s visions and dreams for a Europe for good especially in the Balkans if we have a Serbian as President of the EU as an example. I do hope someday that the world will have true peace and open borders void of passports, visas etc. and we all become a world of good.
Michael, I agree to a certain extent, but we need voices like Dr. Land to counter the prevailing voices of greed and power. More importantly we need democracy…at least with democracy you have hope that changes can be made peacefully…that people have power and if they take seriously their role in a democracy, people will demand better and will vote for better. The issue is always one of apathy and frustration. People have to be involved; democracy is a ‘lean in’ process not a sit back and tune out process. This is hard…life gets in the way of democracy; people have busy lives and other pressing concerns. But the world has gone through monarchy and empire rule, theocracies, monolithic people power and dictatorships of all political stripes and each has proved to be a disaster. Sure democracy has it problems, but it’s the best of the worst we have. Trick is not to give up.
I agree sunman we need 5 million Dr Langs in Croatia alone for starters
Yes, at least 100,000 to start with, Michael.
If Croatia could just attain in economics a tenth of what it has achieved in sports and academia we would be a economic powerhouse of small nations…I am hopeful that this will soon happen…look at the leading edge electric vehicle technology Croatians have developed (Dok’ing and Rimac) and there are more Croatians with huge talents and ambitions…just give them a chance…after all necessity is the mother of all invention, innovation and economic liberation. We’re a smart hard working people…once we get through this current muck of loser politicians who are beholden to leftist past, and we get a new generation of young, capable and motivated people in leadership positions, look out world here comes the economic Croatian sensation.
Couldn’t agree more Sunman