SI MONTHLY NEWS JULY 2005 Editorial
From SI Exco News
Thank you
Thank you, merci, gracias, tak, takk, grazie, xie xie, aferistopole, asante, danke schön, dank u wel, shukran, shukria, tesshekur, ...............
(with apologies for incorrect spellings where I was going by the sound that I remembered in my head.)
Thank you to all those people who have been sending in such complimentary comments about SI News and Servas Monthly News. They are certainly a motivating factor. Thank you to those who have been sending in constructive comments, these are very welcome as they help me to see in which direction to progress.
Thank you is a common method of appreciation in the European culture. In other cultures it is not necessarily used. Long time ago, when motor biking through Zaire, the track was rutted and many things fell off the bikes. Finally my bike was definitely limping and so we turned round. In every village people came racing out to return our articles, even apologising because the thermos was broken. We tried to thank them and found that this was an insult. We learnt that by saying 'Thank you' it indicated that we did not expect the goods to be returned and so were pleased when they were. It implied that we had thought the people would be thieves. We were humbled at this aspect. We were assured that in the villages they were not like the people in the big town further east. How much one can learn about different cultures and that they have so many good points that are different from our own.
That learning about cultures is a part of Servas. Hopefully we can then apply the good points in our everyday lives.
Expansion
This issue has expanded on the June issue in that we are now starting to look at the eGA - Extra General Assembly - see p 7, Exco has been allocated a slot - see p 7, and Pablo from South America will be starting the Youth Page soon Some pages were not full and so have been put together. They have space to be extended. If you would like to add extra, or just fill the current pages then please send in items. As yet I am not up to taking photographs as I have yet to install broadband. That is the future ........
Is bombing constructive?
Thank you to all those people who sent emails to us in Britain expressing concern about the London bombings. We appreciated your concern.
However, in line with this, we see a lot of fuss made about bombings in London, yet similar abuses of people's freedom are being made all over the world every day. The news shows greater numbers of civilians being killed by irresponsible people in many different countries.
How can we counteract this. I was impressed by an article I read in New Internationalist which outlines people who have the courage to go and talk with people rather than just hitting out at them. NI: 381, Aug 05 p: 9 - 11 Article: The Challenge to Violence. website: www.newint.org (but articles only come up 6 - 8 weeks after print publication)
This echoes the comment made by a 6 year old in a class doing a project on Nepal and discussing the internal wars there. His comment was 'Why do they have to fight, why don't they talk about it?'
Contact
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Jane Giffould,
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