My throughs about solidarity – Armend Vojvoda

The month of October was full of events. Since the very first day, I experienced the 2nd wave of Corona, and the new lock-down of society, starting from November, the rise of Corona cases into record numbers, the terrorist attacks in France with Samuel Paty being beheaded, and, today the attack in Nice, and a lot of people talking about Presidential elections in USA, taking place next week, 3rd of November.

Last week was a relaxing week for me personally since me and my volunteering group had a full-week seminar in the Villa Lewin, related to the topics of solidarity and political activism. There were a lot to discuss, and question after question, there came more topics in the end. We talked about solidarity as a notion and a phenomena, in the same month where the most un-solidaric issues occurred, the ones I mentioned above.
And that made me think of where we are going, and how can we address these problems, to make our societies better and safer places to live.

Today, I was walking through Marktplatz, just to meet the activists for support of Armenian so-called “Artsakh” territory, where, except of donating money for people of that place, they were calling also for Artsakh recognition (Artsakh anerkennen), which made my logic blurry. It reminded me of the times when Albanian of Kosovo, called for financial and diplomatic support in Europe, for a freedom fight in Kosovo, events taking place at 1998-99. I just thought of how people in Europe thought about Kosovo, having all the lack of information I had today about the situation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and not knowing what to do, or, who is right and who is not. And how could I know who is right and who is not, with my ignorance on front of the situation, of a land called Artsakh by one side, and Nagorno-Karabakh by the other side. As such, I raised a question on my head, should we be solidaric, also when we don’t know how the real situation is on the ground, should we wait to be clearer, or should we act and help only based on human emotions, and all this reflective question came only to make my logic even more blurrier.

One of a clearer cases about this topic in the last weeks, was the week of LGBT pride days, where people support each other, for the sake of human rights and for the individuality and the right of being free to express yourself, as you feel about yourself. In the midst of all these chaotic events into our societies, LGBT pride gave me hope toward humanity, freedom, and of course, solidarity and clarity on how we should work together in our society, or communities.
As it is the case with LGBT community, that should be the case with our societies, and I say societies, because I refer to the society where me and my family lives in Germany, and the society where I came from, Kosovo, without wanting to separate them. As LGBT persons succeeded to promote the freedom of individuality, and fighting intolerant minds, so should be in Germany, in France, in Kosovo, and all over the world, where these problems may occur, somehow. Because, with globalization the world got smaller, countries border melted-down, and problems of one country always affect others, as it is the case with Corona pandemic, global climate change, rise of xenophobia as a wave, and so on.
We can overcome them only by working together!

Armend Vojvoda