“What is the meaning of democracy?” and “how we can find it in ourselves?” were my questions while getting in to the bus from Wroclaw to Chernivtsi. A normal person probably would be excited, or motivated yet I was grim, sitting in my couch, thinking about 18 hours travelling and the concept of democracy. Human mind is full of wonders, mixing the journey and democracy altogether is something, which you would not even see in most savage and animal minds. But it was a lot of hours in front of me, and my soft parts would not be much suitable for the journey itself. Yet, I was sitting in the bus like an ancient god on his throne, ready for ancient Athenian, or Castoriadis style of democracy.
After troublesome 18 hours, we arrived to the city of Chernivtsi which once belonged to the Polish kingdom. The economical and infrastructure gap between a standard same scale European city and Chernivtsi is massive. It almost makes no sense to see how artificial lines -we call them “borders”- makes this much change in the lifestyle of whole nation. Streets were worn out due to poverty, people were in rush, and life itself was cheap fellows, cheap… Yet it was beautiful, oriental in the European sense. The journey got more colourful and detailed when me and my three companions decided to walk to our hotel. Beautiful and old city was there, existing outside of European sense of “West”, offering the companionship of stray animals for the souls who seek the purity and sincerity among the felines and canines. Streets were tagged with the messages containing traces of civil war, or simplifying and summarizing the beauty of art with three colour graffiti.
After half an hour of walk, the hotel revealed itself finally as a base of comfort capitalism in the suburbs. The group of wanderers checked in the hotel, and greeted with smiles in the faces. The first day was just an introduction day, an opening for the intensive, tiresome yet informative training. Many people, many nationalities, many personalities, were present all existing in one realm, with the different and relative ideas of democracy. Hence it was crucial to teach all those diverse minds the term itself! But, what to teach? What to show? Whose democracy? THAT WAS A MESS!! WHAT SHALL I LEARN?
Since the question and the definition of democracy is changing from person to person, I did not think a proper way to describe this training. Or what I understood of it. There is no universal truth, there is no universal definition, there is no universal unity. If us individuals are happy in our realms, and protecting the rights of Humanity, why to bother with the definitions of the ancient Athens’ definition of elite rich ruling the commons?
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