THE ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT TOPI TO THE EIGHTH SAMIT OF SOUTH-EAST EUROPE HEADS OF STATES ON THE CULTURAL CORRIDORS “Music as a metaphor of the cultural dialogue”.

 

June 23rd 2010
Istanbul, Turkey

Distinguished President Gül,
Distinguished Mrs. Director General of UNESCO,
Distinguished colleagues Presidents,

When I received the invitation to participate in this Summit of the cultural pathways with the significant theme “Music as a metaphor of cultural dialogue” that is held here in Istanbul, the symbolic city of the presence of early civilizations, I admitted to myself that, our musical pathway is one the historic pathways of communication that has remained unconditional among us. It was never closed.

I would like to extend my gratitude for the hospitality and perfect management of this important meeting with full faith that its message will be a leitmotif of our countries and peoples in order to increase their cultural dialogue not just in form but also in time.

This spiritual pathway: invisible in first look, but wonderful, multicolor, multiform, multi-subject and diverse, established by our peoples for thousands of years, kept alive by singing, dances and musical instruments, always has excited and kept us connected in the most difficult times, times when reason was missing and in its place there was force by mistake.

Observing beyond the diversity of languages, colors of costumes, rhythm of dances and the different kinds of musical instruments, in all our countries, a part of the large world, the peoples inserted in their folk music, in this cultural inheritance, a spiritual matter that is irreplaceable for the continuation of human life, even more so, it is an “artistic food” produced by peoples for people, through the language world wide of musical sounds.

In my country, in Albania, there is a folk wise saying that says: “Songs and fairytale have no God”. I believe that its true meaning is found through the way that a musical work is created, through a long and difficult artistic process, which involves hundreds and thousands of people, during a time limit that extends in tens and hundreds of years.

This process, human and artistic in the same time, uninfluenced from political climate or systems, hides in its depth the creation of musical language as a measure of communication and as a culture of peace, after music and popular songs especially, are transformed slowly, through the language of sounds, also in cultural symbols precious for the identity of peoples and our countries.

Our peoples have fed on through this multitude of musical traditions and continue to do so on the cultural diversity as the heart of life and humanism, they have raised the pathways of communication and friendly relations between different communities and have culturally dialogued with other neighbor countries, or even wider.

A clear proof of this crown of values established by our peoples is also the fact that our region has a number of major attractions well known world wide through UNESCO recognition as “Masterpieces of oral and spiritual inheritance of human kind”

Such artistic folk musical masterpieces as “Albanian Folk Iso-polyphony”, as well as others of our peoples and nations which are realistically transformed in stations of our cultural inter-regional pathway of communication, now through our music as common spiritual inheritance. These musical masterpieces stand there very simply, without any concrete names of authors that have established them, but more like artistic testimony that come with the names of our countries, as such are able to prove that our artistic humanism is also able to make valid masterpieces for all of human kind.

This extraordinary mosaic of cultural values is not threatened or deformed, instead it is enriched and redecorated, especially when it frees our peoples from prejudice and political ambitions and even more so from the objectives for hindering universal processes of development and integration towards the freedom of soul and values. That is how I consider it, dear colleagues, the unstoppable process of independence and consolidation in the Republic of Kosovo, as a undeniable contribution of our ancient spiritual inheritance, cultural and musical, which is being added with multi-dimensions and with undeniable value of ethnic co-existence.

The Republic of Kosovo is an example for us and for the coming generations of how we should not remain hostage of the political past but should become part of the joint future through the support of the spirit of tolerance and search of inheritance that united our peoples towards their inevitable fate.

That is why, dear Presidents, in the musical range of our region, the mark from Kosovo is so demanded and necessary for the ears and minds not just of our peoples but also for the institutions towards which we have decided to advance, by enriching them with values of our inheritance for which we should all be proud.

At last, I personally believe even more in the power of the human spirit, than in the physical force of the body. Moreover, the force of the spirit expressed through music is one of the golden treasures that our peoples have created in hundreds of years and that today, I find a special occasion to invite all others to go through our spiritual pathway of communication, which is nothing but: our joint spiritual inheritance, in function of peace, democracy, cooperation and tolerance.

Thank You!