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Blog February 22: The Opening Speech of ISFiT 2009
Trygve Thorson, Grand Hall, 21.02.2009
__Dear fellow students__
Welcome to the tenth international student festival in Trondheim. Welcome to ISFiT 2009!
Almost 20 years ago, a wall was torn down. A wall that split Europe in two. A wall that seperated neighbours, friends and families for over a quarter-century. A wall at which at least 150 people lost their lifes, trying to get from on side to the other. In november 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.
5 months later, this hall was packed with students from both sides. Trondheim was one of the first cities where students from Eastern and Western Europe met. On april 17th 1990, the first ISFiT was opened.
Since then, ISFiT has continued to bring people together. We have continued to create dialogue between people from differents sides of borders. ISFiT has, since 1990, been a meeting place. A neutral arena, where students come together to work on pressing international matters. A meeting place where student voices are heard, where ideas are born and friendships are made.
Today, we are gathered here for the 10th ISFiT. In this room, we are now students from over 100 different countries. Here, at ISFiT, we are not representatives of a country or a government, we are not representing a religion or a political ideology. At ISFiT, we are all first and foremost students. We are young people seeking knowledge and understanding. In this room, we are 800 individuals, with our own ambitions, thoughs and ideas. Yet, today, together we are what makes ISFiT 2009 what it is. Together, we are ISFiT 2009!
Dear participants: Thank you for being here. Thank you for coming all this way to cold and snowy and dark Trondheim in the middle of the norwegian winter. You are chosen among 4500 applicants from 150 countries. You were chosen to participate in ISFiT 2009 because we believe that you can make a difference.
I know many of you have felt conflict and war, I know many of you have lost people close to you. I am impressed by your courage, your determination and your will for dialogue and peaceful cooperation. Thank you for sharing your time, your thoughs and your experience with us. All we can say is: Merci, Danke schön, Gracias, Arigato, Spatsiba, Obrigado, Asante, Shukran, Takk!
Dear volunteers: without you, ISFiT 2009 would never be possible. Without your tremendous effort we would never be gathered here today. I sincerely hope you enjoy this moment. This is it!
Dear friends, we are gathered here beacause peacebuilding is an international challenge. No one can build peace alone. Jessica from Colombia cannot build peace on her own. Pascal from Burundi cannot build peace alone. Muhammad from Bangladesh cannot build peace alone. Alexander from Germany cannot build peace alone. To build peace, dialogue and cooperation across borders are essential. To build peace, innovative ideas and wholehearted positive attitudes are invaluable. To build peace, a long-term perspective is needed. Here at ISFiT, together, Jessica, Pascal, Muhammad and Alexander can find the ideas that makes successful peacebuilding possible. Together, they can build peace.
We are gathered here today because peace is more than the abscence of war. We are gathered here because we want to contribute to build a future. A future where people can live in peace.
ISFiT 2009 is a peace initiative. Through dialogue between students from the whole world, dialogue between the leaders of today and you, the leaders of tomorrow, we are creating new ideas and fostering understading and inspiration. ISFiT is a starting point for international cooperation.
I hope you will enjoy the program; the workshops, the plenary sessions, the concerts, the theater and dance performances, the art exibithions, the movies and everything else. I also hope you will enjoy the time between the events; lively discussions here at Samfundet, interesting talks during dinner or eye-opening conversations on your way from A to B. And most of all, I hope you will enjoy the combination of all these things. The combination of all our events, and the time between them, is what makes ISFiT what it is. With a diversity of activities we want to make ISFiT one of the most exiting and vital meeting places in the world.
Still, what makes ISFiT such a unique meeting place is not all the activities. It is the people that makes ISFiT unique. Dear participants and volunteers: You make ISFiT unique!
The Berlin wall was torn down almost 20 years ago. During the next days, the only thing we will tear down is our own prejudices, our biased views on the world, and our possible unbalanced and negative pictures of one another.
But, to create new ideas, to create friendship and to create understanding, tearing predjudices apart is not nearly enough. These things need to be build, slowly and carefully. After the Berlin wall fell, the building of the new united Europe started. Dialogue and cooperation across the borders led Europe in the right direction.
Dear friends, during the next days, we will build. We will build knowledge and understanding. We will build lasting friendships. We will build the ideas and attitudes that will shape the future.
For the next ten days I ask you to be open; be curious, ask questions and listen to the answers, and last, but not least: be honest. I know that being open and showing true honesty can be difficult. It demands courage. But dear fellow students, who else got the courage it takes to listen, to trust, to forgive and to cooperate? Who else but students got the creativity and motivation it takes?
Dear friends, remember: we are ISFiT 2009, and ISFiT 2009 is what we make it.
On behalf of 400 voluteers, I hereby declare ISFiT 2009 for opened.
Blog February 17: This it it!
ISFiT 2009 is finally here! I cannot believe that what we have been working for so long is finally coming true.
Days before it all brakes loose, everything seems to be quite under control. We work around the clock to get the last details sorted out, but I feel confident that ISFiT 2009 will truly be the best ISFiT ever.
I am proud by the fact that you can find no less than three Nobel Peace Prize Laureates among our key contributors: Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi and Betty Willams. All three are strong personalities, who have shown great courage in their work for peace, reconciliation and human rights. They are coming to ISFiT to meet dedicated students from over 100 countries, and have a great possibilty to share their thoughs with possible future leaders.
Students from all over the world are now packing their bags to go to north (very few live north of Trondheim!). Everytime I see the Student Society these days, I think about what a thrill it will be when all the participants finally get here.
Artist, politicians, authors, researchers are also preparing their trip to ISFiT 2009 right now. The ISFiT hosts are getting ready to welcome the participants, and the students of Trondheim are planning what events they will attend.
On behalf of all the 400 volunteers, it is a true pleasure to say:
We are ready. Let the festival begin!
Trygve Thorson
President ISFiT 2009
Blog January 26th: Easier said than done
The UN has decided that 2009 is The International Year of Reconciliation, but civilians get killed in Gaza and the international society does not live up to the visions of the UN. Can student’s work for peace and reconciliation make the visions become reality?
War is ineffective
The purpose of The International Year of Reconciliation is that a united international society makes arrangements for reconciliation and lasting peace in troubled parts of the world. The hope is that conflicts shall be solved by using peaceful means.
These are well-intended words from the UN, but they may seem to be spoken to deaf ears. Gaza is on fire, and as in most modern wars it strikes the civilian population really hard. As I am writing this, rapports say that 100 children are killed. Some claim that war is a necessity, a final way out. We can not accept that. There are always alternatives to war, also in the Middle East.
In spite of the fact that most people plead that one can not bomb oneself into a solution, many of today’s leaders are inclined to choose military solutions. Peaceful solutions are turned down, despite that reconciliation and dialogue are, and should be, the safest way to peace. A face to face meeting between enemies can increase the comprehension and respect across conflict borders. With this as a starting point, it becomes easier to create the necessary collaboration between parts in conflict.
Enemies have to meet
Precisely this is the fundamental thought behind ISFiT. 450 students from all over the world come to our workshops to find new solutions for peace and reconciliation. In addition to this, ISFiT has invited students from conflict areas in Israel and Palestine, and also Cyprus and Georgia and Abkhazia to dialogue groups. These students will live close together for ten days in a cabin outside of Røros. The aim is dialogue and exchange of experience, so that the students can change their enemy images and break down prejudice. New relations and friendships are built – reconciliation work in practise.
War is painful, inhuman and ineffective. In February ISFiT and 450 students from all over the world will work to find better solutions for peace. International student commitment is constructive and long-range attempts for peacebuilding and reconciliation. Students are the leaders of tomorrow, and ISFiT aims that not only 2009, but also the years to come, will deal with reconciliation, dialogue and peacebuilding. Year of reconciliation or not, a wide and solution oriented commitment is always necessary to avoid war and the sufferings it entails.
Trygve Thorson
President ISFiT 2009
Blog December 30th: Happy New Year!
”And so this is Christmas, and what have we done?”, John Lennon asked in one of his songs, almost 40 years ago. For 2008, 394 volunteers in Trondheim have a clear answer: we have planned and prepared for the 10th ISFiT – a festival that, by the end of this year, may seem as relevant as at any time before.
As 2008 is coming to an end, the importance of ISFiT 2009 is as clear to me as ever. During the summer, we saw war breaking out in Georgia – one of the areas ISFiT has chosen for our Dialogue Groups. This autumn, the war in Congo reminded the whole world how important long term peacebuilding is in the fragile Great Lakes area. Dedicated students from Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and other neighboring countries are invited to the ISFiT workshops. So are students from Afghanistan and Iraq, where stable peace still proves hard to establish. And, as the last days so sadly has shown us, the eye-for-an-eye politics in the Middle East continues and the violence is taking more innocent lives. Israeli and Palestinian students, living in Jerusalem, will participate in the ISFiT 2009 Dialogue Groups, and students from the region will participate in our workshops. The students of this war torn areas that will be a part of ISFiT 2009 shows a courage, a determination and a will for dialogue and peaceful cooperation that is impressive, and should be looked upon as examples worth following.
2009, and the years to come, need students like this. They bring hope into the new year, despite insecurity, ongoing violence and pessimistic prospects. Without such open and positive attitudes and fearless ambitions, peace will be even harder – if not impossible – to reach in troubled areas.
My strongest wish for 2009 is that we can bring these, and other ambitious students, one step closer to the peace they long for. I hope ISFiT 2009 can contribute by establishing lasting networks and creating knowledge and ideas for broad and wholehearted peace building. I hope ISFiT will inspire and motivate students, and others, to work hard towards their ambitious goals.
We do not know what the next year will bring, but we know that determined students can be an important driving force behind positive change around the world. Let us hope that 2009 will show how far we can get if we work together. I hope that we, when 2009 is over, can look back and see that John Lennons question is easy to answer.
I wish all fellow students and friends all over the world a happy new year!
Trygve Thorson
President ISFiT 2009
Blog December 7th: 394 volunteers and an archbishop
It’s been quite a while since I last wrote a blog post. It is certainly not because nothing has happened, to be perfectly honest, it is precisely the contrary. During November a 100 more volunteers have joined, and the organization team is now complete, counting 394 volunteers.
Around the world the participants are now planning their trip to Trondheim. From Albania to Zambia, from Bahrain to Uruguay, students are getting ready for the ISFiT experience. Back in Trondheim, we do our best to assist, and to answer every question.
Some weeks ago, we had the pleasure of announcing one of our key speakers. It is truly an honour that Archbishop Desmond Tutu will open the 10th ISFiT. To me, Desmond Tutu represents key aspects of what ISFiT 2009 wishes to focus on: peace, reconciliation, dedication, commitment, dialogue. With the unique experience and the wisdom the archbishop brings with him, his contribution to ISFiT 2009 will certainly be among our highlights. In June, we received the good news that Tutu would like to come. Since then, it’s been hard keeping it a secret, and I am glad it’s finally out in the open. To learn more about Desmond Tutu, check out www.tutu.org or www.nobelpeaceprize.org.
Desmond Tutu is one of three Nobel Peace Prize laureates who will visit ISFiT 2009. To know who the others are, you have to keep your patience and keep checking www.isfit.org. In the weeks that remain until our festival starts, this blog will be updated much more regularly, I promise. Keep reading!
Trygve Thorson
President ISFiT 2009
Blog October 23rd 2008: Passing milestones
The ISFiT 2009 organization just passed two important milestones on our way to February 20. The first exciting event to happen was that around 220 new volunteers joined the ISFiT organization. We are now more than 280 eager and ambitious students planning and preparing for the 10th ISFiT – the best ISFiT ever. To see all our new members gathered in Samfundet’s Grand Hall was a thrill. ISFiT 2009 is now moving to another level.
The new volunteers bring in fresh ideas, energy and wholehearted commitment. It goes without saying that things are now running in another gear than before. As autumn is tightening its grip around Trondheim, we are steadily increasing our pace, and the key features for the festival program are getting ready – one after the other. Seeing the festival really coming into shape is quite an inspiration – to say the least. Quite a few of our dreams seem to come true, but we are still keeping our cards close to our chests. The speakers, the artists and the other contributors that will give colour to ISFiT 2009 are yet to be announced, so stay tuned!
However; the ones that give the most colours to our festival are the participants. At ISFiT the young, promising leaders of tomorrow will meet, to build international networks, develop ideas for the future, learn and have fun. Which leads me to the second milestone; our application deadline has now passed, and we are currently reading through all the applications! Thousands of students from all over the world have applied, and in a short month a few of them will be invited to take part in our workshops. Seeing their dedication towards ISFiT and our main topic is inspiring and interesting. To be able to give these motivated and engaged students the chance to meet, learn and get to know each other is truly an honour.
Trygve Thorson
President
Blog 25. aug 2008: Six Months To Go
In a little less than six months, 450 students from all over the world will be arriving Trondheim, Norway. For the 10th time the city will be hosting ISFiT.
As you can see, isfit.org has a brand new layout. I hope you all like it in its new shape. In the weeks to come, a lot more will be added to the site. This blog will from now on be updated regularly. By reading it you will get a glimpse of ISFiT 2009 behind the scenes, and get to follow the preparations for the worlds biggest international student festival with a thematic focus. I will write about the challenges we face, the goals we reach, and share some of my thoughts with you, on the way towards ISFiT 2009. I hope you enjoy reading it.
As ISFiT 2009 is coming closer, our festival is developing faster then ever. A lot of planning and preparing has to be done within the next months. Right now, 62 student volunteers are working hard to ensure that ISFiT 2009 will be an unforgettable experience. In a few weeks, over 200 more students will join the organizing team. Without the tremendous commitment of the students of Trondheim, ISFiT would never be what it is today.
This summer, I have been lucky enough to visit two other student festivals, both closely related to ISFiT, Gristuf in Greifswald, Germany, and ISWiT in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Both festivals draw inspiration from ISFiT. Participating in these festivals was great experiences, enriching and inspiring. And they both ended up proving one of my most fundamental beliefs: Through dialogue and cooperation we can increase our knowledge and understanding, about others and about ourselves. What we as students seek can not only be found in books and through lectures. Being a student is also about learning through experience.
During one of the many presentations at ISWiT, one of the key speakers quoted Kwane Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, who once said: ”We face neither East, nor West; we face forward.” Today, I believe the quote in not only suitable for Africa, but for students all over the world. We can only focus our resources in one direction: Forward. Together.
With six months to go, and great memories from the festivals in Tanzania and Germany, I am looking forward to ISFiT 2009 more than ever. I hope you do the same.
Trygve Thorson
President ISFiT 2009
