Exceptions, peculiarities, curiousness and minorities, everywhere on the globe, are also determinants of social development. These essential elements contribute to the progress of Mankind and to the evolution of our understanding. For years, experts and academic professionals have been trying to integrate international concepts into schools, companies and communities in general. They introduced things such International Economy, World Geography, History of Southeast Asia and of course English. All these subjects have been integrated into the educational system in most of the countries with only one goal: disapproval of traditional geopolitical divisions.

What actually happened was a result of abstract concepts that only sounded promising on paper or during important speeches given by important people. The international dimensions that young people have been exposed to, proved one thing so far: most of the people accept to learn international matters because they expect that to enhance their chances of achieving their future careers in the fields they have chosen. In fact, in many cases, the knowledge they get to develop is not actually seen as a way to raise their sense of humanity, strengthen their global belonging or learn about other groups of people and all the characteristics that make them different, it is now becoming a tool to actually deal with the different types of relationships people create when they “interact” with other people who are different.

In such cases, people will find themselves able to identify how they need to adjust their behaviour to achieve the so called harmony and intercultural conversation with people from different backgrounds. This example shows that individuals learning about how to deal with each other rather than about each other fits what I have called International Dissonance, which means crossing one’s borders to discover the kind of border itself and not what exists in the other side. This misunderstanding now sets new meanings to concepts like Tolerance, Intercultural Exchange and Curiosity. These new rules are also determined by what we consider is a good culture, a beautiful language, a big country, a strong economy and even a good weather: We like to judge.

The process of reassessing all these unstable meanings is not that complicated. It needs willingness to cross borders just for the pure purpose of feeding one’s naive knowledge and curiosity that will not be used to set new imaginary intellectual borders, but to actually embrace the difference, as it is, raw, unrefined, let it be a part of one’s life, because every place is a good place. It has always been that way. 

#AIK #YAL