Poor Europe

What if we changed our paradigms? What if, to start this third millennium, we dared to turn around and make the train of mankind go forward in another direction? To replace the measurement scales, which are too material, too economic, too comparative, by other ones that are less tangible, less quantifiable, at the risk of becoming more challenging and more fruitful…

Which country,which region deserves the first prize in hospitality,in free and friendly welcome? In kindness?

We often contrast "old Europe" with "young Africa", even though we very well know that our ancestors were African. And "rich Europe" with "poor Africa". Where does this idealised image come from? It is harmful for both our continents, because it compares and measures in stereotyped terms the development of our world. If each of us had one or two mobile phones, tablets or cars, would mankind have reached its peak?

The world cannot continue to develop only by means of technological tools and through a material modernism which tends to lock man inside his individualism and to stultify him.

What if we changed our paradigms and judged our Europe on the scale of hospitality and of its welcome of the Other? On its ability to give, share and not waste? What conclusions would we draw? From the outset, without tools or units of measurement, which are essential, we could qualify it as "poor Europe" and, conversely, Africa would rank among the best and would get a better score because, in terms of hospitality, Africa remains attuned to the memory of its traditions and customs, even though, through the lure of material enrichment, it is also losing a little of its original soul.

As for Europe, without a real welcome of the Other, however foreign he is, it is demographically dying,paralyzed with social fear and nervousness, it is looking for itself on the basis of new, non-empirical, particular and non-universal values (the "new rights of minorities"), without nevertheless finding itself.

As a matter of fact, Europe is floundering and is very likely to become more radical.

Let us therefore change our paradigms and rely on the moral and spiritual enrichment of our old Europe. This is our challenge at Josefa, to invite ourselves to a change of perspective, on each other, of each one on the world and its continents, and to amend or give up the tools used to measure "development" the Western way. By means of a mutual welcome and of an agreement on the need for co-integration, the Josefa House aims to be, in its own way, an actor of this societal change.