After a long COVID break, we brought back an in-person dialogue meeting on solidarity – a topic that is relevant not only now. Once again it took place in the intimate atmosphere of the “U Francúza” bar on Thursday 10 March at 18:00.
Our sixth dialogue confirmed once again that creating space for getting to know dialogue and learning how to “dialogue” is a good path. Perhaps one of the few paths that truly works these days!
At Dialogue Centre we organise dialogue meetings to build our capacity to lead dialogue – that of our DC team and of the regular guests who come to our dialogues. This time it was different – powerful. Perhaps for the first time in our dialogues we found ourselves so intensely face to face with division and the force of emotions that flowed into the “circle” – the participants were Slovaks, Ukrainians and Russians. It was truly powerful, and the shared conversations also brought feelings of deep respect, which was a good and important experience for many of us.
By naming our personal feelings while looking for solidarity between Ukrainians and Russians, we found ourselves facing questions of threatened values, while also creating space for a culture of dialogue despite strongly opposing views – because even when news hurts, in the bigger picture it makes a lot of sense.
One thing is clear: the path of dialogue is not easy and is not at all natural in our culture, but we know it is essential. That is why we are continuing our activities, and Dialogue Centre will keep offering dialogue meetings like this wherever they are needed. Hopefully we will see you at our next meeting soon!