2010-09-01
A warm and magical late-summer evening in August 2010: I stand spellbound in front of U2's outdoor stage in the Danish small town of Horsens. Not just because the music sounds even better here than in the living room, but also because the intense front man Bono constitutes a person without borders - neither geographically nor culturally.
On stage he is as convincing informing about Burma's political prisoners as he is talking about how nice it was that his wife could take part of Copenhagen's fashion week during their stay.
It is with the same easiness: from high to low, from east to west, from small to large - the whole world is his source of inspiration and reason for conversation with his audience.
I have heard the rumour that he had been asked to be less political and focus more on the music but right here and now, before this audience, he will get away with everything he says - political or non-political, simple or complex. I struggle in my mind to find the expression and there it is – world citizen. How do you become one?
The (Swedish) Wikipedia links ”world citizen” to “cosmopolitan” and defines it as someone who not only takes interest in their homeland but rather in the whole globe. It is also a human being who is sharing time between various countries and when doing so easily takes on other people's cultural habits.
I think that Bono easily could claim to that but I was taught by the same source that what to me sounded as something to strive for, was not always the case: the word cosmopolitan was also used derogatory – as in “having no fatherland". Luckily it has grown over time into something beautiful and full of empathy and conscience instead.
Today probably no one would mind being called a world citizen if one had the chance? Today travelling, working and living in other countries are possibilities almost taken for granted. And the ability to absorb others, understand others, a must whether it be on a charter to Greece, while volunteer working in Africa, or building business relations in Asia.
Less than 48 hours later at Copenhagen Airport with a giant cup of Starbucks Americano in my body, waving goodbye to a friend who will spend a school year in Hawaii. Over coffee we come to talk about New Year's celebrations this year – my friend will be in Honolulu, the undersigned in Thailand on the way to Vietnam to spend the last part of the maternity leave there. Another friend who is joining in for a last coffee hang out at the airport reminds us that she will be in New Zealand where her husband is from and that the party arranger in the bunch is looking into celebrating in South Africa.
A question about a New Year’s party takes most of my Danish group of friends to all corners of the world. World citizens, probably we all are soon?
On the way home from Kastrup peeking down in the stroller where my son is lying cuddling, unaware of that he will be flying around half of Asia before his one-year's day, it strikes me that you do not need to have Bono's influence and impact in order to be a cosmopolitan.
The important thing is that you have the ability to custom where you come and live with curiosity and an open mind.
Anyone who puts an effort into it can write world citizen on their business card: so can I, so can you.