Interdependence Day in Scranton Features a Call for World Unity
Elzbieta Matynia asked her audience Monday night to imagine a world with a “new breed of citizen” – people whose responsibility to each other transcends any single nation, religion or culture.
The idea might be naive, but it is “justified given we are living in perilous times,” she said.
Dr. Matynia, a sociology professor at the New School in New York City, was the keynote speaker at Interdependence Day 2010, an event created to foster unity and tolerance in a post-9/11 world.
About 160 people gathered in Scranton at the William J. Nealon Federal Building to hear Dr. Matynia speak.
Also during the ceremony, local residents who traveled to Haiti to help after the earthquake in January were recognized for their public service. Those honored included Tim and Patricia Rowland, Scott McKenna and John Doherty.
Rose Broderick, the event’s co-chairwoman, also presented an Interdependence Award to Dr. Robert D’Alessandri, president and dean of the Commonwealth Medical College, whose community leadership Ms. Broderick said embodied the day’s ideals.
Co-chairwoman Kate Holod said the event’s purpose was to raise awareness.
People should celebrate “what we ought to do to get our world together,” not merely recognize what is tearing the world apart, she said before the ceremony.
Dr. Matynia, director of the New School’s Transregional Center for Democratic Studies, spoke about her Eastern European roots in formerly communist Poland and her pride today being an American. But the concept of the nation-state might no longer be the answer for peace, opportunity and prosperity, she said.
She spoke of a “post-national yet democratic world” and the lessons that can be learned from borderland areas, where people and cultures overlap. Diversity and cross-cultural conversations do not solve every problem, but they are important to building bridges across differences, Dr. Matynia said.
“I do believe in the power of exchanged stories,” she said.
Contact the writer: jburton@timesshamrock.com
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