Forum 2000 comes to an aesthetic end
This year's Forum 2000 conference came to an end on Wednesday, after a day-long examination of the role of arts and culture in a rapidly globalizing world. Pavla Navratilova was there, and brings back this report
Wednesday's final panel discussion at Forum 2000 focused on arts and culture, and featured the singer and human rights activist Peter Gabriel, the Czech novelist Ivan Klima and the Croatian writer and journalist Dubravka Ugresic.
Peter Gabriel spoke about his vision of globalisation's impact on culture, focusing upon one of the most heated topics of this year's Forum, the Internet: In an effort to make this Forum practical instead of purely academic, Peter Gabriel made an interesting proposal. The founder of the rock group Genesis called for an interglobal exchange of technology: for each new computer or piece of digital equipment sold in the advanced world, an older piece of equipment should be handed over to nations which lack such resources. He concluded his speech by emphasizing the importance of cultural differences and ethnic divides even in the midst of the global melting pot: The Czech novelist Ivan Klima also focused upon the melting of cultural values:
