
Writing for world democracy
Globalism dulls variety. Internationalism unifies features..
Democracy drives American might. Crearivity fuels democracy
Globalism is a scary word for many around the world. Both the concept and reality bring up images of giant corporations bulldozing forests and carelessly killing with oil spills. But a global world doesn’t have to be this way. Democratic values can calm both reality and fears.
Internationalism calms those fears. It highlights national identies of the world’s 200 countries and draws similaries between wide-ranging cultures. It makes friends among the spectrum of global societies from commerce and politics to local communities. It promotes cooperation to make a workable world with transnational corporations that care about people. Internationalism does all that by fostering creativity, the lifeblood of civilization itself.
By the 21st century, creativity has been subsumed by technology. Invention translates into money, the traditional driving staple of America. But money easily comes and goes with clicks to social media sites. Those sites and platforms mushroom overnight only to disappear with the next daylight. Grounded in the classics of comparative literature as learned in the highly esteemed Indiana University department devoted to that study, Fogarassy overlooks the ephemeral and follows the wisdom of William James, America’s first psychologist and brother of more famous Henry, a chronicler of European-American differences.
“The art of wisdom,” wrote older brother William, “is the art of knowing what to overlook.” 150 years later with the world global, Fogarassy adds that such wisdom is augmented by what to notice among the overlooked.
Hungarian-American Fogarassy is a writer whose creativity in life is the subject of her work, In fiction, nonfiction, education and commercial work, she writes in the classical sense of searching for truth and telling it the way she perceives. At a seasoned point in a life of harrowing scrapes, she has concluded that trust is the most precious commodity on earth.
Much as technology has been a great blessing for efficiency, it has done damage to the human spirit. Machines don’t address the anguish of an American finding no human to answer a question about a mystery credit card charge. It doesn’t help bolster confidence in the company when it hides from human contact. Internationalism looks for ways to build the connection reinforcing trust..
The wisdom of Fogarassy’s experience comes mostly from trial and error..Born in Hungary, she changed countries three times at a formative age when her family fled from Communism after the heroic revolt against the Soviets that failed. Ukraine now fighting Russia to prevent a return to that ugly past is gripping to Fogarassy. But Ukraine’s courage and tenacity in fighting injustice are well familiar to her. It reflects her attitude toward having her work recognized in the great land of opportunity.
“I hate to write but I love to have written,” have said many writers including the oft-quoted anonymous. Writing a novel is a torturous experience. Success at the end when you know you could have done better.
Still, you know the completed novel is good based on your compare and contrast experience. When the work finds no home because it doesn’t fit with prelaid plans, you begin the next even better book. That is the same process Ukraine now undergoes in its fight for recognition of its integrity. It is the process that all evolving entities, whether individual or national, go through in order to be better than they were.
Ukraine’s courage in resisting oppression has united allies across the Atlantic and beyond in Australia, South Korea and Japan. That alliance came together and stays that way under America’s lead. Perhaps it is a reminder of America’s own courage in fighting for freedom 250 years ago, a fight that continues in concert with the world after a near coup almost toppled democracy.
Like swing states in the election preceding the attempted coup, swing countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America await the outcome of the Russian invasion. America’s engagement is crucial for the future of democracy and creative freedom that young people the world over seem determined to demand
All of Fogarassy’s book length works deal with aspects of the international experince. From the glitz of Trump Tower to the majesty of the United Nations, she has worked independently within ironclad rigors. To her. the destrction in Somalia was little different from that in post-war Eastern Europe where Russian Soviets were in charge rather than Americans with their Marshall Plan. Those in turn were very similar to the ruin of Gary Indiana after abandonment.
In all those works, whether fact or fiction in form, people in all their glory of contradictions play the central role. Beyond culture and circumstance, all people to her are a stage for a duel between beauty and the beast, ready for the freedom to gallop with others the world over.
Light of a Destiny Dark, for example, is a real life novel about life in Hungary during WWII and under Soviet Communism. It is a portrait of the dark period when Eastern Europe was behind the Iron Curtain. While much has been written about the Holocaust for self-evident reasons, little is known about how people in general dealt with air raids, bombs and starvation followed by Soviet class rotations and purges. The novel puts the kibbosh on the Putin view thaat the end of the Soviet era was a great tragedy.
The way to avoid a repeat of such a tragedy is outlined in The Midas Maze, a fun novel about the United Nations global web personized through an American writer married to a Chilean diplomat. Bureacracy is the lead character, as it is in her nonfiction memoir about the intervention in Somalia, Mission Improbable, the world community on a UN Compound in Somalia.
To Fogarassy, bureaucracy is the bane of growth, its necessary evil to be tamed. The drop-out alternative stars as the main character in Mix Bender, a Magic Mountain-themed novel in which Mix is trapped on a Caribbean island paradise. Written before the latest climate disasters for small islands around the world, the novel shows the liberating effect of culture in small islands now pleading to be saved. .
In short, bread lines, stern schooling, missing parents and sudden tanks in the town square may all be wholly alien to Americans, but so are the experince of helping hands delivering cartons of American cheese with chocolate on the side for kids
America is a grand country finding its way in a global world. Internationalism is one path for getting there.
Like people, countries work better when their value is recognized. That recognition starts at home, extends to the community and goes as far as it can and wants beyond national borders. Those who’ve made the jouney will attest to its satisfactions however far they’ve gone.
Wow Helenfogarassy God bless you for speaking out and to let the world know our challenges and suffering
Anonymous but not alone & not unnoticed. Good people all over the world are in this struggle together. No person likes being trampled upon. Takes couageous nations to stop it globally. Cheers & God bless.
Helen! Your commentary is very insightful and intuitive! Perception is a limitless source of understanding of what lies before us!
Bless your heart, Bruce. Takes one to know one. Keep spreading the message. It’ll breaks the sound barrier. Cheers to all.
Helen! Please continue to be the voice of conscience! America and the world are striving to heal from the abuses that we suffer!
Bless your heart, Bruce. Takes just two to get the ball rolling. Cheers.
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