To really understand global problems, one needs to follow or to become part of the debates which are European or indeed truly global in their scope.
There are many Czech personalities with international reputations willing to share their insights or experience with the Czech audience.
Nevertheless, there are also still too many participants in the Czech public debate who doesn´t feel the need to cross the borders of the narrow local context.
Czech relationship with the outside world has been formed mainly by two events in the last couple of years. The first was the extreme increase in the number of asylum seekers in Europe in 2015. The second is the covid-19 pandemic.
It´s been proved again during both these global events that it is impossible to get the assessment right without information on how the rest of the world thinks and acts.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has confirmed in the most tragic way that what is happening outside the territory of the Czech Republic has a direct impact on the lives and future of its citizens.
One of the best ways how to change the Czech public debate and help to change it into a more international one is to broaden the coverage of global events by foreign experts and personalities.
The main goal of this project is therefore to increase the number of foreign experts whose views will be easily accessible to the Czech general public.
Similarly, the ambition of this project is also to become a platform for Czech experts of international reputation who could help their fellow citizens to better understand the complex reality of the 21st century.
The first precondition for maintaining a democratic state defending the basic rights and freedoms are citizens who can think in the context of these universal values more than in the context of little benefits and local interests.
Only citizens with a good knowledge of what´s going on also in other countries can participate in a never-ending search for a mutual understanding as a prerequisite of the European Union based on principles of solidarity, justice, and the rule of law.
Only citizens aware of the international character of many current events can decide freely and responsibly about the future of their state which has the international dimension in its DNA.
The Czechoslovak state was established in 1918 as a democratic republic inspired by the western democracies to a large extent because there was a man traveling around the world (literally) during WWI with a British passport under the name of Thomas Marsden. For him, there was no problem, to pursue his objective in Paris, London, or Washington, with the same ease as previously in Prague or in his native Moravian Slovakia.
Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was traveling under the name of Thomas Marsden also after the establishment of the Czechoslovak republic. His state does not exist anymore, but his ambition to accept, via the (newly reborn back then) statehood, the responsibility for the future of the whole Europe could be and needs to be carried out also today.
It is essential for the success of this idea to have more foreign voices available not only as an occasional diversification or premium content but as a common part of the public sphere.
