Dear friends at NOOL,
I still don't know the real reason that made me write this. Perhaps something I saw on TV yersterday, which made me wonder: just after a 30-min coverage about the "end" of war in Iraq, the news changed to a meeting of the Culture Ministers of Brazil and Portugal, on which the first (which is a famous world-known musician named Gilberto Gil) took his guitar and played along with portuguese musicians.
The TV presentor, in the end of the transmission, said "and it is with music, MUSIC that get all nations together, we end this TV News. Goodnight".
And I wondered - and it was not the first time - that MUSIC, indeed, is the trully global language. Even though I'm writing to you in my (terrible) English, I must say that MUSIC is the only legitimate language, and it is a shame I'm expressing myself in words, not in musical notes.
In NOOL, music is the reason that brought together too many persons of different nationalities, different cultures and beliefs. All those races, together in peace, with common and different interests, with an 80's pop band working as a reason for all these exchange of ideas we see everyday on NOOL.
And it is NOT just about New Order. It is about meeting people, and the curiosity of meeting other people, who are different from you. As Mr. Bowie cleverly said:
TURN AND FACE THE STRANGE!!
And that is what we do here. We meet the strange without fear, because we are, WE JUST ARE, human beings. And it does not matter where you live, what gods you believe and the language you speak. People here exchange thoughs and gifts with people that have never seen each other before, just for the pleasure of giving something that HE KNOWS will please him/her: the music that brought us all together here.
The scene of civil irakians beeing killed because they could not understand what the soldiers were saying in english shocked me a lot. And who would we blame? The irakians who didn't understand english? The young american soldiers which were afraid of dying in suicidal attacks? No one can take the blame on that.
I wish I could have a really loud speaker, where I would play some good music to calm the world. I know that sound naive and even stupid, but that's my belief.
I am really glad of being part of this community. I wish I could have written this on every language known in the world. I wish I could express this in music.
Cheers for you all, and let's keep on trying. Alexandre
