News Archive
01/02/20Message from Prof: Dr. Reinhard Kuhnert - Schwäbisch Gmünd
Dear Friends,
Next year our twinning will have lasted for fifty years, so it is older than Britain joining the EU in 1973, and I am not sure whether it was the essential reason for our twinning to last that long.
There is more substance because it all started with a Gmündian youth group stuck in Wales because of BSE. The roots of friendship lie deeper.
Our Remszeitung newspaper today confirmed your commitment to the Schwäbisch Gmünd link beyond Brexit Day. A wonderful message! It filled us with joy once again.
It reminds me of John Donne's famous poem: 'No Man is an Island'
No man is an island entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main,
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were, any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
You may also spell "Island" as "I-land", the land of me alone. This never worked nor works. We need each other,
but whether we need the EU in its present form to make this come real is doubtful.
Our I-lands cooperated before, friendship is older than that.
So, let us not look back in anger and let us not look forward in fear, but let us look around in awareness.
Next year we celebrate our golden twinning jubilee. Let us make the world shout "Glory, Halleluja!
your old friend
Reinhard Kuhnert
