Page 26 - Bulletin, Vol.80 No.2, September 2021

EDITORIAL

By Odette FOUDRAL

It would have been pleasant to have been able to write about
…the birds; alas, the pandemic is still with us. However, there
are articles in this Bulletin that I hope will be of interest to you.

On this occasion I would like to thank our volunteers and the
Committee members who have helped me to keep AFICS
running during this difficult period, and also the UNOG
Administration who allowed us to access our offices.

For the past 18 months, it has felt as if I was making a bad film.

The scenario is bad, the producer is bad and the cameraman
keeps losing what has already been filmed so that we are constantly doing it over and
over again. In disaster movies there is always a superhero who saves the world but we
do not have the means to pay for a Bruce Willis, Jacky Chang or Tom Cruise, so we
struggle on … in any case the film will be a flop and no one will want to have a copy.

On the neighbouring set it is worse; they are shooting a war film and there are no less
than four screenwriters who all want to highlight their version, V.P., T.E., N.M., X.J.
Fortunately the fifth, a certain D.T. was fired. But here too the saviour of the world is
missing and there are only dead children, beaten women and destroyed monuments.

I push another door and, miraculously, the film is about life before. It is beautiful;
everyone is smiling, the café terraces in the sun, the travelling theatre companies that
make the spectators happy. And then I remember, this was the world before.

If one day we find this world again to go together a concert, to be able to kiss a stranger
in the street, I hope we will know that happiness depends on so little. Even a glass of
bad wine can seem like nectar if you share it with friends. I promise to return to the
cinema and the theatre to help the revival of culture.

We will then be able to remember those we have lost without being able to comfort their
families, we can try to clean the oceans of the millions of masks thrown away, we will be
able to rehabilitate those who have tried to manage an incredible health crisis, worthy of
science fiction, but yet very real, when we believed we had mastered it all and could
acquire everything with a bit of money. We can thank the medical staff who gave
themselves tirelessly, and all those who allowed us to eat, who kept our streets clean,
and also, and especially, all the carers who had to face additional tasks and manage the
anxieties of those they helped in addition to their own.

Our special thoughts are also with all our friends in Afghanistan.

Translation Elisabeth BELCHAMBER
Photo: a moment of relaxation with Dario Colombo et Christian David

AAFI-AFICS BULLETIN, Vol. 80 No.2, 2021-09 25