About kosmopolitessa

At the beginning kosmopolitessa was supposed to be a bilingual blog, namely Turkish and German. That was due to my background: I was born in Berlin as a child of a Turkish guest-worker couple.

It was and still is a big challenge not to split my mind between two countries and to accept both together as one sphere, my Turcogerman «Heimat», my homeland. A sort of «Two in one». So I started to write about Turkey in German for the German, in order to let them know about Turkey, and the other way round.

Consequently I wanted to acquire a dual citizenship which was not possible, because Germany did not accept that for its Turkish inhabitants  − until recently.

But somehow it is not only too late in some aspects, now for me it is also too little.

Though it is naturally very important to observe, think and act locally, and nationally,  it is time to step out of the mental boundaries  and to take on a global perspective – and link the local to the global.

This journal is about questions around world citizenship.

What does it mean to be a world citizen? Strained enough with our duties and rights as citizens of just one country, but at the same time with the bliss of belonging to a territory with  clearly defined borders, why should we deal with world citizenship? Are we ought to think about a world state then, too?

And forget about the nation state? Ironically, at a time of rising nationalism and autocracies? Kidding?

Is world citizenship feasible at all? Or even desirable?

I think it is high time to think about world citizenship loudly, now more than ever.

Well, yes, this time in English.