Freigtening last 8 minutes and 46 seconds of George Floyd’s life urged people around the world to express their feelings about so many unfinished businesses (inequalities in access to health, education, opportunities, decent work and decent life).
Black lives matter – it is also a metaphor for all people who are excluded from decent work and decent life, because they are not equal in accessing education, health and opportunities. As an educator, I am always asking myself and others – what I / we can do, to change it. What is impact of my / our activities?
Black lives matter – what we should do, first in our doctoral program ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATIVENESS, then at the J.J. Strossmayer University in Osijek, then in different contexts in which we are functioning in order to make the life for everyone better.
Black lives matter – without being accountable we are losing our credibility, as researchers, educators, doctoral students, professionals.
For me, my desperation and fright is slowly being replaced by optimism, seing how many YOUNG people of all colours in the U.S.A. and across the globe are protesting against inequality and requesting changes (it does not include looting and vandalism). A new culture of civil activism is developing. Our doctoral program should be a part of it, and I CAN’T BREATH should be our message to express the situation when inequalities are choking our lives.
At the end, I have a personal reason to react: the building, in which our Faculty of Economics is located, got 23 direct hits (shellings) during the beginning of the war in 1990ies. And, the world was silent. When shellings started in September 1991, I could not understand how the world was indifferent about the forthcoming war in Croatia. I wrote hundreds of letters to the UN, world’s politicians, religious institutions, non-governmental organisations, with very poor response. I blamed the world for this. And, now, when recent rascist brutality in the U.S.A. is choking our lives and remind all of us about the inequality and exclusion in many places in the world, I cannot stay indifferent, either as an educator, or a researcher, but above all as a responsible citizen.
Our doctoral program ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATIVENESS is from the beginning designed to be international, by students, faculty and research focus. It requires capabilities to learn from differences and to collaborate in order to have impact in our different contexts where we act, by fighting for equality, as researchers and good citizens.
Slavica Singer
