SPEECH OF THE MAYOR OF THE COMMUNITY OF NOVO MESTO, MR ALOJZIJ MUHIČ, ON THE OCCASION OF THE TOWN CELEBRATION IN LANGENHAGEN

Langenhagen, novembre, 14th 2008.

Your honour, Mayor Friedhelm Fischer, honourable community representatives, dear citizens of Langenhagen, dear friends!
Six months ago we celebrated 20 years of friendship and cooperation together in our town, Novo mesto. And now we are here, in your wonderfully picturesque town, in which, as I have noticed today, so many pleasant and hospitable people live.

Town partnerships are like people. The longer connections last the deeper, the more warm-hearted these attachments and bonds become. Because there are ever more memories of joint experiences and activities which we can pride ourselves on. In the case of Novo mesto and Langenhagen, however, much more is involved – namely numerous individuals who have woven threads together from varied areas during this time – in areas such as culture, sport, in social, economic and general areas of society and so on. In addition to this however, we are also connected to each other through the Slovenians who live here in Germany, the members of the Slovenian culture and sport club Krka in Hanover. After all, with the help of this club our attachments have grown even stronger during the whole of this time.

You also helped us in those difficult times when the history of the Slovenian people was written and we had to decide on our national identity and our position. With your help the truth about the war for Slovenia was also spread internationally.

Twenty years ago our predecessors trod new ground in the area of town connections and international cooperation. The aim was however, aligned explicitly, clearly and sensibly. In all the years since we have followed these aims, we have built on them and thus further refined our cooperation. Today such attachments are, in fact, not so rare but these 20 years have set a special seal on our coexistence. It is thus a great pleasure for me that we will once again renew the agreement concerning our cooperation on the occasion of this visit.

And I am particularly pleased that during the whole of this time there has been wide-ranging cooperation which affected more than merely a small proportion of the people. Namely large groups of sportspeople, local officials and musicians, who have set off on the road from Novo mesto to Langenhagen, and who have come in the other direction. In its variety this cooperation has not only occurred in individual areas but also across generations. These attachments have been made between older people and also between the young, because, for example, in April your young musicians visited us in Nova mesto and enriched our celebration on the occasion of the town festival in such an enjoyable way.

This year Slovenia is celebrating several significant events. There are a range of activities on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Primož Trubar, the theologian, thinker and linguist, the father of the Slovenian people. He was closely connected with Germany himself, because he spent some time here and even wrote two books in German. Of course, we are also proud of our EU presidency in the first half of this year. Two additional international events occurred in conjunction with Nova mesto – in October the 21st Military World Cycling Championships and then also the Junior World Karate Championships took place in our town. The participants also included participants from your country. We also had a visit from your senior citizens last month, who got to know our town. And those of them who were revisiting our town were able to reminisce and refresh old acquaintances. This is more evidence for the fact that borders can be taken down between states in sport, culture, economics and other areas. In this way though, a new, joint geographical region is simultaneously being formed in which we, the people from Novo mesto and Langenhagen, are already closely connected with each other.

Dear hosts, your honour Mayor Fischer and everyone else, thank your very much for this invitation to your celebration. I would like to wish your every success for our joint festival, new ideas and of course, the strength which is embodied by the lions on your coat of arms.

All the best!
(ALOJZIJ MUHIČ, Major Novo mesto)