Context

In the reality of the tensed relations in the state that might escalate into a war, it might looks absurd to deal with possible strategies for cultural development of the Republic of Macedonia. But it should be said straight a way that, among others, the way on which we are dealing with one important theme of our society development might influence on the above mentioned relations, in direction of calming it down or in direction of offering broader cultural or intellectual perspectives for some other essential strategic issues which our country is facing.

The necessary changes that should have happened in the past 10 years mainly passed us by, and especially in the sphere of culture, that in many ways should be the precursor, the avant-garde, ("reconnoitering party") for the more radical opening of the society, outside and inside, serving as an important integrative and cohesive factor in the broadest sense.

In the contemporary understanding of the culture, it has more and more relations with the community, with the most immediate social surrounding, it is connected to the municipalities, schools, minorities of all kinds - handicapped, poor; on the other side there is a strong trend of turning the culture into industry, that for example makes EU to pay more attention and trying to be compatible to the powerful American cultural industry (movies, music, etc.). Macedonia is mainly outside of those trends, persistently holding itself to an old and outdated cultural model that is facing a complete collapse in the past few years. It is a reason more for the urgent need of creation of a strategy for cultural development.

One of the main goals of this civil initiative for preparing possible strategies for sustainable development of the culture is to stimulate the dialogue, to strengthen the democratic culture and the culture of the democracy, and not the switch to a political decision.

In this preparatory phase of our work and before we more precise articulate the main goals, it is necessary to accept a principal point of view that might be of use in the light of the enhanced democratization; ensuring of the pluralism of the cultural orientations.

That is and will be the starting point for us, and a goal toward which we are and will try to focus on. Reason more for defining this issue here is also the fact that our society is really complex and in this moment its vowing is composed of many different and colorful parts. This difference, according to us, is our treasure and one of our basic development resources. Republic of Macedonia is not an isolated island and in front of us, in all version, there are strong and sometimes dangerous cultural interference's, which in other words could be called as "fight among people in the filed of culture".

Initiator of this civil initiative is PAC Multimedia that in the last two months created working body composed of: Nikola Gelevski, Saso Bogdanovski, Violeta Simjanovska, and Biljana Tanurovska that is working in coordination with the advisory board (composed of 12 people), and is coordinating the activities at the beginning phase of the work (6 national and two regional debate sessions connected to the sustainability strategies of the cultural development). In this initial phase of this initiative (organization of all of the preparation meetings, debate sessions…) the whole logistic and organizing is coordinated and organized by PAC Multimedia.