Salzburg Global Seminar: The big picture

It was 1947 when a group of thinkers from different cultures and professions first convened in Salzburg, Austria to develop strategies for change in the aftermath of World War II.

After so many years of war and so much destruction, it was a time to reflect on the best way to move beyond the hatreds that caused the war, a reconstruction of the foundations of art, culture and ideas needed to occur that would help the world navigate the way forward.

That gathering in 1947 became known as the Salzburg Global Seminar and it continues through to today.

I spent a week at the seminar in Salzburg, Austria this summer. Coming home to see the U.S. consumed by the debt crisis in Washington and the chaotic ride on Wall Street that has followed and all the distractions of daily life in a time of uncertainty, it is easy to lose the big picture which the Salzburg seminar offers.

And that is the time for students, scholars, journalists, judges and professionals from many different to reflect on big, challenging issues of the day: the inherent inequalities of the global economy; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the Arab Spring; climate change; global media and the digital revolution; and human rights.

It’s a running dialogue that looks to the future.

One morning at the seminar, I had the chance to ask the president of the Salzburg Global Seminar, Stephen Salyer, whether we might be in a "post-war" moment in contemporary history that can be compared to 1947.

The struggles we face today are very different and the “war on terror” is in no way comparable to the enormity of World War II. There is, of course, nowhere near the destruction and the loss of life caused by the military ambitions of Germany and Japan. And because of the nature of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will never really have that 1947 "end of the war" moment that started the Salzburg Global Seminar. So perhaps we’ll have to find our own turning point.

In other words, as we approach the tenth anniversary of September 11th in a year in which Osama bin Laden was killed and the drawdown of troops is underway in Afghanistan and Iraq, isn’t this as good a time as any to gather thinkers from around the world and chart a new course forward, a new framework for dialogue?

“There is a great moment of possibility now, if we have the good sense to show restraint,” says Salyer, who was born in Kentucky and worked for many years in various leadership roles in PBS and was a founder and head of Public Radio International for about 17 years.

“That is, we have to set the stage for the dialogue, but we can’t control it. You have to get people in a room where they can feel comfortable together … We can’t impose change, we can’t write history for people. They have to write it themselves,” says Salyer.

The elegant 18th century palace where the seminar is held, Schloss Leopoldskron, is set on a lake that looks out at the Alps, and everywhere you turn here you feel the weight of history and you’re inspired to think about the great possibilities for the future.

That mix of history and hope is carved into the Rococo stucco of the palace, built by a Tyrolean noble family. It reflects off the grand mirrors of the ballroom where Max Reinhardt, the legendary European theater director who bought the palace in 1918, gathered the world’s leaders of theater, music, writing and art. And it creaks in the hallways where in 1938, the Nazis entered and confiscated the palace as “Jewish property.”

It was not until after the war, and after Reinhardt’s death in America, when it was returned to the Reinhardt family estate. And for a time after the war, occupying American troops were garrisoned at the palace as well. It is famous for providing the setting for the Hollywood classic "The Sound of Music."

All of this history that surrounds the palace provides a much-needed sense of historical proportion to the struggle against terrorism, where the threat is often greatly exaggerated in the media and “framed,” as visiting scholar here Professor Stephen Reese of the University of Texas at Austin would put it, as a “global war on terror,” which in effect makes it an endless conflict.

Salyer says part of moving beyond conflict is re-framing the debate.

“The Salzburg Global Seminar is an American NGO in the middle of Europe that draws people from all over the world to give people room to discuss, a neutral meeting ground where they can come together and encounter values of discourse and the rule of law, but not have to feel that one side is better then another, or holier than thou,” said Salyer.

And that right there is a great starting point for a dialogue about the future, or really any dialogue at all.