Digital re-discovery of culture game of inquiry the physicality of soul

Mícheál Mac an Airchinnigh ; Kalina Sotirova ; Yaşar Tonta

Review of the National Center for Digitization, Tome 9 (2006) no. 1.

Résumé

Politics and Religion are both by nature sociological phenomena. That is to say, both bind communities together. And both divide communities from one another. Both emerge from and colour the Culture of the community. In this paper we focus on culture and religious issues in the South-Eastern part of Europe (SEE), paying particular attention to Bulgaria and Macedonia. The religions in question are, on the one hand Orthodox, and on the other Islam. Issues of conflict which we consider, are schism and its resolution or at least cohabitation, and coercion by the State to give a common identity to all its citizens based on common language or common religion. A digital re-discovery of culture game of inquiry is chosen as the means by which to conduct an investigation into these issues. For this purpose we introduce the avatar, an American of Turkish background from Chicago who wishes to find out more about grandfather Habib Ismail who emigrated from Debre, Macedonia in 1923 CE. This kind of game of the digital re-discovery of culture often begins with a personal narrative called a Backstory. Being played out on the World-wide Web (WWW), the playing needs physical grounding, a physicality of soul. The game was designed and played, and Macedonia experienced as outcome. Following the search of the avatar we are led to discover positive surprises that bode well for religious issues on the Internet.