The soft power that the festivals bring to Scotland and the UK is incalculable - Francesca Hegyi

Today marks the last weekend of Edinburgh International Festival. The bones – and the feet - are a bit weary but the soul is most definitely nourished.

(left to right) Christopher R Wilson, Ashley Mayeux and James Gilmer, from leading contemporary dance company Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform an excerpt from the UK premiere of 'Are You in Your Feelings?' at the Festival Theatre during the Edinburgh International Festival. Photo: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

The question we have been asking ourselves, our artists and our visitors here at the International Festival is ‘Where do we go from here’? As this final week of the world’s largest gathering of the arts draws to a close, we have been challenging ourselves further to consider ‘a perspective that’s not one’s own’. When so much of the world is grappling with shared, profound issues that will likely affect us for generations, such as climate change, the ever-present spectre of war, and mass migration, the opportunity to hear from our colleagues from around the world and to take a little time to understand their views or interpretations of these challenges has perhaps never been more important since the Festival City was founded after the Second World War.

In the preface to the first Festival programme the Lord Provost of Edinburgh wrote that the event would ‘provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit’. The International Festival would focus on finding common ground, on undisputed greatness and in so doing would make itself a safe place to come together. This was achieved most symbolically with the reunification of Jewish conductor Bruno Walter with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Walter wrote:

“I found that from the humane and cultural standpoint it was of the utmost importance and most to be desired that all the ties, which had been torn, should be re-united.”

Francesca Hegyi

Welcoming people who are different to us, or with whom we fundamentally disagree, and finding space to explore and debate difficult and often painful issues is precisely what the International Festival excels at. The festivals are at their strongest when they can host a diversity and multiplicity of views that make us question and challenge our own stances. Artists can go places that our politicians and leaders often cannot, but those leaders can come to listen and to learn. And come they have. We have welcomed ministers, ambassadors, mayors and city leaders, trade delegations, policy-makers and other international festivals from over fifty nations.

Edinburgh isn’t just the world’s meeting point for artists, it’s also a major moment in the international relations calendar. Conversations have been happening all across the city in theatres, concert halls, bars and restaurants with countries who are our friends and allies and also those where perhaps diplomatic relationships are a little more fragile. The Festival offers that essential welcoming and neutral space where we can leave our politics at the door and enjoy and celebrate the creativity and imaginative perspectives of artists who, the world over, offer us a new way to see the world and our shared problems and, through which international accord can be found.

At the end of these three weeks, we have of course seen some of the most astonishing work from around the world, by some 2,500 artists in the International Festival alone including Korea, Hungary, Venezuela, China, Senegal and the USA, but we have also had the opportunity to convene world leaders and influencers, the people who will be shaping where indeed it is we go from here. If then, we can help broaden their viewpoints, expose them to a diversity of influences and thinking, that must be good for all our futures.

Every August, Edinburgh is a crucible of ideas and expressions from around the globe that are all at once illuminating, surprising and at times uncomfortable. The ability for us to welcome and take seriously views and sincerely held beliefs that we don’t necessarily share, is a cornerstone of diplomacy and underpins international relations. The soft power that the festivals bring to Scotland and the UK is incalculable.

For eight decades the Edinburgh International Festival has seen and reflected political and social upheaval and has forged international friendships. An original spark of civic inspiration, a collective willingness to come together and a generosity of spirit has created a gem of soft power that has placed Scotland and the United Kingdom at the forefront of international cultural diplomacy and is respected around the world. It is now up to us all, including the current generation of civic and national leaders on these shores, to support the Festival that inspires and unites in equal measure – a generous an inclusive flowering of the human spirit.

Francesca Hegyi OBE is chief executive officer of the Edinburgh International Festival