Dear Friends,
Greetings of love and peace from Kuala Lumpur.
At the end of the long first day of this consultation, which began with addresses by the three distinguished conveners – Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, Judge C.W. Weeramantry and Prof. Joseph Camilleri – and ended with an address by the Grand Mufti of Syria, His Eminence Dr. Sheikh Ahymad Badr Al-Din, I find myself both weary and energized. The weariness comes from a long, full day; the energy comes from the many connections I have made and the many insights that are bubbling up in me about URI’s place in an emerging world.
There were far too many words spoken today for me to do an adequate job providing any sort of summary, but I will offer some themes and memorable highlights. As he spoke, I experienced Dr. Muzaffar as a wise, gentle, humble man in a wheel chair with a warm smile and profound insights. In different ways, I could say that (except for the wheel chair) about many of the people I have met here, including the Grand Mufti, who lights up the room with warm and humble smile and gentle manner.
Among the common themes: the urgency of now in this time of foundational and potentially cataclysmic transition in the Earth community; the importance of finding common values; the importance of bringing a spiritual/moral perspective to the urgent issues facing the Earth community; the importance of principled action at all levels – from the highest levels of international policy to the grassroots; the need to move from an economy of greed and casino capitalism to a sense of the interdependence of all life and the judicious use of resources for the good of all not the enrichment of a few; the importance of three-dimensional time – historical obligations, present engagement, future obligations; matching rights and responsibilities; the emerging end of an extended era of western domination; a focus on the oneness of humanity and an emerging global civilization; the importance of matching high vision with deeply practical action.
Seen as a renewed colonialism, the economic face of globalization, particularly corporate power – the power of the marketplace, comes up again and again as a great challenge to the emergence of a new, more just and sustainable world order. One speaker pointed out that some multi-national corporations are more powerful than the countries they work in and asked us to imagine what would have happened if the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had, instead of happening off the coast of the United States, which had the power to hold BP accountable, had happened off the coast of one of the least developed countries. Who would have held BP accountable?
Much was made of the positive gifts religions and ethical traditions have to offer; and of the awareness that for these gifts to be given in a meaningful way these traditions must be in dialogue with each other in humility and mutual respect, seeking both commonality and complementarity in service of our wounded world. Much was made of the gulf between positive core teaching of religions and how those teachings are or aren’t put into practice by the followers of diverse religions.
Given the stated “strong Asia-Pacific” focus of this gathering, it isn’t surprising that speaker after speaker spoke against the deleterious impact Western materialism, with its predatory exploitation of the world’s precious natural resources, unbridled consumption and subversion of core religious/ethical values and principles to the religion of the marketplace. Alone of all the day’s speakers, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser applauded the United States’ role in establishing the UN, promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and helping to rebuild Europe through the Marshall Plan. At the same time, he acknowledged that the US’s standing in the world had been dramatically damaged in the first 8 years of the 21st Century.
It is both a privilege and a challenge to be one of a tiny minority of Americans here, to hear brilliant, heartful, deeply committed leaders from this region of the world offer their candid assessments of the damage institutions from the West have caused and continue to cause; at the same time holding up a vision of the possibility of the entire global community working together, in mutual respect and without one voice or power dominating, to solve the urgent issues of our time.
After a morning of largely inspiring talks, we spent the afternoon in working groups. I spent the first session in the Peace and Security group, but wishing I’d gone to the Environment group instead. The Peace and Security group included only one woman in a group of 17 and seemed to me destined to spend a good deal of time deliberating at the level of academic concepts with a strong tilt toward international law, which in the end held little energy for me and didn’t seem easily connected to URI’s work or spirit. Indeed, a key question for me as I participate in this important consultation, is how to form meaningful links between URI’s grassroots work and the high level of international policy that is represented by so many of the people here.
In the second session of the afternoon I switched to the Environment group, which couldn’t have been more different. The group had a good gender balance, as well as great diversity of religion and country (as had the previous group), and a powerful spirit to match clearly impressive intellects. As I listened to get a sense of how the group was moving forward after the earlier session, I was impressed with how easily the participants moved from highly technical issues relating to environmental damage to deep engagement with the need for human transformation if we are to successfully address these issues – a wholistic approach that matched my sense of URI’s approach to change, and certainly is a match for my personal approach.
Among the issues that were raised: a wholistic approach to development that includes spiritual/moral as well as economic development; land ownership as a source of alienation from and degradation of nature that needs to be examined in the light of community ownership, implying trusteeship for the common good, which reflects the notions of many native cultures; the need for new notions of progress, especially for the least developed nations; the assault on biodiversity; structural greed built into economic systems; poverty as one of many sources of pollution; the unanswered and perhaps unanswerable question of nuclear waste; war as a threat to the environment.
By the time we finished for the day, I felt a deep conviction that we need to seek the Earth’s wisdom to help us out of the crises we have created; and was deepened in my belief that the leadership of women, Indigenous peoples and youth are critical to any positive future we can imagine and aspire to; and that the dominant voices of the past, whether they be governmental, religious or corporate, need to hear the voices not often heard.
At the end of the afternoon, Swami Agnivesh, Kay Lindahl and I took a long walk through a nearby park that we had to reach by cab because the area is so complicated with thoroughfares that we were advised not to try to walk there – a fitting metaphor for the challenges we face in this journey of transformation to a more nature conscious, sustainable human presence on Earth.
A closing image – in his evening plenary, the Grand Mufti spoke of the hundreds of pages of sacred books – the Koran, Biblel, Torah, etc. – and then said that each human being is a page of the holy book being written by God. There are nearly seven billion of these pages. And he spoke of all the holy places and said that if all the holy books and holy places were destroyed, it would matter less to God than the destruction of the life of one innocent child. We need to love God more, he said, and religion less.
I pray this finds you all well.
Love,
Charles
