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Activism | Living consciously.
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The leader of the world’s richest and most powerful nation has already clearly indicated in his previous four years that he is no biophile. But it is not our place to hate him; it is for us to find ways to minimise the damage he and his minions seek to wreak. It is for us to build a better system from the bottom up, just as we must simultaneously work to make redundant the destructive system he and his wish to impose upon us.
You see, as soon as we let this get personal we diminish our own humanity and our own personal integrity. And once we give that up, we have nothing left. More importantly we lower ourselves to the same level as our opponent. We use the same primitive, violent male energy.
In order to transcend this we have to move away from the energy that is both causing and perpetuating the problems and tensions that manifest in the world. In order to properly interface with the world we have to restore the balance between male and female energy. This has been lacking since the demise of the cult of the goddess, some 8000 years ago, in western civilisation.
In order to deal with the massive problems we face, we have to turn things around. Instead of opposition and power, we move toward flexibility and inclusiveness; instead of violence and aggression we shift our focus toward peace and understanding. By so doing we disarm and undermine the very aspects of power that the present imbalance perpetuates. We create spaces to move ahead in far more creative, innovative ways.
Certainly we face some serious challenges with four more years of that misbehavin’ Bush boy. But the neo-conservative corporate pillaging of the US economy for their own narrow ends may just backfire and cause the whole system to come tumbling down around their ears. As a US commentator, Charley Reese, recently wrote, he ‘sees a storm a-coming’. In order to protect yourself he urges that you get out of debt and stay out of debt. This would be equally good advice for those who are trying to run an empire under false pretences, but lets not tell them, okay?
The US leadership is in a real bind, even if all the indications are that they utterly fail to perceive the hole into which they have dug themselves. It is not just the war in Iraq and against any other axis of evil; it is more that the US economy and its people are mired in debt like never before. The global, US led economic system is teetering on a precipice that it may or may not fall into.
If the system does crash it could put 1932 and the great depression to shame. But it may just be necessary to have to endure the collective hardship of such a fall in order to redeem our collective humanity and to rebuild a co-operative future. Perhaps this could provide a catalyst to re-establish our links with the natural systems to which we are intrinsically linked. It may be one of the only ways available to save ourselves from ourselves.
But this is all mere speculation; if it fails to happen, what other options are open to us? How do we deal with our present challenges?
Short of relying on cliché and homilies, a great place to start is to work on the maxim of think global, act local. And it’s not just a matter of talking about the problem, something we do an awful lot of in South Africa. It’s about putting concepts and ideas into action.
Many problems we face lie at the global level of governance. The Washington consensus, the WTO, World Bank and other undemocratic multilateral organisations all conspire against the public interests, despite vague statements to the contrary. The US, the UK, the EU as a whole, the entire Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the so called First World Nations, the rich of the world; all of these wish to only enter into agreements that stand to further benefit themselves in monetary or economic terms. It therefore follows that they wish to ensure our part of the world never reaches its full potential, so that it maintains its dismal and unequal status quo.
The developing world is the producer and supplier of cheap raw products and it has historically been prevented from adding sufficient value to dig itself out of its hole. For instance; Britain destroyed India’s burgeoning textile industry in the 19th Century, when it was challenging Britains own. Although most of the worlds cocoa is produced in West Africa, not a single globally recognised brand of chocolate has facilities based in that region.
Coffee producers around the world get less than the price of a cup of coffee on Mainstreet USA for each kilogram of beans they produce. Most of the profit goes to the multinationals; Nescafe and Nestle are prime examples in coffee and cocoa respectively. This Swiss based multinational is the worlds biggest food company; this from a nation that is too small to produce much at all as far as feeding the world goes. Instead it relies on skewed international trading agreements to cut its cloth.
It is essential that the developed world produce and market products that add sufficient value to keep us ahead in the trade game. Why should we be buying milk from a Swiss company, for instance? Is there something wrong with our own milk? If we do not change this, we are destined to remain nothing more than a cheap supplier of goods and services for the already rich, with no end in sight of emerging into the light and warmth of our collective sun, of shaking off the chains of debt that continue to enslave us all.
The first step to rectifying this imbalance and correcting the proportion of wealth that stays in developed nations is to institute proper democracy, on a global level. George Monbiot, in his recent book ‘The Age of Consent’ clearly sets out a path to achieve this end. He explains in detail how we can regain the global, individual democracy that has been usurped by the worlds monetarist powers, like the WTO, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as by transnational corporations.
Monbiot points out how what passes for modern democracy is really a sham. Conspiracy theories aside, it appears from all accounts that there was a lot wrong with the most recent US election. Globally, things are no better; for any attempt by a dissenting nation to try to break the pattern of dominance and neo-colonialism is swiftly crushed by well-funded interests.
We must also demand transparency. When, for instance, our government enters into bilateral and multilateral agreements with other nations and trading blocs, we must demand public oversight of those documents. Such important agreements cannot be kept secret and must be commented on by knowledgeable people and institutions, so we can see what is being agreed in our collective names.
We must watch out for symptoms of corporate take-over of, for instance, our water services, of transport infrastructure, of government supply and of public and private services by transnational corporations. If we look at what happened to an estimated 10, 000 jobs at Telkom and more at Iscor when they were sold off to private interests, we can see the potential for further hardship.
These two companies, built on the sweat and taxes of our people, now monopolistically charge the maximum rates that they can for their products. This is not in our collective, national interest. We are allowing ourselves to be robbed twice, in each of these examples. And things could get worse if we do not remain vigilant.
And this leads to another major problem. That the majority of us have urgent matters of survival to deal with on a daily basis. We feel that we lack any capacity to become as involved as we should with these complex and apparently far-removed realities.
We are constantly made to feel that we cannot do anything about the reality we are in, usually by the very institutions that have it in their interest to maintain the status quo. But we can become the change we want to see.
We make choices every day about what we purchase, what we do, eat, listen to and consume. By making each and every of our decisions about how we interact with the world a conscious one, we are going some way to living as aware, responsible members of an interdependent society.
For instance, we may choose to buy something we need for price alone. But it is incumbent upon us to decide, firstly if we really need the product and our purchase is going to have damaging consequences on the world. And secondly, whether it would not be a wiser choice to pay a premium to purchase an alternative product that has less of an impact, that may last twice as long or may be made in such a way that the benefits are more fairly distributed.
We can make a difference. But we can only make a difference if we are aware of what we do. To be an activist it is critical that we live consciously. Only by realising our impact on the world and only by taking active steps to reduce that impact can we embark on a sane and rational path toward becoming better planetary citizens.
This is a heavy burden, certainly. But it is one we should bear with joy, with hope for the future and for our children. We can change the future; determined people are the only creatures that ever have.
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