The Nativity of yesterday: always new

24/12/2011 Leonardo Boff1 comentário

I am from a time, the 1940s, when Santa Claus had not yet arrived in his sleigh. In our Italian, German and Polish colonies, explorers of the Concordia region (Santa Catarina), known as the site of Sadia and Seara, with their good meat products, only the Baby Jesus was known. Those were times of ingenuous and profound faith, that informed all the details of life. To us children, the Nativity was the culmination of the year, prepared for and eagerly awaited. The Baby Jesus would come at last, with His little donkey (musseta, in Veneto) bringing us presents.

The region had pine groves as far as we could see, and it was easy to find a beautiful pine tree. We adorned it with rudimentary materials that are still being made in that region. We used colored and cellophane paper and paintings we ourselves would make at school. Mother would prepare cookies with different figures of humans and small bugs, which we hung from the branches of the pine tree. On top of the tree there was always a large star, wrapped in yellow paper. Below, around the tree, we put the Nativity Scene, made of paper figures cut from a magazine to which my father, a school teacher, subscribed. There was Good Joseph, Mary, quietly withdrawn, the Magi, the shepherds, the little sheep, the ox and the donkey, a few dogs, and the singing angels that we hung from the lowest branches of the pine tree. And, naturally, in the middle, the Baby Jesus. Seeing him almost nude, we imagined him shivering from the cold, and we were filled with compassion.

We lived the glorious era of the myth. Myths express truth better than pure and simple historical description. How can one speak of a God who becomes a child, of the mystery of the human being, of salvation, of good and evil, other than by telling stories and offering myths that reveal the profound meaning of the event? The stories of the birth of Jesus that are in the gospels contain historical elements, but to emphasize their religious meaning, they are told in mythical and symbolic language. To us children, all of that was truth, that we accepted enthusiastically.

Before receiving their thirteenth salary, the teachers were given an extra Nativity bonus. My father spent that money on gifts for his 11 children. They were gifts that came from far away, and they were all instructive: a pack of cards with the names of important musicians, of famous painters, whose names were hard for us to pronounce, and we would laugh about their beards, their noses, or of any other detail. A gift that was very successful: a box with materials to build a house or a castle. We older children, who were starting to participate in modernity, got a jeep or a car moved by cord, or a wheel that sent sparks when moved, and other similar things.

So that there would be no fights, each gift had written below the name of the son or the daughter. And after, the negotiations and exchanges began. The irrefutable proof the Baby Jesus had passed by our house was the disappearance of the bundles of fresh grass. We would run to prove it. And it was a fact: the musseta had eaten it all.

Now we live in times of reason and debunking of myths. But that is only true for adults. Children, who now have Santa Claus instead of the Baby Jesus, live in the enchanted world of dreams. The good little old man brings presents and good advise. Since I have a white beard, no boy or girl who walks by me fails to call me Santa Claus. I tell them that I am not Santa Claus, but his brother, who comes to see if the children are doing as they should, and after that, I tell everything to Santa Claus so that he may bring them a nice present. In spite of that, many doubt. They come close, touch my beard and say: No, you are the real Santa Claus. I am a person like any other, but the myth makes me be a true Santa Claus.   If we adults, children of criticism and myth debunking can no longer be enchanted, let’s allow our sons and daughters to be enchanted, and to enjoy the kingdom of fantasy. Their existence will be filled with meaning and joy. What more do we want from the Nativity, than those precious gifts that Jesus also wanted to bring to this world?

How to Govern Seven Billion People?

17/12/2011 Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

We dealt last week with the challenge of feeding seven billion people. World population is growing at an ever increasing pace: we were one billion in 1802; in 1927, 2 billon; in 1961, 3 billion; in 1974, 4 billon; in 1987, 5 billion; in 1999, 6 billion, and finally, in 2011, 7 billon. In 2025, if an abrupt global warming does not occur, we will be 8 billion, in 2050, 9 billion, and in 2070, 10 billion. There are biologists such as Lynn Margulis and Enzo Tiezzi who see in this acceleration a sign of the end of the species, like bacteria, when put in a closed Petri dish, (capsula Petri). Foreseeing the end of their nourishment they multiply exponentially, and then, suddenly, they all die. Would that be the last flowering of the peach tree before dying?

Independent of this threatening question, we face a stimulating challenge: how to govern seven billion people. That is the question of a global government, namely, a multipolar center, tasked with democratically coordinating the coexistence of human beings in the same fatherland and Common Home. This configuration is a mandate of globalization, because it implies an intertwining of all with all, from within a singular and unique vital space. A global government will appear sooner or later, because the need for it cannot be postponed, if we are to face the global problems and guarantee the sustainability of the Earth.

The idea itself is not new. It was already found in Erasmus and Kant, but it acquired its first real form with The League of Nations, after the First World War, and definitively after the Second World War, with the United Nations Organization, the UN. The UN does not function well because of the antidemocratic veto some countries have, that makes any global initiative contrary to their interests non-viable. Organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, (IMF), the World Bank, the World Organization of Commerce, (GATT), of Health, of Labor, of Tariffs, and UNESCO express the presence of a certain global government.

At present, the gravity of systemic problems such as global warming, scarcity of drinking water, poor distribution of food, the economic-financial crisis, and wars, demand a global government.

The UN’s Commission on Global Government, defines it as «the sum of the different forms by which individuals and institutions administer their common issues and resolve diverse interests in a cooperative way. It includes not only intergovernmental relations, but also non-governmental organizations, citizens movements, multinational corporations and the global capital market» (see the United Nations’ pertinent Internet site.)

This globalization also occurs in cybernetics, through global networks, a sort of government without government. Terrorism has provoked a security government in the threatened countries. There is a perverse global government that could be called government of the corporate world power, made up of the big economic-financial consortiums that act in a concentric manner, until they are reduced to a small group that controls nearly 80% of economic activity. This has been shown by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technological Investigations, that rivals in quality the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, and has been spread among us by the economist Ladislau Dowbor, PUC-SP. This government is not very well known, but beginning with the economy, it powerfully impacts world politics.

The basic functions of a healthy global government are: peace and security, avoiding the use of violence as a solution; fighting the hunger and poverty of millions; education available to everyone, such that they become the actors of history; health as a fundamental human right; minimally decent living quarters; human rights encompassing the personal, social, cultural and gender equality; the rights of Mother Earth and of nature, preserved for us and for future generations.

To guarantee these minimum rights, common to all humans and also to the community of life, we need to encourage a process by which national states will tend to disappear, in the name of the unification of the human species on planet Earth.

In the same way that there is only one Earth, one Humanity and one common destiny, a signle government must appear, a government that is unitary and complex, that takes charge of this new planetary reality and allows the continuity of the human civilization.

Is it possible to feed seven billion people?

11/12/2011 Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

We are already 7 billion people. Will there be enough food for everyone? There are several answers. We will pick one, from the Agrimonde Group (see, Développement et civilisations, September 2011) based in France, that studied the food situation of six critical regions of the planet. This group of scientists is optimist, even when we reach 9 billion inhabitants. The group suggests two paths: to deepen the green revolution of the 1960s, and the so-called double green revolution.

The green revolution had the merit of refuting Malthus’ thesis, according to which an imbalance would develop between population, which is growing geometrically, and food production, which is increasing only arithmetically, causing the collapse of humanity. The green revolution showed that with new technologies, a greater utilization of land for agriculture, and massive application of toxins, previously destined for war and now for agriculture, we could produce much more of what the population demands.

This proved to be correct, because there was a significant rise in the sale of food, even though the inequities of the neoliberal and capitalist system causes millions and millions of people to continue suffering chronic hunger and misery. It is also true that this increase in food production has come at an extremely high ecological cost: soils were poisoned, waters contaminated, and bio-diversity impoverished, in addition to causing erosion and turning arable land into deserts in many regions of the world, especially in Africa.

It all got worse when food became just another commodity, instead of being considered a means of life that, given its nature, never should be subjected to market speculation. There is enough food for everyone, but the poor do not have access to it, for lack of money. The poor stay hungry, and their numbers are increasing. The current neoliberal system still supports this model, and experiences no need to change its logic, which allows it to cynically coexist with millions of hungry people, who are considered irrelevant to the goal of limitless accumulation.

This solution is not only myopic, but false, besides being cruel and pitiless. Those who still defend it do not take seriously the fact that the Earth is undeniably adrift and that global warming causes great soil erosion, the destruction of harvests, and millions of climate migrants. To them the Earth is nothing more than merely a means of production, not the Common House, Gaia, that must be cared for.

To tell the truth, the farmers understand about food. They produce 70% of all that humanity consumes. For that reason, they must be heard and included in any solution that may be taken by the public powers, by enterprises, and by society, because it is about the survival of all.

Given human overpopulation, all arable land must be used, but within the reach and the limits of its eco-systems; all organic residues must be used or recycled to the extent possible, the conservation of energy must be maximized, alternative energies developed, and precedence given to family farms, medium and small cooperatives. And finally, we must move towards a food democracy, where producers and consumers are conscious of their respective responsibilities, with knowledge and information about the realities of sustainability of the planet, and a different model of consumption, in solidarity, frugally and without waste.

Taking into account these facts, Agrimonde proposes a double green revolution in the following form: it accepts continuation of the first green revolution, with its ecological contradictions, but simultaneously proposes a second green revolution. This implies that the consumers incorporate daily habits different from the current ones, more aware of their environmental impact, and open to international solidarity, so that food may become in fact a right accessible to everyone.

Being optimists, we can say that this proposal is reasonably sustainable. It is being organized in an embryonic form everywhere in the world, through the organic family farms, small and medium enterprises, ecological agriculture and towns, and other ways of being respectful of nature. It is possible, and may well be the obligatory path for humanity in the future.

To Awaken the Shaman Dimension

06/12/2011 Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

The concept of sustainability, considered in its widest sense and not reduced just to development, embraces all actions focused on maintaining the existence of other beings, because they have the right to coexist with us. And only starting from this premise of coexistence do we utilize, with sobriety and respect, a part of them to satisfy our needs, while also preserving them for future generations.

The universe also fits within this concept. From the new cosmology, we now know that we are made of the dust of stars and that passing through us is the mysterious Basic Energy that nourishes everything and which unfolds into the four forces –gravitational, electromagnetic, nuclear strong and weak– that, by always acting together, maintain us as we are.

As conscious and intelligent beings, we have our place and our function within the cosmologic process. Although we are not the center of everything, we certainly are one of those forward points through which the universe turns into itself, that is to say, the universe becomes conscious. The weak anthropological principle allows us say that, for us to be what we are, all the energies and processes of evolution had to organize themselves in such an articulated and subtle manner that our appearance was possible. Otherwise, I would not be writing here.

Through us, the universe and the Earth look at and contemplate themselves. The capacity to see appeared 600 million years ago. Until then, the Earth was blind. The profound and starry sky, the Iguaçu Falls, where I am now, the green of the nearby jungles, could not be seen. Through our sight, the Earth and the universe can see all of this indescribable beauty.

The original peoples, from the Andean to the samis of the Arctic, felt one with the universe, as brothers and sisters of the stars, making a great cosmic family. We have lost that feeling of mutual belonging. They felt that the cosmic forces balanced the paths of all beings and acted within them. To live in consonance with these fundamental energies was to have a sustainable life, filled with meaning.

We know from quantum physics that consciousness and the material world are connected and that the manner a scientist chooses to make his observation affects the observed object. Observer and observed object are inseparably linked. Hence the inclusion of consciousness in scientific theories and in the very cosmic reality is a fact that has already been assimilated by a large part of the scientific community. We form, in effect, a complex and diversified whole.

The figures of the shamans are well- known. They were always present in the ancient world and are now retuning with renewed vigor, as quantum physicist P. Drouot has shown in his book, The shaman, the physicist and the mystic (El chamán, el físico y el místico, Vergara, 2001) for which I was honored to prepare a prologue. The shaman lives a singular state of consciousness that allows him to enter into intimate contact with the cosmic energies. The shaman understands the call of the mountains, the lakes, the woods and the jungles, the call of the animals and of human beings. The shaman knows how to direct such energies towards healing ends and to harmonize them with the whole.

Inside each of us lies the shaman dimension. That shaman energy causes us to stand speechless in the face of the immensity of the sea, to sense the eyes of another person, to be entranced on seeing a newborn child. We need to liberate the shaman dimension within us, so as to enter into harmony with all around us, and to feel at peace.

Could not our desire to travel with the spacecrafts in cosmic space perhaps be the archetypical desire to search for our stellar origins, and the desire to return to our place of birth? Several astronauts have expressed similar ideas. This unstoppable search for equilibrium with the entire universe and to feel that we are part of the universe pertains to the intelligible notion of sustainability.

Sustainability includes valuation of this human and spiritual capital. Its effect is to generate within us respect, and a sense of sacredness, before all realities, values that nourish the profound ecology and which help us to respect and live in symbiosis with Mother Earth. This attitude is urgently needed, to moderate the destructive forces that have overtaken us in recent decades.