Categoria: Idiomas

The Latin-American Contribution to a Geosociety

Leonardo Boff1 comentário

Resistance is growing around the world to the big multilateral companies’ system of the domination of globalized capital over nations, individual people, and nature. For better or worse, a tendency is appearing of ecologically oriented practices and projects, that are already trying out the new. The basis is always solidarity economics, respect for the cycles of nature, synergy with Mother Earth, economics at the service of life and not for profit, and politics sustained by hospitality, tolerance, cooperation and solidarity among the most diverse peoples, thereby suppressing the seeds of religious and political fundamentalism, and of the terrorism that we have seen in the United States and, now, in Norway.

Of the many projects in existence in Latin America, such as solidarity economics, family organic agriculture, clean alternative energies, The Peasant’s Way, The Zapatista Movement, and others, we would point out two for the universal relevance they bear as expressions of a new type of socialism: the first is «Living Well» and the second, «Community Democracy and of the Earth».

«Living Well» is present throughout Abya Yala (the original name of the continent known as “South America”), from the extreme North to the extreme South, under many names, two being the best known: suma qamaña (from the Aymara culture) and suma kawsay (from the Quechua culture.) Both names mean «the process of life in plenitude.» This results from a harmonious personal and social life and a material and spiritual equilibrium. In the first place, it is knowing how to live well, and then, knowing how to coexist: with others, with the community, with the Divinity, with Mother Earth, with her energies present in the mountains, the waters, the woods and the jungles, in the soil, the sun, the moon and in every being. A harmony is sought, not through accumulation of wealth, but by producing what is enough and dignified for everyone, with respect for the cycles of Pachamama and the needs of future generations.

That «Living Well» has nothing to do with our «living better» or «quality of life.» Our living better presupposes accumulating the material means to be able to consume more, within the dynamic of an unlimited progress whose motor is competition, and a relationship based on the mere use of nature, with no respect for its intrinsic value and without recognizing oneself as part of nature. That some may live well, millions must live poorly.

«Living Well» is not simply identified with our «common good» thinking only in function of human beings in society, in an unconscious anthropo-and-sociocentrism. «Living Well» touches all that exists, nature, with all her different beings, all humans, the search for the equilibrium among all, also with the spirits, with the wise persons, (the Grandfathers and Grandmothers already gone), with God, that all may coexist in harmony. «Live Well» cannot be imagined without the community, the widest community possible, human, natural, Earthy and cosmic. «Minga», the work in community, expresses well this spirit of cooperation.

This category of «Good Living» and «Living Well» is enshrined in the Constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia. The big task of the State is to create conditions such that «Living Well» may be for all beings, and not just for humans.

This perspective, born in the periphery of the world, with all its utopian ideals, is directed to all because is an attempt to respond to the present crisis, that will be able to guarantee the future of life, of humanity and the Earth.

The other Latin American contribution to a different kind of world is «Democracy of the Community and of the Earth.» It is a type of social life, already in existence in the cultures of Abya Yala. It was repressed by colonization, but now, with the indigenous movement retaking its identity, it is catching the eye of analysts. It is a form of participation that goes beyond the classic, European type of representative and participative democracy. It includes them, but adopts a new element: the community as a whole. The community participates in developing projects, in debating them, in creating consensus around them, and in their implementation. This form of democracy presupposes an already established community life in the population.

It differs from the other type of democracy because it includes the whole community, nature and Mother Earth. It recognizes the rights of nature, of the animals, the jungles, the waters, as they appear in the new Constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia. The juridical personhood of all other beings is widened, especially to Mother Earth. By virtue of being living beings, they have an intrinsic value and are carriers of dignity and rights, and for that reason they are deserving of respect.

Democracy will then be socio-Earthly-planetary, the democracy of the Earth. There are some who say: all this is utopia. And it is. But it is a necessary utopia. When we have overcome the crisis of the Earth (if we do), the path of humanity will be to organize ourselves globally around «Living Well» and to the «Democracy of the Earth,» the Bio-civilization. There are already signs that anticipate this future.

Fundamentalism Still

Leonardo Boff1 comentário

The calculated act of terror perpetrated in Norway by a 32 year old Norwegian extremist has brought up once again the question of fundamentalism. Western governments and the mass media have led world public opinion to associate fundamentalism and terrorism almost exclusively with radical sectors of Islam. Barack Obama, of the United States, and David Cameron, of the United Kingdom, promptly expressed solidarity with the government of Norway and reinforced the idea of dealing a mortal blow to terrorism, assuming that it was an act of Al Qaeda. Pre-judgement. This time it was a native, White, blue eyed, of a high standard of living, and a Christian, even though The New York Times portrayed him as a man «without qualities and easy to be forgotten.»

Besides strongly rejecting terrorism and fundamentalism, we must try to understand the reasons for this phenomenon. I have already dealt with the topic several times in this column, and published it as a book, Fundamentalism, Terrorism, Religion and Peace: challenge of the XXI century, (Fundamentalismo, Terrorismo, Religión y Paz: desafío del siglo XXI, Vozes, 2009.) There I mention, among other causes, the type of globalization that has prevailed from the beginning, a globalization that is fundamentally one of the economy, of the markets and of finance. Edgar Morin calls the present «the iron age of globalization.» It was not followed, as reality demanded, by an ethical and educational globalization – a political globalization, (a global government of the peoples,) . Let me explain: with globalization we inaugurated a new phase of the living Planet’s history, and of humanity itself. We are leaving behind the narrow limits of regional cultures, with their identities and the figure of the nation-state, to go deeper into the process of a collective history of the human species, with a common destiny, linked to the destiny of life and, somehow, to the destiny of the Earth herself. Peoples were put in motion, communications put everything into contact with everything else, and, for various reasons, the multitudes began to circulate around the world.

This was not a prepared transition, because a confrontation prevailed between two forms of organizing society: state socialism of the Soviet Union and Western liberal capitalism. Everyone had to be aligned with one of these alternatives. When the Soviet Union was dismantled, no multipolar world appeared. Rather, the United States predominated as the major economic-military world power, that began to exert an imperial force, obligating everyone to align with its global interests. More than globalization in a wider sense, a sort of Westernization of the world came about. It functioned as a compressor that rolled over respectable cultural traditions. This was aggravated by the typical Western arrogance of thinking that they were the carriers of the best in culture, the best science, the best religion, the best forms of producing and of governing.

This global uniformity generated strong resistance, bitterness and anger in many peoples, who saw their identities and customs erode. In this type of situation, forces of identity normally appear. They allign themselves with the conservative sectors of their religions, which are the natural guardians of tradition. From there a fundamentalism originates that is characterized by the absolute value it affords its point of view. Those who affirm their identity as absolute are condemned to be intolerant with those who are different, to despise them and, at the outer limits, to eliminate them.

This phenomenon occurs all over the world. In the West, significant conservative groups feel their identity threatened by the penetration of non-European cultures, especially by Islamism. They reject multiculturalism and cultivate xenophobia. The Norwegian terrorist was convinced that the democratic struggle against the threat of foreigners in Europe was lost. So he undertook a desperate solution: a symbolic gesture of eliminating the multicultural «traitors.»

The response of the government and of the Norwegian people has been a wise one: they responded with flowers and with the affirmation of more democracy, this is to say, of more good fellowship, with its differences, more tolerance, more hospitality and more solidarity. This is the path that guarantees human globalization, where it will be more difficult for such tragedy to happen again.

Facing the Crisis: four Principles and four Virtues

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

Einstein’s phrase is very true today: «a crisis cannot be resolved by the mentality that created it.» It is too late to just make reforms; they do not change the mentality. We need to start from another frame of mind, founded in principles and values that can sustain a new form of civilization. Otherwise, we will have to accept a path that leads us to the precipice. The dinosaurs have already gone down that path.

My sense of the world tells me that there are four principles and four virtues capable of guaranteeing a good future for the Earth and for life. I will only mention them, without elaboration, which I have already done in several publications in recent years.

The first principle is caring. Caring is a relationship of non-aggression and love towards the Earth and every other being. Caring stands in opposition to the domination that characterizes the old paradigm. Caring heals the wounds of the past and avoids new ones. It delays entropy’s unrestrained force and allows everyone to live and withstand more. The equivalent of caring for the Orientals is compassion; therefore, Orientals never abandon those who suffer; one walks in solidarity with, and brings happiness to, the other who suffers.

The second is respect. Every being possesses an intrinsic value, independent of its utility to humans. Every being expresses a potentiality of the universe, has something to reveal to us and deserves to exist and to live. Respect recognizes and welcomes the other as other, and proposes to peacefully coexist. Its ethic is one of boundless respect for everything that exists and lives.

The third is universal responsibility. Because of it, human beings and society are aware of the beneficial or damaging consequences of their actions. Both have to be careful of the quality of their relations with the other and with nature, so that they may be friendly, rather than hostile, to life. With the means of destruction already in existence, humanity, without responsibility, could self-destruct, and damage the biosphere.

The fourth principle is unconditional cooperation. The universal law of evolution is not competition, where the stronger wins out, but interdependency. Everything cooperates with everything else, to co-evolve and assure bio-diversity. Because of mutual cooperation, our ancestors became humans. Globalized marketing is ruled by the most rigid competition, with no room for cooperation. Therefore, the individualism and egoism that underlie the present crisis, and have thus far foreclosed any possible consensus on climate change, have prevailed.

These four principles must come with four virtues, indispensable for the consolidation of the new order.

The first virtue is hospitality, fundamental for a world republic, according to Kant. We all have the right to be welcome, the converse of the duty to welcome the other. This virtue will be fundamental as we face the streams of people and the millions of climate refugees who will emerge in the next few years. They should not be, as they are now, outsiders to the community.

The second is good fellowship with those who are different. Globalization of the human experiment does not annul the cultural differences with which we must learn to coexist, to inter-exchange, to compliment each other, and to enrich each other with these mutual exchanges.

The third is tolerance. Not all cultural values and customs are convergent and easy to accept. Active tolerance is important for recognizing the right of the other to exist as different, and to guarantee total expression to the other.

The fourth is comestibles. All human beings must, in solidarity, have access to sufficient food, and food security. They must feel like members of one family, that eats and drinks together. Food as nourishment is not only necessary, it is also about a rite of confraternity.

All our efforts will be in vain if Río+20, of 2012, discusses only practical measures to mitigate global warming, without touching other principles and values that could generate a minimum consensus, thus giving sustainability to our civilization. If not, the crisis will continue its corrosive path, until it becomes a tragedy. We have the means and science to reach sustainability. We lack only the will, and love for life, ours and that of our children and grandchildren. May the Spirit that presides over history not abandon us.

Modernity’s “God Complex”

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

The present crisis is not just a crisis of the growing scarcity of natural resources and services. It fundamentally is the crisis of a type of civilization that has put the human being as the «lord and master» of Nature (Descartes). In this civilization, nature has neither spirit nor purpose, and therefore, humans can do what they want with her.

According to the founder of the modern paradigm of techno-science, Francis Bacon, the human being must torture Nature until she yields all her secrets. This attitude has devolved into a relationship of aggression, and a true war against a supposedly savage Nature that had to be dominated and «civilized». Thus also emerged the arrogant projection of the human being as the «God» who dominates and organizes everything.

We must recognize that Christianity helped to legitimate and reinforce this understanding. Genesis clearly says: «replenish the Earth and subdue it, and have dominion over … every living thing that moveth upon the Earth» (1,28). It also affirmed that the human being was made in God’s «image and likeness» (Genesis 1,26). The biblical sense of this expression is that the human being is God’s deputy, and as God is lord of the universe, humans are the masters of the Earth. Humans enjoy a dignity that is theirs alone: that of being above all other beings. This generated anthropocentrism, one of the causes of the ecological crisis.

Finally, strict monotheism suppressed the sacred character of all things and centered it only in God. The world, lacking anything sacred, need not be respected. We can mold it at our pleasure. The modern civilization of technology has filled everything with its devices, and has been able to penetrate to the heart of the matter, of life and of the universe. Everything comes wrapped in the aura of «progress», a sort of recuperation of the paradise that was lost some time before, but is now rebuilt and offered to all.

This glorious vision began to crumble in the XX century with the two World Wars and other colonial wars that produced two hundred million victims. The greatest terrorist act of history was perpetrated when the U.S. army launched the atomic bombs against Japan, killing thousands of people and destroying Nature. This gave humanity a shock from which it has not yet recovered. With the atomic, biological and chemical weapons built afterwards, we have come to realize that we do not need to be God to make the Apocalypse a reality.

We are not God and our desire to be such takes us to madness. The idea of man wanting to be «God» has become a nightmare. But man still hides behind the neoliberal «tina»: «there is no alternative, this world is definitive». Ridiculous. Let us understand that «knowledge as power» (Bacon) which lacks conscience and limits can destroy us. What power do we have over Nature? Who can control a tsunami? Who controls the Chilean volcano Puyehe? Who restrains the fury of the flooding in the highland cities of Rio de Janeiro? Who blocks the deadly effect of the atomic particles of uranium, cesium and of other elements, spewn by the catastrophes of Chernobyl and Fukushima? As Heidegger said in his last Der Spiegel interview: «only a God could save us.»

We have to accept ourselves as simple creatures together with all others in the community of life. We have a common origin: the dust of the Earth. We are not the crown of creation, but a link in the current of life, with a difference, that of being conscious and having the mission to «guard and to care for the garden of Eden» (Genesis 2,15), that is, the mission of maintaining the conditions of sustainability of all the ecosystems that make up the Earth.

If we use the Bible to legitimize domination over the Earth, we must return to the Bible to learn to respect and care for her. The Earth generated all. God ordained: «let the Earth bring forth the living creature after his kind» (Genesis 1,24). She, consequently, is not inert; she is the generator; the Earth is mother. The alliance of God is not only with human beings. After the tsunami of the flood, God redid the alliance «with you and with your seed after you; and with every living creature» (Genesis 9,10). Without them, we are a diminished family.

History shows that the arrogance of «being God», without ever being able to do so, only brings us tragedy. It should be enough for us to be simple creatures with the mission of caring for and respecting Mother Earth.