Categoria: Idiomas

Post-covid-19: What cosmology and ethics to incorporate (IV)

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário
The sustainable way of life is brought about by virtuous practices consistent with a sustainable mode of living. There are many virtues in a different possible world. I will be brief because I have already published three volumes with the title, “Virtues for a different possible world” (Sal Terrae 2005-2006). I mention 10 virtues, without detailing their content, because that would take us too far afield.
Virtues of a different possible, and necessary, world
The first virtue is essential caring. I call it essential because according to a philosophic tradition that came from the Romans, passed down through the centuries, which is best expressed by several authors, especially in Heidegger’s central nucleus of Time and Being. Caring, it is seen as the essence of the human being. It ts a precondition for the group of factors necessary for life. Without caring, life would never have arisen, nor could it survive. Some cosmologists, such as Brian Swimme and Stephan Hawking, viewed caring as the essential dynamic of the universe. Had the four fundamental energies lacked the subtle caring to act synergistically, we would not have the world we have. All life is dependent on caring. Because we are biologically imperfect beings, with no specialized organs, without the infinite care of our mothers, we could not have gotten out of our cribs and sought nourishment. We need the caring of others. All that we love, we also care for, and we love all that we care for. With respect to nature, this requires a relationship that is amicable, non aggressive and respectful of her limits.
The second virtue is the awareness of belonging to nature, to the Earth and the universe. We are part of a great Totality that surrounds us. We are the conscious and intelligent part of nature; we are that part of the Earth that feels, thinks, loves and venerates. This feeling of belonging fills us with respect, marvelous amazement and security.
The third virtue is solidarity and cooperation.  We are social beings who not only live, but coexist with others. We know from bio-anthropology that it was the solidarity and cooperation of our anthropoid ancestors that, by searching for food and bringing it for collective consumption, allowed them to rise to the top of the animal kingdom, and inaugurate the human world. Today, with respect to the coronavirus, what can save us is this solidarity and universal cooperation. Solidarity must begin with the least among us and the invisible. Otherwise, it is not universally inclusive.
The fourth virtue is collective responsibility. We discussed its meaning above. It is the moment of consciousness when each member of society understands the good and bad effects of their decisions and acts. The uncontrolled deforestation of the Amazon would be absolutely irresponsible because it would destroy the balance of the rains for vast regions and eliminate the biodiversity that is indispensable for the future of life. We need not mention nuclear war, whose deadly effects would eliminate all life, especially human life.
The fifth virtue is hospitality, as a duty and a right. Immanuel Kant was the first to present hospitality as both a duty and a right in his famous work, “In view of perpetual peace” (1795). Kant understood that the Earth belongs to all, because God did not gift any part of the Earth to anyone. The Earth belongs to all her inhabitants, who are free to go wherever they want. Wherever someone is found, it is everyone’s the duty to offer hospitality, as a sign of common belonging to the Earth; and we all have the right to be welcomed, without distinctions. To Kant, hospitality and respect for human rights would constitute the pillars of a world republic (Weltrepublik). This theme has great topicality, given the number of refugees and widespread discrimination against different groups. Hospitality is perhaps one of the most urgent virtues for the process of globalization, even though it is one of the least commonly practiced.
The sixth virtue is universal coexistence. Coexistence is a primary factor because we are all products of the coexistence of our parents. We are beings of relationships, which is to say, we do not simply live, but we coexist through our lives. We participate in the lives of others, their joys and sadness. However, for many it is difficult to coexist with those who are different, be it in ethnicity, religion, or political ideas. What is important is to be open to the exchange. That which is different always brings us something new that either benefits or challenges us. What we must never do is turn difference into inequality.  We can be humans of many different backgrounds, be it Brazilian, Kechua, Italian, Aymara, Wampanoag, Japanese, Peruvian, Aztec, or Yanomami. Each form is human and has its dignity. Today, through the cybernetic mass media of communications, we open windows onto all people and cultures.  Knowing how to coexist with these differences opens new horizons and brings us into a form of communion with everyone. This coexistence also involves nature. We coexist with the landscape, the jungles, the birds and all other animals. It is not just to see the star filled skies, but to enter into communion with the stars, because we come from them and with them we are part of the great All. In fact, we are part of a community of common destiny with all of creation.
The seventh virtue is unconditional respect.Each being, no matter how small, has value in itself, independent of its usefulness to humans. Albert Schweitzer,the great Swiz physician who went to Gabon, Africa, to care for the lepers, profoundly developed the theme. For Schweitzer, respect is the most important basis of ethics, because it includes welcome, solidarity and love. We must start by respecting ourselves, maintaining dignified attitudes and manners that move others to respect us. It is important to respect all beings of creation, because they have value in themselves. They exist or live and deserve to exist or live. It Is especially valuable to respect all human person, because a human is a carrier of dignity, a sacred being with inalienable rights, regardless of their origin. We owe supreme respect for the sacred and to God, the intimate mystery of all things. We must venerate and bend our knees only before God, because only God deserves that attitude.
The eight virtue is social justice and fundamental equality for all. Justice is more than merely giving to each his or her own. Among humans, justice is love and the minimal respect we owe everyone else. Social justice requires guaranteeing the minimum to all persons, without creating privilege, and equally respecting their rights because we are all human beings and deserve to be humanely treated. Social inequality means social injustice and, theologically, it is an offense to the Creator and His sons and daughters. The major perversity that exists nowadays is perhaps that of leaving millions of people in misery, condemned to die before their time. The violence of social inequality and injustice has been revealed in the age of this coronavirus. While some people can safely live quarantined in their homes or apartments, the great majority of the poor are exposed to infection and often to death.
The ninth virtue is the tireless search for peace. Peace is one of the most longed for conditions, because given the type of society we have built, we live in constant competition, called on to consume and to exalt productivity. Peace does not exist by itself.  Peace is the fruit of values that must be lived out and bring peace as a result. One of the most certain ways of understanding peace comes to us from the Earthcharter, where is said: «Peace is the plenitude that results from correct relationships with one’s own self, with other persons, other cultures, other lives, the Earth and the Great All, of whom we are part» (n.16 f). As can be seen, peace is the result of adequate relationships and the fruit of social justice. Without these relationships and this justice we will only know a truce, but never a permanent peace.
The tenth virtue is the development of the spiritual meaning of life. Human beings have a corporal exterior through which we relate with the world and other people.  We also have a psychical interior where our passions, great dreams and our angels and demons are found in the architecture of desire. We must control our demons and lovingly cultivate our angels.  Only that way can we enjoy the equilibrium necessary for life.
But we also posses a depth, the dimension where the great questions of life reside: who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What can we look for after this terrestrial life? What is the Supreme Energy that sustains the heavens and keeps our Common Home circling the Sun and maintains her always alive so that we may live? This is the spiritual dimension of the human being, with intangible values, such as unconditional love, trust in life, and courage to confront the unavoidable difficulties. We realize that the world is filled of meaning, that things are more than things, that they are messengers and have another invisible side. We intuit that there is a mysterious Presence that impregnates all things. The spiritual and religious traditions have called this Presence by a thousand names, without ever being able to totally decipher it. It is the mystery of the world that is sent to the Abyssal Mystery that makes that everything be what it is. Cultivating this space makes us more human, more humble, and roots us in a transcendent reality that is adequate to our infinite desire.
Conclusion: to simply be human
The conclusion we draw from these long reflections on the coronavirus 19 is: we must simply be humans, vulnerable, humble, connected with each other, part of nature and the conscious and spiritual part of the Earth with the mission of caring for the sacred inheritance we have received, Mother Earth, for us and future generations.
The last phrases of the Earthcharter are inspiring: «That our time be remembered by the awakening of a new reverence to life, by the firm commitment to achieve sustainability and to intensify the struggle for justice and peace, and for the joyful celebration of life».
*Leonardo Boff is an ecotheologian and has written, in three volumes, Virtues for another possible world,  (3 vol.), Sal Terrae, 2005-2006

 

Frei Betto: Ein internationaler Aufruf gegen Bolsonaros Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

Aqui vai a tradução alemã da denúncia internacional de Frei Betto contra os crimes de Bolsonaro contra a Humanidade.

Frei Betto: Ein internationaler Aufruf gegen Bolsonaros Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit

Liebe Freunde,

in Brasilien findet gerade ein Völkermord statt!  Zum Zeitpunkt, an dem ich schreibe, dem 16. Juli 2020, hat COVID-19, das hier im Februar dieses Jahres zum ersten Mal entdeckt wurde, bereits 76.000 Menschen getötet.  Es gibt bereits fast zwei Millionen Betroffene.  Bis Sonntag, 19. Juli, werden wir insgesamt 80.000 auf Todesopfer kommen. Es ist möglich, dass wir, wenn Sie diesen dramatischen Appell lesen, bereits die Zahl 100.000 erreicht haben

Wenn ich bedenke, dass im Vietnamkrieg über zwanzig Jahre hinweg 58.000 Menschenleben von US-amerikanischen Militärangehörigen geopfert wurden, begreife ich das Ausmaß und die Ernsthaftigkeit dessen, was in meinem Land geschieht. Dieser Horror verursacht Wut und Abscheu. Und wir alle wissen, dass vorsorgliche und restriktive Maßnahmen, wie sie in so vielen anderen Ländern ergriffen wurden, ein Abschlachten in einem solchen Ausmaß hätten verhindern können.

 

Dieser Völkermord ist nicht das Ergebnis der Gleichgültigkeit der Regierung Bolsonaros.  Er ist gewollt. Bolsonaro freut sich über den Tod anderer.  Als er Mitglied des Kongresses war, sagte er 1999 in einem Fernsehinterview: “Wahlen werden in diesem Land nichts ändern, nichts, absolut nichts! Veränderungen werden leider nur dann kommen, wenn wir eines Tages hier in Brasilien einen Bürgerkrieg führen und die Arbeit leisten, die das Militärregime nicht getan hat: 30.000 Menschen töten.”

 

Als er für die Amtsenthebung von Präsidentin Dilma Rousseff stimmte, widmete er seine Stimme dem Gedenken an den berüchtigtsten Folterer der brasilianischen Armee, Oberst Brilhante Ustra.

 

Aufgrund dieser großen Todesbesessenheit ist eine seiner wichtigsten Regierungsmaßnahmen die Zulassung des Verkaufs von Waffen und Munition.  Auf die Frage am Eingang des Präsidentenpalastes, ob er nicht betroffen sei wegen der Opfer der Pandemie, antwortete er: “Ich glaube nicht an diese Zahlen (27. März, 92 Tote). Wir werden alle eines Tages sterben” (29. März, 136 Tote). “Also was? Was soll ich tun?’ (28. April, 5.017 Tote).

 

Warum diese nekrophile Politik? Von Anfang an erklärte er, dass es nicht darauf ankomme, Leben zu retten, sondern die Wirtschaft zu retten. Darum weigert er sich, ein Lockdown anzuordnen, den Anweisungen der WHO zu folgen und Atemschutzgeräte und persönliche Schutzausrüstungen zu importieren. Der Oberste Gerichtshof musste diese Verantwortung an die Gouverneure und Bürgermeister der Städte delegieren.

 

Bolsonaro respektierte nicht einmal die Autorität seiner eigenen Gesundheitsminister.  Seit Februar wurden in Brasilien zwei entlassen, weil sie sich weigerten, dieselbe Haltung wie der Präsident einzunehmen.  Jetzt wird das Ministerium von General Pazuello geleitet, der keinerlei Kenntnis von Gesundheitsfragen hat; er hatte versucht, die Daten über die steigende Zahl von Opfern zu verheimlichen; er hat 1.249 Militärangehörige in wichtigen Positionen im Ministerium angestellt, ohne dass sie die erforderlichen Qualifikationen hätten; und er hat die täglichen Interviews abgesagt, von denen die Bevölkerung Orientierung erhalten hatte.

 

Es würde zu lange dauern, alle Maßnahmen zur Freigabe von Mitteln zur Unterstützung von Opfern und Familien mit niedrigem Einkommen (über 100 Millionen Brasilianer) aufzulisten, die nie ergriffen wurden.

 

Die Gründe für die kriminellen Entscheidungen der Regierung Bolsonaros liegen auf der Hand.  Wenn ältere Menschen sterben, verschont dies die Ressourcen des Department of National Insurance.  Wer bereits Erkrankte sterben lässt, schont die Ressourcen des nationalen Gesundheitsdienstes, des SUS.  Die Armen sterben zu lassen, schont die Ressourcen des Programms Familienfürsorge und anderer Sozialprogramme, die sich an die 52,5 Millionen Brasilianer richten, die in Armut leben, und die 13,5 Millionen, die in extremer Armut leben (Zahlen der brasilianischen Bundesregierung).

 

Noch nicht zufrieden mit solch tödlichen Maßnahmen, hat der Präsident jetzt, am 3. Juli, sein Veto gegen den Gesetzesabschnitt eingelegt, der zur Verwendung von Masken in Läden, Kultstätten und Bildungseinrichtungen verpflichtet. Er hat ebenfalls gegen die Verhängung von Geldstrafen gegen diejenigen gestimmt, die die Regeln nicht eingehalten haben, und die Verpflichtung der Regierung, Masken an die ärmsten Bevölkerungsschichten, die Hauptopfer von COVID-19, und an Gefangene (750.000) zu verteilen. Diese Vetos kippen jedoch nicht die lokale Gesetzgebung, die die Verwendung von Masken bereits obligatorisch gemacht hat.

 

Am 8. Juli kippte Bolsonaro drei Abschnitte eines vom Senat verabschiedeten Gesetzes, das die Regierung verpflichtete, Trinkwasser und Gesundheits- und Reinigungsmittel zu liefern, Internetanschlüsse zu installieren und Grundnahrungsmittel, Saatgut und landwirtschaftliche Geräte an indigene Dörfer zu verteilen. Er legte auch sein Veto gegen Soforthilfen ein, die für indigene Gesundheitsdienste bestimmt waren, und um indigenen und Mitgliedern afro-brasilianischer Ex-Sklaven-Quilombola-Gemeinschaften für drei Monate Soforthilfe in Höhe von 600 R’ (120 Euro) zu gewähren. Und er legte ebenfalls sein Veto gegen die Verpflichtung der Regierung ein, indigenen und Ex-Sklaven-Gemeinschaften mehr Krankenhausbetten, Beatmungsgeräte und Sauerstoffgeräte zur Verfügung zu stellen.

 

Indigene und Ex-Sklaven-Gemeinschaften wurden durch die zunehmende sozio-ökologische Verwüstung dezimiert, vor allem im Amazonasgebiet.

 

Bitte machen Sie dieses Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit so publik wie möglich. Die Verurteilung der Geschehnisse in Brasilien muss die Medien Ihres Landes, die sozialen Netzwerke, den UN-Menschenrechtsrat in Genf und die Banken und Unternehmen erreichen, welche die Investoren vertreten, die die Regierung Bolsonaro so gierig will.

 

Lange bevor The Economist dies tat, habe ich in den sozialen Medien den Präsidenten BolsoNero genannt – während Rom brannte, spielte er die Geige und warb für Hydroxychloroquin, ein Medikament, von dem wissenschaftlich erwiesen wurde, dass es keine Wirkung auf das neue Coronavirus hat.  Aber seine Hersteller sind politische Verbündete des Präsidenten…

 

Vielen Dank für Ihre Solidarität bei der Veröffentlichung dieses Schreibens.  Nur der Druck aus dem Ausland kann den Völkermord stoppen, der unser liebes, wunderbares Brasilien zerstört.

Mit brüderlichen Grüßen

Frei Betto
16.07.2020

Frei Betto ist ein Dominikaner-Bruder und Schriftsteller, Berater der FAO (Ernährungs- und Landwirtschaftsorganisation der UN) und sozialer Bewegungen.

 

Post-covid-19: what to include in cosmology and ethics (III)

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários
Let’s complete the thought provoking commentary of the text of the Earthcharter affirming that we must seek a new start in order to forge a sustainable mode of living on planet Earth.
To that end, “a new sense of global interdependence is required.” The relationship of everything with everything, and consequently, global interdependence, represents a cosmological constant.  Everything in the universe is relationship. It is also a quantum physics axiom, according to which all beings are inter-retro-related. We ourselves, human beings, are a rhizome (bulb of roots) of relationships that extend in every direction. This implies understanding that all problems:  ecological, economic, political and spiritual, are interrelated. We will only save life if we align ourselves with this universal logic  the logic of the universe and nature.
The Earthcharter continues: “universal responsibility is required.” Responsibility means being aware of the consequences of our actions, whether they are beneficial or hurtful to other beings. Hans Jonas wrote a classic book about The Principle of Responsibility, that includes the principles of prevention and precaution. Through prevention we can calculate the effects when we intervene in nature. The principle of precaution tells us that if we cannot measure the consequences we must not risk taking certain actions and interventions, because they may produce highly harmful effects for life.
We can see the lack of such collective responsibility in the current pandemic. It demands strict social isolation in order to avoid community spread, but the great majority of people do not abide by that principle. It must be universal.
Moreover, the Earthcharter calls on us: “to creatively develop and apply the vision” (of a sustainable mode of life). Nothing great is accomplished on Earth without imagining and creating the new societies and forms of being that have been envisioned. This is the function of viable utopias.  All utopias broaden our horizons and call on our creativity.  In the cheerful expression of Eduardo Galeano, “utopia takes us from horizon to horizon always making us walk.”
To overcome the habitual means of inhabiting the Common Home, which is a utilitarian relationship, we must dream of our planet as the great Mother, “The Earth of the Good Hope”, (Ignace Sachs and Ladislau Dowbor). Humanity can realize this utopia when it wakes up to the urgency of the need for a different world.
A sustainable mode of life
The Earthcharter also affirms “a vision of a sustainable mode of life”. We are used to the expression, “sustainable development.”  It is in all the official documents and on the lips of the dominant ecology. All serious analyses have shown that our form of production, distribution and consumption is unsustainable, because it is impossible to maintain an equilibrium between what we take from nature and what we leave, such that nature may always reproduce and continuously evolve. Our voracity has made the planet unsustainable, because even if the rich countries wanted to extend their well being to all of humanity, it would require at least three Earths like the one we have, which is clearly impossible.
Current development, that measures economic growth by the Gross National Product, GNP, reveals astonishing inequalities, to the point that the NGO Oxfam, in its 2019 report, notes that 1% of humanity owns half of the wealth of the world, and that 20% controls 95% of that wealth, while the remaining 80% must get by with only 5% of the wealth. These data reveal the totally untenable world in which we live.
The Earthcharter is guided, not by profit, but by life. This is why the great challenge is to create a sustainable mode of living in all aspects of life: the personal, family, social, national and international.
The importance of bio-regionalism
Finally, this sustainable mode of living must be realized at local, national, regional and world levels. Of course, it is about a world project that must be realized through a process. Today, the more advanced portion of this search takes place at the local and regional levels, such that bio-regionalism is seen as the truly viable form of realizing sustainability. We take the region as a reference, not according the arbitrary divisions that still persist, but the one created by nature herself, with her rivers, mountains, jungles, woods, and everything that makes up a regional ecosystem. In this framework, an authentic sustainability can be achieved, including the natural goods, culture and local traditions, the personalities that have marked that history, favoring small enterprises and organic agriculture, with the broadest participation possible, in a democratic spirit. This way a “good living and good life” (the Andean ecological ideal) will happen, sufficient, decent and sustainable with the diminution of inequalities.
This vision, formulated by the Earthcharter, is both grandiose and feasible. What we need is more good will, the only virtue that for Kant has neither defects nor limitations, because if it did, it would not be good. This good will would motivate the communities and, in the end, all of humanity, to really accomplish “a new beginning” (To be continued).
*Leonardo Boff is an ecotheologian and philosopher who has written, To Protect the Earth-Care for Life: How to Avoid the End of the World, Record, Rio, 2010.

 

Frei Betto: a international Call against the Bolsonaro’s humanitarian crimes

Leonardo Boff4 Comentários

                                LETTER TO OUR FRIENDS ABROAD

Frei Betto

Dear Friends,

A genocide is taking place in Brazil!  As I write, on 16 July 2020, COVID-19, first detected here in February this year, has already killed 76,000 people.  There are already almost two million people affected.  By Sunday 19 July we shall reach a total of 80,000 fatalities. It is possible that when you read this dramatic appeal, we shall already have reached 100,000.

When I think that in the Vietnam war, over twenty years, 58,000 lives of US-American military personnel were sacrificed, I grasp the scale and seriousness of what is taking place in my country.  This horror causes anger and revulsion. And we all know that precautionary and restrictive measures that have been adopted in so many other countries could have avoided slaughter on such a scale.

This genocide is not the result of the Bolsonaro government’s indifference.  It is intentional. Bolsonaro delights in the deaths of others.  When he was a member of Congress, he said in a TV interview in 1999: ‘Voting won’t change anything in this country, nothing, absolutely nothing! Change will only come, unfortunately, if one day we engage in a civil war here in Brazil, and do the work the military regime didn’t do:  kill 30,000.’

When he voted for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, he dedicated his vote to the memory of the Brazilian army’s most notorious torturer, Colonel Brilhante Ustra.

Because of this great obsession with death, one of his main government policies is allowing the sale of weapons and ammunition.  When asked at the entrance to the presidential palace if he wasn’t concerned about the victims of the pandemic, he replied, ‘I don’t believe in these figures (27 March, 92 deaths);  ‘We’re all going to die one day’ (29 March, 136 deaths); ‘So what? What do you want me to do?’ (28 April, 5,017 deaths).

Why this necrophiliac policy? From the beginning he stated that the important thing was not to save lives, but to save the economy. That is why he refuses to order a lockdown, follow the guidance of the World Health Organisation and import respirators and personal protection equipment. The Supreme Court had to delegate this responsibility to state governors and city mayors.

Bolsonaro did not even respect the authority of his own ministers of health.  Since February Brazil has had two, both sacked for refusing to take the same attitude as the President.  Now the ministry is headed by General Pazuello, who has no knowledge of health matters; he had tried to hide the data about the increasing numbers of victims; he has employed 1.249 military personnel in important posts in the ministry, without the necessary qualifications; and he has cancelled the daily interviews from which the population received guidance.

It would take too long to list all the measures to release resources to aid low-income victims and families (over 100 million Brazilians) that were never taken.

The reasons behind the criminal decisions of the Bolsonaro government are clear.  Letting the elderly die saves the resources of the Department of National Insurance.  Letting those with pre-existing conditions die saves the resources of the national health service, the SUS.  Letting the poor die saves the resources of the Family Welfare programme and other social programmes targeting the 52.5 million Brazilians who live in poverty and the 13.5 million that live in extreme poverty (Federal government figures).

Not satisfied with such lethal measures, now, on 3 July the President has vetoed the section of a law that made obligatory the use of masks in shops, places of worship and educational institutions. He has also vetoed the imposition of fines on those who failed to keep the rules and the government’s obligation to distribute masks to the poorest sections of the population, the main victims of COVID-19, and prisoners (750,000). These vetoes, however, do not overturn local legislation that has already made the use of masks obligatory.

On 8 July Bolsonaro overturned three sections of a law approved by the Senate, that obliged the government to supply drinking water and health and cleaning materials, to install internet connections and distribute basic food supplies, seeds and agricultural implements to indigenous villages. He also vetoed emergency funds intended for indigenous health services, and to give indigenous and members of Afro-Brazilian ex-slave quilombola communities emergency aid of R$600 (120 Euros or US$120) for three months. He also vetoed the obligation on the government to provide more hospital beds, ventilators and oxygenation machines to indigenous and ex-slave communities.

Indigenous and ex-slave communities have been decimated by the increasing socio-environmental devastation, especially in the Amazon region.

Please give as much publicity as possible to this crime against humanity.  Condemnation of what is happening in Brazil must reach your country’s media, social networks,  the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, and the banks and companies that represent the investors the Bolsonaro government so greedily wants.

Long before The Economist did so, on social media I have been calling the President BolsoNero – while Rome burned he played the fiddle and promoted hydrochloroquine, a drug scientifically shown to have no effect on the new coronavirus.  But its manufacturers are political allies of the President…

Thank you for your solidarity in publicising this letter.  Only pressure from abroad can halt the genocide that is devastating our dear, wonderful Brazil.

Yours fraternally

Frei Betto

 

Frei Betto is a Dominican brother and writer, an adviser to the FAO and to social movements.