Categoria: Idiomas

The Threat to Humanity of Highly Destructive Wars

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

In Brazil we know great social violence, with a murder rate among the highest in the world. We have no peace because there is so much rage, hatred, discrimination, and a perverse social inequality.

Nevertheless, we are on the margins of the great martial conflicts going on in 40 parts of the world, some of which are truly menacing for the future of the human species. We are witnessing a cold war between the United States, China and Russia. A new arms race has began, be it in Russia, or in the United States with Trump, to produce ever more potent nuclear weapons, as if those already in existence could not destroy all life on the planet.

The worst is that the hegemonic power, the United States, has transformed itself into a terrorist state, waging a merciless war against all types of terrorism, as a foreign policy: invading countries in the Middle East, and at home, chasing undocumented immigrants, detaining suspects without respect for their fundamental rights, as a consequence of George Bush, Jr’s, “Patriot Act”, that allowed suspension of habeas corpus, which Barack Obama promised to abolish, but did not.

Francis, Bishop of Rome, said on the plane on his way back from Poland, on July 12, 2016: «there is a war of interests, war for money, war for natural resources, there is a war to dominate the people: this is the war. Someone could think: is he talking about wars among religions. No. Religions want peace. Others want war. Capiche?» That is a direct criticism of the current world order of limitless accumulation, that implies war against the Earth and the exploitation of weaker peoples. Everyone talks of freedom, but without world social justice. Ironically it could be said: it is the freedom of free foxes in a coup of free hens.

Commentators of the world situation not quoted by our press speak of the real danger of a nuclear war between Russia and the United States or between China and the United States.

Trump, as French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy puts it (O Globo 3/5/2016) «is a catastrophe for the United States and the world. And he is also a threat». The same newspaper says about Putin: «he is an explicit threat. We know Putin wants to destabilize Europe, to accentuate the crises of the democracies, and he supports and finances all political parties of the extreme right. We also know that in all places where there is a battle between barbarism and civilization, such as Syria and Ukraine, Putin is on the wrong side. He is a true and great threat».

According to Moniz Sodre in his magnificent book, World Disorder, Putin wants revenge for the humiliation the West and the United States inflicted on his country at the end of the Cold War. He nourishes clearly expansionist pretenses, not in the sense of recreating the old USSR, but of restoring the boundaries of historic Russia. The risk of a nuclear confrontation with the West is not excluded.

We are losing sight of the warnings from the great names of the past century, such as Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, on July 10, 1955 and a few days later, July 15, 1955, joined by 18 Nobel laureates, Otto Hahn and Werner Heisenberg among them, when they affirmed: «we see with horror that this type of nuclear science has put in the hands of humanity the instrument of its own destruction». The same was affirmed by several Nobel laureates during Rio-92.

If the situation was seen as grave at that time, now it is dramatic. This is because besides nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons capable of decimating the human species are now available.

Some analysts of world conflicts suppose that the next step of terrorism would no longer be with bombs and suicide-bombers, but with chemical and biological weapons, some taken from the weapons reserve left by Kadafi.

At the root of this system of violence is the Western paradigm of the will to power, that is, a way of organizing society and the relationship with nature based on force, violence and submission. This paradigm favors competition over solidarity. Instead of making the citizens partners, this paradigm makes them rivals.

To the paradigm of the closed fist, the response is the extended hand, as an alliance to safeguard life. Instead of power-domination, caring should prevail. It pertains to the essence of the human being and of everything alive. Either we take this step or we will witness dramatic scenes, the fruit of the irrationality and arrogance of the heads of State and their hawks.

Leonardo Boff  Theologian-Philosopher and Member of  the Earthcharter Commission

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Does extraterrestrial life exist?

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

NASA scientists have discovered a Trappist-1 star, 39 light years from the Earth, with seven rocky planets, three of which have possibilities of water and consequently of life. This discovery has raised again the question of the eventuality of extraterrestrial life.

Let us reflect on the theme, based on notable names in this area.

The Earth sciences and the knowledge coming from the new cosmology have accustomed us to putting all these questions in the framework of the great cosmic evolution. Everything is in a process of genesis, a condition for life to emerge.

Life is considered the most complex and mysterious reality of the universe. The fact is that near 3.8 billion years ago, in an ocean or primordial marsh, under the action of unimaginable tempests of rays and cosmic elements from the Sun, interacting with the geochemistry of the Earth, took to the extreme the complexity of inanimate forms. Suddenly the barrier was surpassed: about 20 amino acids and four phosphate basis were created. Like a great lightning bolt striking the sea or marsh the first living being emerged.

As a qualitative jump in our bent space-time, in a corner of our median galaxy, in a secondary sun, in a planet of quantité négligeable, of medium size, in the Earth, the great novelty emerged: life. The Earth went though 15 massive great extinctions but, as if it were a plague, life was never extinguished.

Let us quickly review the internal logic that permitted life to emerge. The matter and energy of the universe, as they continue their process of expansion, tend to become ever more complex. Each system is in a set of interactions, a dance of inter-exchange of matter and energy, in a permanent dialogue with their environment and always retaining information.

Biologists and biochemists, such as Ilya Prigogine (1977 chemistry Nobel laureate), affirm that there is a continuity between living and inert beings. We need not appeal to a transcendental or external principle to explain the appearance of life, as religions and classic cosmology often do. It is sufficient that the universal principle, including of life, (called the cosmogenetic principle), of complexity, of self-organizing and self-creation, would have been present in embryonic form in that smallest little point that had emerged from the Basic Energy, and later exploded. One of the best present day physicists, Amit Goswami, maintains the thesis that the universe is mathematically inconsistent without the existence of a supreme ordering principle, God. This is why, to him, the universe is self-conscious. (The self aware universe, 1998).

The Earth is not alone in having the privilege of life. According to Christian de Duve, biology 1974 Nobel laureate: «There are as many living planets in the universe as there are planets capable of generating and of sustaining life. A conservative estimate puts their number into the billions. Billions of biospheres ply the space with billions of planets channeling matter and energy in the creative processes of evolution. In any direction of space that we may look there is life (…). The universe is not an inert cosmos of physics, with a pinch of life as a precaution. The universe is life with the necessary structures surrounding it» (Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative, 1996. Polvo vital: La vida como imperativo cósmico, Río de Janeiro, 1997, 383).

It is to astronomy’s credit that it has identified, in the millimeter fringe, a group of molecules in which can be found everything that is essential to start the process of biological synthesis. (Longair, M., The origins of our universe, Río de Janeiro, 1994, 65-66). Amino acids have been found in meteorites. These certainly are the eventual carriers of the archeo-bacteria of life. Probably there were several beginnings of life, many of them frustrated, until life was definitively established.

It is presumed that the most diverse forms of life come from only one original bacterium(Wilson, O. E., The diversity of life, 1994). With the mammals emerged a new quality of life: emotional sensibility and caring. Among the mammals, about some 70 million years ago, the primates stood out; then, some 35 million years ago, the superior primates, our genealogical grandparents, and some 17 million years ago, our predecessors, the hominids. About 8-10 million years ago the human being, the australopithecine, emerged in Africa. Finally, around 100 thousand years ago, there appeared the Homo sapiens-sapiens/demens-demens, of whom we are immediate inheritors (Hubert Reeves and others, The most beautiful story in the world, 1998).

Life is not the fruit of chance (contrary to Jacques Monod, Chance and necessity, 1979). Biochemists and molecular biologists have shown (thanks to random number generating computers), the mathematical impossibility of simple and pure chance. For the amino acids and the two thousand underlying encimas to come close enough together to form a living cell would take billions and billions of years, much more than the 13.7 billion year actual age of the universe.

The so-called chance is expression of our ignorance. We estimate that ascending evolution will produce more and more life, even extraterrestrial.

Leonardo BoffT heologian-Philosopher, of the Earthcharter Commission

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Trump is violating the first virtue of world society

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

The United States has always distinguished itself for being an extremely hospitable country, because, except for the original Native Nations, practically all of the Northamerican population is derived from immigrants. The same happened in Brazil, which received representatives of at least 60 different peoples.
The democratic spirit and respect for religious differences are enshrined in the Constitution of the United States. Now comes a President, Donald Trump, who has broken a long Northamerican tradition: the respect for religious differences; by rejecting the Moslem population, especially people coming from Syria, and the traditional hospitality for the various types of people who came or are coming to the United States.

In his last book, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch”, the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) proposed a world republic, (Weltrepublik), fundamentally based on two principles: hospitality and respect for human rights.

For Kant, hospitality, (he uses the Latin expression, “die Hospitalität”), is the first virtue of this world republic, because «all of humanity lives on the Earth, and all, without exception, have the right to live on her and to visit her places and peoples; the Earth belongs to everyone in common». Hospitality is a right and the duty of all.

The second principle consists of the human rights that Kant considers «the apple of God’s eyes» or «the most sacred that God gave the Earth». Respecting them make possible the birth of a community of peace and security that puts a definitive end «to the infamous belligerency».

This hospitality is being denied in Europe to thousands of refugees who are fleeing the wars sponsored by peoples from the West. This same hospitality is consciously and explicitly being rejected by Donald Trump to thousands and even millions of foreign “illegal” workers.

In this context is worth remembering one of the most beautiful myths of Greek culture, the hospitality offered by an elderly couple – Filemon and Baucis – to two divinities: Jupiter, the supreme god of Greece, and his companion, the god Hermes.

The myth goes that Jupiter and Hermes disguised themselves as miserable wanderers, in order to test how much hospitality still remained on Earth. They were rejected by all, everywhere they went.

But one late afternoon, very hungry and tired, they were warmly welcomed by this elderly couple, who washed their feet, offered them food and a bed where they could rest. These acts of hospitality moved the gods.

When Jupiter and Hermes were getting ready to rest, taking off their rags, they decided to reveal their true divine nature. In an instant they transformed the humble shack into an splendid temple. Frightened, the kind elderly couple prostrated themselves on the ground in reverence.

The divinities told them to make a request, which would be promptly granted.

As if they had already agreed, Filemon and Baucis said that they would want to continue receiving pilgrims in the temple, and that at the end of life, the two, after such a long life of love, would like to die together.

And they were heard. One day, when they were seated at the courtyard, waiting for the pilgrims, suddenly Filemon saw that the body of Baucis was filled with flowering foliage and that his own body was also covered with green leaves.

They barely had time to say good bye to each other. Filemon was transformed into an enormous Oak tree, and Baucis into a luxuriant Linden. Their crowns and branches intertwined in the heights. And thus, embracing, they remain together forever. The elders of that region, now part of Northern Turkey, always repeat the lesson: those who welcome the foreigner, welcome God.

Hospitality is a test of how much humanism, compassion and solidarity exist in a society. Behind each refugee coming to Europe and each immigrant to the United States is an ocean of suffering and anguish, and also of hope of better days to come. Rejection is particularly humiliating, because it gives immigrants and refugees the impression that they are worthless, that they are not even considered to be human.

The refugees go to Europe because for more than two centuries, the Europeans were in their countries. They took over power, imposed different customs and exploited their wealth. Now that the refugees are in such great need, they are simply rejected.

It is worth rescuing the value and the urgency of hospitality, present as something sacred in all human cultures. We must reinvent ourselves as hospitalarian beings, so as to be worthy in the eyes of the millions of refugees and immigrants in the whole world.

Leonardo Boff Theologian-Philosopher and Member of the Earthcharter Commission
Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Trump: a new historical phase?

Leonardo Boff5 Comentários

For years we have seen, some in all parts of the world, the ascendance of a conservative way of thinking and of movements that defined themselves as rightists, seeking a society where order prevailed over liberty, traditional values over modern ones and the supremacy of authority over democratic liberties.

This phenomenon derives from many factors, but principally from the erosion of the shared values that gave society cohesion and a sense of collective coexistence. The predominance of the capitalist culture which extolled individualism, unlimited accumulation of material goods and above all, competition, left little space for cooperation. It contaminated virtually all of humanity, creating an ethical-spiritual confusion with no sense of belonging to a single humanity that inhabited a Common Home. There emerged what Bauman calls the liquid society, where nothing is solid. To this must be added the post modern spirit of every thing goes, anything is OK, where nothing is important except to accomplish each individual’s objectives, according to his/her preferences.

Facing this dilution of guiding stars its dialectic opposite arose: the search for security, order, authority, clear norms and well defined paths. This type of vision is found in conservatism, the political, ethical and religious right. It is just one step away from Nazi-Fascism, as in Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Portugal’s Salazar and Spain’s Franco.

These tendencies have been gaining social and political strength in Europe, Latin America and the United States. The judicial-parliamentarian class coup that deposed President Dilma Rousseff was molded by this conservative and rightist spirit. What followed was the implantation of clearly rightist politics, against the people, that deny social rights and is retrograde in cultural terms.

But that conservative tendency has reached its clearest fulfillment in the central power of the world system, the United States, as seen in the election of Donald Trump as its President. In the United States, conservatism and rightist politics express themselves without metaphors, in shameless, and even harsh, forms.

In his first actions as President, Trump began undoing the social accomplishments of Barack Obama. His clearest characteristics are nationalism, patriotism, conservatism and isolationism.

Trump’s inaugural address is terrifying: “from now on a new vision will rule our land. From this moment on, it’s going to be America first”. The “first” here must be understood as “only the United States will matter”. With evident arrogance Trump radicalized his vision at the end of his speech: ”Together we will make America strong again. We will make America prosperous again. We will make America proud again. We will make America secure again. And together we will make America great again”.

Underlying these words is the ideology of the “manifest destiny”, of the exceptionality of the United States, always present in the previous Presidents, even in Obama. This is to say that the United States has a unique and divine mission in the world, to carry her values of rights, of private property and of liberal democracy to all humanity.

The world does not exist for Donald Trump. And if it exists, is seen in a negative form. Trump breaks the ties of solidarity with traditional allies, such as the European Union and leaves each country free for eventual ventures against their historical adversaries, opening the way to the expansionism of regional powers, including eventual lethal wars.

We can expect anything from Trump’s personality. Used to shady dealings such as, in general terms, the real estate New York business, without political experience, he can unleash hugely threatening crises for the rest of humanity, as for example, an eventual war with China or North Korea, where the use of nuclear weapons would not be excluded.

Trump’s personality shows deviant psychological characteristics, narcissistic and with an overblown ego, bigger than his own country.

The phrase that scares us is this: “from this day forward, a new vision will govern our land”. I do not know if he is thinking only of the United States or of the planet Earth. Probably to him the two are the same. If that were true, we would have to pray that the worst for the future of the civilization does not come to pass.

Leonardo Boff Theologian-Philosopher  and of the Earthcharter Commission