Reflections on world "citizenship"
There is something
startlingly unrealistic in thinking and then imagining a world in which the
shared interests, needs and issues of all people might be considered and
answered by institutions that are free of racial rancor, religious bigotry,
fiscal plutocracy and superiority, political narcissism and denial of global
warming and climate change.
It is a spectre to
which the world as we know it will never even aspire, never mind attain. Where
then are the seed of hope that might be planted to begin to germinate such a
geopolitical, planetary seedling of a embryo that future generations could then
nurture and develop?
Two roots of human
development, outside of the genetic pool, remain open for enhancement:
parenting and education. The first, while primarily private and exclusive to
the biological parents of newborns, is nevertheless a relationship (not merely
a job, role, set of skills, task or responsibility) for which most people of
child-rearing age are woefully unprepared, untutored, and are even badly
modelled.
Based on our parents’
examples, we all bear the scars of wounds, deprivations, exaggerations, fears,
bigotries and negative animus from our time in our family of origin. That is
not a simply “poor me” victim statement. It is an observation that most adults
can and do make, after they have had children of their own. Our parents’ time
and generation were simply uninformed of many of the important and often
nuanced perspectives and information and expectations that come from an
evolving and developing body of research, experience, and new ways of
communicating, travelling, sharing and opposing. And while history has a way of
informing and contextualizing their values and perspectives, it also has a way
of fossilizing those very attitudes,
beliefs and biases. And no matter how defiantly we struggle to rid ourselves of
the negative impacts of those influences, they have a tendency of lingering and
popping up when we least expect them to. In fact, the more strenuous our attempt
to eradicate those influences, paradoxically, the more they cling to our
psyches and show up in our own lives.
Fortunately, there are
no “bleaches” and no sanitizers, and no microbial soaps to launder the biases
from our minds. There are also no churches, no schools, no books, no hospitals
or doctors that can erase the negative impacts of our fears, neuroses,
anxieties and bigotries. So, we are left with our own unique cluster of what
our parents might have called ‘shades of meaning and value’ that we now
experience as limiting, narrowing repressing and sabotaging.
The question then is
how to “manage” (such an inappropriate word in this context) or “tickle” or
“wear” or ……our self-sabotaging biases!
Some may even ask, “Why
should I have to manage them? After all,
they are an integral part of my identity!”
If we are going to
continue to commit to a more equitable, more just, more humane and more
compassionate and more collaborative world community, then those biases that
inflame our passions, provoke our wars both civil and territorial, prompt our
destructive and parasitic tendencies will need some curtailing. And before they
can or will be curtailed, they have to acknowledged, especially if and when
they create unnecessary ruptures in our relationships, both personal and
professional, as well as geopolitical.
The proverbial
“cat-fights” between the Hatfields and the McCoys, or between the Catholics and
the Protestants, between the whites and the blacks, browns and yellows and
reds, between the rich and the poor, between the educated and the non, between
the scientists and the artists, between the visionaries and the
historians….while all comprise a significant set of volumes in the library of
human history, (and also prompt significant and revealing debates, new insights
and new directions) need some kind of separation from the global threats that
all “tribes” are now facing.
Previously, humans were
either unaware of what was happening on the other side of the globe, or they
were peripherally and superficially conscious that “something” might be
happening that was ‘not good’….resulting in deaths, mamings, injuries,
starvations or even epidemics. Today, everyone has access to such information
in real time. And consequently, none of us can claim ignorance, insouciance or
a freedom from responsibility for any of it. When young girls are abducted in
Nigeria, we are all appalled. When pedestrians are mowed down on French
streets, we are all mowed down. When refugees drown on beaches in the
Mediterranean, we all experience a kind of drowning. And if we don’t because we
have become immune from the sheer onslaught of the repetition of these movies,
then there is an even greater impulse to rid ourselves of these preventable tragedies.
Just as individuals
cannot erase their biases, so too individuals and groups cannot eliminate their
ideological, religious, ethnic biases. However, what we can do is to begin a
long..very long and protracted process of reducing our shared dependence on a
number of options that currently operate a centre stage of our public lives, in
the global public square. Among these are:
·
The
zero-sum option
·
The myth
that tells kids never to turn from a punch, from a bully, or from a
threat….there are many options here including counting to ten or a hundred,
finding a third party mediator, helping young children to see the “plank” in
their own eye, before magnifying the speck in the other’s eye…
·
Mount
community initiatives to teach/learn about the world view of people from
different backgrounds, cultures and ethnicities
·
Participate
in welcoming immigrants, new-comers, refugees and asylum-seekers into the local
community
·
Urge
community clergy to adopt collaborative community projects that demonstrate
collaboration, as an normal and ordinary reality, not only on radioactive days
like 9/11
·
Urge
broadcast outlets, like TVO, PBS, Netflix, HBO to develop documentaries and
films that expose diverse audiences to different cultures
·
Urge
international agencies like the UN, the Clinton Foundation, Gates Foundation
and others to target the development of cultural films, documentaries and
digital media options opening the world to unfamiliar cultures…this kind of
initiative is just as important as the eradication of AIDS, poverty, ebola and
other epidemics.
·
Petition
various world religious organizations to facilitate the preparation and
dissemination of learning opportunities from diverse global locations and
cultures
·
Read and
talk around the dining room table about “how the rest of the world lives”…as a
normal subject for family discourse
·
Help our
children link with a pen-pal (facebookfriend, et al) with a peer from a distant
country
·
Petition
school boards and principals to develop student exchange opportunities at the
secondary school level, in both public and private boards
·
Adopt
fund-raising activities to support student travel, especially to parts of the
world currently under-represented in the local community
·
Host an
exchange student, (through Rotary International, or another reputable
philanthropic agency) and inquire about his/her culture and habits
·
And then
there is the option of inclusion of formal, traditional debating/seminar
strategies and tactics, beginning at a early stage of elementary school,
including local team competitions, honing the skills, but also planting the
seeds of normalizing this kind of discourse among young children.
·
Introducing
Moot Court opportunities, including both the gathering of evidence, and the
presentation of witnesses, as another foundational post in the curricular
development swath that could sweep across both the developed and the developing
world. Include the deployment of FACETIME and SKYPE to facilitate
cross-continental competitions, after securing both governmental and corporate
sponsorship.
Naturally, all of these
‘ideas’ are directed to enhancing a global perspective in each and every town
and city on the planet. Educators, especially those with vision, ambition and
creative courage could be at the heart of such an initiative, in addition to
their duties to prepare students for twenty-first century jobs. The
short-sighted and highly charged political goal of “job training” risks serving
the other highly charged political goal (again a race to the bottom) of
reducing unemployment ranks, to justify the politicians’ re-election.
The media reporter
cadre, too, has a pivotal role in how it “covers” racial conflict,
jerrymandering to curtail voting opportunities, and the normalizing of
cataracts of cash manipulating all electoral processes. They also have a
significant role in whether and how they treat criminal activity…especially
since the reduction of stories about crime mostly focus on the events and the
charges and the sentences. Leaving out the details of the lives that have
become derailed long before the specific crime was committed, is just another
way of imposing a dangerous and somewhat violent reduction on the name and
person charged and convicted and sentenced. We have to begin to think about
crime differently. Previously, in this blog, I quoted one of the more ignorant
and dismissive observations of a former neighbour when speaking about crime:
“Well, all crimes are committed by the same 2% of the population, and that’s
not going go change!”
Superficial
understanding is frankly an oxymoron. And when we link a superficial
understanding with a transactional modus operandi as the “norm” we risk
undermining both the purpose and the sustainability of our institutions, our
traditions and our collective futures.
Schools, families, and
of course, private corporations, now stretching their arms and legs around the
globe, to take every advantage of every single loophole, and every single human
being desperate enough to accept less than human working conditions, wages,
safety, and environmental protections, are potential sources of creative
energy, in the pathway to generating global citizens, global strategies and
tactics for the survival of as many people as is feasible to support.
Short-term greed, for lining the trust accounts of investors, is another “good
business” oxymoron. It is simply incompatible with the larger, long-term
interests of the planet and its people.
Economies that people
have to serve have turned upside-down the preferred “economies that serve the
people” perspective. And so long as we have people like trump and, more
recently in Ontario, Mr.Ford, a Northern echo of the monster south of the 49th
parallel, opting out of carbon pricing, taking the federal government to court,
opting out of all green energy projects inaugurated by the previous government,
we know that their economy will serve their “political interests” especially
their cheque-writers. (Already trump has raised a reported $88 million for his
2020 re-election campaign! Imagine the caravan of tractor-trailers that will be
needed to transport the final tally to the bank when the totals are
calculated!)
If we are to begin to
rid ourselves of our biases, we will also have to learn to express whole
truths, and not depend on half-truths. Just yesterday, I heard a talking head
columnist from the Washington Post say obviously ironically, “trump has a slight disability when it
comes to recognizing and telling the truth!”
Say what? Is this
politically correct speak for “trump is a pathological liar”?
Straight talk is the
only way to express clear thought. And without clear thought and straight talk
we are all somewhat imperiled. And it is not only people like trump and putin
who prevaricate.
It is an epidemic among
people under thirty, who, if and when they screw up, immediately deny, blame
another or ignore their mis-step. (Of course, atr generalization that has not
been tested in formal research! It is an intuitive guestimate, begging for
empirical verification.
As Obama pointed out in
South Africa, speaking at the 100th anniversary of the birth of
Nelson Mandela words to this effect: social media was once predicted to be a
force for solidarity, learning and the growth of the human condition and yet it
has become an instrument for lies, division and propaganda. If we can listen to
such prophetic voices with our own commitment for a world committed to its own
hope and survival, then, presumably, we can “go higher” in all of the
connotative applications of those words from Michelle Obama.
Contemporary leaders
have staked out for themselves the “low road” that serves only their
narcissistic needs and desperations.
Surely we can do better
than this.
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