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by Richard Neville
The generosity of spirit and crazy optimism that has fired
the re- settlement of this region since the late sixties,
and today makes it such a spectacular beacon, is now faced
with a long dark night of the soul. A winter of discon-tent.
Will this spur a summer of renewal? Or will our dreams whither
and die, as the soaring of hawks darkens the sky?
You are with us, or against us, we are told, in the aftermath
of
the terrible September attacks on America, our enemies are
evil, and we are good. Cluster bombs carpet the desert, laced
with peanut butter, the innocent are slaughtered, the hi-tech
lynch mobs run amok. At our gangway, the waterlogged refugees
are given the boot, to wild applause from the electorate.
We watch disconsolate. The olphins cavorting on the edge of
the Cape fail to lift our spirit, as once they did. Waves
of shame, of shock, of powerlessness wash us away to an island
of self-reflec- tion -all the while we ve been flinging frisbees,
while fanatics in high places concoct their bombs.
On the major issues of our time, some people find themselves
in the minori-ty; expatriates in their own land. This divide
is not traditional. Not left verus right. Not north against
south, east against west, rich against poor. This value-split
relates to an unfolding view of the world' s future, our role
in it, and a shift in the meaning of evolution.
It goes to the heart of what it might mean to be human in
a networked age. It aims to lift the game of globalisation
beyond mar-kets, brand names and cheap labour, beyond our
skin encapsulated egos, towards an extended concept of who
we are and what we do. Is it a movement? Is it a delusion?
Does it have a name? There' s a gooey phrase floating on the
fringe: planetary humanism.
As the world is in such a state of crisis, both humanitarian
and ecological, its future growth and development needs to
evolve beyond a linear plane, beyond GDP, oil rigs and cement,
or we' ll all be dead. There are signs of such a shift.
Up to this point, human evolution can be categorised in three
stages: conquest, colonisation and consumption. That' s it;
our journey from cave to K-Mart. We' re still stuck in this
final stage, but it' s over. In fact, it' s now counter-evolutionary.
The more that politicians tell us to shop to save the future,
the darker that future becomes. What to do?
This sounds a bit high falutin, I know, but we seem to be
on the brink of transcending this linear evolution, the one
in which we are self-centered economic actors massaged by
the markets. The other kind of evolution is vertical, psychological
and sus- tainable. ( Some call it, mysteriously, inten-sive
evolution) . This can also be grasped under three headings:
connection, commu-nication and consciousness.
Yes, connect. It' s not new.
Epiphany, revelation, yoga, meditation, trav-el and prohibited
substances -tools of transformation or despair. Now inner-space
expands into cyber space, embellished by the accelerating
innovations science -info-tech, bio-tech, robo-tech, nano-tech
- sparking the prospect of cheap, renewable sources of energy.
Star Trek meets the kitchen sink. " The new scientific
world pic-ture" , according to futurist E. Laszlo, "
could provide a socially sanctioned basis for the perennial
vision of oneness between one human being and another, and
between all human beings and nature" . Hold on -this
won' t happen overnight, as two billion peo-ple on earth are
still without access to elec- tricity or the means to make
a phone call.
All the same, far flung villages in India are sprouting internet
kiosks. The web allows borderless communities to enjoy the
kind of intellectual and spiritual sustenance once confined
to scholars and monks.
As vertical evolution unfolds, it could take us from separation
to wholeness, heightening our awareness of the inter-connectedness
of all things. It will shift our reliance from outer sources
of authority to a deeper way of knowing. We will welcome the
role of the spiritual ( as opposed to the religious) in health,
business and public life. Politicians will come to realise
that the integrity of our borders is of far less import than
the integri- ty of our actions and the quality of our desires.
We will look back at our rampaging Fear of the Other with
a sense of remorse, and harshly judge those who stoked its
flame to advance their own ambition.
" There were just so many people" , recalled bird
watcher, Andrew Stafford, in November' s Sydney Morning Herald,
when the luxury craft on which he was sailing, came across
a listing wreck on Ashmore Reef. " Crammed cheek by jowl
under makeshift orange tarpaulins, they sought precious shade
from the vicious heat and blinding glare of the northern Indian
Ocean. A few men waved to us with an odd mixture of curiosity
and forlornness. Women clutched infants to their bosoms. All
wore the same dead, vacant expression" .
The fears and hostilities of observers on the yacht gave
way to " shock, sympathy, maybe even shame" . One
remarked: " I thought I had firm political views on this
issue until about 10 minutes ago. Now I' m not so sure. "
His mates were having the best of times, he realised, and
the boat people were having the worst. Humanity transcends
poli-tics, once the connection is made. It' s why the camera
crews were banned from board-ing the goodship Tampa -the unseen
are easier to hate.
The more we connect, the more we look into the face of the
Other, and see our own reflection, dressed in rags and eating
dirt.
And wonder why. And want to share. Are we up to it?
It' s already happening. Special forces of " planetary
humanists" are seeding the globe without fanfare: the
elderly handyman from a rural backwater doggedly setting up
schools in Bangladesh; the brassy matron sheltering orphans
in Phnom Penh, and so many more, all over the world, and in
our inner cities, risking prosecution to succour the unwanted.
During our vile November election, the doubling of the Greens
vote was more than a rap on the knuckles for Canberra xenophobes;
it was a plus for planetary humanity.
Look at the official Greens policy: A treaty with aboriginals,
optional voting for 16 & 17 year olds, counselling for
gay & lesbian rural youth, political independence for
the ABC board, annual royalties for artists whose work is
on display in public galleries, saving the forests, taxing
polluters, ending the vilifi-cation of asylum seekers, achieving
world heritage nomination for Western Australia' s Ningaloo
Reef and, too late, a moratorium on the bombing of Afghanistan.
Planetary humanists with a penchant for the big picture -academics,
the NGO communi- ty, social reformers -are promoting a grand
Earth Charter. This pushes beyond the anal diplomatic doctrine
of national self interest and calls for such reforms as a
tax on cur- rency transactions to end economic sabo-tage.
The Charter gives priority to domestic development and local
needs over IMF imposed export-led growth. It seeks the cancellation
of third world debt, a global tax on millionaires and a global
minimum income. If this sounds extreme, remember that half
of the world' s population lives on less than $ 2 a day.
The Earth Charter calls for the Creation of a People' s Assembly
at the UN, one open to " systematic input from non profits
and corporates" , for the strengthening of the World
Court, for the bounty of bio-tech to be pursued on behalf
of the Third World, for good corporate citizenship to be rewarded,
for micro-credit to be made available to the world' s poor
and that all new weapons of mass destruction be crimi-nalized.
( A fat chance, seeing that global arms sales reap around
$ US25 billion, led by the U. S, mostly flogged to developing
nations, after them first acting as test sites) .
Also in the works is the creation of a World Environment
Organisation and a Universal Declaration of Global Ethics.
So much for the globe "out there", howabout the
one between our ears? The quest for higher consciousness is
easy to lampoon, and subject to embarrassing skids on the
banana skin of life, but what' s the alternative? To repeat
the mistakes of the past with increasing ferocity.
The evolution of technology is far outpacing the evolution
of humans.
At this moment in history it is vital to upgrade out moral
sensibility and to strive for the higher ground, even if it
threatens our opulent lifestyle. People are brutes, we never
change. How often is this used to beat reformers over the
head? It was drummed in to those who tried to abolish slavery
and public executions. In our own time, we have witnessed
the decline of the death penalty, the granting of Mabo, the
ascent of rights for women, children, the disabled, "
untouchables" and even crea- tures of the wild. Most
Australians, including our current Prime Minister, once believed
it was okay to lay waste villages in Vietnam. Now they don'
t, excluding our current Prime Minister. Ethics evolve.
But aren' t we all victims of genetics? It is all too easy
to make excuses. Jean Paul Sartre and other existentialists
regarded this as " living in bad faith" . We are
prone to adopt a slew of self deceptive strategies for camouflaging
our capacity to seize the moment, to kick off our heels and
live a truly fulfilled and original life. We call these blocks
' character' , or ' personality' or swallow some bleak theory,
like psychoanalysis, which excuses our behaviour as being
in the grip of hidden forces. Existentialists regard this
as " inau- thentic" -the surrendering of one' s
inner- most being to others, to the " herd" , to
" them" , to public opinion. Like today' s so called
leaders, timidly tiptoeing backwards in the shadow of the
polls. Instead of pro- tecting our borders, we need to expand
them, to live in full pursuit, as David Cooper puts it, "
of the radical extent of one' s freedom and responsibility.
" The world is your workshop.
It isn' t easy. Sooner or later we in the West will be confronted
with the damning choice. Are you prepared to have a bit less,
so that others can have a bit more?
At a conference in Glenelg, South Australia, on the future
of copyright, privacy and the internet, the audience was welcomed
with a ceremony from the local Kuarna people.
It opens with an ochre daubed didgeridoo player. Enter tribespeople
in loin cloths to re-enact a wallaby hunt, backlit by multi
media depictions of an outback corroboree. The stage darkens.
A fair haired woman in a long white dress with snow white
skin rises from the floor to perform an elegant bird dance,
which seems to owe more to the court of Louis IVX than it
does to the desert. A jet black performer in a Tiwi mini skirt,
solemnly enters the stage and offers a traditional song -Amazing
Grace. Howsweet it was, sitting in this gloomy function room
at a convention of lawyers, amidst the fusion of cultures,
to be so moved, so elevated. After the long silence that hon-
oured the hymn, she said -" what you need to know about
our culture, is that in the end, it' s all about sharing.
"
That didn' t sound corny then - and it doesn' t sound corny
now. It' s what this para- doxical global culture has a chance
to be about.
Sharing.
Richard Neville
richardneville.com
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