Kosmos Global Ambassador Report from Australia

Connecting with Kosmos

In 2008, I spent some time at Pearl Beach with my very dear friend, Jan Lee Martin, an Australian business futurist, having one of those interesting intellectual conversations about the state of the world, the 21st century challenges to humanity, what needs to be done to answer the challenges, and what all of this means for our children and grandchildren. What legacy are we leaving them? And what can we as concerned global citizens, privileged to be living in Australia with the freedoms and means to steer our own destinies, do for all the world’s children and generations to come?

Jan gave me her copy of Kosmos Journal to read while she went to play tennis, and by the time she returned we had something else in common: a love of this journal that takes very complex issues and discusses them in a way that is accessible and inspirational to all. I am in constant awe of the talented artists and photographers whose work graces the pages of each edition!

Taking it to the World

Interested in international affairs and the future, I began researching the many challenges facing humanity and how they were being managed. Who makes decisions affecting all life on planet Earth? How are these decisions made? Are we making progress or, as some would have it, ‘the end is nigh?’ Can individuals and local communities take on global challenges at the local level, and do they have any rights of access to the global decision-making forums? I discovered a remarkable organisation, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO),¹ that had formed to unify nations and peoples with no direct representation in the United Nations General Assembly in the common goal of organising non-violent campaigns to assert their human rights, often simply their right to exist. In many cases, these nations are prevented from communicating with the outside world. In some areas, people are being tortured, executed, or subjected to cultural genocide through the destruction of schools, books, and cultural artifacts, and the forced disappearances of teachers who continue to use the traditional language and perpetuate traditional customs.

Despite all states (with the exception of the Vatican City) being members of the United Nations, I began to learn that there were an estimated “2000 nations in the world wanting to be nationstates in a world with only 200 countries and only 20 nationstates” (Galtung and Fischer, 2013: 96)2² many of whom had been forcibly taken through war or through decolonisation, to become subservient to the dominant nation. Each of the 200 states represented at the UN General Assembly decision-making forum more accurately comprises several nations and peoples, many of whom have no legitimate voice in the General Assembly and therefore no avenue to contribute to decisions affecting their nation’s future.

The powerful drive of exclusion, my research showed, has the potential to create greater conflicts in the future as millions of citizens, frustrated by their futures being decided by governments in other countries or dominant nations who are controlling their lives as the victors of conflict, feel compelled to rebel to achieve the freedoms many of us take for granted.

Sharing Our Message of Hope and Solidarity

My work takes me into other countries and gives me firsthand experience of the many different lives our human family is living. Being a Kosmos Global Ambassador has enabled me to share the global messages of peace, regeneration, the beauty of diversity, and the stories from remote places that show us that people around the world are beginning to unite around the common goal of human thriving in 21st century conditions. It is a wonderful way of letting isolated or marginalised communities know that there is a caring global community out there and that they are a part of a global conversation.

In the past year, I have provided copies of Kosmos to youth development workers in Malaysia, a network of community learning centres in Nepal, an entrepreneurial coworking space in Singapore, an international development worker operating in Thailand and Cambodia, and a company working internationally to reinvent growth for the changing conditions of the 21st century. One youth worker said, “This is just the kind of journal we have been looking for!”

The human family faces challenges that cross political divides and require collaboration to resolve. The nexus of water, energy, food, climate change, and population growth in particular has the potential to spark unrest if not well managed with the intent of providing, as a minimum, the essential needs of all life forms. But most of all the human family needs hope, and I believe Kosmos, and the work of all those who are birthing the planetary civilisation sends out messages of hope to the world.

Endnotes

1 Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation: www.unpo.org
2 Galtung, J, and Fischer, D, 2013. John Galton: Pioneer of peace research, Springer Science and Business Media.