Toward a Global Ethic
Toward a Global Ethic
Toward a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration was prepared to establish a shared ethical framework for all peoples across religious lines. It was drafted by Dr. Hans Küng with input from nearly 200 scholars representing many world religions and presented to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in September 1993. It was signed by 143 respected leaders from all of the world’s major faiths, including the Baha’i Faith, Brahmanism, Brahma Kumaris, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Indigenous, Interfaith, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American, Neo-Pagan, Sikhism, Taoism, Theosophist, Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian. The Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions offers it to the world as an initial statement of a group of rules for living on which all of the world’s religions can agree.
It has since been signed by thousands of religious leaders and individuals across the world. The basic points of the proposed ethic are non-violence, economic justice, tolerance, and equality.
Toward a Global Ethic
The world is in agony. The agony is so pervasive and urgent that we are compelled to name its manifestations so that the depth of this pain may be made clear.
Peace eludes us…the planet is being destroyed…neighbors live in fear…women and men are estranged from each other…children die!
This is abhorrent!
We condemn the abuses of Earth’s ecosystems.
We condemn the poverty that stifles life’s potential; the hunger that weakens the human body; the economic disparities that threaten so many families with ruin.
We condemn the social disarray of the nations; the disregard for justice which pushes citizens to the margin; the anarchy overtaking our communities; and the insane death of children from violence. In particular we condemn aggression and hatred in the name of religion.
But this agony need not be.
It need not be because the basis for an ethic already exists. This ethic offers the possibility of a better individual and global order, and leads individuals away from despair and societies away from chaos.
We are women and men who have embraced the precepts and practices of the world’s religions:
We affirm that there is an irrevocable, unconditional norm for all areas of life, for families and communities, for races, nations, and religions. There already exist ancient guidelines for human behavior which are found in the teachings of the religions of the world and which are the condition for a sustainable world order.
We Declare:
We are interdependent. Each of us depends on the well-being of the whole, and so we have respect for the community of living beings, for people, animals, and plants, and for the preservation of Earth, the air, water and soil.
We take individual responsibility for all we do. All our decisions, actions, and failures to act have consequences.
We must treat others as we wish others to treat us. We make a commitment to respect life and dignity, individuality and diversity, so that every person is treated humanely, without exception. We must have patience and acceptance. We must be able to forgive, learning form the past but never allowing ourselves to be enslaved by memories of hate. Opening our hearts to one another, we must sink our narrow differences for the cause of world community, practicing a culture of solidarity and relatedness.
We consider humankind a family. We must strive to be kind and generous. We must not live for ourselves alone, but should also serve others, never forgetting the children, the aged, the poor, the suffering, the disabled, the refugees and the lonely. No person should ever be considered or treated as a second-class citizen, or be exploited in any way whatsoever. There should be equal partnership between men and women. We must not commit any kind of sexual immorality. We must put behind us all forms of domination or abuse.
We commit ourselves to a culture of non-violence, respect, justice, and peace. We shall not oppress, injure, torture, or kill other human beings, forsaking violence as a means of settling differences.
We must strive for a just social and economic order, in which everyone has an equal chance to reach full potential as a human being. We must speak and act truthfully and with compassion, dealing fairly with all, and avoiding prejudice and hatred. We must not steal. We must move beyond the dominance of greed for power, prestige, money, and consumption to make a just and peaceful world.
Earth cannot be changed for the better unless the consciousness of individuals is changed first. We pledge to increase our awareness by disciplining our minds, by meditation, by prayer, or by positive thinking. Without risk and a readiness to sacrifice there can be no fundamental change in our situation. Therefore we commit ourselves to this global ethic, to understanding one another, and to socially beneficial, peace-fostering, and nature-friendly ways of life.
We invite all people, whether religious or not, to do the same.
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez | Break Free
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez | Break Free
For the last 11 years, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez has been in the public eye for his activism, movement building, work with Earth Guardians, and youth empowerment. In 2013, President Obama awarded Xiuhtezcatl the United States Community Service Award. Xiuhtezcatl was the youngest of 24 national change-makers chosen to serve on the president’s youth council. He is the recipient of the 2015 Peace First Prize; the 2015 Nickelodeon Halo Award; the 2016 Captain Planet Award; the 2016 Children’s Climate Prize in Sweden; and the 2017 Univision Premios Agente de Cambio Award. He has addressed the UN General Assembly, given TED Talks, been interviewed by Bill Maher, and made an appearance on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah—all by the age of 17. Currently, he is one of 21 young plaintiffs suing the U.S. government for violating our constitutional rights by perpetuating the climate crisis in the trial of the century: Juliana vs. the United States. His has authored We Rise: The Earth Guardians Guide to Building a Movement That Restores the Planet, and just released his first album, Break Free.
Kari Auerbach | How old were you when you first started writing music? What was the impetus or catalyst for doing that?
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez | I started writing songs when I was maybe seven or eight years old. I started picking up the piano and teaching myself how to play. I had teachers that tried to teach me theory and how to read notes, but I wasn’t really interested in that piece of it. Then, I found a teacher that would write out and annotate the songs that I was composing. From there, that’s how I learned how to read and compose my own music, and I started writing lyrics shortly afterward. I’ve always been very interested in writing, literature, and poetry.
Hip-hop had always played a significant role in the way I view music culture. When I was eight, I got my first hip-hop album—Stay Human by Michael Franti. It was the first time I ever heard hella positive, conscious, radical, political hip-hop in a really beautiful, signed package like that. It was very influenced by funk and soul. I was interested in music at that young age, and all my siblings were artists—either singers, songwriters, rappers—so I had influence around me in my family.
Really getting into actually writing a lot of my own songs? I was probably eleven or twelve. That was just from going out and starting to play shows and show people my art. It was an interesting beginning because initially, the music was just an outlet and a tool to talk about the causes that I had grown up being very involved in. Music became a place in which my voice was my own, and it didn’t necessarily have to do with the movements that I was always supporting. I found sovereignty and independence in my art. And that’s definitely, I think, what made a transition from music being just kind of another way I talk about different issues, to something that was actually defining who I was becoming and was allowing me to have a different space to communicate and express through my art.
The street artist Shepard Fairey partnered with Amplifier Art, a design lab dedicated to amplifying the voices of social change movements. Xiuhtezcatl was the first subject in a series of 10 different posters of 10 young leaders representing diverse movements for Amplifier’s We The Future series. The project will place art and supporting teaching tools representing these young leaders and their movements into more than 20,000 schools across the country to inspire and engage the next generation.
Kari | When did you decide to make a full length record, Break Free, and what role do you think your activism played in the making of this record?
Xiuhtezcatl | I started writing some of these songs as early as 2014, and I began to make beats on my laptop with GarageBand and Pro Tools (software). Since I played keys, I would program all my own synth parts, melodies and piano.
I really began to craft the album in 2017 when I brought a good buddy of mine in, Richard Vagner, who’s a very talented instrumentalist and producer I actually met at the Democratic National Convention. We started writing music together, and we invited other producers to work on the sound and vibe of the project. Me, my sister, and my little brother had written the foundation of a lot of this. My sister, you hear her voice through the project, has had a very significant impact on the way I write music, and she helped craft a lot of these songs. Over the course of a year and a half, each song was rewritten, restructured, and reproduced.
My identity and my life as an activist has a very specific energy that people associate me with. In many parts of my life, I saw it as definitely putting me in a box in the way people saw me and my story. People didn’t understand the complexity and diversity of what I was fighting for or the way I wanted to use my voice to influence change.
Kari | …or even that there was a real person behind those messages.
Xiuhtezcatl | Exactly! When I first started making this record, I was like, “Yo, this is a movement album. This is going to be for the people out there experiencing oppression and injustice—people fighting pipelines, people at the forefronts of police brutality, and young people going through these different things—to call them to action to break free.” And then I realized that breaking free—that was a process I went through by making this record.
Kari | Breaking out of the box a little bit.
Xiuhtezcatl | Exactly. Completely breaking out of the box of how the world sees me and reclaiming my story, telling it myself through my lyrics and every song in a different way. It was healing. The activism was actually the antagonist of the story in Break Free, and the music was what helped pull me through people’s perceptions of my identity and find it for myself.
I see the album as a coming of age—a reflection on the last eighteen years of my life as an activist in these movements about social and climate justice, identity, and indigenous rights. From my own perspective, I’ve taken the story that the world knows and composed it through this music so that it’s out there in the world, and I never have to repeat myself again to tell my story.
Kari | Each song is its own little story and it makes the album so beautifully cohesive. I love that you sing in English, Spanish, and the Central American language Nahuatl (proun. Nah-wat). From the opening track, ‘Tiahuiliz / Light,’ would you translate a couple lines for me? “Tinexcayu totiuh xochime. Tinexcayu totiuh cuicame.”
Xiuhtezcatl | It’s an old Nahuatl poem that my father taught me. It means, “At the least we have left flowers. At the least we have left songs.” The rest of the poem in the intro song goes on to explain a little bit; it’s a reflection on legacy. The beauty of the culture of our people is not in the temples or the buildings or the libraries or the greatness of our empires. The beauty of our culture is in the flowers and the songs that we have left behind and that we pass on from generation to generation. At the very least, what we have left behind is flowers and songs, and that is where the beauty and the lifeline of our culture lies.
Kari | Could you tell us about the current status of the lawsuit you’ve taken up that’s been brought to the Supreme Court? You just had an important meeting and won the right to keep proceeding. Any new news beyond that?
Xiuhtezcatl | No new news. The Trump Administration placed an administrative stay. We were going to go to trial October 29th, but due to the processing of the administrative stay, it was postponed. The Supreme Court then denied the Trump administration’s request to place the stay. So now in the following months, we’re going to be getting the final court date.
Kari | So that was a pretty huge victory?
Xiuhtezcatl | Yeah, it’s huge. Every step of the way that Trump has gone to try to dismiss, deny or stall this lawsuit, it’s been turned around by every judge that’s seen it because they’re playing dirty. They’re trying to pull all kinds of things out of their bag that are not protocol, that are very shady. We have the legal system on our side, and I believe that we’ll prevail through the court.
Kari | In the political climate right now we’ve heard words like patriotism and nationalism circulating; in this context, what does the term ‘global citizen’ mean to you, and do you consider yourself a global citizen?
Xiuhtezcatl inspires from stages both big and small and remains committed to youth that are too young to attend his shows at festivals and regular venues.
Xiuhtezcatl | I definitely consider myself a global citizen, and the way I interpret that is somebody who understands our place in the world and understands themselves in the context of something much greater than any one of us. I think there is power in understanding where we come from, understanding who we are, understanding how place plays a role in our identity, but also not allowing that to limit the ways in which we interact with the world. A global citizen is somebody who lives without allowing borders to limit the way we view other people, the way we view ourselves, or the ways we choose to impact the world around us.
Kari | In what ways do you think activism, music, and touring can promote these ideas of global citizenship?
Xiuhtezcatl | Walk it how you talk it. You’re out there speaking about these things and it’s like, how are you going to act and how are you going to live and how are you going to do those things in your lives? Touring and playing shows and making music and putting out albums—the music is going to reflect the person you are. The music that I put out is going to be a reflection of the kind of life that I’m living—the way that I tour and the kind of transportation I choose, these different things are examples. When you’re on that stage, you have a platform. People are listening to you. They’re in a different space than when you’re giving a keynote or when they’re watching a YouTube video of me at the United Nations or giving a TED Talk. When you’re in front of an audience of people, their hearts are opened. They’re ready to celebrate and to cut loose, and sometimes I just forget about all the bull. If you’re there, how can you uplift and inspire those people to take something away from that show more than just a good night? How can you make that ride into something that people learn from and something people are inspired to come back to? Because people don’t always remember the show. They remember the experience and the energy that they felt. If you can capture and create an energy that is above the status quo, then you’re going to create spaces where people want to come and engage and be a part of your community. A fan base, that’s about building family, building a community. That’s what this music is about for me, that’s what I want to create. Yes, I want to be incredibly successful and make music that has mainstream appeal, that’s part of the goal, but I also want to pull people in and create a community around the art that I’ve made. I’ve seen artists do it successfully, and it’s incredibly inspiring when they’ve done that.
Kari | Another thing that was inspiring was that new MTV Generation Change awards. I think it’s such a great thing for a behemoth like MTV to be shining a spotlight on young people who are changing the world. What are your thoughts on your nomination and that experience?
Xiuhtezcatl | It was cool to go out there, and it was the first time they ever gave out this award, the MTV-EMA Generation Change award. Coming home winning that award was something I’m definitely proud of, and I’m excited to see, as you said, a mainstream platform like MTV support the voices of young people doing good work. As an activist and as an artist, I was out there double hustling, making connections, kicking it with industry people like Sway Calloway—he’s the voice for one of the most influential radio shows in hip-hop, Shade45 on SiriusXM. He presented me with the award. Afterward, we were talking and he was like, “Yeah man, I heard your song, get your bars up.*” A lot of young artists blow up on the show so I’m like, I’m ready. I’m ready to go and make that happen.
Kari | That’s a way that your activism helped with your music, for sure.
Xiuhtezcatl | The way I see it, the activism was a platform that gave me worldwide recognition before I even dropped an album, so it gave me wings and then I had to teach myself how to fly.
Kari | When I first listened to Break Free, it reminded me of Zack de la Rocha (of Rage Against the Machine). He once explained his music by saying “Revolution songs are love songs,” and he classified every single Rage Against the Machine song as such. I get that feeling in your music, but the tone, the sounds, the vibe, the stylings are completely different. Who influences and inspires you musically?
Xiuhtezcatl | As far as archetypes that have been making waves with their art in a revolutionary sense, Zack de la Rocha in Rage Against the Machine has been someone that we look up to. As far as influences, sonically I think I listened to a lot of Talib Kweli and Black Star when I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and just studied, studied, studied his lyrics and his rhyme schemes and his patterns for production and just the sounds that I wanted to capture too. I listened to a lot of J. Cole’s records, and that’s kind of the direction I want to steer toward. The way that J. Cole does it, there’s such a storytelling component to a lot of his songs. It’s all very connected sonically, very big orchestral sounds like choirs. Chance the Rapper in his Coloring Book album did really well tying the whole album together through the live gospel choir sound.
Besides Chance the Rapper, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, and Logic, now I look to some newer artists like Amine, Smino, and Noname—three young artists that are in a somewhat independent land of hip-hop, doing things differently than a lot of the other mainstream artists. I admire their platform and the creative way that they present their art. It’s been a lot of learning and a lot of studying. KRS-One was the teacher; I see him not even as an artist, but as a teacher that has represented a lot of the culture.
Kari | You mentioned Richard Vagner, you mentioned your sister Isa, you wanna give a shout out to anybody else who helped out on the record?
Xiuhtezcatl | Brian Harding, the one and only, the star maker. He produced the record. He’s worked on over 500 gold and platinum records in his career and done a bunch of work in the music industry in Nashville and LA, producing for different people like India Arie, Outcast, and Guns and Roses. He’s kind of abandoned the music industry and started just doing projects that he fell in love with, that he was passionate about. He helped me grow, he helped me discover my voice, he helped teach me how to record and how to use and understand my voice, my flow, and how to tell stories—not just with the lyrics, but with the inflections of my vocals and the tonality I put behind the songs. It really helped shape a lot of the original beginnings of me growing up as a real artist.
Xi-Tika is a producer that I worked with on the project, incredibly talented young producer that helped bring all the drum sounds.
My momma, shouts to my mom. She’s been holding the dollars, supporting me. It’s been really a lot. I’ve never, ever lived my life in one lane. Having a significant presence in the world of environmentalism has taken up and consumed a lot of my time and my energy and what I’ve been all about. Now, transitioning towards music and using music for a platform to talk about these same things, it’s a really interesting process to go through that transition period. Now my vision is bigger than ever for both worlds. I’m just constantly on the move, it’s a beautiful life. I’m very grateful.
Kari | This record is such a milestone on your personal journey to yourself, your authentic self. What themes might we find in the next record?
Xiuhtezcatl | I’m finishing the second record now. All of it will be recorded, mixed, and mastered by December. That’s the vision. I have two records coming that are in the process of completion over the next two or three months. It’s going to be very different sounds. The production is going to change for sure and that’s going to influence the vibe of the record a lot. And it’s going to be something that I think a lot more young people vibe with and are going to be engaging with. It’s going to surprise a lot of people, and certain people are definitely not going to expect it, but I think it’s going to be such an authentic reflection of where I am right now with the music and the creativity. I went to Spain and wrote the body of the third album there and then already came back and started dropping vocals in studios in San Francisco, so it’s going to be a completely different energy. Lots of trap* sounds and talking about a lot of these same things. It’s a different form of reflection when the sounds are different, but it’s a lot of the same themes of diving into colonization, identity, self-reflection, and life balance, guidance, my relationship with my dad—all these different things, diving really deeply into that. The energy and the maturity of the music is continuing to grow where the sound is just going in a different direction.
That’s just for the next project though. I don’t want to make another album like Break Free. I think that’s going to be the only one of its kind, and the rest are going to continue to evolve and take new shapes. It’s interesting. I think one cool model is Logic. He has the EPs that he puts out, the Bobby Tarantino’s (Bobby Tarantino & Bobby Tarantino II) and those have a heavy trap vibe, and then he just put out Young Sinatra IV which is all boom-bap, boom-bap east coast vibe, old school hip-hop style. But then, his full length albums are his masterpieces. They have both energies in them, and they’re all connected to his story and the sonic cohesiveness of the whole project. So those are three different styles you guys are going to see. It’s going to be something!
One Day features vocals by Isa Roske, Xiuhtexcatl’s sister, who he credits with helping to craft many of the songs on ‘Break Free’.
Kari | Well I, for one, and I’m sure the Kosmos Community, will be waiting to hear it. It sounds intriguing. You don’t waste a minute! We will be looking for your future releases. I’m absolutely thrilled with this one. Thank you so much for the music, and thank you for taking the time to speak with us.
Xiuhtezcatl | I certainly appreciate the platform, the opportunity, all the good questions, and all the love you’ve been sharing with the album, all the reflection. I see you’re definitely putting energy into listening and finding your own meaning for all the songs, so I appreciate that.
Kari | Well, thank you ever so much and have a great set of shows.
Xiuhtezcatl | Yes, much love. We’ll talk again soon.
*In hip-hop slang, bars refers to a rapper’s lyrics, especially when considered extremely good.
* Trap is a simplistic, dynamic hip-hop formula originating in the 90’s, consisting of rhythm shifting percussion, rattling hi-hats, Roland TR-808 drum machine samples and a cinematic, symphonic utilization of string, brass, woodwind, and keyboard instruments to create an energetic, hard-hitting, deep, and variant atmosphere.
The Earth Charter
The Earth Charter
The Earth Charter Initiative is a global movement of organizations and individuals that embrace the Earth Charter and use it to guide the transition towards a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world.
Preamble
We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.
Earth, Our Home
Humanity is part of a vast evolving universe. Earth, our home, is alive with a unique community of life. The forces of nature make existence a demanding and uncertain adventure, but Earth has provided the conditions essential to life’s evolution. The resilience of the community of life and the well-being of humanity depend upon preserving a healthy biosphere with all its ecological systems, a rich variety of plants and animals, fertile soils, pure waters, and clean air. The global environment with its finite resources is a common concern of all peoples. The protection of Earth’s vitality, diversity, and beauty is a sacred trust.
The Global Situation
The dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species. Communities are being undermined. The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Injustice, poverty, ignorance, and violent conflict are widespread and the cause of great suffering. An unprecedented rise in human population has overburdened ecological and social systems. The foundations of global security are threatened. These trends are perilous—but not inevitable.
The Challenges Ahead
The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for Earth and one another or risk the destruction of ourselves and the diversity of life. Fundamental changes are needed in our values, institutions, and ways of living. We must realize that when basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about being more, not having more. We have the knowledge and technology to provide for all and to reduce our impacts on the environment. The emergence of a global civil society is creating new opportunities to build a democratic and humane world. Our environmental, economic, political, social, and spiritual challenges are interconnected, and together we can forge inclusive solutions.
Universal Responsibility
To realize these aspirations, we must decide to live with a sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole Earth community as well as our local communities. We are at once citizens of different nations and of one world in which the local and global are linked. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of the human family and the larger living world. The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live with reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature.
We urgently need a shared vision of basic values to provide an ethical foundation for the emerging world community. Therefore, together in hope we affirm the following interdependent principles for a sustainable way of life as a common standard by which the conduct of all individuals, organizations, businesses, governments, and transnational institutions is to be guided and assessed.
PRINCIPLES
I. Respect and Care for the Community of Life
- Respect Earth and life in all its diversity.
- Recognize that all beings are interdependent and every form of life has value regardless of its worth to human beings.
- Affirm faith in the inherent dignity of all human beings and in the intellectual, artistic, ethical, and spiritual potential of humanity.
- Care for the community of life with understanding, compassion, and love.
- Accept that with the right to own, manage, and use natural resources comes the duty to prevent environmental harm and to protect the rights of people.
- Affirm that with increased freedom, knowledge, and power comes increased responsibility to promote the common good.
- Build democratic societies that are just, participatory, sustainable, and peaceful.
- Ensure that communities at all levels guarantee human rights and fundamental freedoms and provide everyone an opportunity to realize his or her full potential.
- Promote social and economic justice, enabling all to achieve a secure and meaningful livelihood that is ecologically responsible.
- Secure Earth’s bounty and beauty for present and future generations.
- Recognize that the freedom of action of each generation is qualified by the needs of future generations.
- Transmit to future generations values, traditions, and institutions that support the long-term flourishing of Earth’s human and ecological communities.
In order to fulfill these four broad commitments, it is necessary to:
II. Ecological Integrity
- Protect and restore the integrity of Earth’s ecological systems, with special concern for biological diversity and the natural processes that sustain life.
- Adopt at all levels sustainable development plans and regulations that make environmental conservation and rehabilitation integral to all development initiatives.
- Establish and safeguard viable nature and biosphere reserves, including wild lands and marine areas, to protect Earth’s life support systems, maintain biodiversity, and preserve our natural heritage.
- Promote the recovery of endangered species and ecosystems.
- Control and eradicate non-native or genetically modified organisms harmful to native species and the environment, and prevent introduction of such harmful organisms.
- Manage the use of renewable resources such as water, soil, forest products, and marine life in ways that do not exceed rates of regeneration and that protect the health of ecosystems.
- Manage the extraction and use of non-renewable resources such as minerals and fossil fuels in ways that minimize depletion and cause no serious environmental damage.
- Prevent harm as the best method of environmental protection and, when knowledge is limited, apply a precautionary approach.
- Take action to avoid the possibility of serious or irreversible environmental harm even when scientific knowledge is incomplete or inconclusive.
- Place the burden of proof on those who argue that a proposed activity will not cause significant harm, and make the responsible parties liable for environmental harm.
- Ensure that decision making addresses the cumulative, long-term, indirect, long distance, and global consequences of human activities.
- Prevent pollution of any part of the environment and allow no build-up of radioactive, toxic, or other hazardous substances.
- Avoid military activities damaging to the environment.
- Adopt patterns of production, consumption, and reproduction that safeguard Earth’s regenerative capacities, human rights, and community well-being.
- Reduce, reuse, and recycle the materials used in production and consumption systems, and ensure that residual waste can be assimilated by ecological systems.
- Act with restraint and efficiency when using energy, and rely increasingly on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
- Promote the development, adoption, and equitable transfer of environmentally sound technologies.
- Internalize the full environmental and social costs of goods and services in the selling price, and enable consumers to identify products that meet the highest social and environmental standards.
- Ensure universal access to health care that fosters reproductive health and responsible reproduction.
- Adopt lifestyles that emphasize the quality of life and material sufficiency in a finite world.
- Advance the study of ecological sustainability and promote the open exchange and wide application of the knowledge acquired.
- Support international scientific and technical cooperation on sustainability, with special attention to the needs of developing nations.
- Recognize and preserve the traditional knowledge and spiritual wisdom in all cultures that contribute to environmental protection and human well-being.
- Ensure that information of vital importance to human health and environmental protection, including genetic information, remains available in the public domain.
III. Social and Economic Justice
- Eradicate poverty as an ethical, social, and environmental imperative.
- Guarantee the right to potable water, clean air, food security, uncontaminated soil, shelter, and safe sanitation, allocating the national and international resources required.
- Empower every human being with the education and resources to secure a sustainable livelihood, and provide social security and safety nets for those who are unable to support themselves.
- Recognize the ignored, protect the vulnerable, serve those who suffer, and enable them to develop their capacities and to pursue their aspirations.
- Ensure that economic activities and institutions at all levels promote human development in an equitable and sustainable manner.
- Promote the equitable distribution of wealth within nations and among nations.
- Enhance the intellectual, financial, technical, and social resources of developing nations, and relieve them of onerous international debt.
- Ensure that all trade supports sustainable resource use, environmental protection, and progressive labor standards.
- Require multinational corporations and international financial organizations to act transparently in the public good, and hold them accountable for the consequences of their activities.
- Affirm gender equality and equity as prerequisites to sustainable development and ensure universal access to education, health care, and economic opportunity.
- Secure the human rights of women and girls and end all violence against them.
- Promote the active participation of women in all aspects of economic, political, civil, social, and cultural life as full and equal partners, decision makers, leaders, and beneficiaries.
- Strengthen families and ensure the safety and loving nurture of all family members.
- Uphold the right of all, without discrimination, to a natural and social environment supportive of human dignity, bodily health, and spiritual well-being, with special attention to the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.
- Eliminate discrimination in all its forms, such as that based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, language, and national, ethnic or social origin.
- Affirm the right of indigenous peoples to their spirituality, knowledge, lands and resources and to their related practice of sustainable livelihoods.
- Honor and support the young people of our communities, enabling them to fulfill their essential role in creating sustainable societies.
- Protect and restore outstanding places of cultural and spiritual significance.
IV. Democracy, Nonviolence, and Peace
- Strengthen democratic institutions at all levels, and provide transparency and accountability in governance, inclusive participation in decision making, and access to justice.
- Uphold the right of everyone to receive clear and timely information on environmental matters and all development plans and activities which are likely to affect them or in which they have an interest.
- Support local, regional and global civil society, and promote the meaningful participation of all interested individuals and organizations in decision making.
- Protect the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly, association, and dissent.
- Institute effective and efficient access to administrative and independent judicial procedures, including remedies and redress for environmental harm and the threat of such harm.
- Eliminate corruption in all public and private institutions.
- Strengthen local communities, enabling them to care for their environments, and assign environmental responsibilities to the levels of government where they can be carried out most effectively.
- Integrate into formal education and life-long learning the knowledge, values, and skills needed for a sustainable way of life.
- Provide all, especially children and youth, with educational opportunities that empower them to contribute actively to sustainable development.
- Promote the contribution of the arts and humanities as well as the sciences in sustainability education.
- Enhance the role of the mass media in raising awareness of ecological and social challenges.
- Recognize the importance of moral and spiritual education for sustainable living.
- Treat all living beings with respect and consideration.
- Prevent cruelty to animals kept in human societies and protect them from suffering.
- Protect wild animals from methods of hunting, trapping, and fishing that cause extreme, prolonged, or avoidable suffering.
- Avoid or eliminate to the full extent possible the taking or destruction of non-targeted species.
- Promote a culture of tolerance, nonviolence, and peace.
- Encourage and support mutual understanding, solidarity, and cooperation among all peoples and within and among nations.
- Implement comprehensive strategies to prevent violent conflict and use collaborative problem solving to manage and resolve environmental conflicts and other disputes.
- Demilitarize national security systems to the level of a non-provocative defense posture, and convert military resources to peaceful purposes, including ecological restoration.
- Eliminate nuclear, biological, and toxic weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
- Ensure that the use of orbital and outer space supports environmental protection and peace.
- Recognize that peace is the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the larger whole of which all are a part.
THE WAY FORWARD
As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning. Such renewal is the promise of these Earth Charter principles. To fulfill this promise, we must commit ourselves to adopt and promote the values and objectives of the Charter.
This requires a change of mind and heart. It requires a new sense of global interdependence and universal responsibility. We must imaginatively develop and apply the vision of a sustainable way of life locally, nationally, regionally, and globally. Our cultural diversity is a precious heritage and different cultures will find their own distinctive ways to realize the vision. We must deepen and expand the global dialogue that generated the Earth Charter, for we have much to learn from the ongoing collaborative search for truth and wisdom.
Life often involves tensions between important values. This can mean difficult choices. However, we must find ways to harmonize diversity with unity, the exercise of freedom with the common good, short-term objectives with long-term goals. Every individual, family, organization, and community has a vital role to play. The arts, sciences, religions, educational institutions, media, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and governments are all called to offer creative leadership. The partnership of government, civil society, and business is essential for effective governance.
In order to build a sustainable global community, the nations of the world must renew their commitment to the United Nations, fulfill their obligations under existing international agreements, and support the implementation of Earth Charter principles with an international legally binding instrument on environment and development.
Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.
Statement on the Unique Challenge of Nuclear Weapons
Statement on the Unique Challenge of Nuclear Weapons
This statement, developed by Jonathan Granoff of the Global Security Institute, with the supportive consultations of former Canadian Prime Minister Right Honorable Kim Campbell, General Romeo Dallaire, Senator Douglas Roche, Parliament Chairperson Elect Audrey Kitagawa, Bishop William Swing, and Kehkashan Basu, has been adopted by the Parliament of the World’s Religions in November, 2018 for release worldwide:
The destructive capacity of nuclear weapons is beyond imagination, poisoning the Earth forever. These horrific devices place before us every day the decision whether we will be the last human generation. The power to unleash this destruction is in the hands of a small number of people. No one should be holding such power over the very creation, which we regard as a sacred gift for all today and for future generations.
At present, there are over 14,000 of these devices, with hundreds on hair trigger alert. Nine nations* claim that they can responsibly pursue global security by daily making thousands of people ready to use these weapons on a moment’s notice, by relying on machines to determine whether a threat is actual or mistaken, by spending trillions of dollars in the weapons designs and deployments, by demonizing other peoples and nations, by spending vast sums to convince populations that the weapons make them safe and secure, by demonstrating a present readiness to use the weapons to deter others from acquiring them or others with them from using them first, and by threatening to use them as an exercise of aggressive political will.
This conduct is immoral, ignores the legal obligations contained in treaties and the unanimous ruling of the World Court to negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons, and is practically unsustainable. It is claimed that the readiness to use nuclear weapons under the military doctrine of deterrence is justifiable. Such reasoning is unrealistic and flawed. The possession of nuclear weapons relies on the alleged infallibility of men and machines not to use the weapons by mistake, miscalculation, madness, or design. Such arrogance is foolish. The possession of nuclear weapons is immoral, illegal, and must be rectified by prompt action.
Scientific findings now demonstrate that if less than 1% of today’s arsenal were to be used, even in a first strike, the consequences would be millions of tons of soot in the stratosphere, which would lower the earth’s temperature, create dramatic ozone depletion, and render agriculture unable to sustain civilization. This would destroy the nation that used them first.
Such a posture is unworthy of civilization, insults the dignity of life, is an impediment to all ethical and moral norms of all the world’s religions. To ignore the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons by exalting nationalism as higher principle raises moral corrosion to unprecedented levels. The ongoing possession and threat to use nuclear weapons is a gross affront to a culture of peace and an impediment to obtaining realistic security based on protecting our planet home, eliminating poverty, and basing the conduct of nations on the rule of law.
For some nations to claim the weapons are good for them but not others violates the Golden Rule of Nations: Nations must treat other nations as they wish to be treated.
Nuclear weapons promote the culture of ultimate violence claiming implicitly that the pursuit of security by one state can rightfully place the right to existence of all future generations at risk.
The nine nations of the world placing this sword over the life of every person on the planet must change their conduct. Nuclear weapons states should take the weapons off of alert status, lower their numbers, bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force by ratifying it, lower the operational status of the weapons, decouple the warheads from delivery vehicles, strengthen the treaty verification and inspection institutions, expand the current nuclear weapons free zones, which make the Southern Hemisphere virtually nuclear weapons-free, and commit to explicitly accept the logic so clearly stated decades ago: “A nuclear war can never be won and thus must never be fought.”
We thus make a passionate plea to the leaders of all religions, all people of good will, and all leaders of nations both with and without nuclear weapons to commit to work to eliminate these horrific devices forever. We support the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the duty explicitly stated in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to obtain a nuclear weapons-free world. We call upon the nine nations with the weapons to promptly commence negotiations to obtain a legal instrument or instruments leading to the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
*United States, Russia (with over 90% of the weapons), China, France, the United Kingdom (Five Permanent Members of the Security Council and members of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) and India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages.
Preamble
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
Article 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 8.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 11.
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 14.
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
Article 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Article 22.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 23.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Article 27.
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Article 28.
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29.
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 30.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
The Rebel's Silhouette
The Rebel’s Silhouette
Don’t Ask Me for That Love Again
That which then was ours, my love,
don’t ask me for that love again.
The world then was gold, burnished with light—
and only because of you. That’s what I had believed.
How could one weep for sorrows other than yours?
How could one have any sorrow but the one you gave?
So what were these protests, these rumors of injustice?
A glimpse of your face was evidence of springtime.
The sky, whenever I looked, was nothing but your eyes.
If you’d fall into my arms, Fate would be helpless.
All this I’d thought, all this I’d believed.
But there were other sorrows, comforts other than love.
The rich had cast their spell on history:
dark centuries had been embroidered on brocades and silks.
Bitter threads began to unravel before me
as I went into alleys and in open markets
saw bodies plastered with ash, bathed in blood.
I saw them sold and bought, again and again.
This too deserves attention. I can’t help but look back
when I return from those alleys—what should one do?
And you are still so ravishing—what should I do?
There are other sorrows in this world,
comforts other than love.
Don’t ask me, my love, for that love again.
A Prison Evening
Each star a rung,
night comes down the spiral
staircase of the evening.
The breeze passes by so very close
as if someone just happened to speak of love.
In the courtyard,
the trees are absorbed refugees
embroidering maps of return on the sky.
On the roof,
the moon—lovingly, generously—
is turning the stars
into a dust of sheen.
From every corner, dark-green shadows,
in ripples, come towards me.
At any moment they may break over me,
like the waves of pain each time I remember
this separation from my lover.
This thought keeps consoling me:
though tyrants may command that lamps be smashed
in rooms where lovers are destined to meet,
they cannot snuff out the moon, so today,
nor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed,
no poison of torture make me bitter,
if just one evening in prison
can be so strangely sweet,
if just one moment anywhere on this earth.
Be Near Me
You who demolish me, you whom I love,
be near me. Remain near me when evening,
drunk on the blood of skies,
becomes night, in its one hand
a perfumed balm, in the other
a sword sheathed in the diamond of stars.
Be near me when night laments or sings,
or when it begins to dance,
its steel-blue anklets ringing with grief.
Be here when longings, long submerged
in the heart’s waters, resurface
and everyone begins to look:
Where is the assassin? In whose sleeve
is hidden the redeeming knife?
And when wine, as it is poured, is the sobbing
of children whom nothing will console—
when nothing holds,
when nothing is:
at that dark hour when night mourns,
be near me, my destroyer, my lover me,
be near me.
On Elevating the Human Narrative
On Elevating the Human Narrative
Rhonda Fabian | Kosmos has been sharing about global citizenship for a long time, and I felt that, with this edition, we needed a refresher. Where are we with global citizenship now, in light of the rising nationalism in our world and the converging crises we’re facing – and especially with respect to our global commons, like air, water, and cyberspace?
Two of the most popular search phrases at Kosmos are: “What is a global citizen?” and “How can I become a global citizen?” It’s almost as if people are literally asking, “How do I get a special passport, or how do I get credentials to become a global citizen?” I think some people really think that there should be some official way to self-identify as a global citizen, and, of course, we don’t really have that. So, what can we hang our hat on? What are the practices? What are the values? What are the institutions that support this idea of global citizenship?
Judy Rodgers | All good questions…practices, values, institutions, governance. I think decisions about things like governance or institutions source from our awareness. We can’t build something if it’s outside the scope of our awareness. We can’t design a true commons if we’re in a very limited consciousness.
I think, from an awareness perspective, if we believe we’re spiritual beings—and for those who are monotheists, children of one father, one mother, one parent, one great spirit—then from that ground, the whole boundary notion becomes superfluous. That’s the ground that has to be explored in order to get to good answers on institutional solutions or governance solutions.
One of the problems that we have, has to do with our notions of ‘what is mine.’ If we are absorbed—and I think in the U.S., we are in the worst moment in terms of this—by ‘us and them’; outsiders and insiders; those who are welcome and those who aren’t – then we’re at the real nadir of our ability to understand global citizenship.
Part of it is that the man who is in office, who’s doing the clownish acts, was put there by a whole bunch of people, so he’s not alone. He speaks for people who believe that walls and boundaries and inside/outside is the truth. They believe that some people have rights and others don’t. It’s hard to talk someone out of that level of belief. It’s hard to talk someone out of that level of value.
Also, there are well-meaning people whose philanthropy still comes from, “Well, I the endowed one, am going to give you, the unfortunate one, some gift. I’m going to write you a check, or I’m going to do something for you, you poor thing.” Right? I’m congratulating myself on my insider-ness and my fortune, and I’m going to give you some crumbs so that you can feel better about what’s going on. We are so diminished in that mindset. Our hearts are so shrunken by that.
It misses the whole point. There is no ‘outsider.’ If something bad happens to that one, then something dreadful has happened to me. My own neighborhood is sullied by what happened to that one, even my global neighborhood.
So, when you talk about global citizenship, I think it has a lot to do with our attitudes. Gayatri would have talked with you about the spiritual trajectory, I would imagine, this awareness to attitude…If you don’t start with that awareness—that we truly are children of the same parent—then your attitude is bound to be compromised in some way, even if you’re feeling generous-hearted.
So, part of the promise that the UN made around the SDGs was universality, which really said, “It’s not like this generous North is now going to give the poor South the ‘truth.’ We’re going to deliver our wisdom to them so that they can ‘catch up’ with us.” That notion got removed in the SDGs, which was really a step in the right direction. And also we have been working on something with the UN about transformation as a spiritual concept.
Gayatri Naraine | [Kosmos Editor Emeritus] Nancy Roof was at one of those UN meetings. Rhonda, did you accompany her?
Rhonda | I was there as well, yes.
Judy | Okay, good. So this notion of transformation—what we’re really talking about is an inner shift. We’re not talking about more blankets delivered, or more water, fewer diseases, more vaccines. That’s not the metric anymore. You’re talking about the inner shift that allows for so many other things to happen. That’s really what we were trying to do with that conversation, and I think that’s what you’re trying to do with this issue on global citizenship. I think it’s to find new ground. Because as long as we’re only about social actions, we’re just really rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We’re not getting at anything that’s substantially going to shift anything.
So, it’s very difficult! I mean, it sounds easy to say well, “Let’s all just be brothers.” That sounds like the obvious solution, right? I don’t think it’s so easy. I don’t think it’s so easy to think of ourselves as spiritual beings, and I don’t think it’s so easy to really experience a God that truly sees each one as his precious child. But if you really feel that affinity, then that love and respect would drive everything. It would drive your practice. It would drive your values. It would drive your institutional construction. It would drive your governance. That’s transformational.
I think that’s the experience we all need. I think people tend to have that experience or some version of it when they get some kind of a wake-up call; they have a near-death experience or do something heroic. There’s lots and lots and lots of stories of people who—in certain moments—all the limitations fall away, and that vision that’s living somewhere inside of us emerges. We do something beautiful, morally beautiful, as a natural act without any preparation. The better part of us comes forward, and we do this thing, and what we find in almost every case, is that afterward, people say, “Oh, it wasn’t me. I didn’t really do it. Anybody would have done that.”
Rhonda | I think we, as a humanity, are at such a moment right now. The future hangs on our morally beautiful decisions. Everything is ripening for us to wake up—to act. My teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, always said that the first step in waking-up is actually to stop. The first step is stopping in order to see what is real, what is going on around us. This is the kind of moment we seem to be in what the Tao calls the ‘still point,’ where one can see the infinite.
Gayatri, this is a question for you. What brought you to this edge, this still point? How has the meaning of the term ‘global citizen’ changed for you as a result of your work and all you have learned?
Gayatri | I first encountered the term ‘global citizen’ when we had the Earth Summit in Rio. I think it was in 1992. It was a time when the world was focused on the environment—not just politicians and environmentalists, but artists and performers who brought the whole concept of a living Earth to people’s hearts. The Wisdom Keepers came in, representing the different faiths, and the indigenous perspective, and, of course, the UN. You had to move out of your national identity because now you were looking at trans-border consequences. Like when a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, there is a shift in another part of the world—those kinds of consequences.
I left Rio really convinced ‘I am a global citizen.’ A global citizen meant that you never looked at something in a piecemeal fashion. You always had to look at it, as far as you could see it, from a holistic perspective. It meant everyone had to come together. And then a few years later, I was at the UN listening to a head of state from Africa speak, and he opened his comments by saying, “Yes, we are interdependent. We are interconnected, but don’t touch my resources—they belong to my country.”
Artwork by Kosmos Member Noelle Imparato
“These images are inspired by the torus, a mathematical model shaped like a doughnut with a small hole at its center functioning as an axis along which fields of energy irradiate and get re-integrated in the compiling complexity of a double vortex that becomes extremely intricate as it builds onto itself layer upon layer ad infinitum. I see the torus as a mythic symbol for the interconnectedness of all life on the planet, and more specifically for the interconnectedness of all citizens of all Nations on the planet.”
So, I think from then on, this whole utopian idea, this whole kind of purity of intention in relation to our home planet, our common habitat, and all of those beautiful concepts that were used to describe ‘one world’ or the environment, got politicized for me. The divisions once again started taking precedence over the whole. I suddenly had an aversion to the word ‘citizenship’ because citizenship meant that you had to have a visa. You had to be legal. And in many countries, there were refugees coming in, and what are they?
Now, I have started understanding global citizenship from the perspective of the environment that we live in and the responsibility that the environment is asking of us, of all citizens—of the world’s citizens, not political citizens, but the world’s citizens—to change habits, to change behaviors.
You can call us global citizens or you call us a human beings. A human being is closest to what a global citizen is.
If I have that elevated consciousness, then I’m looking at all peoples of the world as a human family. I think that is where I am in terms of my thinking. I started off on high ground, and I went through a dark phase of not having faith. And now I’m back, seeing through the lens of a human being with a fuller consciousness that can bring benefit to what I see in others.
Rhonda | Thank you. That’s beautiful. I believe many of us are seeking to operate from that vantage point of elevated consciousness so we can see over the fence at what’s ahead. It’s good to love the place you come from, your heritage, but to keep in mind always that there’s a big world out there. Learn as much as you can about the things that affect people—whether it’s climate or disparity or conflict—and how they drive the migration of people, (and let’s not forget the migration of animals). Then, your actions are informed by greater understanding, and you can work effectively locally, whether you’re restoring soil, or taking care of your watershed or helping your community or children, or whatever it is that you choose to do, knowing your actions also benefit the Earth. Every hopeful action and every hopeful story helps. Do you agree?
Judy | Yes, I agree. I helped found a not-for-profit called Images and Voices of Hope, which works with media in a constructive framework. After the Newtown shootings in 2012, we began work on a new genre called ‘restorative narrative’. The idea is that no matter what has happened, no matter how traumatic or disturbing or disruptive, that the drive for resilience is fundamental in human nature all around the world. We are more resilient than not. Based on a resiliency index that the psychology community uses, between 75 and 80 percent of people will fundamentally get knocked down by difficult things, but will come back.
So, the idea with restorative narratives is to tell stories in ways that allow people to see that we’re not falling apart. It’s not just one dreadful thing, after another dreadful thing, after another. The drive for Life is stronger than these other forces. There’s also quite a bit of research on post-traumatic growth; that after traumatizing events, in the struggle to get well, there’s quite a bit of growth. People become better than they were, more tenacious, and gifts that they didn’t see before emerge.
All media play a role in this. If you amplify stories of separation and breakdown, even in your social media feeds, then the story gets harder to overcome. Eco-theologian Thomas Berry said the world needs a new story, and I feel like part of this global citizen conversation has to do with the creation of a really life-giving story. I think it’s going to have to take place in the middle of breakdown, because that’s what we have.
It’s not like we’re going to wait for all the bad things to be over, then build a resilient world. The resilience happens right in the middle of all of the heartbreak.
At Images and Voices of Hope, we are hiring coaches right now. We’ve gotten a grant from the Fetzer Institute to coach journalists and media people in different cities to write restorative narratives and we’ve got a guidebook coming online to explain how to do it. The research is very solid. The idea is to understand we are not at a place of being broken but at a place of being fundamentally resilient.
Rhonda | It’s so important, this idea we are resilient in the midst of the crisis as opposed to something that happens later. What strikes me is how we need these stories on a planetary scale. Starting anew is not something that we have to wait for. We can build the new world our hearts envision today, without anyone’s permission.
Judy | The last time we did a summit was right before the peace referendum, four or five months before. So, we had people from Columbia come in and talk about the story that was getting generated around the peace referendum and about hope on both sides of the equation.
Those of us who are in this big sector—whatever we call it, this big do-good-not-for-profit-sector we all work in—used to say, “Well, we have to do such and such to save the world.” That was always the line. “We have to sign up for this, or do that, or volunteer for this, so we can save the world.” At some point, I found myself thinking, what if it’s too late? What if these scientists are right—we’ve passed the threshold. What if it was too late to save the world?
We’d have to do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do. And because that’s who we are. You get out of bed every morning, and you do the best you can; you do the constructive act. And if it’s too late, you do it anyway because it brings benefit to you and the people around you. So, I feel like we have to improve ourselves beyond the outcome.
Rhonda | One thing we can do is to connect deeply with the story of our living Earth on a daily basis. This alone helps to elevate our consciousness, right? The more we can work on behalf of Life where we live, the more we build community, the more we build a practice of global citizenship. It is not just a set of platitudes or a list of institutions. It is not just a mindset (although that matters). It is actual practice—practices that bring us closer each day to the reality of our interbeing.
Thank you both for your insights.
The Most Important Thing
The Most Important Thing
An artist, photographer, and author, Brian Sokol is dedicated to documenting human rights issues and humanitarian crises worldwide. Since 2012, Sokol has focused on telling the stories of refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), and stateless people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The Most Important Thing—his ongoing, long-term portraiture project—seeks to humanize and convey the dignity of individuals who have been dehumanized by conflict, government policies, and the media. This project documents first-hand testimonies from refugees, forced to flee their homes, about items they took with them. Sokol’s goal is to engender empathy and action in audiences across the lines of language, race, religion, and culture.
Brian’s work appears in publications including TIME, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He has exhibited on 5 continents and in both the New York and Geneva headquarters of the United Nations. A former Himalayan guide and wilderness ranger, Brian is happiest when at extreme altitude or latitude; he initially came to photography through a passion for high, remote places. He frequently works on various themes related to displacement, perhaps owing to the fact that he’s lived abroad for 20 years and feels himself more a citizen of the world than of any particular country.
Featured Image:
Since the day Sebastiao Manuel Garcia arrived in Congo in 1978, he has never set foot in his native Angola. A former soldier, he fled Angola when he learned his life was in danger. Unable to return to Angola due to fear of violence, he still considers it home. If he were again forced to flee for his life, the most important thing to him and his family is the Billet de Composition Familiale document. “This is a testimony that I am a refugee,” he says. “Without it, I could be arrested. Without this, my children could be expelled from here, or their mother would take them and they would become Congolese. This document proves that my children are Angolan.”
Humanizing the refugee crisis | Brian Sokol | TEDxSanDiego
There are more that 65 million people in the world today who are displaced from their homes due to conflict and persecution—more than at any time in human history. As a photographer who spent time in refugee camps and met the people who were forced from their homes, Brian Sokol underwent a personal transformation in understanding their stories, their dreams, and their humanity. It’s time we challenged our beliefs and preconceptions about the refugee crisis. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx
The Most Important Thing has been adapted into performance art featuring celebrities and projected at the Cannes Film Festival. Cate Blanchett performs the poem ‘What They Took With Them’ alongside fellow actors Keira Knightley, Juliet Stevenson, Peter Capaldi, Stanley Tucci, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kit Harington, Douglas Booth, Jesse Eisenberg, and Neil Gaiman. The poem, written by Jenifer Toksvig, made in collaboration with UNHCR. features many of Brian’s photos, along with firsthand accounts from the refugees he photographed. The film urges people to sign the #WithRefugees petition to help ensure refugees have the basics to rebuild their lives—an education, somewhere safe to live, and the opportunity to work. Stand #WithRefugees, sign the petition: www.withrefugees.org.
Video courtesy UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency
The Gallery
In 2013, when Seleka rebels arrived in Fideline’s village, her family hoped that they would be able to stay in Moungoumba and peacefully coexist with the armed men. A week later, this proved impossible. Fideline and other children were playing near the river when Seleka forces got into an argument with a Central African businessman. When the man refused to give his money to the gunmen, they dragged him to the village center. Fideline and her friends watched as they tied his arms behind his back, threw him facedown to the ground, and shot him twice in the back. Fideline’s father immediately decided that they had to leave.
The most important thing that Fideline was able to leave her home with are her notebooks. An excellent student, Fideline one day hopes to be a minister in her country’s government. “I couldn’t take my school bag, my shoes, or the colored ribbons for my hair,” she recalls, “but I did bring my notebooks and my pen.” Holding her history, homework, and practice books—all of which bear an image of the African continent on their covers—she says, “We have suffered so much. My father is out of work, and my mother goes to the fields all day. I want to study so that I can become someone. I want to study.”
Leila*, 9, poses for a portrait in the urban structure where she and her family are taking shelter in Erbil, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Together with her four sisters, mother, father, and grandmother, Leila arrived in Erbil five days before this photograph was taken, after fleeing their home in Deir ez-Zor, Syria. Her family is one of four living in an uninsulated, partially-constructed home; there are about 30 people sharing the cold, drafty space. Leila recalls explosions all around them for days, but the family finally decided to leave Deir ez-Zor when their neighbors’ house was hit, killing everyone inside.
The most important thing Leila was able to bring with her are the jeans she holds in this photograph. “I went shopping with my parents one day and looked for hours without finding anything I liked. But when I saw these, I knew instantly that these were perfect because they have a flower on them, and I love flowers.” She has only worn the jeans three times, all in Syria—twice to wedding parties and once when she went to visit her grandfather. She says she won’t wear them again until she attends another wedding, and she hopes it, too, will be in Syria.
*Name changed for protection purposes.
One morning in 1992, Mayengo Kabamba and his father were outside cooking while his mother and sisters were working in the fields. Several men carrying machetes arrived, dragged his father inside and murdered him, then forced Kabamba to sit in a pan of searing oil, at which point he lost consciousness. When he came to, he was in his mother’s arms as she fled with his eight siblings.
Twenty-two years later, the situation is very different in Angola. Much of his family has returned home. Kabamba, still physically and emotionally scarred by his experience, says “Personally, I don’t want to go back. But I can’t survive here alone, and all my family are returning.”
The most important thing that Kabamba will bring with him is a photograph of his pregnant girlfriend, who he will have to leave behind for now. “She can’t go with me because we aren’t married yet, and she can’t be listed as a family member. In the culture here, you can’t marry a pregnant girl. We have to wait until after the birth to begin the marriage process.”
Yusuf* poses for a portrait in an urban structure in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon on December 12, 2012. He and his family fled their home in Damascus, the Syrian capital, several months before this photograph was taken.
The most important thing Yusuf was able to bring when he fled Syria is his mobile phone. “With this, I’m able to call my father. We’re close enough to Syria here that I can catch a signal from the Syrian towers sometimes, and then it is a local call to call home from Lebanon.” The phone also holds photographs of family members who are still in Syria, which he is able to keep with him at all times.
*Name changed for protection purposes.
May*, 8, poses for a portrait in Domiz refugee camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on November 16, 2012. She and her family arrived in Domiz about one month before this photograph was taken, having fled their home in Damascus. They escaped on a bus at night, and May recalls crying for hours as they left the city behind. After traveling more than 800 kilometres, they made the final crossing into Iraq on foot. May wept again as they followed a rough trail in the cold, while her mother carried her two-year-old baby brother.
Since arriving in Domiz, she has had recurring nightmares in which her father is violently killed. She is now attending school, and says she finally feels safe. May hopes to be a photographer when she grows up. “I want to take pictures of happy children, because they are innocent, and my pictures will make them even more happy,” she says.
The most important thing she was able to bring with her when she left home is a set of bracelets. “The bracelets aren’t my favourite things,” she says; “my doll Nancy is.” May’s aunt gave her the doll on her sixth birthday. “She reminded me of that day, the cake I had, and how safe I felt then when my whole family was together.” The night they fled Damascus, May’s mother put Nancy on her bed where she wouldn’t be forgotten. But in the rush that ensued, Nancy was somehow left behind. May says these bracelets are the next-best thing to having her in Iraq.
*Name change for protection purposes.
Delivering the UN Global Goals | The Consciousness Perspective
The Seven Levels Model The largest impediment to improving the well-being of humanity is not in finding the funding to implement the Sustainable Development Goals; the largest impediment is the unwillingness of the part of the heads of state, senior government politicians, and business leaders to embrace higher order human values. They have simply not reached the stages of psychological development were these values are important to them. To understand this fully, we need to understand how people grow and develop; what needs they have at each stage of their development, and how best to provide these needs. The model I am using is called the Seven Levels Model. There are two aspects to the Seven Levels Model: the Stages of Psychological Development Model and the Levels of Consciousness Model. We grow in stages (of psychological development) and we operate at levels (of consciousness). The original Levels of Consciousness model was developed in 1996 as a tool for mapping the consciousness of individuals and human group structures, such as teams, organisations, communities and nations. Since that time, the model and associated assessment tools have been used to map the values and consciousness of more than 5,000 organizations, 4,000 leaders and 24 nations. The origins and construction of the model are explained in The Metrics of Human Consciousness and The Values-driven Organisation: Cultural Health and Employee Well-Being as a Pathway to Sustainable Performance. In recent years, I recognized that the Seven Levels Model could also be used as a framework for mapping the stages of human psychological development. Figure 1 shows the correspondence between the Seven Stages of Psychological Development and the Seven Levels of Consciousness. Under normal circumstances, the level of consciousness you operate from will be the same as the stage of psychological development you have reached. However, no matter what stage of psychological development you are at, when you are faced with a threat—what you consider to be a potentially negative change in your circumstances or situation—anything that disturbs your equilibrium by bringing up fears, you may temporarily shift to one of the three lower levels of consciousness. Alternatively, if you have a “peak” experience—an experience of euphoria, harmony or connectedness of a mystical or spiritual nature—you may temporarily shift to one of the higher levels of consciousness. When the threat or peak experience has passed, you will return to the level of consciousness that corresponds to the stage of psychological development you were at before the experience occurred. In rare situations, a peak experience may have a lasting impact, causing you to shift to a higher stage of psychological development and operate from a higher level of consciousness. Similarly a “negative” experience, if it is traumatic enough, and particularly if it occurs in your childhood and teenage years, can impede your future psychological development by causing you to be anchored, through frequent subconscious triggering of the traumatic memory, into in one of the three lower levels of consciousness. The early stages of development Between the moment we are born and the time we reach physical maturity, around 20 years of age, we all pass through the same three stages of psychological development: surviving, conforming and differentiating. What you are learning during these stages of development is how to become a viable independent adult in your cultural framework of existence. These are the stages of development where you learn to satisfy your “deficiency” needs. When you are able to satisfy these needs, you feel a sense of happiness. If, for any reason, you are unable to satisfy these needs, you get anxious and fearful. How well you master these first three stages of development will, to a large extent, depend on the degree and nature (positive and negative) of the parental programming and cultural conditioning you experienced during your infant, childhood and teenage years. If you grew up without too many negative experiences—without forming any significant fear-based beliefs about being able to meet your deficiency needs—you will naturally feel a pull towards the individuation stage of development when you reach your twenties or early thirties. The individuating stage of development begins when you are ready to let go of the aspects of your parental programming and cultural conditioning that do not reflect who you truly are—values and beliefs that no longer resonate with. At this stage of development you are seeking to find your authentic voice, to live with integrity, and become responsible and accountable for every aspect of your life. If you are fortunate enough to have had self-actualized parents, to have lived in a community or culture where freedom and independence is celebrated, where higher education is easily available, where men and women are treated equally, and where you are encouraged from a young age to express and think for yourself, the transition from the differentiating stage to the individuating stage of development will be relatively easy. However, if the contrary is true, transitioning to the higher stages of development can be full of challenges and difficulties. It requires great courage when you are living in an authoritarian parental, cultural or political environment to embrace your authentic voice and explore your potential. The later stages of development Unlike the first three stages of psychological development, the later stages of development—self- actualizing, integrating, and serving, are not thrust on you by the biological and societal exigencies of growing up and reaching physical maturity as the first three stages of development are, they emerge as a desire to want more from your life, to find meaning in your existence, and make a lasting contribution to society. These are the stages of development where we learn to satisfy our “growth” needs. The extent to which you are able to satisfy your growth needs will determine the level of fulfillment you find in your life. As a general rule, we spend the first half of our lives searching for happiness by finding ways to satisfy our deficiency needs, and if all goes well, we spend the second half of our lives searching for meaning by finding ways to satisfy our growth needs. If, due to circumstances or a particular situation you find yourself in, you are unable to meet your deficiency needs, satisfying these will take precedence over satisfying your growth needs. Stages of psychological development The seven stages of psychological development are shown in Table 1. The first column identifies the stages of development. The second column indicates the approximate age range when each stage of development becomes important. The third column describes the developmental task. The fourth column identifies the motivations and needs associated with each stage of development, and the fifth column lists the internal and external value priorities at each stage of development. The age ranges given in the second column are approximate but are generally applicable to well educated people of all races, religions and cultures. Those who are less well-educated, poor and/or live in authoritarian regimes may find it challenging to move beyond the differentiating stage of development. If you were brought up by self-actualized parents living in a liberal democracy, you may be able to accelerate your psychological development by a few years. Although this is relatively rare, it could become more prevalent as more parents self-actualize at an earlier age and more countries embrace the values found in liberal democracies. In recent years it has become increasingly noticeable that some young people find their sense of purpose and feel the impulse to make a difference in the world quite early in their lives. This does not mean they have jumped to the integrating stage of development. Their urge to make a difference usually comes from their sense of justice or need for achievement, not from empathy. They will still need to pass through the individuating and self-actualizing stages of development before they are mature enough to fully embrace the integrating stage of psychological development. Surviving The quest for security and survival starts as soon as a human baby is born. The infant child instinctively knows, through its DNA programming, how to regulate its body’s internal functioning, how to suckle, and how to signal to its parents that it has unmet physiological needs. At this stage, the infant is completely dependent on parents or care givers to meet its security and survival needs. Conforming The task at this stage of development is to satisfy the child’s need for love and belonging. The child wants to live in an environment where it feels safe and protected. The young child quickly learns that life is more pleasant and less threatening if it lives in harmony with its parents and family. Staying loyal to kin and community, adhering to rules, and participating in rituals and traditions are important at this stage of development because they contribute to the child’s feeling of belonging and thereby enhance the child’s sense of safety. Differentiating During the differentiation stage of psychological development, the child/teenager seeks to satisfy his or her need for respect and recognition. We want to be noticed by parents, family, friends, peers, gang members or teachers for our achievements. The task at this stage of development is to hone your gifts and talents or make the most of your appearance so you feel accepted and recognized as a valid member of the group, family or community which you identify with. This may involve proving yourself through participating in rites of passage. You will be seeking validation from those around you that you are a valuable member of your community. Your parents are instrumental at this stage of your development for giving you the positive feedback you need. If you fail to get this feedback, you will grow up with the subconscious belief that you are not good enough. You will feel driven to prove yourself. You will seek out groups where you feel accepted. You may become a seeker of perfection or a highly competitive employee, wanting status, power or authority so you can be acknowledged as someone important or someone to be feared. Feeling recognized and respected are our third most important human needs. If you are able to successfully transition through these first three stages of psychological development without experiencing significant trauma and without developing too many subconscious fears about your ability to meet your deficiency needs, then you will find it relatively easy to establish yourself as a viable adult in the cultural framework of your existence as long as you can find opportunities to earn a living that meets your survival needs. Individuating During the individuating stage of psychological development, which usually begins after the age of twenty, you will begin to feel the need for freedom and autonomy. The task at this stage of development is to transcend the physical and emotional dependence on your family and the cultural or religious groups you are embedded in by aligning with your own deeply held values—discovering who you really are and what you stand for at the deepest level of your being. You begin to establish your independence when you set up your own home and embrace the values and beliefs you resonate with, rather than the values and beliefs that were subconsciously programmed into you by your parents and the community and culture you grew up in. This is one of the most important and difficult stages of human development—the shift from dependence to independence. When you reach this stage of development you begin to seek answers to the question, Who am I? Understanding who you are is absolutely essential for finding fulfillment. The progress you make at this stage of development will to a large extent influence how smoothly you are able to move through the higher stages of psychological development. We only embark on the individuating stage of development after we have become reasonably proficient in meeting our deficiency needs. Self-Actualizing During the self-actualization stage of development, you begin the search for meaning and purpose—you want to fully express your unique gifts and talents. You want to know: Why am I here? What do I need to do to find fulfillment in my life? What is my true vocation? What is my calling? For most people, finding their vocation or calling usually begins with a feeling of unease or boredom with their job or chosen career; with the work they thought would bring them wealth, status or recognition in their lives. Uncovering your unique gifts and talents and making them available to the world will bring passion and vitality back into your life. You will become more intuitive and more creative. You will spend more time in a state of flow; being totally present to what you are doing, lost in your work. This can be a challenging transition, especially if the activities that now interest you are less remunerative and offer less secure employment than your job, profession or chosen career. You may feel scared or uncomfortable embarking on something new which may bring meaning to your life but may not pay the rent or put food on the table. Some people find the work they are born to do early in their lives; others discover it much later. Some spend their whole lives searching. Embracing your authentic self by living your values and finding meaning and purpose in your life is the next most important need to emerge after you have found freedom and independence. Integrating During the integrating stage of development, you will begin to feel the need to actualize your sense of purpose by using your unique gifts and talents to make a difference in the world. As you make progress, you will realize that the contribution you can make and the impact you can have in the world could be significantly enhanced by connecting and cooperating with others who share your values and purpose—people you resonate with. By collaborating with others you are able to make a bigger difference than you could on your own. This requires a high level of maturity. You must be able to recognize your limitations, assume a larger sense of identity and shift from being independent to being interdependent. Many people lack the flexibility or adaptability to make this shift. Others get lost in their own creativity. In order to cooperate with others on joint projects, you must learn how to master your emotions (emotional intelligence) and read the emotions of others (social intelligence). Collaborating with others to make a difference in the world is the next most important need to emerge after you have learned to embrace your authentic self. Serving During the serving stage of development you will feel drawn to a life of self-less service, especially if you have become financially independent or no longer depend on the income from you work for your survival. At this stage of development, you want to leave a legacy or give back to the world by alleviating suffering, caring for the disadvantaged or building a better society. The shift to a life of self-less service will affect every aspect of your life; your attitudes, your behaviours, and your values. You will uncover new levels of compassion as you become focused on the needs of others. You will feel more humility as you recognize the added value that others bring to your endeavors and the role that synchronicity plays in your life. You will also find yourself re- examining your priorities as you search to live a more balanced life. Deep down, you will begin to understand that we are all connected energetically, and that by serving others you are serving yourself. Selfless service for the benefit of humanity and future generations is next most important need to emerge after you have learned how to collaborate with others to make a difference in your world. You will find your deepest level of fulfilment at this stage of psychological development. Progression The seven stages of psychological development occur in consecutive order over the full period of our lives. If, for whatever reason, you fail to master the skills required to meet the needs of a particular stage of development, you will find yourself having to return to that stage of development until you have become proficient at satisfying those needs. We begin the journey of psychological development by learning to survive, and we complete the journey by learning to serve. If, as a global society, we really do want to build a sustainable future for humanity, there needs to be a seismic shift in the psychological development of our political leaders: A shift from a focus on “I” to “we”; and a shift in attitude from what’s in it for me, to what’s best for the common good. It is very clear we will not solve the issues we face as a global society until we experience an evolution of human consciousness. What our world leaders are failing to understand is that there is an evolutionary advantage in being able to expand your consciousness (your sense of identity) to include others—in other words, there is an evolutionary advantage in advancing your psychological development. This idea is backed up by the latest scientific research. Using game theory, two evolutionary biologists found that: Evolution will punish you if you’re selfish and mean. For a short time and against a specific set of opponents, some selfish organisms may come out ahead. But selfishness isn’t evolutionary sustainable. The world-renowned biologist E. O. Wilson expresses a similar thought: Selfish activity within the group provides competitive advantage but is commonly destructive to the group as a whole. … When an individual is cooperative and altruistic, this reduces his advantage in competition … but increases the survival and reproduction rate of the group as a whole. Wilson goes on to state: The origin of the human condition is best explained by the natural selection for social interaction—the inherited propensities to communicate, recognize, evaluate, bond, cooperate and from all these the deep warm pleasure of belonging to your own special group. The tragedy of cultural evolution, which became the successor of species evolution with the arrival of Homo sapiens, is that we have not yet learned to restrain our self-interest at the group level. Our group structures (nation states) are still trying to compete instead of cooperating. We have made the mistake of believing that the benefits of intra-group competition, such as improving the group’s fitness and performance, also apply to inter-group competition. Nothing could be further from the truth: From an evolutionary perspective inter-group cooperation is far more successful than inter-group competition. Furthermore, intra-group competition only works to a group’s collective advantage if the competition takes place within an over-arching, rule-based, cooperative environment. For example, teams which are members of a football league cooperate with each other at the level of the organisation of the league, but compete with each other according to rules which are administered by referees from the football league organisation. The same is true of the Olympic Games: Athletes from nations compete with each other within a framework of rules managed by the International Olympic Committee, members of which come from every nation. We also see this form of regulated competition between countries in the European Union and between states in the United States. For intra-group competition to work successfully, it must always take place within a framework of cooperation and shared values. These findings have significant implications for the future of our species. For cultural evolution to continue we must not only learn how to bond with each other as individuals to form group structures (nations), our group structures (nations) also have to learn how to cooperate with other group structures (nations) that have a different “tribal” identity. Without a set of overarching rules to regulate competition, we will not be able to solve the problems of humanity: the problems of humanity are global, but the entities that must solve these problems are national. The only way we are going to learn how to cooperate is by transcending our “tribal and religious” identities. E. O. Wilson calls tribalism “the exquisitely human flaw.” People deeply need membership in a group, whether religious or secular. They know that happiness and indeed survival itself require that they bond with others who share some amount of genetic kinship, language, moral beliefs, geographical location, dress code, etc. … It is tribalism … that makes good people do bad things. Millions upon millions of people all over the planet have died in conflict because of this basic human dysfunction, the source of which is our instinctive need to belong for the purpose of survival. We have to learn to transcend our ethnic and religious origins if we want to survive as a species. Wilson states: In a nutshell, individual selection [self-interest] favors what we call sin, and group selection [common good] favors virtue. The result is the internal conflict of conscience…We need to understand ourselves in both evolutionary and psychological terms in order to plan a more rational, catastrophe-proof future. Thus, as far as human beings are concerned, the solution to Wilson’s internal conflict of conscience is found in the individuation and self-actualization stages of psychological development. Only when our world leaders reach these stages of psychological development and create the conditions where their citizens can reach these stages of psychological development will we be able to make significant progress in improving the well- being of humanity.Delivering the UN Global Goals | The Consciousness Perspective
Implications for UN Sustainable Development Goals
Global Citizenship | An Emerging Agenda in Education
Global Citizenship | An Emerging Agenda in Education
Violent extremism and radicalization are among the most serious and urgent concerns in international society. They cause instability, conflict, and violence within and between countries. The so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has reached out to or recruited up to 40,000 people from 100 countries to date, many of whom are highly educated. What can international society do to prevent recruitment to violent extremism?
Comprehensive global citizenship education offers real hope toward a long-term solution by building young people’s resistance to extremist messages and narratives, and by cultivating a positive sense of identity, empathy, and inclusion.
Introduced at an early stage of child development, global citizenship education enhances mutual respect and understanding, tolerance, and cultural literacy, while substantially weakening the power of radicalized messages. A sense of belonging to the wider world community reduces susceptibility to extremist narratives and generates powerful messages for a more hopeful future.
In 2015, for the first time in the United Nations system, the emerging concept of “global citizenship” was introduced through the historic summit declaration, “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” And, in his 2016 report, Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism, Former Secretary-General of the U.N., Ban Ki-moon, suggested practical and comprehensive solutions, including global citizenship education, to confront the challenge of violent extremism.
Extremist groups deal in the currency of image, reputation, and perception. Swift countermeasures are required. Training in media literacy that includes recognizing false reporting, hate speech, and cyberbullying equips students with capabilities to navigate the increasingly turbulent media waters. Interspiritual education facilitates mutual understanding and respect for others. All religious activities and practices should uphold the basic universal principles of peace, understanding, tolerance, and compassion.
Combined with interspirituality movement, global citizenship education provides a new framework for young men and women to think critically, reject grievance and hatred, and develop capacity for dialogue and tolerance. We should not leave our children unprepared to confront the increasing volume of radicalized messages, nor leave them insensible to the global challenges and realities our world faces: terrorism, inequality, climate change, and population displacement.
A Global Citizenship Curriculum
“Learning to live together” is an important principle not only in education, but in society and the international community. Promoting an ethic of global citizenship, a culture of peace, and nonviolence equips young people with tools of tolerance and respect.
A pillar of global citizenship is the empowerment of women and youth to recognize their dignity and rights, particularly the rights of adolescent girls regarding their own bodies. Due to refugee crises in many parts of the world, the number of unaccompanied children, who are particularly vulnerable to violence and violent messages, is increasing.
A global citizenship curriculum is needed by all—not only the privileged, but those in rural villages and refugee camps as well—to help restore positive identity, dignity, and self-esteem, and to provide clear information about the rights reserved for every human being by the international community. Students should learn first and foremost that every human being has the right to live in dignity, free from fear.
Understanding our interconnectedness and interdependence, as well as strategies for peaceful coexistence and reconciliation, is a recipe for building peaceful societies and “learning to live together.” The proposition that one community member’s pain is everybody’s pain is a guiding narrative.
Understanding our relationship with our planet teaches that we jointly have the responsibility to protect and care for Mother Earth. People and planet are integrally connected and cannot be separated. Our global commons—air, oceans, fresh water, and cyberspace, among others—belong to us all and should be treated as a single ecological body.
A global citizenship curriculum is concerned with dignity, human rights, media literacy, and the planet that sustains us.
A standard prototype or curriculum model that takes into account cultural differences, while focusing on building the critical skills and concepts required by all learners, is needed. Universal values as described in the Charter of the United Nations should be considered in an initial curriculum. States and local educational authorities can develop their own curriculum-based and culturally-appropriate variations on this model. Intercultural and interdisciplinary collaboration are key, with guidance from universities and academic institutes.
Critical thinking, interactive dialogues and debates, project-based learning, sports, and the arts should all be included. Learning journeys and meetings with peer groups from different cultures should be explored. Learning objectives and evaluation strategies should be developed so that global citizenship can be embedded as a formal subject in the public education systems around the world.
Avenues, an alternative school in New York, provides a curriculum called the World Course from kindergarten through 12th grade. This curriculum addresses questions about the human condition such as: How do people organize themselves? How are societies formed? How do people struggle with adversity? Why do people migrate? How do our actions, choices, and beliefs shape the world around us? Questions like these help students make sense of the world through the lens of global identity.
The private sector could invest in this area as an expression of corporate social responsibility. Corporations could—independently or collectively—envision a global or national initiative to support global citizenship from local to international levels.
While governments and education authorities drive the policies that make global citizenship in the public education system possible, civil society organizations can and should lead projects to raise awareness about, and foster, global citizenship. NGOs and civil society organizations are encouraged to form global and regional coalitions like New York-based Coalition for Global Citizenship 2030 or Helsinki-based Bridge 47 so that this goal can be realized.
There is an increasing trend in foreign policy and international politics to focus on values.
This is the time to reflect on our values and determine the best foreign policy or global compact to make this world more peaceful, more inclusive, more just, and more sustainable. As such, a values-driven vision should be the core of foreign policy now and in the future.
Global citizenship education, if it is well-connected to a values-oriented approach in international relations, could be introduced as one of the comprehensive and fundamental shifts in thinking to tackle violence, radicalization, and intolerance. In 2016, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “We want the world our children inherit to be defined by the values enshrined in the UN charter: Peace, justice, respect, human rights, tolerance and solidarity.” This is in line with what global citizenship education envisions.
Former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently launched the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens in Vienna, Austria. This organization could serve as a main platform for an international discussion on global citizenship as it clearly demonstrates that Ban Ki-moon, after ten years of service as the U.N. Secretary-General, recognizes global citizenship as an overarching goal of the U.N. agenda.
In the volatile, extreme, and unpredictable context of the 21st century, we need creative and innovative leadership, both nationally and globally. People-centered, values-driven, globally-conscious, relationship-oriented, compassion-focused, and planet-sensitive leadership with a focus on global citizenship can make our next generation real agents for change.