C'est une réflexion que j'ai publié il y a quelque temps maintenant (Décembre 2006). De toute façon, j'y crois encore. Je trouve le menace du terrorisme exagéré et manipulé pour faire toute sorte de bêtise, y inclus des guerres de conquête et la limitation de nos droits de citoyens et citoyennes.
Après la Seconde guerre mondiale, Dorothy Day et ses compagnons de New York avaient décidé de ne pas faire grand cas des sirènes d'alarme qui appelaient régulièrement tous les citoyens à se rassembler dans les abris contre les bombes. Elle avait été arrêtée plusieurs fois pour avoir continué à errer à travers la ville au lieu de se soumettre à ces « exercices d'urgence ». Les déambulations, qu'elle se permettait alors que le gouvernement de l'époque exigeait de ses citoyens de suivre des consignes afin de se protéger d'une possible attaque nucléaire, elle équivalait à dire aux autres citoyens, comme dans le conte d'Andersen, qu'en réalité «l'empereur n'a pas d'habit du tout!», comme dans le comte d’Anderson. Elle allait ainsi à l'encontre de tout le système qui visait à inculquer la peur dans les esprits de la population, et par imitation et dont elle révélait la profonde immoralité.
Saturday 20 February 2010
Thursday 11 February 2010
To See a New World Coming: The Crisis as a Moral and Cultural Challenge
(I belong to the Quebec Group on Contextual Theology. Over the past year we have reflected on the economic crisis and have now published two reflections.
Here is the second part of the reflection--February 2010. You will find the first part in the post below- April, 2009)
Just at the point when we share these reflections, Haiti has suffered another terrible blow. A new catastrophe displays before the world the misfortune of this people, held in the grip of a bad development that aggravates once more the consequences of a natural disaster. At the same time there arise out of this tragedy some reasons for hope: the Haitians have given new proof of an astonishing moral and spiritual strength; the international community has mobilized in a vast surge of solidarity. For how long? Obsessed by the phantom of the recession and the hope for a recovery, will well-off societies maintain a cap on their objectives for cooperation or will we see their economic and political interests commit the promised aid for reconstruction? Are another Haiti and another world really possible?
In an initial text on the current crisis (Who Will Help Us Cross the Desert? April 2009), devoted above all to an economic and political analysis, we took up the question of hope: By what path is the future opened up? Suspicious of the plans for economic and financial recovery proposed by world leaders as ways out, we looked toward the alternatives emerging among the innumerable groups that form the network of social movements. They already announce, by their prophetic practices, the possibility of a different world, on condition that we manage to integrate the cultural dimension to the efforts of social transformation.
" As important as they might be, our commitments to social transformation remain sterile if our mentalities, our deep attitudes, our vision of the world, in short the common culture is not transformed as well in order to become more permeable to human meaning " (page 6).
In this perspective, we announced a follow-up to our reflection, one that would take up more explicitly the cultural and moral dimension of the current crisis. This is what we want to attempt in the text that follows.
Here is the second part of the reflection--February 2010. You will find the first part in the post below- April, 2009)
Just at the point when we share these reflections, Haiti has suffered another terrible blow. A new catastrophe displays before the world the misfortune of this people, held in the grip of a bad development that aggravates once more the consequences of a natural disaster. At the same time there arise out of this tragedy some reasons for hope: the Haitians have given new proof of an astonishing moral and spiritual strength; the international community has mobilized in a vast surge of solidarity. For how long? Obsessed by the phantom of the recession and the hope for a recovery, will well-off societies maintain a cap on their objectives for cooperation or will we see their economic and political interests commit the promised aid for reconstruction? Are another Haiti and another world really possible?
In an initial text on the current crisis (Who Will Help Us Cross the Desert? April 2009), devoted above all to an economic and political analysis, we took up the question of hope: By what path is the future opened up? Suspicious of the plans for economic and financial recovery proposed by world leaders as ways out, we looked toward the alternatives emerging among the innumerable groups that form the network of social movements. They already announce, by their prophetic practices, the possibility of a different world, on condition that we manage to integrate the cultural dimension to the efforts of social transformation.
" As important as they might be, our commitments to social transformation remain sterile if our mentalities, our deep attitudes, our vision of the world, in short the common culture is not transformed as well in order to become more permeable to human meaning " (page 6).
In this perspective, we announced a follow-up to our reflection, one that would take up more explicitly the cultural and moral dimension of the current crisis. This is what we want to attempt in the text that follows.
Who Will Help Us Cross The Desert?
(I belong to the Quebec Group on Contextual Theology. Over the past year we have focused on the economic crisis and have now published two reflections. This is the first. )
(2009)The current crisis has global dimensions: people without work, a food and environmental crisis, deterioration of public health in numerous countries, destabilization of the middle class, the dumping of millions of human beings into abject poverty. These catastrophes reveal the weakness of the colossus with feet of clay, the emptiness of an empire that pretends it is invincible, definitive like the “end of history.” Its collapse puts up for question not only the way our economic and financial systems function, but also its cultural and moral basis. We can speak of a crisis of civilization.
This empire has no doubt not completely given up the ghost. We search to set it free, to loosen the bonds of our more or less conscious collaboration. What liberation can we expect? By what paths? Who will help us cross the desert?
The crisis we are speaking of
Every day, the headlines carry news of a catastrophic economy. Here are a few examples. Black January for American employment: almost 600,000 positions have been eliminated and it continues. GM demands 30 billion dollars to avoid bankruptcy… The OEDC foresees an unemployment approaching double digits for all the member countries except Japan between now and the end of 2010. Since January, indirectly through various financial “tools” of the Feds, or directly by the Treasury, the American State has loaned 3,000 billion to the private sector in addition to offering a guarantee of 5,700 billion in certain investments. By comparison, the 700 billion agreed on for saving the AIG and others look like… confetti! In Quebec, there are 2,561 consumers who declared bankruptcy in January. In its turn, the Quebec Deposit and Investment Bank has ended the financial year 2008 with a loss of 40 billion dollars, that is to say, a negative return of more than 25%... In Japan the electronic industry loses billions, the stars in the sector were forced to let millions of employees go… The economy is in a shambles…. Is it possible for ordinary folk to understand something?
(2009)The current crisis has global dimensions: people without work, a food and environmental crisis, deterioration of public health in numerous countries, destabilization of the middle class, the dumping of millions of human beings into abject poverty. These catastrophes reveal the weakness of the colossus with feet of clay, the emptiness of an empire that pretends it is invincible, definitive like the “end of history.” Its collapse puts up for question not only the way our economic and financial systems function, but also its cultural and moral basis. We can speak of a crisis of civilization.
This empire has no doubt not completely given up the ghost. We search to set it free, to loosen the bonds of our more or less conscious collaboration. What liberation can we expect? By what paths? Who will help us cross the desert?
The crisis we are speaking of
Every day, the headlines carry news of a catastrophic economy. Here are a few examples. Black January for American employment: almost 600,000 positions have been eliminated and it continues. GM demands 30 billion dollars to avoid bankruptcy… The OEDC foresees an unemployment approaching double digits for all the member countries except Japan between now and the end of 2010. Since January, indirectly through various financial “tools” of the Feds, or directly by the Treasury, the American State has loaned 3,000 billion to the private sector in addition to offering a guarantee of 5,700 billion in certain investments. By comparison, the 700 billion agreed on for saving the AIG and others look like… confetti! In Quebec, there are 2,561 consumers who declared bankruptcy in January. In its turn, the Quebec Deposit and Investment Bank has ended the financial year 2008 with a loss of 40 billion dollars, that is to say, a negative return of more than 25%... In Japan the electronic industry loses billions, the stars in the sector were forced to let millions of employees go… The economy is in a shambles…. Is it possible for ordinary folk to understand something?
Sunday 7 February 2010
Ukraine Has Talent: War and Peace
This is an amazing piece of art done with fingers on a table of luminous sand:
Kseniya Simonova What can I say?
Kseniya Simonova What can I say?
Friday 5 February 2010
Diversity
Last September (2009) I gave a talk at the Canadian Ecumenical Centre in which I tried to touch on an aspect of the themes I addressed in my book, Dealing with Diversity. I am particularly concerned by the shift to integralism in the Catholic Church.
We are faced today with the most profound crisis since the rise of civilization 7,000 years ago. The planet, our shared home, is being ravaged by human presence to the extent that the result may be the near extinction of humanity. In addition, the race to get control of natural resources is driving humanity more and more toward extensive economic, cultural and social exclusions often through the use of violence.
The underlying source of the destruction lies in attitudes that have shaped public policy and economic activity. Thus the question of values and of motivation is crucial to any solution.
We are faced today with the most profound crisis since the rise of civilization 7,000 years ago. The planet, our shared home, is being ravaged by human presence to the extent that the result may be the near extinction of humanity. In addition, the race to get control of natural resources is driving humanity more and more toward extensive economic, cultural and social exclusions often through the use of violence.
The underlying source of the destruction lies in attitudes that have shaped public policy and economic activity. Thus the question of values and of motivation is crucial to any solution.
Wednesday 3 February 2010
The World of the Andean Peoples
This is something I wrote a few years back for a little publication with an international focus.
The original peoples who inhabit the Andean Region of South America, like every culture, have their stories of how the world is and how it came to be. Many of these beliefs pre-date the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century but have evolved as a result of their contact with missionaries.
The Aymara people believe their origins lie in a liaison between the Sun and the Pachamama (Mother Earth) on an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. They believe this gave origin to the “first humanity.” However that humanity, semi-gods, displeased the Sun who destroyed them. A second attempt was more fruitful and the contemporary humans are the result.
The original peoples who inhabit the Andean Region of South America, like every culture, have their stories of how the world is and how it came to be. Many of these beliefs pre-date the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century but have evolved as a result of their contact with missionaries.
The Aymara people believe their origins lie in a liaison between the Sun and the Pachamama (Mother Earth) on an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. They believe this gave origin to the “first humanity.” However that humanity, semi-gods, displeased the Sun who destroyed them. A second attempt was more fruitful and the contemporary humans are the result.
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