World Social Forum - Montreal, 2016

The International Committee has determined that Montreal will host the World

World Social Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 2011

Social Forum in 2016. This will be the first time a WSF has been hosted in a country of the Global North. Originally held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the first WSF outside Brazil was in Mumbai, India. Since then several forums have been held in Africa and other parts of the world. However this is the first time in the North andit represents distinct challenges. Montreal is a good choice: Quebec is the only part of North America where French is the official language. Its place as a cultural minority has lead to many social movements to defend its traditions. In 2011-2012 Montreal was the centre of a vast social movement that began with the Occupy movement, passed to a student movement for free tuition and now is witness to Idle No More. The tradition of social mobilization in view of a fundamental transformation of society, is nothing new to Quebec where Montreal is situated. here is a long history of movements to defend workers, democracy and social rights. The challenge will be to find ways to make sure those of the GLobal South are able to participate. It will be a costly business to bring people from Asia, Afria and Latin America to Montreal. Moreover, the visa requirements imposed by the Canadian government are very strict and difficult. Nevertheless, no one doubt the creativity and commitment of the organisers. It should be a formidable event. In the meantimes a Canada-wide social forum is now being organized lto bring together English, French and Aboriginal activists in 2014. The success of this event will be an important indicator for the planning of the forum in 2016.

The Parish in Canto Grande

I worked in this area for a time. The building is new.

    For several years I lived in Canto Grande (and for others in Ancash to the north).
     When I arrived it was to assist with the work of the parish in Canto Grande. Later I became responsible for the formation of Peruvians who wanted to join our community. I also developed a human rights defence coordination for the entire area during the time of the greatest violence (1987-1991).
     I watched the development of this parish from nearly the beginning. It has obviously grown. Youth have always been at the centre. In the early years we had 800 confirmations each year.
   In the following video link the current pastor of the parish explains the life of the parish as it exists several decades later.  (The music toward the end was written especially for the parish as its anthem.) To see the video in Spanish, presenting the parish, click here.

For more on the parish, see its web site: click here.

Peru in the 1980s : a photographic display

      During the first week of January, 1980, I arrived in Lima, Peru, actually on the outskirts, in a relatively new land invasion that had begun with 5,000 people, mostly young couples from the city, who had invaded a piece of public land near downtown. After negotiation, the government came to an understanding for them to be resettled in an uninhabited valley several kilometers away. Within weeks the population had grown to 45,000 and then just kept going throughout the 1980s until it reached more than 500,000 people. Today the entire valley is inhabited, there are roads, electricity, water and sewage, bus transportation lines, a hospital and medical clinics, schools (primary and secondary). None of this was present when I arrived. The people I worked with estimated that the mortality rate for newborns was about 250/1000. The basic problem was hygene.
      I offer you 15 photos, taken at that time. Actually they were prepared by the Communications Office of the Peruvian Bishops' Conference and they are views of various communities around Lima, noteably Villa El Salvador, a similar experience in the southern end of Lima just three or four years earlier. That experience was the model for the development of our area: Canto Grande. They show the story at various stages and also the struggle of the people to survive: hauling cargo, shining shoes, selling stuff on the street.
    If you go to Youtube there is a video of Huascar, where I lived, as it is today. The quality is poor but it give an idea of the change. Click here. There isn't much I have found to give an idea of the story.  Somehow or other, I think it would be important to tell the story. But I leave that for another moment.

 Meanwhile here are the pictures: (Some are taken in the city where they went to find food, sell something or work. The difference between the city and Canto Grande at that time is startling.)

The video is also on Youtube:  here


If you want to download any of the pictures, here are the links:   (Just click on the link and the photo will open. They are a bit large so it may take a few seconds.)

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Time has passed; the area has changed but, most of the people are still there; they deserve our admiration for their courage and capacity to organize.

Satan, Lucifer and God

(Well, here's one way to look at it:)

   Satan is a symbol for the dark side, our unbridled impulses. Satan resists all attempts at control.   

   Lucifer is a symbol for our highest ideals and principles that repress unbridled energy and condemn us when we let loose. 

   Neither Satan nor Lucifer is God though each would like to have full sway. Fundamentalist and integrist religion tend to the side of Lucifer.   

   God is a symbol for the force that guides our choices as we attempt to manage the tension between Satan and Lucifer. It is our choices that forge our real identity.

Sex, Death, Religion

   Modern Western economies have turned sex, death and religion into commercial commodities to an extent unheard of in human history.  The most direct examples, in the case of sex, include human trafficking as well as the pornography and erotic objects industry.  However, there is also the enormous use of sex as a branding for the marketing of all sorts of objects including cars, vacations, alcohol and clothing.  In this case, as Naomi Klein has pointed out in Logo, it is not the object itself that is being sold but rather the sexual idea behind the image created of that object through advertising.

   Death has also been become a commodity marketed for profit. A few major companies in North America control most of what happens when someone dies, including embalming and the casket or incineration and an urn, provision of space for a wake, arrangements for a funeral service and, finally, the internment in a cemetery. The family and friends of someone who dies become the paying spectators of arrangements processed through these multinational corporations.

   Finally, we are witnesses to a commodification of religion. The most obvious example can be found in that of fundamentalist religion marketed through radio and especially television. In some cases the primacy of profit is stunningly obvious. But, on a larger level, fundamentalist or integrist religious expressions, including those in many of the traditional Christian Churches and also in other religious traditions, follow many of the underlying dynamics of the dominant economic model by insisting on the primacy of the individual and the satisfaction of personal needs.

   There are minority movements that react to this. Many reject all expression of religion while highlighting the freedom of individual thought and expression. Some give enormous importance to rational thinking, especially to scientific truth. (Witness Richard Dawkins.) However, in all this they learn toward an isolation of the individual. This has led some anti-religious movements to extremely angry expressions against any form of religion. This sort of thing can be found in the movements surrounding metal music: death metal and industrial metal in particular.  In their view sex is a personal expression of pleasure for self. Death then becomes simply the end of life, a dead stop. The artistic expressions in music and art show signs of severe depression and even tend toward suicide in some cases.

    There is, however, another minority view on these three dimensions of life. It is expressed in the religion of many thoughtful mainstream Christians,  Buddhits and Muslims who struggle to provide a meaningful interpretation of their religious traditions in a contemporary context. In this perspective sex is a participation in the dynamic, creative unfolding of life in which death is an inevitable consequence of a universe moving toward larger and deeper expressions of life. Religion, in this context, is a set of beliefs and rituals that assist in the journey through life so that we keep in touch with those deeper dimensions and  that encourage us to discover and engage with the profound interconnections we have with one another and all  expressions of life on Earth.

   I insist that, in North America, this perspective has become a minority one. Most people are too taken up with the culture around them to devote energy to developing an alternative, even if that alternative is strongly rooted in our cultural and religious history.

La pensée de Thomas Berry

Voici le texte d'une conférence que j'ai donné dernièrement à Montréal. Il s'agit de présenter au monde francophone la pensée de quelqu'un peu connu dans ce milieu. Je commence avec l'identité fausséé de l'individu dans la culture moderne occidentale. Ensuite je propose un récit développé par Thomas Berry et Brian Swinme. Je conclue avec des implications.  (C'est un peu long !)

(Conférence préparé pour Terre Sacrée, Montréal)

 

16 novembre 2013                                                                 Richard Renshaw

Qui est Thomas Berry ?

   Thomas Berry est né en 1914 et est décédé en 2009 à Greensboro, en Caroline du Nord. Il s’est identifié comme historien culturel, et souvent il se présentait comme un géologien. Thomas Berry était un prêtre catholique romain de la congrégation des Passionnistes (un groupe semi-contemplatif). Sa pensée s’inspire, entre autres, d’un regard critique sur l’œuvre de Teillard de Chardin. À une certaine époque, il a été président de l’Association Teillard des États-Unis. Il a vécu en Chine et avait une vaste compréhension des traditions religieuses de l’Asie incluant l’hindouisme, le bouddhisme, le taoïsme et surtout le confucianisme.  Aujourd’hui, ses idées sont largement répandues parmi les intellectuels dans beaucoup de domaines et font l’objet d’une acceptation de plus en plus large.  Son livre le plus important et le plus influent, The Dream of the Earth (Le rêve de la terre) a été publié par le Sierra Club en 1988.  (Plus tard, il a collaboré avec Brian Swimme à la publication de The Universe Story (Le récit de l’univers).  D’autres publications incluent The Great Work (La grande œuvre), The Sacred Universe (L’univers sacré) et Evening Thoughts (Pensées du soir).  Il est intéressant de noter que Thomas Berry entre rarement en débat avec des auteurs contemporains (bien qu’il critique souvent les penseurs classiques).  Il rassemble plutôt les idées de beaucoup d’écrivains contemporains et les incorpore dans sa proposition.  Ce groupe inclut des gens comme Lynn Margulis, Carl Sagan, Theodore Rozsak et beaucoup d’autres.

Chartre des valeurs - Quebec Charter of Values

  The debate regarding Quebec’s proposed Charter of values has taken a preoccupying turn in the last few days. The time has come to attempt to adjust the aim and, hopefully , come to a more fruitful dialogue about the proposal.

Photo from Radio-Canada

     First of all, I am of the opinion that the proposed charter is not in any way racist. The reason is because of the context. I am of the school that understands racism to be discrimination by a group holding dominant power in society; it is directed against an oppressed people, often a minority, because of an incidental element (for example, skin colour).  The Charter cannot be racist because Quebec is itself an oppressed minority struggling for its survival as a francophone society. An oppressed society cannot be racist.

     However, and for me this is extremely important, any society, including an oppressed and marginalized society, can be discriminatory. Discrimination is a larger term of which racism is one expression.

     It is my view that the Quebec government has decided to invoke its constitutional right to discriminate. This is written into the charter of rights through the notwithstanding clause. It has done so by invoking the important character of its unique status as a religiously neutral state within Canada. This is seen as a way of assuring Quebec’s continuing identity within the larger context of North America. In other words, the Quebec government seems prepared to discriminate for the good of the societal project to which it claims most people in Quebec are in agreement.

     However, the question then becomes whether or not the Quebec government is justified in such discrimination. My answer would be a resounding no. My reason for rejecting the proposed charter then, is that I cannot accept that the discrimination invoked here will advance the special character of the project of society at work in Quebec. It will, in fact, work much to its detriment. This is not at all like the passage of Law 101 that resulted in the exit of many Anglophones from Quebec. They were in fact part of the dominant force in North American society.  The Charter proposal goes much further in discriminating against some of the most vulnerable people in Quebec: immigrants, women, and religious minorities.

     I am convinced that the Quebec government has shot itself in the foot by proposing this Charter. It has lost whatever support and credibility it might have among religious minorities as also among a good part of the religious majority (Christians) and, not least, among many immigrants and women.   

The only motivation I can find behind the proposal is strictly electoral: The government is under the impression that the proposal will strongly unite its bases within the regions of Quebec outside of Montreal and within all the traditional Quebec society - those identified as “de souche.”  And it may well be that the debate will provide the Partie québecois with a chance to become a majority government after the next election. However, in that case, what will be left of the famous inclusive project of society for Quebec. I fear: very little.

The History of Story

    I am in no way a historian of culture or an anthropologist. Nevertheless, in the course of some work on a presentation on the story of the universe, I have become interested in the history of story. In 1909, Arthur Ransom wrote a classic history of storytelling that attempts to outline the phenomenon in English literature.  Much more recently, the BBC also produced a two-part series on the history of story that looks into the long historical background to the modern novel.

    My interest is somewhat different. I have tried, for several decades to understand religious experience as a vital part of the structure of human consciousness. The phenomenon of storytelling is closely related to the development of religion among humans. Story and storytelling plays a huge role in indigenous and African cultures. The tradition runs back long before written history and serves the transmission of identity, values and traditions in these cultures. I will be looking at it particularly from what is known of human habitation particularly in Europe.

    The history of story is a fascinating part of our human development.  1,250 million years ago homo habilis appeared throughout Asia and Central Europe leaving behind a legacy of hand axes. This was an marvellous new development for the survival of the species. However, at that point language, and therefore stories did not exist. There was no such thing as religion. The concentration was on the immediate struggle for survival. However, the fabrication of tools indicated a use of memory and a capacity for planning. Animals, of course, also use tools, but the scale of hand axes was a qualitative leap.  

    Much later, about 500 thousand years ago, homo erectus settled into Asia and Southern Europe. During that period fire was mastered. This too marked a major new development in human culture since it greatly assisted survival by lowering the vulnerability to disease as a result of eating raw meat and other foods.  Beyond that, the mastery of fire meant played a role also in creating the first elements of a culture as family groups gathered in the evenings around the campfire for warmth. It was a perfect setting to begin telling stories of what had happened during the day. What is not clear is the extent to which language matched the setting. This would require a pivotal turning in human culture.  

    More or less 200 thousand years ago archaic homo sapiens, with a first glimmering of self-consciousness, began the practice of ritual burials in a circle of stones with animals placed nearby to nourish the departed. Archaic homo sapiens occupied central Europe from the area of the Czech Republic to the eastern border of France. At this time, the importance of harmony with the mysterious forces of the world around them had led recognition of the importance of gestures that would unite them to the spirit world that inhabited everything around them.  This was the prelude to the emergence of modern human beings sometime between 120 and 40 thousand years ago out of Africa.

    The Neanderthals, the first modern human beings, left behind an enormous artistic output in music, painting and sculpture. We find also the beginnings of a more sophisticated form of language that enabled an elaborate use of memory and  communication on a symbolic level.

    Some painting in caves of this period reveal shamanic figures, consciousness of a world of spirit and a desire to be integrated into the cosmic processes that dominated their life, especially  birth and death as well as the cycle of seasons. There are elaborate burial sites and a bear cult that continues to exist in one part of northern Japan.

    Sometime around 40 thousand years ago human sapiens sapiens, our own species, appears.  They are marked by an expanded use of language though symbolic sound and gesture. Increasingly, there was a need for teaching, for handing on knowledge for survival in very broad terms.  In other animals this is minimal. For humans it became a major period of early life. The telling of stories was designed not just to learn hunting and defense skills but to be in harmony with the forces of nature around them. Humans are vulnerable and have to depend on a harmonious relationship with those forces.

    From about 11 thousand years ago, there is a mysterious absence during three thousand years of evidence of human habitation in the world. The next evidence of human presence will be in Neolithic villages throughout Southwest Asia and Africa as well as the Americas. These people are engaged in raising domesticated animals and in agriculture.  Starting about five or six thousand years ago, early civilizations lie directly at the foundation of the world as we know it today

    Organized court religion will emerge full-fledged in the courts of Near-Eastern civilization, but the original inspiration through stories and gestures aimed at harmonious communion with the mysterious spirit-world that guides life and death as well as the turning of the seasons will continue to be very present right up to our day even though it is often repressed.

    Christian have a large task ahead of them to re-reat the life of Jesus in the light of this history. Jesus was an extraordinary observer of nature around him and the way in which he was able to interpret this through his life and teaching deserves much more attention.