Azly Rahman

20] Review of Reardon's "Sexism and the War System"

BETTY REARDON, Sexism and the war system New York: Syracuse University Press, 1996. 112pp. Review by AZLY ABDUL RAHMAN Columbia University New York In reading Betty Reardon’s Sexism and the war system, I cannot, undeniably, at the onset distance myself from the fact that I am a male brought up in an Eastern tradition of patriarchy, schooled in a male-dominated system and went through an American education system at the college level, tying to unlearn the excesses of male chauvinism. My training in the last ten years, and contributions in teaching have been in the field of neuroscientific principles of teaching; teaching creativity, critical thinking, ethics, and futurism somewhat in the context of peace education and critical pedagogy. My intellectual explorations have been in the field of political economy, normative approach to politics, humanistic psychology and philosophy, neurolinguistic programming, and of late, mind-body integration in the existentialist religious tradition. Having confessed briefly my potential biases in my “first impression” of Reardon’s monograph, I now turn to the critical and creative analysis of Sexism and the war system. I will first discuss Reardon’s main thesis that the root cause of socially and structurally sanctioned violence (i.e. militarism in its broadest sense) lies in our learned sexist perspective. Next, I will elaborate Reardon’s idea of androgyny as a necessary and idealistic configuration of our psyche and relate this to selected cross-cultural perspectives. I will finally close this review with a synthesis of the author’s thesis with the pedagogical possibilities of social transformation via education, within the context of an emerging framework of holistic education; the Ying and Yang and the brain-mind integration of learning. Reardon’s main thesis is that there is an interdependence of structural violence in virtually all spheres of human living with the mindset of sexism we have constructed. Our world is ordered as predominantly patriarchal, an excess of the positive masculine psyche and that the inability of one to recognize the oppressed nature of this condition, i.e. the subjugation of the female within is the excess of the positive feminism in us. When these excesses are translated into the concept of militarism and the war system (“structural violence”), they rear their ugly heads in such forms as authoritarianism, the war mentality, and the urge to dominate, and to rape. This perjoration of the positive masculinity has its in the roots in the traditional socialization of the female who allows such a condition to prevail. Thus, imperialism, environmental destruction, arms build-up, xenophobia, and other forms of threats outgrowth of the male psychic distortion, Reardon contends, is similar to the threat inherent in rape; which is “essentially [the] forcing of … person or persons into submission and accommodation by the threat or use of force of violence.” (p.39) International politics is claimed to be male-centric, technological sophistication and advancement a male enterprise and research conducted within the quantitative paradigm is male-oriented. The essentially masculine-ordering of things has thus historically explained the state of affairs of our world is already in: injustices against women, global distributive injustices, economic wars, arms build-up, authoritarian regimes, and of late the impending global financial crises. In the later chapters, Reardon calls for a convergence of the male-female positive energies into its rightful androgynic mindset and to use the vehicle of education to engineer transitions and transformations. This can be achieved at the organizational, research, and ecumenical levels through the collaboration of peace research and movements centered around world order values. It should be interesting to analyze the pluses and minuses of the author’s thesis. It must be commented at the onset that Reardon’s idea of linking feminism with the war system is an intellectual excursion from many a lowbrow feminist-analysis of the male-female dichotomy and power relations. One may find in the latter, arguments which most predominantly center on the attacking the “physical male” sexual in undertone rather than the ideological or psychological as what Reardon had done. It is not the intention of this review to dwell into an expose of such paralyzing excursions and sub-cerebral arguments on masculinity and feminism. Instead, let me begin with looking at what’s lacking in the speculative narrative offered in Sexism and the war system. Reardon failed to satisfactorily draw instances from cross-cultural perspectives in analyzing the root cause and manifestations of the “battle of the sexes”. She mentioned a great deal of masochismo in the Kanachi tribe (studied by Francis Fornori) whose power as terrifier is measured by the number of heads chopped off and delivered to one another in the event of an impending war. Reardon relates this aptly with the modern concept of the global balance of terror through the number of nuclear-warheads in the stockpiles of the Superpowers especially during the Cold War period. Should Reardon have tried to draw examples from the different cultures of the world, she would have to engage in a post-modernistic task of explaining the logic behind certain rational necessities of the male-female discrimination. In the traditional societies, untainted by Rostowian, Malthusian, or Friedmanian economics, the male must play the role, not necessarily dominant, of toiling in the fields, hunting and risking life in the jungle, or fishing for weeks in tempestuous conditions in open seas whereas the females must be tending the home and family in a safer environment. Such is the nature of trade-off in the traditional societies, at least from the Southeast Asia perspective. By modern-day analysis, which of these roles can we say to be more oppressive, given the mode of production historically relevant then? Indeed, females bear children a great many but the ontological relevance in such a period is legitimized when one considers the influencing force of religion and tradition which hold families together. The concept of kinship and moral economy of the peasant society must be taken into consideration. It is indeed a complex analysis if we look at the phenomena within such a historical context using a Marxist feminist or world order value lens, perhaps. To further highlight the postmodernity of the argument initiated by Reardon, let us for example look at cases in point as such in Islam, the most misunderstood religion, perhaps when we take the male-female discussion as analysis. Although a face value the female may seem to be analyzed as oppressed, perhaps (via interpretations brought about by cultural distortions of the interpretations of the religion), woman’s right and feminism is never an issue. The mother, female, is highly regarded to the extent that the child is forbidden to raise his/her voice at her as this will demonstrate utter ingratitude especially considering the fact that the mother, the female, carried the child in her pregnancy, for nine months and ten days with all the joys and pain of delivery which went along in order to bring the child to life. Ingratitude to the female in this context amounts to castration by God, in accordance to the Islamic tradition. Paradise, in Islamic belief, lies beneath the mother’s feet and one must honor such respect to the female in order to be granted paradise. When a child is born, he/she takes the name as “---- the son/ daughter of (the father) “ but when he/she dies, the “priest” or imam will, during the last sermon paying his last respect, help the male or female return to Eternity with his/her mother’s name attached. Such is an honor given to the female. A wife can ask for divorce if the husband commits adultery or fails to provide material and sexual needs rightfully accorded to her. If the husband leaves her for more than three months without providing such needs, she is then free to seek divorce through the religious court. And for the last illustration to highlight the subjectivity of the male/female issue, the husband cannot lay hands on his wife in times of disputes, as this is a vow taken when he takes her hand in marriage. Should this happen, the wife is again guaranteed the rights to bring the husband to the Islamic court. Apart from the two criticisms on Reardon’s analysis nonetheless the “pluses” are to be further explored within the context of our global effort in understanding and transforming the anarchical world system. I will confine my discussions to the concept of “androgyny” and the educational imagination. This will synthesize Reardon’s notion of collaboration between feminism and the world order models project which she discussed a great deal in the sexist debate of the world systems. Reardon’s concept of androgyny, i.e. the full realization of the balance between the male-female, masculine-feminine dichotomy which has been historically and psychologically eroded, perjorated, and adulterated is consistent with the idea of “mind-body” and “whole-brain” thinking currently dominating the psyche of many a Gestalt thinker. It must be remembered that Reardon’s Sexism and the war system was originally published in 1985 by arrangement with Teachers College, Columbia University. Her work can thus be interpreted as a culmination of her ideas on feminism perhaps developed decades before. Mind-body perspectives, neuroscience, transpersonal psychology in the contemporary and advant garde genre, and the analysis of androgyny in human thinking are fairly recent body of literature, which has become dominant only within the last two decades. Thus, Reardon’s feminist perspective is an important precedent to any discussions on brain laterality and mind-body juxtapositionings. Hers should not be looked at within a Kuhnian shift in perspective but rather as an evolution; from looking at holistic thinking from a male-female “outer-layer” analysis to one of a left-right brain hemispheric “inner world of the three-pound universe” in nature. Reardon asserted that much of our failure to become and being androgynous is historical and grounded to a particular historicism. She quoted scientific justifications for her claim that our psyche has been conditioned to the fear within and in turns conditions our phobic behaviors particularly within the domain of the war system. She wrote: Research does indicate that most of the behavioral differences between human males and females are the consequences of socialization and education. The artificial differentiation thus imposed on man and women leaves in its wake a very deep sense of fragmentation and loss, perhaps even a sense of being wounded or traumatized by a rending of one set of characteristic from every human being at the time of birth – a cleavage I refer to as the primal wound. A sense of trauma and pain can be one source of what has been designated as natural aggression. What is important here is to recognize the common emotional roots as well as the structural inter-relationships between sexism and the war system. (p. 8) Consistent with my pedagogical inclination to look at Reardon’ claim concerning “the primal wound” within the context of brain laterality, I assert that the violence and aggression can also be explained, in collaboration with her thesis, within the context of brain development. Higher intelligence, through the development of the cerebral cortex is a desirable goal of any educational framework modeled after the demands of current research findings in brain science. A positive, well-developed brain is a precondition for the development of holistic thinking. A whole-brained, holistic thinker, whom Reardon may call an “androgynous being” can be able to successfully and harmoniously juggle the innerworkings of the analytical and the creative, the mathematics and the music, the concrete reality and metaphysical dreams, the systematizations and the imaginations, the subconscious and the wide-awake consciousness, and all the dualism inherent in an ontology of thought-governing, Ying and Yang in character. A person as such then fits Reardon’s ideal for an individual who mediates between the excesses of the positive and constructive traits in the masculine and feminine. Reardon’s androgynous being can then not only discriminate between good and bad but also can nourish, care, and provide. The wisdom of discrimination (the masculine within) can be used not to dominate, imperialize, terrorize, build weapons of ultimate terror, or most significantly to utilize and monopolize technology for destructive intentions. The wisdom to care, nourish, and provide (the feminine within) on the other hand, can be used not to be overly protective, excessively emotional, rampantly creative, or most significantly to create and innovate better and more sophisticated technologies for destructive intentions too. From this speculation of androgyny and the danger of male-female excesses in our psyche, it is not difficult to explain how we have evolved as human beings that have contributed to the chaos at the brink of the next millenium. We have perhaps ignored our moral responsibility to planet Earth in that the knowledge we acquire have been used to develop faster and better means to oppress Nature and the meeker among our species. We develop technology not in a morally surrealistic way to make representations of the powers within us in our quest for self-knowledge, but instead to further celebrate and advance our aggressive instincts. I believe that the “primal wound” as Reardon alluded to is one we inflict upon ourselves because we may have failed to see the worth of living through our life we have failed to examine. As Socrates once cautioned us, “the life unexamined is not worth living”. Not only must then the human species urgently find remedies to heal this “primal wound” but also look inwards to diagnose what cancer of the soul is destroying our attempt “to be and to becoming” within the parameters of what constitutes being a human. This may well be an important step towards our creative and moral evolution, or in the language of some religion, the necessary progression towards the realization of our dharma, our sacred duty; to the attainment of Nirvana; to the realization of the true meaning of our existence as an image of God; or to realize that we are Vicegerent of the Supreme Being entrusted to seek for Knowledge and Love so that we may ultimately find God if we conduct our life on Earth according to the moral principles laid by our Creator. The masculine arrogance in us has raped Mother Earth of whom we are morally obliged to live in harmony and symbiosis with. Our masculine technicist frame of mind have used sophisticated inventions to deforestate, build steel and concrete structures to alienate each other, design phallic-looking missiles to terrify one another, govern others through masochistic forms of dictatorships, create trade blocks to render millions economically deprived, write up canons, laws, and treaties to define each other as less than human. We thus had to invent a United Nations to contain any possibility of mass annihilation. We have thus created the most violent century at the eleventh hour of our appearance on this planet. What then could possibly be an educational framework which can emerge out of the synthesis of Reardon’s analysis, world order model project, and the growing body of literature on mind-body integration which can perhaps give hope for our children who need such a humane and transformational leadership? I would propose the urgent introduction of peace education at all universities around the world as a core subject to begin with. This should be one which would integrate women studies, peace research, creativity, critical thinking, and futuristics which would allow aspiring leaders in all spheres of human activity to begin building scenarios and to help realize utopias base upon our most humane principles of learning and living. Transdisciplinary approaches linking this core course with other disciplines can be designed in order for business studies to not be divorced from ethics, or military science not to be separated from peace education, for example. Morality and philosophy as once powerful disciplines should be raised to its rightful degree of prominence. In many a developed and developing countries for example, role models and heroes are corporate leaders, politicians, military chiefs, rock musicians, and macho-men from Hollywood instead of poets, writers, peace activists, and Nobel laureates. We have been conditioned to be masculine in our choice of such models. The international system is too tied up in an entangled mix of military-industry-politics that the powerful international media, the fourth estate, is but a means to help mask such tripartite controlling interest so that, society, in the Orwellian and Marcusian analyses can become one-dimensional. The world is a “global marketplace to be made safe for democracy” and to be explained using the language of the war system: “corporate jungle”, “guerilla marketing strategies”, corporate strategies and positionings”, “business intelligence”, “corporate raiders and warriors”, “acquisitions”, “economic blockades” “head hunting” and the like. Ancient texts on war such as Sun Tzi’s The Art of War or The Military Secrets of Attila the Hun are fervently studied by corporations so that the world can be viewed as an economic war zone to be fought in a deadly zero-sum game. Such is our global economic ordering of ideological landscape devoid of moral-philosophical underpinnings. Peace education is thus needed. Our mindset, as Reardon hopes, must undergo a radical reconfiguration. We may perhaps have to begin at home by first eliminating toys which mystify and glorify violence: our GI Joes, Mortal Kombats, Doom Patrols, and those which may train our children to become more violent than current world leaders of that breed who we wish to dispose but do not have the capability to do so. We can next analyze what our children are watching on television; the powerful technology which tells us what and whose reality we should believe in. We can continue to proceed with such transformational steps until we can help the children of the next generation live with leaders who will rule not with guns, guts, and glory but with love, life, and liberty. Such is a big challenge. In concluding this review, it must be said that Reardon’s perspective on feminism and the root cause of violence is a powerful and refreshing analysis. When integrated with the analysis of our brain as hemispheric and lateral, with the notion of holism in education, it becomes a potential fertile ground for further research on peace studies. Given enough cross-cultural perspectives added to Reardon’s discourse, it can become a theoretical basis for other feminist movements globally to understand the war system, and to engineer systematic and concerted movements towards complete disarmament. Or as she concluded Sexism and the war system brilliantly within the concept of androgyny: … [a]s male and female genetic material converge in the conception of an individual life, so must masculine and feminine perceptions, modes, and participation merge into a conception of a truly human society. This conception can be politically symbolized by taking on as one goal the two major transformative tasks of our generation: achieving equality for women and complete disarmament. (p. 97) Indeed, such tasks are not longer a choice for men but an imperative --- lest we care to create a world for our children pillared upon androgyny and the peace system.

19] On Ecological Security

ON ECOLOGICAL SECURITY, UNITED NATIONS REFORM, AND VISION FOR A STRONGER COMMUNITARIANISM OF THE UNITED NATIONS by AZLY RAHMAN Columbia University, New York As I sat down to outline this reflective essay on the link between our planetary survival and the issue of global non-proliferation we need, as moral agents to be aware of when working for “we the peoples” and our role in thinking futuristically about “what the shape of UN to come” would be, I was momentarily distracted by the following information from the National Public Radio (December 9, 1997): i. the decision by the “defense contractors” (i.e. major weapons producers) in Europe -- Britain, France, and Germany – to merge by 1999 as a stronger body to produce better and more destructive weapons to counter the ever increasingly strong US military-industrial-complex’s arms production capability. The rational being, if this initiative is not taken, the United States will forever bury the European arms industry. ii. the lobbying of the US major corporations to stop the notifications of the reduction of carbon dioxide emission at the Kyoto Conference on Global Warming so that business would not be affected. Non-US states however push for the increasing use of nuclear power as “safest” energy use in providing alternative for fossil fuel. I was also momentarily plunged into confusion by a recent statement by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, in his opening address to the Langkawi International Maritime and Space Exhibition in which he: i. urged the world’s “defense” contractors to produce “weapons which would not kill” but “only maim and mutilate” as an alternative to the production of deadly weapons. ii. urged Malaysian companies to venture into the “lucrative industry of arms production”, as there is a growing need for the country to become a major Third World player in the “defense and security” market. I was also moved by Robert Muller’s World Thanksgiving speech at The United Nations and by his lifelong commitment as a moral agent of conscientization working toward world peace. His conviction gave me a dose of moral strength to work against odds in educating people on the meaning of peace and non-proliferation. The essence of the preceding mentions point necessarily to the idea that military trade blocks will become a phenomena, ecological security will become a more pressing issue, Third World arms production will become intense, and the voices of those calling for peace will have to become stronger. Illustrated in the readings on the UN and the Environment particularly in Falk, Kim and Mendlovitz in The United Nations and a Just World Order and Mische’s Ecological Security and the UN, we may find the common theme which indicate that the United Nations agencies dealing with environmental concerns are consistently working hard towards creating awareness, drawing up ratifications, organizing conferences and setting up task forces to save the environment from further degradation, the heightening of these efforts have been met by equally heightening resistance for powerful social and political institutions to understand what such concerns can bring. Inclinations and insistence of corporations and corporatist-led governments to equate progress with the utilitarian view of Nature (i.e. the Natural resources around us are to be used to define our survival as human beings and not to be preserved in a Non-Nature symbiotic paradigm) has brought us into the difficulty of reversing the scheme of things ecological. Mische (1997) in “ Assuring Ecological Security for the 21st Century” chronicled the development of the work of the United Nations in creating and mandating awareness in our thinking about security for a globally environmentally sustainable planet. Dismal thoughts can be discerned from her analysis in that whilst the UNEP is working “on a limb” to provide intelligent arguments for the ecological security of our environment, “regressive forces want to weaken with the United Nations and standards of environmental protection” I am inclined to analyze the “regressive forces” being “corporations” and corporatist-developmentalist states – both of these are “one happy family in the global production system” which thrive on profits on a massive scale rather than think of the praxical value of saving the Earth which is threatened by the hour by massive emission of carbon dioxide and massive destruction of the rain forests. The argument which follows will be that the technological, political and global business skills we have developed to such an advanced stage have not been compatible with the slow and regressive moral, religious and planetary living skills we require to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of planetary destruction through environmental degradation.” It follows then that capitalism, at its most advanced stage wherein nations are no longer merging to sell good things in life – cars, radios, blue jeans, hip hop music, Walkmans and VCRs – but have beyond this to merge in the area of weapons production. We pay lip service to environmental protection in such manners as celebrations of Earth Days and in corporations claiming to become greener. We missed the issue in our assuring of ecological security. I believe that governments in their present form and manifestations cannot be believed to be top-down reformers or revolutionaries in ensuring the security of planet Earth for your children and mine – for the children of the future, in short. Contemporary thoughts on the need to go back to Nature and the organize ourselves in bringing down such governments must perhaps be the agenda in helping the UN achieve its goal in assuring ecological security. Ecophilosophy or ecosophy as a rallying mode of thinking ought to be explored in order for us to think of reversing the current trend in thinking about the environment. Whilst, reflective in the readings of the UN’s environmental effort, the idea is to put pressure on governments and corporations to think about these issues, a more widespread movement globally is needed to work towards bringing down existing governments so that those which will be replaced can be the ones led by ecophilosophical thinkers. Perhaps this is a Romantic view of praxis but I must insist that the Earth can no longer wait to have more conferences held, conventions ratified, and calls being made, to save itself from its critically wounded and overheated condition from the countless rapes its had undergone over the last many decades. In relation to the proposal for “eco-philosophers to be kings” one may also find the necessity to cultivate leaders of this ecosophical breed so that governments can no longer venture into producing weapons of mass production which will contribute to the ecological security of our planet too. Moving from environmental hope we now turn to the question of reforming the UN. Erskine and Childers in Renewing the United Nations System (1994) brought our attention to the need to reform the UN system based on the rationale among them that the world is increasingly getting insecure, violent and unjust in economic distribution. If we are to have faith in the UN as a “peoples assembly” we must strengthen the UN in the areas of management, finance, coordination, recruitment, and membership in the Security Council. Rosenau (1992) in The United Nations in a Turbulent World argued along similar lines in calling for the UN to be more visible, assertive and creative in recruiting volunteers to make it stronger. Urquhart and Childers (1990) outlined the main areas of reform which needed to be undertaken in order for the UN to be more futuristic in solving the world’s problems among those undertaking initiatives such as proactive preventive diplomacy, disarmament and arms reduction, and mobilization of resources to address the international problems of distributive justice. Whilst these initiatives are to be taken at the UN level, it is also important to venture into the area of strengthening the non-governmental organizations, nationally and locally so that together they can work with the world body and their respective governments in intensifying our efforts to address the global issues. I argue that a stronger UN need a stronger coalition of NGOs with collaborations from international NGOs as believed by many a communitarian thinker such as Elise Boulding. The elaborations below will illustrate my vision of what a stronger UN will look like in light of the ecological and human security we are to work towards as a process as we step into the chaotic twenty-first century. My vision of a stronger United Nations is that of the strengthening of grassroots movement worldwide in collaboration with those which are already given consultative status in the main organs of the United Nations. Whilst I agree that reformation for the UN should also be at the level of the body itself, i.e. in the areas of UN Security Council, administration, financing, leadership, and recruitment, I believe in the power of the “peoples of the world who have greater conscience that their governments” in struggling for the ecological security of our planet. The stronger the national NGOs the better the political pressure on their governments will be. In fact, governments should also be pressured to include NGOs in the political decision-making of each country so that the voice of the peoples can be louder. Alliances by NGOs with their international partners should be strengthened so that the ideals of communitarianism in our thinking about the future of this planet can be achieved. Educators and intellectuals of each country must become vanguards and “moral agents” in the forging of such alliances. Education for critical and creative consciousness towards the building of environmentally, intellectually and morally sustainable future must be the agenda for the next millenium. Education here is meant to be in the broadest sense of the word; from the day the child learns to think about these issues till the last few hours before death calls. Conscientization for the better of humanity must be a life-long process. I envision a world without governments in which moral agents are plenty enough to create a more peaceful world order. The creation of these moral agents must then be through education, formal or non-formal. So, whilst the UN is currently undergoing its structural reforms, the role of educators such as mine will be “to light my own candle so that instead of me cursing the dark, I would at least help others around me see”. And if there are more of us lighting candles, we can then help Humanity, banished over the last few decades by Ego which reign within a “Thou-less” world, come back. Like the candles, in the story of the Ramayana, awaiting Sita Devi in the courtyard of King Rama after the princess was banished for fourteen years, we as educators can become like them; lighting ourselves so that what illuminates outside of us is what illuminates within. The kingdom within us is greater than the one outside. Reform, must begin from within whilst revolutions from outside! MAY WE CONTINUE TO LIVE IN MORE INTERESTING TIMES

18] Notes on Our Rights on Planet Earth

ON BEING HUMAN IN A PARADOXICAL INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC SYSTEM: NOTES ON OUR RIGHTS ON OUR PLANET EARTH by Azly Rahman Columbia University New York Only a life lived for others is a life worth while --- Albert Einstein Preface This brief essay will touch on not only the salient points/ arguments in the readings but also important developments which have befallen upon the nations of Southeast Asia over the past four months as they relate to the complex innerworkings of an unjust world system. References will also be made to the UN debriefings, briefings from the Committee on Human Rights as well as the brief seminar at St. Peter’s church on Lexington Avenue. The outline of my discussions will be as follow: i) discussions on human rights and economic development, ii) an examination on the concept of basic rights, and iii) a brief discussion on personacracy as an existential notion of human rights. I begin by quoting a pertinent phrase form the Report of the Commission on Global Governance which illustrates the interconnectedness of the global economic system to the question of grassroots development. Written in 1995, it stated: The last two years have seen a veritable explosion of portfolio investments by institutional investors --- insurance companies, pension funds, unit trusts --- in ‘emerging markets’ as stock markets became truly global in reach. People can trade in the leading currencies twenty-four hours a day and use a growing variety of financial instruments. In the field of finance, national frontiers have little meaning: ‘the end of geography’ is approaching … [a]s economies become more interdependent, it is not only the opportunity for wealth creation that is multiplied, but also the opportunity for destabilizing shocks to be transmitted form one country to another. (p.136-137) Indeed it is not only the ‘end of geography’ but also the end of reason and just economic rationale, and the beginning of an era wherein no longer financially powerful nation-states, but also more precariously, the dawn of powerful individuals destabilizing developing nations surviving to maintain economic sanity in an already insane and anarchic world system. The illustration to be deeply pondered upon is the total collapse of the economies of Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia in the hands of the so-called rogue speculators who has left these nations bankrupt by more than 25 per cent. Only national perseverance and the believe that things will get better, may prevent these struggling economies from falling into political and social chaos and disorder. Already some nations have unintelligently issue warnings to its citizens that Draconian laws such as the Internal Security Act (which allows detentions without trial over indefinite periods of time) will be used against those who criticize the government for managing the economy. Such is a paradox of human rights and economic development. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated in Article 25 (in Falk, Kim, and Mendlovitz, 1995): 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, widowed, old age and other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (p.354) Such is a most humane article of faith ever written by its proclaimers. But is there distributive justice in the manifestation and translation of such an ideal? Can the people in Bangladesh, North Korea, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and other abjectly impoverished nations of the world claim rights to food, shelter and clothing from their government, let alone from the powerful nations co-signers of the declaration? Echoing Kim (in Falk, Kim, and Mendlovitz, 1991) we are living in, paradoxically the worst of all times in the context of global human rights and the world order: never before in human history have there been such a glaring gap between rhetoric and reality, between norms and behavior, and between claims and capabilities . (p.356) Human right has never been separated from economic development. The history of struggles against repressive regimes, he silencing of the voices against corrupt governments have centered around the question of economic injustices. Whether the scenario is of the grim reality of Harlem and the Wall Street, or Manila’s Smoky Mountain and Makati District, distributive justice and the question of human dignity is central issue. At the microcosmic level, there exist Third (or possibly Fourth) Worlds in New York City as much as at the macrocosmic level there exists hardcore poors distributed outside of the territorial boundaries of the advanced post-industrialized countries. We may continue to have further misconceptions of the absence of economic injustices in the United States as compared to many an underdeveloped nations of the world. One quote by Mahathir Mohamad could perhaps best offer more insights: In the United States, one estimate is that one fifth of one percent of the American population own almost 60 per cent of the wealth of America. The super-rich, less than two per cent, own 80 per cent of all stocks, 100 per cent of all state municipal bonds and 88 per cent of corporate bonds. In the United States there are some sixty billionaires and more than 100,000 millionaires. Two hundred companies account for some 80 per cent of all resources used in manufacturing. … ‘the top 20 per cent of Americans own 80 per cent of all that can be privately owned in the United States and the bottom 25 per cent owns nothing (many of them in fact, have debts that exceed their assets)’ It is true that many Americans own shares. But many own very few and very few own a great many. (p.209) Such a claim above illustrate what is meant earlier as the concept of distributive justice which form the basis of existing international economic system, not to mention yet the analysis one can make of the pervasiveness of the controlling interests of the world’s economy of which the key players are those “very few who own a great many”. The United Nations is still working within a postmodern Machiavellian and political realistic framework in looking at economic development and human rights. It is necessary though, for it to evolve as a mechanism to create awareness for further work to be done. As Forsythe (in Falk, Kim, and Mendlovitz, 1995) wrote of the forty-year work of the United Nations on human rights: The significance of United Nations activity on human rights can be discussed according to immediate and long-term effects. the immediate impact is usually slight, for the United Nations does not primarily bring about the direct protection although such efforts exists form time to time…. The importance of United nations activity on human rights lie in this long-term socialization process in which one source of legitimacy is given or withheld according to human rights performance. (pp. 388-390) I believe that strengthening the United Nations and radically restructuring the UN Security Council and replacing it with leaders who are cosmopolitan in their view, as opposed to communitarian can perhaps help in the overall struggle of bringing hope to the world’s poor. There is no guarantee that economic sanctions, embargoes, blockades, and sending of troops to nation-states violating human rights can prevent significantly The rise of such states whose sovereignty exist in their authoritarianism construed in the name of ‘national interest’ and adulterating the term ‘human rights’ History has shown that economic development of nations has brought repressive regimes into power much to the inability of the UN to legitimately interfere. It is said in many a religion that ‘poverty is one step before losing faith’. Elaborate this notion and we would be displayed with examples of how deprivation of rights to food , shelter, and clothing can lead to the losing of faith of governments and perhaps, religion. In the latter, Marx’s famous dictum ‘religion is the opiate of the masses’ proved that crimes against humanity have been committed under the name of communism as a philosophy and utopian ideal stripped off of religion. Governments come and go, brought down or ripped off through evolutions or revolutions when economic distributions do not answer human rights demands. Wealth amassed by the Marcos regime, as a case in point, over his twenty-year rule at the expense of the dignity of the Filipinos whom thousands eat out of garbage dumps (a city in itself) in Smoky Mountain, was an unimaginable example of the violations of human rights under the shibboleth of developmentalism. The road to people’s power is paved with the blood of thousands salvaged and thousands silenced indefinitely until truth can no longer contained itself and exploded. Cosmopolitanism in thinking played its role in creating a ‘kingdom of God on Earth’ in the Philippines ---through the alliances of American radicals, Filipinos in exile such as Walden Bello and Renato Constantino, Filipino grassroots movements , and Cardinal Sin (whose ecumenical church and liberation theological approach to conscientization, borrowing Paulo Freire’s term,) --- all these combined forces rallying behind Corazon Aquino contributed to such major structural shifts in the Philippines (much to the embarassment of those who believe in the opiating nature of religion). Other examples abound: the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions of 1979 which brought down, respectively, the Pahlavi dynasty and the Somoza regime --- these are attempt to bring back meaning of justice in the context of human rights and economic development. At the close of the twentieth century, instances as such have not been much. Wiped off from the chapters of modern politics. Recurring instances such as Rwanda, Somalia, North Korea, Burma, East Timor, and others is a clear indicator that the UN must shift its paradigm of operating in dealing with the issue of human rights and economic development How could ‘we the peoples’ covertly or overtly create leaders cosmopolitan in thinking, especially among the new generation of advanced countries so that they can be powerful enough to decide on international matters as critical as feeding the millions and millions of the world’s poor? How do we create beings as such who would not bow to the demands of the military-industrial complexes of the powerful nations --- leaders in the magnitude of Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves or John F. Kennedy who gave them equal rights? How do we educate future billionaires to share their wealth (which they made out of the sweat of the world’s cheap labor) in a consciousness religious in nature so that these future world actors and political manouverers can live their life to the fullest as such as how Mother Theresa did? How can we create world leaders who thinks like a philosopher and live like a mystic or a Sufi so that there will be a clear distinction between what is needed and what is wanted and what is ‘needs’ and what is ‘greed’? After all, the basic needs of a multi-billionaire like Bill Gates, Adnan Khasoggi, the Sultan of Brunei, the DuPonts, the Vanderbilts, and the kings of the Arab land, are the same as those living skeletons in Rwanda, Somalia, and North Korea; they need food, shelter, clothing. But perhaps the Machiavellian world does not operate in a Sufistic context, although much of the wealth and riches which have helped build the world’s financial capitals into such might and grandiose they are now are contributed by hundreds of years of colonialism. London was enriched by the peoples it colonized, among them, the Malays; Paris by the Vietnamese, Amsterdam by the Javanese, Madrid by the Filipinos and in recent times, the citadels of financial might in the New York City by cheap Third World labors in an magnitude never before imagined in the history of global reach. Such arrangement, can indeed be possible with the collaboration of governments in the developing countries who believe that economic progress can only be made if its citizens are good workers of the international capitalist system. . What then must the UN do? In much of the arguments presented concerning economic development and human rights, Weiss, Forsythe, and Coate (1994) presented a grim view on the limited role of the UN both as an intervener of global human rights violation and of alleviator of global poverty. The UN is still tied to the dilemma of states’ claim to sovereignty and their unwillingness to at times, bow to international or supranational pressures dictating how their territory is be managed economically and how human rights is to be defined. Nation states are still in the process of change, through succession movements, self-determinations of its peoples and ideological shifts. Nonetheless, if we agree with Robert Muller’s notion of UN as an evolving path upwards, we must be part of the concerted effort to lend support to our UN to work in this area of global and universal concern. A hungry child in North Korea knows no politics and a voice calling for amnesty from detention without trial knows no state rhetoric on specific brand of human rights (be it African or Asian). If we are to live into the next century with a cosmopolitan worldview and see international relations not merely through systems-dynamics, but also through normative and value-constituted lens, we must persevere in our belief that UN’s effort is a paradoxical and challenging one. If we could summarize further the ideas presented in Weiss, Forsythe, and Coate (in The United Nations in a Changing World Order), we may conclude that the quest for justice must not be the sole domain of the UN alone. Grassroots movements in territorial States must be strengthened and made plenty so that voices can be louder and networks can be strengthened in order for regimes anathema to distributive justice and dignity of the rights of their citizens, can be revolted against systematically, rationally, intellectually, --- via non-violent means. History has repeatedly shown that via this means essentially, nation-states undergoing transformations to be more democratic can continue to survive without undergoing long periods of civil wars. South Africa, Philippines, Malaysia, and arguably Indonesia and Iran have shown the way toward such developments. Citizens of territorial states must be educated of their rights articled in the UN charter. Concept of distributive justice must be disseminated so that the farmer in Peoria, Illinois can speak the same language ideologically, of economic and human rights, with his/her counterpart in Pretoria, South Africa. Concepts and demands of the international law governing such rights must be made understood to “we the peoples “ and be taken as more supreme than ones upheld by territorial states which at times, can be meaningless when claims of sovereignty and worse of ‘national security’ are used to legitimize state violations and rapes on the rights of their citizens. Citizens of a free modern society must perhaps be taught to analyze the idea that the state ‘can evolve to become a necessary evil’. Weiss, Forsythe, and Coate (1994) also wrote about the changes of perception on economic development as UN matures in that, with the inability of the UN International Economic Order to take on any meaning, and the end of the Cold War, there seem to be a tendency for shifting grounds. Developmentalism has now meant to be more than material, but encompassing ecological, sustainable, and of late, religious and spiritual. Developmentalism is also self-help and South-South help, and is also ‘glocal’ (global and local) This is an interesting trend when one takes into consideration the experiences of the post-colonial nations which were fed with the food stamps of Bretton Woods under the 1950s scheme of the IBRD (International Bank of Reconstruction and Development or the Marshall Plan) As nations begin to grapple with the meaning of independence, foreign aid, technical assistance, and investments come in to paradoxically dictate the meaning of the term ‘being developed’. The 1970s saw nation-states coming to terms with the side-effects of the medicine given by ‘foreign doctors’; perhaps a landmark case being the Vietnam War protests against the role played by the military-industrial complexes. The 1970s also saw the birth of authoritarian regimes throughout the Third World which subscribed to Rostowian brand of capitalism, of the stages of economic growth, and the suppressing of dissenting views against ‘crony capitalism’. The 1980s presented the world with the idea that the ‘world is a marketplace ‘ and to be ‘made free for democracy’ against the backdrop of Pershing missiles and Nimitz marooning the air and the sea so that the marketplace is well guarded. As the 1990s come to a close, it is left to the imagination of political scientists and peace activists to describe what advanced communications in the form of hypermedia has made the world into, in its further attempt to truly and globally and electronically imperialize the world. Self-help and grassroot- participation in the economic activity of a nation can be a key to counter top-down reforms dictated by governments which are peripheries to the international capitalist centers. Appropriate technology, available resources and communal-living are elements which can be experimented with by ‘we the peoples’ dispossesed and alienated by much of the ‘developmentalism’ haunting and mystifying citizens of nation-states who vote their leaders into power only to be stupefied and made silenced by the distance created by these so-called elected leaders. Perhaps, as argued in much of the readings, although not specifically implied, the key word is not development, but as Archbishop Gustavo Gutteirez, Denis Goulet, and Paulo Freire would term, “liberation”; from the shackles of top-down developmentalism ideology towards awareness of one’s subjectivizing of experiences, free from the dictates of “market forces”, “per capita income” indicators and moving towards empowerment --- in the name of economic justice and human rights and dignity. Beyond Basic Rights Enlightening are the themes discussed in the special issue of Breakthrough concerning human rights. Not limited to the confines of economic rights, but also others as well mainly the history of the promulgation of the Bill of Rights, the UN charter, UN’s Human Rights machinery, and others such as the rights of women, the environment, the fetus, the disabled, gay the indigenous, and rights from the perspective of religion and philosophy. The following discussion touch upon a few pertinent ones. Extending our reflecting on the continuing work of the UN,West and Claude (in “Human rights: A multidimensional struggle that take human suffering seriously”) wrote: It is certain that a palpable concern for the alleviation of human suffering is here to stay and that under the rubric ‘international human rights’ it manifests itself in education and action in many diverse ways. (p.7) Quite clearly, as in Gandhi’s satyagraha (non-violence action) Freire’s pedagogy, Socrates’s dialogue, and in all the religious traditions, Hindu sutras, Mohamad’s concept of learning, Jesus’s parables, education --- the enterprise of drawing out the potentials within --- still remains the driving force behind conscientizing human behavior towards human rights. Throughout the history of human civilization, the struggle is for the understanding of one’s ontological vocation; of being conscious of life and living. Being and becoming, as Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus have championed, becomes an essential pedagogy determining our understanding of the beauty of living. I subscribe to Loretta Casey’s idea of the essential steps towards understanding one’s rights in which must begin with the process of reflection of the meaning of human dignity by asking the questions: what is it to be a human person? what is it like to be able to explore the gifts of the intellect? of understanding free will? of being embodied by the Human spirit? of coming to understand our person as image of God? Casey (in “Human dignity: Basis for human rights education”) outlines the steps in the process: from awareness of our dignity to understanding of the levels of reality (personal, interpersonal, and societal), understanding the history, struggle, and tradition of human rights, and finally to act towards realizing such rights. Casey’s idea indeed is important as a basis for the designing of a curriculum of praxis and cultural action which could bring human beings from the levels of unawareness to realization of oppression to awareness to independence and freedom and to liberation and action to the maintenance of this awareness. The progress is an important step towards personacracy in which the person understands that the self is “ a government of the self, by the self, and for the self,” Personacracy, of which I have alluded in my previous reflections consists of one’s understanding of the following elements/forces within oneself, the awareness of his/her existence, balance, persistence, eternity, harmony, uniqueness, power within, decisiveness, knowledge, state of being alive, ability to hear, see, speak and the ability to understand with reverie and profundity what governs these elements/forces within. Such are the basic tenets of my idea of personacracy which can be further elaborated and analyzed into a coherent philosophy of the self --- the I/thou of existence. Personacracy is an existential notion which may allow one to understand the image of God within and to understand that forces outside oppressive and anathema to human liberation can never subjugate the free self. It can be beyond “demos” and “kratos” in which R. Pannikar (in “Is the notion of human rights a western concept?”) came close to summing up what I mean by personacracy in that there is the: notion of ‘cosmotheandric’ vision of reality in which the divine, the Human, and the Cosmic are integrated into a whole more or less harmonious according to the performance of our human right Pannikar then uses the metaphor of the ”net” as opposed to the “knot” in conceptualizing human rights in which he argued that it is quite futile to denounce the Western conception of human rights but instead to look at it more realistically as a sacred duty within the paradigm of the modern world. He wrote: For an authentic human life to be possible within the ‘megamagic machine’ of the modern technological world, Human Rights are rights is bound up by the slow development of that megamachine. how far individuals or groups or nations should collaborate with the system is another question; but in the contemporary political arena, as defined by socio-economic and ideological trends, the defense of Human Rights is a sacred duty. It is by understanding human rights as a sacred duty to be defended that governments can flourish and become civil societies and engineer positive changes and distribute resources so that life is cherished, freedom guarded, and living becomes a dharma in the citizen’s collective quest to find the meaning of life on planet Earth. It is at the level of civilization that society will reach it epitome. To achieve this, perhaps kings should not merely be philosophers, for philosophers at the turn of this century may become post-modernists, entangled in the problematizing debates and may translate confusions into actions. Perhaps kings should become mystics with a systematic and arduous training in matters philosophical; a Ceasar who rules with the heart of Jesus; an Alexander of Macedonia who rules with the satisfaction of a Diogenes; a Clinton with the mysticism of Martin Buber. It is then that, as Mische (in “Human rights and social justice”) the global community may finally evolve into a truly humane system wherein stripped off are ethnocentrism, zenophobias, extremism, crypto-capitalism, and New Age imperialism. We can then find a remedy to the global plague described by Mische as the sense of who belongs and does not belong to one’s community is at the heart of the world wide conflict over resources, markets and military power . (p12) so that the world may be governed by more Albert Schweitzers who “views all of mankind and even all of nature as a community” instead of the world witnessing the birth of more Adolf Eichmann who is “a good family man but was also a mass murderer of Jews because of the greatly limited Nazi concept of community.” And so, till the next reflection, I quote the Guatemalan M.J. Arce’s poem to recap the continuing concern with being human in a paradoxical international system: ARMS You have a gun And I am hungry You have a gun Because I am hungry You have a gun Therefore I am hungr You can have a gun You can have a thousand bullets And even another thousand You can waste them all On my poor body You can kill me one, two, three Two thousand Seven thousand times But in the long run I will always be better armed than you If you have a gun And I Only hunger

17] Notes on the Precondition of a Peaceful World Order

ON PEACE, PERSONACRACY, AND THE UN AGENDA: NOTES ON THE PRECONDITIONS OF A PEACEFUL WORLD ORDER By Azly Abdul Rahman, Columbia University New York Know thyself know thy enemies, one hundred battles one hundred victories -Sun Zi, The Art of War A view from the highlands of decision making at the UN concerning the call for a peaceful world order can best be illustrated by that of an agenda for peace in which Boutros-Ghali (1992) described UN as a world council promoting “preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, and peacekeeping”. It recapitulates the historical mission of the world body in an anticipatory approach towards peace-building after being given the “breathing ground”, by the Cold War of the 1980s. Boutros-Ghali, at the end of the report wrote of UN’s role in preventing wars: Tasks ahead must engage the energy and attention of all components of the United Nations system – the General Assembly and other principle organs, the agencies and programs. Each has, in a balanced scheme of things, a role and a responsibility. (p.45) In arriving at the UN’s mission statement on peace-building, Boutros-Ghali acknowledged the complexity of the definition of peace itself and draw out the paradox of the effort in which, whilst arms reductions agreements are in progress, “conventional arms continue to be amassed in many parts of the world” (p.6). The report of the Commission on Global Governance (1992) illustrate an alarming disparity between the cost of preparing for peace (US$ 1.9 billion) to that of preparing for war (US$ 815 billion). Such a perplexity in the inquiry into governmental conducts in modern-day global politics mirror the inherent contradictions within the UN’s operational framework as a promoter of peace education. I relate such a condition within the discussions of peace, personacracy, and the UN agenda. I coin the term personacracy to mean “government of the self, for the self, and by the self” as opposed to the oftentimes bewildering and propagandized term “democracy” (“government of the people, By the people and for the people”) There is a creative –anarchistic, bordering into the metaphysical realm of human existence, highly personalized, and self -reflective connotation to personacracy as I mean it to be I differentiating it with the marriage of “demos” and “kratos”. It resides in the domain of spiritual tradition characteristic of Platonism and inherent in the metaphysical epistemology of the major religious traditions. Personacracy is such an existential tradition thrushed into the modern world of chaos and complexity, and especially relevant to the discussion on the state of the troubled world, it can emerge as a philosophical outlook in approaching peace education. Before venturing into the main theme of personacracy, I quote Boutros-Ghali 1992) on how peace should begin: Peace at home and the urgency of rebuilding and strengthening our individual societies necessitates peace abroad and cooperation among nations. The endeavors of the United Nations will require the fullest engagement of all of its members large and small if the present renewed opportunity is to be seized. (p.46) What is peace? Where does it reside? What is the condition like to be at peace? Is peace and ultimate goal of existence? Or is it a process? Or is it a dream? Civilizations have their discontents and the birth of the UN was prophetic to deal with them. Whilst it has existed for half a century, the UN has merely managed to conceptualize an agenda for peace. From 1945 to the present, wars continue to be fought culminating in the “Third World War” aptly known as the “Cold War”. There seem to be a logic to the inability of the powerful nations to contain their tendency to hegemonize in that, if we analyze the periods of “explosions” in the “peace containers” of the Superpowers, we could see that it took about thirty five to forty year intervals between all the World wars (World war I in 1914, World war II in 1945, and World war III in the 1980s). Although there is the existence of the United Nations, can we predict another inevitability as such before the first quarter of the next millineum? If the UN has not been admiringly successful in containing the advancement of Third World militarism and perhaps too, the renewed tendencies of the G7 states to build better and bigger military-industrial complexes, how could we conceptualize “everlasting peace” much awaited by the religiously-inclined , in the prophetic land of “The Kingdom of God”? The world may still be far away from being in a satisfactory degree of confidence in the area of peace and security. The UN, as a world governance, albeit its visibility in the arena of world politics in which the only permanent thing is changes and the constant states of revolutions and counter-revolutions, still remains an outsider to a large extent. Weiss, et.al (1994) analyzed this dilemma of the UN with reference to the war between Iraq and “the rest of the world”: Paradoxically, the Persian Gulf War represented the first military enforcement action of the post Cold War era, but the UN Secretary general and the secretariat remained virtual outsiders to the process by which the war was waged. (p.96) And whilst the Gulf War brought enormous amounts of profits to major defense contractors in the name of “making the world safer for democracy,” and containing “terrorist states”, it has brought about a cataclysmic effect to non-governmental segments of the world. As reported by the Commission on Global Governance (1995): Militarization today not only involves governments spending more than necessary to build up their military arsenals. It has increasingly become a global societal phenomena, as witnessed by the rampant acquisition and use of increasingly lethal weapons by civilians … . (p.131) And whilst discussions on the paradox of the UN as peace educator can be continued in the paragraphs of this reflective notes, we can fall back onto Hope and our own personacratic action in achieving the vision of a just and peaceful world order -- if not in our lifetime, in that of our children. The financial burden the UN is plunged into on its fiftieth anniversary (UNDPI, 1997) reflect a difficult crossroad “we the peoples” are at; whether the UN can continue to prolong. Or to perish. The view that “we the peoples “ can perhaps no longer trust governments to contribute financially and faithfully to the goals of the UN seem to be all the more attractive for global grassroots participation to prevail; those which will transcend national, ideological, communal, religious, and other known boundaries. Education and the cultivation of the global peaceful self in this age of trade blocks and intense financial wars, can begin with one taking the path of understanding personacracy. The condition of a peaceful world order must begin, not only in the family as a vital unit, but more closely with oneself. It must begin with the education of our youth and perhaps much earlier. The idea of personacracy , the ability to govern oneself through deep reflection of the wonders of existentialism within the context of one’s own religious, cultural, and ideological belief towards harmony, peace and love, can best be illustrated by the Director-General of UNESCO who talked about educating our youth: Peace is not an abstract idea but one rooted firmly in cultural, political, social, and economic contexts. … Above all, this profound transformation from oppression and confinement to openness and generosity cannot be achieved without our young people. We must tell them that they must discover the answers, that the motivations and glimpses of light that they are seeking can be found within themselves. (p. 10) The contentious statement above can remind us of the futility of leaving politics only to the politicians and political economy merely to university professors. As Jean-Paul Sartre reminded us to become committed intellectuals who will mediate the contradictions within the capitalist system and and to explain them to the masses and so that , like Sisyphus in Albert Camus’ myth, we should all know what kind of rock to roll, when to roll, and remain happy and at peace, we must all become futurists. I quote Mische (1994) on becoming committed: Decisions are made now that will shape the norms, policies, and systems that govern the world far into the 21st. century. …, we cannot leave these decisions to only a few countries. We cannot leave them to governments alone. All sectors of our emerging global community need to be actively involved as full partners in shaping our common future. (p. 2) Whilst I shall reserve the key elements and components of the idea of personacracy for a later discussion which will be juxtaposed with the educational framework I will be proposing, I end these notes on the preconditions of a peaceful world order with the assertion that the major tenet of personacracy is the notion that the world within is larger and much beautiful than the world outside and it is through learning to evolve as human beings that we can attain the meaning of peace and to transform oneself and others in the process. In the words of Maxine Greene (1978): We may be, objectively, nothing more than a ‘quintessence of dust’. But we can choose, and we can sometimes transform. (p.20) BIBLIOGRAPHY Boutros-Ghali, B., (1992). An agenda for Peace: preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping . New York: United Nations. Commission on Global Governance (1995). Our global neighborhood. The report of. the commission on global governance. New York: Oxford University Press. Greene, M., (1978). Landscapes of learning. New York: Teachers College Press. Message from the director-general: the human rights to peace. (February 20, 1997). UNESCO News, 4, 1, 10. Mische, P., (1994, Fall) editorial. In P. Mische and D. Douglas (Eds.). Breakthrough News, Fall. United Nations Department of Public Information (1997). Setting the record straight: Facts about the United Nations (UNDPI Publication No.DPI/1848/Rev.3—August—97-21928---7M New York: UNDPI. Weiss, T. G., Forsythe, D. P., & Coate, R. A. (1994). The United Nations and changing world politics. Colorado:Westview Press.

16] Can A United Nations Think?

CAN A UNITED NATIONS THINK?: NOTES ON AN EMERGING EDUCATIONAL FRAMEWORK by Azly Rahman, Columbia University New York "If the UN had not existed, it would have to be invented." The United Nations as a necessitated invention which grew out of the "failure" of the League of Nations can be viewed as a problem solver par excellence . It was born out of the necessity to ensure the survival of the human race so that another war which will end all wars and one which will wipe out entirely the human species can be avoided. Muller (1971) reflected upon this role of the UN as problem solver in his statement: ...The length of life of a civilization depends on its capability to solve enviromental and social problems; the civilization must not destroy itself soon after it masters the technicals means to do so. Our own civilization stands now at this precise threshold. (p.12) Remarkable it may have been illustrated of the UN's achievements in checking and balancing the global power scale in the first half of century of its existence, a more comprehensive framework for problem solving is perhaps needed for the UN to continue playing its role in the 21st century. This framework may not only be formulated by key policy makers in the UN circle but also reflect the universality of grassroot demands of the peoples constituting UN as a society of nations pursuing for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Einstein once said that problems cannot be solved if we look at them from the plane of where they exist. Falk, et.al (1991) wrote about two schools of thought, "system reforming" and "system transforming" governing UN's approaches to achieving its ideals. I believe they reflect the structural-functionalist approach to problem solving by the UN in that they fine-tune dysfunctional aspects of a problem-solving machinery which should been replaced in order for it to function in the context of new realities and challenges. Gorbachev (1971) wrote about the system transforming necessity of the UN by insisting as a comprehensive system of international security. He asserted: we could speak indefinitely about the need for terminating the arms race and uprooting militarism, and about cooperation. Nothing will change unless we start acting. (p.197) For fifty years hence, the UN has been moderately successful in containing the build up of militarism and stopping "crimes against humanity"; from inter-racial strifes in territorial states vying for successions, to the Cold War of the 1980s which still house stockpiles of ICBMs and other sophisticated engines of mass annihilation especially amongst the Superpowers. In the 1990s, classified reports prevent the global public from ascertaining what genre of nuclear weapons are currently being developed and which at times are tested albeit the protests of states and NGOs wishing to be close to the article of faith on peace and disarmament. It is disheartening to know that while efforts are being made by the Superpowers to deploy nuclear arms, Third World militarism is advancing in the form of a new arms race conventional, chemical, and biological in nature. As stated in the report of the Commission on Global Governance (1995): The Third World became increasingly militarized, drawing funds away from vitally needed economic and social development. ...The world may, in fact be on the verge of a new race to acquire weapons of mass destructions. These include biological weapons in addition to nuclear arms.(p.13) It is within this phenomenological backdrop that Gorbachev's call for the needed system of international security is all the more welcomed so that, reflecting Muller's (1971) earlier statement that civilizations would not be destroyed after Man has mastered the technical means to create more sophisticated technologies. Education as an enterprise to sustain the development of human potentials towards spiritual, religious, and moral ends should be a powerful avenue to counter the Machiavellian concept of power brokering and balancing in the global arena. A looming question is that; can educational priorities of each territorial state be the highest in the agenda so that peace education and the learning of creative, critical, and futuristic strategies of poverty alleviation be given the biggest funding, superseeding that of "defense"? An added dimension in the problem solving agenda of the UN is the systematic destruction of the ozone layer legitimized under the shibboleth of developmentalism. Chaos theory applied, we are witnessing irreversible damage done not only on the biosphere but in the spread of diseases related to the imbalances in Earth's ecological stability. I believe that militarism and the balancing of power through balance of terror is a natural outgrowth of territorial state capitalism. It is a newer form of imperialism and a natural progression of global capitalism. Enviromental destruction is an aftermath of centuries of industrialization and the latter grew out of the need for Man's search for a Material meaning in life in which the creative, critical and futuristic faculties of the mind are geared towards producing "wants" more than "needs". It is a philosophical question for finding meaning of our existence on this Earth. If the purpose of life be it for an individual, a community, nation, territorial state, multinational corporation, or a global business conglomerate is to pursue, in a Machiavellian way, material wealth primarily, we may see the continual progress of conflicts, tensions, wars, and plunders on Nature as consistent themes in global politics. I believe that the prevailing economic, social, cultural, moral, and spiritual decay of many a territorial state are a result of politics being practised in a framework anathema to the Uthopian ideals of the United Nations. In much of the literature on the historical development of the UN, a consistent theme is the struggle of "we the peoples" against, paradoxically, "we the peoples" too. It is a history of half a century's struggles between Eros (Life) and Thanatos (Death). It is a reflection of our own inner struggle against the forces against us which are anti-life, shrouded in arrogance and with the inability to differenciate between what is humane and what isn't and what constitutes being human. As such above, it is not a historical question; it is ahistorical grounded in the historicity of the struggle between Good and Evil. The question of human nature comes into play, with all the subconsiderations related to it. One can relate it with religious, philosophical and cultural themes if one wishes to analyze the struggle between "we the peoples" and our alter-ego "we the peoples". Educating "we the peoples" thus, through a framework cutting across boundaries of religion, territorial states, ideology, and other mental constructs which are shackling the mind of the oppressed, may be a necessary process to "conscientize" (borrowing Paulo Freire's term,) the future generations of "we the peoples". Mische (1977) posed a set of thought-provoking questions on the potential of the UN to strategize its thinking and problem-solving efforts: ... the question before us is not whether the UN can or will require change, for past history shows it can, and future history requires that it will. It is rather: How much and what kind of change? Based on what assumptions, values, and worldviews? For whose benefit? How can change be guided to serve the common good? (pp.3-4) The UN must promote a radically different paradigm of existence if it must insist on becoming a peace educator which can keep up with the excesses of human nature. I propose, in the following discussions, a framework of human development as it relates to what can possibly be adopted as a paradigm of thinking beyond UN's fiftieth year of existence.

15] Notes For Maxine: "Ambiguities of Freedom"

ON THE AMBIGUITY OF FREEDOM AND THE FREEDOM TO BE AMBIGUOUS: THOUGHTS IN HONOR OF MAXINE GREENE, Mentor and Philosopher of Hope By Azly Rahman Columbia University For Maxine: I'd like to explore this question as part of the requirement of the conference. free from, free to, free of ... and to be free from, to, of what? My writing will be a potpourri of thoughts I have gathered related to the question of freedom, personal history, and the fate of the self in an increasingly cybernated (technologized) society. And I begin with the quote from Benjamin Barber you provided us with: There is endless talk about education; but between the hysteria and the cynicism there seems to be little room for civic learning, hardly any for democracy. Yet the fundamental task of education in a democracy is the apprenticeship of liberty --- learning to be free" And in your own words, Maxine, you provide us with these: We might add how tied up we are in a society now marked up by some of the flaws, the deficiencies, the inequalities ... We might take into account as well as the impacts of the media, good and bad, the possible openings supplied by the arts, the relations between new technologies and our freedom, between all of these and the making of community. Can we for example, be free from the so-called prisonhouse of language, particularly from the English language of this Age of Virtual Capitalism which feeds our consciousness to consume and consume and consume. and to compete and to bring us further away from the existential questions which ought not to be left unexamined... so that life is then worth living? So that life is not a postmodern novel but an epic of heroic proportion with postmodern subplots in between? This question on the relationship between historical knowledge, language, and freedom takes us to the center of concern of people like (Frederic) Jameson (see for example his excellent essay "Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism") who will argue that part of the new depthlessness means people giving up a sense of individual history related to the notion of an individual with a certain spiritual and cognitive integrity moving through time towards some goal premised on some conception of self-realization, from the Pythagorean transmigration of souls to Robert Kegan's (in The Evolving Self )model based in a developmental schema that builds on prior developmental work. At the level of inter-individual of one's pegging of his/her evolving state of beingness to a particular person/historical figure/events/moments of historical significance and grow with this notion of history as therapy-- at this level, history is needed. As in the notion of learning from the life and times of this or that figure of history as such paradigmed by the Annales School, history is useful as one's weltanschauung (worldview) of "official, State-produced" knowledge as in the case of how history is taught in public schools-- that there are these founding fathers and these events which progress linearly. What might be problematic in essence is the idea of "official knowledge" crafted and massaged by those who owns the means of social reproduction who would choose to allow certain kinds of interpretation and not others to be released into public space. In this case, in the era of modernity, official knowledge is controlled by a clear and institutionalized framework of knowledge and dissemination of information packaged into quantas of information and benchmarked into state standards of skills and content. There are interpretations of history which cannot account for such "official knowledge" as for example one documented by Howard Zinn in People's History of The United States, Michael Harrington's Socialism, George Counts' Dare The Schools Create a New Social Order?, or any others from the social and educational revisionist schools of thought.Perhaps historical writings which sanction and patron "official knowledge" cannot present too diverse and pluralistic and multicultural (in the Critical Theoretical sense of the word) because of the question of human agency and ideology. By this I mean the ideology of controlling interests which embed publishing houses controlled by lobby and interest groups which and in turn control the process and outcome of schooling at any point in time.Jameson in his essay on postmodernism, I think would argue that history is not only therapy but ought to highlight the triumph of individuals and institutions and progressive ideologies which subvert and overthrow forces anathema to the full realization of humanism. I would add that the social-cartographic nature of Jamesonian promotion of a particular historicity would be one which exalt heroes and heroic moments who and which not only chain and shackle multinational corporations but also highlight agendas for social change which begins with the dismantling of the military-industrial complex and the war system and allow for creative anarchism to reign for some time and engineer an internationalist movement social and culturalist in character---ones which perhaps set an agenda for an international barter system and the reconceptualization of the meaning of wants versus needs! This means that neither Republicans nor Democrats or Tony Blair or any government, which lives and breathes in their "national security straightjackets" can be allowed to prop their version of Truman-Show inspired philosopher-kings. I am beginning to feel that there is a danger to what history and memory can do.The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina is a case in point wherein there is first a deconstructing of the entire Communist state via the injecting of democratic principles and then there is the opening up of a can of worms/ a Pandora box of crimes against humanity when multiple versions of history gets disseminated into public sphere. (The movie American History X addressed this phenomenon.) Whose history is more valid then?Then there is the case of Indonesia after Soeharto. There was law and order for thirty years at the price of authoritarianism and a clear and definite Javanese-dominant ruling class and a great deal of crypto-crony-corporate capitalism characterized by an even clearer and charismatic form of conspicuous consumption and then--- lo and behold when Soeharto gets deposed through a good dose of lethal injection of democracy, the nation now is torn into pieces with Christians and Moslems slaughtering each other, each hanging on to their versions of history. Do we need history? Do we have an effective and ongoing relationship with our past? It is almost like asking what is important to us really? As it relates to the ambiguity of freedom, the above are indeed profound questions to me. If history and the oxymoronic notion of "historical facts" are meant to give us a sense of identity and community so that we may become freer in the post-colonial context of the word, then these too have their ambiguity. I recall several years ago the Kampuchea Government announcing "Year Zero" after its successful revolution which ceremoniously invite the colonials out of the nation's doors. And also the Cultural Revolution in China which attempt, though unsuccessfully, to rewrite history and administer national amnesia. And nations I think wanting to heal themselves from the wounds of colonialism engineer one way or another, versions of how to reincarnate.At the individual level the question if one needs history is even more fascinating. Many would say that yes indeed, if we are blessed with a past life worth cherishing. (And many also would pride themselves in having gone through a terrible childhood). But an individual with a Kampuchean syndrome or one undergoing a personal-cultural revolution would find it progressively evolutionary to eliminate the past and enjoy a life of an ever-changing present. And thus, for this type of Kampuchean individual, eliminating the past and starting life at year zero might be imperative indeed. As the essential question remains: What kind of history can we craft for our own personal consumption? What version ought we to compose? How do we become selective in our own personal historicizing? Will some memories be more liberating than other? I am now confused, Maxine: Henry Ford once said that history is bunk...A new age guru once told me that "there is no past, there is no future, all that exists is an ever-changing present"...A philosopher once said that Memory (hence history, and like statistics) is the greatest liar...The feminists insisted on "herstory" instead...And a friend of mine believes that the term "historical facts" is an oxymoronAnd E.L. Doctorow in Ragtime tampers with history and render it depthless? It'll be a great idea then to follow Doctorow's style in the way we teach history?(Or for that matter the personalization and restylization of religious texts?)Have students rewrite their favorite chapters of American history by deterresterializing the historical figures and bring them closer to their (the Middle School kids, especially) jugular veins. A good friend of mine once wrote to me in defense of history as memory so necessary: Memory leaves traces, perhaps like marbles that, according to the shifting incidence of light, shine an occasional pattern we can crave to see. History is the history we can tell ourselves and look our child in the eye. But I replied to him with my understanding of history:But if history is one we can tell ourselvesAnd look at the child in the eyeBy whose narrative are we possess'd by?----Of the Emperor's without clothes?Who called upon his sagesAnd tell them: Ah... write me this story So that generations a plenty can bereminded of this glory----Or is this, history of those cast off from this kingdom bountiful and plenty Those whose blood sweat and tears buried--and eternally at one with the Pyramids of Power of Your MajestyAh .. what is history? But a syntactic phlegmatic and ironic linguistic trajectory Thrus'd into the noetics of this child we look in the eyeThis child--- dazed and confused of what it means to be historied by the collectionof memories whose truth and falsehood are perhaps in disarray. Like the history told by Dante, Marat, and RobespierreOr one told in whispers by the once exiled KhomeiniOr narrated in splendor pomp and pageantry and archived in Mein Kampf and sung toWagnerian symphony. What historied us thus?And whence do we point to the Emperor withoutclothesAnd burn his garment and him and all ceremoniouslySo that the child we look in the eyesWill cast of his garment and write his own symphony.Amen! ***And in relation to the idea of freeing oneself, I can't help thinking of the question"Who am I" And the lack of neither folly nor wisdom our existence must find a cause to be and become. "WHO AM I?"Where did I come from?What brought me here?What is this physical space I am occupying?Where am I going?What is the end to all these?How might the end of this journey feel?And perhaps too... "WHAT IS WORTH LIVING AND DYING FOR IN ORDER FOR US TO BE FREE ENTIRELY?" *** And in our quest for the idea of being free, I see the essential link between being free and being at PEACE too. We are and continue to see the symptoms of social decay in the form of violence in many forms-- structural and physical. At the structural level, there is the continued advancement of alienation. When society becomes advanced and its people are sped up and fed with false consciousness of wants more than needs, and the media continue to profitably play the tunes from the Horatio Alger myth, and the ethos of business and corporate thinking play the harmonious symphony of competition, cut-throat competition, schools as agents of social reproduction dance to the music of new standards so that our nations will not be at risk, so that we launch many more Sputniks, we set Goals 2000, and we impose higher and higher exclusionary standards, so that we can compete with other nations, etc.... when all these are happening, we become cogs in the wheel of Capital; our lives become sped up at the level of individuals and family and community... we go to work and from nine to five or ten to then become cubicled and sit in from of the computer all that time and our consciousness gets structured by the Panoptical nature of the Control mechanisms we create in the name of progress... we get hierarchied in our day to day experience of work and cannot find alternative meaning of the term "work".... we come home and switch on the television and watch some guys winning a million in a game show and our heart jump in joy to celebrate the "aliveness" of democracy. We stand at the check-out counter and glance at headlines of celebrities making it big by his/her good looks--- image dictated by the media on what constitute beauty and what the ingredient of success is invented to mean,we read of the man/woman on the street winning the State lottery and think that democracy is still alive and that if we continue to work hard and serve the interest of the less than 2% of those who owns the nation's wealth, we will be fine and can be proud of telling others internationally what a great place this nation is --- you are free to choose, and decide, and to walk away from the homeless,The story of those who murdered their classmates at Columbine is a poignant and horrifying one--- a manifestation of the latent effect of mass alienation as documented perhaps in Kevin Munch's painting "The Scream". There is the scream of wanting more and going beyond the threshold of needs and wants, beyond conspicuous consumption, beyond the thresholds of allowable display of Desire, to a point of vulgarity in the meaning of existence itself. There is the competition in the society of who has more and the manufacturing-industrial complex and the media industry which supports it craft ways to massage the Desire within so that people can continue to consume more by speeding up their lives, drugging/opiating the post-industrial tribal masses with false consciousness with what they don't need., And when, from at an early age the mind is structured to consume and to conjure the image of success and happiness by the pursuit of material and everything digital, and the school system as a mandatory state system of mass-babysitting becomes an arena of contestation and conflict of these images (of Columbine--the jock and the nerd clashing, the beauty and the beast parading, the corporations and the non-profit lobbying)-- there is then disjuncture manifested in the form of at times, PHYSICAL violence. From structural to physical violence then the manifest and the latent illustrate themselves.These---rooted in the realities have been invented, in the way our language is spoken, in the way we attempt to continuously fine-tune the system.These---manifested in the growing number of Americans behind bars (2 million, a high percentage of these African-American, from plantations to the prison-industrial complexes) and the ratio of 1.5 guns to every American. Manifested in the continued proliferation of legal and psychiatric institutions to protect individual rights and to pacify the soul respectively. There are no answers, I think. Only more questions. For the answer lies within the self; in what we mean by peace within which will emanate into the family, community, and nation. How do we re-structure our perception and language (if indeed these might be an avenue)and gather our bruised intuitive powers to harness what might be called a peaceable self, whilst at the same time cubicled? How does the individual become free in a society like this? *** To the question of the impact of new technologies on society, I compose these lines, inspired by Neil Postman's (in Technopoly) quote of Plato's story of the ancient King Tamus's conversation with the inventor Theuth. P H A E D R U S II The Last Judgement of ThamusCirca A.D. 2020 Lines composed pass'd midnight in a cave by Hudson River By Azly Rahman Columbia University, New York And it was in the year 2020 In a not-too-distant cybercity As Socrates' narratives on cybertechnology Laments King Thamus's concern for the fate of academies And Theuth my inventor par excellence What say you concerning educational excellence? Of the methods and principles of teaching Brought about by new technologies of communicating? O' Thamus, Wise King of Cyberjaya Indeed our children will undergo Karma Of one imbued with Dharma Which will bring us all to Moksha Karma is Rebirth Dharma is Devotion and Duty And Moksha is art of being one with Earth Of which educational practice will assume a new reality This invention called CMC Of which for many ages we have waited so patiently Will transform the meaning of Reality More than what print media has guaranteed O' wise King Thamus We are witnessing the death of Papyrus And the birth of PERSONACRACY In the brilliance of anarchy To be cultivated with the media called CMC By PERSONACRACY, O' KingOur children, the true song of democracy they will sing Of which the teacher will die a slow death Like the first teacher Socrates whose fate was a choice he once had Our children will be Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu The Creator, Destroyer, and the One who Renews Our children will make history and create Knowledge Destroy paradigms and like Vishnu, preserve what is old and what is new They will be Renaissance men and women In their mind neural connections will be made, synapses will be woven And the boundaries of the Real and the Imagined we can no longer ascertain In this onward march towards Virtual Learning Classrooms will cease to exist nor will also the concept of teaching The sage Illich will be singing In honor of this day when education means deschooling O' Thamus wise ruler of Cyberjaya The days wherein authorities rule capital cities Will be gone with the advent of my invention CMC Pedagogy will be replaced with METAPHYSICAL TRANSITION THEORIES And Plato's academy will be history Buried underneath the magnificence of CMC Gone will be the idea of faculties In their place will emerge knowledge patterned by fractal geometries And Chaos will be the order of the day And Complexity will be king of pedagogies For the sage Mandelbrott did once spoke Of the patterns inherent in knowledge and wisdom O' Theuth my kingdom's most honored inventor, What say you of CMC's impact on the teacher? One who holds the key to any civilization's treasure And who guards the principles of a moral character? Wise King Thamus, this is my conjecture: My invention is Frankensteinish in nature Aren't we already at the end of history? Wherein the Knower and the Known has no longer a boundary? This technology will destroy authorities Including values we guard with jealousy Slayed like the dragon in Beowulf's story Buried with Socrates and Dante Aligherri A further elaboration concerning the death of authority: O' King, I call this an Age of Subalternity In which we will witness the dawn of PERSONACRACY Of which with the help of CMC, the child constructs its customized version of democracy O' Theuth Master Inventor Yours is a song of conjectures For, can you as a creator Be the judge of what good and bad CMC will bring into our future? My greatest apologies Wisest of all Kings Do you not remember that we are in the year 2020? In which kingdoms have been crushed under the weight of technologies of CMC? And you my dear king---- are you not already ancient history? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The idea of freedom is also linked to the idea of the prisonhouse of language; between the ambiguity of communicating and reflecting, between being free without language and being shackled by it. My thoughts on this are as follow: Language, when used in the public sphere becomes a game and a problematic one... the only true communication resides in "private language" where thoughts reign more supreme than utterances. Precise communication is impossible as thoughts themselves are ephemeral, transient, and consists of data whose fate is entropy.The creation of the alphabet was a historical mistake, just like the emergence of the modern state and the emergence of the first hamburger stand (McDonalds) in Ohio.Miscommunication throughout the history of human existence has brought about endless conflicts, wars, competition, etc. The advent and primacy and then supremacy of computer language are the capstone to these forms of miscommunications.Human beings were meant to be beings communicating via telephatic means in a languageless environment.The idea than language makes us more intelligent than other species could have been the most misguided philosophy of being and becomingness. There could be other forms of beings more intelligent than us we are attempting to communicate with throughout the centuries but we fail to make such a connection because our communication system (i.e. alphabet, speech) is still too primitive to be understood by these more intelligent beings. What do you think, Maxine? And the Messiah's Second Coming is not on a white horse wielding sword to establish this Kingdom of God but more sophisticated than this... on a spacecraft more advanced than Spaceship Enterprise establishing a World Government by disciplining NATO and scolding NAFTA, and chairing WTO (World Trade Organization). Can we be free if we conceive living as merely about building consensus alone? In the process of communicating as human beings and arriving at consensus-building, who gets dispossessed and who gets to win in this game of power using language and speech as means to gatekeep?Language and speech is infiltrated with discourse of power to the extent that this process has matured to such a stage of sophistication that it is no longer easy to discern truth and propaganda.Noam Chomsky in works such as The Real Terror Network, Manufacturing Consent, and dozens others, tried to address this sophistication in the latter part of his struggle to help identify the gatekeeping aspects of language and the propagandizing nature of communication. Edward Said in Orientalism helped define what perception means and how, in the case of the Western mind's (the colonial's essentially) conception of the Orient, much of what is involved is the idea of power and powerlessness. The Orient is conceived, analyzed, and the knowledge of it propagated from a Eurocentric point of view and hence, the production of knowledge and understanding of it as well as the construction of the sociology of knowledge out of this enterprise --all these are essentially rooted in the retrogressive dimensions of language and communication. The process of "Othering" is skillfully crafted over the centuries of knowledge-building.Essentially then, language and speech is the dualism of oppression though the common belief is that it is liberating. How can one deny that it is liberating when we use language to release constructs/people/institutions from the shackles of domination. But think again: the release is from the frying pan into the fire---from one conception of freedom to another. And this conception of freedom means the freedom to be released into this "Material world"--a world of things and a world in which one is "to be a to become in a being-in-this-world (Sartre) context. So how can language and speech not be shackling---whatever language and speech system one is in? The word system itself, employed to describe this strange transformation of the sound and the alphabet--- is shackling. Imagine this: We are systematically systemized into this systems of systemic change in such as systematic way that we become systemized into this whole construct called systems!And this is the language system--the prisonhouse. Imagine a world without language and the meaning of redemption which may arise out of it. Where do we go from here if we are to make sense of what a first step is in understanding our role as makers of history? In brief this means to be and become a member of society whom possesses the sense of critical sensibility to analyze society both through the inner dialogue and outer speech, so that society becomes text to be textually analyzed. This is an early stage of become a postmodern flaneur.This stage involves one's critical evaluation and judgement of the forces which are dehumanizing; the structural violence which are operating at the various levels of consciousness. By this we mean the signs and symbols around us, the sight, the sound the taste, the smell, the individuals, the community, the institution, the ideology, the myth and ritual, the opiate of the masses, the prosaic of the post-industrial tribes, etc. etc.By postmodern I mean the condition of unresolved modernity as what Frederic Jameson might urge us to create a social cartography out of it, sort of. By postmodern I mean the condition of reflexivity, the waning of affect, the loss of critical sensibility, the withering of creative faculties within us, the death of the inner subjectivity within us, the relativizing of the absolute, the rationalizing of structural and physical violence, and the Pokemani-zation of this land of the free.By flaneur I mean the sense of being an "outsider" a "tourist" an "ugly-American-of-the-60s-Peace Corps-type-in-Thailand" attitude (an honorable term here..) who are in the society yet outside, who are part of it but is a point of departure in him/her/it/self, who is part of the cognitive and physical aspect of the institution he/she/it is in but emotionally detached and observant, who is not easily sucked into the metaphysics of materialism and masochism of ideologies, and who essentially looks at society like a crystal ball. The postmodern flaneur is like Franz Kafka's hunger artist; those who are happily consuming and being consumed by the consumerist society will see him/her/it suffering, yet his logic is devastatingly profound. The posmo-flan (the postmodern flaneur) is a creature who cannot enjoy television shows, commercial movies like Mulan and Fantasia, cannot be at fashion shows, gets dizzy when watching Wheel of Fortune or The 64,000-Dollar-Question, hates Republicans and Democrats, counsels the Arawak Indians, laments the loss of Vietnam Era and is still angry at Senator McCarthy, believed that Elvis Presley should have joined the Black Panthers (like Younger Brother in Ragtime who joined Coleman Walkers) so that he can help gyrate us through the much needed revolution, and the posmo-flana writes to his/her/its local phone company telling then that a percentage of this month's payment is withheld because he/she/it is doesn't want the pennies to go into financing the war in some Banana Republic the U.S. Army is currently helping to install democracy. So, this creature call posmo-flan is an outcast who will be found in academia essentially and even if it is found in the corporate sector, will eventually will be the one who will start a new Internet start-up company and retire after five years to devote his/her/its time in some ashram in California.But on a more serious note, the posmo-flan creature is one who is never in conflict with himself/herself/itself because the critical sensibility within has provided the means to happiness. Then comes the next stage in the life of the postmodern flaneur... the beauty of praxis.As a child, the postmodern flaneur has already exhibited some characteristics which are both constructive and destructive...somewhere in-between the continuum of an idiot savant and a rocket scientist. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of three root causes of violence: racism, materialism, and militarism. They are all in our consciousness in one form or another at different levels of consciousness. They are now present in the most subtle forms rendering the oppressor and the oppressed shackled and objectified as well as making us, as John pointed out, as "puppets" rather than "actors" as the makers of our own history. But what are our agenda and the nature of social cartography we are to manifest in our consciousness first and foremost. To be a human person is to be able to name things; to name the forms of oppression we are blessed with as inroad to creativity. We have been all along historied and socialized into forms of institutional racism, militarism, and materialism we couch and cloak with language of objectivism and through the institutions we believe "value free"---schooling, education, official knowledge, citizenship, nationhood (We must investigate what Robin Hood was struggling against)Is race and ethnicity and one's clinging on to these relevant any longer or is it still an explosive issue which is in fact a NON-ISSUE? Is it communitarianism or cosmopolitanism? Is it fatherland or third and fourth internationalism?And that illegitimate child called nationalism and patriotism! So, is it education or liberation as agenda? And to be educated to do what and to be liberated from what? *** I wrote these verses in memory of Amadou Diallo and in my anger upon the meaning of justice and freedom we have created as a "free society". The trial is concluded. The cops acquitted. It was a mistake Their lives were at stake Diallo should not have scared the cops off With his wallet he tried to blow their brains off It was a mistake Any cop like you and I could make Don't you understand the justice system? Without it there won't be law enforcement To protect you and I Against immigrants and the poor or anyone in desperation? So that you and I can sleep peacefully And feel this thing call democracy? Some say...A wallet in the hands of a white man lookslike a wallet In the hands of the black man it must looksomething which'll spit out bullets Damn these people! Nonsensical racists Who don't understand this system call justice. Some say... There are two systems of justice One to protect the poor One to protect the rich Damn these people Reds and pinkos and socialist pigs Who can't tell what's emotion and what's logic. Justice must lie in the hands of the State In the lawmakers and in the protection of estates It must lie in the courts And in the facts and evidence brought Must there be another system of justice? If that for the rich has its peculiar practices Must there one for the poor? If that for the poor must have its brand of justice? An eye for an eye, so to speak... In the streets so loud it will speak... To scream at the system of justice for the rich And to howl for the next wave of teeming masses at times so weak? Could thou and I with Fate conspire To change the scheme of things entire So that we can mould It To our heart's desire? Or ignite this fire And let it spread like wildfire Into our consciousness entire That there is a system of justice Beyond the courts and deliberations asunder This justice--knows no rich nor poor Plain in character Deus ex machina inspired This system of justice Knows no bounds Nor can it tell if you are hungry And I have a gun Or I am hungry because you have a gun Or I have a gun because you are hungry And so ended the Diallo story With teary eyes cops With mistakes made And all's well that ends well Measure for measure So that justice will not be at stake As we draw up plans to contain the parade of the masses and arrest even the bystanders So that there will be two systems of justice To each its own logic Because you and I are hungry And I have a gun And because you have a gun, I am hungry May you rest in peace, Amadou *** A quote from E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime: "President! President! Her arm was extended and her black hand reached toward him. He shrank from the contact. Perhaps in the dark windy evening of impending storm it seemed to Sherman's guards that Sarah's black hand was a weapon" (p. 159). *** My thoughts on freedom and the culture industry as it relates for example to the way we honor heroes in society:I'd like to relate the notion of depthfulness of the issue with the industry of fashion and image making particularly as we illustrate it with the night at the Oscars or the Grammys or any night honoring the like of nostalgia-movies such as Titanic or the remake of this or that. Many will, I believe find the meaningfulness of these events.Indeed the Oscars and Hollywood in general are meaningful and contain in them horizons of significance and languages of personal resonance. And so do the shoes people wear on Oscar or Grammy night. And what is even more meaningful is that whatever these people wear becomes fashion and become the trend and are in vogue. And they become another phase of the industry-- culture industry that is. The "in thing" to oust others who do not belong in the fashion rate which has been fashionable all along. Or, to speak musically of it: rhythm of the moment. Anything else becomes out-of-fashion.And in a world where we want to be one with the trends of the day, we consume these connotations which are packaged in the products of this industry; we want to look like Madonna, like Michael Jackson, like Naomi Campbell, like Donald Trump, like The Backstreet Boys, (or The Backside Kids), like The Spice Girls--- we want to look like them and not like us and our own self! (What an iron cage this might be---the consciousness first mesmerized and then caged to the brink of mania). Whatever Madonna wears that night will be in the fashion boutiques the next day. Whatever Tupac Shakur (the late rap star) wears became fashion on the streets in Harlem.Whatever Michael Jordan endorses, will be worn by kids aspiring to be like that hero who endorses child labor in this global theatre of production. Little human cogs in the wheel of Capital. The depthfulness of these commodities lie in the extent they will bring meaning to the progressive development of the culture industry. Gucci, Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Bill Blass, Giorgio Armani, and any French or Italian sounding names of fashion designers become the standard bearer of the depthfulness of this domain of the culture industry. [And if and if ever his Reform Party wins, Donald Trump will also set another trend for the ethics and morality of the Presidency, with Howard Stern setting the trend for Presidential broadcasting!]And the products get assembled in sweatshops of Third World countries so that the meaningfulness of this whole enterprise of cultural meaning making takes on aninternational dimension. The depthfulness of the industry gets extended to the realm of global collaboration in the conveyor belt of culture industry. Is this the meaning of meaningfulness, as for example the postmodern artist Andy Warhol would also invite us to think about?Perhaps?---as Warhol is a product he turned himself into through doing art which has become enshrined in the idea of art for art's sake---to uphold the ethics of the Age of Mechanical Production. The more innovative, the crazier they are, the more barriers these artworks break, the more it becomes like Houdini who finds satisfaction in feats which border between religiosity and madness and becomes enshrined in the ideas of individualism and commitment (though not sure what it is committed to yet). So where should art reside and for who/whom should it serve? Or, should visual artists the like of Warhol-- like the poets in the republic of Aristotle-- be "banished"?And what about the realism of Van Gogh or the religious sculptures (the reliefs) at the ancient Valley of Ajanta in Ancient India? Are we free to choose the kind of image we would live by in this age of Free Markets? *** And there is a great novel on the condition of the self as it is being hegemonized by the base and superstructure of things and its attendant ideology of false consciousness. DeLillo's White Noise is a great novel. I think Gramsci wrote about organic versus inorganic intellectual in the struggle of the middle class to expose the contradictions within the society. The growth and expansion of the middle class sector has its dangers of co-optation and the hijacking of the progressive/socialistic forces able to restructure society and to have others "dare to create a new social order" (as educator George Counts wrote). Delillo made Jack Gladney in White Noise a college professor and head of the department of Hitler Studies. Gladney doesn't even know German. I think this is a wonderful parody of the pretentiousness and superficiality of academia. In White Noise, Jack is an embodiment of everything about the middle class that has gone haywire, hijacked, and molested by the forces of transnational capital and the culture industry. It is ironic that Hitler Studies is chosen as a parody of the excesses of movements which has no social and moral basis of struggle. Herbert Marcuse in The One-dimensional Man wrote about the middle class being the vanguard of one-dimensionality and being Warhol-ed by the ideology of the ruling cultural-political-economic-(digital too) elite. The whiteness of the noise is a metaphor, I believe, of drowning--- drowning in data and smogged in information haze.However satirical and ridiculous the novel is, it is indeed powerful-- extremely potent a ginseng-- which extracted the excesses of hegemony. *** I conclude these fragmented thoughts on my search for the meaning of freedom, by this personal reflection on the meaning of the self I consider "free": ON BEING AND BECOMING A PERSONACRAT How limiting can the term “individualist” mean if it hovers merely within the realm of one’s beingness in relation to this world wherein information is mistaken for knowledge and propaganda for truth within the assumption that what we know can merely be grasped by the senses five? If one’s entire beingness and becomingness is shackled by it being shaped by the apparatuses of the modern state, as Gramsci once said, and if one’s understanding of the world is merely a mimic of what politics, culture and scientism has dictated, then the world “individualism” is but a term coined so that the personhood in each and every one of us becomes an object to be studied through the process of Othering. Within this delimiting and shackling context then, I must name myself less as an individual and more as a “personacrat.” My personacratic self primarily aims at understanding first and foremost my Inner World with its attendant beauty and self-government, evolving personhood, destroying of paradigms and perpetual awareness of the supraconsciousness of what lies within. I am a personacrat derived from a conceptual meadow I coin as “personacracy”; a government (kratos) of the self, by the self, for the self. I reject all forms of democracy; the illusionary system of government which has lost its meaning since it was first conceptualized. Personacracy allows me to be in this world of illusion, of MAYA, but not be and become part of it. I am thus in this world but not of this world. The government I have created in my wakefulness entails me to mediate between the I and the Thou-ness of the scheme of things. I conjure Existence as the highest ideal, going beyond merely thinking therefore I exist, rather believing that I exist within a universe of Existence. I persist to exist within this encapsulated notion called mind and body and persist to believe that when this body rots, Death becomes the beginning of perpetual existence. I am eternal within this form and shape of beingness, until Eternity calls upon me to be me with Nature and to be a witness to the Truth I have longed to meet. I am truth within a Truth of greater magnitude. I am one and indivisible within a greater design of Oneness and Indivisibility. I utilize my senses five with guidance from my Inner Self in turn guided by a counter-balancing self within. And within these faculties and the political organs within, my entire personhood is a government in itself to be ethnically mastered and maneuvered through the Oceans of Mercy I call the World outside. I am thus as such, closer to my Self that my jugular vein! In what ways then, am I not individualistic? Here are a few: I once wept when I had no shoes, until I saw a man with no feet; I once believed that man can rise to become Superman, until I sank deeper within myself to become a vicegerent of the Supreme Spirit; I once believed that life is to be lived until I heard one said the life unexamined is not worth living; I once believed that we live once and then die, until I discovered that Death to me comes by every nightfall and I live a new life by every break of day; I once heard of a distant heaven and hell, until I name them so as I can be in them; I once let time pass, until I became it and gave what it asked for; I once thought loneliness is bliss until I began to desire of its unspeakable beauty; I once asked who should govern and why must I be governed until I found the ways to govern those within me who longed to be governed; I once marveled at creation, destruction and sustenance until I found that I am all in one Creator, Destroyer and Sustainer. I am thus a world within and the world without but not with it. Because if I am part of it, I will be apart from the Thou I longed to be part of! I am a traveler passing through Time. In my journey I have met mice and men, savages and savants, politicians and philosophers, economists and ecofeminists. In my journey I have met Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucoult and philosophers beyond the individualism I have been told to mimic. I am taking to the road not taken, for it should make a difference and as I pass through, I kept looking at open windows lest I be oblivious of what this world may teach. And as I pass through I become more subdued in my anger of what has wrought this world and made men wretched of the earth as I know that this journey is an arduous one; one which begins with a web of guess but will end at a point of certainty. And at the moment of Death, the end of the road, I am meeting a self of whom I am familiar with, who I once met before this journey begins. I create the rock I choose to roll so that one should imagine me happy. I can soar among eagles and dwell among sparrows. Life, to me is not an end game but a journey towards Light, which has neither a beginning nor an end. And hence, why am I not an individual? Because the world is too much for me. If all the world’s a stage, I insist not being a mere player but to create one for myself so that I can, in the end hold it like a crystal ball – the world and the stage and its players in all. Is there not beauty in personacracy, than in democracy? I believe, therefore I am a personacrat! Peace be upon you, Maxine!