PNAC, Globalization , multi-faith societies, and militarization of Energy Worldwide.
The pressures of globalization are pushing people together, obliterating boundaries through trade, travel, telecommunications and mass migration. If religious faith in such an interdependent world acts to push people apart, it becomes a force for division and conflict.
That is bad for everybody. But for people of religious faith, that is a particularly bad outcome. It means that faith becomes synonymous not with reconciliation, compassion and justice - what true religious faith should stand for - but with hatred and sectarianism.
I am so convinced of the importance of this issue and it is not an intellectual exercise, but I believe this is a severely practical matter. Unless we find a way of reconciling faith and globalization, the world will be not only a dangerous place, but globalization itself will be far less successful in spreading prosperity....
There are 10 lessons to be learned from this colossal challenge, especially after the meltdown of the economy, the markets, the banks, and their reputation, trust, confidence, fiduciary duties and the like...which will take generations to recover...:
- Religious faith matters. Whether one likes it or not, billions of people are motivated by religious faith.
- Faith is not in decline. It may be in decline in some places, but not worldwide. In some parts of the world, it is growing.
- Religious faith can operate positively in support, for example, of the UN Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty and advance development. Wonderful work has been done on this by churches, mosques, Hindu and Jewish interfaith organizations. Or, religion can operate negatively, through fundamentalism and/or extremism.
- Globalization is forging multi-faith societies. Big cities where the young are growing up in are completely different than the cities the world have known 30 years ago. The same is true across Europe , the United States and a lot of other capitals.
- To work effectively, globalization needs values like trust, confidence, openness and justice.....talk about fairness in spreading the "wealth" around....
- Faith is not the only means, but is an important means, of providing those values if faith is itself open and not closed; if it is based on compassion and help for others and not on the basis of exclusionary identity.
- For globalization to flourish, we need social capital - trust in one another, so we can have confidence in the future. Spiritual capital, so to speak, is an important part of social capital.....??? { we obviously do not need "Sykes-picots" again, or the balfour declaration, or the new hegemonic, criminal trend of militarizing Energy....do we ??? }
- In an era, however, of globalization and multi-faith societies, creating such spiritual capital requires not only tolerance of, but respect for, people of other faiths. [ let's start by monetizing social and spiritual capital...to feed the hungry and the poor and the dying children from malnutrition and disease worldwide, not militarizing energy....]
- The key to respect is understanding, and hence the need to learn and to educate ourselves about each other's faith and traditions.
- Organized religion should be supporting this process, and allowing through it the evolution of faith so that faith can be a positive, constructive and progressive force.
So, faith matters. Values matter. How those combine will critically define the prospects of success, prosperity and peaceful co-existence of the global society in which we live. The alternative is tension, conflict , violence......but definitely not the ways, nor methods of the legendary war criminal's plans since 1996, which translated into/or a PNAC/Ariel Butcher Sharon coordinated visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2000, in preparation for the most horrific terrorist plan in history, the inside job of 9/11...by the CIA2/WHITE HOUSE MURDER INC., ASSASSINS, of Langley, London and Herzliah......
What does this mean practically? I once thought that globalization was a value-free process. Certainly, I thought, one should seek justice in an era of globalization for its own sake, but not for the reasons of efficiency. I have now come to change my view. This current global economic crisis illustrates why......you bet...
The crisis is first and foremost a crisis brought about in part by behavior - irresponsibility - that we wish hadn't taken place. And it has been prolonged by the absence of confidence because people can't trust the system......this must be the understatement of the whole Millennium...
Values such as trust - being able to rely on the other person's word, or long-term perspective instead of short-term profit maximization - are exactly what will create the confidence required to put our economy back on a sound footing for the future. In other words, confidence and the stability that flows from it cannot be restored by technical, regulatory means alone, but by a restoration of values.
This is but one case that illustrates the idea that an interdependent world cannot function without values that create the bonds of trust. In foreign policy, this can be seen even more clearly. The violent attacks we saw in Mumbai are representative of the type of security threat we face in many places globally, from Iraq to Afghanistan, Iran to Pakistan to cities in the West.....stemming from ways, conventional methods of the legendary war criminal's plans since 1996, which translated into/or a PNAC/Ariel Butcher Sharon coordinated visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2000, in preparation for the most horrific terrorist plan in history, the inside job of 9/11...by the CIA2/WHITE HOUSE MURDER INC., ASSASSINS, of Langley, London and Herzliah......
Of course, we must be prepared for a military response as part of the answer to violence. But it is also true that it will be the force of ideas rather than the force of arms that will allow globalization to succeed and not break apart in strife......LOL
Securing peace between Israel and all its neighbors would obviously be of enormous importance, a huge symbolic expression that would militate against the divisiveness and hatred that inspires people to commit acts of Resistance in the name of Honor, duty and defense of borders, values and territories against savage PNAC attacks.
If we were able to create a space where people of different faiths could live and work together peacefully, it would be a powerful demonstration of a different set of values at work than those which, for decades, have only generated never-ending violence.....ways, to conventional methods of the legendary war criminals plans since 1996, which translated into/or a PNAC/Ariel Butcher Sharon coordinated visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2000, in preparation for the most horrific terrorist plan in history, the inside job of 9/11...by the CIA2/WHITE HOUSE MURDER INC., ASSASSINS, of Langley London and Herzliah......
To defeat the forces of exclusion and division that lead to Resistance to occupations , wars and aggression by the western attackers, which now has an enormous reach across all areas of the world, we must turn to education as a major component - not a minor effort - of foreign policy. We need to become literate about other faiths and ways of life.....
Therefore, in both economic policy and foreign policy, it is clear that we can't make the world safe for interdependence unless we have strong values that guide us. Peaceful co-existence cannot take root unless we have strong alliances not only across nations but across faiths, through values we hold in common.
Whether the issue is the global economic crisis, African poverty or global warming, faith communities can provide a solid foundation for values and allied endeavors based on those values. But this is only true if faith is not about our traditions or our identity, but about values - not just the values of democracy and freedom, but of the common good, compassion and justice.
Above all, we need an alliance of values that acknowledges - despite differences in creed or color - the equal dignity and equal worth of every individual before God.
