by
Tito Alvarado*
Photo: The Japanese Peace Bell and its en:pagoda at United Nations Headquarters, New York City.
Photograph credit: Drag | Wikimedia Commons
MONTREAL (IDN)
– Of the world’s more than six thousand extant languages, three thousand have
little chance of continuing to be used in the next century. This tragic fact
represents a terrible finding: we will lose three thousand ways to approach
life and humanity from the perspective of others in their relationship with the
environment that surrounds them.
However, as
this is a case of death for the people who use these languages, it is perceived
as anecdotal, as a kind of
fatalism; in fact, we wash our hands whereas
we are
responsible for working for the survival of the variety of cultures and
languages.
To save a
language is to save a way of entering into a relationship with the world, a
tool of culture. But there are many other themes as relevant as the issues
related to the problem of endangered languages. Life itself is in danger; the
next 25 years are decisive for both the pursuit of the same direction or for a
change in lifestyle.
I think I have
read somewhere in a document I have lost track of that there are more than one
million initiatives and organisations with an agenda of world peace.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any coordination among them.
Is it because
of the «conditioning» that leads us to believe that each individual is an
island? Is it the law of least effort? Or, worse, because of a morality far
removed from reality?
Of course,
each entity is in good faith, but that is not enough to stop wars in the world.
These wars are created with the will to control resources by using quibbles to
increase the fear of fake threats. We face a dilemma that the human race has
never faced: guarantee the survival of all or perish.
We do not
always fully understand the magnitude of this tragedy. The daily concerns for
survival do not allow us to project ourselves into this drama of life, with our
days counted, and we continue to act in the same way.
In addition,
the powers that be manipulate our ability to respond and lead us to think and
act according to interests that are remote from the well-being of everyone and
every individual. Even if millions of people work for life, the balance tips
toward the end of civilisation because many people act according to their
immediate interests, always in contradiction with the collective well-being.
Peace may seem
like an easy theme to develop but it is a difficult goal to reach.
I do not think
of peace as an immediate fact when I see the forty or so armed conflicts and
the hundreds of armed interventions that prevent the peaceful coexistence of
nations and people.
Just follow
the thread of information to find that we are not always told the truth; the
so-called truth reflects the immediate and future benefits of those who
exercise powers with all their tentacles including the use of crimes, scandals
and corruption to always maintain the same rules of the game; in this puzzle,
good deeds look like jokes.
The business
of the «news» is not to really communicate what is happening, but to privilege
the morbid and fatal facts until satiety. The truth is often falsified by
sweetening the true facts or by telling outright lies. We evolve in a world of
images, those of the powers behind power. Thus, we will never reach peace as a
means to develop all our power of creation. That must and can change.
Peace as a
theme comes to look like a commonplace, like a word emptied of its meaning. If
we look back at history, we find that peace has always been the greatest
utopia; It does not matter that many countries are not in a state of war, in
spite of relative calm we can witness the ravages of a form of life built by
power grabs.
We are reduced
to a field of technical and scientific studies that stifle people who think and
act in a different way. In this field of honour, characters, perceived
according to an ethics of peace, present the face of assassins in the natural
state.
Keeping armies
with all their scrap costs a fortune and gives back little to the country that
pays for services that are ... «virtual». These are unnecessary expenses when
many categories of workers are poorly paid (teachers, workers, artists,
craftsmen, and so on).
Actions are
limited by the increasing distance between the minority that possesses much and
the majorities that have little, almost nothing or quite simply nothing in the
face of multiple disasters: climate change, alarming decreases in water
resources, scandalous piling up of plastic all over the planet (especially in
the seas), waste of goods and food products found in garbage and the extreme
poverty of more than two billion people condemned to survival.
In the face of
all these catastrophes, millions of people should act on many fronts with
heroism, courage and determination to limit the advance of humanity towards the
abyss. Today, although we face impending disasters, the critical collective
consciousness seems to have lost its bearings.
If we seek a
definition that values the word «peace», we surprisingly discover that the term
is defined in the light of an ideology expressed according to the codes of
language and vision of the ruling class. We lose sight of the meaning it is
given by people who believe in a new social order that is possible and
necessary.
Any expert on
semantic questions will tell us that the word «peace» refers to a state of
well-being, tranquility, stability and security. It also refers to a state of
harmony free from wars, conflicts and setbacks. This definition remains in the
limbo of ambiguity even if it wanted to be categorical.
Throughout the
history of humanity, we have never witnessed this state of well-being,
tranquility, stability and security. Let us look at each dimension in detail.
Reaching a
certain well-being refers to a valid
level of wealth; today, poverty rather than wealth affects most people.
Currently, the peak is absolute: one percent of the world’s population controls
50 percent of the world’s resources.
Tranquility refers to the
certainty that we cannot claim if we observe the major disasters caused by
minor factors; our life is like the waves breaking on rocks.
Stability is something
very relative; in reality, it is a question of contradictory waves, because at
times there are various «winning» strategies, but this is followed by the
economic system plunging back into a period of instability.
Security is a joke ...
a cruel joke. It does not really exist. Just think about what passengers have
to suffer in an airport to realise this. Furthermore, the proliferation of
security companies is phenomenal. And what about the impressive, sophisticated
and increasingly dangerous arsenals found in police services.
The definition
of peace already mentioned is simply a euphemism that brings us back to the
superficial dimension.
Thinking peace
in its depth is impossible given the very essence of the social order in which
we live, because everything is based on the fact that a minority is constantly
seeking to increase its profits by constantly fighting against others.
Competition is the most fashionable keyword; it is the source of all conflicts.
One lives to win and live with the winnings. It seems like a play on words, but
it is indeed a truth consecrated as a moral.
Banks,
insurance companies, construction companies, by definition, are shown to be
highway robbers. Their profits rise in greater proportion than the cost of
living while the wages of the people who live from their work remain stable or
increase very little; thus, one loses gains and salaries dilute dangerously.
We live in the
nightmare of knowing that the planet’s resources are able to provide for human
needs so that full advantage can be taken of opportunities, yet this situation
increases the gap between those who have much and those who have little. This
terrible observation does not seem to be perceived as an injustice.
Science and
technology provide answers to the majority of human problems, but the lack of
resources, the interests of transnational corporations and the «ethics» of the
market prevent humanity from implementing these solutions because the rules of
the market impose their conditions as an absolute immorality; thousands of tons
of unsold products are lost in secret places.
Peace will
remain a word of good intentions and rarely implanted in everyday life until we
find a radical solution that gets to the bottom of things. It is a question of
eliminating the rules of the game which facilitates living in constant wars
that maintain the impoverishment and unacceptable treatment of people.
It is urgent
that we bring about a radical change of culture, that is to say, a cultural
revolution that would recognise the well-being of all human beings, regardless
of race, religious beliefs, ethnic origin and/or national or any other barriers
that divide humanity.
Today’s drama
is life; to continue without profound changes would mean going from bad to
worse and reaching a point of no return. If we come to that point, the damage
will be irretrievable. The necessary changes are necessary today and must
follow two central guidelines: change the patterns of relationship among us and
between us and nature.
First of all,
it should be remembered that the main cause of the deterioration of life on
planet earth is unique and fundamental: the constant search for profit. On the
contrary, relations among us and between us and nature should be based on
solidarity, a fraternal feeling that humanises and elevates us as people.
A new order is
not only possible, it is extremely necessary, because the resources of the
planet can perfectly satisfy the needs of all human beings. In this sense, we
must consider twelve foundations of peace that are also reasons for cultural
change, that is to say, a new way of seeing the world and seeing us in this
universe by assuming our share accountability, awareness, participation,
information and decision-making:
·
share the
planet as the only common home of all the inhabitants of the Earth;
·
distribute
goods in proportion to needs;
·
invest in
education, scientific and technological research and development of a critical
social conscience;
·
guarantee a
single ethical minimum wage and a maximum salary not exceeding five times the minimum
wage;
·
develop
transparent practices in relation to wages, profits and benefits;
·
legalise land,
water and air as non-marketable social goods;
·
demobilise
armies;
·
introduce a
fair exchange currency;
·
promote the
free movement of people;
·
prohibit
health, education, housing and pensions from being objects of commerce;
·
make public
transport free in all cities that can rely on public transportation;
·
consider the
ecological impact of any development project.
The voices of
discord will say that this is impossible, just as the adventure of exploring
the seas to arrive, by unknown ways, at the other end of the world was
impossible in its time. It was also impossible to transport water from sources
several kilometres away, as was the case with the Acqueduct of Segovia, which
has survived for thousands of years. It also seemed impossible to become
involved in space to reach the Moon, like the development of instruments of
mass communication through science and technology.
Today, we face
the urgency of necessity; it is time to take action to achieve a better world
all over the planet.
When we are
able to implement these twelve levers of change, we will enter the era of the
full creative potential of human development. We will be able to live in peace
by using resources, technology and science in a humane and responsible way. The
impossible will become reality or life will no longer be possible. This is the
dilemma!
*Poet,
essayist, journalist, speaker and cultural promoter Tito Alvarado is currently
International President of Proyecto Cultural SUR, member of the coordination
team of the International Word Poetry Festival and member of the editorial team
of Utopia Rossa. This article was
originally published in Spanish by Utopia Rossa (Red Utopia). Translated by Phil Harris.
[IDN-InDepthNews – 27 July 2018]
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