Another of nature’s incredible creations, the cyclone, has wreaked havoc on Burma with the loss of life expected to be upwards of 100,000. Living around the Bay of Bengal can be a dangerous business with Bangladesh a regular guest of tragedy and Thailand more recently with the Tsunami of 2004.

Numbers of this magnitude tend to overhwhelm causing a certain numbness to appear. 90,000 or 120,000, it’s a big number. But I don’t want to dwell on that aspect of the disaster but more on what this means for Burma.

A period of searching and mourning followed by rebuilding will take place, following a similar pattern to these events, but in what framework? The miltary junta, bunch of decrepid bovver boys, has no choice but to allow the world in as it has no hope of handling this on its own. Repression yes! reconstruction nah.

If ever a message was to be heeded this is it. The Saffron Revolution was just the beginning, creating a force of energy which some might say has manifested in this terrible way. It is surely no coincidence that just 2 days away is the proposed referendum on a new constitution. A referendum where you can vote but not against it.

It’s been interesting watching the warlord generals and how they look shellshocked and dazed as the cameras focus in on them. But more than anything they look very human. Sure they have plenty of vicious thugs to carry out their torture and murder but now they look weak as they are exposed to the world.

It’s time for the world to really put the hammer down on these dictators and try and bring about some kind of change. Just being able to live without fear of being carted off to prison or a labour camp would be a good start but this may be the point at which birth, although painful, can be given to a new Burma.

I came across this new journal on basic income and thought it would be worth passing. there are many good and thought provoking articles available. What I have found interesting is this political slant given to some of them. Quite frankly who cares?

It actually falls neatly into and out of most of the political spectrum. Where it diverges is on the issue of control. Politics is all about who is in control whether Blue, Red, Yellow or Green or any shade in between. Basic income is about giving everyone access to the financial commons and allowing them the just get on with it. It isn’t a social policy its an expression of freedom and a right.

It will be interesting to see how this debate develops but I’m glad to see it taking on a more formal conversation.

Professor Peter Brown from McGill University in Canada is here in New Zealand speaking about our dysfunctional economic system.

He’s not wrong there. He was speaking on Radio NZ but the interview never really got going. He had enough time to talk about the incoherent nature of our economic system, how GDP measures income and consumption but not well being and how triple bottom line accounting was a waste of time. Agreed!

What we need is a better connection between our biophysical system and our economic frameworks like Trucost for example.

We also need to ask ourselves some basic questions such as

- what is our economy for? speculation or sustenance.

- what size should it be? as big as possible or big enough.

Simple questions but rarely asked. The mantra of economic growth at all costs is intellectually flimsy. Its lazy thinking……..the assumption that GDP growth is all that matters is quite clearly false.

What about crime, illness, pollution? What about the increasing gap between rich and poor.

As individuals we search for coherence but as a global economy we struggle to find that because there are no tools to do so. So perhaps by becoming more coherent ourselves we will aid and enable a global coherence.

As the Mahatma said “Be the change you wish to see”.

Let’s keep asking questions of our system.

I finally got round to seeing the Last King of Scotland yesterday. I thought it was a great film not just because of its portrayal of Idi Amin but also the feckless young Scottish doctor who arrived in Uganda hoping to help out, make a difference and have a bit of adventure (preferably sexual).

As Amin prepares him to meet his maker he makes some interesting points to the young man. He tells him in no uncertain terms that Africa is not a game or a place to come a play the altruist…it’s real….and reality is often brutal and bloody. His death was the first real thing the young doctor would experience in his life. As it happens he got away and we are left feeling that the message got through.

Of course the film is fictional though based on the book of the same name which drew on various people and factual events to create the character of Dr Carrigan. Complete with stereotypical English diplomatic spooks, menacing local enforcers and locals with big hearts but no hope, the film almost falls over but for the fact that it’s a fair representation of life in Uganda at that time.

It’s interesting for me also becuase in recent weeks i have met 2 people from Uganda in different contexts both who struck me as being very hopeful about life, passionate about making a difference but also aware that potentially similar problems may be lurking around the corner.

So that brings me to the point of this blog…….is Robert Mugabe the last King of Africa? Watching Zimbabwe implode is not very pleasant even for the dispassionate observer. The similarities with Uganda are there though not as obvious as one might think. Certainly the paranoia is setting in, the violence is on the increase and the general population is now suffering from food and medical shortages, inflation, unemployment.

Mugabe has already used up his fall guy card - the British - with white landowners having been given short shrift over the past decade. So the only people left to get stuck into are his own…..surely he doesn’t have much time left?

The nature of the dictator as a sociopath is well documented. Intransigence and unwillingless to listen are other unwelcome attributes. But is this just an African problem? I don’t think so. Look at Iraq, Serbia even Northern Ireland. Ian Paisley finally agreed with Sinn Fein yesterday as they sat down next to each other…..apparently “never, never, never, never” doesn’t always mean never.

And who is running Russia right now? Surely Putin is only a few steps away from a fully paid up authoritarian….he’s just doing well economically so can afford to be beneficient at the moment.

That could change.

Many old timers weep tears for their beloved Rhodesia but how can a country be prosperous based on the subjugation of others and the expropriation of resources? All around the world we are seeing a slow unwinding of the colonial and imperialist adventures of the last 500 years. Freedom, self determination and removal of the yolk of centralised and external authority is the story of the day. For Africa, stuck in the whirlpool of historical tribal and ethnic conflict, post colonialisation changes, grinding debt and the arms/resource trade, times are difficult.

The best thing the international community could do is to eliminate historical debts and aid at the same time under a guarantee that funds would go towards schools, hospitals and basic infrastructure.

Other than that people have to sort out their own problems in their own backyard. Human nature will no doubt continue to interfere with any positive outcomes but everywhere there are people with hope and the will to make things work.

As they say in New Zealand, she’s a hard road ahead.

debt, zimbabwe, poverty, conflict, mugabe, political institutions, un declaration of human rights, sustainability, new zealand, education, violence, politics, money, africa, uganda, future, Uncategorized

We are currently enmeshed in a debate about the role of smacking in society here. A piece of legislation currently in Parliament is calling for the abolition of the right for parents to use “reasonable force” on their children. Of course how does one define reasonable force. New Zealand struggles with a culture of violence towards children (adults also) and this legilsation has been seen as a way of saying no to any kind of violence.

http://www.greens.org.nz/campaigns/section59/

Now this has seen some people get pretty steamed up about the government interferring in their “right” to discipline their children as they see fit and the middle classes will be criminalised for just giving occasional smacks which hardly qualify as violence. It’s been quite a ding dong battle with Parliament passing the legislation against general public opinion which has been against it.

I had this letter published today in the Christchurch Press,

Dear Sir,

The response to the proposed Bradford legislation has been quite revealing about attitudes towards children in New Zealand. As John Tamihere eloquently expressed children are mere chattels to be dealt with as any parent sees fit. That used to be the way husbands viewed their wives and judging by the statistics on domestic assault some still do. It is only through legislation that real social changes have been able to take root and become embedded in society.

At first this legislation can seem invasive but as Pita Sharples exhorted it’s about saying no to any kind of violence within our families. There are many non-violent ways to discipline a child. Some don’t give instant results like a sharp smack but in the long run they have better results. We need to listen more to our children and find out why they are behaving inappropriately and then deal with it. Hitting someone and then telling them you love them is a lame excuse for a lazy and angry approach. Big respect to Pita Sharples for making a stand even though he knows it’s the harder road to take.

Yours Sincerely.

So what do people here think? As Pita Sharples said “how can we hit something we love”. But some would say a short sharp smack lets children know when they have stepped over the line (i’m just saying that for balance).

Parenting is damn hard work and parents need way more help and resources to bring up their children. Such irony…one of the easiest and most pleasureable things to create and one of the hardest to look after

I feel that resorting to any kind of violence is simply reinforcing a culture where violence is used as a method of resolving disputes whether at a basic interpersonal level or a geopolitical one.

The attraction is that violence usually gets you an immediate result but the long-term consequences are usually a disaster. So what can we do? What do we need to do to make a non-violent society. I have my own ideas but i would love to hear from others on this subject.

Peace and love to all.

Sustainability - what is it?

Sustainability is a much maligned word “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Well that’s a tad harsh but the word has been dragged through the mud from the early days of “sustainable development” to the “four pillars” namely enviornment, economy, social and cultural.

Reductionism rules!

You could argue that we have a sustainable society already because we are still here…6 billion of us. That’s not a bad effort considering we started off with just two :-).

But when we look back at our history we see clearly the duality of our existence: misery, bloodshed, violence and despicable acts; and amazing creation, beauty, love and art. It;s hard to argue that much has changed in the last 10,000 years at least.

So where to? Can we ever become whole or will we always be engaged in a battle between the dark and light forces in our amazing universe.

I believe sustainability as a metaframework not an end in itself. It allows us to ask ourselves “what kind of society do we wish to live in?’…..if we can define that then all the other stuff will follow. The problem we have know is we start with the reduced view whether it is the environment or social issues or economic growth.

Then when it all ends in conflict we wonder why.

So where do start? Well there’s the ten commandments magna carta, uk bill of rights moving along to more modern frameworks such as the US constitution and one i quite like is the UN Declaration of Human Rights which came into being on 10 December 1948.

This was ratified by all then 58 member states which was no mean feat. The committee which prepared the initial text was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt herself. You can view it here

Article 25 and 26 are of particular interest being on the issue of education and well being.

It’s well worth a read.

Article 1, Section 8 of the US consitution notes:

Congress has the power “to coin money, regulate the value thereof”……….it doesnt say banks have that power mind you.

Coming back the the topic at hand: how do we craft a society that sustains itself without the externalisation of environmental, social, cultural and economic costs.

- Eliminating poverty (Article 25 of the UNDHR).
- Compulsory free education to 16 for all (Article 26 of the UNDHR).
- Life, Liberty and Security of Person (Article 3 of the UNDHR)
- Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (US Declaration of Independence)

I could go on.

What is it that we want? We dont want our prisons overflowing with societal detritus. We therefore must ensure at all costs all children we bring into this world are well looked after with resources to ensure that is the case. Decent fresh food not the fossil fuel sugar laden processed rubbish churned out my the corporatised supermarkets. No wonder so many children are going round the bend…we’re poisoning them.

Safe, secure and healthy homes are vital for our children. Well resourced educational facilities are next on the list alongside decent parks and safe public spaces. Ripping poverty and its bedfellows out of our society has to start now with major expenditure….the kind normally reserved for invading other nations and killing machines.

If anyone argues “show me the money”…well it’s right there in front of you. There always has been and continues to be a huge transfer of wealth from the state to the private financial sector. It’s fact: in the UK the sum has been estimated at GBP20-40bln a year. In the US i imagine it will be a more significant sum.

Underlying all this is the question of who owns the money supply, where does the power lie.

If we dont have an idea of what we’re aiming for we will most certainly miss the target. We know we already have as levels of happiness and well being have been static for decades (sorry GDP is not going to help).

If we focus on building strong roots then sustainability will come. Right now no amount of fiddling will help. As the Declaration of Independence noted,

“whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter it or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organising its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness”.