Living out loud

Knaism viewed from the perspective of a Social Movement

2011-10-05T09:17:00.002-04:00

The Kottayam Diocese celebrated this year its 100 years of existence shepherding the Knanaya community back home as well as globally. The past 100 years also witnessed several landmark social movements like that of the civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, etc. Does Knaism share the characteristics of a Social Movement, in terms of being dynamic and evolving given the fact that its members have spread out to the far corners of the Globe?

David Korten author of Agenda for a New Economy: from Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth describes an important characteristic of Social Movements:

Every great social movement begins with a set of ideas validated, internalized, and then shared and amplified through media, grassroots organizations, and thousands, even millions, of conversations. A truth strikes a resonant chord, we hear it acknowledged by others, and we begin to discuss it with friends and associates. The new story then spreads out in multiple ever-widening circles that begin to connect and intermingle.

The old narrative that had guided the Knanaya Community under the leadership of the Kottayam Aramana is:

Endogamy is a hallowed tradition for the Knanaya community that has its origins in the Old Testament. Modern life being rife with high divorce rates due to fierce individualism, endogamous marriages can bring in the much needed stability provided by extended family, and thus promote the unity of the community as a whole.

The last 3 decades has witnessed large scale settlement of Knanaya families outside of Kerala and India, causing a tangible stress on the social identity of the new Knanaya generation raised beyond the close confines of the traditional Knayaya parishes of Kottayam Diocese that had mechanisms in place to force endogamy. Many of the educated among the new generation share a 'global culture' based on the values of fairness, equal opportunity and non-discrimination, and hence affiliations on the lines of caste and religion do not find the top place in their list of priorities, when contemplating marriage. Hence, there is a new story emerging that diametrically opposes the above story:

Endogamy is a very inhuman practice not just within the universal church but also in all societies. Apart from ethnocentrism, endogamy can cause genetic problems, racism, and discrimination; and hence it should be rejected.

Let’s put aside Knaism for a moment and reflect on the civil rights and women’s movement during the last 100 years. For the civil rights and feminist movements, the old story said was:

Women and people of color have no soul. Less than human, they have no natural rights. They blacks can find fulfillment only through faithful service to their white male masters. The key to a woman’s happiness was to find the right man, marry him, and devote her life to his service.

In early sixties as the civil rights movement gained traction, feminism evolved as a result of a vague dissatisfaction plaguing the housewives. It touched a deep chord and became the focus of thousands of living room conversations in which women gathered to share their stories. They were conditioned to believe that failure to find happiness in service to their husbands revealed a character flaw they must strive to correct. Through these conversations, women discovered that the flaw lay not with them, but with the false story. Those whom these discussions initially liberated lent their voices to a growing chorus that spread a story of women’s rights and abilities. As millions of women joined in the conversation, a new gender story came to the fore and unleashed the feminine as a powerful force for global transformation.

Comparison of Knaism with the Civil Rights’ Movement brings to the fore the struggle between the proponents of the old and the new story lines. Thinkers, writers, and activists who embraced the idea of integration engaged in verbal combat with those who defended the status quo as legitimated by the old story. As the new story of possibility gained currency, its proponents engaged in non-violent civil disobedience, causing to create a new reality and set the stage for political demands to replace laws that institutionalized the old story with laws that institutionalized the new one.

The official Centenary celebration of Kottayam Diocese saw a parallel convergence of the nearly 3000 Knanaya members “living-in-exile” led by organizations called KANA and the Knanaya Catholic Naveekarana Samithi on August 6, 2011. Whether this awakened consciousness will expand among the moderate Kananaits all over and also withstand the political demagoguery of the Kottayam Aramana remains to be seen. It is hoped that organizations like KANA and Knanaya Catholic Naveekarana Samithi will join hands with the other great social movements, and unleash and liberate the mind of an average Kananait to transcend the barriers of race, class, and religion and see themselves and the larger world in a new light.

The recent clamour for extending the jurisdiction of Kottayam Aramana beyond the shores of Kerala, reflects the gnawing insecurity of the old guard, resulting in attempts to recreate the cocoon like environment of Uzhavoor, Neezhoor and Kaipuzha in the pluralistic societies of the Free World. Only time will tell, whether this endeavouring is based on felt needs and not irrational fears or wishful thinking. Meanwhile moderates of all hues, from all over and in all times could draw inspiration from Dalai Lama who says:

It is good for children to learn to love their country, their religion, their culture and so on. But the danger comes when this develops into narrow-minded nationalism, ethnocentricity, and religious bigotry.

The Role of Religion

2011-08-27T09:45:00.002-04:00

Among the various human rights, the right that appears to be much abused is the right to the Freedom of Religion. Equally abused are the rights afforded to the Minorities on grounds of their religious affiliation. It is interesting to note that religious and minority rights are used so interchangeably that all other forms of minority statuses are in fact deliberately ignored and undermined. Take the case of Gays. Though gays are statistically defined as ten percent of any given population, their rights are never viewed as 'rights of a minority'.

The underlying principle in relation to the rights provided to religious minorities is the "Freedom of Thought and Conscience". However, when reviewing the role currently being played by the “religious right” in all Societies (developed and under-developed) it raises the moot question: Do Religions really promote Freedom of Thought and Conscience?

Being raised in the Catholic Church we were taught that ours was the “One True Faith” and everyone else was damned to hell. Really? That was tough to think about, because some non-Catholics and non-Christians I had known seemed like pretty nice folks—well, most of them, anyway.

Tens of millions of Americans are part of a diffuse and unruly movement known as the Christian right. They seek to create a theocratic state based on "biblical law", and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a defiant world to submit before an imperial America. It champions the eradication of social deviants, beginning with homosexuals, and moving on to immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims and those they dismiss as “nominal Christians”—meaning Christians who do not embrace their interpretation of the Bible. Those who defy them are condemned as posing a threat to the health and hygiene of the country and the family. The followers of deviant faiths, from Judaism to Islam, must be converted or repressed. The deviant media, the deviant public schools, the deviant entertainment industry, the deviant secular humanist government and judiciary and the deviant churches are to be reformed or closed.

"God is (only) on our side" nonsense infects pretty much every belief system. Religious extremism is seen in the Islamic world and also back home amongst the Hindutva forces. Those who embrace these movements see life as an epic battle against forces of evil and Satanism. The world is black and white. They need to feel, even if they are not, that they are victims surrounded by dark and sinister groups bent on their destruction. They need to believe they know the will of God and can fulfill it, even through violence. They seek total cultural and political domination. They are using the space within the open society to destroy it. Dalai Lama as a spiritual leader sets an example on true Spiritual leadership when he says:
It is good for children to learn to love their country, their religion, their culture, and so on. But the danger comes when this develops into narrow-minded nationalism, ethnocentricity, and religious bigotry.

Apart from religion being a source of political power for the Clergy and Politicians, it is also a source for profits. Religious occasions—dime a dozen in all societies—help the corporate world. According to one UN study, religion is currently the world’s fourth largest enterprise, after armaments, drugs, and education.

However, religions for the majority believers who are moderate and do not share the frenzy of the bigots; is neither a path to mo¬ral¬ity, nor sub¬sti¬tute for a sci¬en¬tif¬ic un¬der¬stand¬ing of na¬ture. Its chief vir¬tue is being a "coping mechanism" for their trou¬bles. There is however a difference between moderate believers and many within the religious right in how they use their faith as a coping mechanism. In case of the believers on the extreme right, the Scripture as interpreted for them by the Clerics with direct connection to God, cannot be questioned and is their handbook for daily life.

"Don’t simply believe what I say without question, but use it as a basis for personal reflection and, in that way, develop your understanding of the Dharma" - Dalai Lama

The above words of Dalai Lama are a likely slap across the face of his counterparts in other religions, especially Catholicism and Islamism. It flies blatantly in the face of diehard notions like infallibility, blasphemy and heresy. Religions that do not allow its members have the freedom of thought and conscience fail miserably in playing the role of a “coping mechanism”. Unlike the Abrahamic religions that have split hairs on the notion of God, Buddha had said. “The supreme reality is indescribable and unutterable”.

Instead of believing in the God, the Buddhists believe in humanity. They believe that each human being is precious and important and all have a potential to develop into a Buddha - a perfect human being by replacing hatred, anger, spite and jealousy with love, patience, generosity and kindness. Even the Buddha had said, “No one saves us but ourselves”. Instead of teaching its followers what to think, it encourages one to learn how to think. It does not ask people to trust someone else, but invites all to trust themselves. It teaches people to question everything, and to combine head and heart to form a conscious connection to the source of all that is. Among the main goals of Buddhism is getting to know ourselves. To know who we are, we need to understand that we have two natures. Buddhism calls one “ordinary nature” made up of unpleasant feelings such as fear, anger, and jealousy and the other, “true nature; the part of us that is pure, wise, and perfect.

Buddhism being less hierarchical tends to be more spiritual and hence more therapeutic and effective as a “coping mechanism”, where all the mainstream religions fail. The inherent limitation of the mainstream religions is best captured in the following words of Dalai Lama: It is important to recognize that there are two levels of spirituality, one with religious faith, and one without. With the latter, we simply try to be a warm-hearted person.

Give us today our daily bread

2011-06-21T07:09:00.003-04:00

This temporal petition is said innumerable times by billions of believers through the length and breath of the planet over the centuries. Back home, the most tragic face of the agrarian crisis the country is facing are the suicides of over 200,000 farmers over the past decade. If our food producers do not survive, where is the nation's food security?

The Knanaya Community has its roots in the traditional agrarian society of Kerala. Our fore-fathers as recent as 3 decades ago have tilled the land to enhance the food security of our families and the State, before cash-crops like rubber completely took over our lands and our lives.

Globally too, half of the hungry people of the world today are food producers. This is directly related to the capital intensive, chemical intensive, high external input systems of food production introduced as the Green Revolution, and the second Green Revolution. Farmers must get into debt to buy costly inputs, and indebted farmers must sell what they produce to pay back the debt. Hence the paradox and irony of food producers being the highest number of hungry people in India and in the world.

The Government of India is lately committed to enacting a National Food Security Act, because the Right to Food is viewed as the basis for the Right to life guaranteed in the Indian Constitution to all its citizens. However, the government appears to be only focussed on the food grain distribution, and is silent on issues such as grain production, security to farmers, and preventing the diversion of agricultural land, forest and water for corporations. In the near future, food grains are expected to be imported thus benefiting the multinational companies. Efforts are also being made to employ a policy of food stamp or food voucher in place of food grains to the beneficiaries, so the government does not have to procure grains and thus save on the subsidy money.

Environmental activist Vandana Shiva has severely criticized this proposed policy of the Indian Government for its inherent bias in favor of the corporate sector. The assumption is that corporations will control the food supply, and the government will enable the poor to buy from corporations on the basis of food stamps and vouchers. Thus the poor will then be condemned to the least nutritious unhealthy food as has happened in countries like the United States. The wheat imported by India a few years ago, were unfit for human consumption due to contamination by pesticides.

Activists like Vandana Shiva advocate for a Food security system that assures the right to safe, healthy, culturally appropriate and economically affordable food, which Food stamps cannot guarantee. Further, the Public Distribution System is both a food procurement and food distribution system, which the Indian Government appears as keen to dismantle and let go.

The Small Farmers’ Convergence (SFC) at the World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002 in Johannesburg, with farmers from across Africa had rejected genetically modified seeds (GMOs), and chemicals and had committed themselves to organic farming, and defense of farmers’ rights. They are freely choosing seeds they can save and technologies that are sustainable. Farmer’s organizations in India and in Africa are saying “no” to GMOs on the basis of their freedom to choose to be organic, which means being free of genetic contamination that result from genetically modified (GM) crops. Patents and intellectual property rights on seeds rob farmers of their freedom to save and exchange and thus develop their own seeds. Farmers are treated as “thieves” and “criminals” for exercising their rights as farmers. That is why those who farm organically and want to maintain their freedom to farm and uphold farmers’ rights are resisting the irresponsible corporations which are trying to own life on earth, including seed, contaminate crops and food and have total control over farming and farmers. Ironically, the leftist Government in Kerala has very recently decided to shift its stance towards GM crops on grounds that it will be unscientific to oppose the introduction of such seeds into the country, and that they would not harm the environment.

Farmers in Punjab and Andhra Pradesh are committing suicides because the costly seeds and chemicals from corporations like Monsanto/Mahyco have pushed them into deep debts. Bill and Melinda Gates are criticized for launching the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Nairobi, Kenya, which is aggressively pushing genetically modified seeds and the involvement of agribusiness giants such as Monsanto.

Another vital factor for India's food security is water. The monsoons recharge the groundwater and surface-water systems. Since 1966, as a consequence of the introduction of the Green Revolution model of water-intensive chemical farming, India has over-exploited her groundwater, creating a water famine. The chemical monocultures of the Green Revolution use ten times more water than the bio-diverse ecological farming systems. Rubber Plantations as an example of monoculture farming and its adverse impact on the water table is very close to home for the Knanaya Community.

The proverbial last straw is about how speculations by the Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more, have also contributed to the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world. This story appeared in The Independent/UK on July 2, 2010:

At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people - mostly children - couldn't afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions."

Corporations are creating poverty by diverting the hard earned income of peasants and farmers to the seed/pesticide industry. The new seeds besides being costly are also ecologically vulnerable to pests and diseases leading to more crop failures and higher use of chemicals. These are killer technologies which are undesirable and unnecessary.

Though most Kananaits today have moved away from land to other means of livelihood and to the far corners of the globe, we cannot simply turn a blind eye to the plight of food producers back home and globally. Enhancing critical awareness on this grave issue is indeed vital to exercising a positive global citizenship.

Quest for Democracy within families

2011-06-20T17:01:00.000-04:00

President Obama welcomed the relatively peaceful ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by invoking the words of Dr. Martin Luther King:
"There's something in the soul that cries out for freedom. Those were the cries that came from Tahrir Square, and the entire world has taken it up."

Do we hear such cries for freedom from within the confines of the Knanaya families living in Europe and North America? How do we as a community address this ongoing quest for Democracy within our homes? What about the families back home and in the Middle East, who do not have the socio-legal protection available to families in the West?

Whilst joint families in the not so distant past saw a scramble amongst the adult children to curry favour with the Patriarch/Matriarch (who ever holds power), the modern day nuclear families are beset with an ongoing struggle between spouses as well as between parents and children for power and control. When women were confined within homes to be home-makers, they pliantly acceded to their husbands’ last word. This has drastically changed in the past 2-3 decades. Wives also earn an income and are not willing to remain content playing second fiddle to the “Lord-and-Master”.

With no training in the skills of negotiation or in the art of give-and-take, a couple is left with only two options: Husband could either be a dictator or be labelled “hen-pecked”; and wife may choose to be either subservient or be described “as wearing the pants”. There is no third option and hence we have cases of few Knanaya adults (mostly husbands) being criminally charged for assaulting their spouses in UK and North America.

Parallel to the feuding parents, one also comes across a jostle for power and control between parents and children in their terrible T’s- Toddlers and Teenage-hood. Most parents misunderstand the developmental need of their toddlers and teenagers for self-realisation as an act of indiscipline and disrespect, and become heavy-handed in their responses. What could be an excellent opportunity to teach ones child the skill of negotiation becomes instead a pitched battle of wits finally leading to physical sanctions, viz., yelling, slapping, pushing and even shooting as in the recent case of Julie Schenecker in San Francisco, who the police say confessed to killing her two “mouthy” teenagers. On the other end of this spectrum, we see parents who are either divided, or, are mere pushovers; making them incapable of saying a simple “no” to their offspring. They are lacking in intellectual and/or moral capacities to challenge or redirect their children.

Most stories of our families in crises within and outside of Kerala include a lot of ordinary stress and social isolation. In order for any marriage to survive, compatibility has to be achieved in most of its varied and diverse elements that include education, culture, physical appeal, class, maturity, worldviews, ethnicity, so on and so forth. The weightage given to each element should be determined by the individual couples themselves, taking into consideration their personal situations and needs. They may seek the counsel of their friends and family before and during their marriage, but the ultimate decision should rest with them as a couple. However, this is hardly the case for most Knanaya families, due to the dubious claims of ethnic purity resulting in the practice of endogamy. The Knanaya community requires ethnic compatibility to take precedence over all of the other elements required for compatibility in a marriage, thus making it the proverbial spoke-in-the-wheels of holy matrimony.

We hear our clergy waxing eloquently about the virtues of respect within families. How do they actually define and understand this lofty emotion? Does it mean that wife and children should obey the husband and elders unquestioningly? Or, does it require the husband and father to demonstrate willingness, openness and humility to be questioned about their choices and decisions? Should the wife and children be also enabled to develop capacity to ask questions? Given the inherent gender bias of the Church and its belief in infamous doctrines like papal infallibility, its likely response to above questions is anybody’s guess.

In my article, “Making ‘Ahimsa’ a way of life” that appeared in the January 2011 issue of Sneha Sandesham, I had suggested “Assertive Communication” as an essential life-skill to deal with domination, bullying and violence in everyday life. Assertive communication is the ability to communicate without fear and anger. This calls for a positive self-esteem and an absence of irrational anxiety and fears, which likely is a tall order for most of us ridden with the “Catholic Guilt”.

What needs to take place within our families is to replace domination by husband/father with collaborative partnership between spouses, parents and children. Historical revolutions that had toppled unreasonable monarchs and dictators have taught mankind the fact that power is never handed over willingly, and that it is snatched through force and violence. However the people of Egypt have reminded the World that there is power in assertion, that it is possible to correct the imbalance of power without resorting to violence.

Apart from redefining ‘respect’, we as a community also need to redefine the much abused term ‘leadership’, which was powerfully role-modelled by Christ as he washed the feet of his disciples. Could we take a moment to ponder about how and when we had missed valuable opportunities for leadership within our families, by demonstrating willingness and capacity to place the needs of those dependent upon us before that of our own?

The potential of Ahimsa

2010-07-16T16:16:00.000-04:00

The Modern World witnessed the use of non-violence as a strategy for Social Justice by Gandhi and King (Jr). They were successful at kicking the British out of India, and gaining civil rights for blacks in the United States. However, did these non-violent movements succeed in fundamentally changing the distribution of resources or wealth in these societies? Has political freedom gone hand-in-hand with economic freedom of the oppressed??

Both Gandhi and King had undeniably fought for radical economic change, but their lives were cut short before their full vision could be realized.

Gandhi famously called poverty “the worst form of violence,” and advocated for economic self-sufficiency. He is among the few in the recorded history for having struggled to practice what he preached, by spinning his own clothes and living a life of material simplicity.

After Gandhi’s assassination, the world’s largest democracy has whole-heartedly embraced capitalism, forcing two-thirds of India’s population to now survive on $2 or less a day. Though the civil rights movement in US succeeded in earning the right to vote in the 1960s, the racial economic divide in the United States has barely shifted.

Naomi Klein in her book “The Shock Doctrine” has documented in extensive detail how leaders of other nonviolent movements had sold out as they gained power during the transition to democracy in their countries. She gave the example of the Solidarity movement that Lech Walesa led in Poland that abandoned its progressive economic program of worker ownership, and enacted economist Jeffrey Sachs’ neo-liberal recommendations: eliminating price controls, slashing subsidies, and selling off state mines, shipyards and factories to the private sector. As a result, the percentage of population living below the poverty line in Poland increased from 15 percent to 59 percent in 2003.

Another example cited by Klein is the story unfolding in South Africa, where the African National Congress (ANC) had advocated for radical economic change, including the nationalization of the country’s wealth and industry, as well as protecting the right to work and to decent housing. Since Nelson Mandela assumed the presidency, banks, mines, and monopoly industry that Mandela had pledged to nationalize, remained firmly in the hands of the same four white-owned mega-conglomerates that also control 80 percent of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. In 2005, only 4 percent of the companies listed on the exchange were owned or controlled by blacks. Seventy percent of South Africa’s land, in 2006, was still monopolized by whites, who are just 10 percent of the population. The most striking statistic is the fact since the year Mandela left prison, the average life expectancy for South Africans have dropped by thirteen years.

There is no denying the fact that in all of these cases and many more, ordinary people employing nonviolent techniques were able to win substantial political freedoms and rights that have unquestioningly made their lives, and those of millions of others, better. However, the economic elite that controlled the country before the nonviolent movement gained power, continues to do so afterwards, and the plight of those at the bottom have in many cases exacerbated.

History so far has demonstrated that attaining real economic justice is a far more elusive goal than nonviolently bringing down a dictator. We need to acknowledge this fact about the failure of the non-violent transitions to democracy till date to democratize wealth, in order to stop such scenarios from playing out again in the future. It calls for a clear distinction to be made between the political and economic outcomes and those responsible for undermining political as well as economic justice. They are not usually one and the same.

The state of Kerala: some reflections...

2010-06-27T07:33:00.003-04:00

I view Kerala as among the most politicised societies in the world. Kerala had earned the distinction of fostering the World’s first democratically elected communist government. Does that explain why its trade union movement turned out to be so irresponsible and unreasonable? Going on strikes at the drop-of-a-hat are next to impossible in most communist regimes, because they do not have the extent of democracy that Indian constitution provides. I am always surprised by the fact that even at the high schools (or middle schools?!), there is a tacit involvement of political parties in grooming their future cadres, through the help of teachers who are active party card-holders. In rest of the world, political participation usually begins at the university level. In the case of Kerala, at colleges and Universities one even comes across lecturers and professors (not sure of the Principals) openly touting their party affiliations.

Another important distinction of Kerala is the active political participation of its religious minorities. Muslims and Syrian Christians have their own political parties, thus giving every issue in the State a religious overtone. The pulpits end up as the election campaign platforms as-and-when-needed.

So what we see in Kerala is an overdose of politicisation, which has the unfortunate outcome of people having a much skewed political awareness leaning towards rights, and conveniently ignoring the obligations that go hand-in-hand. Despite the presence of dime-a-dozen Godmen and Godwomen in Kerala, ones innate sense of right and wrong is sacrificed at the altars of the self-serving agenda of ones kin, class, caste, or religious group.

Perhaps, there-in lies the problem…we have thrown the proverbial baby (ideals of justice and fairness) with the bathwater (the migration of its literate and skilled human potential). What's left behind is anybody’s guess!?!

Family Values being narrowly defined

2010-06-19T09:06:00.000-04:00

Closing arguments were heard on June 16, 2010 (Wednesday) in a U.S. federal appeals court in San Francisco in a landmark challenge of California's ban on same-sex marriage. The supporters of existing ban on same-sex marriage described matrimony as an institution intended to promote childbearing and opponents saying the U.S. Supreme Court had recognized it as a fundamental right.

The modern world today is divided between moral, family-loving believers on the one side and supposedly permissive, corrupt, family-destroying secularists on the other. The claim that support for gay rights and gay marriage is synonymous with opposition to family values and sexual responsibility is idiocy, to say the least.

The self-righteous religious conservatives refuse to acknowledge that the pressures endangering the family do not come from some dark-secular-leftist conspiracy, but from cultural and economic forces that affect us all. People are encouraged to put all sorts of things (career advancement, wealth, fame, the accumulation of things, various forms of self-indulgence) ahead of being good parents and spouses. Our workplaces are not as family-friendly as they could be.

Devotion to family values has nothing to do with ideology. The secular and liberal-minded parents do crowd school meetings, flock to their kids’ sporting events, help them with homework and teach them right from wrong on the basis of values. They do not differ much from parents who are active in their religious congregations, and take their family responsibilities as seriously as the believers do.

And those of us who are liberal would insist that our support for the rights of gays and lesbians grows from our sense of what family values demand. How can being pro-family possibly mean holding in contempt our homosexual relatives, neighbors and friends? How much sense does it make to preach fidelity and commitment and then deny marriage to those whose sexual orientation is different from our own? Rights for gays and lesbians don’t wreck heterosexual families. Heterosexuals are doing a fine job of this on their own.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

The meek SHOULD inherit the Earth

2010-06-05T10:58:00.000-04:00

On April 20, 2010 Bolivian President Evo Morales launched the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, welcoming over 10,000 people from 135 countries, to what he declared to be an alternative to the United Nations climate talks. This World People’s Conference on Climate Change held at Cochabamba in Bolivia was an experiment in replacing the less-than-democratic UN process, with one that invites public participation.

One of the greatest obstacles to fighting climate change is the culture of ignorance and denial surrounding the science of global warming in amongst the conservative and the elites. Statistical analysis of October 2009 from Pew Research Center for United States revealed that certain demographic groups are systematically more likely to reject the consensus that global warming is real. These groups include: older Americans (as compared to the young), Republicans and Conservatives (as compared to Democrats and Liberals), whites as compared to non-whites, men as compared to women, born again Christians, and the wealthy. Most of these variables have one major attribute in common: privilege.

In general, privileged individuals are more likely to be ignorant about the dangers of global warming than those who are less privileged. This shouldn't be all that surprising, given the fact that world’s economic and political elites have benefitted from an unsustainable economic system for decades; a system that allows the degradation of natural environment in the pursuit of profit and greed. The elites reflect the attitude that believes that everything will sort itself in the end, while they will continue remaining at the top of the heap. As for the poor and downtrodden they are destined to anyway suffer and wither, no matter what the outcome is due to climate change.

The rush of global environmental changes is occurring at ever faster (much faster than predicted) rates and governments put forth mild platitudes acknowledging that there is a problem of some kind. They make weak futuristic recommendations to merely pacify the scientists and concerned public. However, things are already starting to look bleak for the poorest of the poor on the planet. Rich nations and poor nations look at long-term challenges of the environment differently. Today, while rich and emerging nations (including India) are basically concerned with their respective ways of life and ongoing competition for global economic and political power, some poor nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia with growing populations and scarce resources are struggling to provide citizens with the means to meet basic human needs, such as water, food, and shelter.

The Copenhagen summit had produced new visions and solidarities among the powerless nations. They include Sub-Saharan Africa and small island nations in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, some of which are only two meters above sea level at their highest point and thus most vulnerable. These are places where millions live on the edge, directly impacted by climate change, dealing with the effects from cyclones and droughts to erosion and floods. Tuvalu (near Fiji), Maldives and other island nations, for example, are concerned that rising sea levels will wipe their countries off the map. They have been vocal in asking for early action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as well as halt deforestation and the destruction of the Earth. Theirs is a small but righteous voices speaking on behalf of the planet that is home to us all.

Today pastoralists in arid regions face drought, desertification, and disruptions in water supplies because worldwide rainfall is shifting away from the equator towards the poles, warming the Polar Regions. Canadians benefit the most from this trend. Thus it is widely believed that the first victims of the change in global rainfall patterns will not be people from rich, polluting nations who engage in ruinous consumption, but pastoralists and fishing communities who exist precariously at the southern hemisphere. The sad reality today is that our consumerist society has blinded the world’s privileged elites to the dangers that their actions pose to humankind. Equally problematic is the political lobby (a` la Tea Party activism) that's dedicated to questioning the scientific consensus on global warming.

Indian scientist and activist Vandana Shiva was among those who addressed the climate justice rally of 100,000 in Copenhagen last December. She was asked to respond to the position of Obama administration that US is willing to pay its fair share, but that donors “don’t have unlimited largesse to disburse.” Shiva responded, “I think it’s time for the U.S. to stop seeing itself as a donor and recognize itself as a polluter, a polluter who must pay. ... This is not about charity. This is about justice.”

How does one challenge the climate change deniers? According to the Pew data, increased education plays a major role in decreasing public ignorance about global warming. Progressive and liberal-minded forces share a major responsibility for educating fellow citizens about the scientific consensus on climate change. While conservative radio, T.V., and think tanks may enjoy a privileged economic position in the mass media, progressives can take advantage of their power in numbers, in addition to the support of the scientific community, in challenging global warming distortions.

I hope that the Knanaya community spread around the globe, doing reasonably well economically, will hopefully take this global challenge personally and seriously. We should take a moment to ponder as to what Christ would have had to say on this issue. If he had attended the Copenhagen summit held last December; he would likely have reenacted his famous Temple scene of lashing out at the profit-mongers. He would have unequivocally rebuked the Wealthy Nations for their militarily oriented and consumptive egoistical life styles. He would have extended his hands of solidarity to the poor nations of Sub-Saharan Africa and the small island nations and declared: “Blessed are the meek and humble…”

The world of Theopolitics

2010-05-05T15:33:00.000-04:00

The term ‘Theopolitics’ implies that theology and politics are closely intertwined, in contrast to the legal and political doctrine that promotes ‘Separation of the Church and State’. Theopolitics could at best be viewed as a continuum or a spectrum that upholds an exclusionary value system at one end, and strives to be very inclusive at the other. If one clubs together historical Jesus and MK Gandhi on one end (say the left end) of this continuum, the other end would most likely see the Popes, Ayatollahs and heads of other organized religions (past, present and future). The difference between these two extreme ends is obvious, in the sense that whilst the left-end represents the use of theology to provide justice to the victimized and marginalized, the right-end is all about the use of theology by various religious heads for consolidation and perpetuation of their own power base.

MK Gandhi known for his nation-wide campaign to ease poverty, expand women's rights, end untouchability, et al., affirms in the conclusion of his autobiography:

My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth… my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without
the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that
religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.

Raja Rammohan Roy a great admirer of Jesus (like MK Gandhi) once said:

The consequences of my long and uninterrupted researches into religious truth
has been that I have found the doctrine of Christ more conducive to moral
principles, and better adapted for the use of rational beings, than any other
which have come to my knowledge.

Liberation theologians believe that the conservative doctrine of God tends to manipulate God in favor of the capitalistic social structure. The conservative notion of God is that of a static being who is distant and remote from human history: a God who is "up there" or "out there." According to Gustavo Gutierrez, a leading proponent of Liberation Theology, God is found in the course of human history. God is not a perfect, immutable entity, "squatting outside the world." God is the driving force of history causing the Christian to experience transcendence as a "permanent cultural revolution". This form of theology has a strong following in Latin America. A Keralite Jesuit Sebastian Kappen is one notable liberation theologian who authored, “Jesus and Freedom” in late 1970s. The present Pope has been the strongest critic of this theology and has been instrumental in silencing scores of the Liberation theologians.

The proponents of liberation theology, Gandhi and Raja Rammohan Roy are inspired by the “historical” Jesus viewed as a revolutionary and liberator of the marginalized and exploited, who inspires us to be rational and just. They are least concerned with the "divinity" aspect of Jesus’ personhood: that he was the Son of God, born of Virgin Mary, resurrected from the dead, so on and so forth.

On the right-end of this continuum of Theopolitics, is the struggle against modernity by fundamentalists (including biblical literalists) with their exclusionary doctrine. They have simply appropriated the scriptures by reading them as injunctions for the destruction of their political enemies. Catholic Church and the evangelicals who previously fought the cold war against atheistic Communists have turned their wrath on "godless" Democrats, feminists, humanists, and New Age religions (Gnostics in the past and environmentalists in the present). Divisions between and within religious sects often centre on issues of sexuality and gender roles.

This being the season of Advent, it would be a fitting tribute to our great teacher (the historical Jesus) to take a critical look at some of the positions taken by his Church, in relation to the marginalised groups like women and gays. Some examples of the bizarre positions taken by the Catholic Church and others include arguments against women's access to information (sex education) and reproductive control under the pretense of "protecting" females. Tele-evangelist Rev. Jimmy Swaggart declared, "Sex education classes in our public schools are promoting incest”. The present Pope has even suggested that birth control "causes promiscuity" (like umbrellas cause rain!). Are you aware of the fact that Vatican enthusiastically endorsed Viagra for men yet vigorously opposes contraceptives for women??!!

The commonality between Jesus, Gandhi and Raja Rammohan Roy is their core spirituality and their rejection of the oppressive practices promoted by their religious fanatics and clerics. We often confuse between spirituality and religiosity. The clergy and the bigots systematically exploit this confusion to perpetuate their control over our minds. It is said that whilst twentieth century was about the mankind exploring outer-space, the twenty-first century will see mankind exploring his inner-space, i.e., finding the truth or God within oneself. It therefore helps to reflect upon the fine distinction between external, religion-based beliefs (best epitomized by Catholicism) and internally focused, spiritual awareness (that Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi have likely experienced).

Whilst religion teaches its followers what to think, spirituality encourages people to learn how to think. Religion asks people to trust someone else, and, spirituality invites all to trust themselves. Religions are led by other people’s ideas, but spirituality is led on guidance from within. Religion teaches believers never to question authority, whereas spirituality teaches people to question everything. Religion most often tends to be mindless. It teaches people to follow the rules and rituals and never ask why. On the other hand, spirituality combines head and heart to form a conscious connection to the source of all that is. Most importantly, religions teach their followers that they can connect to God only by joining the church and by following the rules that are defined and laid down by the church elders. Spirituality on the other hand, acknowledges that every human being has his or her own direct connection to God by way of the ‘true self’ within (See Matthew 6:5-6 and Luke 17:21). Religion teaches its followers that personal behavior is dictated by church rules, whereas spirituality teaches that personal behavior is a function of knowing in one's own heart what’s right and wrong and then following that inner guidance. Last but least, religion is afraid of challenges that threaten its existence, but spirituality welcomes challenges as food for growth and as tools with which to become stronger.

Lastly, a quick introspection: Where does the Knanaya leadership (with its inalienable Christian roots) place itself in this so-called spectrum of Theopolitics? Being placed on the left-end in the company of historical Jesus and Gandhi calls for a healthy dose of humility, humanness and courage. Are we taking small steps in that direction, or, are we several light years away…??!!

Is Democracy just a mirage?

2010-05-05T15:20:00.000-04:00

Last year a friend had forwarded me the following news of September 29, 2009 from Geneva reported in the English Internet edition of Kerala Kaumudi:
The United Nations Human Rights Council, meeting in Geneva, is expected to ratify draft principles, which will recognize India's caste system as a human rights abuse. The UN will condemn the persecution suffered by 65 million 'untouchables' or 'Dalits' who carry out the most menial and degrading work. The UN draft, which has been opposed by India, pledges to work for the "effective elimination of discrimination based on work and descent". The Indian government had lobbied heavily for the Human Rights Council to remove the word 'caste' from a draft earlier this year. India's opposition was undermined however by Nepal, the former Hindu Kingdom, which has supported the move. Its foreign minister Jeet Bahadur Darjee Gautam said Nepal welcomes UN and international support for its attempts to tackle caste discrimination.
My initial reaction was that of surprise, because ‘untouchability’ has already been abolished under the Indian Constitution, and failed to understand the rationale of the Indian Government to oppose the UN initiative . But the story of Dalits in the Uthapuram village of Madurai district in Tamil Nadu quite eloquently explains the inherent contradictions of the world’s largest democracy. In Uthapuram village, for the last two decades a ten foot high wall segregated the upper-castes from the Dalits. This wall was built to deny access to Dalits of Uthapuram to public places and facilities frequented by the upper-castes on the other side. At one point, even a live electric wire was attached to some iron scaffoldings in the wall to deter any attempt to scale the wall. This fact was brought to the Public Attention by the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Elimination Forum (TNUEF).

Over the period matters came to a head, and to the credit of the CPI(M), the Karunanidhi government succeeded in demolishing some 150 ft. of the wall in April, 2008. It is interesting that Tamil Nadu is governed by a largely OBC-led formation (intermediate social castes) who vanquished the caste oppression of the Tamil Brahmins during the social reform agitations led by Periyar and Annadurai (mentors of the current leadership). Yet those who fought and defeated Brahminism seem quite lukewarm in defeating the caste oppression of the Pillai OBCs in Uthapuram against the fellow dalits.

A glance into the history of Indian National Congress will help understand the inherent contradiction within India’s ruling establishment. The inception of the Congress party in 1885 was accompanied by the establishment of the "Social Conference", but political reform was always given precedence over social reform. Here is what W.C.Bonnerjee had to say in 1892 at the 8th session of the Congress:

I for one have no patience with those who say we shall not be fit for political reform until we reform our social system. I fail to see any connection between the two. That by and large had remained the position of the Congress on the issue, until Gandhi was pressured by the Ambedkarite movement in the 1930s to launch his movement for the eradication of untouchability.

The irony of the modern-day state formation anywhere and anytime is that it tends to be accompanied by the desire of the dominant to hold the balance of class/caste forces in an equilibrium that best suits them. This is best described by Lassalle in 1862 to a Prussian audience:

The Constitutional questions are in the first instance not questions of right
but questions of might. The actual constitution of a country has its existence
only in the actual condition of force which exists in the country; hence
political constitutions have value and permanence only when they accurately
express those conditions of force which exist in practice within a society. The
Dalits in Uthapuram and rest of the country need to be made aware of the fact
that in order for a shakeup of the India’s political arrangement, India's social
reform movement need to acquire a clout forceful enough to make a dent on that
arrangement. And, however difficult is the task, democracy tends to carry within
it the logic that allows the downtrodden to harbour the hope of achieving that
shakeup.

If we shift attention from World’s largest Democracy to World’s most powerful Democracy, the scenario is far from encouraging. Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, echoes the feelings of many progressives in his recent writings in The New York Times. He is dismayed over the success of right-wing ideologues in undercutting Obama's health care bill, and in mobilizing enormous public support against almost any reform aimed at rolling back the economic, political, and social conditions that have created the economic recession and the legacy of enormous suffering and hardship for millions of Americans over the last 30 years.

Arundhati Roy the famous activist and author in her scathing criticism of the current Indian Military occupation of Kashmir raises some valid questions about democracy in general:

Is there a life after Democracy? What have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been
hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions
has metastasized into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and
the free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin,
constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of
maximizing profit?

We need today leaders like Gandhi with a long-term vision for the sake of the survival of this planet. The present day democratic governments for their sheer survival are dependant on immediate, extractive and short-term gains. The democracy today tends to only respond to our short-term hopes and prayers, protect our individual freedoms and nurture our greed by endangering the survival of the human race? The fact is that democracy is a big hit with modern humans precisely because it reflects our nearsightedness.

One sincerely hopes that conferring of the Nobel Peace prize to Obama will enable the average Americans reject the deceptions and lies of the zombie market politics. The zombie market politics from the Reagan days is seeking to reject the public option in Obama's health plan, fighting efforts to strengthen bank regulations, resisting caps on CEO bonuses, preventing climate-control legislation, and refusing to limit military spending. Time is indeed running out as leaders of the world's governments move toward the Dec. 7-18 international meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark to try coming up with a stronger climate treaty than the Kyoto Protocol. As I write, things do not look good at all.

Is Socialism a dirty word?

2010-05-05T15:19:00.002-04:00

The election of Barack Obama has raised hopes in terms of giving the much-needed leadership at a global level, in dealing with the three major crises that the world faces today. These crises are closely intertwined. The first crisis is the crisis of poverty and inequality, which is an unnecessary crisis. The second crisis is the financial crisis, which is causing markets to go up and down, but mostly down. Governments are finding overnight hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the banks for their stupid and greedy behavior. The third crisis is the most serious, and most urgent of all: the environmental crisis of global warming, of climate change, of the destruction of biodiversity. This is happening much faster than most scientists and governments believed are possible.

Obama’s policies have been decried by his detractors as “Socialistic… spreading the wealth around”. This is reminiscent of the Church in Kerala, which dismisses its critics as “communists and atheists”. Being essentially left leaning, I must honestly confess that I find this simplistic labelling quite irksome, causing me to wonder, “So what?” This article is an attempt at dispassionately reviewing ‘Socialism’ in the way that it has evolved and is perceived.

According to the political theorist Michael Albert, socialism could be viewed from three distinct perspectives:
1. Socialism as an economic system, which suggests state ownership of the means of production and market leading to central planning;
2. Socialism as a collaboration between producers and consumers to self-manage economic outcomes and enjoy equitable remuneration not affected by property ownership, power, or any other social or personal advantage such as racism, sexism, etc;
3. Socialism referring to a much desired society, beyond just the economic realm, and taking into account new gender, cultural, and other relations in the larger society.

Within the perspective of Socialism as an economic system, the elites in the central planning system of the Socialist economy are quite alike to the privileged ruling class who own the means of production under capitalism. They had degenerated into a new class system by monopolizing the conditions of work, and retaining collective control over how all work is conducted, what its outputs are, and who receives its bounty. Hence, under Socialism as an economic model, the elevation of those who coordinate and manage (the economy's planners and managers) into the ruling status, leaves the working class (who are busy doing routine and disempowering labor) subordinate to a new boss: not the same as the old boss, but certainly much like the old boss.

This brand of Socialism ought to be rejected, not because of the Cold War militaristic competition and internal political dictatorship, and corruption that led to the crumbling of Soviet economy. It should be rejected because it is not and never has been compatible with the greatest fulfillment and development of an economy's producers and consumers. What's wrong with this brand of Socialism is that even at its best it is an authoritarian system with economic class rule of the few over the many. It cannot optimally advance desirable values and aims that we aspire to. The conservative and right wing forces allude to this version of Socialism, in order to distract the debates on vital issues like healthcare reforms in US, climate change, etc.

The view of Socialism as a collaboration between producers and consumers is often argued as being simply impossible, and that trying to attain it is more of a pipe-dream. Looking back in history, one could have come across people who made similar arguments about slavery, child labor, overwhelming illiteracy, average life spans in the 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s, and also about dictatorships. These oponents are also the ones who greedily benefit from such beliefs and hence make loud pronouncements against the potential for economic institutions to empower workers and consumers to impact decisions proportionately as they are affected by them.

Michael Albert and his colleague Robin Hahnel have proposed an economic model called “Participatory Economics” as an alternative to contemporary capitalist market economies and also an alternative to centrally planned socialism. It uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the production, consumption and allocation of resources in a given society.

Participatory economics according to its protagonists is built on a few centrally defining institutions: democratic self-managing workers and consumers councils and federations of councils (instead of autocratic corporate hierarchies), remuneration according to effort and sacrifice (instead of remuneration according to property, power, or even output), balanced job complexes that equally empower all workers in their economic activities (instead of an unfair division of labor that leads to a monopoly of information, knowledge, and access to decision-making being vested with the elites), and participatory planning (instead of markets or central planning).

We also come across folks who use the word socialism to refer to a whole better society through safeguarding and promotion of gender-equality and rights of minorities that include gays and immigrants. This view of socialism is least compatible with a Socialist economic system based on centralised planning and control giving rise to political dictatorship, continuing patriarchy, and cultural homogenization. Stalinism could never address issues of sexism, heterosexism, racism, national oppression, and empowerment of people.

There are a large number of people who view a participatory society as a desirable model and vision for the future. They have a vision similar to that of MK Gandhi about self-managed and self-reliant communities (Gram-swarajya), with nested councils that allows for decision-making power and responsibility to reside at the ‘bottom' rather than the hierarchical structure that we presently endure where power and decisions are concentrated at the ‘top'. This is of course antithetical to the ‘trickle-down theory ‘of the Republicans and Conservative parties that provide tax breaks to the businesses and rich citizens.

Kerala today is known globally for its decentralized governing and participatory democracy and the credit goes to the left-front led “Peoples Planning Campaign” in 1996. Even though the left parties were routed in the 2009 Indian elections, there is no denying the fact that the” Left agenda” has not only won the Congress its impressive numbers, it is also seen by the party today to guarantee both its own further successes as well as a just pattern of "development" in the long term.

Participatory society as a societal model is capable of accommodating a positive feminist vision, a political vision that achieves true democracy, and, a cultural vision that yields a non-racist society.

The Scourge of Conservatism

2010-05-05T15:19:00.001-04:00

Our planet is headed towards an ecological catastrophe. The delicate balance of the earth’s small and fragile biosphere, which makes it a home to millions of species and subspecies of animals and plants both aquatic and terrestrial, is dangerously threatened. All ecosystems around the world and their life supporting and generating structures: atmosphere, water, soil, and species are under severe stress.

A capitalist economy based on constant, unlimited growth is a reckless fantasy because ecosystems are not limitless. There are just so many pollinators, so many aquifers, so much fertile soil. In nature, unchecked rapid growth is the ideology of the invasive species and the cancer cell. Growth as an end in itself is ultimately self-destructive. A (globally warming) rising sea may lift all boats, as capitalists like to point out, but it may also inundate the coastline and drown the people living there. Bush Administration and Conservative governments in Canada and Australia had then rejected the Kyoto accord.

In today’s context, the opening words of Late Pope John Paul II on January 1, 1990 for the World Day of Peace is indeed moot:
In our day, there is a growing awareness that world peace is threatened not only by the arms race, regional conflicts and continued injustices among peoples and nations, but also by a lack of due respect for nature, by the plundering of natural resources and by a progressive decline in the quality of life.
The million-dollar question that comes to one’s mind is, what has the Vatican done to curb the forces that plunder the natural resources for greed and profit? The Vatican and the United States were close allies during the Cold War era. Republican President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II had campaigned shoulder to shoulder to oppose Soviet communism, especially in the pontiff's homeland of Poland, and to combat abortion.

Apart from the profiteering and greed of the capitalist world, the rapid increase of human population is also a major cause for the current ecological crises in terms of thinning ozone, global warming, over-fishing, water shortages, and peak oil. The UN strategy during the 1990s to tackle the population problem by providing women in developing countries with better access to contraception, health care and schooling, had unleashed a bitter war of words, pitting the Vatican against the United Nations and Islamic fundamentalists against the secular West. Pope John Paul II and senior Catholic officials around the world had orchestrated an all-out assault, accusing the United Nations of conspiring to sanction abortion as a means of family planning in the developing world.

While the steep rise in the world's population in the last half of the 20th century had brought calls for zero, or even negative, population growth, many conservative economists insist that there is no crisis over the Earth's ability to support the expected increase. They like to believe science will find ways to solve all problems created by rampant human population growth. Food shortages? Science will find ways to make food out of bacteria. Energy shortages? Science will find ways to turn air into energy. Water shortages? Science will find economical ways to make ocean water potable. As for crowded slums and food shortages in the developing world, they point out that couples tend to have fewer children as their incomes rise.

The conservative economists insist that the UN should concentrate on restructuring developing countries along free-market lines rather than spending money on family planning and health services. But while the general optimism of the conservatives is comforting, it conflicts with the rough consensus emerging among most demographers, scientists and policy analysts involved in population and resource research. Their view is that a high percentage of the planet's peoples are doomed to live with poverty and violence unless population growth is dramatically reduced. They say, the Earth's biosphere can only produce enough renewable resources, food, fresh water and fish; to sustain two billion people at a standard of living equal to that in Europe.

Alongside the debate on Population control, the tussle between the conservative and liberal forces continue unabated on matters including the end-of-life care and choices, abortion, the use of contraceptives (e.g. condoms), and homosexuality. Pope John Paul II drew criticism for refusing to moderate the Catholic Church's anti-condom stance in the face of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Talking about human rights without promoting reproductive rights of women is empty rhetoric.

The Vatican (including the US Evangelicals/ Republicans) finds itself ironically allied with fundamentalist Islamist nations in its push to restrict abortion, and the rights of women to control their health. At the level of WHO, Vatican (and US Republicans) again find themselves in line with the Islamist fundamentalist states in its support of motions that would restrict global education about human sexuality, birth control and abortion.

Conservatism today broadly includes religious entities and political parties: Vatican, Taliban, Republican Party, and Conservative Party in Britain, the Liberal Party of Australia, BJP, RSS, et al. Even though most of them may appear to be at loggerheads with each other, they are also occassional allies for short-term political/survival reasons. Recently, Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State did acknowledge that the Regan Adminstration had fostered the Taliban against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. A cursory historical overview on the emancipation of women in Afghanistan reveals that they had enjoyed a brief window of reprieve in their condition, during the leftist rule by Nur Mohammed Tarriki (1978-79) with Soviet assistance. This was then undermined by the US and its allies as part of their strategy to weaken the Soviets/communism.

It helps to understand the psychology behind a conservative mindset. Research studies have indicated that death-anxiety, intolerance of ambiguity, lack of openness to experience, uncertainty avoidance, need for cognitive closure, need for personal structure, and threat of loss of position or self-esteem all contribute to the degree of one's political conservatism. The researchers suggest that political conservatives are resistant to change, justify inequality, and are motivated by reducing threats and uncertainty.

No wonder John Stuart Mill (philosopher, economist and senior official in the British-Raj) had said, "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."

Being Human versus being Moralistic

2010-05-05T15:15:00.000-04:00

The volatile debates between conservatives and the liberals on moral issues like abortion, homo-sexuality, contraceptives and euthanasia makes one wonder as to what motivates these two sparring factions at their core. By conservatives and liberals, I am not limiting it to the political parties that one comes across in Canada, Britain and other nations. It also includes the average citizenry: ‘you-and-I’. These debates have even led to violent reactions from those that felt most threatened. Abortionist Dr. George Tiller is among the recent victims shot dead in US by the abortion foes. The clash between conservative and liberal worldviews had existed since the dawn of human history (a` la clash between good and evil). Historical figures like Christ, Gandhi, and King (Jr) had their share of tribulations and also faced death for opposing the moral custodians of their times.

This article is an attempt to tease-out the core value that separates the liberal and conservative worldviews to enable us make right choices.

The arguments of Pro-life and Pro-choice proponents in the present American context had been quite succinctly summed up by the womenissues.about.com as “Ten Arguments for Abortion and against Abortion”. Please click on the link below should you wish to read them:
http://womensissues.about.com/od/reproductiverights/a/AbortionArgumen.htm

What one could surmise from the above is that whilst the proponents of Pro-life declare abortion under any circumstance as wrong, the Pro-choice stance reflects sensitivity and cognizance of the unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances that lead to unwanted pregnancies.

The thorny issue of abortion in the United States of America had also spilled over to the health-care reform debate, when the US Bishops strong-armed Speaker Nancy Pelosi to creating the Stupak amendment to health-care reform bill. This amendment prohibits use of Federal funds "to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion" except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother.

Closely linked to the issue of abortion is the moral issue of contraceptives. While Conservatives have sought to push the idea of natural methods for family planning such as abstinence and awareness of periods of fertility, liberals view contraceptives as simply being realistic about sex. The statistic that nearly 70 percent of Catholics use a method of family planning banned by the Roman Catholic Church alludes to this fact. Further, contraceptives have been around for as long as humans have recorded history, and so the advances in contraceptive technology with the invention of the condom and oral contraceptives should be considered as just advances- nothing more, nothing less.

Those opposed to abortion are also logically opposed to Euthanasia on the sole ground that it is a rejection of the importance and value of human life. However, they show very scant regard for this principle when it comes to denying the Gays their basic human rights, especially that of fulfilling their very basic need (and not mere want) for adult love and companionship. The refusal of heterosexual majority to accept the homosexual minority as equals, have prompted young gays and lesbians to choose suicide over a second-class adult existence until a few years ago.
The opponents to same-sex marriage declare that the institution of marriage is meant for the sole purpose of procreation. They greatly fear that legalizing gay marriage would be a step towards promoting the degradation of human unions, and promiscuity among gay men and lesbian women. The proponents of gay marriage have in turn, categorically challenged this argument against gay marriage. They argue that sterile heterosexuals, those who have no wish to have children, post-menopausal women and all heterosexual couples who cannot prove their absolute fidelity should also be denied their right to marry.

The conservatives have been successful at insinuating the notion that homosexuality is a lifestyle chosen by those who are rebellious and abnormal in their thinking and beliefs. The fact of the matter is, Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder until the 1970s and discontinued by the American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association. Studies on hormones, point to a likelihood of exposure to the fetus during second to fifth month after conception, to hormone levels characteristic to females causing the individual (male or female) to become attracted to males. As a result sexual orientation is almost impossible to modify, that it is not a free choice, but instead; they are actually born to be gay.

Having analyzed the arguments of the liberals and conservatives on some of the hot-button issues of today, it’s helpful to delve into the inherent attributes that make liberals different from the conservatives.

Recently I had come across a remarkable article by Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham (2006): “When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives Have Moral Intuitions That Liberals May Not Recognize.” Their approach is especially fascinating in its description of the moral differences between conservatives and liberals. According to Haidt, the moot question is not as to which group is more moral. Both groups strive to be moral, but the difference is in the way that they characterize morality. For conservatives, morality is a composite of five measures that are each taken seriously:
1. Harm/care: Human beings react to the suffering of other humans, whether child or adult, whether biologically related or not. Humans feel compassion when they see other humans suffer and they are disturbed by cruelty and harm.
2. Fairness/reciprocity: Humans, like many other primate species, readily form alliances. This tendency “has led to the evolution of a suite of emotions that motivate reciprocal altruism, including anger, guilt and gratitude.” As a result of these emotions, “all cultures have developed virtues related to fairness and justice.” Haidt points out, however, that the almost universal tendency of cultures to value reciprocity does not necessarily lead to a belief of individual rights, equal distribution of resources or equal status.
3. Ingroup/loyalty: Human animals have developed strong emotions “related to recognizing, trusting and cooperating with members of one’s co-residing ingroup, while being wary and distrustful of members of other groups.” As a result, many cultures have valued loyalty, patriotism and heroism. Cultures are thus commonly suspicious of diversity. Further, a member’s willingness to criticize his or her own ingroup is seen as betrayal or treason.
4. Authority/respect: In many primate species, most members react to the physical force and fear displayed by those in leadership positions. For humans, “the picture is more nuanced, relying largely on prestige and voluntary deference.” Many societies have thus come to value “virtues related to subordination: respect, duty and obedience.”
5. Purity/sanctity: In most human societies, disgust has become a social emotion as well as a physical reaction. In these cultures, “disgust goes beyond such contaminant-related issues and supports a set of virtues and vices linked to bodily activities in general and religious activities in particular”. Thus, those who are ruled by “carnal passions” are seen as corrupt or impure compared to those who are spiritual or sanctified.
According to Haidth, morality for the conservatives will necessarily include all of the above five measures. However, for liberals their moral domain consists primarily of the first two of these five measures; the other three would tend to fly under the liberal radar. Liberals base their moral systems primarily upon the first two of the five foundations (harm/care and fairness/reciprocity). To the extent that something does not fall within these two categories, it simply is not a moral issue in the eyes of liberals. Conservatives disagree intensely. For a conservative, it matters greatly (in a moral sense) whether an act or omission offends one’s conceptions of proper ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect or purity/sanctity. For liberals, these three measures, though they might be of Machiavellian interest, are simply not matters of morality.

All said, the contemporary ‘culture war’ between conservatives and the liberals may well be simplistically depicted as a continuum, that has liberals at its one end upholding humanism as their sole ideal, while their adversaries situated at the other end take the more righteous and moralistic stance.

Finally, the moment of introspection: Where does the mainstream Knanaya community wish to place itself in this contemporary moral-divide? Is the cue concealed in the response of our great teacher (historical Jesus) to the Pharisees, when they sought to force him into making a moral judgment on the prostitute they had caught red-handed??

Small is Beautiful

2010-04-24T15:41:00.000-04:00

The title of this article is clearly antithetical to the mantra of modern times, “too big to fail”. I have borrowed this from a best seller of the early 70s by British economist E. F. Schumacher, who had then critiqued the emergence of globalization by championing small appropriate technologies.

The current global decline is the worst since the Great Depression 70 years ago. It has struck the last nail on to the coffin of globalization. There is an increasing acknowledgment that there will be no returning to a world centrally dependent on the free-spending American consumers, since many are bankrupt and nobody has taken their place. However, conservative mindsets everywhere continue to uphold the ideology of ‘neo-liberalism’, which gained momentum during the era of Reagan and Thatcher, with its emphasis on free trade, the primacy of private enterprise, and a minimalist role for the state.

Globalization is popularly described by its critics as the New Colonialism that has spread its tentacles tenaciously through the world; following the end of Cold-war. The erstwhile Soviet states became sources of cheap labour for the US Multinationals. It is more difficult to be confronted than the British were, because Globalization is not directed by any one or group of countries. It is reflected in Multinational Corporations whose power is often beyond the control of even those nations where they are based. This New Colonialism also has profit as its purpose and exploitation of resources and people as its major outcomes. The executives and stockholders of the Multinational Corporations, which are its representatives, are not necessarily conscious of the colonial roles they play.

This article attempts to review the relevance of the Gandhian approach at this point of human history. Does Gandhi’s famous precepts like ‘swadeshi’ (i.e. local self-reliance and use of local knowledge and abilities), ‘swaraj’ (i.e. independent development that leads to equity and justice) and ‘ahimsa’ (non-violent relationship with nature, the animal world, other human beings, communities/societies/countries) still hold meaning for the globalized humanity?

Gandhi in his famous writing ‘Hind Swaraj’ (1909) had attempted to spell out his grand vision for India. Gandhi did not envision for India to be a mighty nation like the established mega-Empire of his times where “the sun never sets”, viz., Great Britain, or the then-emerging superpower, the United States of America. Gandhi dreamt for the Independent India to be unique by embracing neither communism, nor capitalism. He never wished India to follow the Western pattern of industrialization, urbanization and its ultimate ideal of individualism.

Gandhi had also not wished that India should become a powerful nation with intimidating military prowess and great political-diplomatic strength, in order to reshape the world in its own image. India was not to impose its will upon the rest of the world.

Gandhi’s India was never expected to initiate mega-development projects and large-scale industry and mining that are typical of market-led growth under capitalism. Instead he wanted India to pursue need-based, human-scale, balanced development while conserving nature and livelihoods. Gandhi had clearly acknowledged ecological concerns when he stated, the Earth has enough for everybody’s need, but not for a single person’s greed.

Gandhi advocated khadi and the spinning-wheel basically to defend the artisanal skills and livelihoods of the poor. He had then promoted the idea of making the village economy self-reliant by ridding it of its over-dependence on agriculture. Gandhi did not envisage India to experience the universal push-and-pull factors that causes urbanization, viz., the push caused by declining agriculture and village economy on one hand, and the pull of industry and services in the cities on the other hand. Such an India would be neither poor nor would be an affluent society of plenty. It would be a society free of deprivation, where everybody’s basic wants are fulfilled, but which would still practice frugality and austerity. Gandhi believed that cooperation would replace competition as a major driving force of economic and social progress.

Ideas of justice, equity and harmony that is central to Gandhi’s vision negates the crass notions of self-interest and greed that is the driving force of growth, prosperity and progress in the neoliberal perspective of Globalization. The ecological significance of Gandhian vision is indeed unique and relevant today, when the climate crisis threatens the Planet’s very existence. At no other time have Gandhi’s ideas of simplicity, responsible consumption of natural resources and sustainability been truly justified.

Last but not least, Gandhi has taught the world the spirituality of non-violence; through the most powerful form of registering protest and offering resistance to the rulers in his strategy of ‘Satyagraha’. Civil disobedience and peaceful campaigning around demands can be still powerful tools to defend the rights and interests of the underprivileged and poor, whom neo-liberalism systematically dispossesses.

Allow me to digress a bit from the theme to cite an important historical criticism of Gandhi. His approach towards untouchables was staunchly opposed by Dr. Ambedkar, the most dynamic leader of the untouchable community both during the independence struggle and in the immediate post independence period. The principle objection to Gandhi was his insistence on viewing untouchables as an integral part of the Hindu community, rather than as a self contained minority oppressed by the Hindu community. Unlike Gandhi, Ambedkar believed that, in order for untouchables to achieve their full political and social rights, they had to be liberated from their position within existing Hinduism, since it was precisely Hinduism which had for centuries oppressed untouchables by institutionalizing their "lower than low" status in Indian society. While Gandhi maintained that the issue of treating untouchables fairly was a moral one that turned on the good faith of Hindus willing to purify Hinduism of caste bigotry, Ambedkar maintained that what untouchables needed wasn't Hindus' good faith but rather legal guarantees that in a free India untouchables would be subject to no "invidious discrimination against" them.

Living in a consumerist society constantly bombarded by its enticing commercials, internalising Gandhi’s teachings means for us and our children, learning to draw the fine distinction between our ‘needs and wants’. It also means overcoming our core human emotions of fear and anger, and being assertive and open in our relationships. From a Christian perspective, Gandhi’s life and teachings is best summed up by the beatitude, “The meek shall inherit the earth”.