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Premise
"Passion
for Christ, passion for humanity" This is the title of the Congress on
Consecrated Life, which took place in Rome (November 2004), as an
initiative of the Union General Superiors, both male and female.
847
consecrated persons from continents, from every Congregation and age,
participated in it. The two icons proposed by the document of work were:
the good Samaritan and the Samaritan woman.
No doubt,
globalisation today is for all of us a time of interrogations and
change, a time of great hopes, but also of dramatic threatening. It is a
dimension, which we cannot subtract ourselves from, but which we can
react against in various ways. To inhabit globalisation is, for the
Christians, an issue of an extension of solidarity and justice at
planet level..
It puts
also the exigency of a new style of "authentic Catholicity"
capable of giving life to an original way of dialectic between locality
and universality.
The
Christian is called to inhabit history with an attitude of hope, even in
its most difficult turning moments, as the epoch of globalisation seems
to be. To go higher and to announce the Gospel hope, the Christian is
invited to break the chains of fear, to be free from the "law of fear"
(Pacem in terris)
According
to an even fantastic and creative etymology of Bishop Isidoro from
Seville, the word "spes" (speranza=hope)) derives from "pes" (foot) to
show the strong link between hope and journey. It is the same as to say,
"Only he who knows how "to inhabit while walking" in history, can say to
be animated by the dynamism of a great hope. If the Christian causes
history to move, it is only because he knows how to give the feet to the
hope dwelling in him 1.
The
suggestive image of Charles Peguy comes to suggest us: the infant virtue
of hope which, taking them by the hand, drags behind the virtues of
faith and love.
1.
Five
already existing attitudes before globalisation
Most of
the times we neglect to give importance to the attitude with which man
lives within the
historical
processes. We should underline that our judgement on history depends
considerably on the interior availability with which we live in it. For
instance, it is possible today to make a recognition of five already
expressed attitudes before globalisation:
a)
Global:
The
attitude of the unique thought has been and is still the prevalent
attitude.
According
to it, it is good that things proceed like this, because, after all, it
is advantageous for all. Economy must be freed from all rules
(deregulation), if it wants to achieve its purpose better, namely
the production of profit. Justice and solidarity are erased completely
from the economic lexicon. We are before a "zero ethical" economy and a
"mute politics"
b)No
global: is the attitude, which has inspired and continues to inspire
the movement emerged particularly with the Seattle Manifestations
(1999), which later flowed into the world social Forum of Porto Alegre,
at least in its initial phase. Its characteristic is in antagonism and
frontal opposition against globalisation as expression of capitalist
new-liberalism3.
c) New
global: better to understand the passage from the no global to the
new global, we
must start
from the turning point, which was recorded during the second Porto
Alegre with the title "A different world is under construction".
We have grown in the awareness that it is just in utilising the positive
aspects of globalisation that it becomes possible to reduce the negative
ones. It is not the matter of refusing globalisation, but of creating
a new globalisation from below, that of solidarity, democracy, of
the human rights, etc. John Paul II himself said, "A priori,
globalisation is neither good nor bad: it will be what persons will make
out of it" (discourse on 27th April 2001 to the Pontifical
Academy of Social Sciences)4
.d)
Post global: In the volume Post global (2004) by Mario
Deagilo, it is stated that the
optimism
aroused by globalisation is already over. It appears today as a broken
and vanished dream. We are before a concluded experience, at a boa turn.
A post global reading does not presuppose a valuable judgement, but
indicates a fan of problems and perspectives, whose certain thing is
the end of relatively easy times. Many observers find it clear that
we are before a new phase identified as "archipelagos globalisation".
Within the regional islands of the archipelagos, we must underline
the ascent of China as the most devastating one. Therefore, we can speak
favourably about a different globalisation and we must ask ourselves
whether the life level of the rich countries is still an effectively
reachable objective, or only desirable, for the entire humanity5.
e)
De-globalisation: this last attitude is particularly developed by
the Philippine Economist Wakden Bello, for whom the knocking down
(deconstruction) of the old globalisation requires to be accompanied by
an effort of re-construction. Walden Bello writes, "The context to
discuss globalisation is given by the growing presence not only of
poverty, inequality and stagnation, which have accompanied the spreading
of the globalized systems of diffusion, but also by their being
unsustainable and frail (…). De-globalisation does not mean to withdraw
from the international economy. It means to re-orient the economies from
the emphasis on the production for exportation to the production for the
local market”. In this way, globalisation can have success only if it
takes place within an alternative system of global economic
government6.
The
attitude we encourage out of those we have mentioned so far is, above
all, a critical
attitude
towards globalisation, which must be neither demonised nor sanctified.
It must be an attitude, which pays attention to bring to evidence lights
and shadows, advantages and disadvantages, positive and negative
aspects. However, if globalisation does not respect the human dignity
and the ethical rules, it will undoubtedly configure itself as a new
form of colonialism.
2.
The
collateral effects of globalisation
After
seeing the attitudes, let us go on with the analysis of the "collateral
aspects" (just to use an
expression
of Bauman) of globalisation on persons, on culture, on religions, on
political institutions (in particular on the national State). on places
and on the natural area. Thus, our exam becomes more concrete.
2.1.
On persons
The first
consequence of globalisation falls back on the persons and families.
Today, in fact,
just as
the reticular society develops, the solitude of the citizen grows. This
paradoxical reality generates a lot of suffering. The need of community
increases, yet one finishes by remaining alone with oneself. Illusions
are useless: in our "individualised societies", the persons who are not
well and suffer want of human and communitarian relations are more and
more numerous. Thus, solitude becomes the first form of poverty. We must
try to see that persons feel abandoned, by taking care of them, by
assuring them of our company. It is particularly Bauman, who brings to
evidence the fractured individual/community. In his book, "The
solitude of the global citizen (200)", he proves how the social
bonds become loose and the bonds of belonging to a community are no
more. According to Bauman, the globalisation produces an effect of
de-socialisation (see Modernità liquida, 2000) and the "modular
man" (fitted, changeable, protean) emerges. Besides the sense of
solitude, globalisation increases a climate of impossible communication,
a feeling of fear and a general weakening of identity7.
2.2. On
cultures
The
second collateral effect of globalisation concerns culture, in the sense
of "mentality", as well as in the sense of "local cultures".
John Paul II says, "the thing that worries the Church most is that
the market has changed into culture and that, just because of
this, persons "think and act" according to the logic of market
(discourse of 27th April 2001 to the Pontifical Academy of
social sciences). In other words, the market is no longer an economic
and financial reality, but a spiritual, cultural, lyophilised, ideal
reality, "a logic" which has permeated the heads of persons. This
means that the neo-liberalism today is no longer only and economic
doctrine, but it has become an anthropological doctrine.
But the
globalisation reflects itself also on the local culture of the people,
producing effects of omologation and de-culturing, depriving the poorest
of their unique richness: culture and tradition. Even in the Southern
Countries of the world, the mass media promote a global mono-culture
of Western style. We can see this in alimentation, in the fashion of
clothes, in the amusements, in music and sports. It imposes not only
what people must eat, drink and clothe, but even what one must feel,
desire and think.
In this
way, rather than a cultural pluralism, globalisation diffuses a
dangerous global unique though. Ignacio Ramonet, in his book
la tirannia della comunicazione8, denounces the upsetting phenomenon
of many people who stop thinking with their own head and assume a
repeating thought. Moreover, the TV proposes and diffuses crazy models
of stupidity, giving place to more dangerous cloning forms, that of the
brains. We are before the devastating consequences of a morbid media
dictatorship: the video-culture.
2.3 On
religions
In
an interesting study entitled "religions and globalisation"9, the
sociologist Enzo Pace states that, for the great historical world
religions, (from Christianity to Islam, Hinduism to Buddhism), the
globalisation poses some challenges. The most important one is the rise
of the degree of religious pluralism in many societies, not only in the
Western ones: people of far perceived beliefs, become our neighbours,
living next door.
All this
can have contrasting effects. The person learns -not without conflicts-
to live together, at first tolerating one another. After a few
generations, mixing up all together (with the first mixed marriages),
developing the curiosity and reciprocal respect of the religious feasts,
celebrated by one or the other, with the diffusion of uses and
alimentary cultures, or of clothing, through the markets targeted as
ethnic. The religions in the globalized society may run the risk of
exalting excessively their function of being depositories of collective
memories of entire peoples, a guarantee offered to the feeling of
belonging to a common destiny. In this case the religions become the
ultimate certainty of the collective identity, at a time in which the
uprooting of persons keeps on increasing. The religions play a very
important role of education, as they have already proved to know and to
be able to do in some case.
2.4. On
political institutions
Another
collateral effect of globalisation concerns the national States, which
appear evermore inadequate and obsolete. In fact, it is not possible to
face global problems (like ecology, migrations, peace, hunger, aids,
etc.) with local or national politics. It clearly emerges that the
entire institutional architecture, which was born after the Treaty of
Westfalia (1648), is now insufficient. The principle of
independence and the Principle of sovereignty (superiorem non
recognoscens) are no longer sufficient. We need a higher degree
of international ordination, as John Paul II states in his message
for the World Day of Peace 2004.
But the
basic problem of globalisation is how to keep the relation between the
political system and democracy, how to avoid that the democratic
institutions may undergo a dangerous crisis of de-legitimisation, when
the global economic processes provoke a reduction of the social state
(welfare) and the national governments can do nothing before the
super-incumbent powers. Stefano Zamagni has observed that, "all the
political instruments of the national-state (taxes, control organisms,
military security, and foreign affair) are bound to a well-defined
territory. The enterprises, instead, can produce in one Country; can pay
the taxes in another, in a third one can ask helps and state
contribution. One of the gravest consequences consists in an increase of
financial instability. Among all the goods, which circulate freely
through the world markets, the one, which moves more free, more rapidly
and virulent is the finance, “The most impressive phenomenon of
contemporary world is the globalisation of the finance” 11.
According
to the sociologist Ulrich Beck 12, with the globalisation of the markets
we are in what he defines the era of the "cosmopolitan sight". This
means that our daily behaviours, willing or not, refer to multi-national
horizons. This is why our individual identity reflects in a
cosmos-political sight, which synthesises together eclectically
different cultural identities and traditions.
2.5. On
places and natural environment
The
globalisation has worsened also the fracture between local/global,
bringing to evidence the plurality of cultures intertwining in the same
territory. There is no more direct correspondence between place and
culture. In general, we can say that in the time of globalisation the
territory dissolves and evaporates, or that it tends to close up, to
retreat. Thus, we witness the phenomenon called
de-territorialisation, or the diffusion of the "-non-place"
(Marc Augé), or to localism forms, as the leagues and the ethnic revival
phenomena show13.
Therefore,
it is important to make clear that globalisation does not abolish the
territorial boundaries, but surely re-defines the space. Then, it
becomes opportune to re-discover the rooting of our own "place" through
a strategy of re-localisation. We need a new anthropology of place and
therefore, of traditions, of the communities and local values. The
"glocal perspective (Roland Robertson, 1999) which has gone on affirming
itself from some years, has gone on affirming itself. It offers us the
possibility of giving value to the local dimension as a knot of the
global. The challenge to be faced is that of living in a "glocal" way,
that is, in such a way as not to lose time as a space in which we
express our participation, since the whole world becomes our horizon of
reference (fatherland). We cannot limit ourselves to act locally and to
think globally. We must think and act both at local and global level,
keeping in mind the complexity in which we live. The analysis concord
even to the effects of the globalisation on the natural area: the
process of globalisation is responsible for the ecological degrading and
the pollution of the planet. The air, water, the sun, the soil, the
forests and the various forms of life are in crisis because of the
modern industrial culture, unable to establish a bearable relation with
the natural environment14. Because of the wastage, which characterizes
the life-style of the rich all over the world, the exhaustion of the
resources and the damages of the environment have become a menace for
the life of the present and future generations.
3.
The
Christian is not a passive spectator before the "spectacle of the world"
There are
many images of "suffering persons", which run before our eyes every
day. The mass media put us in contact with the tragedies of the world
and we run the risk that everything may change into a unique global
spectacle, which make us informed, yet passive and powerless spectators.
The Christian cannot be satisfied with the knowledge and information
about the poverty and the sufferings, which trouble the world. To limit
ourselves to this would be a form of becoming irresponsible.
3. 1.
The poor in the world do not allow us to sleep.
The
Christian
receives the call to take his position, to choose and to intervene. Just
as the good
Samaritan
did along the way from Jerusalem to Jerico.
The
Christian cannot accept the logic of the stronger, or the idea that the
presence of the poor and marginalized in society is the fruit of the
inexorable flowing of history, a fatal coincidence. This is why he has
the duty to discern and to judge responsibly what globalisation is
working in society. As Father Salvini has observed, we must recognise
that we cannot attribute to the globalisation only the cause of
impoverishment, because this would not be the truth. However, we cannot
doubt that globalisation has had seriously harmful effects for the
poorest sectors mostly in the society of the Third World. It has caused
an increased production of goods, which they sell to the rich,
neglecting the goods, which the mass of the poorest stand in need of.
Moreover, globalisation has favoured the commercialisation of the major
part of services and aspects of life: particularly instruction and
sanity.
Poverty is
the greatest problem of our time. Out of 6 milliard of persons in the
world, 2.8 milliard of them live with less than 2 dollars per day, while
1.2 milliard hardly spend a dollar per day. Eight children out of
hundred do not reach 5 years of age. Nine boys and 14 girls over 100 do
not go to school. These are only some consequences of poverty. The
economist Stefano Zamagni writes, "Globalisation is a process which
favours the overall richness (thus representing a positive sum), but it
determines, at the same time, winners and won. In other words,
globalisation reduces poverty in a relative sense. Counties like those
of the Asia south-east and some countries in Latin America, have
overcome absolute poverty - in which they had been living for century-
only after the liberalisation of the markets. It is the African
continent that today lives in tragic conditions. This has happened just
because this continent has remained cut off from the process of
globalisation.
The Nobel
for economy, Amarthya Sen, explains, "The world we live in is at the
same time considerably comfortable and absolutely poor. Richer than ever
so far, our world experiences a prosperity, which they had never enjoyed
before. Our ancestors would have found difficult too imagine the present
management of the resources, the knowledge and technology, which we
today take for granted. Yet, our world is also a world of extreme
privations and upsetting inequality. The number of undernourished,
illiterate children is impressive. A great number, millions of children,
every week, are condemned to die of diseases which could be completely
eradicates. Persons abandoned to themselves could be prevented from been
killed by such disease"15.
The
international injustice must make us ponder the economic and digital
difference, the unbalance of the North-South economy, as well as of
information and communication.
Wolfgang
Sachs, of the German Institute in Wuppertal, has asked himself, "How
many citizens in the world possess the following three goods put
together: a private car, a computer at home and a Bank account?" The
answer has been: only 8% of the world population possesses these three
things together. Africa has 700 million of inhabitants, but hardly 1% of
the Africans possess a telephone. How is it possible to think of using
the Internet on these conditions?
According
to a recent report of the ONU, one milliard of persons is unable to
satisfy the most elementary needs. Out of 4.5 milliard inhabitants in
the developing countries, three fifths of them do no possess the
essential infrastructures: one third of potable water; one quarter of
worthy dwelling places; one fifth of medical and sanitary assistance.
One over five children attends the school for less than five years; one
over five children is undernourished permanently. In 70-80 over hundred
developing countries the average income “pro capite” is less than that
of ten or even thirty years ago. On the opposite extreme, three out of
the richest persons in the world have a personal income superior to the
internal total product of 48 poorest countries ( namely 600 million of
citizens), and the luck of the 15 richest persons is above the product
of the entire sub-Saharan Africa.
In an
essay with the title Poverty and inequality in a world of growing
globalisation, the Polish Hebrew sociologist Zygmunt Bauman states
that non-controlled globalisation brings with itself horrifying
consequences. The loss of means for survival, of personnel and
well-being, up to the point of misery, afflicts directly millions of
persons. The difference between rich and poor, winners and won is more
than ever before. In conclusion, it is not possible to ignore what
Stiglitz reminds us, "Today, globalisation does not function for many
poor in the world. It does not work for a great part of the environment.
It does not work for the stability of the global economy (…). For
somebody the answer is simple: to give up the globalisation. However,
this is neither possible, nor desirable (…). The problem is not
globalisation, but the way it is managed"16.
3. 2.
For a fair globalisation (Oil report)
Whoever
reflects on globalisation, today, cannot ignore the report 200417
presented by the OIL (International Organisation of Work), by the title
“A fair globalisation. Creating opportunities for all”,
This
study of the world Commission on the social dimension of globalisation,
instituted by OIL, has seen the two years commitment of authoritative
representatives of the political, economic, labour, academic and social
world of the entire planet. In general, the Report brings to evidence
that too many persons are still not participating in the benefits of the
created richness. Seen by the eyes of the big majority of women and men,
globalisation has not come to the rescue of the elementary and
legitimate aspirations to a dignified place of work and to a better
future for one's own children.
Overall,
the Report brings to evidence how the present scenario is "ethically not
acceptable and politically unsustainable". It leads back to an unbalance
among economy, society and politics: the economy global dimension has
not carried with itself the globalisation of the social and political
institutions. Wherefore, the debate on globalisation must become a
debate on democracy and on social justice. It is urgent to accomplish
choices for the renewal of the institutions and of politics.
Today
almost everything globalizes, except the ethical values and dimensions.
The report concludes with the hope of another globalisation. The recall
to share a common ethical approach concretises in an appeal to pursue
the following objectives:
a)
Respect of the human dignity,
of human
rights, of equality between man and women.
b)
Respect of the cultural, religious and political differences.
In
particular, globalisation
could lead
to a multicultural diversity, without homogenisation, unwanted
integration or static preservation. It must be a process of creative
re-definition, in which the local and global traditions, as well as the
life-styles join up to create new forms at all levels.
a)
Equity,
persons from all Countries recognise it as a standard of justice. It
is the
matter of guaranteeing, through global economic rules, the same
opportunities and benefits to all the Countries, considering the
national difference with regard to the capacity and needs of
development.
Globalisation and solidarity,
to
overcome inequalities both within each Country and
among
different countries, contributing to a real overcoming of poverty.
Solidarity is based on the recognition that, in an inter-dependent
world, poverty or oppression is a menace to prosperity and stability
everywhere.
b)
respect for nature,
for which
globalisation must be ecologically sustainable, that is, must
respect
the natural diversity of forms of life present on earth and the vitality
of the echo-system, assuring equity among present and future
generations.
Now,
besides the OIL Report, it is opportune to quote the Declaration of
the millennium, undersigned by 189 heads of State in 2000, against
poverty and for a fairer and more just world within the year 2015, with
eight main objectives against poverty at world level:
1. to
eliminate extreme poverty and malnutrition
2. to
guarantee the primary instruction to children;
3. to
promote equality of gender and to counteract discriminations;
4. to
reduce by two thirds the infant mortality;
5. to
improve the reproductive health;
6. to
fight AIDS, malaria and other disease;
7. to
assure the sustainability of the environment;
8. to
create a global partnership in favour of development
3.3
Globalisation and migratory processes: justice and dialogue
Today,
however, the service to the poor must take into account not only the
process of globalisation, but also the migratory fluxes connected to it.
This is why we feel opportune to risk the document of the Pontifical
Council for the pastoral of the Migrants Erga Migrantes caritas
Christ (May 2004).
According
to this document, the phenomenon of migration, with regard to 200
million of men and women at world level, is not only a sociological
fact, but a true kairòs, once favourable for those who read
history with the eyes of faith.
The
Christians must be the promoters of a welcoming culture, capable of
appreciating the authentic human value of others. Wherefore, the need of
a formation to "world reality", that is, to a new vision of the human
community, seen as a family of peoples, who finally enjoy the goods of
the earth in the perspective of the common universal good. The passage
from mono-cultural society to multi-cultural society can reveal itself
as a sign of the living presence of God in history. In fact, it offers a
providential opportunity for the realisation of God's plan of universal
communion. The Christians are, therefore, called to witness and to
practise, besides the spirit of tolerance, which is also an important
political and cultural acquisition: respect of the identity of others,
starting courses of sharing with persons of different origin and
culture, wherever possible, in view also of a respectful announcement of
one's own faith.
Today a
new page of church history opens with the pontificate of Benedict XVI.
Though confirming the ecumenical perspectives and of dialogue among
believers and non-believers, this new page gives a particular relevance
to the testimony of the distinctive Christian, as we would say,
by quoting a happy expression of Romano Guardini, one master of the
actual Pontifex. This formula appears useful today, to communicate in a
synthetic way the Christian vision of man, of life in the world, in a
society of differences and, even more, of indifference.
This
reminder of the “Distinctive Christian” becomes important today, because
we live in the dictatorship of relativism, in the triumph of the weak
thought and of a morbid, silent nihilism.. In this our invertebrate
society, where everything tends to become cartilaginous and mellifluous,
we feel again the need of laying some boundaries and of going beyond
relativism. The paradigm of the “Distinctive Christian”, replaces to its
centre the culture of resistance as well as the perspective of the
assertive identity of the "civil Catholic", up to the re-affirmation of
the "non-negotiable" values.
Benedict
XVI appears to be the representative of similar presence, which for some
observers remains anyhow as something that we cannot propose in the
actual context.
4.
What
are we to do? Three strategies of change to humanise the globalisation
Every
Christian has the historical duty to humanise the social reality through
the intelligence of
faith,
drinking from his own well, like the Samaritan at the well of Sicar,
spreading antibodies of knowledge to counteract the unacceptable
aspects of the domineering thought and to promote a new culture. The
fight against the injustices of globalisation requires a spirituality,
which implies a strong commitment for the values of the Kingdom, the
option for the liberation of the oppressed. This option comprehends a
vision of justice for the entire humanity and for the natural
environment, proposing values, relations and alternative structures.
The
beatitudes are for the Christians the Great Charter of the
evangelical citizenship, which is the citizenship of the Kingdom
(Matthew 5, 1-12), prophetic presence within history.
Jesus does
not start his sermon on the mountain with abstract concepts,
non-contestable definitions, but with a language of beauty, with a
series of beatitudes. They are "congratulations" which do not mark the
limit of the least indispensable, but outline the ideal of the maximum
possible. The beatitudes do not define what is right and dutiful, but
what pleases the Lord, what forms the joy of God and the happiness of
man. They do not praise abstract virtues, but congratulate persons, the
poor, the humble, the pure in heart, the afflicted, the merciful, the
workers of peace. We are not before a list of precepts or commandments,
but before the proposal of a model of holiness and of life.
The Gospel
beatitudes are the identikit of the disciples of Jesus, the
identity card of the single Christian and almost a constitution for
the people of the new covenant, which Jesus has come to found.
In these
last pages we present the strategies, namely the action directives,
which we feel more efficacious not to forbear globalisation, but to
transform it from within into a perspective of humanisation.
4.1. The
(cultural) way of ideas to renew of our thought, staring from the
intelligence of faith
The first
way of change is the cultural one, which plays on the ideas, on the
"metànoia" to create the possibility of a new ecology of mind, a
reform of the thought. Every Christian has the historical duty to give
value to the intelligence of faith, so that people may not
condemn it to a cultural sterility. To fecund every culture, the
Christian must give voice to the rich patrimony of social doctrine,
committing him "to de-colonise the imaginary" and to free himself
from the seducing force of the domineering economic narration. In
particular, the Christian must feel committed to counteract the unique
thought with a divergent, non-homologated or conformist thought, which
may consent him to propose himself to society as a "prophetic
reserve" and "a "contra-power place".
To
de-colonise our imaginary
The work
must begin from us. The enemy is not only outside us, but also within
us, in our head. Our imaginary is already colonised. All of us need a
catharsis, a detoxification. We must de-colonise our imaginary from the
myths of progress, of science and of technology. The economist Serge
Latouche proposes to abandon, for instance, the concept of
"development", because it is a toxic word, and to point, instead, on the
idea of de-growing. We have no other alternative, except that of
detoxification. The access to the epoch of post-development is similar
to a process of unlearning. At economic level, de-growing means
reduction in the flux of production and consumption. The de-growing
demands a change of our own life-style, a renouncing to the belief that
"more" might mean "better". A happy person does not consume
anti-depressives, does not consult the psych-analyst, does not attempt
to commit suicide, is not a victim of the compulsive consumerism, which
leads us to buy, every day, expensive, but useless objects. An aware and
balanced de-growing does not imposes limitation to the unfolding of a
realised and happy life.
Let us learn from Mauss:
the culture of gift against the ideology of the market
Speaking
of cognitive anti-bodies in the economic field, we can bring the example
of Mauss, the anti-utilitarian movement in social sciences, born at the
beginning of the years '80 in France -to which scholars like Alain
Calité, Jacques Godbout, Serge Latouche, Angelo Salsano belong, etc.-
which promotes the culture of gift against the ultra-power of the
"market". The gift is a unilateral, asymmetric gesture, expressing
gratuity. It, therefore, contradicts the law of the market as an
equivalent exchange. The gift generates a previously not existing new
sociality. We must witness to the culture of gift, (through the various
forms of volunteer services and civil economy). Moreover, we must commit
ourselves to counteract the transformation of the market into culture,
(as we can see in the business-hospital, in the access of the economic
language to define the education processes in the school: formative
offer, debit-credit, portfolio, administration council, directing
manager, etc.). Therefore, we must denounce the primacy of economy,
which has replaced ethics and politics. In fact, they codify reality is
starting from a merchant oriented mentality. Economy becomes the matrix,
the reservoir from where we fetch the needful to re-baptise those
realities, which are not economic, as we have already seen.
Choosing the inter-culture as
a civilisation of conviviality
A new
education principle for an intercultural society cannot limit itself to
affirm the traditional values of tolerance and conviviality or, even,
the new values of the recognition of identity and the respect for the
diversity. We must do more: we must choose the compulsory way of the
intercultural reality.
In his
message for the World Day of the migrants and refugees (24th
November 2004), the Pope insists on the choice of intercultural
integration. The Christians are solicited not to be satisfied with a
simple tolerance, but to "reach sympathy". John Paul II says explicitly,
"We should promote a fully reciprocal fecundation of cultures. This
presupposes the knowledge of and the opening to the cultures
reciprocally. For this reason, we need to join the principle of respect,
of cultural difference, with that of safeguarding the common
indefeasible values, founded on the universal human rights. A reasonable
civic climate flows, which consents a friendly and serene conviviality.
The duty of the Christians is to be the morning sentinels; it is their
first duty "to see the presence of God in history, even when it seems
that it is enveloped in darkness".
Raimon
Panikkar, a master in intercultural reality, courageously states "the
opening to the intercultural reality is subversive. It destabilises us,
it contests deeply rooted convictions, which we take for granted,
because they have never been put to discussion. He tells us that our
vision of the world, and therefore our own world, in not the unique
one"18.
Some more
important directives are made explicit in the document The
consecrated persons and their mission in the school (November 2002) of
the Congregation for the Catholic education, in Nos. 65-67, where,
besides other things, we read that, "the intercultural perspective
demands a true change of paradigm at pedagogic level. We pass from
integration to the research of conviviality of the differences. It is a
not an easy simple model of easy actuation" (No. 67).
4.2
The (pragmatic) way of actions, of behaviours and of new life-styles
Together
with the way of ideas, there is the way of actions, namely of testimony,
of gestures and active citizenship pedagogy: in fact, ideas alone are
not enough. We need concrete examples, starting from our life. Even in
the Bible the "praxis" or the Acts of the Apostles, come after the Good
News of the Gospels. Jesus himself revealed his Father to humanity with
"words and gestures" (verba gestaque). Here comes, then, the
growing importance of the life-styles.
Today, the
choice of a life-style, imprinted on sobriety as a civil virtue,
consents every citizen and every Christian to contribute for the
building of a fairer and more just world. Sobriety appears to be the
social virtue of the future, the new name for temperance.
Sobriety as
life-style
The entire
economy, John Paul II says, is to be re-thought. The passing from the
society of wastage to the sustainable one does not mean to produce less,
but to produce differently. It means to produce less superfluous
products, more fundamental ones; less private consumption and more
public consumption; less energy of foxily combustibles, more energy from
renewable resources; less production of “use and throw away”, more
recyclable and lasting products; less importance to quality, more
essential quality of life.
The ethic
of the limit and the culture of sobriety are compulsory choices to build
up a sustainable society starting from today. Sobriety means to look at
the world with the eyes of the poor and from the side of the poor. We
must live sobriety simultaneously as an ethical and ecological, economic
and political choice. However, we cannot improvise a life-style. which
is not made up of episodes. The style is the visible mirror of a
personal ethic and anthropology; it is the welding of three
complementary elements: spirituality (as source of sense); a fundamental
option (as an orienting finality); a daily praxis (as concrete way of
acting). This is why only a life-style, which promotes democratic
relations among persons, is sustainable. This would favour an equal
opportunity of development, and would not allow anyone to become rich at
the back of the others. A life-style imprinted on sobriety restores man
to his disinterested, gratuitous and esthetical attitude. This is born
from the wonder before the being and the beauty, which make us to read
in the visible the message of the invisible God, who created them
(Centesimus annus, No.37).
Sobriety
must lead us non only to the ethic of limitation, of measure and
balance, but also to the culture of harmony, beauty and quality.
Therefore, as Wolfagang Cachs states, we should start also to speak of
an esthetical sobriety (the taste, the shape) and of elegance in
simplicity.
The
strategy of behaviours
Today, the
Church seems to be very sensitive to the choice of new life-styles: let
us think of alternative behaviours as the critical consumption, the
balance of justice, the fair and commerce of solidarity, the ethical
bank, the banks of the time, the economy of communion, the commitment
for the Tobin Tax, etc.
The
Episcopal Conferences of Europe are committed to reflect on the
safeguard of creation. We must bind inseparably the research of a
sustainable model of development with the environment, as well as with
the social justice. The ever-deeper bond between daily life (local) and
world agenda (global), brings to evidence the importance of considering
our life-style not only as a strictly personal choice, but also as a
political gesture affecting the global context. On the other side,
without "little steps, not even a long journey can exist.
4. 3.
The way of the democratic participation in the nets of the "global civil
society"
Together
with the life of the ideas (a new social thought) and the life-styles
(new economic, ecological, non-violent, etc.), there is a third way,
which offers the possibility of being more politically efficacious, that
of orienting the thought and the praxis towards a common
ethical-political choice. It is the prophecy of togetherness, the
building of the nets, which act from the base. It is the passage
from the strategy of the "sling of David" (who alone, in isolation,
fights against Goliath), to the net of Lilliput, which proves how the
Lilliputians all together learn how to fight against Gulliver (image of
globalisation). This is the political meaning of the Lilliputian net.
On this
direction, we find the positive signal of the diffusion of the
"global civil society", a self-organised group, which acts directly
at local level and outside the traditional democratic institutions, but
which are able to guarantee ethical foundations capable of crossing
national and cultural boundaries.
We must
try to understand the reasons why we distinguish with precision between
"government" and the mainly global "governance". With the
English term "governance", difficult to be translated, we refer to "the
enlarged system of government", where “enlarged” shows clearly the
involvement of actors and processes not always and automatically implied
in the traditional notion of government. It is the theme of the
participating democracy.
To me,
even the Sisters, after an attentive discernment, should ask themselves
whether to adhere to ad participate in it. We refer to the strategies of
the groups of action; to the campaigns, to the nets, the social forum,
etc. This is important because the objective of the change is not only
interior, but also esterior: structural, institutional : we need to
change the perverse mechanisms and the structures of sin, according
to the 1987” Solicitudo rei socialis”.
The
sister herself should participate not only in the service to the poor,
but also in the fights against poverty and in favour of the new
institutions of justice.
Before the
super-power of the economic mega-machine whose representatives are
called G8, Club of Paris, complex FMI/Vank mondial/WTO, forum of Davos,
or the so called "Washington Consensus", etc. it is urgent to build
places of resistance, contra-power, to impose rules, to find
compromises.
Some
proposals for the reform of the ONU
a) The
enlargement of the Security Council and the elimination of the veto
system
b) The institution of a
second assembly ( the so called ONU two) in which the
representatives of the transactional civil society were sitting (Ong.
Churches, movements) and of the various people ( on the model of the
European Parliament)
c) The
creation of an economic and social security council, endowed with
specific powers; but from the moment of its conception (1995), the
Economic Security Council has not obtained the necessary support neither
from the developed countries, nor from the developing ones. Walter Bello
has written, "In the area of social changes, in reality we cannot
effectively build new systems without weakening the influence of the old
ones, which are not easily willing to accept challenges to their own
hegemony (…). The vision of a new world may be charming, but it will
remain just a vision, if we do not accompany it with a string strategy
of realisation, and part of the strategy consists in a deliberate
knocking down of the old one.
d) There
is somebody who, like Johan Galtung, proposes of creating a world
parliament in the ONU residence, which may foresee one
representative per each million of citizens: in this way we would
have an assembly with 1250 Chinese, 1000 Indians, 275 Americans, 190
Russian, 9 from Sweden, etc. The presence of the Western world in such a
parliament would be reduces to 22% and the majority, according to
demography, would move to the South of the world.
A symbolic
celebration: every 12th September the "Interdependence Day"
We need to
believe in the strength of the symbols. For this reason we consider
important to spread the proposal of the USA political commentator,
Benjamin Barber, from the University of Maryland: not to celebrate any
longer the "Independence Day” ( 14th July for France, 4th
July for USA, etc.), but to celebrate a world "interdependence Day"
on 11th September, a date that by now belongs to a
cosmopolitan calendar. They celebrated the first Day in Philadelphia
(2003), the second one in Rome (2004), the third in San Paolo (2005) and
we shall see the others. Many organisms have already adhered to this
initiative, among which the St. Egidio Community, Rome, the Focolari,
etc.
The Poster
of Porto Alegre
After five
world social Forums held in Porto Alegre, next year, 2006, the Forum
will take place in four cities from four different continents and, in
2007, it will take place in Africa.
Here are
some fundamental proposals of the Porto Alegre Poster:
1.
cancellation of the external debt of the South Countries of the world;
2.
progressive knocking down of all fiscal, juridical and bank paradise
forms;
3.
to
promote all forms of fair trade, refusing the rules of the free exchange
of the world
organisation of trade (Omc). To exclude totally the instruction, sanity,
social services and culture from the
field of applications of
the general Agreement on commerce and on the service (Gats) of the Omc
4.
To ensure the right of
each country to the sovereignty and to the alimentary security
through the promotion of
the farmers culture
5. To promote public
politics against every form of discrimination, xenophobia, anti-Semitism
and racism
6. To guarantee by law
the right of information and the right to form
7. To reform and to
democratise the international organisations. Among them: the ONU; and to
see to the prevalence of human, economical, social and cultural rights
in the universal Declaration of man's rights.
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