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Lying in Wait: A Holocaust Commemorative Reflection, Dr. Robert Zuber

28 Jan

See the source image — Dali: Gala’s Dream of Paradise

“Tired” by Langston Hughes

I am so tired of waiting,

Aren’t you,

For the world to become good

And beautiful and kind?

Let us take a knife

And cut the world in two –

And see what worms are eating

At the rind.

This poem has always resonated with me and, I imagine, with others in the larger “business” of making a more peaceful, sustainable world.

Yes, we are mostly all tired of waiting. Waiting for the human race to recover its collective sanity. Waiting for promises on peace and development to be duly honored. Waiting for justice and healing for victims of seemingly endless abuses. Waiting for health care and vaccine equity. Waiting for an end to practices that make cannon fodder out of children before they have even been able to dry their wings. Waiting for gross inequalities of power and wealth to balance. Waiting for people to grasp their fundamental dependency on a natural order which we seem so keen to destroy.

While at times it might have been foolishly considered, our own waiting has not been passive. Like many in our line of work, we possess a fair amount of well-earned authority, though almost a complete lack of power. We can encourage officials to do things, but not make them do anything. And so we like others attempt to correct flaws in logic and policy once we see them. We likewise expose attempts, deliberate and otherwise, to misrepresent and deceive. We try our best to cut in two the world that is presented to us by the rich and powerful, a world that is being eaten by worms which are within our lines of sight and which we humans have largely released into the world ourselves.

And still we wait, wait for beauty and kindness to erupt on the global scene, albeit in conditions more pleasant and less urgent than those experienced by most of the people our recommendations reference, the people who often experience far less of the goodness of people in diverse regions and circumstances than of the worms eating into the rind of possibility, including the possibility of relief from their recurring daily burdens.

Two recent UN events underscored the degree to which, despite a host of valiant efforts and partial successes courtesy of UN entities and partners, despite real glimmers of goodness and kindness, our wait appears to be far from over.

Last week, the UN Secretary General met with diplomats in the General Assembly Hall to outline his policy priorities for the year: continuing the fight against the pandemic, reform of the global financial system for a better recovery; bold action on the climate crisis; addressing the digital divide; and securing sustainable peace across the world. And as he has done in the past, the SG couched these priorities within some harsh, “pull no punches” warnings, alleging that we are now facing a “five alarm fire” which threatens the entire planet as it now engulfs much of the life of Afghanistan, Yemen and other zones of conflict.

Some of what the SG proposed in the name of fire prevention and response resonated with us. He called for adequate conflict prevention structures such that disarmament can again “become the recognizable compensation for non-proliferation commitments.” He urged states to exercise restraint rather than continuing to “enlarge the military capacity” of parties to conflict. And as already noted, he called for urgent action on climate mitigation, on vaccine equity, and on global financial reform.

He has made these calls before to diplomatic audiences more receptive than responsive. Clearly, no one around the UN needs to be reminded of the wolves of poverty and violence pacing just beyond the UN gates. No one needs to be reminded of the damage we continue to allow on our watch, damage which undermines prospects for the children we profess to love. No one even needs a reminder, as the SG himself noted, that when people lose trust in institutions, they also lose trust in the values which those institutions advocate. And when such shared values have been shelved, we are left to navigate a toxic brew of policy that does not produce, authority which is neither recognized nor heeded, and words which cannot be believed, indeed, in some instances, deserve not to be believed.

The SG more or less made this last point when he suggested that “lying must be made wrong again.” Yes it must, with the caveat that there are diverse forms of this art, some of which indict those of us eager to point the finger at others without at least a wag in our own direction. For instance, there are the lies that stem from being a bit too comfortable telling some of the truth but not the whole truth. There are the lies embedded in our efforts to share data and/or opinions willfully divorced from proper context. There are lies that are used to convince or encourage behavior such as those told by advertisers suggesting self-serving product comparisons which never actually quite materialize.

And then there are the larger lies intended to deceive but also to inflame and incite, lies meant to encourage expression of the parts of ourselves prone to discrimination and even hatred, demons which are less under wraps than we imagine them to be and which we now allow to circulate in our world with almost complete impunity. Such was the subtext of an excellent UN program this week to honor and reflect upon victims of the Holocaust, an event which not only highlighted abuses which, as one survivor put it, turned me into a “nothing,” but which deeply honored the legacies of those who helped Jewish children and families to escape capture. Also honored were those who managed to survive what the president of the General Assembly referred to as “losses impossible to recover,” and then find platforms and places where they could with courage and integrity help identify and address the dehumanizing hatred, intolerance and misinformation to which the current pandemic has seemingly opened fresh doors.

Event speakers noted in one form or other that these annual events serve both as a reminder of where hate can lead us and a stark warning of where hate is in danger of leading us now. But there is also a concern, again noted by the SG, that such events can too-easily “ring hollow” if we do not commit harder to eliminate extremism, discrimination and bigotry in our midst, as well as the “lies” which justify abusive behavior, minimize its impacts or, indeed, even deny its very existence.

Those of us who engage in this work and the institutions we promote (albeit skeptically at times) need to set a better example here. The exposing and healing of hatred is a task which surely commends itself to most all of us. At the same time, our own commitment to truth, individually and institutionally, must perpetually be examined and fine-tuned. As keynote speaker John Roth noted on Thursday, a just world “unconnected to hatred or fear” can still be built. But who Roth identified as “lies and liars,” those authoring lies and those complicit in them, continue to make horrific violence plausible and indeed stand as impediments to the world we are running out of time to make, a world where power in all its forms is held to account and where individuals, institutions and entire societies are more fully engaged in becoming their “best selves.” This task is for us as well.

For now, we watch and wait; hopefully also strive towards that good, beautiful and kind place more proximate to our deepest longings, dreams and anticipations, a world where hate has largely been extinguished and not merely chronicled, a world finally freed of the worms that corrupt and degrade and of the many lies, larger and smaller, which have for so long in our collective history guaranteed their ravenous and corrosive presence.

Tags: holocaust, lying, waiting

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King Maker: A Reflection on Heroes and Heroism, Dr. Robert Zuber

17 Jan

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King Jr.

Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. Desmond Tutu

Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that such knowledge will help set you free. Assata Shakur

I am of certain convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel. Florence Nightingale

Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces “nice” people, not heroes. Peter Kreeft

Heroes aren’t heroes because they worship the light, but because they know the darkness all too well to stand down and live with it. Ninya Tippett

I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not. Philip K. Dick

Perseverance is the act of true role models and heroes. Liza Wiemer

I don’t often remember where I was as key events in our world unfolded, but I do remember what I was feeling on the day that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

I grew up with guns in the home, but also in a home which valued gun safety, which would go to great lengths to ensure that guns were always managed responsibly, were never used in anger or to settle scores. The thought that someone would use weapons to “hunt” other humans, let alone a human of King’s stature and hopeful values was almost unfathomable.

Moreover, the killing underscored what for me was a common emotional dimension – a feeling that the world was spinning out of control and that I was impotent in the face of its challenges. It was clear that some people were finding their “refusals,” both quiet and loud – the march across the Selma bridge, the encampments outside courts of law if not justice, the determination to sit in any open seat on public transit and not only those which local legislation had assigned. But such refusals were then beyond my remit. I was a spectator to the upheaval but not in any way a participant in its resolution. I was despondent, angry, unsure of most things, and with so much more to learn than I ever recognized.

On this annual King Day, alongside the recent sad death of Desmond Tutu and the ageing out of some of my most important life guides inside and outside the UN, it seems to be a propitious moment to revisit the entire concept of heroism and heroic acts. Who are our heroes? Why do we have them or need them? What role do they serve in our lives and how are their words and images manipulated and often “domesticated” by others to serve interests inconsistent with their values and efforts to persevere in their commitment to justice through challenge and even threat?

At their best, our heroes provide a modicum of inspiration to those who would deign to follow in their more “famous” and widely-honored footsteps. To insist on a life full of meaning as well as data. To develop and use our voices to keep alive the many and diverse things that matter to ourselves and others. To pay attention and contribute to the local contexts and dimensions of social change. To make a better effort to ensure that those who have been culturally marginalized are brought closer to the center. To counter the darkness which stubbornly resides both in the hearts of ourselves and amidst our communities as one of many contributions to the unfolding of the light.

But there are dangers lurking here as well, the vicarious dimensions of the ways in which we “honor” heroes that serve to impede as much as inspire. Our heroes, in this scenario, are akin to celebrities who do something real (as a schoolchild allegedly confessed to a teacher). But the “real” that they do often falls into the category of things we would not risk doing ourselves – jeopardizing personal and family security to call out injustice, driving into danger to rescue civilians under attack or to feed those at the very edge of starvation, acquiring positions of power and then actually using them to advance the full human condition rather than satisfying personal or even national ambitions, abandoning socially prescribed expectations to serve those who might then serve others, paying forward what has been given to those who need it still.

I have had the life privilege of engaging with several notable figures, including the Reverend William Sloane Coffin Jr., who struggled routinely with an often-thoughtless vicariousness, finding themselves often out on a proverbial limb to cheers from an audience that wouldn’t think of joining them there. I am anything but a hero, but I have also been told by others how reassuring it is to know that there is “someone out there doing these things.” As though it is possible to “do these things,” indeed to do much of anything of value at all, without the active engagement, energy, wisdom, even love of so many others. As though the heroic acts of heroic individuals can ever compensate for a dearth of hopeful activity at personal and community level, activity that can transform “the daily grind of domestic affairs” into viable and actionable linkages with so others in familiar and unfamiliar circumstances, including our heroes-turned-celebrities living lives (past or present) which too many of us have sadly become accustomed to assuming have little or nothing to do with our own.

One of the terms which has found growing resonance around the UN community, and which I believe was introduced to me and my office colleagues by Marta Benavides of El Salvador, is that of “accompaniment.” The skills which are conveyed through this term are not in opposition to heroism but are sustainably complementary. Walking alongside rather than in front of. Ensuring a reliable presence beyond one-off events or interventions. Making promises to which we are personally accountable. Remaining attentive to the creeping darkness in our midst and then enacting those “quiet refusals” which standing-down such darkness requires. Setting better examples ourselves rather than pointing to examples of heroes whose often-exemplary lives we might well honor but remain largely out of reach.

At the end of the day, heroism for most of us is not an office to hold or specific actions to honor so much as an opportunity to express our full humanity, a chance to grow beyond our limited contexts, a chance to help incarnate values in the world that we care about but don’t experience sufficiently, a chance to push ourselves further out of the realm of the safe and comfortable into the ever-whirling, ever-maddening, ever-threatened world. Indeed, it is often an important dimension of heroism to focus less on the length of our lives and more on their quality – who they touch, what they stand for, what we can help others to accomplish or, in the case of children, prepare to accomplish.

On this M.L. King Day as on every day, let us pledge to do all the good that we are able, to identify and cast aside the darkness around and within us, to affirm more of life tomorrow than yesterday, and to insist on linking our own accompaniments and other manifestations of justice and service to those of others. These are aspects of heroism, of a life mindfully lived, that do not require celebrity but only a reaffirmation of the fully human, the willingness of all to contribute the good as they are able, goodness which, in tandem, retains the welcome and transformational capacity to “overwhelm the world.”

Tags: accompaniment, Heroes, justice, ML King

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Reconciliation Nation: A January 6th Reflection, Dr. Robert Zuber

5 Jan

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. Voltaire

How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! Charlotte Brontë

Liberty or death!’ A rebel, armed with a blood-stained pitchfork, shouted over-and-over. David Cook

Hard towards himself, he must be hard to others, and in his heart there must be no place for love, friendship, gratitude or even honor. Mikhail Bakunin

The only thing we knew for certain was the American Civil War was not a prelude to a kiss. Aberjhani

Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel

The world needs people who have survived mistakes, tragedies, and trials to help the rest of us through. Kimberly Giles

I feel somewhat sheepish bothering you with yet another post so soon after the previous two, but this is an anniversary that I could not bear to let pass by.

One year after many of us within the US were transfixed with a brazen act of insurgency that we in the US should probably have seen coming, and as many outside the US were left to wonder if we had firmly entered “failed state” territory, there is little confidence in many quarters that the violence which was allowed to take root at the US Capitol has been sufficiently weeded from our national life.

If anything, the lines of ideology, even of reality, are increasingly sharp. As I wrote last week, we have become quite comfortable taking shots at each other across a bow of willful misunderstanding and even enmity. There are few voices now willing to stand apart from the chasms which define our culture, our values, our politics, stand apart not to remain aloof in its own right but to try and make space for choices beyond following an increasingly angry and stiff-necked herd.

This stiffness has taken many forms and is not confined to any one of the herds which now occupy and relentlessly defend their own pastures.

On the political right, we have seen and heard many insurgent voices, including ostensibly “religious ones” parroting conspiracies which could easily be debunked if folks were only willing to trust their senses more than the angry, victimized language communicated to them and from which some never seem to be satiated. We have seen the spike in gun sales, we have heard the voices from radios and pulpits calling for “patriotic” violence, we have recoiled from the “lone ranger” fanatics willing to shoot up schools and shopping malls in some instances as their last gasp attempts to gain some measure of “patriotic” infamy before departing this life for whatever might come next.

What is most chilling about some of these incidents is the levels of financial and even political support which perpetrators of this violence receive from those in their herd. Some of this support takes the form of vitriolic rhetoric, but also of silence, an approach which, even more than malicious or conspiratorial words, suggests that what happened last year on this date was “no big deal,” even as we now recognize that this hand of insurgency was being dealt from the highest levels of the US government.

It is hard for the rest of us at times to remember that this form of insurgent outrage is not new to this country; indeed our history would suggest that the current cultural configuration – love your country and distrust its inhabitants — has more or less been stitched into our national fabric. We have long taken each other for granted if not altogether exploited one another; we have long stoked culture wars, not only between believers and unbelievers, but among believers themselves; we have long proclaimed our cherished values and peaceful dispositions while arming ourselves to the teeth and using our power to unfair advantage over diverse races and cultures; we have long packed ourselves into cities and then denigrated those who still work the fields and mines essential to our urban lifestyles; we have long extolled those who “win” at money and power as though that game is not also rigged in favor of those who already control institutions and define pathways of access.

In the tribes which I more regularly frequent, we who mostly never fought in wars or saw fit to engage in other forms of national service seem to feel quite satisfied with our university educations, our jobs with health insurance and other social benefits, and our access to power and to those who hold it. We, too, look after our own interests as though there was something vaguely sacred about them, as though these interests were somehow also baked into the rules of a game that has long been tilted in our favor.

One of the frustrating aspects of this year for me and many has been the slow pace of justice, including justice for those who fanned flames that erupted last January 6 after what had been a long and steady burn. We in my tribe generally stand fast in our defense of the “rule of law.” But where has this “rule” been hiding? Indeed, as I have maintained in other contexts, one now presumably faces more severe legal jeopardy for stealing a Red Bull out of a convenience store than for launching an assault on the US Capitol.

Clearly, we in our liberal bubbles also have things to answer for: Have we done much of anything over this past year to remedy this legal travesty? And while we are at it, have we done enough over this past year to heal our broken politics, to eliminate gross inequalities of access to income and education, power and influence, to put the corks of discipline and service back in the bottles of military and police command, to promote notions of “freedom” which apply to all and not just to some and which are more textured and communally-binding than merely “doing what I want?”

I don’t think it can be considered in any way conspiratorial to conclude that I and others are collectively failing to meet the moment. We have allowed deficits of justice and kindness to fester while increasing hostile divides and giving unearned comfort to those content enough to face additional “wrist slaps” in order to continue their assault on democracy. And those wrist slaps, by the way, pertain to those well beyond the January insurgents themselves, those with plenty of money and the will to buy whatever and whomever can be bought — which appears to be most anyone now in government or contemplating a run for elected office. January 6 did not announce threats to democracy but did pull back the veil on how that threat has evolved and been duly monetized over time.

We are going to hear much over these days of political officials scared to death – as well they might have been — of the mob (and their enablers) who invaded the Capitol last January 6 and who have largely yet to face proper justice. But the storm that is coming and for which we remain ill prepared is one which promises more destruction, more enmity, more chaos. We need voting rights, yes. We need a revitalized response to the world’s “huddled masses” including those huddling due to our own economic and security policies. At the same time, we need to fix what is wrong with ourselves, not just wrong with “them” but wrong with us, those of us locked away in blue state bubbles, those of us who make fortunes in our urban canyons and then place them beyond the reach of any public good, those of us who flaunt our degrees and other credentials as though they were primarily a sign of virtue rather than of privilege.

One year on, we must insist on accountability for the insurrectionists and their political enablers still prepared to do violence to uphold their own victimizations and conspiracies. But we must also promote avenues of reconciliation with such people, people every bit as much citizens of this country and, if you will, children of god as we are, people who have reason to fear our largely-unaccountable political and economic hegemonies as much as we fear their weapons and reality-challenged leanings. Simply put, our vaunted and oft-exported democracy does not work for everyone, if it ever did. We need to narrow those gaps before further eruptions of violence force us to shut down our democratic experiment altogether.

One thing that seems to be clear as we approach this troubling anniversary – we and those we oppose on ideological grounds have something important in common – the deep trauma we feel courtesy of a global pandemic, climate and economic uncertainty, cultural upheaval and all else that has prompted many to retreat to our isolation chambers and hide under the metaphorical covers until it is time to lash out – with prejudice, with stereotypes, with conspiracies, with dismissiveness, with anger, even with guns.

The attack on the Capitol requires justice with urgency and determination, but it was also a symptom of national angst more than a cause, the flaring of a virus we have been carrying around long before COVID-19. If we are to avoid the fascist-style outcomes some now predict for us, it is incumbent on we and our institutions – churches, schools, media and more – to help us find the language and actions which can soften hearts and stiffen resolve, the resolve not to give up on ourselves, on each other, nor on the democracy that so many of our ancestors gave their lives to preserve. We know more, it seems, about how to inflame emotions and harden opinions than to search for common ground and reconcile one to another. And while we may well lament becoming a country allegedly “free” to choose its facts as well as its opinions, the “fact” also remains that we have much work to do – on our country and on ourselves – to fulfill the promise of our national creed.

As much as nationwide vaccination, the need for nationwide reconciliation remains acute. Time is running out for the people of this country to revisit and apply those skills.

Tags: democracy, insurgency, January 6, reconciliation

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Storm Surge: Clearing 2021s Mental Debris, Dr. Robert Zuber

31 Dec

I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn’t explain away afterwards. Rudyard Kipling

Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. Margaret Atwood

When we kill people, we feel compelled to pretend that it is for some higher cause. It is this pretense of virtue, I promise you, that will never be forgiven by history. Shashi Tharoor

He had a clear conscience. Never used it. Stanisław Jerzy Lec

So distracted have we become sating this new need or that material appetite, we hardly noticed the departure of happiness. Randall Robinson

Of what use was memory anyway than as a template for one’s most reassuring self-deceptions! Ashim Shanker

No one, Naomi had learned, did evil without believing it was right at the time. Maybe this was why it was nearly impossible to talk them out of it? Rene Denfeld

The most trustworthy and likable guides are the ones who occasionally ask others for directions. Frank Bruni

I know that I promised fewer of these posts but the transition from one difficult year to another which, despite the hopes that we will pin on 2022, is likely to be saturated with challenges at personal, community and global levels that seemed to warrant a bit of reflection.

As 2021 and its lessons fade from conscious awareness, we at Global Action are attempting to do what we should have done years earlier – ask others for directions, including on how and where we should place our energies in what is already poised to be another time of challenge, both familiar and fresh.

We have commented before on the wide range of skills and capacities which the times demand, ranging from the deeply intimate to the most technologically sophisticated, just some of what we will need to tap if we are to effetively care for the sick and isolated, ensure that provisions are accessible by refugees and others in almost unimaginable need, launch and monitor telescopes that can bring us closer to the edge of creation, and reverse what we can of the damage done from a warming and warring planet.

None can attend to all of these things, certainly not alone. Indeed, any contributions we might make are constrained as we allow our own capacities to erode and as we fail to address what seem to be widening gaps between what we feel we must do and what we are able to do. Like many others, we at Global Action are trying to discern the frontier of our effective actions, a task in part about making more sound judgments regarding the efforts we can undertake ourselves and those times when we are much better off helping to enable others.

But success here also requires us to get our own heads straight, to clear away some of the psychological and conceptual debris that is holding us back, and by no means us alone. Amidst the pull of caregiving of all kinds, amidst our dangerous and often petty political rhetoric, amidst the necessity of broadened educational and health care access as well as restoring the impaired biodiversity on which our very lives depend, there are modes of thinking and feeling which have dominated much of our social life in this past year, modes which have wasted precious human energy and sown distrust at community and policy levels, modes we would do well to abate as this new year begins, if not relinquish entirely.

There are many candidates that could have been listed in this post, but three rose closest to the surface for me. The first of these was a focus of classical psychotherapy as practiced by persons such as Erich Fromm – pointing out our almost obsessive tolerance of “rationalization,” the half-truths (at best) we tell ourselves about our motives, our intentions, our goals; our unrelenting efforts to justify the unjustifiable; the misrepresentations we parrot with such frequency that we come to believe them – no matter how many others remain duly skeptical.

Such rationalization has done and continues to do damage to our social fabric. We are inclined, as Fromm himself noted, to invest enormous amounts of personal energy – energy we simply cannot afford to squander in these precarious times – protecting ourselves from the truth of our own intentions, the “explanations” that hide as much as reveal, the rationalistic “after-thoughts” of decisions which are often driven by desires we can scarcely admit we have, desires which might call into question our carefully-crafted images that fool only some of the people some of the time.

In this social-media saturated world that we have constructed for ourselves, we have been conditioned to purchase the surfaces, to make snap decisions (and often inflexible ones) based on mere snippets of camera-ready activity and/or personality. We seem committed more and more to the principle that what is true is what you can convince others to be true. This principle becomes an incubator of rationalization, exacerbating the trend of hiding often-complex truths about ourselves from ourselves.

This impediment is related to another which was also not invented during this past year but seems to have flourished at this dangerous moment – the tendency to judge (and even demonize) others about whom we know little, including little about their familial, social and economic contexts. The volume of judgements emanating from people of all political persuasions, all races and genders, regarding people that they don’t know, indeed don’t have any interest in knowing, is quite staggering. Those who struggle mightily to discern the truth of their own motives seem to have surprisingly little difficulty in pinning down the motives of perfect strangers often in the form of self-interested and overtly stereotypical rants. “We” know about those liberals, those refugees, those proud boys, those racists. What “we” know in fact are too-often carefully groomed snippets of behavior and perspective, now mostly social media-mediated, which serve to confirm rather than complicate our snap judgements. If we were more mindful and honest about the opportunities, limitations and challenges embedded in our own contexts, it might well help to moderate much of the self-righteous and context-challenged stereotyping that breeds division far more than understanding.

Finally, it would be good if in this new year we could find a way to abandon, or at least modify, our current widespread tendency to apply an anti-scientific mind-set to our assessments of science. We have been living through a period characterized by a profound skepticism of any official views of anything, coupled with a stunning lack of skepticism regarding the conspiracies which challenge such official views. Many also have doubled down on their desire for what John Dewey called “monistic” ideas, the “science” that is “true” once and for all, the “science” that eschews the “plurality of ideas employed in experimental activity as working hypotheses.” In other words, a “science” which intentionally rejects the methodologies and conclusions-in-process of science.

The solution to this is not what Dewey referred to as a “thoughtless empiricism” devoid of culture, of value, even of faith. What is required instead is a rejection of the fanatical claims of some, often draped in religious as well as scientific terminology, that what is “true” must be true for all in all circumstances. Regardless of culture. Regardless of context. Regardless of gender or race. Regardless of revisions to our understanding of the world required by subsequent research in many fields including by new technologies that allow us to see deeper and further such as the Webb Space telescope now probing areas of our universe hitherto beyond our reach.

It has become clear to me, rightly or otherwise, that the current skepticism regarding a “science” incapable of revealing or sustaining “monistic ideas” is merely one component of the same conceptual “field of debris” that we have duly laid out for ourselves and reinforced over this past year. One that rationalizes and conceals rather than reveals; one that habitually judges harshly, categorically and independently of context; one that pledges allegiance to the one that that claims to uphold the “truth” that is right for all in all circumstances, even as the actual truth lies elsewhere.

As our calendar year flips, we have so much on our collective plates if we are to keep ourselves sane and our progeny alive. Some of this is related to the pursuit of justice and physical health, the restoration of our environment, the resolution of conflict threats. But some is related to the debris rummaging around in our psyche that we generally seem unable or unwilling to clear away: the need to hide our true motives from ourselves, the need to de-contextualize those with whom we disagree; the need to turn pending truths into eternal ones. Overcoming these self-imposed impediments, these wounds inflicted over and over on our social fabric, is the new year’s resolution that can help heal our divisions, our democracies and possibly even our planet. Let’s give it a try.

Tags: rationalization, Science, stereotyping, truth

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Muscle Pain: A Christmas Reflection, Dr. Robert Zuber

23 Dec

The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control. bell hooks

All that surrounds him hastens to decay: all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. Your god is a masked Death. Charlotte Brontë

Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to gentleness. William Shakespeare

An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes. Ayn Rand

Everything precious was also vulnerable. Mary H.K. Choi

While most of us are, at some level, guilty of creating what some scribes and religious texts refer to as “graven images” of deeper and more challenging spiritual realities, our imaging has taken a particularly sinister turn as this season of Advent transitions into the season of the Christmas manger.

Many have seen for ourselves images of smiling elected officials and others sitting around Christmas trees while holding deadly weapons and asking Santa for suitable ammunition. We have also heard preachers, not always from obscure denominational backgrounds, urging a brand of “godly” violence in an effort, or so it seems, to drag an otherwise disredited version of Christianity out of the shadows and on to the pedestal of governance. It is as though we never abandoned the aspiration of “holy empire” nor ceased to honor the (mostly) men who perpetuated it.

Putting forth a notion of a “muscular Jesus” is not a new phenomenon in our culture, but in some circles it is clearly poised to make some fresh noise. An article this week in the Washington Post by Peter Manseau cited the desire in some “Christian” quarters for a “viral and manly Jesus” on the basis of which weapons and other threats of force can be justified, necessary to the “preservation of the good,” including the good of restoring a more testosterone-laden version of Christianity which, as they see it, had been allowed (by liberals mostly) to get too soft, too gentle, too “feminine” as it were.

This relishing of muscular force as a global (and even religious) good has a long and checkered past. While taking a break from weekly posts, I came upon a commentary on the iconic “Iliad” by the illustrious Simone Weil, one in which she reminds us of the deeper truths embedded in that seminal work, truths about ourselves including our almost genetic obsession with violence and its justifications. As she navigates the text, she is clear throughout that the “center of the Iliad is force,” force that enslaves, force before which our “flesh shrinks away,” force which “turns anybody subjected to it into a thing,” in essence making “corpses” of all of us.

This is sobering reflection, made more so by the accuracy of its portrayal. As a species we have long been addicted to the allure of force, which includes the assumption (until proven otherwise) that our choices are only between the projection of force and its receipt, that we have little recourse in this life aside from being on one end of a weapon or another, creating things out of people or, alternatively, enduring the experience of being turned into things by others.

This dystopian view generates plenty of supporting evidence, and we often seem surprised by how shallow are our collective alternatives, our practical commitments to the values of peace, dignity, compassion and tolerance. Weil notes that in the Iliad there are moments of grace to be found, but these are often buried along with the corpses of those fallen in battle or through siege, signaling the likelihood that the cycles of violence to which we have become all-too-accustomed are poised to flare up yet again.

And yet amidst the pain and carnage of our weapons and muscular mindsets, a child is born, a son is given, a manger barely fit for livestock has become the stage for a different way of engaging the world, one less involved in pumping iron and packing heat, and more interested in demonstrating that, even in this force-addicted world, another more peaceful course forward is possible.

The manger, after all, is more than a humble birthing location; it is a metaphor for what is to come: a life spent bringing dignity to outcasts who might otherwise have been ignored; a life bearing forgiveness in settings where many of us would likely succumb to bitterness; a life showering compassion on the sick and hungry beyond the influence of any comfort zone; a life rejecting the very violence and self-reference which some in his name would have you believe is a core component of a proper, “manly” faith. We hear the testimony of that divine life: Give him your cloak as well. Put away your sword. Cease your elbowing for honor and recognition. Understand that the ways of the world – embracing the coerciveness of muscular force – will not be your way, must not be your way if we are to have a way forward at all.

That same manger also sends a message to those who fear above all their own vulnerability and insufficiency, who measure strength by their ability to coerce others and even make them beg for mercy, who seek to double down on the terms of the current world rather than the terms which the ministry of Jesus embodies, a message that there is grace, dignity and forgiveness to be found emanating from the most extreme and forlorn places, even from a barn at the edge of town on a bone chilling night.

The late senior pastor of New York’s Riverside Church, William Sloane Coffin, used to speak of the essential Christmas choice as one between “shoving and loving.” This always struck me as hopeful but not uncomplicated phrasing. For we have constructed a world where the threat and use of force is, for many, the wallpaper that covers their world, an expectation that literally envelops their reality with its overly-muscular and militarized imagery, its inflexible bureaucracies, its self-refereential supervision, its stubborn power imbalances. It is hard for many now, as perhaps it has always been, to imagine a world suggested by the manger – vulnerable beginnings which transition into lives which are threatening only to those whose influence in the world is a byproduct of what we at the UN refer to often as “coercive measures rather than of commitments to compassion, forgiveness, dignity and equity.

And the “loving” option is certainly no simple matter either. Indeed, it is a matter much more easily professed than discharged, a claim too often drowning in intangible sentiment that sounds perpetually better in theory than in practice. Love is, for most of us, an easy choice, but as we soon find out is one fraught with missed connections and self-deceptions. We tend to forget (or ignore) how much of our being is earmarked for competition, possession and, yes, force, and this is increasingly true in some measure across lines of gender, culture and ethnicity. We are generally not as loving as we profess to be, surely not towards ourselves, certainly not towards others.

But having made the choice to eschew a life defined by “shoving” is an important transitional step, a step in keeping with a humble manger and the divine spark which emanated from it. While loving may ultimately offer “no place of safety,” as the late Gloria Jean Watkins (bell hooks) reminded us, it does offer us a path to follow, one suggested by humble origins and a subsequent life of divine purpose, a path which can take us to places where muscular force and the pain it inflicts has a measurably declining impact on how and why we live, what we can reasonably and hopefully aspire to for ourselves, our communities and our progeny.

The manger signifies more than merely tickling our sentiment. It suggests a fresh way forward, a path towards higher levels of dignity and service; a path towards reversing the self-inflicted decay which now envelops too much of our planet, a path wherein we are moved to both protect what is most vulnerable and invest in what is most precious such that others can also share in the remaining manifestations of abundance which we who are most privileged so often prefer to horde.

Let us be clear: the Jesus we revere especially on this Christmas Day did not advocate violence nor find it attractive; did not spend his precious time on earth working on his abs; was not to be found “packing heat” (or the biblical equivalent) on the donkey that carried him ultimately into Jerusalem; did not conveniently turn away from acts of compassion and healing, even unto death. And while he apparently turned over a table or two in the temple and had more than a few harsh words for those who represented or enabled a coercive empire, his cheeks always seemed to be turned.

Despite the contentions of some muscle-bound, force-challenged Christians, the Jesus who emerged from the Christmas manger is not “masked death” but unmasked life, offering guidance towards a world where the pain from coercion is no longer coin of the realm, and where what is most precious is duly acknowledged, protected and shared. This is why the wonders and aspirations of Christmas still matter to me. Perhaps to you as well.

Tags: Christmas, force, manger

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A Grateful (and short) Note to our Twitter Community, Dr. Robert Zuber

20 Dec

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As 2021 comes to a close, I wanted to let you know how much we appreciate your engagement with this account as well as with the issues we cover both inside and outside the United Nations, issues which directly impact the health of our planet and the future of our children.

We very much appreciate your loyalty, your patience with our mistakes, and your many hopeful actions in the communities and contexts in which you work to help build a more just and equitable world.

As you may have noticed, we have started to scale back a bit, both in terms of daily coverage of UN events as well as our weekly reflections on global events, both of which have sought to reinforce how improvements in the world which are sustainable must be accompanied by improvements in ourselves.

And yet, despite prodding by us and many others, we continue to make too many weapons and lie about their consequences. We continue to increase emissions and reduce prospects for the biodiversity on which our very lives depend. We continue to discriminate and stereotype, to act upon beliefs that we cannot possibly prove to be true, to horde rather than share, and to forge ahead without asking ourselves “what can go wrong here” and then preparing to address those gaps and threats.

You all know this. We have tried to use this space to connect issues and people across culture and geography, but we aren’t ever telling you anything you haven’t already suspected. Indeed, one of our regrets so far is that we haven’t learned nearly enough from you. Not nearly enough.

We will take a bit of step back at year’s end, given financial and other circumstances. For a while at least, we will be covering the UN less, commenting less, sharing less. We’re not going away, more like going into a light hibernation. It has been a long and sometimes stressful haul for us – 20 years as an organization, 10 years on this platform. We need some time to reflect and reassess, to discern how we might add value going forward, how we might better enable and share, rather than impede, the invaluable contributions of others, including your own.

We have been honored to have shared our own opinions and energies over this time, and even more pleased to have been tethered to your own good work. If you need to leave us during this coming period of reduced coverage, all best to you as you go forward. If you have ideas for us as to how we can make more relevant contributions once we find our new bearings, we’re always happy to hear from you.

Thank you again for all you are doing to make this troubled period in our human journey less troubled. We need to get through this treacherous moment. We have little choice but to do so. We count on your energies and gifts to that end.

Warmest regards and blessings in this season from all of us,

Bob

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Anticipating Newness: An Advent Reflection, Dr. Robert Zuber

28 Nov

Once they’ve rejected resignation, humans gain the privilege of making humanity their footpath. Kouta Hirano

Anticipation is a gift. Perhaps there is none greater. Anticipation is born of hope. Indeed it is hope’s finest expression. Steven L. Peck

So many of us grow into doubting, hopeless, callous adults protecting hardened hearts. Medicating the pain. Life isn’t what we imagined. Nor are we. Charles Martin

One who is fed on promises feeds from an empty bowl. Marsha Hinds

What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. Henry David Thoreau

You should seek answers, although it is better to anticipate some, to be the light and dream. Dejan Stojanovic

For unhappiness has nothing to teach, and resignation is ugly. Françoise Sagan

As we close this long chapter of weekly posts in anticipation of less frequent but perhaps more impactful contributions, there is much to reflect upon, much to give thanks for. While the audience for these posts has declined in recent times – a sign perhaps of a voice that has become tiresome and even redundant – I am so grateful to all of you who have dipped your toes in the water we have collected over many years, water which hopefully has helped to nourish both the day to day of this edgy world and that also anticipates a world that is on a path to become cleaner, fairer and greener, one more conducive to the health and well-being of our collective progeny.

I began these weekly posts several years ago in Advent and I will end them with Advent as well. For those located (or stuck) within the Christian tradition, Advent is perhaps the most neglected of our ecclesial seasons. We are so anxious to get to Christmas that we utterly fail this season of preparation, of discernment, even of longing. We too often ignore the value in anticipation of a world in which human and divine converge, where a vast universe of creation deigns to shine its light on our relatively tiny planet and its equally tiny pursuits, light which emanated from the stars long before the dawn of the human age. The light was there before we were, before our species embarked on this long journey – one clever in large measure but less so in wisdom – a species which now seems alternately passionate about renewal and resigned to what, in some key sectors of human existence at least, has become a precipitous and even ugly decline.

This pervasive and creeping resignation is why Advent still matters, perhaps matters as much as the holiday season of incarnation to which it is attached, that holiday towards which we drive much too recklessly and certainly over the speed limit. For how can we fully grasp the significance of the Christmas incarnation – of God with us (if you are able to accompany me there), and thus of a world that can be more than we have imagined it being — if we bypass the anticipatory stage to which it is rightly tethered? How do we make full sense of a season which has become captive in too many instances of addictive consumption and awkward reunions around a dinner table without also sitting in contemplation of all that is in danger of being lost from life now, and all that could be if we were truly and fully engaged in the task of making it so, indeed if we still believed that such a world is possible?

The anticipation associated with this season is not to be confused with wishful thinking or an excuse to avoid the localized affairs which constitute so much of daily living. Yes, the universe is vast beyond belief; yes, we are being called to discern more, to abandon resignation and embrace a kinder, fairer scale of possibility. And yet, there are also diapers to change, wood and water to gather, children and elderly to protect and reassure, bills to pay, dishes to wash, bathrooms to clean, rice to harvest and cook. On and on it goes, practical responsibilities that force our attention and focus our energy, the many details of responsible living which for many of us are challenging enough all year round, let alone as Christmas approaches, a logistical burden such that this seasonal call of the universe to us – this call of the divine if you will – cannot easily be heard let alone heeded.

And yet we cannot escape the fact It is anticipation in its best sense that is the glue that literally holds this time of Advent and incarnation and its myriad details together, giving it a full meaning. Theologians including Paul Tillich understood that to anticipate is to enable the energy of what our hearts long for to directly influence our thoughts and actions, to begin in essence to live in us as though the promise we anticipate is actually on its way, or more precisely is in some way already a living force within us, if not quite yet at its final landing spot.

We don’t have to look far to see this insight in action. The woman for whom an engagement ring is a symbol which allows her to anticipate and even map out the contours of a long life with another. The child anticipating a bicycle for Christmas that is not so much about the object itself but about the future ability to ride through the parks and around the neighborhood. The farmer attending to the question of to whom to sell and/or give his/her harvested crop while that crop is still months from its full ripeness.

We know how to do anticipation. We have experienced some of the effects of longings which have already taken up space in our hearts. But it is so difficult now to capture this one, unique Advent longing as the logistics of the Christmas holiday drown out the promise of an Advent season that strives to beam hope into lives that, in too many instances, have largely short-circuited their hopeful connection.

But we must be clear: The problem we face now is more than logistical, more than ensuring that our personal effects are in order or that our laws and (in the case of the UN) resolutions are properly framed. The problem now is in part that so many of us seem resigned to our current slide. Many of us, including in our own policy sector, seem to be giving up on the possibility that climate change and species extinction can be reversed, that nations can replace enmity with trust, that the vast inequalities of wealth and power can revert to the mean, that our vast expenditures on coercive security measures can be diverted to solving problems that are still within our capacity to solve, that our communities and families can do better than building walls and shunning diversity.

Collectively, we are indeed increasingly in a resignation frame of mind. We are increasingly suspicious of everything and everyone save for ourselves. But we are in some ways, if the sages and psychologists are on point, also desperate to be rescued from smug and callous versions of ourselves. Sadly our faith communities are simply not doing enough to reverse this toxic course. This applies as well, perhaps especially, to my own Christian faith, one which should stake its claim fully on anticipation rather than resignation, at least if the core of Advent is to be believed.

In this regard, I am reminded of an old professor of mine at Yale, Jaroslav Pelikan, who used to refer to a Christian faith characterized by “pessimism about life and optimism about God.” What this meant was that there buried deep within an otherwise hopeful faith is a resignation about ever having the world we might want, a world that is more than a snare and temptation to sin, a world envisioned by agreements like the UN Sustainable Development goals, but even more by the promise of incarnation — coming and already here –; a promise that is much more than an “empty bowl,” a promise to both honor and answer the vastness of a universe almost beyond comprehension, vastness which might otherwise make us despair of ever mattering in anything approximating the grand scheme of things. But the Advent promise reminds us that we matter anyway. The world matters anyway. We matter to each other anyway.

Mattering, perhaps, does not seem like a particularly high bar to many of you, but ours is a bar that has been slipping for some time and is now sliding lower still, a bar that needs so desperately to be repositioned such that it can inspire us to live out our lives in the light of the world we anticipate, to place our energies, talents and aspirations out where the light of a divine universe can shine upon them. We need to recover that place which confirms that a better world is possible, indeed that such a world is poised to appear if only we would consent to the “privilege of making humanity our footpath,” pledging to do at least our part to both anticipate the coming of a kinder, gentler, healthier planet and ensure its safe passage.

For the past six years, one Sunday after another, these missives have been devoted to that Advent spirit, one which eschews the temptations of inattentiveness, logistical chaos, personal resignation and, yes, of hardened hearts, one which attempts to inspire institutions large and small to keep the promises they make and, more particularly, that splendid promise of a world which has managed to come back from the brink, a world filled with people from all regions and backgrounds who have also found a way in this time of indifference, poverty and pandemic to come back from brinks of their own. For our part, we continue to live in anticipation of a world fit to sustain the lives of children, a world of doors not walls, a world of modest lifestyles and ambitious generosity, a world striving to bury every metaphorical hatchet — from hate speech to weapons of mass destruction.

For all our partial achievements and palpable failures over many years, this is what we continue to anticipate; this is what has been and remains alive in us; this is what we will do our best to grow and sustain until we meet again.

Tags: Advent, Anticipation, resignation

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Reform School: UN Lessons Incompletely Learned, Dr. Robert Zuber

21 Nov

land reform | agricultural economics | Britannica

Agricultural Reform in our Distant Past

Enlighten yourself and then enlighten the world. Rashid Jorvee

We can see how superficial and foolish we would be to think that we could correct what is wrong merely by tinkering with the institutional machinery. The changes that are required are fundamental changes in the way we are living. Wendell Berry

Reforming ignorantly, will consequence crisis and destruction. Kamaran Ihsan Salih

I’m not good,” he said, piercing me with eyes that absorbed all light but reflected none, “but I was worse.” Becca Fitzpatrick

Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform. Derrick Bell

The best reform is to repent. Lailah Gifty Akita

It is very easy to point, but very difficult to refine and reform. Sarvesh Murthi

We’re nearing the end of these weekly posts and there are so many people to thank, those who (often unknowingly) contributed quotations and images, those whose comments helped us to become something perhaps a bit more than one shrill voice amidst a cacophony of statements and other noises from both diplomats and NGO. We are grateful to all of you, we will write many of you to say so individually over these winter months, and we will be sure to avoid any assumptions of value going forward without checking with you first.

Indeed, many questions loom at this moment, not only what is next for us but more importantly what is next for the institution we have tried our level best to discern over a generation. What is next for a policy center which is itself not particularly adept at discernment, which does not easily own up to its failures, which asks the questions which makes consensus possible but not the harder questions of unintended impact? What do we say about an institution that is constantly calling attention to itself, touting the multilateralism with the UN positioned at the center, promising global constituencies solutions to global problems that remain elusive at best while rebuffing suggestions that the UN was meant to do anything more, could ever anything more than “save us from hell?” What next for a system that has managed to fold unto itself virtually every issue of global importance, but also one that is constantly being forced to cater to the states which fund its programs, the results of which are an endless stream of “what we are doing” and a trickle of “what isn’t working,” with sometimes uncomfortable consequences for both human dignity and planetary healing? What is next for an institution that, at its core, tends to be a bit more smug than enlightened, that maintains the dubious assumption that changes in institutions are both possible and sustainable without simultaneous changes in those who manage those institutions?

To be fair, the UN has engaged in serious reform processes in most all of its Charter bodies. The Economic and Social Council represents a much more formidable setting for discussions on sustainable development –especially on finance – than was the case a decade ago. Pushed hard by small island and other developing states, and in response to the habitual gridlock on peace and security within the Security Council, the General Assembly has taken up the task of “revitalization” in earnest, a task which involves both strengthening the office of the GA president and clearing away the debris of endless resolutions tabled but not implemented, resolutions which maintain a GA “stake” in the large issues of the day but also help guarantee that such stakes will remain stuck in infertile ground until it is time to dust them off and peel away the accumulated rust in one year’s time.

The General Assembly has also been engaged – for what at times seems like an eternity – in prospects for reform of the Security Council, a body defined by its “provisional rules of procedure,” its endless and oft-repetitive speechmaking, the “bully ball” routinely played by the largest three of its five permanent members, and its inabiliy or unwillingness to ensure compliance with its resolutions (with the possible exception of peacekeeping mandates) despite both the coercive tools at its disposal and the erstwhile “binding” nature of such resolutions. Indeed, interest by the General Assembly in exploring its own peace and security bona fides, including in Syria and through the Peacebuilding Commission, is due in part to frustrations about Council inaction and in part due to longstanding concerns that the Council has long since failed to accurately represent the will or security interests of the general UN membership.

And yet, some of those member states go to sometimes extraordinary lengths to campaign for a seat on that very same Council, in some instances because they believe that, together with other elected members, they can force change in a chamber which gives up its privileges with great reluctance; while others seem excited by the expectation of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with global heavyweights and perhaps just as eager for the prestige (and even deference) that comes along with the heavy burdens associated with that two-year tenure.

Where the Council is concerned, much of the reform energy, especially emanating from the Council itself, is focused on working methods – including the system of resolution “pen holders” and levels of consultation required (especially with African states) prior to the crafting of peacekeeping mandates or the application of coercive measures such as sanctions and arms embargoes. And as pushed by a bevy of increasingly bold elected members (now including Kenya, Ireland, Niger and Mexico), the unfolded and sometimes even unwashed “laundry” of the Council is increasingly aired. Such an airing has been duly noted in the General Assembly where Council reform energies largely take the form of membership expansion, veto restrictions for the permanent members and a more regular (and respectful) engagement with the General Assembly and other Charter bodies.

We have long welcomed such efforts as our own view has been (and remains) that the elected Council membership is where the drive for more equitable relations within the Council and more impactful (even enlightened) relations beyond chambers is most likely to emerge. As conflict settings loom – having failed the prevention test and now dragging on year after year (and in the case of Palestine, generation after generation) it has become undeniably clear how the world has changed – in demographics and in global threats — certainly more than the Council’s permanent heavyweights have allowed the chamber they still largely control to change in response.

But it has also long been (and remains) our view that reform must be more than about tinkering with working methods, more than about clearing away the debris of endlessly tabled resolutions, backroom arm twisting and tepid commitments to consultation. Yes, UN bodies are improving accountability to constituents in some aspects. Yes, it has certainly been worse in terms of the hegemonic dispositions of the major powers. Yes it has done legendary work in keeping alive millions impacted by the conflicts we have failed to prevent or resolve. Yes, it has found space for virtually every area of global concern within its conference rooms, even if a number of those concerns – including technology, weapons production and climate change – are evolving much faster than our policies can address or at times even grasp.

We will have more to say about this in the months to come. But for now, a note of caution to those who make policy in the absence of discernment, or who remain unwilling to ask the question of even our most cherished policies, “What can go wrong here?” As hard as many diplomats and NGOs work in and around UN spaces, it might be too much to ask for those same stakeholders to invest a bit more in our own collective enlightenment, our own discernment, our own empathy. But we must. We all must.

Despite the disappointment that the UN, for all its access to expertise and accumulated wisdom, has failed to become a genuine learning community; despite the disappointment as well that we continue to run from our values and psychological resources as though fleeing a crowded room of unmasked, unvaccinated partygoers; it is still the depth of our character, our sustained empathy for the people looking to us for hope, which is key to pushing through our current bureaucratic limitations. Such are the barriers that stifle reflection and repentance, the ones that drown some of our best intentions under waves of protocol and status, the ones that funding and consensus alone cannot resolve, especially so when pledges of organizational or humanitarian support remain unmet and consensus sometimes means something even less than “agreeing to disagree.”

In this often august and intermittently smug and self-important community, the reform we need now goes beyond tinkering with working methods and levels of representation. What is needed is changes in how we choose to live, what we care about both in theory and in practice, the examples we set for others, the promises we insist on keeping no matter how inconvenient with regard to energies or financial resources. A women’s rights advocate speaking in the Security Council debate on Afghanistan this week began by confessing how “exhausted” she and other Afghans are by war and conflict. We must find the means to engage that exhaustion and other feelings lying largely beyond our own privileged experiences if she and many others are finally to find some place of dependable rest.

This is the truth of the reform we, collectively speaking, might continue to dodge or ignore, but make no mistake: we do so at the peril of our multilateral institutions and of our planet as a whole. Despite the failures of Glasgow and on Ethiopia violence, despite a more narrow, pandemic-influenced, state-centrism governing UN conference rooms, it remains true that our success as an institution requires that the people of this planet, the farmers and teachers, the journalists and caregivers, believe in us, believe that our rhetorical and negotiating skills represent tangible hope for their own communities, even believe that we are willing to change our ways, especially our most privileged and unenlighted ways, embracing what Mexico referred to this week as “dimensions of service” in that noble task of making life better for others.

If we cannot make these changes, if we are unwilling to make them, I worry for the future of an institution we still largely revere, but which has also sapped (at least for a season) all of our freely-given, if modest, organizational energies and resources.

Tags: enlightenment, General Assembly, reform, Security Council

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Chain Gang: Building Confidence in Global Governance, Dr. Robert Zuber

14 Nov

With appreciation to meassociation.org.uk

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. Charles Dickens

To grow up is to fight for it, to grow old is to lose it after having possessed it. Eudora Welty

The eye by tears speak, while the tongue is mute. Robert Herrick

Your anchors are holding firm and they permit you both comfort in the present, and hope in the future. Boethius

People are not always very tolerant of the tears which they themselves have provoked. Marcel Proust

The truth of the story lies in the details. Paul Auster

Simply touching a difficult memory with some slight willingness to heal begins to soften the holding and tension around it. Stephen Levine

The outcome of every worry is a worry itself. Mahendar Singh Jakhar

Of all the week’s images that literally flood our social media and email inboxes on a regular basis, the most moving for me was to be found during an interview at the COP 26 event in Glasgow with Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and current head of the Group of Elders (https://theelders.org/), a group of former senior officials and global leaders who, together, seek to remind current policymakers of the accumulated wisdom and insight which can be elusive in the midst of policy tensions but which becomes clearer and more actionable with time and distance.

Ms. Robinson has long been one of my few heroes/heroines at the UN. Even while taking on difficult tasks and promoting controversial opinions she has been able to maintain her clarity and humanity. Thus it was no real surprise that, while discussing the multiple frustrations associated with this COP including the omnipresent fossil fuel lobbyists and obstructionist governments (she mentioned Saudi Arabia by name, but there were others) seemingly content to kick urgent response to the emissions crisis to yet another COP, another parking lot for private jets and bad faith negotiations, another reminder to our youth that their future is being compromised yet again by older folks addicted to their privilege and deaf to the cries of those who that privilege continues to threaten, that in the midst of all of that, signs of her deep worry and compassion surfaced.

In fact, while speaking, it became clear that the venerable Ms. Robinson was fighting back tears. She was hardly alone. We might all be tempted to allow tears to flow at another opportunity for healing wasted at least in part, wasted by yet another UN-sponsored event that generated more carbon than hope, another lost opportunity for governments to overcome the prevailing sense that while the language of solidarity may remain hot, hopeful actions of solidarity remain lukewarm at best.

In our 20 years or so of fussing over policy norms and those institutions such as the UN that create them, we have been steadfast in both highlighting and linking global threats – famine and impunity, destructive weapons and biodiversity loss, climate change and terrorism. And while all these threats have complex and specific responsibilities associated with them, from delivering humanitarian assistance in conflict zones and restoring bio-rich habitat to ending cross-border weapons trafficking and creating dependable structures to ensure justice for victims of grave abuses, the need to address threats in tandem remains. We now understand more of the linkages between the spread of pandemics and biodiversity loss, between biodiversity loss and famine, between famine and armed conflict, between armed conflict and rights abuses. The chain that binds these threats seems to be getting longer not shorter, and we know (or should know) that inter-connected crisis are unlikely to be resolved merely by focusing on a single link of the chain.

Indeed, one of the benefits of the UN as an institution is the extent to which it tries to keep the full chain in view, even if bureaucracy (or the wishes or some powerful states) sometimes dictate that issues remain quarantined in places of specialized competence. But many at the UN also recognize both that the quarantine must be only temporary and that we must generate the will and resources to meet this current moment, to reassure constituents that we genuinely have their back, to demonstrate that the challenges on our watch can be successfully implemented while there is still time for us to keep.

And this leads to the issue of governance and the officials which in some key areas have seemingly lost their way or, perhaps more precisely, lost our way. We understand that UN diplomats more often represent positions than formulate them. We understand that we live in a world of considerable tensions which multilateral spaces retain some ability to “soften.” We understand that people have wildly different expectations of those who govern in national and multilateral spaces, specifically of their levels of attentiveness and promise keeping, regarding threats up and down the global chain. We understand that the UN maintains some genuine capacity, as former Slovenia president Danilo Turk noted this week, “to turn tensions into rules.”

But we also understand that trust in governance is at a precipitous juncture; trust in the ability of states to lead us away from the abyss, but also trust that officials can and will demonstrate the willingness to compromise their own position and status, to take the hard decisions that may cost them votes in the short term but that will guarantee a safer, greener, fairer world in which to exercise our franchise in the longer term. While it is unfair to throw a wet blanket over all government actions and agents, the disappointing results of COP 26 are merely the latest example of officials offering half a loaf when a full loaf is required, offering “solutions” destined mostly to keep tensions and frustrations – especially those festering among the young – at a needlessly high pitch, allowing those with money and influence (as a friend from El Salvador recently noted) to “control all spaces of meaning and care for peace on earth.”

And as places like the UN seem disposed to hold many relevant stakeholders without money and status in their own policy exile, and as some states persist in shrugging their collective shoulders while planning for the next, best, global climate extravaganza, one opportunity after another to point us in a healing direction goes by the boards.

Indeed, the frustration with officials and distrust of their intentions may well constitute as serious a threat as that of any other point in the chain. This was the subtext of a Wednesday event featuring the aforementioned Danilo Turk and the former PM of Belgium Yves Leterme, both of whom shared concerns and recommendations at the UN this week on behalf of Club de Madrid. They were clear that a large problem in the world now is not just the policies of states and their makers but levels of trust in institutions of governance themselves and, more specifically, the erosion of confidence in democracy, both its principles and its authority.

Gratefully, Turk and Letterme came to the UN offering more than high levels of frustration and urgency regarding the state of democratic governance in our time. Among their recommendations to the UN was for a “peer review mechanism” to assess the health and competence of democracies and an “anti-corruption court” to adjudicate the most egregious instances of state officials using public funds to bankroll private interests, including and especially their own.

These were welcome suggestions, though neither entity would likely be established quickly or absent tensions and controversies, including over sources and quantities of funding. But such suggestions do highlight major truths of our time, including the increasingly widespread perception that we are not investing enough energy in the promotion of democracy — not simply the promotion of elections, but of inclusive participation in policy decisions and regular access to those in power. Alongside this is a related perception, that people with gobs of money and political status have become far too comfortable using up far more than their share of resources they did not earn for purposes not expressly authorized. Both perceptions, and the realities that lies behind them, are toxic to problem solving and trust building, two items that are clearly experiencing major supply-chain issues at this tumultuous moment in our collective history.

Given this, it is appropriate for all of us to join in wistful solidarity with Mary Robinson, to shed a tear or two over climate- related threats which have seemingly exposed every official inadequacy, every official compromise, every official misrepresentation of our current state of affairs. She knows better than the rest of us that we cannot – must not – separate the resolution of the issues we care about from the quality and status of those given institutional power and authority to effect what we must hope are “good faith” attempts to resolve them. At the same time, the rest of us must expand our own advocacy to include more regular attention to the instiutions and officials who can and must do more to become those “anchors” of hope, healing and comfort we need now; to better enable the contributions of youth and others to more sustainable ends rather than seducing or discouraging them with insincere invitations to participation; and to help the world in general sleep more soundly and live each day with fewer worries.

Tags: COP26, governance

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Home Wrecking: Fleeing Callous Humans and our Warming Planet, Dr. Robert Zuber

7 Nov

Tuvalu Addresses COP 26

We have become a place of long weeping; A house of scattered feathers; There is no home for us between earth and sky. Rebecca Roanhorse

And so you travel. Forgetting that the problem is you. And wherever you go, you carry yourself. Ezinne Orjiako

The ultimate paradox and irony of this tragedy is that, in many cases, those who caused their displacement and those who hate them in their newfound ‘homes’ in exile are the same people! Louis Yako

There is no destination other than towards yet another refuge from yet another war. Theresa Hak Kyung

Distance is the journey. Displacement is the result. Jaclyn Moriarty

People returned to live on city streets and pavements, in hovels on dusty construction sites, wondering which corner of this huge country was meant for them. Arundhati Roy

She had sculpted the mist, the way those who have no choice do. Padma Lakshmi

One of the seemingly eternal struggles of small organizations as ours has been for a generation is how to add value: how to support the work of others without taking credit for its outcomes; how to call attention to the pain of others without appropriating that pain to raise our funds or build our brand; how to join voices with others without losing our own distinctive notes; how to honor those “sculpting the mist” without losing sight for one moment of the privileges associated with honoring such profoundly challenging sculpting in the first place.

For me, for us, as we end our current iteration the journey towards a fresh engagement with global crises is already underway. What is already clear is that the path to engagement will likely run through the issue of displacement, those who have lost their homes as the result of family meltdown or economic collapse, those “taking refuge from another war” as we now see in Ethiopia, those who can no longer harvest their lands or their traditional fishing grounds due to ruinous levels of flooding and drought, especially those living on relatively remote islands facing climate shocks which they did not create, for which they cannot possible be prepared, and from the increasing fury of which there is simply nowhere to hide.

Of course, settling on a rubric is not the same as settling on a strategy to encourage and support change. To that end, I joined yesterday with some activist friends on a march in support of unhoused people and the services which are both insufficient and indispensable in moving people off the streets, helping them find both stability and identity in multiple forms, from reliable indoor plumping to a equally reliable mailing address.

Sadly, this march took place not in a populated area, not in a place where homeless people gather, but in the parking lot of a sports arena. Somehow, some way, the decision was made to organize a 5K walk in a place with no relationship whatsoever to the people for whom we were allegedly advocating. There were apparently few if any unhoused persons on the march. There was no audience to inspire along the route. There were no occupied homes or apartments in sight. There was no press to speak of. No one could even enter the march route through security unless they could demonstrate that they had both paid their fee and had been vaccinated for COVID, two requirements virtually guaranteeing that none of those experiencing the “long weeping” of displacement (or perhaps none of those currently on the cusp of their own homelessness) would be able to join the lovefest ostensible organized on their behalf.

It was difficult to escape the conclusion that I and the others on that march had done nothing of substance to help the displaced. What we had done, if anything, was to help brand the sports arena and the major donors who are, after all, so often the preferred destination for the efforts of the organizers. It was all about money, we didn’t have much of it to offer, and so we were relegated to walking around an empty parking lot as though being exiled as punishment for our modest resources and/or our political naivete.

This trek in the parking lot at least called to my own mind scenes on the other side of the world: in Ethiopia where armed groups inch closer to Addis Ababa, creating both panic in the capital and fresh displacements along the route of conflict. And, of course, in Glasgow where erstwhile global “leadership” convened, yet again, to offer a bevy of “solutions” to the climate crisis ranging from the genuinely hopeful to the merely distracting, a crisis already displacing millions with millions more likely to come.

More than officialdom made its way to Glasgow. Thousands of young people did also, youth for whom climate change represents more than an inconvenience requiring more than a chain of UN-brokered “talk-fests” which might well result in more dangerous carbon emissions than prospects for meaningful change. These youth filled the streets and, in some limited instances, the conference rooms, lamenting the reality that youth are much more likely to be heard than heeded, that decisions about the policy trajectory for climate mitigation and adaptation, for reducing disaster risks and increasing options for survival when risks turn so many lives of the affected into “scattered feathers;” these decisions continue to be made by older folks like me. Many of these decisionmakers are unlikely to ever be displaced from their private jets let alone their homes. Moreover, they will never have to sit across a table and break the news to climate-affected people that their dreams are soon to be burned or washed away, or that the footsteps of armed groups are fast approaching. Older folks not unlike myself will never have to share the news with affected people, as former Liberia president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf noted this weekend, “that they must leave their community or drown.”

The youth in Glasgow this week were thankfully not marching back and forth across the parking lot of a sports stadium. They were visible to the public, to the global press, surely even to those inside the COP 26 conference rooms. And their urgent, frustrated and at times defiant messaging was picked up, especially by those from the least developed and small island states who, as we and others have noted time and again, have done the least to create climate change but who suffer the most from its impacts. Such impacts include many displaced crossing borders and regions seeking a modicum of safety and stability from climate threats and the economic ruin and armed violence which often follow, those forced frequently to take refuge amidst hostility from people who, in more than a few instances, made significant contributions to the conditions that prompted displacement in the first place.

The impact of these youthful voices on small island and other officials was clearly apparent, including on Fiji’s fine Ambassador Satyendra Prasad who bluntly asked, “If we are not to achieve 1.5 degrees, what are we here for? Everything else is a side-show.” The president of climate-impacted Madagascar reminded us all that “forests are the lungs of our planet,” but that these lungs are being damaged at a staggering rate. And perhaps the most compelling address from officialdom was delivered by the remarkable Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, who underscored the “immoral and unjust” implications of lives and livelihoods lost as we continue to ignore our climate pledges or fulfill them only incompletely. As did the youth on Glasgow streets, Mottley pondered boldly and wistfully, “when will leaders lead?”

On the UN side, Secretary-General Guterres warned about the “delusion” that we are making the progress we need to make on climate change. The former Ambassador of Jamaica, Courtney Rattray, now Under Secretary-General for the Least Developed States, made several high profile appeals for climate funding to help stabilize least developed societies and avoid mass displacement. And in a related event on tsunami risk, the head of the UN’s Disaster Risk Reduction program Mami Mizutori urged us to never forget the “the disasters we were unprepared for and the casualties they caused.”

But it was the ever-passionate David Attenborough, early on at this COP event, who worried and wondered if “this is how it ends” for we humans, allegedly the greatest problem solvers in the history of this planet? Ends in fires and floods, ends in mass displacement and homelessness, ends in “bad faith” engagements by officials who know better and refuse to act on what they know? One compelling response to this lament came later from a Samoa youth advocate who reminded us of the power of words “to save us or sell us out.” You all know why you are here, she proclaimed. “Do the right thing” and while you are doing that, look to the leadership of Pacific youth. “We are fighting not drowning.”

Indeed, their struggle must be our struggle as well. The alienation, insecurity and displacement they experience now are coming for us as well. For people like me, the grave might save us from having to confront the consequences of our folly, of our willingness to only make the changes it is convenient to make, not the changes that we know we must make. But this should offer no comfort, no excuses. Instead, while we are still able, we must do more to ensure that the toxic consequences of our inept climate and economic policies – the unhoused, the unfed and the unprotected – are not allowed to define life for other generations.

This week, Costa Rica’s president reminded delegations of the absurdity of conducting war — military or economic — on a planet which is slowly dying. He called instead for an “army of ideas, of courage, of peace.” It is increasingly likely that such an “army,” if it comes to exist, will consist largely of the young. If the rest of us want to make a real difference, including on the causes and consequences of human displacement, we will need to do more to support, sustain and enrich youthful aspirations.

Tags: climate change, displacement, United Nations, youth

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