War on Terror or Reimagining Our Collective Purpose?

I wasn’t going to comment on the Bin Laden murder as I didn’t feel to, even when people have asked me. I see all murder as a failure to resolve conflict or seek justice through formal international judicial channels. Similar to Gandhi I see ‘an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind’. I don’t see peace emerge from violence as a direct result, often it is escalation. For example he becomes a martyr and others utilise the martyrdom to justify more violence as revenge.

I am not watching television so the news came through my mother actually. I didn’t see it as significant was my inner feeling. However, I heard there were cheers, it made me think of the cheering gunmen in Afghanistan many years ago who dragged a deceased American pilot through the streets cheering. It was horrifying. I don’t applaud violence nor see it as winning, we all collectively lose as violence keeps being used as force. It is part of a control paradigm that doesn’t work in my view. Byron Katie speaks of violence as “not intelligent”.

The real story as I see it of those instigating terror across the world, may well be the need for democracy or greater freedoms of public speech, enabling grievances to be aired openly and publicly discussed. Any form of oppression or unquestioned singular perspective I feel leads to extremism as people think they are right and then demonise ‘the other’ who they disagree with. It is good to get practice having debates with people who oppose you. Democracy or some form of freedom of speech at least provides a forum for ideas to be tested, questioned and balance found through many voices, nonviolently.

I remember going through US immigration when I was travelling and being finger printed and at other airports being dusted for chemical weapons and feeling uncomfortable as I am innocent but like any other member of the travelling public, feeling suspected until you go through. I wondered about all the money spent at airports in respect of the fears around terrorism. Just imagine if we could invest the same amount of money in peace education and teach children peaceful behaviours. If we could look at the violence we call entertainment or defence and re-envisage a new future that is about resolving conflicts peacefully, seeing the hero in the peacemaker or the nurturer, rather than the warrior and martyring them. Just imagine the energy and resources we can invest in our true nature and potential for greatness. I always think of this as I can’t even raise a few thousand dollars to get my work going or find the commitment to support it over time. My work is literally piecemeal. Peace is just not drama so it doesn’t sell, yet it is truly inspiring and I am certain it will create a saner, sustainble and happier world.

I was just sent this piece of writing by Professor Richard Hames from Australia21, who I am unfamiliar with, he is writing about Osama Bin Laden. He turns to compassion which interests me. I didn’t post most of his article as I didn’t want to get into the politics, my inner feeling is the humanity over and above the media spin. Compassion attracted me. I just did a quick Google search to look at his organisation Australia21, looks interesting, I like the idea of resilience. His website is http://www.australia21.org.au. Check it out.

I’ve just had another look at Australia21 and found Richard Eckersley. I actually know him. He has been a researcher in youth issues for many years, very astute with emotional intelligence and policy formulation. I met him in my early 20’s, I liked his work very much and it has evolved a great deal over the years. So feel more certainty about this organisation with his involvement.

Here is what Australia21 say on the Home page…

“Our work on resilience has been supported and sponsored by The University of Adelaide, The South Australian Health Department, Australian Unity, The Scully Foundation, Attorney General’s Department, MECU and The Australian National University.

The Australia21 work originated from our joint interest in ecosystems, societal tipping points and international prosperity and security. Growing from this beginning, in 2008 the team developed a new focus on the resilience of Australia’s health and education systems, especially as they impact on young children.

Resilience thinking is systems thinking. It is about the way billions of complex self-organising and interacting systems, both those occurring in nature and those that are man–made, respond to shocks. If a system such as the global economy, the Australian health care system, a rainforest or a human body is able to adapt and maintain its normal function in the face of a severe external shock, it is said to be resilient. Whole systems and even whole societies can collapse quickly and completely if they are not resilient or cannot adapt or transform in a coherent way in the face of impending or unexpected shocks.

Resilience or continuation of normal function may not be what is always needed of a system. Sometimes it would be better if, in the face of shock, or in preparation for it, the system modified itself or even radically transformed itself to deal with new external realities. Resilience thinking is as much about understanding mechanisms by which self-organising systems adapt and transform as it is about maintaining current functions.”

I am adding a few thoughts here, an example of resilience is rather than falling into fear over terrorism, you look for transformative ways of learning from it as is described in aspects of the article below. In other words transforming the horrific event into something that is more in alignment with what we want, a nonviolent and compassionate world. The Law of Attraction basically states you attract and create what you think about, so if you are seeing terrorism everywhere, you actually create it as focus and attention is there, more media attention, negative thoughts around it. The idea emerges the world is not safe and there is plenty of evidence. Yet if you think about the reality, clearly the world is peaceful as we are mostly living at peace with each other. To reframe the thinking into a positive attraction, if you want a peaceful world, you start to think about peaceful solutions, how we can learn from events and create the world we actually want. That would be my reading from this line of thought.

The article – excerpts…

“Professor Richard Hames notes that the killing of Bin Laden provides the opportunity to re-imagine our collective purpose and the relationships we most desire with our fellow human beings by celebrating the integral nature of what it means to be compassionate. He notes the choice is stark – we can persist in prosecuting this “war on terror” – a war without end, executed in a mood of compounding fear and desperation. Or we can envisage a far less violent and more tolerant future.

The genesis of terrorism goes back centuries of course. It has been part of the human condition throughout recorded history. On September 11, 2001, however, human progress seemed to descend into an altogether darker void.

But as most of the Western world watched in horror at the scenes being played out on the East coast of the US a far deeper tragedy was unfolding – a tragedy which some of us are still trying to express and from which recovery is by no means certain. For the tragedy to which I refer is the folly of man’s inhumanity to man, the utter futility of conflict and the mindless calls for vengeance. This is the deeper tragedy, arising from our most primitive instincts, we must all confront.

The images of 9/11 are incised into the mind. Like the day Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, everyone has a story of where they were that fateful day. Yet now, when one chapter closes and we look with hope towards a future where we can all live together in peace, the real legacy of 9/11 hangs like a shadow over our civilisation.

Ten years ago Al-Qaeda’s high profile figurehead provided the US administration with the pretext to commence its calamitous hostilities across the greater Middle East. Predictably Washington’s wars provided terrorist outfits everywhere with new recruits and burgeoning support as well as prolonging a cycle of violence that appeared to know no end. Today, once again, Osama Bin Laden presents us with the pretext to think again – but to do things differently this time. If we set our minds to it we can envisage a far less violent and more tolerant future. For example we could enter constructive dialogue with those whose views run counter to
our own, seeking to include and transcend differences, rather than waging war as an economic imperative and as a knee-jerk reaction to diversity. We could build schools and hospitals rather than expand our arsenals. We could make innovative technologies and medicines available to the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than continuing to deny them even the most basic of life’s necessities.
I recognise that will take courage and a spirit of generosity that we will need to nurture. But surely that is what leadership is all about?”