A bold venture
Reading ‘Earth Democracy‘ by Vandana Shiva - which is, by the way, a wonderful book - I stumbled over a beautiful quote from Gandhi:
During British rule in India, Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilization. He responded: ‘It would be a good idea.’
The Dalai Lama was in Berlin yesterday and we participated in the demonstration to show our solidarity with the Tibetan People.
Knowing a bit on the background of the history of Tibet and the Dalai Lama it is beautiful and quite outstanding to hear him and witness his clarity, spontaneity and openness. Being a buddhist he believes in the interconnection and interdependence of all beings. (This is the same understanding modern science or indigenous people have and that plays, and will play more and more, a key role in our ability to create sustainable communities, or, to put it more bluntly: our ability to survive.) It is the understanding of: If you destroy the other, ultimately you destroy yourself.
This believe and wisdom is being put into prisons, tortured, massacred and intended to be cut off from the world. Its language, its traditions, its people are being wiped out for the sake of progress and stability.
Ok, this is about the media and its functions. Again: I do not claim to be an expert, call me a generalist, however, let’s see how far we get.
I’ll start with a quote of a beautiful essay by Donella Meadows, a professor, biophysicist, systems analyst, organic farmer, author, journalist and inspiration in the movement for sustainability. The essay is called ‘Dancing with Systems‘ and this particular part is about ‘Honouring and protecting information.’
A decision maker can’t respond to information he or she doesn’t have, can’t respond accurately to information that is inaccurate, can’t respond in a timely way to information that is late. I would guess that 99 percent of what goes wrong in systems goes wrong because of faulty or missing information.
If I could, I would add an Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not distort, delay, or sequester information. You can drive a system crazy by muddying its information streams. You can make a system work better with surprising ease if you can give it more timely, more accurate, more complete information.
Just click on the play button and let her speak for a minute…She is clear, honest, accessible, intelligent,…
Read also SOS on Tour article on a talk of Vandana Shiva at the Schumacher College in march ‘08 (in german).
Find more articles of her here.
This is one of her book publications: ‘Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace’ / ‘Erd-Demokratie. Alternativen zur Neoliberalen Globalisierung’.
