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Lest We Forget:
In the process of privatisation, marketisation, highest returns to the shareholders, largest bonuses to the CEOs and outsourcing our responsibilities, we have now realised that we have also outsourced our humanity and our humane values.
Is this not the time yet to rethink our broken and inhumane neoliberalised, privatised and deregulated market economy and education model?
Think about it, we will all get old, weak and vulnerable. We will all need love, support, empathy, caring and humanity.
We must all know what it means to be human.
Canada nursing home reels from death of almost half its residents
'Facility in Bobcaygeon, Ontario, emerges as one of most tragic stories
in country’s struggle against Covid-19'-Photo: CBC
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“Dena nenn Sogga neh ‘ine” (Protectors or Keepers of the Land)- Photo:Pinterest
The current global pandemic crisis and more are the manifestation of the tragedy of separating ourselves from mother nature.
Covid-19 has come to tell us that we are not the kings of the world: It has exposed the great weakness within the human triumph
‘What a pity that we have not yet grasped this simple wisdom: Our Sacred Earth is only Home We Have.’- Kamran Mofid
‘To transform our societies, our ways of living and working, to be in greater harmony with Nature, we need to listen to and learn from those who have maintained this harmony, often despite centuries of prejudice and repression...Our Solutions are in Nature. No one embodies this fact more than Indigenous peoples and local communities, who, through their deep connections with their territories, their world-views and ways of life, show us how to nurture life on Earth.’- Hannibal and The Gaia Team
How Indigenous and Local Communities Nurture Life: A Perspective from Canada
REKINDLING CONNECTION IN TAHLTAN FIRST NATION TERRITORY
“The land has its own spirit, its own personality. People need to make that connection with the land and with specific places; get to understand the spirit of that place.”– Curtis Rattray, Tahltan community leader.
For generations the Tahltan People lived and built their culture from what can be hunted, gathered, fished and quarried from their traditional territory in what is now Canada. Now, after over a century of colonisation that has caused severe intergenerational trauma, a new generation of community leaders are working with youth to revive their traditional ecological knowledge, restore ecosystems and meet the challenge of a changing climate.
We Adapt. We Restore. We Survive
Reviving Tahltan knowledge, governance and territory
Located in the far north-west of British Columbia, the territory of the Tahltan Nation spans some 93,000sq km of un-ceded and mostly intact boreal forest, lakes, mountains and the headwaters of some of Canada’s most famous rivers, including the Mackenzie, Yukon and Stikine.
The land is rich in moose, caribou, bears, wolves, lynx and other large mammals. Rivers fed by glaciers and snowpack receive migrations of all five major Pacific salmon species- Chinook, Sockeye, Coho, Pink, Chum. They are home year-round to other fish species, including trout.
These rich lands and waters have, for many millennia, been home to the Tahltan People, whose lifeways and culture traditionally stem from what can be hunted, gathered, fished and quarried from their territory, as well as traded with neighbouring Nations on the coast and to the interior.
But, as for many Indigenous Nations in Canada, the arrival of European settlers has had devastating impacts for the Tahltan and the continuity of their land-based culture. Though their first contact with Europeans came later than for many coastal Nations, the Tahltan have suffered a similarly disruptive transition from a subsistence to a cash economy, settlement in more permanent communities, mass death from foreign diseases, brutal re-education in the residential school system and a significant loss of language, culture and ecological knowledge.
Tahltan community leader and expert on-the-land guide, Curtis Rattray. Photo: Hannibal Rhoades
“We have intergenerational impacts from colonisation”, says Tahltan community leader and Snowchange co-founder Curtis Rattray. “This different culture, different governance, different land tenure system has been imposed upon us and we’re having to adapt to that… to try and heal that intergenerational trauma.”- Read the interactive story
Related reading:
Mining in Canada: No native spirituality, No children dancing, No prayers- Ottawa urged
Detroit and Windsor: The Curse of the tar sands of Alberta
Mother Earth is Crying: A Path to Spiritual Ecology and Sustainability
On the 250th Birthday of William Wordsworth Let Nature be our Wisest Teacher
Why should we all become mother nature and sacred earth guardians
In Praise of Frugality: Materialism is a Killer
There is more in less: The Evolution of Simplicity
Simplicity: it’s our true guide to a better life
The beauty of living simply: the forgotten wisdom of William Morris
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Photo: Principles for Responsible Investmen
'Our blueprint for a post-coronavirus future'
'As we recover from the pandemic, here’s how we must create a more caring and united society'
The above is the heading of a letter published in The Observer on Sunday 24 May 2020. It very much resonates with me. It is my blueprint for the post-coronavirus future too. I will say a bit more on this later. Now let us see and read the letter together.
‘The Greek word krisis originally denoted that critical moment when things could go either way for the patient. We believe that our society is at a similar turning point. As we recover from Covid-19, we must confront other, potentially graver crises, and create a more caring, united and resilient society. We must:
- Revalue care: nurses and carers deserve a pay rise, not just a round of applause. We should reverse marketisation of our NHS, and better integrate physical, mental and social care.
- Reduce inequality: present levels of inequality benefit no one, fragmenting society, distorting democracy and overburdening care systems. We must reject austerity measures, house the UK’s homeless and consider implementing a universal basic income.
- Get to grips with the climate and ecological emergency, by “baking in” good lockdown practices, adopting strict year-by-year carbon budgets in line with the UN’s 1.5 degree target, and localising production, consumption and travel where possible.
- Set up an independent public inquiry on the handling of the pandemic, to make sure the lessons are learned.
- Create a UK Citizens’ Assembly for the Future, selected at random, to counter the short-termism, lack of representation and bias of our political institutions. This body would work alongside parliament, focusing on longer-term issues such as disaster planning, institutional reform and the low carbon transition.
There can be no doubt that we face a krisis – now we must take urgent steps to ensure a full recovery.’--Baroness Helena Kennedy, QC; Baroness Ruth Lister, Loughborough University; Richard Wilkinson, University of Nottingham; Baron Rowan Williams, Magdalen College, Cambridge; Jonathan Wolff, University of Oxford; and 33 academics, lawyers, writers and activists.- The Observer 24 May 2020 (Full text and signatories at theunfinishedrevolution.net).
Now, reverting back to the beginning of what I was saying about why this letter resonates with me, why their blueprint is mine too.
To demonstrate this, I can do no better than highlighting a few recent postings from the gcgi.info. They speak volumes and volumes on what the GCGI has been standing for since its founding in 2002.
Coronavirus and the New Tapestry of Life
The Klimt Tree of Life tapestry – by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
Life after Coronavirus: We Must Not Be Cheated and Exploited Again
Coronavirus and the New Tapestry of Life
The Sweetness of Being Human: ‘We have all of us one human heart.’
Out of the coronavirus crisis, a new kinder and better world must be born
On the 250th Birthday of William Wordsworth Let Nature be our Wisest Teacher
Healing Our Way to a more Caring, Kinder and Fairer Society: A View from a CEO and a Recovered Economist
People like us, all of us, together will make the world great again
Dear Mr. Johnson, your Covid-19 survival must become a force for good
Crisis after Crisis: Ten Steps to Save the World
Every move you make, every breath you take leaves its mark on our world
Prof. Kamran Mofid, Founder, Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative (GCGI)
- Sermon of Hope This Sunday: ‘This pandemic sends me back in time, and I learn a fine lesson from my father.’
- 'If This Time' Has Taught me Anything…
- The Boss of JP Morgan is Calling for Business and Government for the Common Good
- The Youth of Wales Message of Hope to the World at the Time of the Coronavirus Crisis
- The Number One Message of Lockdown