MONEEZAA BURNEY


Writer at Dawn Newspaper, Falak Sufi Scholar 2018, NYU, PAKISTAN

Moneeza Burney is associated with several social projects in Pakistan related to youth empowerment and poverty alleviation through education and creative content development. Working as a script writer, a freelance journalist, and leading youth programs of her own, Moneeza has served as a Director of the Lahore Students Union (LSU), a platform for youth community service and social leadership, which has placed over 1,000 students across a network of 75+ partner NGOs, social projects and civil society initiatives since 2014. In the summer of 2019, she has visited Beirut, Lebanon to share ideas with local NGOs about youth engagement for conflict resolution and empowerment through creative methods. Moneeza continues to write for DAWN newspaper in Pakistan, for whom she has worked as a feature writer since 2013. Moneeza is currently a graduate student at New York University in the Near Eastern Studies program as a Falak Sufi Scholar 2018, and holds a BA (Hons) degree from Sheffield Hallam University, UK, in Business Economics.

Event Title: Inclusive Social Development in Achieving the Global Goals 2030 Date: September 25, 2019
 

SPEECH

The role of youth in creating inclusive social societies

Respected representatives, I’m honored to address this conference about the role of youth in creating inclusive societies. For the last 6 years I have had the privilege to be a youth program organizer in my home town of Lahore, Pakistan, and have personally managed over 1,000 youth volunteers across a partner network of over 75 NGOs, social projects and civil society organizations. Through the platforms I run, I have been able to closely observe young people of varying ethnicities, religions, genders, and economic classes come together to improve the lives of those less fortunate than them, or collaborate to tackle problems that are meaningful to them at a deeply personal level. I’d like to share one such experience with you today.

In 2013, Dr. Ali Haider, a well-known eye doctor in Lahore, was assassinated for the sole crime of being a Shia Muslim, one of Pakistan’s many religious and sectarian minorities who have been systematically targeted by radical religious militant groups. Murdered alongside him in cold blood was his 11 year old son, Murtaza, who was on his way to school. They are just two of over 70,000 Pakistani civilians killed as a result of violent extremism since 9/11, the forgotten domestic casualties of the world’s war on terror and the rise of global militancy. The platform I work with was created a month later, with the hope of organizing and encouraging the youth to take back their culture, their country, and their religion from those who misuse it to spread evil and hatred across the world. I started a program called the Community Service Initiative to let students learn how to be responsible citizens, realize their obligation to give back to society, and strive to improve the lives of those who can’t help themselves. Over the last 6 years, through this program, I have organized youth volunteer programs for an organization run by the widow of the late Dr Ali Haider, and watched students from all backgrounds, Sunni, Shia, Christian, Punjabi, Pakhtun, Sindhi, Hazara, Male and Female, come together to spread religious tolerance and help the survivors and victims of violent crimes. When a bombing took place in a park on Easter Sunday in 2016, these volunteers came together to organize storytelling and art sessions for children in hospital wards, collect financial assistance for families to bear their medical costs, arrange prosthetic limbs for patients who could never be whole again after the tragedy, or sometimes simply pay the utility bills for families who had never had to survive without their primary breadwinner. When not working on such projects, the volunteers visit churches, temples, mosques of different sects, all to prove that people of varying faiths and beliefs can still peacefully coexist in a society built on equality, freedom, and mutual respect.

In an increasingly polarized world, we often think of the layers of religious, ethnic, and cultural identity as problematic, it is my personal experience that when young people from diverse backgrounds and experiences unite towards a noble purpose, their efforts take on a multiplier effect. Our personal traits and histories play a huge role in defining the world we live in and the challenges we face, and are an undeniable part of our human experience. But when we acknowledge our differences without judgment, we recognize that these only make us stronger, more complete, and more able to tackle complex problems as a cohesive whole rather than from just our limited point of reference. I have seen student volunteers who are embarrassed by their less expensive clothes, or those with an air of superiority over others, or those suffering from trauma due to marginalization, and watched them slowly realize that in the quest to serve humanity and bring good to this world, we are indeed all created equal. I have seen them transform, leave the shell of their former self, command the respect of their peers, and grow into the noble, empathetic human beings we all aspire to be.

We are once again at a generational crossroads, where identity politics has permeated hearts and minds in every corner of the globe, and sent us into our silos, threatening to unravel the peace with the spread of bigotry, religious phobias, radicalization, and hateful narratives of racial supremacy. And yet, in Pakistan I have worked with Muslim volunteers to provide food, clothes and education to Christian orphans and children, victims of systemic marginalization for generations. In Lebanon I have met Christian volunteers who help Syrian Muslim refugee children remember their traditions and keep their culture alive even when the homes they left behind have been burned to ash.

Young people are the perennial reservoir of hope, as an evolving world will always be in need of those who see past the flaws of the present and aspire to a better future. Only when we create inclusive platforms for young people of diverse backgrounds to interact freely, to share their ideas and experiences, to feed each other’s dreams with the fuel of their exuberance and optimism, only then can we hope to overcome the grave mistakes of the past and the demons that walk among us at present. These are indeed times of great suffering, but only the youth can inherit a world where that pain is a memory rather than a gaping wound. Only through them can we heal, and only by healing together can we hope to not repeat the same mistakes again.

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HAN ENTZINGER


Professor and Author
University Rotterdam, NETHERLANDS

Dr. Han Entzinger is Emeritus Professor of Migration and Integration Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands. Earlier, Dr.Entzinger held a chair in general social sciences at Utrecht University. He also worked at the Scientific Council for Government Policy, a government think tank close to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, as well as at the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva. Entzinger studied sociology with economics at the Universities of Leiden, Rotterdam, and Strasbourg, and obtained his doctorate at Leiden University. He has advised several European governments on the introduction of civic integration courses for immigrants and has also acted as a consultant to the European Union and the Council of Europe on migration-related issues. From 2013-2018 he chaired the Scientific Committee of the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna. Social Service, a non -profit dedicated to promoting children’s rights in the context of international adoption, and immigration and family lawyer in France.

Event Title: Inclusive Social Development in Achieving the Global Goals 2030 Date: September 25, 2019
 

SPEECH

Diversity and Social Inclusion

Migration is a major source of diversity in today’s world, and it will continue to be so tomorrow. It is often claimed that diversity has a negative impact on social cohesion. The more people in a society differ, the less likely they may be to accept one another and to develop mutual contacts. Is this true? Does diversity negatively affect social cohesion? And, if so, what policies can control or even redress this process?

Before I shall try to answer these questions, it is important to understand the scope of migration as a phenomenon. About 250 million people (3.3 per cent of the world’s population) live in a country other than their country of birth, and therefore can be called immigrants. Immigrants, however, are spread quite unevenly over the world. In traditional immigration countries such as Canada and Australia well over 20 per cent of the population are immigrants (not including the so-called second generation, i.e. children of immigrants). In the USA and Western Europe, this percentage lies between 10 and 15, while in other countries, often the migrants’ countries of origin, it is much lower. There are also countries outside the Western world that attract large numbers of migrants. The Gulf States have the highest shares of foreign citizens in the world – up to 85 per cent, while certain states in Western and Southern Africa and in South-East Asia serve as regional poles of attraction. And don’t forget Russia, which houses many people from countries that were part of the former Soviet Union. Large and populous countries, such as China, India, Brazil or Nigeria may not have high numbers of international migrants, but are characterised by a substantial internal migration, often with a comparable social and cultural impact on the original local or regional communities. If one includes internal migrants, an estimated one billion people, or fifteen per cent of the world population live in an area other than where they were born and raised.

It should also be noted that migration can be a major source of diversity, but it is not the only one. People also differ from one another in many other respects: religion, nationality, gender, ‘race’, sexual orientation, education, political preferences, age, skills, etc. etc. Some of these characteristics are genetically determined (‘ascribed’), others may be the result of individual choice or achievement. In the case of migrants, however, several characteristics ‘accumulate’ so to say: religion, ethnicity, physical traits, unfamiliarity with dominant values and customs and with the local language, often in combination with a relatively weak legal position and social deprivation.

 Back to the question whether diversity has a negative impact on social cohesion. In 2007, Robert Putnam, a reputed US political scientist published an article called ‘E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century’. ‘E pluribus unum’, as you will all know, is Latin for ‘Out of many, one’, the traditional motto of the United States, a long-standing country of immigration. Putnam argued on the basis of empirical evidence that living in an ethnically heterogeneous environment was harmful to interpersonal trust and undermined social connections within and between ethnic groups. Faced with ethnic diversity, people would tend “to hunker down – that is, to pull in like a turtle”, as he wrote it, or, in common language, to retreat from social life. Under such conditions, ongoing immigration would erode social cohesion.

Putnam’s conclusions received wide attention in the media and among policy makers, serving as input to public policy debates in various countries. His conclusions have also been challenged by literally hundreds of other scholars from all over the world, who have carried out similar studies in their own countries. The results of these studies are very mixed: some confirm his findings, others reject them, and again others find no significant relationship between heterogeneity and social cohesion. This is partly due to the fact that social cohesion can be interpreted in many different ways: e.g. do we measure attitudes vis-a-vis others, or do we measure actual intergroup contacts? It is also due to the fact that countries differ not only in the composition and history of their immigrant populations, but also in their policy approaches. As a general rule, however, Putnam’s findings appear to hold much less often for Europe than they do for the USA. What also matters is the size of a neighbourhood: the larger the area under consideration, the less noticeable the negative impact of heterogeneity on social cohesion. Social cohesion is something that becomes more concrete in the direct neighbourhood. Policies to promote social cohesion, therefore, should primarily take shape at the local, if not at the sub-local level.

 Yet, such policies should not be limited to the local or the neighbourhood level. They should be facilitated by higher levels of governance, the state level, the federal level or even the international level. The tensions that immigration provokes today in many societies are due not only to a lack of acceptance by the native population, but also to a lack of opportunities for newcomers. This is why public authorities should develop policies to redress this situation. Several of the Sustainable Development Goals that the United Nations has defined provide clear guidelines for such policies. I am thinking here, inter alia, of goals such as ‘No Poverty’, ‘Good Health and Well-being’, ‘Quality Education’, ‘Gender Equality’, ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’, ‘Reduced Inequality’, and ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities’. Each of these, and several others, can be translated without much effort into concrete policy measures that, if properly implemented, would benefit immigrants and native populations alike.

 A crucial condition for more cohesive societies is the granting of a sound legal position to immigrants. After they have resided in a country for a certain number of years they should be given a full residential status, preferably of a permanent nature, or even full citizenship. Security of residence provides a perspective to newcomers, and for that reason it is a necessary condition for a fuller participation in a society’s major institutions, such as the labour market, housing, education, health care and the political system. The principle of equal opportunity should be leading here: after a limited number of years – a ‘probation period’ – immigrants should have the same rights as everyone else, which obviously implies that they must also have the same obligations.

 In the liberal democracies of the Global North we can distinguish two basic ways of creating equal opportunity. One is what I would call the ‘Anglo-Saxon way’: a strong anti-discrimination legislation combined with efforts of affirmative or positive action to compensate for disadvantage and discrimination encountered in the past or the present. The other one is the ‘Continental European way’, which uses the social policy instruments of the welfare state to correct and prevent social deprivation. A drawback of the ‘Anglo-Saxon way’ is that it spurs feelings of being discriminated against among members of the original population, while a weakness of the welfare state approach is that it creates dependency on the state rather than preventing such dependency. As is so often the case, the ideal solution lies in the middle, I think. Discrimination should be attacked under all circumstances, but affirmative action may be a bridge too far. And, more than in the past, social policy instruments should be used to encourage a fuller participation of everyone, not only immigrants. It is better to invest in language courses and in education and training for everyone than in the financial support of newcomers, though they too should, of course, be guaranteed a minimum income level.

 A fuller participation of all members of a society, whether immigrant or not, whether at the neighbourhood level or at the national level, is indispensable to achieve more social cohesion. Still, this does not come without certain challenges. A major challenge, particularly in the case of immigrants, is that a fuller participation requires a certain degree of cultural adaptation. It would be tempting to say that such adaptation is reciprocal. In reality, however, newcomers adapt much more strongly to the dominant culture than vice versa. Opinions differ as to how far this adaptation should go; this is one of the big debates in contemporary society, certainly in liberal democracies. The potential tension between participation and the preservation of a separate identity is an issue that keeps coming back in the academic literature, but also in political debates. My Canadian colleagues Will Kymlicka and Michael Banton have labelled this as the tension between ‘recognition’ (of different cultural identities) and ‘redistribution’ (of scarce resources and opportunities). Another colleague, Irene Bloemraad, has written about the difficulty of reconciling the granting of rights, the promotion of participation and the recognition of identity in diverse societies.

 It is a struggle that we all recognise, because we all live in societies characterised by a certain degree of diversity, which is increasing in nearly all cases. What is needed under such circumstances is respect for others, and also acceptance of others. That should not be too difficult as long as the other respects and accepts you, but the question is how to act if and when the ideas of the other are disrespectful or are perceived as disrespectful. There are certainly limits to the degree of diversity a society can accept, but opinions differ on how far such acceptance may reach. There is a clear and probably growing gap here between more cosmopolitan attitudes, open to diversity that stems from globalization on the one hand, and more restrictive nationalist attitudes, that wish to protect societies as they once were (or are perceived to have been), often with populist slogans, on the other. This gap is noticeable, certainly all over the Global North. Yet, I think we all agree that complete assimilation – wiping out diversity – provokes and perpetuates inequalities, while fully institutionalised forms of multiculturalism lead to segregation and fragmented societies. In order to achieve inclusive social development, we need to find the middle road that I have tried to describe here in very broad terms.

In short, we can conclude that diversity is on the increase, not the least because of growing immigration. Diversity may challenge social cohesion, but these challenges can be coped with through policies that guarantee a sound legal position, that encourage social participation for everyone, and that promote respectful ways of handling cultural difference. I am not suggesting, though, that this will be an easy road to go!

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SILVIA ALEJANDRA PERAZZO

President
ANU-AR, ARGENTINA

Silvia Perazzo is a historian specialized in the history of contemporary Africa and a lecturer at various universities from Argentina (Universidad Austral, Universidad del Salvador, Universidad Nacional de la Defensa, Universidad Nacional de La Matanza). Serving as the President of the United Nations Association from Argentina Republic (UNA-AR), Silvia continues to strengthen her professional career as a speaker at different multilateral civil society forums in topics related to education, such as Istanbul Summit, C20, 67 United Nations Civil Society Conference. “We, The People”, Foro de Participación Ciudadana de UNASUR.

Event Title: Inclusive Social Development in Achieving the Global Goals 2030 Date: September 25, 2019
 

SPEECH

Civil society participation to facilitate social development

Nowadays, it is civil society that spontaneously or collectively brings up to states the need for structural changes. In this sense, civil society is always a step ahead of the State; what is more, it sets the agenda for great changes. However, goals are not reached in an isolated manner, but through coordinated actions with the State, which can implement and execute them.

Civil society has a huge responsibility since, apart from setting an agenda, it must propose specific measures to address major issues. One of these major issues is the promotion of social development, which cannot be considered without addressing inclusion. And for the inclusion, the most important tool is the Education.

An inclusive and quality education must reach all social sectors, as well as urban and rural areas and vulnerable population; and it needs:

  • Coordinated action between Civil Society, State and international institutions
  • Educational Financial Laws that ensure the intangibility of the funds allocated to Education
  • Programs and projects that guarantee:
  1. Knowledge
  2. Skills development
  3. Development of behaviors that favor tolerance, dialogue and peace
  • Mass campaigns against violence, discrimination, exclusion, and the lack of opportunities.

 

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FLAVIE FUENTES

Legal Manager,
North America Thomson Reuters Foundation, USA

Ms. Flavie Fuente is a dual-qualified lawyer in France and England & Wales and holds a Master’s Degree in Human Rights from the Universite Paris X. In August 2018, she joined the Thomson Reuters Foundation as the Legal Manager for North America and the Caribbean. She oversees the network of TrustLaw’s members and handles legal pro bono requests from non-profit organizations and social enterprises. Ms. Flavie identifies strategic human rights issues, scopes, and manages the development and publication of legal research for the social sector.

Ms. Flavie and her team regularly host legal workshops and events in collaboration with law firms and corporate partners. Before joining the Foundation, Ms. Fuente worked in London for Advocates for International Development (“A4ID”), a UK charity that empowers lawyers to eradicate poverty, as the Deputy Head of Partnerships and Legal Services. She worked extensively in collaboration with several UN agencies, primarily through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals. Ms. Fuente also has experience working in Geneva with International Social Service, a non -profit dedicated to promoting children’s rights in the context of international adoption, and immigration and family lawyer in France.

Event Title: Inclusive Social Development in Achieving the Global Goals 2030 Date: September 25, 2019
 

SPEECH

Importance of rule of law and democracy to reduce inequalities and implement social development policies
The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters and our focus areas are inclusive economy, media freedom and human rights. A part of our organization is TrustLaw, which is our global pro bono service that connects NGOs and social enterprises with the best law firms and internal legal teams from around the world to support the corporate / business needs on day to day basis, as well as cross-border research to support the change of policies on human rights, corruption, microcredit, health, energy and the environment, among others.

Legal pro bono assistance is vital to guarantee the protection of the rule of law and strengthen democracy. We promote the SDGs through pro bono legal assistance in two main ways:

  • legal support as an impact accelerator: we provide daily legal support to non-profit organizations so that they can fully focus on their mission and achieve greater impact
  • the law as a change agent: we support advocacy efforts and enable change of laws through our legal research work.

Examples of recent pro bono projects that strengthen the rule of law and reduce inequalities are:

  • Critics are not criminals: protect journalists from criminal defamation laws
  • Guide “Know your rights” on land rights
  • Legal and jurisprudential investigation on the prosecution of crimes of sexual and gender-based violence and terrorism
  • Research on laws related to fiscal secrecy.

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TUSHAR A. GANDHI

President Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, India

Mr. Tushar A. Gandhi is the President and Founder of the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation established in India in 1997. Mr. Gandhi is the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and son of Journalist Arun Manilal Gandhi. The Foundation works to continue the legacy of equality, empowerment, and justice for the “have nothing” constituents of our society. Mr. Gandhi is associated with organizations like Lok Seva Trust, Australia India Rural Development Foundation, and the Gandhi Research Foundation.

He is a peace and human rights activist and strives for a world without violence. Mr. Tushar writes and speaks on peace, nonviolence, justice and compassion and liberal ideals and stands against extremism and bigotry. His first book, “Let’s Kill Gandhi!”, a chronicle of the conspiracy and murder of Mahatma Gandhi published in 2007.

Event Title: Inclusive Social Development in Achieving the Global Goals 2030 Date: September 25, 2019
 

SPEECH

Transforming our world is such an attractive notion, everyone wants to transform the world. Some want to change it for personal gains, some want to change it to suit their needs, some for their ambitions and some for their aggrandisement, what is common amongst al these is the selfish self seeking motive. Hitler and Milosevick also wished to transform the world, turn it into something to suit their own vision of the world, as they wished it to be. what is also common in all these desires is to transform everyone else, but true transformation happens when one transforms one’s self, changes the self to become better and then inspires others to emulate the transformation. This is the ethical and sustainable kind of transformation.

In the not too distant past we saw how the movement of transformation disguised as ‘Civilising the savages’ gave birth to slavery and colonisation and subjected humanity to brutal imperialism and oppression. These were all selfish transformations. The industrial revolution too subjected economic imperialism on humanity, today the communications revolution and Artificial Intelligence are exposing us to technological imperialism of the corporates and curbing of fundamental rights by Governments. All these are examples of self seeking and self serving transformation. They all suffer from the flaw of wanting to oppress and subjugate others in one way or another, but not transforming one’s self, not being the change.

Today we talk of sustainability and inclusiveness but in the past couple of decades we have created more parochial exclusivist nations and societies that exclude more than they include or embrace. Globally we have created inequalities of such magnitude that they now  appear  unbridgeable. Culturally too we are in a contest of cultures, each trying to show itself better and superior. A mere declaration of intent towards equality and inclusiveness is not going to bring about transformation. Transformation will have to become an individual  responsibility, if we change as individuals, we will be able to change society, nations and finally humanity. The new catch phrase of this century has been Global Village, where is this global village? More and more nations are building walls, fences, barriers and breaking out of unions, isolating and insulating themselves under the garb of security. We as a society are becoming more and more exclusive, isolationist. We label one another and generalise in our prejudices, one race is labelled criminal, another is labelled savage yet another is called terrorists, we look at each other with such tainted hate filled and generalised prejudices. We merely tolerate each other, tolerate our differences. How can tolerance become a virtue? Doesn’t tolerance mean we merely suppress our anger till it becomes unbearable and then explode and cause violence and strife. It is time we stop tolerating and start understanding, and through that understanding start respecting our differences, only then will we be able to bring about true and sustainable transformation. No two individuals are identical everyone is different, in appearances, behaviour, habits, nature and way of life, relationships are formed and sustained when we understand and than accept and respect our differences. Only those relationships are sustained which are based on understanding, respect and acceptance it is through this that love happens. A relationship based on compromise or subjugation can not be sustained and will not survive. Transformation must also be mutual otherwise it becomes one sided and is a form of subjugation. Subjugation does not create relationships it perpetuates opression.

Transformation must also be based on achieving equality. Today in our consumption of the earth’s resources itself there is criminal inequality. Some nations and societies have so much and waste so much that it is a sin and then there are nations and societies who live amongst such scarcity and poverty that it is inhuman and unimaginable. But we have conditioned ourself to be oblivious to it. We exist in our own comfort zone and have insulated ourselves to the suffering of humanity in another country, continent or of another race. Our collective conscience is aroused only when we see pictures of the infant Alan Kurdi’s dead body washed up on a beach, or images of the vulture stalking the skeleton of the Ethiopian child dying of starvation due to a man made famine, even then our collective outrage about such horrifying occurrences is short lived. As long as these tragedies happen in other nations other continents other races we remain unmoved. When we are so uncaring how honest is it to talk about inclusiveness?

We are now on the verge of self destruction caused by our own greed and self serving nature. We can change, we must change, if we change individually, one at a time. We need a ‘Me First’ movement of transformation. this world has been given to us to hold in trust for the future and it is our responsibility to ensure that when it is time to hand over this world to future generations we give it, if not better, definitely not worse than what was given to us. An Indian philosopher saint Kabeer has said, ‘Jheeni Jheeni Bini Chadariya, Das Kabeer Jatan Kari Odhi, Jyon ki tyon dhar deeni chadariya.’ It means ‘ delicate very delicately woven is the cloth of life, The servant Kabeer draped it with care and when it came time to hand it back ensured that it was as it had been gifted to him.’

For this to happen we must create a just, inclusive and understanding world of equality, of frugality, consuming enough for sustenance, not indulgence. Gandhi said ‘Nature provides enough for everyone’s needs but cannot provide for anyone’s greed’. In every aspect we must become consumers by need and not by greed.

To transform humanity we must begin with children, they are the inheritors off the world, education is what will empower our children to become capable of inheriting the world and holding it in trust for the future. Today education instils selfishness, instils the habit of self seeking, becoming an uninhibited consumer. Education will have to change, become more enlightening not merely a method of transfer of knowledge. But medium of enlightenment. A fountain of learning.

We as individuals will have to obey our responsibilities not just our rights but our duties too. And perform them to the best of our abilities and with honesty. There are many examples of civil society bringing about a transformation for the better but its not enough, much more is required we must form a global collective of good intentions and individually strive for collective success.

Anuradha Bhosale, was forced into becoming a child labourer because of the poverty her family was enslaved by. Through dint of hard work and some benefactors, Anuradha educated herself and is today heading an organisation AVANI in Kolhapur a city South of Mumbai. Anuradha has rescued more than 5 thousand children forced into hazardous labour and susceptible to exploitation and has rehabilitated them and is providing education, nourishment and security to them and making them aware of their rights. This is the kind of transformation that matters. More than organisation it requires a commitment passion and responsibility.

Ila Bhatt was a Union Leader, she started working with women who worked as rag pickers and started organising them, from it was born a collective of women SEWA, Self Employed Women’s Association, a union of  women. Today SEWA is a Nation wide Bank Of women, By Women and For women. SEWA has economically and socially transformed millions of women in India and in scores off countries across four continents and is one of the fastest growing collective of women globally empowering women and bringing about a transformation in their lives and their societies. There are many like Anuradha and Ilaben, individuals and organisations, but much and many more are required urgently.

Today we have a surfeit of self serving ‘Me and only Me’ Leaders, we need selfless servers, servants of humanity, in the service of the needy. Not for Me and I, but for Us and All. Our  greed has put  life at peril. Since we have placed it in jeopardy only we will be able to save it, conserve it.

Cultures have more often than not created conflicts and strife, because cultures have always fallen prey to superiority and supremacy, My way has always been thought to be the better one.  We must bring about a culture of nonviolence and peace. We must create a culture of understanding, accepting and respecting our difference, a culture of justice, peace and compassion, only then true transformation will occur. We must create a humanity which holds life as a trust and us as its trustees. Time, talent and ability along with wealth must be held and used in trust for a better present and future, beyond the borders of nation, beyond regions, race and religions, we must create a system of compassionate commerce and benevolent governance. Global village and exclusive sovereignty are mutually contradictory concepts and in today’s time are  unsustainable. Humanity, if it is to survive will have to become compassionately inclusive, equal and just, the responsibility of achieving this is ours, individually.

In 1930 on the eve of breaking the Salt Tax imposed by the British. A Canadian journalist asked Gandhi if he had a message for the world. Gandhi’s message to the world was ‘I want world sympathy in this battle of right against might’.  Today too, the battle of right against might is waged around the world, we must unite in sympathy and solidarity in all such battles, not remain mute spectators to rights being trampled, denied and persecuted.

The UN must become more equal and less subserviant, only then can it become a truly inclusive grouping of nations an organisation serving humanity and life compassionately and humbly, equality and justice must become its creed, it is not today.

I repeat, A trust for Life must be formed which is beyond parochial nationhood, beyond race and religion based on understanding, compassion, trust, justice and equality for all. And all of us must become its trustees, its servants.

If we change individually the result will be a global transformation but it must start with ‘Me First’.

 

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