Future Justice

Sykes, Helen. Future Justice. 2010. Future Leaders. Sydney. Australia.

Moo Baulch. 
Sydney, Australia.

Future Justice edited by Helen Sykes is a collection of writings by academics and thinkers about this generation’s responsibility to leave a just and stable legacy for the future.  The theme of the book echoes point IX of the Letter of Peace addressed to the UN when it states: “Progenitors are responsible for giving existence to other beings. Therefore, with the help of society, they should provide their offspring with sufficient support for their entire lives, above all in the inheritance of a more peaceful world for their entire lives.”

The books’ underlying message is the construction of a solid society based on principles of universal human rights, justice and solidarity. The chapters are written by key experts in their fields – a High Court Judge writes about being able to exercise the right to love as a gay man, one of Australia’s most prominent Aboriginal women writes about the concept of sustainability in Indigenous cultures and a professor of philosophy gives her perspective on intergenerational Justice. The essays are articulate, persuasive and offer a new perspective on the right of future generations to inherit a peaceful world.

The latter part of the book is a collection of short pieces of fiction, non-fiction and essays by young writers who entered the Future Readers writing competition. Again the topics include themes as diverse as climate change, violent conflict and old age. They are eloquently written and offer a good range of perspectives on

The book has been published by a Future Justice, a philanthropic initiative specifically designed to educate, inform and inspire. It is a joint initiative of Future Leaders and the  Institute of Legal Studies and is based in Australia. It is committed to economic, social, cultural and environmental advances for the present generation whilst securing and strengthening the life chances of future generations. It takes as its starting point the UNESCO ‘Declaration on the Responsibilities of the Present Generations Towards Future Generations’. This Declaration sets down the core responsibilities, which the present generation should assume. These include:

•    the responsibility to bequeath to future generations an Earth that will not one day be irreversibly damaged by human activity;
•    the responsibility to ensure that future generations may benefit from the richness of the Earth’s ecosystems and, to that end, the present generation should work to ensure sustainable development and the quality and integrity of the environment;
•    the responsibility to underpin and promote the socio-economic development of future generations through the fair and prudent use of available resources, including the nation’s economic, fiscal and budgetary resources;
•    the responsibility to work towards the progressive alleviation of poverty and other forms of economic and social disadvantage;
•    the responsibility to protect and safeguard the nation’s cultural heritage and to transmit that heritage to future generations;
•    the responsibility to provide high quality education as one crucial means of fulfilling everyone’s inherent potential; and
•    the responsibility to preserve and to strengthen peoples human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with international law.

As part of strengthening this philosophy and spreading the word, Future Justice provides free electronic access to the entire book through their website! No software or file download is required, you simply have to click on the "read ebook" icons and they will open within a web-based ereader. If you want to read the books on your iphone or ipad navigate to this page www.futureleaders.com.au/ebooks/ using the browser on your device and select the "read ebook" icon. The Future Leaders will be publishing more books in this series – check back and see what they come up with.

Peaceland. A Sustainable World is Possible

Sunny Choi. Peaceland. A Sustainable World is Possible. 2008. New Century Publishing, Bangkok, Thailand.

Moo Baulch. 
Sydney, Australia.

Peaceland is a treatise proposing a bright, new future for the world. It offers a utopian vision for future generations in which people joyfully participate in every aspect of society. Every person’s contribution and place is valued, social responsibility is given the highest priority and positive peace is at the core of everyone’s existence. It is part poem, part guidebook to the future, part framework for peace building. Most significantly it supports several of the key points in the Letter of Peace addressed to the UN.

The book opens in 2012, when the world is crumbling. Natural disasters, environmental destruction, violent conflict and the structures of society that encourage selfish accumulation of wealth have brought mankind and the earth to a critical tipping point. The planet is collapsing. There are mass migrations of populations fleeing the effects of global warming. Greed has brought humanity to the brink of self-destruction.

Humans decide to change the world when they realize that greed is the sole cause of wars, envy, destruction and conflict. They recognize that the only way to a positive future is through peaceful coexistence. This awareness of the fundamental fraternity of existence is what is spoken of in point V of the Letter of Peace. The sense of interconnection between all people and social structures demands that we all think about our impacts on other people around us and on our environment.

Peaceland proposes that radical new social structures are necessary for this change to be effective. The book suggests a social capital model where everyone is equally responsible for their community and industry cares for society and the environment. A basic living wage is paid to every citizen and the people own the means of production. Citizens have free access to quality education, healthcare, transport and public services such as cheap, nutritious food. People are freed from the obligations of unfulfilling, undervalued work and given the freedom to contribute to society using their talents

Social mindedness is valued. To think about others and work and act with them in mind is considered the ultimate virtue. In Peaceland there are no public cars. Everyone travels by bicycle, public transport or walking. All technology and intellectual property is owned by society. There is no competition for resources or to accumulate wealth to buy better things than others because everyone has equal access to a satisfying existence. Material wealth is not the goal. Point VI of the Letter of Peace talks of a similar rejection of old social structures. It also proposes a construction of new structures based on human geographic units.

The final point of the Letter of Peace addressed to UN is synonymous with the message in Peaceland about our responsibility to future generations. Both texts speak of our duty as citizens of the world to ensure that the future will be more peaceful, harmonious and caring place. Peaceland may be a work of fiction but the ideas on which it is based: social capital, social wellbeing, social values and social participation and responsibility are achievable.

Memory as a remedy for evil

Todorov, Tzvetan. Memory as a remedy for evil. Berg Publisher. U.K. 2010. 

Alfredo Fernández. Journalist.
Letter of Peace adressedd to the U.N.

In his book contemporary Bulgarian historian and philosopher Tzvetan Todorov points out that “ our memory of the past become sterile if we use it to build an insurmountable wall between ourselves and evil”. He adds another very interesting statement. “ We are very quick to forget all the bad things we inflict on others in every day life, and yet we hold on to our memories of suffering for a long time".

And so we may ask ourselves: what can we do to remedy all the wrongs of the past? Very little, if anything at all. “We can, however, take action against criminals, people from the past, in order to ensure that they do not repeat their actions and we can influence people of the future as well”, says Todorov. He adds that public statements that recognise the suffering experienced by old victims can help to sooth the pain, although it cannot bring back the dead.

Point VIII of the Letter of Peace says, “The present representatives of the institutions that have prevailed through History, certainly have no responsibility for actions which took place in the past, since they were not alive then. But, in order to promote peace, these representatives should nevertheless publicly state their regrets for past evils and injustices committed by the institutions throughout History, when it is prudent to do so. In their institutional roles they should try to compensate for the damage caused.”

Todorov refers back to the situation in South Africa in another part of the book. He talks about how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, presided over by Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, worked on collective memory. The commission’s central objective demonstrated how people who were responsible for violating human rights in South Africa should publically confess their crimes, whilst the victims receive state compensation if their testimonies could be confirmed. This meant a sense of truth and openness could be established, thereby achieving a second objective, forgiveness and the reconciliation of the population, where the white minority accept their responsibility for what happened in the past and the black and mixed race majority aims to overcome their resentment.

Is this an easy thing to do? Of course not. The case explored in the book has been applauded by many countries all over the world, but no one seems prepared to imitate its example. Are we now prepared to compensate others for our own mistakes? How can we do this?

Burma – Women´s Voices for Peace

Thanakha Team. Burma - Women's Voices for Peace. Edited by Thanakha Team. Bangkok. May 2010.

Moo Baulch. 
Sydney, Australia.

Burma – Women´s Voices for Peace is the seventh edition of women´s stories to be published by the Thanakha Team. Thanakha is a collective of women from different regions of Burma and other parts of the world, that exists to gather and publishes women´s stories about the human experience of the conflict in Burma. The stories are short, poignant vignettes demonstrating practical examples of daily peace-building and solidarity. The mere existence of some of the stories represents huge risk to lives; an earlier edition features poems smuggled to the publisher written by female prisoners incarcerated in horrific circumstances. Others are written by those fortunate enough to escape Burma and begin a new life as refugees, dislocated from their families and writing from exile in foreign lands. These stories epitomise the spirit of Burmese women. The defiant, eternal desire for peace is captured in every tale.

The stories are real, moving tales of daily existence – the women use the language of solidarity and peace-building whilst writing from a context of extreme displacement and state-perpetrated violence. Some of the stories have a strong political focus, others are more personal. They tell of amazing acts of courage - often using the simplest, most humble vernacular. What unites the women´s experience in this collection, regardless of ethnic background or political perspective is the humanity, compassion and humour with which these women continue their struggle.

Women have a strong presence in the fight for peace and democracy in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi is the internationally recognised figurehead on the political stage and this October marks her 15th cumulative year of incarceration. This book represents just one crucial aspect of the work that ALTSEAN-Burma carries out. The organisation has been working with women in and outside Burma to bring about peace by sharing their stories, educating, training and empowering them, building and supporting displaced communities since 1996. ALTSEAN provides the resources for the Thanakha Team and supports women empowerment initiatives in the hope that one day a new generation of Burmese community leaders will have the freedom to participate democratically in their building of their nation.

At this stage the Women´s Voices collection is published in English as well as several ethnic Burmese languages. It is hoped that one day the stories can be translated into other languages so that these important voices can be heard across the world. In the meantime, here´s a translation of the closing poem in the collection – a call for solidarity, courage and hope amidst the violence.



Women´s Hope – Soe Meh

If you have shed tears for the freedom stolen from you
We have wept for the lives we created
Only to die before our eyes

If you show vengeance for all that you´ve been through
We can only aspire for a life that once was ours
To find its way back to its spirit

We are left with nothing but the courage to hope
And we hold on to this as we keep living each day
An inspiration, to gain back our freedom.

The fear of the Barbarians

Todorov, Tzvetan. The fear of the Barbarians. 

Francesc Torralba. Doctor of Philosophy.
Director of the Peace Institutes of the Universitas Albertiana.

One of the most interesting books to analyse and realize of the political instability of the planet in our times is the essay written by Tzvetan Todorov (Sofía, 1939) The fear of the Barbarians (2008). In this essay, the author develops a stimulating exposition on the two main emotions which move social, political and economic world: fear and resentment. According to the thinker, the countries that form the political map, may be split in two big groups: the ones which feel the fear and the ones which experience the resentment.   

Fear, beautifully analysed by Zygmunt Baumann in his essay Liquid Fear, is a passion which limits freedom and truth. The most developed countries in the world feel fear under some different forms: fear of a terrorist attack, fear of the future, fear of a wave of immigrants, fear of an energy change, fear of an ecologic catastrophe, fear of markets instability. The developing countries suffer from resentment against the rich ones, it is some kind of bitterness which has its origin in colonialism, exploitation and slavery. When comparing quality life between both spheres, fear and resentment appear. Fear erects walls, wire fences, police controls and severe immigration policies. Resentment intoxicates the spiritual life of countries and it becomes apparent under different forms: aggressiveness, violence and, in the worst of the cases, the will to kill.

The human being, moved by the elementary and primary drive of fear, is capable of any atrocity, to become a barbarian, to lie and even to segregate another. The human being driven by resentment, becomes used to causing deep suffering and to channel this passion through technologic mechanisms. The civilization requires the mastering of emotions, selfcontrol, justice, and recognition of rights and equal opportunities. In the heart of terrorism beats the resentment against the Western world and its ways of colonialism. In the West there is a trend to identify the stranger with the barbarian, without considering that the barbarian is not determined by the colour of the skin nor the language, but by his incapability to recognise the dignity of those who are not like him.   

The construction of the peace is a hard and difficult task. One of the fundamental obstacles against this task, as it is indicated in the Letter of Peace addressed to the UN, is resentment, but, also fear has to be identified as a barrier since the fear generates distrust and suspicion and makes it impossible to recognise another as a brother in the existence, it also denies that existential fraternity which is the most solid and universal foundation of peace.

Todorov essay is a clear contribution to understand the seriousness of these days. It reminds us that a human being may loose the rights given to him by Society if he infringes its rules but he never may loose his inherent dignity. This stimulating text makes us think whether the fear of Barbarians is not a more primitive and atavistic fear: the fear of the dark side of the human being, the fear of the night sphere of his being.