Chapter XII from the Rio Plus 20 Document by Cho Tab Khen Zambuling (Alfredo Sfeir Younis)
XII. The World Is Hurting
Global warming is the fever the world feels as it is wounded by so many human activities. In order to eliminate global warming, a symptom of a world that is ill, we must heal the world. Wherever one looks one finds some form of conflict, violence, environmental degradation, corruption, misery, diseases, etc. All of them manifest either at the individual or the collective levels. Many people are now asking: How can they heal the hurting world? Do we know how to do it? Do we have the inner capacity to heal the world? But, more importantly, we must ask why the world is hurting in the first place. Given that the world is you and I (and this is neither just semantics nor a metaphor), why are we hurting each other? Actually, we are the world, there is only one world: our world.
There is no doubt that the world is hurting, and it is hurting because of both material and spiritual reasons. The world is hurting, because there is nearly half of the global population living in poverty with less than two dollars a day, and millions of beings in absolute poverty with less than one dollar a day. There are nearly one billion people who go to bed hungry everyday, while we witness a world full of wealth with plenty of food. There are thousands of children who die everyday of preventable diseases. This is not only a shame, but also the greatest ethical and moral dilemma we will ever face. There are 600,000 women who die every year, because they have little or no access to health care services during pregnancy and delivery. The world is hurting today because of the way we are treating the children and the youth. The youth face unemployment and see no real opportunities for betterment of their lives. Many youth are joining gangs in the world. This is not a phenomenon only of developing countries, this is a worldwide phenomenon, because these youngsters have lost hope and they have no reason to believe in the existing political system or a better future.
Millions of children do not go to school and the majority are girls. Millions of children are combatants and at war. In fact, the weapon industry is producing lighter and more effective weapons so that children can carry these weapons. Through media and toys, we are teaching the children how to kill, and it is devastating to think about how they are going to decide between war and peace when they have to push the button that they are so well trained to push in their war games.
The world is hurting, because we are not respecting the elderly people. They are materially fragile, and they are disempowered. Their wisdom, their spiritual guidance, and their contribution are not allowed to be made, so the transition between our generation and future generations is being ignored. The world is hurting because of social injustices, and because we are not respecting human rights. We are still violating the rights of women, as if we needed to discuss again and again whether men and women are equal. This is really a shame and a tragedy of great proportion. We are destroying indigenous cultures, as if they have nothing to contribute to human history. In fact, we are burning the library of humanity before we have the chance to read the books.
Yet, this is not all. What is most tragic today – and why the world is hurting – is that we believe that conflict and war are normal states of being. This is not acceptable. We have created millions of innocent victims and we have destroyed the inner fiber of society and devastated the principal social unit of our lives that is the family. The world is hurting because we are destroying the environment, which is so fundamental not only for our material existence but for our spiritual existence as well. The world is being crushed today by a value system that is individualistic and is bounded by economics and finance. These values dominate our lives and the present course of globalization. But people should know that while some economies are globalizing, their respective societies are not necessarily globalizing.
Spiritually, we are hurting, because we see so much discrimination in the world, because we are taught that there are lives of different values. Specifically, the life of the rich is worth much more than the life of the poor. Spiritually, we are not respecting the most sacred aspect of our lives and we see how one religion persecutes another religion. We are hurting spiritually, because we insist that our way of life today somehow requires that we sacrifice someone for the betterment of someone else, as if we need to leave some people behind to move other people forward. We are unhappy, and this is not a matter of just being materially developed or underdeveloped. Material wealth is not a guarantee to healing the world. There will be no material wealth that will be capable to buy peace, love, compassion, happiness, joy, or security.
In the past, we have tried to cure the world using just material means. For example, we have spent billions and billions of dollars on poverty elimination programs, and we have tried to help in many ways, but actually the success is not that great. And many of us feel that we are losing key ground. Human welfare is not just a matter of material means. It is the lack of political power and human will.
Are you prepared to heal the world?
To read the full Rio Plus 20 Statement click HERE.
