A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only.
www.brucenixon.com
How will we be judged by future generations who face the full consequences of our inaction? Are we simply
standing by and letting it happen? I ask myself, am I a criminal, “innocently” carrying on my comfortable way
of life, allowing millions to die elsewhere, doing little or nothing to prevent it when I could do so much more?
We are all responsible - individuals, organisations and governments. We are drifting.
We need whole systems solutions. We need the clarity to see that all the issues described in this chapter are
linked. For example, many people now realise that current war on drugs policy, like the war on terror, is not
working. It fosters violence, political corruption, further poverty, and crime in stricken communities.
Legalising and regulating drugs might work. Wars that don’t work, the credit crunch and recession caused by
breathtaking greed and irresponsibility, divert us from addressing the biggest issues, namely the
environment, injustice, poverty and the survival of our own and future generations. We need to stop living in
denial or believing we are powerless. Technology and science will solve some of our problems, but not if the
underlying intention is to continue a greedy life, make huge profits and exercise excessive power. Technology
can be an excuse for continuing “business as usual” and an essentially perverse way of life that denies us
what really matters.
How self-aware are ‘good guys’ like Sir Richard Branson, promoting bio-fuel for aircraft and holidays in space
that will use masses of fuel? All very exciting but where are his values? That’s the problem with so many
leaders – split minds. Peter Mandelson declared himself "intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy
rich, as long as they pay their taxes". He may be relaxed; the majority of the world is not.
“The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for anyone’s greed.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Above all we need a change of consciousness, a spiritual awakening - compassion for others, deep
reverence for all life. Then we would see everything differently and be far happier.
"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them."
Albert Einstein.
Do things have to get much worse before we wake up? That would be a terrible tragedy.
Further reading
Curtis, M, 2004, Unpeople - Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses, and 2003 Web of Deceit - Britain's Real
Role in the World, Vintage, UK
Guha, R, 2007, India after Gandhi, The history of the world’s largest democracy, Macmillan.
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