Mabila Mathebula
The scientific community has long sounded a warning in good faith about the devastating effects of the ever-warming globe. Notably, knowing the future is a tool one can use to conquer one’s immediate environment.
The more one knows the better off one will be – especially if one possesses information that no one else possesses. The current oppressive heat in the tropical regions as well as the raging hurricanes in temperate areas, are the consequences of the warming globe.
If this situation goes unchecked and unmanaged, mankind will be extinct like dinosaurs, never to resurface on planet Earth again as the ozone layer deteriorates.
The message from the scientists must be handed down from generation to generation with aplomb. Simply put, if we destroy the Earth, we are equally destroying ourselves.
Human greed is destroying our planet. It is time we created societies that functioned in service to life and treated money as a facilitator, of our economic lives.
It is said that our political system is even more beholden to corporate money. For example, there is a plan that is being carved out to destroy as many as half a million protected indigenous trees in the 12 000-hectare Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSES) in northern Limpopo.
In When Corporations Rule the World, David Korten observes: “…The growing concentration of power in global corporations and financial institutions is stripping governments – democracies and otherwise – of their ability to set economic, social, and environmental priorities in the larger common interest.
“Driven by a single-minded dedication to generating ever-greater profits for the benefit of their investors, global corporations and financial institutions have turned their economic power into political power.
“They now dominate the decision-making processes of government and rewriting the rules of world commerce through international trade and investment agreements to allow themselves to expand their profits without regard to the social and environmental consequences borne by the larger society.”
I think that the yokes of colonialism and neo-colonialism are easy to bear as opposed to the yoke of recolonisation. The former is forced down your throat, while the latter, is done through your full cooperation.
On the other side, decolonisation is a voluntary principled-centred decision, to disentangle oneself from the shackles of oppression and exploitation.
The plan is to develop a new heavy industry zone in Limpopo. These corporations’ chief aim is to make a profit while destroying the environment.
One of the texts of ancient Buddhist literature, the Dhammapada, also instructs us to live in harmony with nature and all human beings. In verse 3:10, it speaks of a wise man who earns his living harming anything he comes in contact with.
“The wise and moral man
Shines like a fire on a hilltop,
Making money like the bee
Who does not hurt the flower.”
In the Vedic literature, this is called ‘Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah’ – Non-injury is the highest of all the virtues.
Liberation movements throughout the length and breadth of Africa have failed to deal with sustainable developmental issues and are suffering from paradigm paralysis – their nervous system and consciences have been destroyed by their ostentatious living.
People are now fed up with the failures of elitist leadership and distant bureaucracies and they are demanding authentic leadership. We need new political parties and movements that would strengthen communities and deepen their spiritual practice.
We need leaders who will build networks of locally rooted businesses, certify socially and environmentally responsible products, restore forests and watersheds, advance organic agriculture, practising holistic health, directing their investments to socially responsible businesses, organising recycling campaigns, and demand that trade agreements protect the rights of people and the environment. Not leaders who “smoke out” people.
The CEO of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa must read Chief Sealth, or Seattle’s speech, of the Suquamish Indian Tribe. In Chief Sealth’s speech in 1854, he was responding to the interest the President of the United States had in purchasing land from the Native Americans.
Here are some excerpts: “… the Great Chief in Washington sends words that he wishes to buy our land… If we sell our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give to any brother… The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath - the beats, the trees, and man, they are all of the same breath… All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the earth…”
Author and life coach Mathebula has a PhD in Construction Management.