The World as Rainbow

Multi-awarded script writer Ricky Lee often tells his students or participants of his workshops that there are various routes to Quiapo, a business district in Manila. It was his way of stressing that there’s no single formula in coming out with an excellent story for the movie or TV screen.

Lee’s advice practically applies to all aspects of human life and human relations. It also applies to how we relate with our planet and to how we attempt to reach ideal goals such as changing the world.

Take the case of the cause for the environment. There actually are various shades of environmentalism as there are diverse species in a forest ecosystem. Some environmentalists focus on campaigns such as dramatizing protests against destructive industries, genetically-engineered organisms, and against adverse laws and policies.

Some engage and wrestle with policy-makers, seeking to influence the outcomes of laws or policies so these become friendlier to communities and to the planet as a whole.

Still others work within communities, establishing seedling nurseries and seed banks and helping communities plant seedlings as they seek to recover vanishing tree and traditional food crop species.

Some environmental organizations try to combine various thrusts. But a single organization can only do so much. It actually takes various kinds of organizations to make a dent on the environment.

The same applies with how we view the world. There’s no single worldview, which can explain everything. The world is not black and white; it’s actually a rainbow.

One of the greatest sins of Hitler was that he thought and believed there was only one race that deserved to exist in the world – the Aryan race. So racism and all these other forms of discrimination begin from the thought and belief that one’s race or ethnic origin or one’s worldview or religion is the most superior.

Although his country suffered from the racial discrimination of the white colonialists under apartheid rule, Nelson Mandela, when he took over South Africa, did not order the execution of his country’s tormentors. With the advice of Bishop Desmond Tutu, Mandela instead pursued the way of peace, reconciliation and forgiveness. Mandela and Tutu asserted that they should not fall into the trap of replicating the sins of their colonial tormentors. This, they said, would only start a new cycle of violence, discrimination and suffering. Mandela instead declared that South Africa would become a “Rainbow Nation” where people of all colors could live “in harmony with equal opportunities.”

So the world is not black and white. Some of us maybe excused for still thinking it is. But that was the time when we still had black and white television. The world’s beauty and splendor can be viewed better from the various colors of a rainbow.

Slowing Down and Thinking Small

We live in an age of fast foods and fast lanes. We also hear our technocrats talk about fast-tracking growth and development. Jet planes faster than sound and the information superhighway have made the world smaller, but not necessarily closer as we have yet to close various gaps that still separate members of the human family – poverty, unequal access to information and to basic services, etc. And there are the barriers that now separate us from our planet earth and its various ecosystems. Urban kids, for instance, think cabbages grow on supermarkets and water comes from the tap or from a dispenser.

As we ponder about New Year’s resolutions and instituting changes, we might as well heed the Buddhists’ advice of slowing down and thinking small. The good news is that a counter-current to the fast food and fast lane mentality is emerging. Some people are now advocating for slow food, for example.

While technocrats push for mega and super structures such as mega-dams, some people are quietly pushing for micro-hydro electric projects in which damming rivers becomes unnecessary. Initially aided by a church, a development NGO and a small grants program of the UNDP, a small community of Mabaka folk in Apayao, for example, now manages their own 7.5 kw microhydro-electric power independent of the Luzon grid. A Mabaka household pays an average of P35 monthly bill, part of which is allotted for maintenance while the rest is set aside to help procure basic medicines for the remote village in Conner town. This is obviously far cheaper than our Beneco bill where we pay a long list of added costs, which include service to multi-million dollar foreign loans.

The late British E. F. Schumacher has noted that super structures such as mega-dams and other mega-projects concentrate wealth in the hands of a few while smaller and decentralized structures distribute not only wealth but power as well. And this is what community-managed micro-hydro projects have proved. The Mabaka community does not have high-paying managers and board of directors because officers of the community association, which oversees the project, are volunteers. In return for their volunteerism, the whole community benefits.

As we move forward into the 21^st century, we are now reaping the karmic effect of our obsession for things fast and big. Global warming, for example, is the result of gas emissions now threatening the ozone layer. The biggest fuel consumer, of course, is the US, the world’s lone superpower that is ever-ready to wage war for oil.

With global warming, our seas and oceans are rising and one-meter high islands such as those in the Pacific are in danger of being wiped out from the map.

It’s time to rethink our madness and the way out is for us to slow down and think small, at least in the way we use our resources.