Here in Malaysia, there is a sense that it is hard to move forward because we seem to be held back by the heavy baggage of race and religion – issues that divide us.
Some of this baggage might be imposed on us by forces that prefer the status quo – the Old Politics – to remain. But I think we have reached a stage where there is a real sense that we could lose out – and not just in economic progress – if we do not evolve towards a higher, more enlightened state of consciousness.
Of course, we are not alone in this respect. Many other countries are also struggling with issues of racial and religious chauvinism or xenophobia that are holding them back from realising their full potential.
Over the last couple of centuries, rapid advances in technology, travel, and communications have brought us closer to one another so that the world has now shrunk into a “global village”.
But the forces of globalisation have also had their negative effects. Environmental concerns are no longer limited by national borders; so too the potential for nuclear devastation.
Similarly corporate-led neoliberal globalisation has widened income inequalities across the world, enriching the top 1 or top 5 per cent of the population. Multinational corporations have grown immensely powerful and are perceived to be “the new rulers of the world”. Workers, on the other hand, are struggling to make ends meet.
We have ‘commodified’ the free gifts of the earth and privatised them: water, the hills, islands, even the sea. These are all up for sale and are being gobbled up by predatory forces. We have alienated ourselves from Nature and instead exploited it to such an extent our very survival as a species is at stake.
So the term globalisation has been tainted through its association with a certain kind of exploitative economic model that increasingly looks at the world in a materialistic, commercial way.
Theologian Leonardo Boff says the word planetisation, which carries a more positive connotation, is better than globalisation.
The great Jesuit philosopher and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) had elaborated on planetisation.
Planetisation, he said, is “the profound ordering of things” that will enable “human collectivisation to pass beyond the enforced phase, where it now is, into the free phase.”
Under this free phase, de Chardin believed that people would at last understand that they are all “inseparably joined elements of a converging Whole”.
They would then have learned “to love the preordained forces that unite them”. This free phase would be “a natural union of affinity and sympathy”.
So planetisation is a more positive way of looking at our evolution.
This process is irresistible, said de Chardin. “So many opposing forces (ideas, passions, institutions, peoples) meet and clash around us that to the thinking person it may well appear that the human ship is rudderless in the storm. Are we going ahead or astern, or are we simply hove-to? No means of telling while we remain at sea-level: the waves hide the horizon.
“I can see only one way of escape from this state of uncertainty which threatens to paralyse all positive action: we must rise above the storm, the chaos of surface detail, and from a higher vantage-point look for the outline of some great and significant phenomenon.”
After two world wars and so much upheaval, he felt that the human family is even more closely bound than ever before – and then there is a tangle of social and economic relationships as well.
For de Chardin, there is a major cosmic process at work, which he called “human planetisation” — a tide of ever-increasing unification, under a universal sense of evolution, no longer based on wealth but on genuine progress.
“What is really going on, under cover and in the form of human collectivisation, is the super-organisation of Matter upon itself, which as it continues to advance produces its habitual, specific effect, the further liberation of consciousness.”
“Let us look it in the face and see whether, using it as an unassailable foundation, we cannot erect upon it a hopeful edifice of joy and liberation.”
De Chardin says in this final phase of human freedom, “what finally divides the men of today into two camps is not class but an attitude of mind — the spirit of movement” forward towards real progress and unification.
It is up to us to decide if we really want to move forward. Perhaps we need to rise above the swirling storm to gain a better perspective of where we are and where we want to head to.
Do we really want the baggage of racial and religious divisiveness to hold us back? Or do we want to move towards a higher plane of consciousness and realise our full potential, in harmony with the world around us?
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Zakir Naik was charged in absentia with “deliberately insulting the religious beliefs of Hindus, Christians and Islamic sects”, the Times of India reports today.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) charge sheet also stated that “Zakir was not considered an Islamic scholar, although he had memorised the Quran and Hadith. His knowledge of Islam was very poor”….
Zakir has been on the run from the Indian authorities after his passport was revoked in July. He is believed to be travelling between Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.
BBC podcast: The End of Globalisation?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p056dl6g
Does the advent of automation and re-shoring spell the end of global trade growth? Finbarr Livesey explains the thesis of his new book ‘From Global To Local: The making of things and the end of globalisation’. Plus co-founder of Raspberry Pi Eben Upton, reveals how the manufacture of his PCs is now cheaper in the UK than China.
The $100 Billion Forest City Has a Big China Problem. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-22/the-100-billion-city-next-to-singapore-has-a-big-china-problem Beijing’s capital controls are spooking some property buyers. The crackdown on outflows of money from China has spooked some buyers. While Chinese citizens are allowed an annual foreign exchange quota of $50,000, the government said in December that all buyers of foreign exchange must sign a pledge that they won’t use their quotas for offshore property investment. Violators would be added to a watch list, denied access to foreign currency for three years and be subject to a money-laundering investigation. The restriction threatens to take the wind out of… Read more »
Stupid people focus on afterlife and ignore to live the present life to the fullest just because of some frustration. Religions are to blame here. Heaven is right here on earth, not any other place after you die. You die and return to earth as dust, that’s all to it, no promised land whatsoever!
This is what climate change looks like http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/13/world/gallery/climate-change-effects/index.html This week’s temperature @ my studio room has reached 33 °C (daytime) 32 °C (night). Very uncomfortable. And I can see madness of botak-ing of Bukit Kukus just for building a road across this hillside to Bukit Jambul. Madness that goes beyond reasonable hill-slope excavating or is it hill road building + selling of excavated earth to other construction sites such as sea reclamation. Go to The Lawn by Eco Terrace (Paya Terubong) to get a panoramic view of this madness of hillside devastation waiting for a disaster to happen comes rainstorms… Read more »
Hong Kong wealth gap hits 46-year high http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2017/06/09/hong-kong-wealth-gap-hits-46-year-high/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FreeMalaysiaToday+%28FMT+News%29 HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s wealth gap was on Friday revealed to be at its highest in nearly 50 years, with living conditions fuelling discontent in the city as it prepares to mark two decades under Chinese rule. SKY-HIGH PRICES AND THE COST OF LIVING OUTSTRIP MANY ORDINARY RESIDENTS’ SALARIES IN HONG KONG, WITH APARTMENTS BECOMING INCREASINGLY CRAMPED AND GENERATIONS OF FAMILIES FORCED TO SHARE. In a report that comes out every five years, the census and statistics department applies a formula known as the Gini Co-efficient to measure wealth inequality. A Gini… Read more »
“Inequality” (poverty) is intrinsic to capitalism. According to this leading religion, profiteering is natural, essential. We must not hinder it because (a) we are dead without growth (b) plutocrats are the fount of entrepreneurship, benevolence and general affluence.
Growth via slavery + manipulation of labor market & wages in the name of profits & investor satisfaction of massive ROI, monopolistic tendencies, money market + share market speculations, excessive exploitation of natural resources, disruptive market forces (e.g. creating acute shortages of supply + high surreal prices), free-hand rein of globalisation, pro-corporate policies regardless of deadly intents & temporal lifespan of businesses???
Tunglang will be voting PAS. Kelantan is his shinning example
Tunglang orso HK expert. Tunglang speak kang fu words. Tunglang equates Penang state to hong Kong as SAR which China will allow HK 50 years on 2 system
Back to Nature for your Future! The law of economy is scarcity The law of Nature is abundancy! No money needed… Everything is there already! when a Mango tree is full of mangoes, you cant sell them. You give them away and get a fish in return… Last week I was invited in an appartment on a very high level, throught the windows I could see for the first time from high the enormous amount of other condominiums of brick…people become cold as stone as well, no wonder!! They loose the connection with the Earth. More of this articles please… Read more »
Not globalisation or planetisation, but Islamisation is the sure way in this country.
Unification only gives progress.
Anil, take a walk in the forest & you may get some answers.
Learn to meditate, connect & exchange what’s in your mind, heart & consciousness with Nature’s elements (trees, animals, spirits (Bunians included), rivers, hills, etc).
You may get surprising spontaneous response without your framed expectation or prejudices (religious or fear) blocking Nature.
For a start, try our Botanic Gardens (Lily Pond), Penang Hill (Tiger Hill) or Youth Park.
My own experience: receiving mental vision / picture spontaneously upon meditation while taking a walk on the path after the Reservoir.
No need to go as far as Belum Rainforest.
Pulau Kendi, Turtle Beach, Air Hitam Dam, any walk or cycle around Balik Pulau, we might take a walk on the bright side along the coast…finishing touch, Sunset!!!
Yeah, Air Itam Dam with the surrounding emerald forests. Take a left uphill path 100+ meters after the small bridge which is at half-way mark of the around-dam walk (if you walk clockwise from the carpark). This is a path that leads to the Tiger Hill + Penang Hill. The nature here is pristine beautiful with clear water streams, evaporating mists, migratory birds, bees, exotic insects, wild boars, & of course the invisible beings. I have seen one particular ‘miniature’ round neat garden of flowers surrounded by shrubs & havoc of fallen branches which according to the Orang Asli is… Read more »
Meditation = chow four yap more. A lot of Chinese martial expert turn to dark force and part of martial cult because of wrong meditation
Yes, to go beyond the ‘apparent chaos’ that we see around us we need to reach down, go down and rediscover the beauty of simplicity that every creature on this planet, and the planet itself gifts to us.
To me, this is beating about the bush, which is… capitalism. Even the most widespread (transnational) and ambitious plans to sustain the planet evade this. Such is the power of propaganda.
Lovely post Anil Netto
Many Penangites benefited from globalization waves from 80s to earn decent paying jobs in FTZ from foreign investors like Intel, HP, AMD, Seagate, just to name a few. They should not demonize globalization but to educate their children now about Planetization era to protect and preserve the environment, including no food wastage or $ games leakages.
Need to emphasize spiritual and moral aspects of life instead of pursuing materialistic gain.
For a start, do plant more trees, cycle and walk more, and leave carbon footprints to the minimum.
Plant 50 trees for each logged one…instead of plastic trees with coloured electric lights
Learn from children and show them morals, values, and spiritual way of living, let them play instead of carrying a backpack which is heavier than the child. Home cooked healthy food instead of unhealthy school lunches or outside unhealthy breakfast and dinner.
Forestschooling…!!!
I agree with you Damien!
And eat less of fast food fried chicken. These meals come from fast-growing farm chickens which are injected with female hormones to fast-track production (in less than 1 month?). I heard of men & boys developing breasts (whether you are fat or lean) who have frequently eaten too much of these chickens. My mechanic friend told me of the devastating female-hormoned chicken effects on men / boys: There is a man whose ‘brother 010’ has shrunk to near disappearance! And of his man friend who changed sex after losing all his male hormones & manly features including voice & gait!… Read more »