I have read your comments in your Presidential Address with great interest. I appreciate the ecological messages of your address for Pakistan, the Muslim world, and beyond. Jock Gill and many others are trying to carry a resonant message throughout the West and to other cultures globally. If the peoples of the Muslim world, Europe, the Americas, and elsewhere are to move toward lifestyles that can be sustainably managed for many generations to come, not only would we be preserving the Earth’s ecosystem, but we would also be reducing many sources of ill health and conflict between human groups vying for limited resources, in ignorance of the plentiful renewable resources available to a humanity working cooperatively in balance with our global, regional, and local environments.

I have personally been involved in the issues of developing sustainable cultures living knowledgeably within our carrying capacities for 30 years. During the last three and a half decades, since the development of the Club of Rome work, the creation of the World3 model, the alarm sounded by the Limits to Growth book and the oil embargo of the early 1970s, we have had opportunities for transition to more sustainable approaches to development. These opportunities have been largely squandered by the mainstreams of the world’s dominant cultures. That said, the movement toward sustainability and the future evolution of humanity has not been idle. It has just been quietly seeking the right moment to emerge.

We are now at an important transition point. The political pendulum in the United States, for example, during the past decade has swung to the far right in an attempt by strong vested interests to protect an unsustainable world view and its avaricious self interests in a manner that has been very destructive to the environment, health, and global ecosystems. This extreme world view has tremendous resources and is willing to fight and compete with great insensitivity against any cultures that it perceives as standing in its way. It has attempted to dumb down the discourse of the American people through fear and diminish our democracy through sloganism. This is a world view that can and must be brought into balance with a greater and more participatory democracy.

In my calculations, there are already 2 billion to 3 billion refugees from this unsustainable worldview in the West, the Muslim world, and in other cultures around the world. The problem is that these refugees from Epoch A (win/lose, bigger is better, competitive, carry capacity insensitive value system) have not yet found a sustainable alternative in Epoch B (win/win, small is beautiful, cooperative, sustainable value system). That said, we are finally moving in the right direction to create a sustainable way forward. Substantial forces are amassing globally to enable the future evolution of humanity toward a more peaceful and sustainable way of being and becoming our potential. Both Islam and Aikido hold keys to our understanding of our greater human potential.

There are two major forms of human inquiry. One is to look at similarities. The second is to look at differences. Both types of Inquiries are essential to identifying and deepening our understanding of truths that transcend superficial and often destructive slogans.

In the past ten years, the Bush Administration and Al Qaeda have enjoined to focus attention on destructive myths rooted in the well known roads to war. They have engaged stories and events creating deepening cycles of victims, villains and heroes, which have purposefully highlighted false differences between Islam and the West. These spotlighted differences have in many ways artificially obscured our commonalities and elevated misunderstandings to the level of trying to create a clash of civilizations that perpetrates a culture of environmental and social abuse, with the intention of solidifying their political control even at the cost of decades of war and social disintegration. This elevation of conflict and perpetration of animosity, with the consequence of driving masses of people into violence, deepens our separation at a time when we should be intensifying our work together in protecting the environment and the well-being of current and future generations of humanity.

We are now at a point in history when where large majorities around the world are now collectively rejecting sociopathic messages and movements that would justify, reinforce, and protect the interests of unsustainable and violent worldviews. It is now time to reclaim the foundations of our inquiry to rekindle and rebuild common ground between Islam, the West, and the other emerging cultures within the global community. It is time to honor the traditions of wisdom and truth within all cultures around the world that embrace peace and sustainable paths toward the positive evolution of humanity in balance with our global, regional, and local environments. We need to create a solid foundation in our common humanity, as well as look at our true differences, not as a source of conflict but as a path toward understanding and optimization of our collective path forward toward a sustainable world.

As you have so aptly point out, a part of discovering the path forward is rooted in the truths discoverable in religious tradition. In addition to the principles of environmental protection in the Qur’an, similar messages of stewardship and the need to live in balance with the environment can be found in the Bible, the Tao Te Ching, and other works of spiritual insight. Islam is clearly one of the great religions of the world and a path of truth for well over a billion people on earth today. The truths of the rich religious heritage of humanity should be enjoined with our still nascent and emerging traditions of science to seek the truth, health, moderation, balance and viable ways to live sustainably in peace within this incredibly beautiful, yet fragile, planetary environment that we share.

Sincerely,

Mike

Michael D. McDonald, Dr.P.H.
President
Global Health Initiatives, Inc.

Coordinator
National Disaster Risk Communication Initiative

Principal Investigator
Disaster Knowledge Management System
Resilience Networks
http://DKMS.us/
http://resiliencenet.info/ncr/