Living Pathways (2014/Pictorial Book)

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C. More and more Asian countries are on their achievement. Asians seem to want to tell the West: We can do it better! In reality, this achievement way to becoming developed nations. A few have comes at a tremendous cost. And the cost covers already arrived and are continually cited by their not only humans, but also other beings and the neighbours as models of Asia’s future. Meanwhile, environment. Steadily growing, chronic, partly vis- their ‘gurus’ and mentors in the Western world re- ible and partly unseen, Asia’s colossal crisis of the main convinced about the supposed superiority of modern age is one of sustainability, of which a crisis their globalised model of growth-oriented devel- of ecology, a crisis of justice, a crisis of compassion opment (which began with their ‘civilising’ mission and a crisis of spirituality are all a part. in the early days of colonisation). Increasingly, the West’s market and commodity culture – central E. In most cases, these crises and their harms are features of the mainstream (capitalist) development model – play a major role in promoting (through not spectacular or overt. They are built into the rou- the local, national and global media) a highly ma- tine and humdrum motions of our everyday lives. terialistic, inherently hedonistic, extremely senses- They permeate the ‘normality’ of our daily experi- driven entertainment orientation to Life, defining ence. In a critical sense, Asia is faced with a con- and constituting what a ‘Good Life’10 should be stant cultural crisis. The implications and impact of here on Earth, now turned ‘Consumerist Utopia’. the day-to-day choices and decisions Asians make The features mentioned above are dominant and are increasingly pushing us in the direction of all- imperialistic. Our ‘life worlds’ are colonised by this round unsustainability. One of the clearest exam- reality.11 ples of this crisis at work in our bigger cities is the ubiquitous consumption of plastic-wrapped goods. D. There are many trajectories of development At first, the decision to consume one of these conve- nience-store goods seems easy and obvious: chips, in Asia. Outside the mainstream, there are many cookies and candies are cheap and handy. But all marginalised, alternative futures. But it is the main- that waste must go somewhere, and in our cities stream development of mega-metropolises, with that somewhere happens to be the streets. If not the all their glittering facets, that Asia proudly exhib- streets, then the landfill. We are literally burying our its to the whole world with a sense of triumph and 8 The traditional business logic, which suggests a company’s primary concern should be its profit and keeping its shareholders happy, has recently been challenged by the concept of corporate social responsibility. Instead of focusing only on driving a profit, the CSR framework provides companies with a concrete means to implement the triple bottom line in their business practices, e.g. by reducing their environmental impact, practicing compassion in the form of philanthropy, and integrating themselves into the local communities. Unfortunately, these practices are all too often exploited by businesses as another way to market their product. It is commodification all over again. Individuals like Muhammad Yunus have attempted to bridge the gap between profit and social responsibility by pioneering the growing business of microfinance/microcredit, wherein a loan is given to those too poor to start their own businesses so that their family’s standard of living, and thus their community’s standard of living, increases incrementally with the help of the businesses’ profits. For more information, see Muhammad Yunus’s book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. See also Bertell Ollman’s Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialists. 9 Related to the commodification of compassion, William Shawcross’s The Quality of Mercy: Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience shows what can happen when humanitarian or socially responsible practices are implemented in the wrong way. Shawcross provides an exhaustive examination of the international community’s response during the immediate aftermath of the Khmer Rouge. After the fall of that horrible regime in 1979, famine and disease seemed imminent unless international relief agencies, governments and individuals stepped up properly to the plate. But instead of selflessly taking their call to action, these organisations got wrapped up in what one reviewer called their ‘institutional self-aggrandisement’. Bureaucracy soon filled the void where compassion should have been. Consequently, an entire country was plunged into years of hardship. For information about the commodification of spirituality, see also Gita Mehta’s Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East. 21

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waste, assuming that somehow it will disappear. act consciously and decisively in our everyday lives, But these non-biodegradable plastics aren’t going so that we may reorient the purpose and improve anywhere – instead, they’re simply being pushed the quality of our public life, and so that we may deeper and deeper into the earth, causing a big- together build, across time and space, materially ger problem with every piece of trash attempting to and spiritually feasible and desirable sustainable cover the damage. It is a crisis that all of us need futures. to be mindful of and meditate on so that we may 10 For thousands of years, the search for the ‘Good Life’, or eudaimonia as Aristotle once termed it, began with the development of man’s highest virtues: honour, prudence, continence, justice. In many religious traditions, the ‘Good Life’ was defined by strictly adhering to a well-defined moral principle. But nowadays, the Good Life is defined purely by hedonism: the lifelong search for virtue has been replaced by a lifelong search for pleasure. Stripped of its spiritual connotation, the Good Life now signifies a group of men in swimming trunks and women clad in bikinis, drinking sodas together on the beach; a limitless credit card; an endless supply of ‘fun’, streaming from every direction. Entertainment-inspired words, such as edutainment, infotainment, technotainment and even politainment are in full use in the media. While entertainment by itself is welcome, socially constructing a society centred on entertainment desensitises people to harsh social realities and engages them in social trivialisation. 11 German philosopher Jürgen Habermas argues strongly for the importance of a democratic ‘public sphere’, in which community members from all walks of life could, in theory, come together to discuss matters of mutual interest to arrive at a common agreement on what works best for society. Unfortunately, as his works show, this ideal ‘public sphere’ does not exist in mainstream Western society. A neo-Marxist, Habermas suggests that the aggressive force of capitalism has widened the gap between haves and have-nots, thus limiting the voices of the latter. The media, once charged with the responsibility of accurately portraying the goings-on of the public sphere, has become a glorified advertising platform, funded by commercials that dubiously imply that any questions of public interest can be answered with two words: buy more. For more information on Habermas’s theories, see his title The Theory of Communicative Action. 23

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Meditations One some serious questions about us – as Asians and as humans. Where are we heading as individuals, The ‘routinised everydayness’ of our social existence families, communities and nations, as a region hides a major crisis surrounding us: the complex and as citizens of the global society? What are we crisis of sustainability. To make sense of this crisis and actually moving toward and where are we coming to seek within the Asian experience some pathways from? What is it we want or are looking for, as out of it, I visited several ethnically and religiously individuals or as communities? What do we desire diverse, and culturally rich, regions of Asia. In these to achieve? Are we conscious about our choices and places, I encountered not only varied situations but their impacts, not only here and now but also across also diverse peoples – Karen, Lanna, Kankanaey, space and time, across communities, ecologies Henanga, Ainu, Japanese, Thai, Balinese, Filipino and generations? Do we have a clear view of our – and myriad religious communities – animists, desired collective futures? Are the ideologies we Buddhists, Shintoists, Catholics, Muslims and profess sustainable economically, socially, culturally Hindus.12 To fully understand these communities, I and politically? Should sustainability be perceived had to release myself as a ‘captive resident’ of the as a creature of growth and development? How heavily Euro-Americo-centric intertextual universe, much development is possible or enough?13 Do a universe that defines our/my ‘academic self’ our indigenous or ethno-cultures offer us feasible and tells us/me what knowledge is, where to look pathways to sustainable futures in which Nature for it and how it should be produced. Reorienting is protected and nurtured, and where creativity, my conception of knowledge allowed me to imagination and active happiness are promoted become an awe-stricken ‘child’, a student of the and sustained by compassion, dialogue, justice and rich diversity and cultures, meanings and wisdom harmony? that define Asia. The observations and insights of the members of these communities gave rise to 12 My research began with a pause in routine activity. It began by confronting the unconscious routine of everyday life and re-adjusting my level of conscious awareness. This involved the Buddhist methodology of becoming and being, of ‘mindful inter-being’. In effect, I had to reorient myself. I had to look but see differently, to hear but listen to the meanings embedded in cultural territories that were hidden or marginalised. I even had to use my nose differently, resisting the temptation to judge unfamiliar odours by my own cultural standard or to think of communities as savage because of these ‘offensive’ smells. After adjusting my perceptions, every sensation I experienced during the rituals of the communities and cultures, many of which may have once seemed disturbing or shocking to me, were of great learning value. Through such experiences, I found myself encountering the nature of ‘difference’. I had to get in touch with my feelings and develop empathy for different forms of contextual and universal wisdom. I had to reflect and meditate to adjust my thoughts to the nuances of the social and cultural realities I encountered. I had to be mindful and connected with my context, which was connected to other contexts, which in turn were connected to more contexts, ad infinitum. It was a research of becoming alive to contexts and the elements within – vertically, horizontally and diagonally: to not only sense but also make sense of Asian realities and Asia in general. 13 With our rapidly expanding world population, and our urban spaces growing exponentially from what they were just a century ago, can we even conceive of zero-growth development: a development of being, rather than having? With our increasingly consumer-driven culture, can we even conceive of what it might mean to live in a non-materialistic world? As an exercise, is it possible to envision a future where large private homes were replaced with space-saving apartments, where cars were replaced with effective public transport, where all transactions were paperless? For our planet’s sake, we can only hope these solutions might still be within our reach. 25

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Two from what has it taken us? Is the present city-form of urbanism an end in itself or simply a conduit of Even as more questions and concerns arose during global ‘commodity and entertainment cultures’? my travels, one primeval image that kept coming How does it affect our interiority, or Being? How back to me was that of Mother Earth going through does it positively or adversely influence the future(s) spasms of pain to ‘give birth’ to us and ‘parent’ us. of Asian cultures? Is urbanism the terminal stage of It was a delivery that could have killed/deformed human civilisation as we know it? Will (or should) it her and destroyed us. Deep in our imperfect, finite transcend itself? Is the city only a form of urbanism Being lies the potential to cause death and species or its final expression? annihilation – or to enable sustainability and continuity of all life. It is a highly interconnected, b) A view from Thailand adds a vital perspective to textured choice we have to make. Because humanity this inquiry. Reflecting on the Thai urban experience, has the potential to destroy Mother Earth, it, as a Prof. Anucha Thirakanont of Thammasat University whole, must be practically and morally responsible in Bangkok observed that people have lost the for the care of this planet. If every individual born important silences – the short reflective pauses – onto the Earth does not honour this responsibility in their lives in the all-round hurry of urban life,15 mindfully, we have unconsciously chosen destruction. based on a unilinear time frame, crowded by targets, and more targets, to be achieved. Whether Three we acknowledge it or not, the accumulation of lost silences and pauses induces immense complications a) I started my research journey from a reality in our personal, professional and social lives, in the that has been an object/subject of my concern: form of stress, depression, general malaise or a urbanism. Over the ages, we have become heavy weight in our hearts. The urban Thai has lost acclimatised creatures of careless convenience and this critical cultural resource, which Prof. Anucha, ‘blind’ citizens of urban centres and metropolises. a Catholic, thinks the Buddhist culture in Thailand This ‘becoming’ is taken for granted. I have been used to nurture until aggressive urbanism pushed it an urban dweller since birth and will probably die to oblivion. an urban dweller, just like most of the people I have engaged with all my life. Yet how many of us have c) Is this not an Asia-wide (really world-wide) really explored what lies at the ‘heart’ of urbanism, experience? A result of being caught up in the particularly the city-form of urbanism?14 Where and whirlpool of largely unsustainable urbanisation and development? More specifically, aren’t we prisoners 14 Some of my friends want to celebrate their town or city. They find the life and spirit of the place worth recognising, celebrating and sharing. While the feeling is understandable, emotional attachment to a place that we see as home all too often blurs our perception towards how the city or town we love (as a place and a residential form) can, or should, improve. From my viewpoint, urbanism promotes an unsustainable mentality of consumption. It allows large urban spaces to be transformed into consumer emporiums with goods and services, which burn through ghastly amounts of resources and create an ecological footprint far larger than the spaces themselves. Times Square in New York City is perhaps the most apt example of this waste of resources. My views towards urbanism drastically shifted after a trip to a Thai monastery and the jungle around it. Two guides took me through a pathless jungle for a long walk, during which I began reconsidering what I had lost by not being near a forest. That significant experience is still being processed. The loss of forest and ‘wilderness’ in our everyday experience is a loss of our Earthly Being. 15 Competition, production and execution schedules, reporting by quarters, ‘elevator pitch’, etc., are all time-based features of the urban world we live in, and they add to the loss of the experience of time in our personal lives. We are rushed through life. 27

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of a particular hegemonic image of urbanism as the that this specially created environment is an ideal future of Asia? Centuries-old delicate and fragile ‘hurry-stopper’. This garden enables the recovery of microcultures of everyday life that have the potential lost silences and promotes internal healing.17 It is an to enhance the spirit of sustainability have been lost institution that promotes well-being. We have many in a dizzying world of speed and hurry.16 such institutions – if only we cared to look closely. The Indic and Sinic civilisations, for instance, have Four created many cultural complexes (from yoga to tai- chi and countless similar practices, methodologies a) Urban life, with its inherent ‘blind’ speed, appears and ideas in between) that enable us to overcome to be fuelled by adrenalin doses. This ‘hurrying’ of ‘hurrying’ and to practice a mindful, sustainable way the world is impacting us, directly and indirectly, of living. But, unfortunately, we are bent on ignoring in many negative ways: increasing the level of and neglecting those options, pushing them slowly stress, turning our engagement in activities into into oblivion. purely functional modes, ‘instrumentalising’ our relationships (even with children), turning couples Five into ‘married strangers’, triggering violence against ourselves and others, affecting the way we breathe a) Where are we heading with urbanisation in which directly and indirectly leads to several Asia? Many of us who live in urban centres across ailments, pushing people towards suicide because Asia nurture a desire to move to an even bigger life suddenly feels meaningless or directionless... the metropolitan centre, or ‘well-developed concrete list can go on. For the silence – and accompanying jungle’, in the near future. We want to move from sanity – to be re-established, this hurrying has to the ‘periphery’ to the ‘centre’ of mainstream culture stop. (within and across nations). We want to move from Asia to America. This desire marks a generational b) My journeys in Asia introduced me to cultures that shift in the place of residence and occupation. embrace unique methods of re-discovering or creating The general pattern of migrating elsewhere,18 those internal silences. As I reached the shores of both regionally and internationally, increases ‘eco- the Japanese culture, for instance, and stepped into unfriendly’ consumption and continues to present us the spirit-elevating Japanese Zen garden, I realised with complex problems. 16 As James Gleick says in Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything, ‘Society’s in overdrive with no sign of braking.’ 17 ‘... whether the garden was intended to be enjoyed for its own inherent qualities with little or no connection to teaching us something, or whether it was intended to show us some deep philosophical truth or represent a particular Buddhist, Taoist, Shintoist, or Confucian motif, I think it would be agreed upon by most people that these gardens certainly take our minds away from the paltry cares of the day and serve to open us up to taking another look at our lives from a wider perspective.’ Wright and Katsuhiko, Zen Gardens: Kyoto’s Nature Enclosed, 68. With the introduction of Zen Buddhism, one of the most inspiring concepts of Japanese gardening took shape. The Zen garden depicts the symbolic expression of a whole universe in a limited space, using sand or gravel (representing river and/or ocean), rocks (representing islands or mountains) and miniature plants (representing forests). My elderly tourist guide Satoh-san, who opened windows and doors for me to view Japanese culture closely, shared with me the thought that Japanese gardens have great healing powers because they represent the world in a peaceful and silent way. This allows us time to ‘be quiet’ in emptiness and/or active meditation. For me, sitting quietly in a Japanese garden is akin to spending time in the Ayurvedic healing ashram that I retreat to annually near Coimbatore, South India. It drastically reduces ‘noise’ in my head and helps me in all-round healing. 18 While this is the general and dominant trend, I have also come across many individuals who have returned, or want to return, to the rural areas where nature abounds. Jon Jandai, of the mud house network/movement in Thailand, is one such person. He has moved from his concrete house in Bangkok into a mud house in the hills near Chiang Mai. He has been instrumental in popularising the mud house in Thailand, which provides the opportunity for many Thais to own their own home. PunPunThailand (see references section) is an especially helpful resource for those interested in self-reliance movements in Thailand. 29

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b) ‘In 1950, 231 million Asians lived in urban areas space and time. Ponder this view of Tokyo, which and by 2000 they had increased 5 times to 1.22 applies to much of the urbanised world: ‘According to billion while their proportion of the total population the Earth Council report... a biologically productive increased from 17.1 to 34.9 percent. Moreover, area of 1.7 hectares is available per capita for basic in the next 2 decades Asia will pass the threshold living. This means that for sustainable living, the of having more than half their population living in people in Tokyo alone need an area of 45,220,000 urban areas... By 2015 there will be 21 mega cities hectares – which is 1.2 times the land area of the worldwide of which 12 will be in Asia, including 7 whole of Japan. If mountains and other regions are of the 10 largest. 4 will be in excess of 20 million discarded and only habitable land included, then residents.’19 this becomes 3.6 times the land area of Japan.’20 Tokyo lives far beyond its ecological means, yet it c) Mainstream urbanisation is like a torrential river, continues to grow. There is something intrinsically violently washing away many fine-tuned, tenuously wrong with this form of urbanism. This is not just sustainable everyday cultures that have taken years a problem of Japanese society but also a problem to build. I know a place in Kuala Lumpur that of the times, a problem of Asia, and a problem of used to be a venue for a floating community of humanity. It is the problem of living without any commuters, including aspiring singers, musicians, concept of balance or limits, both empirically and magicians and curio-hawkers, who would perform symbolically. Our present form of urbanism, The or sell their wares in a free exhibition. It used to be Empire of Now, is based on a dangerous assumption a dynamic, ‘living’ site of people of multicultural that the resources being blindly consumed will never origins, waiting for their buses. Such a site – really a run out. Unfortunately, this is simply not the case. social manufactory of multicultural Malaysia – was And when these ‘Unlimited Resources’ are finally inadvertently destroyed and insensitively replaced used up, what then? by a train station and an ineffective road system. And more such vibrant sites are being destroyed. Seven The social and cultural loss of such spaces due to careless urbanisation is too huge and deep to be Urbanisation and modernisation are the gaps quantified. These are forgotten in our hurry to grow, separating the generations. In some regions in Asia, but their cumulative impact is silently manifested in the links between the past and the present, between many of our present social ills. the elders and the young, are quickly becoming severed. In the mountain communities of the Six Karen people in the Mae Chaem area in Northern Thailand near Chiang Mai, the elders shared with Even as our lives become more embedded in urban me their concerns: ‘We are losing our young to their environments, we remain relatively unclear about two needs – adequate education and employment – what we have done to ourselves and how we have which we have no means of providing and for which affected communities and Mother Earth, both in we receive no help from the national government. 19 Graeme Hugo, “Urbanisation in Asia: An Overview”. 20 This data was compiled by the Global Development Research Center in 2006. See also the revealing and thought-provoking illustrations and charts in Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees’s Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth. 31

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This exodus is contributing to the death of our anxious concern in the depth of these questions – villages and our culture.’ The lack of a relevant essentially a concern for cultural loss, a concern that education and employment opportunities within the has serious implications on Asian identity. villages provides one more reason for the youth to embrace urbanisation, tempting them with its shiny b) Youki Kudoh, a sensitive young Japanese actress, façade. And as the youth move out, the ‘cultural makes this thoughtful and concerned observation: ‘It transmission line’ is broken. Snapped! As the young is good to be flexible and open to other cultures; that walk away towards urbanism and modernism, with is a quality young Japanese have that their parents McDonald’s, Nike, Coca-Cola and Hollywood... did not. But at the same time, we have to hold on with the commercial glitter and glamour of the to our own culture. We have become polluted by modern and post-modern urban world, the old American culture, contaminated by materialism. feel more and more anxious about the loss of their We don’t love our country, don’t respect it. We culture and identity. And the Past helplessly looks are negative about our culture: traditional things on, without a Future.21 are seen as old-fashioned, and everything new is good. Social order and moral standards have Eight disappeared. Some people are even obsessed with denying their Japaneseness. Many girls dye their hair a) People I’ve met during my travels, along with and tan their skin. The streets and towns of Japan acquaintances I’ve made in libraries and bookshops, are made to look like France or America. Our cities have often confronted me with a question I hesitate were destroyed and recreated to resemble a foreign to answer: Are Asians22 really Asians? Are Asian country. Traditional culture is not even accessible societies really Asian? Does young Asia want to be to most of us; it is disappearing into oblivion. This Asian? While some of these people are cynical, makes me very sad.’23 many others are seriously worried. There is an 21 The efforts of a Catholic priest, Father Niphot Thianvihan of the Research and Training Centre for Religio-Cultural Community (RTRC), Chiang Mai, deserve to be mentioned here. He has been developing training and formation programmes to bring together young people from around the region to re-sensitise them to their natural and social environments, and to help them value their homes, habitats and traditional cultures. The aim of these programmes is to return these young people to their indigenous hill communities as ‘organic intellectuals’, thus providing more inter-generational continuity. See Fr. Niphot Thianvihan’s “Indigenous Peoples and Human Development in Thai Context” for more information. 22 One of the problems I faced during this research was the use of the word ‘Asia’ and ‘Asian’. First, let me be clear that the word is used here not in any chauvinistic or sectarian sense, but rather in an expansive and inclusive sense. In a symbolic sense, anyone could be Asian. Here, the word ‘Asia’ or ‘Asian’ is used to denote a possible and critical human identity. It presents a form of life that has a number of existential orientations, many of which offer humanity pathways towards sustainable futures. Imagine the human identity (and experience) as a sphere. At the very core of this sphere are our ‘tribal’ or indigenous roots (conceiving this from a global perspective). These tribal roots subconsciously influence us in many subtle ways every day: they contextually determine what satisfies our hunger sustainably; they make us yearn for Nature even after years of city living; and more importantly, they affect how we conceive of and experience our deepest sense of self and its textured interconnectedness. Extending from our roots is the more overt layer embodying our ‘Asian’ sensibility (or other sensibilities, as the case may be, for instance the ‘African’ sensibility or the ‘American’ sensibility – as has been articulated by such mindful writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson or his student, Henry David Thoreau). If our indigenous core defines our most natural, basic identity, this layer defines our identity within the context of a larger society, representing a set of values and normative orientations. Unfortunately, as a consequence of growth-oriented global economic development, these two layers are being covered up by a newer, more unsustainable layer. The growth of this cancerous layer, which has been stimulated and conditioned by corporate capitalism and city-based urbanism, is increasingly negating everything that lies beneath it, desensitising us to our own humanity. This conditioning is to the detriment of both individuals and society, both locally and globally. The answers to the present global predicament can only be found by reactivating our deepest layers. What Asia (and other regions as well) needs to do is to re-engage, re-connect, and dialogue with the wisdom and ways of its indigenous communities. A mindful re-invention of traditional wisdom and the ways of the ancient people can help shape sustainable futures for all of us. 23 Youki Kudoh, “Who Killed Our Culture? We Did”. 33

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c) This sad song is widespread in Asia. It raises American spirit and spirituality are lost in the market- many questions about who we are, about our and-military-shaped American Dream (including Asian character, and about our active, often blind, American exceptionalism) that the current American romance with everything Western, specifically state overtly and covertly promotes. everything American, influenced by the ‘West is best’ dictum or philosophy. It raises a concern about b) When I was returning from Baguio City (located why so much of Asia is culturally Americanised or in the mountainous Northern Philippines), I had headed in that direction. An alarmist statement? the opportunity to have an exchange with a young Reflect on this revealing conversation I had with my Filipina student, who was going to Manila to make six-year-old grandniece. I asked her: ‘Where do arrangements to migrate to America, sponsored by you want to go when you grow up?’ She proudly her uncle who was already there. Though she is from answers in ‘contaminated’ innocence: ‘The USA’.24 the rugged Cordilleras in the North, she talked and presented herself to those around her as if she was Nine already American. I immediately recognised in her a ‘young American lost in the Philippines’, wanting a) In Thailand, I have seen advertisements promoting and waiting to return ‘home’! In a way, our leaders, the English language. Many of these ads promote governments, poets, teachers, innovators and the American way, even implementing American- ancestors have failed to capture the imaginations, style spoken English. Although they may at first aspirations and passions of the young in Asia. look harmless, the content of these ads touch on Consequently, many of Asia’s youth see the USA as something deeper. Advertisements in the Manila the place to go to settle down and raise a family. The Bulletin newspaper prompt the young Filipino: queue at the US embassy continues to swell!25 To be ‘Searching for the American Dream?’ The ad sure, ‘Americanism’ as a concept and practice has portrays a young Filipino woman with her travelling many positive aspects: a love of freedom, the pursuit bags, visualising her future in America. Another ad of happiness, and justice for all. These are universals offers the young an opportunity: ‘Are you dreaming of that are attractive to all humans. Unfortunately, these going to America? Today, you have the opportunity aspects have been reshaped for the worse by the to make it a reality!’ Hospitality, caregiving and negative consequences of nationalism, American nursing courses in the Philippines entice the young exceptionalism and predatory corporate capitalism. because these courses are peddled as ‘passports’ to And on a global scale, the positive aspects of America. Sadly, the American Dream they chase is American culture are overshadowed or marginalised really an attraction to contemporary, conspicuous, by its aggressive promotion of capitalist markets vulgar consumerism – not to the values or lifestyles and its even more aggressive military presence.26 of people like Henry David Thoreau. The authentic As a global superpower, it behaves more like a 24 Being educated at an international school, she became a great fan of the Barbie doll, an attraction perpetuated by ‘careless’ but well-meaning relatives who bought her Barbie-doll merchandise. I have been slowly trying, with little success, to pry her away from this plastic object, which promotes a falsely ‘ideal’ shape and lifestyle. 25 As this book goes to print, there have been several changes to the global and American economies. The American economy has taken a beating and has been devalued, consequently affecting its image as ‘Paradise USA’. Yet the young Asian generation still views America precisely in this way. Some young people I know faithfully assume the economic downturn is merely a glitch in the system and are still biding their time, waiting for it to spring back before setting off to the ‘promise’ that America apparently still offers. Indeed, the American Dream will seemingly persist far beyond the present Asian youth generation. 26 For more information, see the appendix of this book. Also see my article entitled “The Amoral Beast”, in which I try to capture the nature of America’s voracious global aggression. 35

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policeman instead of a ‘good’ global citizen and cultures, not just the culture the colonisers brought leader that holds itself responsible and accountable into the country. He was victimised for his beliefs for its behaviour. Mainstream Americanism is not by some mainstream universities, which continued sustainable for America or the world, and it’s time to uphold the Euro-centric Vatican as the source of for this issue to be addressed comprehensively and Christian beliefs. We can agree with Dr. de Mesa globally. Marketised and militarised Americanism that such ideas, entrenched in the colonial past, still has to be confronted without fear. influence the Christian faithful in the present. Those faithful Catholics in the Philippines who question the Ten relevance of the Euro-centric trappings of Catholic spirituality, and attempt to re-establish cultural The Philippines was ruled by the Spanish for more connections and continuity with an indigenous than 300 years and by the Americans for about past(s)28 in order to reorient their future(s), tend to 50 years. Manila-based lay Catholic theologian, be marginalised and demonised.29 Dr. José M. de Mesa (an award-winning author for his writings on localising theology and the Filipino Eleven experience) remarked: ‘The “colonial mentality” is very, very strong in the Philippines not only among a) Although several cultural streams are coming the laypeople but also among the supposedly highly- together globally and mixing into a tough, durable educated, even in national educational institutions... ‘cultural alloy’, there is a consistent and concerted Our corporate, collective self-image is not good policy (as part of post-World War II efforts) for the at all. It is really bad. The “colonial mentality” has ‘Americanisation’ of the world.30 A young American taken a life of its own. People identify themselves student writes: ‘Travel almost anywhere in the world with the coloniser...’27 From the beginning, Dr. de today and, whether you suffer from habitual Big Mesa has subscribed to the ‘decoloniser’ mentality, Mac cravings or cringe at the thought of missing suggesting to those around him that Christianity the newest episode of MTV’s The Real World, can and should be placed in the context of local 27 At the time of the interview in 2006, Dr. de Mesa was attached to De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines. For a discussion on this within the Catholic intellectual community, see R.S. Sugirtharajah (ed.), Vernacular Hermeneutics. 28 For many Asians, the conversion to Christianity is accompanied by a distancing from local history and a reorientation towards European history. Some seem to believe that the Asian frame of reference is not suitable for fully understanding a more Western theology: of course, this could not be farther from the truth. For instance, there are those who submit to the common representation of Jesus Christ as a pale, blue-eyed European, but as a Semite, he was likely to have been of a darker complexion. The philosophical concepts of any major theology should have the capacity to transcend the cultures in which they are ‘rooted’. There are countless ways of comprehending Christianity within an Asian context. For example, Fr. Niphot in Chiang Mai discusses Christian theology by using a ‘rice metaphor’. The essential character of rice is its sacrifice: instead of bread and wine, the common grain of rice is used as an analogue for Christ’s body, transubstantiated into an offering to be consumed by the believer. Upon studying this sort of ‘rice theology’, one realises that the roots of Christianity/Catholicism do not emanate from Europe or the Vatican city alone, but can be found in the fiber of local cultures across the globe. For more information, see Dr. de Mesa’s “Making Salvation Concrete and Jesus Real: Trends in Asian Christology”. 29 One of Dr. de Mesa’s students, Reynaldo Dumpayan, was working towards a doctoral thesis, examining ‘Jesus through the lens of the Filipino healer tradition’. Choosing to see Jesus using an alternative, local perspective strengthens and brings a deeper meaning to Christianity itself. It allows for a future open to new ideas and theories, yet firmly grounded in the reality of local history and forms of knowledge. 30 It is a worthwhile exercise to explore the USA through the writings of Noam Chomsky (and a growing number of others) as he captures the ‘dark side’ of the American Dream in great detail and concern. It is also worthwhile to study films by filmmakers like Oliver Stone. While Chomsky and Stone are probably in the minority, they nevertheless provide us with an authentic American spirit of self-criticism. 37

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your American tastes can be satisfied practically – an underside or ‘dark’ side – of the American everywhere. This proliferation of American products Dream. The ‘souls’ of many nations in Asia have across the globe is more than mere accident. As a integrated the ideals of the American Dream,33 and by-product of globalisation, it is part of a larger trend this merger is ostensibly manifested in the many high- in the conscious dissemination of American attitudes end, up-market sites all over urban Asia. Such urban and values that is often referred to as cultural centres in Asia are often usurped as shelf spaces imperialism... Corporations don’t harbour qualms and auditoria filled with American commodities and about the detrimental effects of “Americanisation” cultural lifestyles – the former, you buy; the latter is of foreign cultures, as most corporations have a ‘bonus’ that comes with the purchase. That which ostensibly convinced themselves that American comes free (‘bundled’ with the commodity) becomes culture is superior and therefore its influence is the future of urban Asian social life and the basis to beneficial to other “lesser” cultures. Unfortunately, continue mindlessly buying more and more. Having this American belief in the superiority of US culture is more becomes an end in itself, rather than a means anything but new; it is as old as the culture itself. This to an end. attitude was manifest in the actions of settlers when they first arrived on this continent and massacred Twelve or assimilated essentially the entire “savage” Native American population. This attitude also reflects that Is developed Japan free of Americanism? Hardly. of the late nineteenth-century age of imperialism, ‘Cultural Americanisation did not begin under during which the jingoists attempted to fulfill what American military and economic pressure following they believed to be the divinely ordained “manifest World War II. Rather, it started long before in destiny” of American expansion. Jingoists strongly the late 1920s... the American lifestyle began to believe in the concept of social Darwinism: the captivate the middle-class inhabitants of large urban stronger, “superior” cultures will overtake the weaker, environments, such as Tokyo and Osaka.’34 Indeed, “inferior” cultures in a “survival of the fittest”. It is this some of the most drastic cultural contradictions I arrogant belief in the incomparability of American saw in Asia were in Japan. On one hand, they have culture that characterises many of our economic the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, erected and political strategies today.’31 to commemorate the victims of the first atomic bomb, dropped on Japanese civilians by the US Air b) American cultural imperialism32 has been, and Force at the height of World War II. On the other continues to be, a conscious and persistent aspect hand, there is Disneyland in the Tokyo suburbs, a 31 Julia Galeota, “Cultural Imperialism: An American Tradition”. American Julia Galeota was 17 when she wrote this essay, which placed first in the 13–17 age category of the 2004 Humanist Essay Contest for young women and men of North America. 32 ‘Cultural imperialism’, a term introduced in the 1960s in ‘left literature’, was popularly used to mean the deployment of political and economic institutions and power to exalt and spread the norms, values and habits of a dominant foreign culture (read: Western or American) at the expense of native and local cultures (read Asian, African, Latin or South American). Of course, the concept can be deployed regionally – India or China, for instance, can be seen as ‘culturally imperialist’ influencing their ‘buffer states’. 33 ‘The story of the pursuit of happiness in America is thus a story of its close alliance with capitalism and consumerism. But in recent years, many researchers have begun to see this relationship as one of misplaced allegiance. Has the pursuit of happiness through growth in material abundance and possessions actually brought Americans happiness?’ See Gus Speth, “What is the American Dream? Dueling Dualities in the American Tradition”. The American Dream is now a globalised hegemonic reality and the question really is: Can it bring happiness to all people in other countries who consciously or unconsciously adopt it? 34 Shunya Yoshimi, “Consuming ‘America’: From Symbol to System”, 202. 41

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‘cultural bomb’ dropped on civilians in post-war Hollywood has speculated on a future solution – Japan by corporate America. The two faces of intergalactic migration (alas, just for a privileged Americanism are seen in Japan: one articulates few). These fictions are, of course, not the answer. the nasty, diabolic and dangerous, while the other Instead, they distract us from focusing on the real promotes fun and frolic. Yet today, the nasty face is problems that make the movies so entertainingly mostly hidden from public view while the ‘fun and realistic in the first place. frolic’ face is repeatedly shown to over 15 million people who visit the Tokyo Disneyland annually.35 b) Try to capture the meaning of the following figures ‘Nasty, imperialistic Americanism’ somehow goes found by the World Overpopulation Awareness ignored, while ‘fun and frolic Americanism’ seeps nonprofit group in 2006: ‘An American born in into our lifestyle, gets institutionalised and becomes the 1990s will produce in a lifetime approximately constituted as a ‘spatial-discursive system of 1 million kilograms (2.2 million lbs) of atmospheric contemporary global capitalism’.36 In the midst of waste, 10 million kgs (22 million lbs) of liquid waste this surreptitious transformation of Asian societies, and 1 million kgs (2.2 million lbs) of solid waste. An authentic Asian cultures seem to be in the process American will consume 700,000 kgs (1.54 million of being lifelessly preserved and museumised, if they lbs) of minerals and 24 billion BTUs of energy – have not already become so already. equivalent to 4,000 barrels of oil. In a lifetime, an average American will eat 25,000 kgs (55,000 lbs) Thirteen of animal products, provided in part by slaughtering 2,000 animals. The US per capita consumption a) Apart from cultural and social aspects, consider rate is 10 to 100 times that of most of the world’s the impact of the environmental cost of the countries. Compared to Indians, Americans (on a Americanisation of Asia and the rest of the world. per capita basis) produce 27 times as much carbon It would/will be impossible to sustain – unless we dioxide... and consume 35 times as much energy.’ clone the Earth many times over. Estimates suggest Similarly dire figures: ‘Globally, 20 percent of the that we would need anywhere between two to six world’s people in the highest-income countries Earths if each of us consumed as much as the account for 86 percent of total private consumption average American. Put another way, only 2 to 3 expenditures – the poorest 20 percent account for a billion people could inhabit Earth with the kind of minuscule 1.3 percent. Specifically, the richest fifth: consumption average Americans are used to.37 (i) Consume 45 percent of all meat and fish; the Perhaps in response to this precarious situation, poorest fifth, 5 percent; (ii) Consume 58 percent of 35 Akira Kurosawa’s internationally not-so-popular 1991 film Rhapsody in August distinctly captures the shocking generational shift in attitude between those who were alive during the atomic bomb and their grandchildren. In the movie, a grandmother who lost her husband in the bombing watches in awe as her grandchildren, on a summer visit to her rural home, turn up their noses at her traditional lifestyle. But during a visit to the nearby Nagasaki, they learn for the first time about the bombings that took place in that city. After their experience, they grow to understand their Grandmother’s less-than-enthusiastic views of their ‘modern’ lifestyle, and upon learning more about the bombings, they begin to question the United States. The movie uses the atomic bombings and the havoc they wreaked on the country as a jumping off point for a thoughtful examination of human nature. Unfortunately, critics didn’t see it that way. Instead, they criticised it as a biased political film that portrayed the US’s actions as war crimes but ignored the devastation caused by Japanese soldiers in the countries they invaded and occupied. Thus the deeper meaning of the movie, the call for individuals to be mindful of where they came from and where they are headed, was lost in the midst of criticisms against the film’s portrayal, or lack thereof, of Japan’s aggressive nationalism. Other media depictions of the uglier side of American society and the underside of the American dream include Costa Gavras’ Missing (1982) and Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991). Also see William Blum’s Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower. 36 Yoshimi, 222. 37 Dave Tilford’s “Why Consumption Matters” provides a comprehensive discussion on the state of the world. 43

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total energy; the poorest fifth, less than 4 percent; Cola a day! He epitomises a vital strata of young (iii) Have 74 percent of all telephone lines; the Asia – and their ‘diabetically sweet’ future. poorest fifth, 1.5 percent; (iv) Consume 84 percent of all paper; the poorest fifth, 1.1 percent; and (v) Fourteen Own 87 percent of the world’s vehicle fleet; the poorest fifth, less than 1 percent.’ a) Returning to the urbanisation of Asia, we are faced with more severe consequences. In Japan, c) These figures show us clearly the nature of our this movement towards urbanism is ‘hollowing out’ development, our equity as a global community, once-lively places, creating ghost village towns or and where that community, specifically Asia, ‘shutter-down’ villages and streets.39 As I passed is heading. These statistics urge us to evaluate through some of these rural towns in the Ishikawa impartially whether the world’s population (almost Prefecture on the west coast of Japan, sadness 7 billion) can mindlessly adopt an American pattern gripped me. A country rich in resources and culture of consumption. What are the consequences of has become an ‘aged society’, its people growing such a level of consumption on habitable Mother old and dying. ‘By 2015, it is estimated that 26 Earth? In a serious sense, Asia simply cannot afford percent of Japan will be in the senior category. This Americanism – Asians cannot live a ‘mindless means that the “super-aged” society, in which one private life of mass consumption’.38 Popular in four persons is 65 years or older, would become cultural Americanism (based on consumption and a reality in less than five years... Japan became an the assumption that Earth has limitless resources), “aged” society at an exceptionally rapid pace, with whether in America or in Asia, is a long-term, silently the elderly population topping 7 percent in 1970 destructive process. The effects are not immediate and 14 percent in 1994.’40 What could be more or spectacular: they show up, slowly, passively or unsustainable for a society? violently, much later, when nothing much can be done as a remedy. We are faced with yet another b) Though he takes it as a matter of fact, one of drastic contradiction – even as societies are bracing my Japanese friends, a professor at Kanazawa for a shortage of drinking water and preparing for University, is concerned, and wonders where conflicts over it, humanity as a whole is faced with Japanese society is really heading. Another melting ice poles and a water-world! Japanese I interviewed, the elderly Tani-san of Shigai Prefecture near Kyoto and a member of the d) Americanisation harms and hurts. Take, for Communist Party of Japan, thinks that ageing and its instance, the following example of a victim of related consequences and difficulties are the most Americanism. My ‘distant’ relative (a nephew in serious obstacles to the viability and sustainability Tamil relational terms) was diagnosed with diabetes of Japan as a nation. If all Asia follows this path, the at the young age of 21. The question that some question for us will be: Is Asia viable? Like Europe, it of us asked was: How come? The answer pointed will move in the direction of its own demise. This will to his dietary patterns. He was a Malaysian but happen unless Asia starts to consciously ‘re-image’ consumed like an American. He loved American its future(s). fast food and used to drink over 10 cans of Coca- 38 Yoshimi, 205. 39 This information is from my interview with Prof. Koji Tanaka, former director of The Centre for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University (KU). I spoke to him in August, 2006. 40 The Japan Times, “20% of Japan’s Population Over 65”. 45

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c) There are other dimensions to this phenomenon. year. Both figures are the highest since 2000. 28 As I walked in the beautiful and serene park around of the victims died, 6 more than the year before.’42 the Kyoto Gosho (Imperial Palace), I recognised for This is something Japan cannot afford, and yet it the first time the closeness that has grown between is a reality. Is this then an inevitable result of Asia’s dogs and aged Japanese in contemporary Japan. story of progress, development and urbanisation? Due to socio-economic and demographic changes The crises in sustainability have silently arrived in in urban Japan – declining fertility rate, low birth many shapes, shades and trends, and we urgently rate, ageing population, ‘parasite singles’41 and need to wake up and acknowledge them. As part of ‘double-income-no-kids-yet’ (DINKY) families – a world community, we cannot afford to allow these concern for dogs has increased. A generational problems to become bigger. shift has taken place in Japanese ‘parenting’ – individuals are taking more care of well-manicured e) Because of a similar nature of growth-oriented and dressed dogs and having less and less to do with development, Europe and Japan are experiencing children. While I have not attended a dog’s funeral, a ‘childless’ future. With changes in the speed of companies offer them for about 70,000 yen (about life, changes in lifestyles, changes in work and $700 USD). There are dire consequences for a career demands, and the increased costs of having society that has reached the point where spending and raising children, childlessness is a growing that sort of money on such trivialities is not frowned reality in Asia. It might seem ridiculous to think of upon but actually endorsed. a childless Asia within the span of decades rather than centuries, but that may be the direction we d) An even more disturbing report coming out of are heading. With the Past powerless, the Present Japan is noteworthy because of how widespread impotent, and the Future without a future, what do the problem is becoming in Asia: ‘Child abuse we really have to look forward to? in this nation has reached a crisis level. Child welfare centres across the nation dealt with a Fifteen record 34,451 cases of child abuse in fiscal 2005, a thousand more than in the previous year and a a) Urbanism has also affected a deeply serious 31.3-fold increase since fiscal 1990... The police aspect of life: our relationship with Nature. It investigated 131 people on suspicion of child has detached us from our deep experience of abuse, up 12.9 percent from last year. Victims forests and vegetation. Today, jungles/forests are numbered 128, up 18.5 percent from the previous increasingly presented to us as a domesticated, 41 Linda S. Wojtan’s article “Exploring Contemporary Japanese Society” explains this phenomenon further: ‘Although the reasons behind the birthrate dip are varied and include the economic slump, one contributing factor appears to be the phenomenon of “parasite singles”. These singles, between the ages of 20 and 34, remain dependents in their parents’ home, even though they are employed. Typically, these singles pay little or no rent, largely avoid cooking and cleaning, and routinely postpone marriage. It is estimated that 10 million Japanese fall into this category. Interestingly, about 40 percent of both male and female singles in the 20–34 age category are included in this figure. Most media coverage of “parasite singles” has focused on women, detailing a lifestyle of expensive clothing, accessories and jewellery, and overseas shopping trips and vacations. It is thought that men tend to save money toward their future independence, and so receive less critical media attention. In addition to travel and shopping, these singles often take classes, especially in conversational English and other special skills. This “parasite singles” phenomenon is particularly apparent in Tokyo and other large Japanese cities where the high cost of living can make an independent life difficult. Japan is not alone in experiencing this phenomenon; Italy, France, South Korea and Spain are also familiar with the “parasite singles”. However, Japan has captured media attention with chronicles of salaries spent self-indulgently.’ 42 This quotation was found in an editorial in The Japan Times on 23 August 2006. (Unfortunately the article is not searchable.) 47

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manicured ecosystem – as a product or commodity learn from the forest monks is that people’s lives to be consumed. Nature is tamed, packaged and connect deeply to nature – to prominent themes re-presented to us as commodities, such as modern in the social, cultural and environmental history ‘theme parks’. There are even artificial beaches of the community. We hear the forest monks say in the midst of the metropolitan ‘madness’. ‘Raw’ that wilderness is indispensable to culture... As a Nature is the untamed wilderness ‘out there’ and monk who helped create a strong local forest has to be dressed up for us. We still visit it, study it preservation movement tells us, “Through protecting and write about it... generating creative modernist the forest, we are simultaneously protecting the or post-modernist articles and acquiring Ph.D.’s animals and the well-being of communities, the about its abundance and value. We use Nature’s essential basis for morality to grow”... The thudong resources to publish books (like this one). But we monks approached wild animals with respect and have stopped living with Nature as an intimate part humility. They realised that it was they who were of our everyday world. trespassing in the animals’ territory. They believed that animals are fellow beings in samsara and b) This destructive detachment is a major problem, deserve opportunity to gain kammic merit. This a nasty ‘gift’ of the twentieth century, with a history conviction runs counter to the prevailing attitude that goes back to industrialisation and urbanisation. among people, monks included, who live in urban As urbanisation progressed, Asia inadvertently areas and have little or no connection with nature. consumed not only the West’s urban commodity Thudong monks, who were at home in the wild, culture but also their ‘hegemonic anthropocentrism, knew of their kinship with nature.’44 Meditation and a philosophical ecology that separates humans deep exploration of one’s inner self, those things from the natural world in the most extreme ways.’43 deeply present in Asia’s cultural history, were once This hyper-separation calls for re-situating the practiced in the wilderness. A holistic cosmology45 human in the contemporary world. It is imperative – once framed our ‘world-view’ and ‘world-feel’ no, mandatory – that we find pathways back to the and established an intimate relationship between forests – to simplicity, sanity and sustainability. human beings and Nature. Against this scenario, the present city-form and shape of urbanism looks Sixteen like a pathological condition or a tumorous growth. It looks like mainstream urbanism is poised to grow These pathways were established previously. into a complex disease if not addressed urgently. They are not new. We recognise them in Kamala Tiyavanich’s observation: ‘Another thing we 43 Deborah Rose, “An Indigenous Philosophical Ecology: Situating the Human”, 294–305. 44 Kamala Tiyavanich, Forest Recollections, 296. 45 In the sense which I will be using it, cosmology is essentially a look at nature and being from the standpoint of the whole. In some of my conversations with indigenous leaders, I realised that to talk about Human Beings and Nature as distinct categories is simply incoherent. The severance of the umbilical cord separates the Child from the Mother. In some Karen communities in Thailand, after the umbilical cord is cut, it is taken and tied around a tree to re-establish the connection between the Child and Nature, through a ‘tree-sibling’. This sort of symbolic connection to nature is exactly what those of us born and raised in urban metropolises have sorely forgotten – and it is these meaningful traditions that so often get lost in the rush to modernise. 49

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Seventeen Fundamental changes to Asian individuals’ modes of Being began to take place when the region was first colonised. They continued to occur as countries gained independence and later proceeded to industrialise, modernise and urbanise. While all these were going on, what was really happening to us? What have we acquired? What new orientation(s) to the world have shaped us? What have we developed? What have we lost? To dispassionately answer these pivotal questions, we need to withdraw from the material socio- cultural world into the more intangible socio-cultural world of ideas, worldviews/worldfeels and ‘meta-views’ (or metaphors). In a way, our pathways to unsustainability are latent in the different but interdependent worlds we have created and currently live in; we need to step into another reality and explore our predicament. Consider this imaginary conversation: Somboon: People ‘are now dominated by Pratap: Yes, that’s right. This cosmological a mechanistic cosmology according to which reorientation has created many serious problems. life can be nothing but a struggle for survival For Asia, the implications are serious. Let me and domination; nature and people, when not add another dimension to your observation. ‘The viewed as threats, can only be construed as exclusivity that accompanied the rational and linear resources to be used efficiently, and the only frameworks of Western knowledge has, in practice, value to which anyone can aspire is to have meant that cosmologies that did not fit into that more power to satisfy their appetites. With framework were dismissed and ridiculed. The this cosmology, people have been blinded to cosmologies of other civilisations were submerged; the natural and social destruction wrought by the knowledge of “other” people, of women and of capitalism and rendered incapable of even all phenomena that could not be measured by the imagining that there could be a better form of different scientific methods, were all undermined society.’46 or destroyed.‘ In the vernacular version of this subjugation that came with colonialism, and later with modernisation, the Western framework not only determined what was “civilised” but also became the norm by which “other” consciousness is measured.’47 So, Asia found a way to distance itself from its own past and suture itself to the past of the West. 46 Arran Gare, “Creating an Ecological Socialist Future”, 30. 47 Catherine A. Odora Hoppers, “Indigenous Knowledge and the Integration of Knowledge Systems”, 13­–14. 51

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Sarah: Shame on us... such unforgivable cultural promiscuity! I think much of this has to do with the way we, in modernising Asia, have been influenced by physical and social sciences. The ‘reduction of the world and its miniaturisation, which began with the linear perspective,’ as Pratap suggested, ‘is consolidated by the laboratory. Both of them are maps of the world and maps on which we manipulate the world. Viewed thus, many of the constructions of science are acts of estrangement, where we distance ourselves from the world in order to see and manipulate it better. The gaze of science becomes the gaze of surveillance, where the world has to be mapped, surveyed, censured and controlled.’48 Anwar: There was never independence in the real Tani-San: Let me share with you something I have sense of the word. Despite ‘political emancipation, been reflecting on. Some time ago, I wrote an the intellectual dependence of the former colonies article ‘comparing the writing brush with a fountain on Western models continued. Although the leading pen, and in the course of it I remarked that if the theoretical perspectives originating in Europe and device had been invented by the ancient Chinese America have not stood the test in an alien milieu, their and Japanese, it would surely have had a tufted continuing presence in university syllabi and journal end like our writing brush. The ink would not have article bibliographies in the non-Western world are been this bluish but rather black, something like testimony to the process of adaptation to the “rules of Indian ink, and it would have been made to seep the dominant caste within the Euro-American social down from the handle into the brush. And since we science game” that world social science has been would have then found it inconvenient to write on undergoing.’49 We have never been able to translate Western paper, something near Japanese paper – our Asian philosophies into science-based study, even under mass production, if you will – would especially social science. Our indigenous philosophies have been most in demand. Foreign ink and pen and cultures are foci of study but never sources of would not be as popular as they are; the talk of scientifically explanatory narrative. discarding our writing for Roman letters would be less noisy; people would still feel affection for the old system. But more than that: our thought and our literature might not be imitating the West as they are, but might have pushed forward into new regions quite on their own. An insignificant little piece of writing equipment, when one thinks of it, has had a vast, almost boundless, influence on our culture.’50 48 Shiv Visvanathan, “Between Pilgrimage and Citizenship”, 41. 49 Syed Farid Alatas, Alternative Discourses in Asian Social Science, 25. 50 Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, 14–15. 53

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Yazdi: Great reflection. That is a practical example. If that would’ve happened, we would’ve avoided having to listen to those critics shouting that we are romanticising our past! Our past would have developed into our present, instead of being substituted by the West, as it is now. But let me quickly add to Anwar’s mention of the issue of sources for academic research and studies, particularly in the social sciences. This problem is really serious. It affects the nature and quality of ‘Asian scholarship’ and their intellectual output in understanding and representing Asian social realities. A cursory glance at the bibliography/reference section of our books and journal articles shows that we are ‘entrapped’ by Western sources and therefore largely Western modes of thinking, frameworks and modes of being. In a field like ‘culture and sustainability’, which I am working on, the lack of locally authored sources and resources really stunt our perception and understanding. We need therefore to reconsider the intertextual universe we are dealing with so that we can better understand what produces scholars like us. We need to construct ‘alternative intertextual universes’ and re-see, re-hear, re-think and re-feel our world. We need less of worldview and more of ‘world-feel’. We must pay attention at a deeper level to our ‘meta-views’. Only then can we begin to fathom the gulf that we have created between us and the realities we like to write about, between our pasts and the present and between our present and the many futures, and contribute to the process of methodological, theoretical and philosophical healing. Redig: It is so clear that the ‘ecological unsustainability of Bala: To add to that observation, I think that a way forward human society today stems essentially from the notion and can be seen ‘if the mechanistic worldview is replaced by a new practice of linear development measured by economic growth cosmology according to which the ends of social life can be (capital accumulation), which has brought human activities redefined from maximising the production and consumption of on this planet to approach the limits of its carrying capacity. commodities to the development of the potentialities of each As long as GDP growth-oriented development remains the individual to participate as fully as possible in the creative organising principle ultimately regulating and determining all becoming of nature, society and culture.’52 But my point is that human activities, environmental countermeasures that fail to in order for this to occur, we first have to re-appropriate and curb the workings of this principle are, at worst, lip service or, re-invent our lost cosmologies of life and sustainability. Then, at best, palliatives.’ It is also not too difficult to see that ‘we we can finally begin to grow our present from our past, as Yazdi should contra pose “cyclical renewal” to linear development suggests. Of course, we can also learn a great deal from the as the alternative organising principle of human society.’51 dialogue between cultures and engagement with the pasts of We really need to change the present ‘image’ of our other cultures. common Future. Somboon: Also, to add to this, the way forward should be acutely influenced by mindfulness and interconnectedness. Only this can help us re-build the cosmology of sustainability, a cosmology that captures the interconnectedness of the past, present and future and importantly, sustainability and spirituality. All too often, the present views the past as negative and the future as an endless source of opportunity. But this model is unhelpful going forward towards a truly sustainable future. Instead, we need the present to recognise the sustainable aspects of the past, especially noting what the indigenous cultures have to offer, and utilize it as an educational resource. We need to remind ourselves that the future may not be endless, unless we take active steps in the present to make the coming days more sustainable. In other words, The Past and the Future need to shape a sustainable Present so that the Present nurtures sustainable Pasts and grows sustainable Futures. 51 Muto Ichiyo, “Ecological Perspectives on Alternative Development: The Rainbow Plan”, 5. 52 Gare, 30. 55

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Eighteen poorest 40 percent of the world population – the 2.5 billion people who live on less than $2 USD a a) As Asian cultural activists would angrily say: Our day – account for 5 percent of global income, while world of ideas and of practice has been hijacked! the richest 10 percent account for 54 percent. Never Before Asian countries could decide on their manner before has the goal of abolishing poverty been within of development, they were ‘suffocated’ with thoughts, our reach: there are no longer any insurmountable practices, choices and solutions that were largely technical, resource or logistical obstacles to imported. With such choices, we have moved away achieving it. Yet more than 800 million people suffer from a rich, symbolic universe to another that is from hunger and malnutrition, 1.1 billion people do enticing and readily available. This move did not go not have access to clean drinking water and, every through a thoroughly-considered process of engaged hour, 1,200 children die from preventable diseases. and critical endogenous development but through Despite a growing world economy and significant a culturally hegemonic process of domination advances in medicine and technology, many people achieved through colonial supremacy, military in developing countries are not reaping the potential intervention, unfair market strategy and now, through benefits of globalisation.’55 aggressive mainstream global and national print and online media. This cultural hegemony is a form of c) Yes, there are many great things we have enslavement of the mind,53 person and society, which accomplished, but the real value of any social has been craftily presented as a liberating philosophy arrangement in any society is measured by whether supporting a clear, unilinear, single purpose, i.e. it has taken care of its most disadvantaged and/or material progress, for all-round betterment and vulnerable members or communities – the young, happiness. With our unspoken consent, one tiny group old, physically challenged, unorganised labour, of powerful people has presented their particular women and indigenous people (irrespective of race worldview of progress as our worldview of progress – and religion). The overcoming of poverty is very much perfect Gramscian hegemony.54 Hegemonic images a part of this criterion: according to the UN’s list of of the Present and Future are imported, embraced, Millennium Development Goals, the goal of ending recycled and lived. poverty was supposed to be reached by 2015. Now, in the year 2013, we can see how drastically far away b) Yes, there has been progress, but at the core of we still are from making this goal a reality.56 that progress lies the seed of terrible societal and political crises. ‘Ours is a world of extremes. The d) We live in a world of hunger amid plenty, and of 53 See Frantz Fanon’s classic text on the same subject, The Wretched of the Earth. Fanon’s masterpiece focuses on the hows and whys of breaking apart from colonial rule not just politically but mentally and spiritually. The work points out how the subtleties of language can colonise just as much as the ‘White Man’ himself. The book has become a sort of guide for the intellectuals of nations in the midst of decolonisation. 54 Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), an Italian Marxist activist-intellectual, refers to ‘hegemony’ as a process of cultural (including moral and intellectual) leadership through which the dominated or subaltern classes consent to their own domination by ruling classes. He proposed this in contrast to the idea of forced or coerced domination – the latter is a ‘visible’ form of domination, whereas the former is ‘invisible’. See his Prison Notebooks for more detail. 55 United Nations Development Programme’s 2006 annual report. 56 It’s important to keep in mind here what we should and should not be using as ‘milestones’ on the way towards eliminating poverty. Many developing countries tout their growing number of shopping malls as an example of their country’s increased standard of living. But this could not be farther from the truth. Just because a locale has plenty of luxury shopping malls does not mean that the community those malls are situated in enjoys a greater sense of well-being. In fact, it’s oftentimes the opposite! Those shopping districts undoubtedly create more light and sound than humanizing realities. 57

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cruel contradictions. ‘Now, in 2011, I find it perplexing Our continuing individual and institutional blindness and dismaying that when there is more food available to the needs of Social Justice and Compassion than ever before, when agricultural yields have are an ailment that needs immediate and drastic increased hugely, when there are 1.5 billion people attention. Not that we are inherently cold and worldwide classified as obese, 925 million people unsympathetic creatures: the global response in simply don’t have enough to eat. 15 percent of the December 2004 to tsunami victims in Indonesia, world’s population goes to bed at night hungry. Thailand, India and Sri Lanka clearly showed the Most live in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly on depth of our compassion and demonstrated how the Indian subcontinent and in sub-Saharan Africa. far we would reach out to help victims in distress. Each year 3 million children tragically die before their Yet even here our benevolence was tainted by fifth birthday from undernutrition, a condition arising corruption and selfish calculation. According to one from a serious lack of one or more key nutrients. It is report regarding the humanitarian response to the staggering that this can still be happening in this age tsunami, ‘the question of visibility and competition of plenty and modern technology. And yet, against amongst organisations quickly became an issue... it this backdrop of severe hunger and misery, over a was a race, disturbing at times, to see who could billion people are tackling the opposite problem of identify beneficiaries and design projects first, obesity and, perhaps surprisingly, malnutrition. In resulting in significant incoherence in humanitarian contrast to undernutrition, malnutrition can arise from practices.’59 The organisation of the humanitarian the over-consumption of poor quality and unhealthy response and the multiple agendas that crowd it food and is becoming a serious health problem for pose massive challenges to our natural humanity. those living in societies where food is plentiful. Poor In many instances, Compassionate Humanity is and rich alike are at serious risk from an epidemic of replaced by Calculative Agenda. Benevolent action malnutrition.’57 without expectation is replaced by ‘what’s-in-it-for- me’ action!60 Nineteen b) It is psychologically easier to deal with disaster a) Having lived on this planet for some time, we have when it happens in a huge, immediate scale. The fared poorly in not being able to share wealth fairly tsunami caught everyone’s attention; the devastation and advance together with some sort of equity.58 could be seen in newspapers and TVs everywhere. 57 Julien Goldstein, “A World of Hunger Amid Plenty”. 58 For instance: The fact that ‘American CEOs last year earned 262 times the average pay of their own workers is no big deal. It’s always possible that some of them actually earned all that money, or at least some of it. What is, surely, something of a big deal is that according to Corporate Library in Washington, the chief executives of the 11 largest companies in the United States earned a combined $865 million over the past two years at the same time as their shareholders lost $640 million.’ Imagine the income differential between the American CEOs and the ordinary contractual worker in one of Asia’s many backyard industries serving the world. See Richard Gwyn’s “‘American Dream’ Turning Into a Nightmare”. That figure was relevant around 2005. The end of 2011 saw the start of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ (OWS) movement, which was defined as the following: ‘OWS is an on-going series of demonstrations initiated by the Canadian activist group Adbusters which began September 17, 2011, in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City’s Wall Street financial district. The protests are against social and economic inequality, high unemployment, greed, as well as corruption, and the undue influence of corporations – particularly from the financial services sector – on government. The protesters’ slogan “We Are the 99%” refers to the growing difference in wealth in the US between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population.’ It is much the same situation the world over in relation to wealth distribution. 59 See “Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004: 10 Lessons Learnt From The Humanitarian Response Funded by the French State”. 60 In the midst of such terrible destruction and catastrophe going on in our planet every day, some still hold strong to the ‘virtue of selfishness’ (to quote one of Ayn Rand’s books), turning a blind eye and shrugging off disaster as part of the human condition. 59

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But the fact is, disasters are happening every The ‘business-as-usual’ sustainable development minute, all around us. But more often than not, if orientation does not really ‘rock the boat’ in terms we have the choice, we choose not to see them. We of dramatically changing business practices for the remain indifferent to the daily ‘social tsunamis’ that better (if that can be actually done). Instead, it simply drastically affect, for example, children both in the offers new ways of commodification to organise developing and developed worlds. According to the business within a ‘sustainable development’ regime. World Hunger Fund’s latest statistics, almost 16,000 In a conference on sustainable development that I children die every day from hunger-related causes – attended in Kyoto some years ago, climate change that’s 1 child every 5 seconds. 49 million Americans was seen as offering new revenue streams to make struggle with hunger, including 17 million children. business sustainable! One response I sat through: That means 1 in 6 people do not get enough food as the weather across the globe registers increasing to be healthy. That is the real danger – the blindness temperatures, it offers opportunities for increased and insensitivity to social dysfunction and tragedies sales of soft drinks! It is tragic that even such a that lurk in the ‘everydayness’ of our lives in a highly worrisome global situation encourages commercial unequal, unjust, materialistic and consumerist exploitation. Commercial culture has corrupted world. The root of our inability to deal with our human nature to the core. And it continues its unsustainable behaviour really lies in the domain of aggressive expedition of commodification of the unexamined, uncontested and unexplored: the everything; in the future, we’ll be able to buy and taken-for-granted, routinised ‘everyday-ness’ of our sell everything! lives. Sadly, we are often both the perpetrators and victims – by conscious action or silent acceptance – b) The notion of sustainable development, however, of the world we have created. really reflects a ‘political compromise between growth and environmental sustainability that the Twenty pro-growth delegation at the United Nations could accept’, and works within a neo-liberal agenda.61 a) While still the ‘willing’ victims of unsustainable alien Therefore it is not a coincidence, and certainly cosmologies, we proceed to adopt – as a policy – not surprising, that the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio mainstream sustainable development, a mantra that de Janeiro was chaired by millionaire Canadian is being chanted by an increasing number of people businessman Maurice Strong. In Africa, Asia and to grapple with the unsustainable trends we have Latin America, there were proponents of the practice unwittingly introduced into Asia. Having adopted of sustainability, but these innovators/pioneers were this much-touted programme, we proceed with the not in the political leadership. Is this a reflection of ‘business-as-usual’ orientation. Such an orientation how global choices are made?62 Is it a reflection of has enabled sustainable development to become the real base of leadership in the mainstream global a darling of businesses, governments, global sustainable development movement? civil organisations and even the United Nations. 61 Carlos J. Castro, “Sustainable Development: Mainstream and Critical Perspectives”, 196. 62 While there is growing leadership in the global scene of Asians, Africans and Latin Americans, the general current tendency is that leaders come from Anglo–American or European backgrounds. Working with people in global organisations, I still witness overt or muted tensions between the West and the East or the North and the South. 61

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Twenty-one • A faith that all environmental problems can eventually be solved by technology. a) Sustainable development is a highly contested term that carries many meanings and implications. These elements are clearly stipulated, directly or The term was derived from numerous theoretical indirectly, in the national development policies of frameworks developed within the Western cultural many Asian countries, including those I visited. These milieu by the gurus of capitalist economies in concepts are the dominant thrust in development, response to the challenges the capitalist growth- and are based on cosmologies that are human- oriented economic development posed – resources centred, technology-directed and consumption- depletion and ecological impacts and disasters, oriented. including climate change. Thus, the ‘mainstream’ interpretation of sustainable development fits well c) Learning these truths about what mainstream within the anthropocentric, pro-capitalist market sustainable development truly stands for re-confirmed growth model. Some scholars present this model the need for me to reorient my approach and look as the ‘weak sustainability’ approach while others, at the spirit of sustainability very differently, outside particularly Marxists, see this as an active effort to the scope of mainstream development: sustainability humanise the harsh consequences of the capitalist not as growth-oriented material development but modes of production and exploitation, and to make as a cultural practice of engagement, of Being them more presentable, palatable and adaptable. with Nature and the Human World. We have lost the ‘quality-practice-routines’ of being-in-the-world b) As part of a capital-centric discourse, the concept sustainably – we must recover this from our past,64 of sustainable development has the following and build it into a new cosmology, a cosmology of elements:63 sustainability. • A human-centred (anthropocentric) worldview; Twenty-two • An emphasis on a growth-oriented, capitalist In the search for other pathways to sustainability, market approach to economic development; a critique of the above mainstream approach has grown over the years. A huge crop of literature • A relative ignorance of the need for radical change has sprouted. Critical, radical post-modernist and in people’s demands on the earth; religious perspectives have questioned the growth- oriented capitalist wisdom of the ‘weak sustainability • A perpetuation of the view that Nature is merely a approach’. Other perspectives have contributed to collective of natural resources that can be exploited the ‘strong sustainability approach’, which suggests by human beings; and we transform our needs to sustain Earth and society 63 See Colin C. Williams and Andrew C. Millington, “The Diverse and Contested Meanings of Sustainable Development”, 99–104. 64 The uncomfortable relationship between Americans and Mexicans has resulted in several racist jokes. But I remember a joke about the ‘lazy Mexican’ that offers a lesson. An American tourist approached a Mexican supposedly lazing under a tree. ‘Why aren’t you working like us?’ he asked. ‘Work for what?’ asked the Mexican. ‘So that you can earn a lot of money’, replied the American. ‘Money for what?’ enquired the Mexican. ‘You can buy all things that make your life convenient... You can travel...’ the American educated the Mexican. The Mexican pressed on and asked, ‘Why do you want to do all that?’ The American thought for a while before responding enthusiastically: ‘So that you can be happy!’ The Mexican smiled in a sage-like manner and said: ‘Amigo, that is what I am doing now... I am happy!’ 63

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instead of transforming Earth to suit our needs. agenda. My concerns went beyond ‘sustainable From an ethical point of view, this approach moves development’ and the term ‘sustainability’ captured away from ‘anthropocentrism’ to what is called the essence of my pursuit/search. In the traditions ‘biocentric egalitarianism’.65 Such a shift is critical of the Karen, Balinese, Kankanaey, Henanga, for it removes the aura of self-importance from Japanese and Ainu people, I found pathways to human ideation and the tendency to instrumentalise sustainability rather than sustainable development. the universe for human desires and purposes. The What an upside-down world we live in: problems at ‘strong sustainability approach’ moves the agenda the centre, solutions at the margin! It is as though towards establishing a more accurate perspective we are born blind and have to grow to perfect on the status of humans in the universe – it ‘re- 20/20 vision only as we age and as we reflect and situates the human’ and ‘re-frames’ development, meditate! without privileging it. Twenty-four Twenty-three a) And so I had to ask: how can this shift from ‘weak’ a) As I explored the ground realities in Asia and sustainability to ‘strong’ sustainability be made on a examined the cultures and politics of sustainable wider scale? On this point, Prof. Zialcita of Ateneo development, it became amply clear to me that I de Manila University,67 Manila, challenged me: had to separate sustainable development from ‘Sustainability is about developing sustainably. It is sustainability. As Anwar Fazal66 pointed out about development, economic growth, technology during my Asian Public Intellectual (API) fellowship and use of scarce resources. You can’t escape interview, it was like the distinction between religion that.’ However, he added: ‘People feel free and and spirituality. The meaning of this distinction are wondering what to do with their freedom. soon become clear to me in the course of my API And there is a belief in infinite growth, but is that research in PaTung, Soblan and Chiang Mai in really possible?’ In a sense, his observation meant Thailand; Jakarta and Bali in Indonesia; Sagada, that people cannot exercise absolute freedom with Mayoyao, Bontoc, Baguio City and Manila in the regard to the environment since infinite growth is Philippines; and Kyoto, Nara, Kanazawa, Tokyo, Mt. not possible, given that we are always constrained Fuji, Sapporo and Hiroshima in Japan. by finite resources. So, the deeper meaning of Prof. Zialcita’s observation is that the essentially critical b) The cultural encounters and engagements with notion of limit must always be taken into account. these places and people facilitated and enabled the development of a different orientation to my research 65 As Paul Taylor suggests in his classic text, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics, humans are just one of Earth’s many communities of life, living together in an interdependent natural system. All living things should be morally considered for their own sake. Human superiority is an unjustified and fictitious bias. We should be impartial and egalitarian to all species. 66 Anwar Fazal is a versatile, multiple award-winning social activist, known nationally and internationally. He was conferred the Right Livelihood Award in 1982, popularly called the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ for a lifetime of promoting and protecting public interest. Anwar Fazal was on the Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship interview board. 67 I spoke with Dr. Zialcita in March of 2006. 67

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b) On that same notion of limit, Olowan Lumiwes, possible to think about sustainability outside the an 89-year-old Kankanaey elder in the Kilong context of growth-oriented development.70 I realised barangay,68 near Sagada town,69 spoke at length the indigenous cultural idea of limit certainly offers a about inayan, a key organising value of the Kankanaey non-progressive and non-materialistic developmental people that influences behaviour and decisions and orientation to our common future. therefore contributes to sustainability. Inayan (along with lawa) defines the relationship between the d) A development of this indigenous orientation to Kankanaey person and Nature, Spirits and Society. limit and its practical realisation would aid in de- The relationship with Nature is defined by the notion of materialising the economy. For instance, fossil fuels are limit in both promotive (inayan) and prohibitive (lawa) not renewable resources. Thus, we have limits placed terms. A Kankanaey uses the resources of Nature on us by nature itself on how many more gallons of fuel within limits defined by the community, taking into we can use up before our sources simply disappear. account an individual’s personal and family needs. With this limit in mind, society’s dematerialisation This is an indigenous way to ensure compliance with might begin with a focus on improving public mobility the ecological footprint of a person or a community. and educating away the unsustainable orientation that suggests freedom is a function of possession.71 c) Two ways of articulating the notion and practice Likely, it would mean a greater effort on behalf of the of limit emerge: one within the context of material government to create or recreate an efficient public growth-oriented development (as perceived by Prof. transport system that every citizen – not just those Zialcita) and the other within a defined everyday individuals who cannot afford their own car – could relationship with Nature, outside the context of utilize. An office that comprehensively limits the use material growth-oriented development (as shared of paper and all related material products could also by the elder Olowan). For me, it eventually became contribute to the dematerialisation of society.72 The 68 Barangay is the native Filipino term for village, district or ward. 69 My interpreter during my interview with the villagers in the Sagada municipality, located in Mountain Province, Cordillera, Philippines, was Clint Bangaan of Tebtebba Foundation (TF), the Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education, based in Baguio City, which promotes the cause of indigenous people. I was affiliated to TF while I was in Baguio city. A native of a nearby barangay, Antadao, Clint was well-accepted and got around easily and this allowed me to ‘enter’ the community quite freely. 70 ‘Thinking of development as an expanding market economy increasingly dominated by market relations obscures alternatives outside this framework... That elements of place-based practices like gift exchange have so often been missing from the development discourse is a telling indictment of the Eurocentrism of much thinking and planning in development; it is also an indictment of the strength of the capitalocentric discourse of development.’ George N. Curry, “Moving Beyond Postdevelopment”, 405–423. 71 See C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. 72 Indeed, the digitisation of our lives is surely saving millions of trees from being cut down. But even ‘going paperless’ is not without its costs to the environment. In fact, our internet habits consume a shocking amount of energy. According to one Earth Day infographic (see references), as of 2005, there were over 10.3 million data centres in the United States alone. These data centres, responsible for keeping our internet searches powered and seamless, consumed enough energy in one year to power the entire United Kingdom for two months! Even the spam we receive and delete is not without cost: over 62 trillion spam emails find their way into our inboxes each year, producing the same amount of carbon dioxide as 1.6 million cars driving around the earth. Many of us rely on our computers to do business, but that doesn’t mean we can’t unplug when we have the opportunity to do so. The first step towards sustainability is for each of us to be mindful of our habits and how they may negatively affect our planet. 69