Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/culture/non-violent-communication-nvc/page/23/)
The “funeralizing” of Nelson Mandela has ended. It was part MLK Day, part rock concert. Pundits, starlets and TV personalities fought for air-time to proclaim their nearness to the departed leader. But, for some of us who marched outside the Chicago consulate of apartheid South Africa in the dead of winter in years gone by, Mandela is more.
Can young people change a nation? Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how. But you look back and see that they did. Then you look around and see that they are.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) met the week of December 3 in Bali, Indonesia, where anti-WTO demonstrators took over the streets. On the first day of the talks, demonstrations were held around the world to mark the Global Day of Action Against Toxic Trade Agreements. A particular focus for protesters here in the United States and in other Pacific Rim nations was the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a so-called “free-trade agreement” that would consolidate corporate power over member nations. The TPP has been called “NAFTA on steroids.” It has also been called “a corporate coup” and a “corporate power tool of the 1%.”
Sunday, December 8, 2013 was a day of reflection upon the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, the first democratically elected president of South Africa who died December 5, 2013 at age 95. As I reflect upon the meaning of this extraordinary life, I return again and again to his dignity and to the power this sense of self bestowed upon him, even before the South African people elected him to lead them.
Economic and power relations are the place where lofty religious or humanistic ideals come to ground. This is a place where atheists and the religious can work together to discourage exploitation, especially through Nonviolent Communication.
Even after waking up to the role that Israel was playing in the region, enough to where I wanted to leave because I didn’t want to have certain things done in my name, I still believed what I had been told about the United States of America. It took several more years for me to repeat the feat of questioning to the point of losing that faith. It seems to me that three things combine to make it so unlikely for people to become aware of and take personal responsibility for what is done in their name in this country…
It took me some effort when I decided, some years ago, to deliberately free my language from the word “ego.” I did not want to use a concept so loaded with negative charge. I want my language to reflect my commitment to a different view of human nature instead of supporting the view that inside each of us there is a core part that must be transcended or suppressed in order to become a mature, functional member of human society.
When I look at it deeply, I really cannot understand, on the human plane, why I give the woman who cleans my house less money than the acupuncturist or naturopath who attend to my body… In effect, setting up the system in the way that it is means that some people’s needs are valued more than others.
The Guardian’s recent article, “How President Obama can achieve a nuclear deal with Iran,” speaks about why a nuclear deal with Iran is urgently needed, and what Iran must give up. This Guardian piece is a little weak on what the United States and the Western powers must offer as part of the deal. When read by itself, it repeats the “tough-minded” and largely blind to emotional nuance approach that has made the West’s dealings with Iran so fruitless:
My vision is of a world in which needs are routinely met, in which the experience of need satisfaction is the norm rather than the exception. Considering how far this vision is from what we mostly know in our modern world, the question of the possibility of meeting human needs takes on a great deal of significance.