Current Issue - See Below    Archived Issues - Click Here

The Global Systems Review Issue 9  September 2009

The Global Systems Review is a periodic e-newsletter that explores critical world issues through the lens of whole systems thinking.

The Global Systems Review has been on summer hiatus since May. With this issue we resume our monthly publication.

This issue is dedicated to the International Day of Peace (IDP), officially celebrated on September 21 every year, as a doorway to political, structural, and social transformation. To learn more about the International Day of Peace, see what others are doing, and discover how you can participate, go to www.internationaldayofpeace.org or www.cultureofpeace.org.

In this Issue:

• Peace Power – Exploring the secret of peace and its power to change our lives. More...
• Ceasefire! – A time to pause in the din of battle and listen. More...

Peace Power
Louise Diamond

I know a secret. A secret in plain sight. A secret that people are celebrating – though perhaps not always articulating – all over the world today, on this International Day of Peace. (Go to www.internationaldayofpeace.org for live videos.)

I know a secret about peace; the secret of peace. I know the secret power of peace that maintains the vision of Peace on Earth as the highest goal in all our major religions, that serves as the organizing principle of the United Nations and other global peace-seeking and peace-keeping bodies; that has brought millions out on the streets in countries all over the world to demonstrate for freedom, for justice, against oppression, against war, for equal rights, for human rights, for honest government; that even, paradoxically, moves us to send our children off to foreign lands to fight.

The secret is simple but not easy – not easy to understand fully, though we already know it innately; not easy to implement, though we’ve been learning to do so more and more over the centuries. The secret is a simple truth, one word, one three-letter word, and in that word, literally, an entire universe.

That secret, that word, that truth is – ONE. We are one. One planet. One humanity. One family of life – humanity and planet together. One living ecosystem.

There is only one of us, which includes and embraces all our glorious differences. Those differences are real, and important, for all living systems gain resilience and health from the richness of their diversity. Yet when we choose to use our differences – of opinion, belief, gender, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, sexual orientation, political persuasion, class, wealth, looks, or anything else – as avenues for opposition, separation, domination, personal gain, or power over others, we are creating un-peace. Un-peace expresses itself on a continuum, from mild disagreement to polarization, hatred, aggression, violence, war, and ultimately genocide.

One. We are one. One family of life. There is only one of us. I’m not talking woo-woo here. I’m talking hard cold facts and practical realities. We live in an interconnected world, where our thoughts and our actions are affecting each other everywhere and all the time. The car we drive affects polar bears in the Arctic. Excessive financial risks in one country lead to a global economic meltdown. A small band of religious zealots in Afghanistan brings many nations into war. People going to emergency rooms for routine medical care because they can’t afford health insurance raise the costs of health care for us all (as do exorbitant bonuses to health insurance and pharmaceutical executives). Through the internet we can see, hear, and speak with anyone, anywhere.

One. We are one. Astronauts see this, and send back our now iconic pictures of the earth from space – no country boundaries, just one whole earth. President Obama knows this, and repeated it as his campaign slogan, over and over again – We’re all in this together.

It’s one thing to realize that yes, we are deeply interconnected and interdependent; yes, we are all in this together. It’s another thing to apply that understanding to the complex issues and threats we face today, in our personal and our collective lives. Yet that is the ultimate challenge of the 21st century – to learn to live in a truly globalized world.

I have spent the last 35 years deepening my understanding of just what oneness really means, what its implications are for how I behave, for how we as a nation behave, for how we as a global human family behave.

In fact, the reason I started Global Systems Initiatives, and publish this newsletter, is that I am consumed with the question: If we really understood that we’re all in this together, but REALLY understood it, to the marrow of our bones and the bottom of our hearts, how would we address the daunting challenges we face in the world today?

I have found that the systems view of the world, the understanding of how living systems function, provides the best answers – or at least avenues for discovering answers – to that question. One of the primary dynamics of living systems is that they exist within their own unique context. For human systems, that context is narrative – it is the stories we tell ourselves, the meaning we ascribe to our experiences, the assumptions we make about how things are.

This is especially relevant in our current the U.S. conversation about health care, which is exhibiting a high degree of un-peace at this time. We are awash in vitriolic accusations, fighting over lies and distortions, and armed for battle in a classic us-against-them scenario. The likely outcome will be a bill that does not solve the problems, leaves a legacy of bitterness, and reinforces our belief that government is inept, if not actually corrupt. I suggest this is because we are having the wrong conversation about health care.

We are having the wrong conversation because we arguing over details, fixes, and substance. Instead, we should be examining the basic premise, the assumptions we make, the story we tell ourselves about what health care means in our society. All other industrialized democratic countries have done this. Their premise is that health care is a basic human right and that government has a moral responsibility to insure that all citizens receive health care, just as they receive education, the right to vote, and other basic rights. The specifics of how they accomplish this differ, but the core premise is the same.

In the United States, we do not tell that story. If we did, we would be having a completely different conversation now about how to achieve universal health care. Our story, unarticulated but clearly visible from our actions, runs more along the lines of the primacy of profit over people. In our story the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the big health delivery companies are the ones with rights, not the people who are their customers and beneficiaries.

In our story their ability to generate big profits trumps people’s need for medicine, hospitalization, surgery, or doctor’s time and attention to their ills. In our story people can be denied health care because they once had acne, or lose their homes because their child has cerebral palsy, or lose their lives because they can’t afford life-saving drugs – but the real ‘because’ underlying those actions is because the corporations that control health care wouldn’t thereby make as much money. Sorry to be so brutally frank about it, but there it is.

If we really truly understood about our oneness, that we’re all in this together, we would enact our health care policies on the basis of compassion for the suffering among us, for a sense of ethical responsibility to see that no one goes without because of income, job, or pre-existing condition. From a practical point of view we would know that our collective interest would be best served (and our costs go down) if there were more uniform access to quality health services.

From a morality point of view we would find it unconscionable that the fortunate some thrive while the unfortunate some suffer and die. It would be a given that our current health care situation is not only a disaster but actually a great national shame. We would not be tinkering at the edges, and arguing over this and that. We would be finding ways to transform the entire system so that it works for all of us – because ultimately there is only one of us; we are indeed all in this together.

Health care is not the only issue about which we need to change our story. If we looked at all of our major national and international challenges – peak oil, resource depletion, climate change, intractable poverty, criminal and terrorist networks, failed states, human and drug trafficking, pandemics, etc. – from the point of view of our interconnectedness we might open a whole new range of possible solutions.

How do we go about changing the story we tell ourselves? How do we shift – as individuals, as a nation, as a human family – from believing we are separate to realizing we are one? How do we move from the assumption that some have more rights, more entitlement, more worth than others to the realization that my well-being is actually enhanced when I strive to guarantee your well-being?

The answer to that question is visible today in the International Day of Peace celebrations taking place all over the world. Though they take many forms – vigils, bell-ringing, multi-cultural programs, reading of declarations, concerts, speeches, and more – these celebrations are all about us coming together, despite our differences, for a common goal, for the common good. This is the power of peace.

This is the day to honor that power. This is the day to turn our hearts and hands to activating that power in our families, our communities, our nation, and our world – not only for one day but for every day. This is the day to remember we need each other, and in that remembrance to face the future with hope and the assurance that we can do what is needed for the one that we are to thrive, together.

Ceasefire!
Louise Diamond

The International Day of Peace is also declared a day of international ceasefire. I’m not sure how many armies, militias, armed factions, militants, terrorists, or other combatants are observing an actual ceasefire – I doubt that the numbers are high. However, all of us are fighting something, or someone – within ourselves or externally. We are busy doing battle somehow – with a disease, with a loved one, with our weight, with an institution that has treated us poorly (have you tried to get customer service over the phone lately?), with those of a different political persuasion, for example.

What would happen if we each observed a day of ceasefire? What would happen if we put our weapons down for a time – our anger, indignation, hurt feelings, self-righteousness, accusations, sense of victimhood; our protest signs, hurtful or divisive speech, gossip, name-calling, bullying, manipulating, defensive justifications; our fists and guns and sticks and stones, swords and shields, figuratively and literally.

What would happen is that we would experience a great stillness, a quiet, a calm, a silence, a spaciousness in which whatever is waiting to emerge within and among us might arise. In the stillness we might hear strange voices, new ideas, the whisper of hope, the call of possibilities for something different, something that hurts less, that nourishes more, that connects us to each other and to something bigger, something beyond our small self, our limited perspective, our conditioned view.

What wants to be born through that stillness we call peace. Let this be the day we pause in the din of battle to listen to its song.

To see more suggestions for personal actions for peace and inspiring stories, go to: http://www.peacexpeace.org/Peace_X_Peace_Blogs/?cat=4