AseanCivilSocietyCOnference Reflections
“To work within the
human being leads immediately beyond the person. This is so because at its
depth, the psyche of the individual contains reflections of the larger universe.”
Carl Jung
There are places in ones heart that does not yet exist, and
into them enters suffering so that they may have their existence.
Leon Bloy, in End of the
Affair ,
I was sent to the ASEAN Civil cebu philippines representing ang ladlad in the youth plenary. In the conference terms like “Human Rights” “Disarmament and
Society Conference held in
Reintegration” “Peace-Building” “Bio Mass regeneration” were thrown around. Fancy
words which boil down to the essential dilemma of how to further our humanity
by learning to clean up after ourselves and love our neighbor as ourselves.
As ourselves– meaning on a level we feel
comfortable with, that respects our limits. As
ourselves– highlighting our strong points and our unique capacity to give,
tapping into our boundless generosity towards a greater recognition that the
other is more important. As ourselves
–where the more we become who we really are, the more we are transported outside
of ourselves–explaining why love is ecstatic, a going beyond oneself.
To love our neighbor as ourselves
involves an alternative ethics of care instead of the usual rat race of getting
ahead. Its not a selfish kind of love
–seeking what favors it can return, what trade arrangements it can further,
what resources of theirs one can exploit, but a love that is permissive: "non-interfering,"
respecting their culture, letting them run the way they want things run for as long as they are hurting no
one. For as long as they are hurting no
one: that was a big question in the
conference. When is it right to interfere? Where does political meddling start
and non-interference end?
And what is the ethics of “non-interference” in a country like Burma for example, where thousands
of children are made to choose between leaving their families and taking up
arms, having to kill their fellow civilians without knowing why or languishing in the jungles with only
plastics in their heads to protect them from the rain, not knowing where their
next meal is coming from, or whether the next step they are going to take will
detonate a land mine?
How do you watch your neighbor
languish and not do a thing? What is the
ethics of standing by as your sister gets raped? Some people say that the
existence is evil is proof of the non-existence of God. How can s/he let such
atrocities continue when s/he could have done something about it? Before our Maker,
however, what if we were asked the
same question?
Terrorism is only possible when we
do not recognize ourselves in the Other, seeing that to wound them is to wound
ourselves, blind to the great sea of collective consciousness that we are all in.
Solidarity in compassion is learning how to suffer through our common pain,
trying to make that pain as bearable as it can be made in another, knowing that
we share the same fate.
What we do in Psychology, Political
science, and all the social sciences for that matter, Neil Postman said, should
actually be called moral theology. Because really, that’s what they are about:
how to tell our stories so that they resonate and remind us of that which is “the
same in all.” The simplest things are often the most difficult, and we spend so
much money and so much effort and so much time just to learn the most
essential: how to live in compassion and respect. Respect is to recognize the other as Other,
allowing them to unravel in their full potential, and opening as many doors for
them as possible. Compassion comes from the Latin words meaning “with
suffering.” Compassion is to know how to
suffer for another, whether that be your best friend, the stranger on the
street, the child soldiers in burma,
the sex workers in Cambodia, the jailed human rights defenders in East Timor or the lesbians and gays in Malaysia.
The same fate: being gagged by
hegemonic powers whose interests we do not serve and thus threaten, living in a
culture of violence where we know of nothing else, prevented from loving and learning
to the fullest, struggling for a self-determination and independence that is
ever-elusive.
Given all the poverty we have to
endure, we like to take the easy way out through assmosis. Assmosis is the
process of becoming an ass by kissing ass. We sign bilateral agreements with
the United States.just so they could give us more money and “services” at the
expense of justice for our countrymen and women, (like in the case of Nicole
and the VFA) We approve of neoliberal economic policies that threaten the lives
and sustenance of the less powerful among us.
All of us are guilty of identifying
with the aggressor when we would rather ally with the winning side—capitalists,
whites, men, straights—because it also confers more power on us, momentarily
allowing us to delude ourselves from our pathetic condition. For all the Philippines’ colonial mentality, we could even say we are
masters of this strategy.
In reality however, how we act
towards people who are weaker than us, those who are marginalized and scorned,
is the true measure of our humanity. The human face of the other both begs and
commands. It is a vulnerability that beckons us, questioning: “if you aren’t
good, do you have a right to be?”
If we are always called to
suffering, to our cross, it is only because we are always called to compassion.
And to love. And everywhere, whether we are learning about it in the regional
conference of the ASEAN civil society, or in the politics of our own hearts, it
is all we really have to answer to.
They say “as long as we can be
wounded, we can be saved.” If we’re not asking how to make life better for
others and how to increase love in the world, we are asking the wrong question.
Any good conference should remind us of this. Otherwise big words like “Development,”
“Dignity,” “Responsibility,” “Peace,” “Equality,” and “Human Rights” are just
fancy concepts. In this season of being
saved, let us remember that.
