Reposted from the Movement for Beloved Community website. 

Beloved Community

Richard Flyer

Dr. Martin Luther King challenged us-to go beyond our limited vision to work toward the “Beloved Community.” This was the central theme of his teachings. What is this community, what keeps us from realizing it, and how can we work towards this community in our lives?

In this community he said “our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation…”

This would be a community where love and justice prevailed. Love here is not sentimental affection, but the binding power that holds the universe together. In this community we would know that “we are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.”

The ideal for the Beloved Community is not new. People from every culture and time throughout history have dreamed of this nonviolent and cooperative society. It has been called by many names.

Why haven’t we developed the Beloved Community?

Our communities are divided by violence to the body, mind, and spirit. Each day we hear the same news about violence and other problems. Alone, these problems are immense. Together, they seem overwhelming.. Many feel powerless and numb.

Current approaches to solving community problems are not working. The reason: we are all divided into special interest groups, the new Tower of Babel.

These include racial, ethnic, religious, political, economic, civic, peace, social justice, and environmental groups, etc.

In the long run, the special interest approach can’t be effective. All social problems are connected and have a common basis.

For example, look at how we deal with gang violence. We are kidding ourselves if we think brute force by the police or mainstreaming gang members will solve the problem. Dealing with gang violence in isolation from its interconnected root causes makes no sense. Why does a gang form?

Our society has not provided many youth with fellowship, love, a sense of purpose, relevant education or employment. A gang is an alternative society, a reaction and an indictment against the present one.

The way we have solved problems in the past, then, is like putting out small fires here and there, while the main fire rages out of control.

What is this raging fire?

Conflicts in communities are a mirrored reflection of the battles inside ourselves. As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”

Our little egos have gotten out of control, always grasping, “me, me, mine.” Our own fears, insecurities, self-centeredness, and self-righteousness blinds us. Each day we harm ourselves and others. We are just too busy to notice . Ego-centered behavior becomes fossilized in social institutions. Greed and narrow self-interest have become the lubrication for our political and economic machinery.

Daily, we conform with these values, unquestioning, even though they are self-destructive. Look what we’ve become. We sing the virtues of materialism, consumerism, while hoarding greater profits, as the gap between the rich and poor increases. Then, we say we must use brute force, it’s an “eye for an eye” trying to defend our way of life.”

Think about the results of this way of life. We are destroying our life support system – Mother Earth -while poverty, hunger, wars, racism, and for many, hopelessness continues unabated.

Where do we go from here?

We must see that the raging fire is our ego-centered attitude and selfish lifestyle. This is the root cause of social conflict. Admitting this deep problem is a first step toward health and sanity.

There are many pioneers who taught us the way of going beyond self-interest. They taught practical means to help make our personal interest one with the common interest of all life. Dr. King is the most recent example. Great teachers of humanity such as Jesus, Buddha, Lao-Tse, Mahatma Gandhi and others were all saying the same thing.

Dr. King was killed because he was a non-violent revolutionary. He challenged us to be honest with ourselves. He saw that a radical change in our values, way of life, and institutions was necessary for there to be peace. He saw that in order to conquer the “giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism… we must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing’-oriented society to a ‘person’-oriented society. ”

We have no choice today, but to follow on the same path. There is no time left for just talking about spirituality in the clouds, in the churches or in the ivory towers. We must live and practice it.

Now is the time to consciously develop a new society from the old, a Beloved Community based on love, justice, and fellowship. Begin with an inner attitude change. Dr. King spoke of an “inner spiritual transformation” that would give us strength to fight social injustice and lead us to “personal and social transformation.”

The power to change our lives comes from within us and not outside. And, we don’t have to wait for anyone else. We can start right where we live. Each day presents opportunities to practice love in action.

We can work locally, knowing that we are part of a larger global awakening. Humanity is leaving its childhood behind and is growing up.

We are witnessing the birth of a new world civilization. The truth is that we are one Spirit, one Earth, one Life, and one People. Every loving act that we perform, no matter how small fosters the awakening of ourselves, our families, then cities, nations, the world, and finally, the entire cosmos.

Working together and sharing ourselves, we can build a Beloved Community inside ourselves, with our families, anywhere we live. The dreamer may have given his life, but the dream lives on. The new dreamers are here, ready to carry the torch.

All contents copyright (c)1991 by Richard Flyer

Reposted from the Worldwatch Institute.

State of the World 2005

Mikhail S. Gorbachev

Five years ago, all 191 United Nations member states pledged to meet eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015, including eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and ensuring environmental sustainability. These critical challenges were reaffirmed by health officials from across the globe in October 2004 at the tenth anniversary of the landmark International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo.

The overarching conclusion from this 2004 meeting was that while considerable, albeit erratic, progress was indeed being made in many areas, any optimism must be tempered with the realization that gains in overall global socioeconomic development, security, and sustainability do not reflect the reality on the ground in many parts of the world. Poverty continues to undermine progress in many areas. Diseases such as HIV/AIDS are on the rise, creating public health time bombs in numerous countries. In the last five years, some 20 million children have died of preventable waterborne diseases, and hundreds of millions of people continue to live with the daily misery and squalor associated with the lack of clean drinking water and adequate sanitation.

We must recognize these shameful global disparities and begin to address them seriously. I am delighted that the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Wangari Maathai, a woman whose personal efforts, leadership, and practical community work in Kenya and Africa inspire us all by demonstrating the real progress that can be made in addressing environmental security and sustainable development challenges where people have the courage to make a difference.

Humankind has a unique opportunity to make the twenty-first century one of peace and security. Yet the many possibilities opened up to us by the end of the cold war appear to have been partially squandered already. Where has the “peace dividend” gone that we worked so hard for? Why have regional conflict and terrorism become so dominant in today’s world? And why have we not made more progress on the Millennium Development Goals?

The terrible tragedies of September 11, 2001, the 2004 terrorist attacks in Beslan in Russia, and the many other terrorist incidents over the past decade in Japan, Indonesia, the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere have all driven home the fact that we are not adequately prepared to deal with new threats. But better preparation means thinking more holistically, not just in traditional cold war terms.

I believe that today the world faces three interrelated challenges: the challenge of security, including the risks associated with weapons of mass destruction and terrorism; the challenge of poverty and underdevelopment; and the challenge of environmental sustainability.

The challenge of security must be addressed by first securing and destroying the world’s arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. Both Russia and the United States have taken numerous positive steps in this direction. But we must accelerate these nonproliferation and demilitarization efforts and establish threat-reduction programs around the world if we are to be truly successful.

The world’s industrial nations must also commit greater resources to the poorest countries and regions of the globe. Official development assistance from the top industrial countries still represents but a tiny percentage of their gross national products and does not come close to the pledges made over a decade ago at the Rio Earth Summit. The growing disparity between the rich and the poor on our planet and the gross misallocation of limited resources to consumerism and war cannot be allowed to continue. If they do, we can expect even greater challenges and threats ahead.

Regarding the environment, we need to recognize that Earth’s resources are finite. To waste our limited resources is to lose them in the foreseeable future, with potentially dire consequences for all regions and the world. Forests, for example, are increasingly being destroyed in the poorest countries. Even in Kenya, where Wangari Maathai has helped plant over 30 million trees, forested acreage has decreased. The global water crisis is also one of the single biggest threats facing humankind. Four out of 10 people in the world live in river basins shared by two or more countries, and the lack of cooperation between those sharing these precious water resources is reducing living standards, causing devastating environmental problems, and even contributing to violent conflict. Most important of all, we must wake up to the dangers of climate change and devote more resources to the crucial search for energy alternatives.

It is for reasons such as these that I founded Green Cross International 12 years ago and continue to advocate for a global value shift on how we handle Earth, a new sense of global interdependence, and a shared responsibility in humanity’s relationship with nature. It is also for these reasons that I helped draft the Earth Charter, a code of ethical principles now endorsed by over 8,000 organizations representing more than 100 million people around the world. And it is for these reasons that Maurice Strong, Chair of the Earth Council, and I have initiated the Earth Dialogues, a series of public forums on ethics and sustainable development.

We need a Global Glasnost—openness, transparency, and public dialogue—on the part of nations, governments, and citizens today to build consensus around these challenges. And we need a policy of “preventive engagement”: international and individual solidarity and action to meet the challenges of poverty, disease, environmental degradation, and conflict in a sustainable and nonviolent way.

We are the guests, not the masters, of nature and must develop a new paradigm for development and conflict resolution, based on the costs and benefits to all peoples and bound by the limits of nature herself rather than by the limits of technology and consumerism. I am delighted that the Worldwatch Institute continues to address these important challenges and goals in its annual State of the World report. I urge all readers to seriously consider their personal commitments to action after finishing this volume. Only with the active and dedicated participation of civil society will we be successful in building a sustainable, just, and peaceful world for the twenty-first century and beyond.