urbanmonklife

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Sunday, March 22, 2009

On leadership in our continent. (I live in Europe)

There are various types of protest all over Europe about the 'current economic crisis'.
The mood seems to be that people are feeling angry and increasingly more desperate, but are unsure where to channel either of these.
(not sure much of the UK has quite woken up to it yet, we're still in bit of a stupor)

I read an article by a journalist speaking with a senior diplomat in Brussels:

"[the diplomat] says the leaders have been pulling all the right levers, and the crisis would be much worse without their prompt action.
But the levers… here he gives a broad-shouldered shrug which suggests to me that he feels the levers may be pulled with the correct vigour, but they are just not attached to anything!
His gloom deepens. "I can't believe," he goes on, "that people are still walking around just doing their jobs, going about their lives."
So here was a very senior diplomat in effect wondering why more people were not taking to the streets in greater numbers.
Maybe it is because they don't know what to demand."

"In the recent past politicians were seen as irrelevant, now they are perceived as crucial.
These protests aren't promoting a programme. They are more like a prayer, for benign intervention...
..The shadow of the 30s, bullies in big boots with simplistic solutions, hangs heavily over Europe's economic woes. History surely isn't about to repeat itself?
Yet in nearly all our countries there is a vacancy for someone who understands people's pain even if he or she cannot make it go away, and for someone who appears to have a clear plan that has a chance of working."
-bbc website

Only a few economists and politicians with too much to lose to allow them room for maneuver are still convincing themselves: 'we are still in control and we know what to do'.

This 'economic crisis' will have far further reaching consequences than I have heard any politician remotely acknowledge. The media is splurging doom and gloom about it, so many of the things our societies have placed their hope in and trusted their wellbeing to, are being shown up as hollow facades, and shifting sands. I doubt that many people had a passionate enlivening faith, in plastic consumerism and the wealth made out of thin air on computer screens in stock exchanges, but we accepted what we were advertised.
We were due a faith crisis.
We really needed it.
And we need it more.

This is a time for soul searching, on a collective scale. How do we want to live our lives together?
What do we value?
How can we make sure all of us have enough to eat each day?
How shall we shelter from the weather?
What shall we teach our children?
How can we help eachother be healthy, in mind and body and in spirit and in community?
How shall we care for our elderly people?
How shall we resolve our conflicts?
And how shall we make collective decisions?

All of these questions are worth our thoughts, dreaming, prayers, conversations, research experiments, contemplation, and courage.

Our continent may go through some drastic reactionary shifts as powerful forces make lots of noise and shake things.
But each of us can make a bit of the future.

What shall we make?

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