February 2007

I believe there is much we can learn from the life and example of Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the organization. His achievements shine in the annals of UN history, and his moral force and integrity as the “conscience of the United Nations” command wide respect to this day. Read more.

February 2007 Aleksa Djilas At the beginning of his essay “Of Vicissitude of Things,” Francis Bacon stresses the futility of all human endeavors: “… ‘There is no new thing upon the earth.’…all novelty is but oblivion…the river of Lethe runneth as well above ground as below.” Who has not experienced such weariness? Everything changes but is eternally the same. Nothing is truly new – it only appears so because we have forgotten. And soon we realize this. Like the dead in Hades we drink from the river that makes us forget but, alas, oblivion is merely temporary, and novelty vanishes. Not long after Bacon died in 1626, England experienced civil war, revolution and restoration. Had Bacon witnessed them, would they have challenged the deep skepticism of a seasoned politician and man of the world? The fate of Charles I might have amazed him, though not simply because a king was...

Vicky Rossi: When was the Barefoot College first established and what was the main motivation of its founders? S. Srinivasan (commonly known as “Vasu”): The Barefoot College was founded in 1972 by Mr Bunker Roy and two others. It was a voluntary organisation specifically formed with the belief that in order to work with the poorest of the poor in the villages one has to base oneself in the village. Only in this way can one uncover the problems faced by the communities there, as perceived by the villagers themselves. In the initial 1-2 years, the set of objectives held by the organisation became more concretised and more specific. This led to initiatives being started with regards drinking water. Access to drinking water was a problem for the poorest of the poor in the villages and linked to that was health – access to health services was almost nil. When...

Shanghai, Kinas största stad med över 20 miljoner invånare, är världens åttonde största megastad. Här lever man efter förre partiordförande Deng Xiaopings slagord. Det syns, Shanghai är en stad där pengar och profit påtaglig präglar stadsbildens superlativer, störst, högst, bäst, vackrast. Från Jin Mao-tornets 88:e våning ser vi ut över stan. Där reser sig Oriental Pearl TV-tornet, 468 meter högt. En bit bort rinner den breda Huangpu-floden och på dess andra sida ligger The Bund, den koloniala paradgatan. Jin Mao-skyskrapan, 420 meter och världens femte högsta skyskrapa, är utformad av ett amerikanskt arkitektkontor utifrån den klassiska kinesiska pagodens former och lyckotalet åtta, som står för framgång och rikedom i kinesisk mytologi. Det är ingen tillfällighet att olympiaden i Beijing invigs den 8/8 2008. Två år senare står Shanghai som värd för världsutställningen 2010, som kommer att bli ett minst lika spektakulärt arrangemang. Jin Mao är ett kontorshus för Ministeriet för...

My summary of 35 years of thinking and practising February 14, 2007 Jan Oberg Individuals as well as societies need many things but two are basic and universal. Development means ongoing maturation, higher levels of living and being, satisfaction of micro/basic needs (e.g. food and water), meso/higher needs (e.g. community, dignity, psycho-social health) and macro/supreme needs (e.g. spirituality, love, self-and other-realization, universal community). Some, like Abraham Maslow, argue that human and social needs are organized hierarchically; while water and food may well be considered basic, human beings in severe crisis have delivered evidence throughout history that higher non-material needs and levels of being helped them survive, such as faith in God, in fellow human beings. Art history is filled with personalities whose “lower” needs were not met while they gifted the world with their own sublime expressions. Security or safety is the other basic element. Existentially it means confidence that there is something...