Author Archive: metafuture-admin

Is This Funny? Humour, Satire and (Non)Violence (2006)

Posted on by

By Ivana Milojević

“In its original historical meaning, a cartoon (from the Italian cartone, meaning “big paper”) is a full-size drawing made on paper as a study for a further artwork, such as a painting  or tapestry. In modern print media, a cartoon is an illustration, usually humorous in intent.” (Wikipedia, 2006)  

The current conflict over the freedom to publish cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad – or alternatively, the freedom to have your community and their views respected by others touches on perennial themes of what are the boundaries of freedom, if any. As debates for thousands of years by philosophers and ethicists testify, there are no easy answers here. No clear boundaries. One thing is for certain – any given freedom requires boundaries and implies responsibility to use the freedom wisely and for the greater common good.

This implies that any freedom – and by implication the boundaries of such freedom – is always negotiated, dependent on consensual agreements of most members of a community, society, civilisation. 

Contextualising humour – a personal history 

What is also negotiated is what constitutes humour, what is considered funny. I still remember my (male) colleges at the university where I worked at the time joking over the rapes of women in Bosnia. It is not just Serbs doing it they said, every side involved in the conflict (i.e. Bosnian Muslims, Croats, Serbs) was doing it, it just depends who is better in this task! Being the only female in the room, and being a feminist, and having spent painful months reading testimonies of raped women, I simply couldn’t find that ‘joke’ funny. In fact I was insulted and saddened over the lack of compassion exhibited. I felt diminished as a person and as a woman. How they felt about me not joining in and sharing a joke with the blokes I didn’t know, but it is possible that they thought I was too serious, not fun to be with, stern and burdened with ‘political correctness’. 

I also remember the question posed on Australian national radio some years back by a show host: Which section is missing from the feminist library? The humour section, was the ‘correct’ answer. To me, this was just nonsense. While I (and I guess many other people as well) do not enjoy jokes about stupid blondes, bosses and secretaries and doctors and nurses, I do enjoy a good laugh. I still recall going to the cinema to watch Baby Boom in 1987 and laughing out loud while listening to Diane Keaton re-telling the Cindarella story to her daughter. As I was the only one in the cinema laughing I started to feel all these eyes on me. I had to gather all my energies to stop. Luckily, a minute later there was a scene in which a near avalanche of snow falls on somebody after they open an entrance door and with all the other movie goers now laughing out loud also, I managed to release the accumulated energy through laughter. While I personally thought that particular scene was pretty stupid, I welcomed it as an opportunity to both express my self and ‘fit in’ at the same time. These days I do enjoy various forms of political satire – with Judy Horacek being my favourite political as well as feminist cartoonist.  

I’ve seen two of the twelve cartoons that have caused so much stir all over the world. I am not sure what to think of them. But that is beside the point as they are not mocking my lot and me.  All I know is that sensitised by my experiences of being a woman influenced by feminism and yet living in the patriarchal world (which continuously provides endless misogynous jokes that cause very little if any uproar), I am usually conscious of whether a joke may offend people whose religious worldviews and cultural beliefs I don’t share. I would especially not dare tell/repeat a joke about an Aboriginal person, whether in Australia, or overseas.  And I don’t think I’d be able to share in a ‘humour’ which would put down racial and cultural groups already vilified by western media and worldviews.

Verbal aggression 

But not everybody shares my view here. In fact, authors of The Penguin Book of Australian Jokes Phillip Adams and Patrice Newell argue in their introduction that with the exception of the jokes involving innocent plays on words, almost every genre of jokes circulating in Australia is fundamentally “an act of verbal aggression against a fear or an enemy, be it defiantly targeted or dimly perceived” (1995, p.13). Almost without exception, they continue, the jokes about Australian Aborigines are a “quintessential expressions of the hostility that accrues to blacks in our cities and country towns” (ibid.). So while a joke in isolation “may be a ‘thing of beauty and a joy forever’” (p. 12), jokes in bulk are “appalling, Almost without exception they deal in bigotry, sexism, racism, ageism and all the other politically incorrect isms. They clearly help people deal with their deep distaste for their own sexuality, their excremental functions, their foreign neighbours, their political masters and an infinite variety of things that go bump in the night.” (ibid. p. 12)  

Not only is the publication of cartoons part of verbal aggression, it goes much further then that, argues Johan Galtung (2006):

“To publish a caricature of the Prophet, or indeed any visual depiction, is among the most blasphemous acts that can be done to Islam…. Useful parallels: burning flags; using pictures of the King or Bible pages as toilet paper; tearing the Bible apart, throwing it in a toilet like guards do to the Qur’an in Guantanamo. These are acts of direct violence, using symbols as arms, a declaration of war, and war tends to be two-way traffic. Nobody should be astonished, or hide behind some human right to be surprised if there is counter-violence.”

Still, Adams and Newell argue that even though there may be a link between the unpleasant joke and the unpleasant social outcome (e.g. “anti-Semitic jokes providing the mortar for the bricks of the crematoria”) to ban them, to deny their existence, would be hopeless and possibly even dangerous, as bottled up resentments intensify rather than dissipate (p. 18). Furthermore, humour and jokes allow people the pleasure of laughter; a method of dealing with the darkness. They help subvert dogma and religious certainty (ibid.). And lastly, politically incorrect jokes, jokes about “racial or sexual relationships are the most honest of indicators about what we are really feeling” (p. 16). 

With the previous discussion in mind, how do we, as a global human community, decide on the boundaries of freedom and how do we negotiate what is funny? Cartoons that mock the Muslim Prophet are possibly an honest indicator of the way many people in the West feel these days towards Muslims and their faith. By the same token, the riots and burning of embassies in the Muslim world possibly are also an honest indicator about the way many people there feel about the West in general and about some actions by some Westerners (such as publishing a picture of the Prophet) in particular. Now that these honest feelings are out, the main question becomes: Where do we go from here? Can we find ways to negotiate the boundaries of freedom so that a freedom of one group does not infringe on the freedom of an another one? Should these freedoms be negotiated within the boundaries of nation states, cultures and civilisations or do we need a new global ethics for a global millennium? Can we develop some sort of a moral compass for humour devoid of bigotry, sexism, ageism, blondeism and homophobia? Can we begin joking and cartooning more and more about ‘us’ and less and less about ‘them’?  

Laughing at the self vs laughing at the other 

It is bad enough that more than half of Australian schoolchildren in Victoria view Muslims as terrorists, and two out of five agree that Muslims “are unclean” (Sydney Morning Herald, 5th February, 2006). The continual portrayal of ‘the other’ as barbaric, violent and strange in western media does nothing to reverse this prejudice. Rather, this orientalism (Edward Said) may directly contribute to both the growing Islamophobia in the west as well as to growing radicalisation of Islam elsewhere. The rise of contemporary Islamic fundamentalism, at the expense of Islamic nonviolent liberalism, is associated with ‘pride, cultural assertiveness and defiance and a search for authenticity’ (Zakaria, 2006, p. 14). Any attack on deeply held values within Islam, and any identification of the whole religion with the violent behaviour of some of its members will do little to help the forces of liberalism within the Islamic world. Instead “it will feed the fury that helps … [radical Islam] win adherents (Zakaria, 2006, p. 15). 

Thus while it would certainly be very unhealthy to live in a humourless society, it is important to realise certain guidelines and boundaries for humour in a contemporary multicultural, global society. In today’s society “to be monocultural is no longer sufficient to be literate” (Galtung, 2006). Rather, some multicultural knowledge and sensitivity beyond that is needed not to overstep norms of decent human behaviour” (ibid.).  For humour to be able to dispel various forms of darkness rather then reinforce them we need to negotiate and learn from ‘the other’ what/when/by whom is considered funny. 

I think this is important as I myself remember not being offended by a particular critique of Yugoslav people when published by local persons living in the former Yugoslavia  – in fact I always welcomed such self critique. But I often found deeply offensive some cartoons coming from those residing outside of these boarders that portrayed Yugoslav people using similar mockery. Especially as they were connected to particular politics (as in ‘lets go bomb the barbarians’), as humour and all the other forms of communication inevitably are. I also found deeply offensive cartoons that engaged with a nationalistic discourse during the break up of Yugoslavia – cartoons that were used to somehow diminish the other and enhance one’s own group feelings of self-importance and self-righteousness. 

There is a big difference between self-critique and the critique of the group external to the self – between laughing at the self/one’s own mob and laughing at/ stereotyping/ putting down the other. In the second case, I have come to learn that the joke is only funny if both parties involved think so.  

The role of the underlying worldview 

I strongly believe that the publication of these cartoons in Danish Jyllands-Posten was very little about the ‘ongoing debate on freedom of expression that we cherish so highly’, as argued by the editors. Or, that this issue ‘pits the strictures of Islam/Muslim Sensitivities’ against ‘Western freedom of expression/liberty’ (Zakaria and Roy, 2006, p. 13 and 16). This is because a “freedom of expression does not mean the duty of expression of whatever comes to one mind” (Galtung, 2006) which is “rather obvious” (ibid.). In fact, in these very societies where ‘freedom of speech’ is a right and a highly respected value, many “legal and social limits on expression” (Roy, p. 16) are already imposed and in place:

“Anti-Semitic cartoons would almost everywhere [in Europe] be liable to legal prosecution. More and more European countries have passed laws banning homophobia or protecting minorities from degrading insult. Would cartoons mocking dwarfs or blind people be published in respectable European newspapers? No. Why, then, the social acceptance for mocking Muslims, which sometimes verges on racism?” (ibid.)

The actions of editors of newspapers that published cartoons went “beyond valid norms for public space” argues Johan Galtung (2006):

“They broke into Muslim private space; like a thief into a private home … claiming freedom to move as a human right.”

So while I think that freedom of expression, speech and press is one of the greatest human accomplishments, these freedoms should be protected where and when possible and sensible but not ‘at all costs’.  

That higher principles take precedence over human life is one of the central tenants of society build on hierarchical and patriarchal values. The central tenant of a society build on values of centrality of human (and human – nature) relatedness is to take seriously concerns and interests of global human community, as well as the non-human community, future generations of people and other living beings.

A joke about a ‘three legged pig’ or ‘gorillas mating with Poms’ (Adams and Newell, p. 197-8) is only funny if you are not sensitised about the actual torture and suffering animals go through in the hands of humans, and/or if you are not ‘a Pom’ (British). The other day Australian ABC radio featured an interview with a cartoonist who fiercely defended freedom of speech telling Muslim protestors to ‘lighten up’. And to – if they can’t ‘take a joke’ – not read the ‘bloody newspaper’. The last question in the interview – the question of whether he ever felt that the cartoon went too far – and the answer to this question was, however, the most telling. The cartoonist felt deeply offended and was quite upset when some of his colleagues took him as a target! Some boundaries need to be placed, he said, and making fun of him should be out of bounds!  

Being a cartoonist, he made this last point in a funny way but still this is where a fundamental guidelines, some sort of a moral compass perhaps lies. As summarised brilliantly by Will Rogers (quoted in Loomans and Kolberg, p. 14) “everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else”. Adams and Newell would agree. They warn about entering the pages of Australian Jokes at own peril, as this will be done with a “knowing that every time you split your sides you’re having a laugh at someone else’s expense…” (ibid. back cover). 

Furthermore, for a racist joke to be seen as funny, racism has to be an underlying worldview, we have to have an ‘inner racist’ within us. The joke about the difference between a blonde and a shopping trolley (a shopping trolley has a mind of its own) is only funny if we still have some elements of sexism within us (as most of us, raised and living in patriarchal societies almost inevitably do).  

If the underlying worldview is the desire to negotiate – to work things out – with ‘the other’ you become sensitive about what you can say, when and where about such group. You are also careful about what type of behaviours you choose to engage in, preferring those that don’t reaffirm various forms of direct, structural, cultural, epistemological and ecological violence.  

If on the other hand, the underlying worldview is to ‘get back’ at the other – you publish cartoons. Or you torch embassies. Or you bash people of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’. Or you assault an Aussie lifeguard at Cronulla beach. Or, you engage in wars and insurgences. While certainly waging wars and publishing offensive cartoons should not be put at the same line of responsibility for eliciting violence – offensive jokes are indeed a relatively minor form of expressing ‘true feelings’ of dislike and lack of respect towards the other – there is also no doubt that they too are informed by a nationalistic, ethnocentric worldview. It is true that it is counter productive to ban such jokes. As long as the nationalistic, ethnocentric and ‘getting back at them’ discourse predominates such externally imposed measure will not be very successful. Without some sort of inner moral compass, the externally imposed ban would have the directly opposite effect to what it tries to achieve.  

It is only by the changing of the underlying worldview that a different taste for what is seen as funny develops. If still in doubt, contrast cartoons by, for example, Horacek and Polyp (from New Internationalist) with cartoons published in conservative western media. Or with a tsunami joke about sharks stricken with diarrhoea (from eating Thai food all week). Obviously, such a joke is only funny if you haven’t deeply sympathised with people that were killed and injured and/or if none of your friends and family members died in this disaster. Otherwise, and rightfully so, is the appropriate question: ‘How can people be so cruel!?’.   

Non-violent communication and humour 

If jokes that deal in ‘bigotry, sexism, racism, ageism and all the other politically incorrect isms’ are the quintessential expression of bigoted, sexist, racist, agist and politically incorrect/hierarchically structured and (using Riane Eisler’s term) ‘dominator’ society, what type of jokes would a fundamentally different society with a fundamentally different underlying worldview produce?  For example, what would humour be like in a society in which cultures of peace, compassion and non-violent communication are firmly embedded? 

I believe that in such a global peaceful, transcultural, “independent and sustainable but yet interconnected, interdependent and interrelated world” (Elise Boulding, 1990) communication would probably be based on the following principles: 

1. People own up their own ‘stuff’. There is an awareness of one’s own agenda, underlying worldview, assumptions, perceptions, fears, beliefs about self and others. 

2. There is an awareness and an understanding of what kind of actions may have certain (violence promoting) consequences. Thus, by choosing to engage in actions that may be offensive, you also accept the risk that such offence may cause you and ‘your own’ group distress further down the track, through the retaliatory actions of ‘the other’. 

3. There is an overall understanding that your speech can be part of the problem or part of the solution. That is, that your speech can be expression of verbal aggression or an expression of desire to negotiate and ‘work things out’. 

4. There is an acknowledging that absolute freedom does not exist, and that each right to __ has carries also the responsibility for __. 

5. Humour becomes a means of reducing inflated individual and collective Ego, thus you engage in laughing at self and your own group more often then in laughing at her/him/them. You also do the later, if you must, in a safe space – verbally, with ‘your own’, removed from the eyes and ears of her/him/them.

6. Reducing your own Ego also means that you don’t identify so much with certain dogmatic principles and rules that help define your own individual and collective identity. That is, you take offence against yourself and your own group as lightly as possible. Or, at the very least, you practice how not to exaggerate events out of proportion. You certainly don’t over-generalise – making ‘all of them’ accountable for the actions of some of their members. You don’t buy into the paranoid worldview in which ‘all of them’ are inherently against you and everything you stand for and hold dear. You become honest about what type of grievances you are really expressing, at any given moment. And, most importantly of all, you don’t respond to one type of (ie. epistemological, cultural) violence with even more intense one (ie. physical, direct violence). 

7. Humour becomes a means of destabilising centres of oppressive political, cultural, epistemological, economic and military power – and hopefully a means that can help create a world without institutionalised violence and social injustice. Apparently, the Muslim world is full of Mullah jokes, and as far as I know, portraying Mullahs is not seen as out of bounds by the majority of Muslims. Such a simple editorial intervention could have spared many grievances and the intense escalation of violence and still enable expression of the ‘freedom to speak’, to express true feelings. “A better education for a Danish cultural editor …, and the spiral of violence would not have been unleashed” (Galtung, 2006). 

8. There is a consultation with local groups, and various minorities (ethnic, religious, gender) in terms of the boundaries of free speech. Many Australian academics these days have come to accept research with Indigenous people as far superior than research about Indigenous people. Many projects do not take of the ground until local Indigenous communities are consulted. Certainly, Australian society is nowhere near a preferred vision wherein non-Indigenous and Indigenous people or ‘ethnic’ and mainstream Anglo-Celtic communities work in partnerships and wherein racism is the thing of the past. Still, such examples – relatively newly formed cultural ‘sensitivities’ show that there are other ways of doing things, there always are alternative ways of communicating non-violently. So instead of being “long on general principles [such as freedom of speech] and short on human sensitivity [not to insult and offend]” (Galtung, 2006) you do your best to learn from the other:

“Imagine you question the norm against the visual depiction of the Prophet. Something new stimulates curiosity, not animosity. So you ask a Muslim, tell me more, I want to know why. You learn. And understand that freedom of speech is not a license to insult.” (ibid.) 

9. You manage to differentiate between different humour styles, e.g. between a ‘Joy Master’, ‘Joke Maker’, ‘Fun Meister’ and ‘Life Mocker’ (Loomans and Kolberg, 1993. p. 15). While the Joy Master has mostly positive qualities, is inspiring, inclusive, warm hearted, innocent, humanising and healing (ibid.) Life Mocker has mostly negative qualities, and is cynical, sarcastic, exclusive, cold hearted, worldly and dehumanising (ibid.). The positive sides of a Joke Maker (e.g. wordplay, teaching stories, parody, instructive, insightful) and Fun Meister (slapstick, clowning, naive, imitative, entertaining) are to be balanced with their negative qualities (JM: insulting, biting, satiric, stereotyping, destructive; FM: ridiculing, dark humour, tragedy and suffering, hurtful, degrading) (ibid.). 

10. There is an awareness that ‘humour brings insight and tolerance’ while irony (as well as sarcasm, stereotyping, ridiculing, etc.) brings a ‘deep and less friendly understanding’ (Agnes Repplier, quoted in Loomans and Kolberg, p. 13). 

11.  Principles of non-violent communication are practiced in general, through the interrelation between empathic listening and honest expression, both inclusive of observations, awareness of feelings, and non-violent expression of needs and requests (The Center for Nonviolent Communication, 2006). 

12. There is an understanding of the fundamental difference between multicultural humour (e.g. Goodness Gracious Me series) and racist and orientalist bigotry and stereotyping that tries to pass as funny. 

13. Most importantly, non-violent humour creators and users consciously choose not to portray/see any form of violence as funny nor to use violence as a form of public mass entertainment. 

Whatever the societal principles, the main issue is what is the spirit behind humour? As argued by Roy:

“…for European Muslims, the affair is not so much a matter of what is permissible in Islam as it is about discrimination. Representing the prophet’s face, per se, antagonized them far less than his portrayal as a terrorist. …If the cartoons had portrayed the prophet doing good works, the proscription against representation would have been muted – if noted at all.” (ibid. p.16-17) 

So the important question is whether humour is used to put down others and get back at them, in one way or another, or to create new depths of mutual understanding and compassion? We are all in this – life, world – together and the emerging non-violent communication methods need to reflect that. Saying that something is ‘just a joke’ if it offends and hurts is no longer good enough, if it ever was.  

Our shared human condition, on the other hand, and the difficulties we all face as we go about our daily lives, provides us with endless material for laughing at all of us, at all of ours expense. Through humour conceived in such a way we could use it to ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’, as Monty Python’s ironic take on British culture and life in general reminds us. 

Thus, creatively, compassionately and honestly dealing with the current conflict over values, freedoms and humour at the global level has become the necessity of our times. It is only by these means that we could possibly hope to avoid a further escalation of violence and also to protect all our freedoms. Unfortunately, in this global drama of negotiating the funny and the permissible dozens of people have already been killed. And that – by any indicators and within any context – isn’t funny at all.

 

References: 

Adams, Phillip and Newell, Patrice (1995) The Penguin Book of Australian Jokes, Penguin (place missing).

Boulding, Elise (1990) Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an interdependent world, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, USA.

Eisler, Riane (1996) Creating Partnership Futures, Futures 28 (6-7) 563-566. Also Center for Partnership Studies, http://www.partnershipway.org/

Galtung, Johan (2006) The Host Country/Immigrant Relation: A Proposal For a Contract- With Some Implications for Denmark-Norway vs Islam, speech given at the Aula de Cultura, CAM, Benidorm 30 de enero de 2006 (in Spanish). English version received through email listserv of www.transcend.org.

Loomans, Diana and Kolberg, Karen (1993) The Laughing Classroom: Everyone’s Guide to Teaching with Humor and Play, H J Kramer, Tiburon, California, USA. 

Roy, Olivier (2006) Holy War, Newsweek, 13th February, 2006, pp. 16-17.

Said, Edward (1978) Orientalism, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London,UK 

Sydney Morning Herald, 5th February, 2006, http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/schoolchildren-cast-judgements-on-muslims/2006/02/05/1139074109950.html.

The Centre for Nonviolent Communication, http://www.cnvc.org/  

Wikipedia, online encyclopedia, 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoons

Zakaria, Fareed (2006) Islam and Power, Newsweek, 13th February, 2006, pp. 13-15.

 

Adapted from: Milojević, I. (2006) Reconciling Funny and Permissible: Can We Develop Non-violent Humour? Social Alternatives, 25(1), 67-70.

We Discovered You! Alternative Futures for Asia (2006)

Posted on by

Sohail Inayatullah
www.metafuture.org
Professor, Tamkang University, Taiwan, Adjunct Professor, University of the Sunshine Coast and associate, Queensland University of Technology

“The reported discovery of an accurate map of Asia by a 16th century Chinese explorer could create the context for Asia to transform its self-image, according to Professor Sohail Inayatullah of Tamkang University in Taipei and the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia., Speaking at a meeting of Bristol-Myers Squibb in Singapore(January 7th, 2006), Dr Inayatullah said that the discovery of the map could change the future for Asia.”

www.theage.com.au

ASIAN FUSION

Is a new Asia emerging? Growth rates are important but the alleged discovery of a map showing that Chinese explorer, Zheng He knew of the new world – indeed, had a decent map of the entire world – strengthens the confidence of Asia, creates the possibility of cultural transformation.

While the map may be a forgery, its impact on the emergence of an Asia that can say Yes! to itself is pivotal. “We discovered you,” is the new story. Add this new confidence to the emerging reality of China and India joining the East Asian economic miracle and suddenly the future can look quite different.

A new fusion Asia – traditional but far flatter than Confucian (or Hindu, Muslim, buddhist) hierarchy – may indeed be possible. This Asia would continue to learn from others, but instead of only copying, it would see that innovation is the path forward. South Korea has already begun to heavily invest in the creative industries – connectivity through the eyes of the artist not just the corporate executive. And with South Korea having quickly moved up the ladder to near the top in new patents – joining Japan and the USA – new futures are indeed possible.

DIVIDED ASIA

However, along with the bright future of Asia Fusion is another scenario. This is Divided Asia. This scenario imagines continued conflicts between the two Koreas, between China and Japan, China and Taiwan, India and Pakistan, to mention just a few fault lines. Add to that corruption and mindless bureaucracy, tempered with hundreds of years of feudalism, and any bright future for Asia seems impossible.

The past few years of crisis provides testimony to this. The financial crisis, SARS, HIV, the tsunami, extremist Islamic terrorism all point to deep systemic problems. These cannot be solved merely by more efficiency but must be addressed by changes in worldview. Surveillance helped stop the SARS epidemic but now it is bird flu. Farming practices, certain diets, men searching for exotic foods to enhance sexual potency – all need to change in Asia. The pathologies of tradition must be transformed.

And yet it is in tradition wherein lies the future of Asia.

Meditation, yoga, tai-chi, feng shui, jain paradoxical logic, future generations thinking (life for our children’s children) all are part of the solution to a sustainable and transformed planet. After all, Grameen Bank’s micro lending program was a dramatic innovation and yet at the root of it was a depth understanding of community, the local village economy, and Muhammad Yunus’ realization that the dignity of the poor and their desire for a better material life were both necessary factors for change.

USED AND DISCARDED FUTURE

The last fifty years, however, has not been the story of the village economy but of the city. Asia has purchased the used and often discarded future of the West. Bigger buildings, endless shopping malls, designer clothes and the attendant problems of pollution, congestion (billion dollar problems) still seem unconnected to many Asian city planners. But with more and more evidence showing that car exhaust, the effects of suburbanization are bad for your heart, for your breathing and for your immune system generally, something has to give. It is western cities that are now looking for ways out, for a return to the garden city – the urban village – even as Asian mayors battle it out for the world’s tallest building (K.L. to Taipei to Shanghai to Dubai – is this Hegel’s geist but returned as a demon?). Some mayors in the West are even asking the age old question of what would a spiritual city look like? How can urban spaces be linked to green spaces to create a feeling of well-being and even invite the presence of the transcendental? Seoul, for example, to bring back nature, has just ripped up a huge chunk of motorway to open up its main river that had been covered over 50 years ago

SNAKES AND LADDERS

But many Asian cities continue the rise. And yet, along with the rise is the fall. Perhaps it is snakes and ladders that is the more appropriate image of the future. Hard work, capital, savings have led to the rise, but since the problems of patriarchy, environment, feudalism have not been resolved, the snake is next – the slippery road back to poverty. After all, it is still men who run things, still the male gaze that dominates, the environment is not yet respected and it is the big man who demands respect.

Underneath all this is worldview – karma. The future understood is that which the astrologer sees not that which we create. It is fear of disaster and not the imagination of a new future that holds sway. And the leader uses this fear to ensure that innovation does not become epidemic.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

For Asia to transform – to avoid the problems of the endless rise, the second-hand future of the West; the grand divisions of politics and nations; and the fall of the snake- much needs to be changed. Here are some starting points.

1. Design cities that are green – that create community, that are soft on the earth, that recycle at every level (as per the work of Malaysian architect Ken Yeang) and even as they grow financially retain equity.
2. Move toward resource taxes in order to promote sustainability.
3. Transform bureaucracy from red tape to green tape – rules that help innovation –
Real innovation not just Poweroint presentations from representatives of the Ministry of Science and Technology (Asia has its own version of the Ministry of Funny Walks)
4. Move toward increasing cooperative enterprises of all sorts (academic coops, food coops, for example).
5. Globalizing but enhancing local and regional economies to protect local food, bio and cultural diversity.
6. Integrate consciousness technologies in education – meditation and yoga for primary and secondary schools, in government and certainly in business
7. Ensure that Asian leaders leave instead of staying way past their welcome – deep democracy, not just regular elections.
8. Heal the wounds of past genocides – thinking of desired future, not who was right or wrong – transcend peace solutions, as in South Africa. And, most importantly,
9. Create gender partnership – women and men working together.

If change can move in this direction then a new Asia is possible. If not, then it does not matter if Zheng He did discover the new world – he is not here now to create it.

But we are.

Seven Hypothesis and Doorways to a Knowledge Economy (2006)

Posted on by

By Sohail Inayatullah

SEVEN HYPOTHESIS AND DOORWAYS TO A KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Speech, July 11, 2006

Creating a Knowledge Economy for the Sunshine Coast

 

The image of the future and the learning community

The Sunshine coast currently stands between different images of the future. The first is the traditional, small scale, strong community, fishing village. Basically, this was small scale tourism resort with some of the economy corporatized (local plus national) This image and reality has quickly disappeared in the last few decades. And with population growth likely to continue, it is unlikely that the 1950s Australia can be created. Globalization, cybertechnologies, the genetics revolution, aging and other variables make this unlikely.

The other image is that of endless urban growth, short termism, no concern for the environment, generally becoming totally integrated into southeast queensland, with no real self-identity. Tourism is heavily corporatized here (international plus national with very little family scale ventures). This would mean a conflictual divided society along the lines of access to jobs, eduation, housing and wealth. One group would be the tourists and international investors and the other single parents trying to make a basic living. This appears likely unless government policy, citizen demands and an alternative shared image of the future develops.

There are other images as well. A transformational image, for example, becoming small scale electronically connected communities based on sustainable development and alternative lifestyles – a different type of tourism, a more localised economy.

Also, transformational would be the coast finding some role in the globalized economy, perhaps as a niche player in specific types of emerging tourism – its internationalization. Government working with small scale enterprises, creating some spaces so they are not swallowed by bigger players.

Part of the challenge then is for the Coast to envision the futures desired and develop broad agreement on it. While technologies, global economies and demographic changes push the future, there is a pull of the future – the vision that defines what can be. There is also the weight of the future – traditional practices that limit our capacity to adapt, to meet citizen,market, human needs.

Central to adaption is creating a learning community. This notion is important in that it provides a context for creating an alternative future. It is not a recipe. Recipes for economic success come and go. In the 1980s it was Japanese management. In the early 1990s it was export, export and export. By the late 1990s it switched to Silicon Valley and the notions of clusters of innovativeness – university plus research centers plus the government providing incentives plus a tolerant creative workforce. Success creates success as the image of what is possible changes – the image becomes realizable.

The issue of how to respond to the knowledge economy is not only the problem of the Coast. Taiwan has the same issue. It knows that while copying has served well in the move from agriculture (self-reliance) to manufacturing (low cost producer and exporter), it needs to shift to the new technologies. But how to do so? And which new technologies. The response from the Prime Minister has been the vision of Green Silicon Island ie sustainability plus high technology plus independence. Singapore has met the problem of innovation by legislating creativity – ie pushing art and poetry, buying university leaders, buying biotech industry, but it is still top down governance, soft fascism. The question is can Singapore make the transition from manufacturing and finance to an innovator in other areas, the emerging technologies.

The knowledge economy is in some ways not recent, that is, all surplus, profit is based on knowledge. It is more the percent engaged in agricultural/manufacturing and services has dramatically changed in the last century. Less and less people are needed to produce goods.

In the USA today, 16% of the workforce is engaged in manufacturing, 3% in agriculture and 87% in knowledge and services. Australia is quite similar.

Moreover the mode of producing is changing. What is means is putting knoware in everything, smartness in everything. This is crucial in that while productivity in agriculture and manufacturing has increased 50 fold, changes in knowledge are quite small in comparison.

Thus it also means changing organizational structures so that creativity and questioning can blossom – this is essentially the notion of learning communities. Learning communities can 1. Increase productivity. 2. Weave communities. 3. Create meaning and purpose, that is the framework of the triple bottom line of prosperity, people and environment, that is, what is the triple bottom line for – it is for the vision of the community. Brisbane has focused its entire framework around the vision of the liveable city and now Brisbane 2010. This of course now needs to be updated. We need a similar shared vision for the coast.

Thus, for the Coast, with agricultural in continued decline, manufacturing not likely, and tourism generally low paying, what are the alternatives? Can it produce knowledge on a global scale? Is so, what knowledge can be produced here better than elsewhere; who are the buyers, what is the competitive advantage? How can tourism be smarter? While all reasonable questions that must be answered, I see the “solution” elsewhere, in capacity building, in creating learning communities.

The context of this issue of the rise and fall of collectivities. In Toynbee’s model, it is the creative minority that meets the challenge. For the Coast, the challenge is multifold: 1. Economic transformation, moving away from the uni-dimensional tourism model and toward a knolwedge economy, learning model. 2. Cultural transformation, moving away from uni-culturalism to multiculturalsim and 3. Shared vision, finding shared direction when there are deep cleavages between shires and between interests groups. The learning community model is creating contexts for learning so that the creative minority is far less important, where knowledge is democratized.

However, the notion of a learning community, I hope does not become another recipe, but rather a vision that creates more visions as well as a context that builds the capacity to create better futures.

My analysis of the learning community is the following. The criteria is:

  • Flexibility
  1. Beyond industrial standardized model
  2. From production based to consumer based
  3. Mobility of mind and body
  4. Yoga as metaphor – stretching body and mind
  5. Willingness to engage in cultural stretch (still keep basic root structure), interpretive, not rigid
  • Responsiveness
  1. Needs of community
  2. Needs of market – local and global
  3. Needs of citizens
  4. More important than actual structure of governance ie democracy, aristocracy, dictatorship
  5. Speed, distinctive, courteous
  • Anticipatory
  1. Changing needs of citizen, community, market
  2. Novel planning methodologies – scenarios (divergence), emerging issues analysis (leading indicators of change, short and long term) and causal layered analysis – changes in litany, system, worldview and myth
  3. Using multiple media – web, tv, festivals – for deepening democracy.
  4. Iterative process of opinions plus expert knowledge leading to community guidance
  • Innovativeness
  1. Questioning the product
  2. Questioning past, present and future
  3. Creative destructive
  4. Action learning – learning from doing and reflecting
  5. Out of box – learning hats – white (logical positive); black (logical negative); green (grow the idea); blue (authority); red (passion); and orange (spiritual – synthesis) plus hat for specific function
  • Leadership plus experts plus participatory
  1. Experts bring critical edge, knowledge
  2. People bring community concerns, new ideas, solutions
  3. Inclusion of others – individuals then ways of knowing
  4. Leaders can give direction, vision, create context
    Beattie – smart state.
  • Learning plus healing
  1. Learning to learn
  2. Life long learning
  3. Learning communities
  4. Smartness in all futures
  5. Triple bottom line – people, planet and prosperity
  6. Healing self, other, environment and planet

Example, Biology professor complaining about lack of understanding of species categories versus pokemon.

  • Microvita
  1. Reality spiritual and material
  2. Reality living – symbiotic – community as living organism.
  3. Change through technology, society plus unconscious, collective vision
  4. Evolution can be ethical, with direction

People visit Gaudi in Barcelona because they can’t see it anywhere else? What do we have that is distinctive? How can we embed learning and healing as well as the other points in everything we do ?

And what is our vision for the future of the Sunshine Coast?

Which Identity for Australians? (2006)

Posted on by

By Sohail Inayatullah
Professor, Tamkang University, University of the Sunshine Coast and www.metafuture.org

What will happen to Australian identity? Can it transform, will new identities emerge,?

Some of Australia’s best and brightest convened at Melbourne Business School for a two day workshop (February 14-15) on the futures of Australian identity, as a lead up to the Australia Davos Future Summit.

Organized by Paul Hameister of the Future Summit, hosted by Dr. Robert Burke of Mt Eliza Centre for Executive Education and facilitated by Professor Sohail Inayatullah, the workshop explored and developed scenarios of the futures of Australian identity.

Globalisation, demographic changes, perceptions of loss of safety because of world terrorism, challenges to multiculturalism, demographic shifts, the possibility of pandemics, and dramatic new genomic, nanotechnology, energy, surveillance, brain/mind technologies all portend a disturbed world, a world in flux.

The meeting began with a showing of investigative comic Akmal Salleh’s (Compass, ABC TV) attempt to understand Australia Day. His conclusion was that Australia was in a process of becoming – tolerance, the laid back lifestyle, and different understandings of what it means to be Australian were the keys to identity sanity.

The workshop was strucured around Inayatullah’s methodology mapping the past (through the methodology of shared history); mapping the future (through the futures triangle); disturbing the future (through emerging issues analysis), deepening the future (through causal layered analysis) and transforming the future (through visioning and backcasting).

Three dimensions of the future provide the focus for the futures triangle, which in turn laid the groundwork for the scenarios. The three dimensions are the pull, or image of the future; the push of the present (quantitative drivers) and the weight of history, the barriers to change.

Lucky country:

The “Lucky Country” was the first image of identity that emerged. Identity here was based on the past – on the agricultural era. Resource riches have created this identity. Its driving metaphor? “She’ll be right.” However, participants questioned whether “She” would indeed be right. They felt that Australia was “selling the family silver”, and that, with policies that have not been gracious toward others (refugees, the weakest in society) participants felt that luck may be running out. Moreover this identity was overly passive, relying on what nature had given Australia, not what Australians could individually and collectively do to create a new future, a new identity.

Renewed past:

The second image was that of the “Renewed Past.” This was based on today’s leaders looking back at the 1950s as the ideal era. Anzac parades, identity linked to Mother England, strong male values were crucial here. Of course, as we continue to the future, the identity would be renewed through technology, but the white picket fence will remain. Nostalgia for the past, strong moral values and male leaders are pivotal to this future.

Participants did not think this uni-cultural image could lead Australia as women had too many barriers to achieve full equity in this future. More than renewing the past was required. This image was closer to the hearts of the veteran demographic groups and some baby boomers than these more youthful leaders.

Theme park:

The past is powerful resource. The third image was that of Australia theme parks. Identity here was disparate, fossilized yet respectful of multicultural Australia, but it is not dynamic. Each theme park, in this future, represents the many cultures that are Australia. Each theme park is used to bring in tourists from around the world. In this future, culture is the big seller, culture is the winner.

There was also discomfort in this “culture for sale future”. While media companies would do amazingly well in the postmodern future, participants were unsure if the image of the “Croc hunter” among other potentialities was the desired future.

“Lucky country,” “Renewed past” and “Theme park” were all past-based, focused on preserving rather than creating anew. They were also exclusive, attempting to protect in some way past traditions (resources, relationship to England, patriarchy and culture itself).

Contrasting futures were: “Innovative Oz,” “Glocal,” and “No identity.”

Innovative Oz:

“Innovative Oz” was certainly preferred. The image was that of the boxing kangaroo, having the capacity to meet any adversity. Indeed, it is adversity that brings out the best in Australians – they come together, they invent, they innovate, they create a new future. Global travel, early adoption of technology and social experimentation were all attributes of this future. Gender equity, embracing of the ways of knowing of other cultures are all attributes that help Australia stay innovative. Culture enhances science and technology, synergizing to create a unique country and people. Identity is both tough – the nerves of steel as exhibited by female and male sports heroes – and soft, open to others, desiring to learn from all so as to be best one can be.

Glocal:

But does this future go far enough, questioned some participants? They imagined an alternative future, that of the “Enlightened Australian” living in a Global and Local world. National identity was softer and duty to the planet and the locale stronger. The nation-state and states themselves were less important. Identity was Gaian, linked to the planet as whole and one’s own locale. The “cultural creatives” demographic group is the driver for this future. Sustainability, spiritual values, global governance were key values in this gentler future. Indigenous culture and spirituality were not external to identity but embraced at deep levels. Innovation emerges not just from science and technology but from ethics and integrity, from leadership doing the right thing (and thus keeping the luck-karma continuing).

But what would happen to those focused on the past, who need stability. How would they manage in this changing future? Would social cohesion be possible if localities began to use identity as a weapon against each other? Clearly, this future would only be possible if there were superordinate rules setting yup how localities organized in this global becoming.

No Aussie identity:

The question of all identities feeling at home in a rapidly changing world was even more salient in the last future – “No Aussie identity.” Because of economic globalization (movement of capital, goods, services and labour) national barriers break down. Identity can be with one’s transnational corporation or with one’s religion (the global ummah, for muslims, for example), with one’s website (as in Asiagroove.com) or with some other main identity.

This future, while embraced by a few participants, was disturbing for others. While they found the “glocal” self inspired and working for the collective, this new self was still considered selfish, putting self, company, religion, web community before nation. Those wedded to the past – lucky country and renewed past – would especially find this threatening. The sacrifices they had made in the last hundred years would amount to nothing, it was felt.

Beyond the scenarios

These images of the future were then tested using a range of different methods, including emerging issues analysis to discern how new technologies might change these futures.

The double variable scenario method was used to test if new futures would emerge. This method used inclusion and exclusion on one axis and stable and disturbed on the other axis. The images made a good fit with this analysis. Lucky country and renewed past were based on stable exclusionary worlds. Glocal was inclusionary and future oriented. Innovative Oz was based on future orientation but there would be some clear winners (the emerging knowledge economy and those who could adapt, whose identity was less rigid) and losers (those who yearned for the “gold old days.” The theme park future was past oriented and inclusionary, as all cultures were part of Australia, but in a ossified way. “No Australian identity” was extreme – inclusionary to those who could make the shift but excluding those who held on to the nation-state.

The preferred future

When participants voted on their preferred future, the loading was strong toward Innovative Oz and Glocal. Both involve the current identity to use the past – stories of meeting adversity as well as the values of respect for nature, respect for others – to create new futures. While the first creates the enlightened Australian, the second creates the enlightened global and local citizen.

Which future will become reality? Participants believed that any of these six futures was plausible. Which one becomes the actual reality is based on many factors, including which futures we decide to make come true. Next step is to road test these identities as scenarios, asking others what is missing, what is plausible.

But most important is what is preferred.

Which is your preferred future?

February 2006

Which Future for South-East Queensland? (2006)

Posted on by

Professor Sohail Inayatullah

October 2006

The SEQ 2026 plan intends to: “protect biodiversity, contain urban development, build and maintain community identity, make travel more efficient, and support a prosperous economy. At the same time, the Regional Plan proposes that communities be built and managed using the most up-to-date and effective measures to conserve water and energy and for the design and siting of buildings to take advantage of the subtropical climate.”[1]

This is certainly a step in the right direction. SEQ provides a vision, direction so as to deal with expected demographic change and the resultant problems and opportunities.

Reflecting on lost opportunties, John Minnery writes that in 1944,” planners proposed a one mile wide ‘green belt’ of rural land encircling Brisbane’s developed suburbs, together with future satellite towns linked by road. Supporters argued that cities were spreading ‘like spilled treacle, engulfing everything in its path’. Such treacle cities city covered good agricultural land. They led to the overloading of water and sewerage mains and to insurmountable traffic problems.”[2]

However, this proposal was not implemented.

Asks Minnery:

“But just think how different South East Queensland would look today of the idea had been implemented. Clear breaks in the continuous suburban landscape now stretching from Noosa to the Tweed and beyond Ipswich. Public effort put into towns beyond the green belt with a better distribution of jobs and the infrastructure to serve them. And no public concern about the looming sprawling ‘200 kilometre city’.”

SEQ 2026 has learned from this lesson in setting out a vision and new directions for the future.

But what might 2026 actually look like? While we cannot know the future, we can reduce uncertainty; we gain a better sense of the possibilities through scenarios.[3]

I offer four futures for the SEQ region.

SEQ STILL LIVABLE

SEQ 2026 goals achieved. It is 2026 and there is plenty of opportunity in SE Queensland. The population has dramatically increased but through good governance, community consultation and foresight, negative possibilities (crime, congestion, pollution) have been mitigated and positive possibilities (job growth, green belt protection, water and energy management, travel choices) enhanced. People still want to move to SEQ even with higher housing prices. A two class society has not resulted as government has intervened to deal with inequity. Green spaces are plenty and urban design is far more sensitive to local conditions.

A fair, green and healthy go is still possible. Queenslanders still look to government to solve their problems but they are less dependent on the State. They are also more globalized, looking to live, work, travel, learn from, import and export to the broader world. Using dramatic new technologies, Queenslanders are planning for 2046.

SEQ HOT AND PAVED

SEQ 2026 goals failed as growth was too dramatic. Looking back, the plan needed far more teeth. While it was an admirable effort to take power away from local shires and put the region first, that is not how things turned out. Market pressures kept housing prices going up (demand from other parts of Australia and overseas) continued. Developers gave lip service to green and social concerns. A two class society has started to emerge. Traffic problems did not decrease, rather, every effort to widen highways, in a matter of years, led to more congestion. The vicious cycle continued. SEQ is a long highway between Coolangatta and Noosa. Global warming has only made life worse – temperature continues to rise, water shortages increase. SEQ is full of hot cities – paved cities with higher than normal temperatures. Many have made money but the quality has life for others have gone down. Health indicators continue to worsen – citizens look to local government to solve problems. Local government looks to State government which looks to the Federal. The Federal seeks to stay in power. Capacity continues to shrink.

SEQ WIRED AND MISERABLE

The last twenty years have been a series of confrontations between local authorities and regional government; between developers and environmentalists; between individual freedom and security; between councilors and state governments; between young and old; between rural areas and the beach; and between new migrants (many environmental refugees) and old migrants. Endless sprawl, congested highways, gang warfare have made SEQ a miserable place to live in. There are many gated communities – high gate, big dog – that give some peace to the elderly. But outside these communities social tensions fester. Peace is also kept via surveillance – live Google – and tough regulation. Air has been digitalized and citizens are monitored in every possible way. Discipline is the buzz word – SEQ returns to the political climate of the 1980s. The attempts to plan for the future, while admirable, were met with resistance at every level. Local concerns took precedence over regional – and it is all a mess now. Technology and power is used to keep collective peace.

SEQ TRANSFORMED

The concern for the long term future was ignored by some but became the passion for many. The SEQ vision enhanced the capacity of shires all over Queensland to develop their own visions (Logan 2026, Gold Coast 2046, Maroochy 2020, Brisbane 2026, for example). Community capacity to innovate resulted. The cultural creatives – less than 20% of the population in the early 2000’s – has grown dramatically in the last twenty years. The values of sustainability, spirituality, innovation, global governance have become the official values. These values have been reinforced through systemic (legislation, city design, tax regimes) changes.

Instead of suburbs, work-home-community electronically linked hubs have grown. Working in these hubs has led to dramatic jumps in productivity (less time lost on the road, more control of one’s work life). Travel choices – walking, bikeways, car, and light rain – have increased. Organic gardens have sprouted everywhere. Smart green technologies exist all over Queensland. Indeed, not only has this transformed Queensland, but exports of these technologies are slowly but surely changing Asian cities. SEQ is known has not just the smart centre for Australia but also the shanti centre. Yoga, for example, a three billion dollar business in the USA 20 years ago, has now become a trillion dollar business and SEQ has done well from it. Healthy eating and living were once a dream but the obesity crisis of the first ten years of this century led to a dramatic turn around. Systems became smarter and individuals took personal responsibility for their health. The invention of the personal carbon credit system[4] also led to reconfiguration of energy use. SEQ is a world leader. There are still conflicts but neighborhood mediation centres (not to mention peer mediation in schools) are used to resolve many of them. While population has increased, energy consumption has maintained steady. Innovation continues to breed technological and social innovation. While there are many global changes, SEQ can meet them as citizens do not see themselves at the mercy of large institutions, their capacity to influence their lives continues to increase.

WHICH FUTURE?

Which of these futures is the plausible one? It is certainly too soon to tell. But decisive factors will be (1) A shared vision of the desired future. (2) Good governance through enhanced community consultation and anticipatory democracy. (3) Use of smart, social and sustainable technologies to solve problems and enhance community capacity). (4) Moving away from quick fixes to the deeper issues (for example, not just expanding highways but increasing travel choices; not just speeding up all processes but exploring the slow city; not just training more doctors but changing the hierarchical structure of modern medicine). (5) Ensuring performance indicators are linked to the direction SEQ seeks to move toward and (6) Creating transitional strategies and cultures to move from the industrial era to the digital/sustainable era.

Which future do you want for SEQ 2026?

[1] http://www.oum.qld.gov.au/?id=468

[2] Full article available from John Minnery j.minnery@uq.edu.au, University of Queensland.

[3] For additional scenarios, see the work of Phillip Daffara at www.futuresense.org.au. Also see Steve Gould – <steve.gould@optusnet.com.au> who focuses on: divided seq; developmentalist seq; outlier seq and green villages seq.

[4] First thought of by social planner and Brisbane resident Jennifer Bartlett in 2004.

Why City Futures? (2006)

Posted on by

Sohail Inayatullah

Professor, Tamkang University, Taiwan, Sunshine Coast Uni, Australia, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

CITIES AS AGENTS OF GLOBAL CHANGE

In 2005, the Mayor of Seattle stated that even though the Federal government did not sign the Kyoto Protocols, Seattle would do its best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The former Lord Mayor of Brisbane, at the onset of the Iraq war, raised the UN flag  above city hall. These two events should not be seen per se as challenging federal sovereignty but more of evoking the agency of the city.

Cities are beginning to imagine alternative futures for themselves, going beyond the tradition of only supplying roads, rates and rubbish. With many of them bursting with growing populations and with citizens feeling overwhelmed, even exhausted, by the roller coaster of globalization and associated systemic crisis (financial, health, natural), the local has become even more important.

In this context, cities have begun to plan their future. Often this is a shallow adventure of merely purchasing the used futures of other cities. For example, while many American and Australian cities have moved away from the “big city” model of Los Angelization (sprawl, size and money with associated problems of loss of place, crime and health) and toward creating urban , most Asian cities remain locked in the battle for the tallest building (see villages  http://www.apcsummit.org/history/content/?id=175).

In contrast is the emergence of  the healthy cities movement. Healthy city futures are predicated on  the physical determinants of health (the quality of water, air, efficient transport systems), the social determinants of health (social inclusion, walking areas, ie city design that enables individual and group health, and community making) and more radically, as I argue the spiritual determinants of health (issues of meaning, medical research on the impacts of meditation, diet on individual and collective health).

From the days of roads, rates and rubbish, city issues are now associated with the triple bottom line – prosperity, environmental sustainability and social justice – and now perhaps the quadruple bottom line, spirituality as the organizing and the depth factor.

EMERGING ISSUES

Is the spiritual city next? Perhaps, in the meantime the classical definitions of the city (city beautiful, city efficient, city radical) are being challenged by emerging issues. These issues include:

(1) Smart Growth, especially,  urban husbandry – creating civil spaces

(2) Transforming Transportation Planning, rethinking the role of the car in the city (car free cities and dual-model transportation systems) and rethinking the role of transport (from a Car to all to Mobility for all)

(3) The Smart City, wired city, moving to the intelligent city, even imagining the E-topian city.

(4) The Green City, moving from recycling to green architecture to deep sustainability (sustainability as the operating paradigm)

(5) The Community and Healthy City, moving from creating community through appropriate design to a community bill of rights to new indicators of economic development that are community matched. And:

(6) Globalization. This last issue is fraught with tension and diversity, between the grand super cities (in size, postmodern) and global-local variations.

MACROTRENDS

Taking these trends further, we can speculate on some possible macro trends of city futures?

The city defined by geography (by a river, for example) to city defined by temporality.  While cities have focused on land use policy (spatiality) the next wave is likely to be temporal policy. Cities are caught in, and part of, multiple temporalities – industrial 9/5 time; cyber 24/7 time, slow time and the slow city movement; and hyper time (the quickening of time). Developing temporal policy will be an important challenge as more and evidence comes out from the health costs of industrial 9/5 time (deadlines and heart attacks – http://www.ediets.com/news/article.cfm/cmi_990411) and postmodern 24/7 time (the frazzled family)

City as one space (vertical) to multiple space (flat) to desired space (vertical plus horizontal). Imagining and creating desired city futures is becoming a new, while not core, certainly an important activity (See the work of Steve Ames –www.communityvisioning.com/stevenamesbio/). Of course, there is resistance here, not from citizens but from local counselors. Staying within traditional notions of representative democracy, they question the role of citizens in visioning broader city futures. Is that not the role of the local counselor. More forward looking politicians, however, are likely to see this as a way of enhancing the efficacy of their role and the role of local government, not diminishing it. To do, the counselor will need to rethink their fundamental role as that merely of representing their constituents to that of leadership, brokering ideas and mediating disputing visions

The city as “neutral” arbiters of interests groups to city as ethical space. With triple bottom one, a long term orientation, cities more and more are challenged to do the right thing, to be central actors in creating and modeling the good society. They are no longer merely facilitating in a neutral manner various interests (developers, community groups), they have their own meta interest. See, for example, Galtung, Cities for people, cities for peace, cities for the future.http://www.transcend.org/t_database/articles.php?ida=138

The city as a place where public policy occurs to city as public policy

Cities, particularly, the postmodern city is now seen as policy, its actions (naming of streets, for example) iconic. Public policy is not a political process but a representational process – essentially this means that the city itself is a global brand, not only a place where people live. Economy policy is now moving to the notion of a dream economy. At the very least, creative policy is becoming a crucial dimension in being a global economic player.

  • The city as infrastructure – roads, water, bricks – to the city as living. The city is moving to biological notions of what it is, not merely industrial ones. This may lead to the  gaian city – sensing the needs of inhabitants (technology becoming invisible), that is, a convergence of smart technology with green values.
  • The city as essentially secular to the city as a spiritual node in planetary consciousness. This perhaps is the most challenging macrotrend. This is the notion that the city, and the thoughts of its inhabitants are becoming part of a noetic transformation of our collective consciousness.

CHANGING THE GLOBAL POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

Can we then imagine a world future where along with nations, corporations, nongovernmental organizations, cities will be full players. Are we entering a spiral turn with the return of the City-State (is Singapore a leading indicator). It is far from clear if this is the case, certainly as the nation-state loses its relative importance, other actors are moving in. Cities are crucial in this transformation of global space.

Along with global changes are local changes. Citizens are far more active. E-democracy, neighbourhood mediation centres, community visioning and even local community consultation are changing local politics.

From above and below, cities are influencing what is, and what can be.

Which Future for Libraries? (2006)

Posted on by

Based on a futures workshop of expert librarians and library stakeholders, four futures of the library and librarians are explored: “The Lean, Information Machine,” “Co-location for Community Capacity Building,” “Knowledge Navigator,” and “Dinosaurs of the Digital Knowledge Era.”

Sohail Inayatullah
Professor, Tamkang University and Adjunct Professor, University of the Sunshine Coast. S.inayatullah@qut.edu.au. www.metafuture.org

Will libraries becoming increasingly virtual, the librarian becoming a knowledge navigator? Or will libraries disappear as the world goes wifi – will Google become the future library? Or will place remain central, as libraries become anchor tenants in co-located in commercial and public transit-orientated developments? Or is social justice what libraries are really about – a place for empowering, for creating a better society, finding spaces for young and old, for books and digital media?

The library, while appearing to be stable has changed throughout history. It has moved from being elite based, for the few that could read, to being a public space, and funded by the public has well, instead of by wealthy benefactors. And while the advent of the printing press changed the nature of the library, moving it from the monastery and the painstaking efforts of monk scribes, the recent digitalization of the world is leading to even more dramatic transformations.

The library has entered a contested domain – its definition, its bundle of services are up for grabs – who defines it, who pays for it, what are its basic purposes. And with the onset of edu-tainment and as the peer-to-peer knowledge revolution, might libraries become places not just for receiving knowledge but for directly creating knowledge.

Other issues that challenge a stable future for libraries include:

• Local and state governments dramatically decreasing their funds for libraries – other financial models – user pays, McLibrary.

• Users changing from the young to the aged OR from the aged to the young.

• Libraries buildings as examples of “green” and even developing cradle to grave green technologies for books and for facilities design.

• The library as a place for escape from a chaotic world, eg the Slow Movement: slow time, slow learning – slow everything – as the world quickens and moves to hypertime and culture, libraries find niches by providing places of quietness and calm.

• The librarian becoming a digital avatar, interacting with users, learning about their changing needs, and even in the longer term, organizing our memories.

• The off-shore Call Centre Library.

• Death of the book – continuing emergence of new media formats.

The impact of these emerging issues point to libraries changing dramatically from today – particularly in the areas of funding and location; purpose and skill sets for librarians and core activities.

But would libraries be more digital or slow; for the young or the aged; in suburbs or co-located in denser cities? Which future?

SCENARIOS OF THE FUTURE

There are four plausible futures.

The first is the “Lean, Mean, Information Machine.” This future would arise from concern about the costs of buildings, space becoming too valuable and libraries moving down the list of core priorities for funding.

Libraries in this future would need to seek funding through philanthropy to supplement government funding. The choices would be: from the user, from community groups, from Federal and Global grants and from corporate sponsorship. With the expected rise in triple bottom line reporting, it was anticipated that corporate sponsorship may become more attractive as libraries would be an easy and safe way to show that they were good corporate citizens – helping young and old.

The role of some librarians would shift, becoming entrepreneurial, a broker of services and entities (community groups, corporations, city, state and federal authorities).

The second scenario is the opposite of this. Civilizing the world, civilizing ourselves is the foundational purpose of the library. No corporation should fund it, as over time market values would poison human values.

The purpose of the library is that of community builder – providing ideas to all, those who can and those who cannot afford. Books cannot be overlaid with digital sponsorship, purity must be kept.

However, the best way to serve as community builders is to go to the community. “Co-location for Community Capacity Building ” is the title of this scenario. Libraries move to areas of intersection – of young and old, poor and rich, information savvy and digitally challenged. Among possible areas could be transport hubs. Libraries could continue to develop as anchor tenants, co-existing with other government service providers, with coffee shops and commercial tenants. As passengers stepped out of light city rail carriages, they would enter the library. In front to them would be transparent glass, the lighting illuminating knowledge.

Libraries would have multiple shifting rooms, focused on the needs of different groups. Or libraries could segment, based on citizen travel patterns. Some libraries would be more classical – book focused, other edutainment, others as places for social community groups to meet …Or libraries could change during the day – shifting who they were from noon to three pm to evening time.

The librarian would need to be multi-skilled, understanding the diverse needs of different age groups, ethnicities, community groups – engagement with the community would be primary. The library in this future would model what it meant to be civilized: deep and diverse democracy!

In a third scenario, the library and the librarian becomes a “Knowledge Navigator”. Users would see and then create – use information to create new knowledge, new communities, learn and recreate. Libraries would be a hybrid of physical and virtual space with cutting edge technologies, cultural maps of the world, to help users develop their interests, find connection to each other and find their place in the changing digital world. The library would be an ‘experience’.

For those new to the digital world and for emerging technologies they would , it could train them, ensuring democratic and enabling access for all; for those adept, it would create games for them to learn, indeed, gaming may become a metaphor for the library. Users would find their knowledge treasures through clues left by the knowledge navigator or other users engaged in knowledge sharing and production – the division between the fun of electronic gaming and the seriousness of the library would breakdown. Public space would became an open and porous, local and global public space.

The last scenario, takes the knowledge navigator future but makes the tough observation – given the billions of dollars Google and other web engines have to play with, and given the skill sets of their employees and owners, what makes us think libraries can survive. Aren’t they the “Dinosaurs of the Digital Knowledge Era”. The globalization of the coffee shop eats up one market; digital search portals eat up another market, until through continuous dis-aggregation there is very little left. The future of the library is easy to predict – there won’t be any. Funding will move to other core areas for cities – traffic, water, dealing with global warming, competing for young people in an aging society; post-oil energy problems. Libraries will slip down the priority radar as they will not be seen as a response to these issues.

Many librarians as well are unable to meet the challenge of the skills shift. They are unable to be relevant with the new world dis-order. As the library monopoly dies, other competitors enter the fray and foundationally change the nature of the library. A few survive as some still want to see and touch books, but with the virtual book about to include physical senses, the writing is already on the virtual wall.

WHICH FUTURE?

Will one future emerge triumphant? Or will there be a mix and match? Which ever future results, for the librarian, this can be both a trying time to be working, or the best of all possible times, where new futures are emerging, and where she and he can weave the strands of alternatives and create a new future for and of libraries.

Disability Futures (2006)

Posted on by

Alternative Futures of Disabilities

Sohail Inayatullah

Professor, Graduate Institute of Futures Studies, Tamkang University; University of the Sunshine Coast and Transcend Peace University. www.metafuture.org. s.inayatullah@qut.edu.au. [1]

FUTURE AS SITE OF CHANGE

Why explore visions of disability when the problems of today are so pressing? First, the present is often politicized. It feels unchangeable. Attitudes and structures, paradigms and  policies, prevent us from changing today.[2]
Does this mean then that the future is more open, a table rasa, on which we can write freely?  Unfortunately, our futures are often colonized – they are filled with the thoughts of others, the dogmas of history.

They are colonized by others’ who have thought through the type of world they want, often through the use of instrumental rationality – reason for personal gain.
But the problem is not just out there. The future is colonized as well by our own internal images  – these are often unconscious –  ensuring that the futures we create are not ours.

FUTURE AS GOAL

As well, when we focus on the futures we want, we use the intent of only our intellect. Thus, the minute we decide we want a particular future – a mission, a goal, or an objective,  strangely enough “the universe” conspires to create resistance, or so it seems. This may be so that we become spiritually stronger. Or it may be that our future creating process is fragmented. We create it through a particular self, and we disown, we distance our other selves.[3] These disowned selves, or futures, then bite back. These are our fears, our cynicisms, but as well our hopes and cravings.

An integrated vision, or indeed as the Minister suggests, our visions, must include these disowned aspects. What parts of your life have you disowned to get where you are today? By owning these, our futures have a greater chance of success. They have the as Wayne Dyer writes, the power of intent with surrender.[4] And as P.R. Sarkar has argued, they are in the Rasa, or the flow.[5]

To get here, we thus have to own or disowned selves. This means using multiple ways of knowing the world – head, heart, spirit, action.

STEPS IN CREATING PREFERRED FUTURES

Other steps are also necessary.

1. The systems we live in also influence the future. It is not a static world or even just a dynamic world but a complex adaptive world, meaning, as we change, as we set goals, the world out there also changes – it adapts with us, changes with us. Forecasts and goals are often not realized because the planning environment is assumed to be stable, fixed, oblivious to our selves. But we are part of this system, as we change, so does the system.

Thus along with having visions is the need for adaptability, the capacity to change.

2. As just mentioned, we need to own our collective selves and disowned selves.

What aspects of disability at the collective level, in qld, have been disowned, positive and negative. Eg, Brisbane as it became international disowned its historical self, in positive form, its little country town self, and in negative form, its deep north image, as the site of brutal racism towards all those who did not fit conventional definitions of  citizenship.

To own and disown is necessary, but another step is necessary.

3. This is decolonizing the future. Challenging the current trajectory, unless that is our preferred.

This is not an easy task. Doing so requires some steps.

  1. Map our history – what are the patterns, what are isolated events
  2. Identity current problems.
  3. Identify future issues, develop consequences of this issues
  4. Develop scenarios or alternative futures  – the plausible futures.
  5. Develop visions and vision ideas of disability.

We have trained facilitators who will aid in this task. I do not see this as a light task, it will be fraught with problems – anger at the historical system, frustration with the current system, and bleakness about the future.

It is crucial that all this must be named.

However, once named, if we want a different future, certain steps are required. Merely to go back in the past and historical wrongs, will ultimately not help us create desired futures. Where do we want to go?

  1. Conceptualize the possibility of a new future.
  2. Create visions of new futures – what will they look like?
  3. Steps to create them – Not a strategic plan, those fail daily, but little steps, we can take, with others, to begin the process of creating different futures.

To move to the future, some conceptual history is required.

CONCEPTUAL HISTORY

The first approach (and the dominant) to understand disability futures is:

1. Karma plus Spencer plus Darwin – ksd – kiss of death[6]

  • Survival of the fittest
  • Past karma determines current life
  • Triage – there are real limits – population, earth’s resources – finite world
  • Efficient but inhumane. Blame other.

But it is not others per se but the deeper system and of course the worldview – the myth of survival of the fittest.
Professor Chris Newell describes it as disability apartheid:[7]
“For those of us who are wheelchair users just hailing a taxi from the street is an unrealised dream. Accessible taxis need to be ordered well in advance- and so often we wait, sometimes for more than an hour, for the special taxi which does not come, as many other regular taxis pass by.

Airline travel reinforces narrow norms and is a fresh opportunity for stigma as we have to be specially boarded first, and taken off last. In my case I need a medical certificate to say I am allowed to fly.

If I ever start to believe I might be “Dr Newell the valued frequent flyer” I quickly learn in travelling that I am “The Wheelchair in 3C” and the dangerous security risk with an oxygen cylinder.

One factor is certainly cost –this is a real tension and will most likely become more so in the future.

But perhaps deeper than cost it is this way because disabilities are the disowned self of  Darwinian man – disability means vulnerability – the other tribe and the post-eden nasty world, where life is brutish and short.

Can we recover this disowned self and rethink evolution – ultimately this must the purpose of any meeting on the future. To heal the traumas of not just this life but our millions of years of evolution, and make the transition to a wise, reflective, integrative planetary species.

And did Darwin really say all this?
Writes David Loye of the Darwin Project.[8]

Of the so-called Darwinian idea that the primary drivers for our species are selfishness and the evolutionary dictate of “survival of the fittest” — which for more than a century has been used to legitimize the most predatory and globally devastating policies and actions for regressive individuals, governments, and corporations — he writes:

“But the more important elements for us are love, and the distinct emotion of sympathy.”

Darwin wrote only twice of “survival of the fittest,” but 95 times of love.

Of selfishness — which he called “a base principle” accounting for “the low morality of savages” —he wrote only 12 times, but 92 times of moral sensitivity.

Of competition he wrote 9 times, but of cooperation — which in his time they called mutuality and mutual aid —24 times.

2. Bacon, Descartes and science-military-industrial complex[9]

Science has been reductionist, giving humanity great gains. However, it is focused on the problems of the dominant and the powerful. Indeed without intervention of the Gates Foundation, third world diseases would get little funding (malaria, river blindness). We need to remember that by some estimates 50-95% of all scientists are employed in the military or with military associated projects. Focused on martial heroism, science has disowned its concern and care for the most vulnerable.

Is there a Kiss of life? Perhaps

3. Judeo-Christian

  • Good Samaritan – care of the other. Heal wound.
  • Dependency though – Victimhood becomes reified.

3a. Marxist-Islamic

  • Power – mostly class power, wealth.
  • Justice is the issue. Advocacy, power battles. To the trenches.
  • The other is seen as enemy, the inner enemy is ignored. Our disowned selves return to haunt.

4. Foucault and social constructivism[10]

  • Not the disabled as a category but how the real disables us. As a verb, a practice.
  • Society creates conditions in which we are abled and empowered and disabled and disempowered.
  • Reality  is diverse, bell curve of what it means to be human
  • How we define what is the true, the good and the beautiful is most important.

5. Sarkar, the Dalai Lama and the perennial wisdom

For Sarkar[11], humanity is a caravan, we need movement, progress toward a goal, but all must be on board. Ultimately we are not physical or mental selves but spiritual selves – beyond all gender, race – spiritual humanism is our shining light, our dharma.

6. Capra, Swimme and Ravetz[12]

The New science – what has emerged from Foucault, Sarkar and others is a new post-normal science, which while remaining tied to the empirical brings in culture, paradigm, and asks questions from the views of the other (feminist science, vedic/tantric science)  – it uses tradition, not ridicules,  it asks different questions, searches for new areas (not genetics but bio-mimicry)  – it is the new integrative science, uniting knowledge.

7. Venter, Drexler and Kurzweil – the three wise men from Silicone land[13]

Anything is technologically possible. We can manipulate our gene structures to eliminate that which causes pain. Disability, as conventionally defined, but also death or at least death before 120. Nano-machines will help us walk. Stem cells will help us see.

Our abilities will be amplified.

The real world will increasingly be virtual – our brains will be alight with experience. History is the problem, this is the great transition.

In the meantime, mobile phones, smart buildings, all will make life easier for persons with visual disability.

IMAGES PULLING AS FORWARD

What then are the futures of disability in qld? You are the experts but let me do my best here.
First, what are the main images pulling us forward.
These are:

1. Techno-utopianism  – the problem of disability has a technological solution – enhanced application of science and technology are called for – ending disability

2. Caring Society – disability remains a problem but moral authority leads to the disability having an improved quality of life – better people are called for – ending disability discrimination

3. System Change – disability has defined remains located in the person, instead of the broader field or system that constructs who, how, and the where of the disabled. –  a new society is called for – a society that enables potentials

4. Governmentalism – disability is like any other problem that faces government. They need to solve it now – more fair and efficient application of governance is called for – institutionalizing disability

5. Disability as the other – social apartheid – hidden throughout society.

EMERGING ISSUES

What are some emerging issues in the next 5-15 years that may change the map of disability.  Emerging issues analysis patterns issues along an s-curve, searching for high impact low probability issues. Some emerging issues develop into trends (that have quantitative data) and some trends eventually become full blown problems.[14]

Many of these changes are technological.

1. Robot guide dogs in shopping centres for persons with sensor disability.[15]

2. Robot arms – 50,000 $usa per arm [16]

3. Smart toilet and other smart diagnostic devices – immediate relay of health information to health provider.

4. Ultimately, this is about the health-avatar – always on, always sending information on relevant data.

5. Smart house – one step further then the avatar. The entire house is embedded with technology, indeed, technology can not even be seen.

6. Stem cell research – reversing all sorts of sensory, physical and even neurological disabilities.

7. Stem cell research, fixing what has gone genetically astray – replacing organs and tissues, even reversing parts of aging.

8. Robots as carers

Pushing the technological dimension further, James Dator writes:[17]

What is considered a desirable ability is in part environmentally and largely culturally defined. Many of the physical and mental characteristics of the past that made people “disabled” in a hunting and gathering or agricultural–or even an industrial society (the celebrated “able- bodied laborer”)–don’t matter much any more, and will mean less and less in the future, not only for the technological reasons you mention (we can develop technologies that will enable the blind  to “see” and the halt to “walk”), but mainly because people may not need to “see” in certain environments and certainly will not need to walk–indeed, having legs is a handicap in weightless environments.

I write this midway to Vancouver where the International Space University is having its annual summer session this year, and even the most “able bodied” earthling is helpless in the gravity-free vacuum of space, and functional in the lesser gravities and atmospheres of the Moon and Mars only with bulky prosthetic assistance.

But if space examples are exotic and irrelevant, then think of the fact that women ([constructed as] the “weaker sex” in a society that requires a lot of hard physical labor) are quite competitive, and perhaps advantaged in a sedentary information society and even more so in the coming dream society.

Beyond that, I use discussions of “disabilities” to problematize the entire notion of “normal” and “abnormal”, which is just a different focus on the point above, plus the fact  that cultures of robots, cyborgs and Genetically modified humans suggests that entirely new notions of “normality” and “disability” are emerging, and should be encouraged to emerge now.

Thus, from technological change we get social and definitional change as well. We create technology which redefines us.

Some emerging issues are social

1. Change in transport and community making patterns. Not just designing quicker and better highways, but redesigning cities for communities. Going far beyond equal access to creating the sustainable and fair city. Green belts, real travel choices. Based on current research on correlation between city design and obesity.[18]

2. Government that takes seriously the social challenges – breakdown of family, future under-population – and funds carers, pre-school, kindergarden. This goes beyond “have three kids, two for the family and one for the State” by actually creating a society that supports the family, and thus the community.

3. Foresight in government – a state that is smart and long term oriented, not always focused on surviving current problems. Run by professional not by the pathology of a immediacy based media and a fearful politician.

4. No funding for disability as the enormous problems created by system breakdown (global warming, aging, lack of infrastructure, pollution, violence, depression) overwhelm.

5. Failed cities – Globalization without social justice leads to OECD following the route of Asian cities – a permanent underclass, fortress within and without:  we all give up.

Some are spiritual

1. A new emerging image of what it means to be human – [19]

  • Beyond national identity to planetary identity
  • Beyond material identity (I shop therefore I am, I am the sum total of my possessions) to spiritual identity (I am a self in the process of learning, self is spirit having a material experience).
  • Beyond industrial identity (the pyramid is the most efficient structure, ie power above and a line of authority to the minions below) to networked identity (I am who I connect with, the system is  a sphere, learning, evolving, and at times being a pyramid, but just in times or crisis)
  • Beyond patriarchy (men and how men define the world – speed, self, wealth, ego-power) to gender partnership (difference is biologically real but cooperative learning and women’s way of knowing honored – take back the night for example)

2. Meditation and IQ – enhancing IQ, productivity, learning[20]

3. The Triple and quadruple bottom line really applied to all organizations.[21]

4. Transpersonal medicine – healing at a distance, and certainly healing through touch, music leading to integrative medicine – inner and outer dimensions.

SCENARIOS

What are some of the scenarios – I will use the simple structure of Business as Usual; Worst Case, Outlier and Best Case.

Business as usual – This is the governmentalised plus institutionalized-caring society …disabled are cared for because that is what government is supposed to do. Caring but that is part of religious history. Funding remains marginal, social changes are all fought for. As well, as societal problems increase – global warming, aging, terrorism, depression – the disabled become less crucial for the agenda. Once voice among many vying for governmental attention.

Worst Case – Surveillance society. Advances in technology coupled with continued rise of the religious right with neo-liberal economic rationalism lead to a society where whatever that does not fit is: 1. Fixed. 2. Is watched, monitored. This starts out benign but eventually as in totalitarian nations everywhere, the spirit dies as no innovation is possible and deep dependency results. It is not Big Brother, but the Nanny State.

Outlier – Technology enabled augmentation of mind and body. A disabled person holds the 100 meter record and traditional definition abled and disabled Olympics disappear. Dramatic success in reversing numerous genetic based diseases through stem cell and nano-medicine. Far less concern to social reasons for disadvantage, and far less concern on intellectual impairment. Perhaps the Jetsons but without the chirpy-ness.

Best Case – I would prefer  a society guided by deep sustainability – focused on not just solving problems but understanding that all problems have systemic reasons for them, and underneath they have a worldview context and a deep myth or stories that gives it foundational legitimacy.

I see this scenario as having four levels – each level is crucial, most of us live at level 1 and 2 –the problem at the systemic, but I see four levels to reality – the visible, the systemic, the worldview and the myth – all are real, and the best policymaking touches all four levels. Only staying at one level leads to failure, for example, in Queensland to  blame Dr. Patel, instead of the system, or search out systemic inefficiencies instead of seeing that the problem is rooted in our modern medical system, or do all three but forget out the myth of the heroic doctor, or scientist, or the myth of immortality – the fear of death.

1. Solutions emerge a the level of the person. Inner change, finding one’s power, searching for assistance, partnership with others – essentially self-discovery.

2. Solutions emerge as systems are changed – technology, building design, city design, transportation systems are designed for community making and efficiency. They are tailored for persons and the communities they exist in. Technology is seen implicated in worldview and not neutral. Technology is used to help but is not seen as the holy grail … it can help communicate, not heal the soul.

3. Deeper change is Worldview shift– moving from industrialism to spiritual sustainability (but leaving out the population discourse that there are too many people – is not people but our footprints that need to be reduced). It is certainly not darwinian; the evolutionary challenge is one of cooperation within the self and within the social systems. It is not so much karma focused by dharma focused – our collective purpose.

4. Deepest is telling the new story – Myth – the story of the caravan, of the extended family. This is a different story than that of triage or survival of the fittest. Evolution was random; human dignity can make it purposeful.

Deep sustainability also requires the critical edge of transformation. Not everything needs to be sustained. Much needs to be transformed.

THE PROCESS

As you go through the next two days, start to think about what is your preferred image of the future; what are the weights holding you back from creating this future; who are your allies in creating this future?

What emerging issue might disturb your map of the future?

And what are the scenarios you see ahead.

Finally, what are your visions and vision ideas that you believe can transform the past, present and future.

[1] I would like to thank David Turnbull for extensive comments on earlier drafts of this presentation and Christopher Newell for his futures work in the field (See Gerard Goggin and Christopher Newell,”When Tomorrow Finally Comes: Imagining Disability” Australian Journal of Communication. Also see their new book, Disability in Australia: Exposing a Social Apartheid. Sydney, UNSW Press, 2004.

[2] For more on this, see Sohail Inayatullah, Questioning the Future. Tamsui, Tamkang University Press, 2005.

[3] See the brilliant work of Hal and Sidra Stone. http://www.delos-inc.com/

[4] http://www.drwaynedyer.com/home/index.cfm

[5] See Sohail Inayatullah, Understanding Sarkar. Leiden, Brill, 2002.

[6] For more on this, see Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah, Macrohistory and Macrohistorians. Westport, Praeger, 1997. See, in particular, chapters on Spengler.

[8] http://www.thedarwinproject.com/

[9] See the works of Zia Sardar for a critique of science.

[10] See Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, New York, Vintage Books, 1973; Also see: Michael Shapiro, Reading the Postmodern Polity: Political Theory as Textual Practice, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1992

[11] See Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Fitzgerald, eds, Transcending Boundaries, Maleny, QLD, Gurukula, 1999.

[12] http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC12/Swimme.htm, www.fritjofcapra.net and www.metafuture.org/bio.htm for more on postnormal science. Also, see Sohail Inayatullah, ed., The CLA Reader. Tamsui, Tamkang University Press, 2004.

[13] www.kurzweilai.net. www.venterinstitute.org.www.foresight.org

[14] Graham Molitor, The Power to Change the World: The Art of Forecasting. Potomac, MD, Public Policy Forecasting, 2003.

[15] http://robots.net/article/1407.html

[16] sg.news.yahoo.com/050705/1/3tayk.html

[17] Personal email, July 21, 2005

[18] http://www.texastransit.org/archives/000614.html. Reid Ewing et al, “Relationship between urban sprawl and physical activity, obesity and morbidity,” The Science of Health Promotion (September/October, Vol 18, No. 1), 2003.

[19] See, for example, www.ru.org. See work by P.R. Sarkar, Duane Elgin, Riane Eisler. The classic remains: O.W. Markley and Willis Harman, eds, The Changing Images of Man. Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1982.

[20] See www.tm.org

[21] Sohail Inayatullah, “Spirituality and the future bottom line?,” Futures (Vol. 27, 2005), 573-579.

Educational Futures: Dominant and Contesting Visions (Book Info, 2005)

Posted on by

Authored by Ivana Milojević
Routledge, London and New York
August 2005

“There is no doubt that this is a valuable contribution to knowledge. It is substantive, original, painstakingly researched and wide-ranging book that covers a number of very broad areas. It is, however, well structured and a pleasure to read. It is clearly and convincingly written, with an enviable lightness of touch. The ideas it contains should be considered in depth and then acted upon by educators across the board.”
Professor Richard Slaughter, Director of Foresight International, Brisbane and former World Futures Studies Federation President.

“It is original and groundbreaking [and] will certainly be of interest to academics, students and the general reader. Not only does Milojevic make a significant contribution to the fields of education and futures studies, she also does feminist and postcolonial theory a great service by exposing the western and male bias reflected in our dominant visions of the future. Most importantly, she shifts from critique to construct by charting those horizons that come into view as we begin to consider the possibility of gender equitable and culturally inclusive futures.”
Dr Julie Matthews, The University of the Sunshine Coast.

“This is a most interesting and multifaceted investigation into the key discourses, hegemonic and alternative, that underpin a range of possible futures for education. It makes highly original contribution to the field of futures studies and to knowledge in a number of allied fields.”
Professor  David Hicks, Centre for Global and Futures Education, Bath Spa University, UK.

EDUCATIONAL FUTURES provides an overview and analysis of current tensions, debates and key issues within OECD nations, particularly Australia, the USA, Canada, Aotearoa/New Zealand and the UK, with regard to where education is and should be going. Using a broad historical analysis, this book investigates ideas and vision about the future that are increasingly evoked to support arguments about the imminent demise of the dominant ‘modern’ educational model.

The text focuses on neither prediction nor prescription; rather the goal is an analysis of the ways in which the notion of the future circulates in contemporary discourse. Five specific discourses are explored:

1 Globalization
2 New information and communications technologies
3 Feminist
4 Indigenous
5 Spiritual

The book demonstrates the connections between particular approaches to time, visions of the future, and educational visions and practices. The author asserts that every approach to educational change is inherently based on an underlying image of the future.

This fascinating exploration of futures education will be of interest to academics and students of Futures Education, members of futures organizations and academics interested in educational change throughout the world.
~
Table of Contents
List of figures ix
List of tables x
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction 1 (14)

PART I Historical futures discourses in education 15 (46)
1. Future, time and education: contexts and connections 17 (13)
2. Using time and the future to colonize and educate the other 30 (15)
3. Turn of the spiral: alternative histories 45 (16)

PART II Destabilizing dominant narratives 61 (66)
4. The colonization of the future 63 (10)
5. Visions I: globalization 73 (15)
6. Visions II: cyberia; the information age 88 (20)
7. Contextualizing global dreams and nightmares 108 (19)

PART III Searching for social and educational alternatives 127 (92)
8. Visions III: feminist alternatives 131 (29)
9. Visions IV: indigenous alternatives 160 (28)
10. Visions V: spiritual alternatives 188 (31)
PART IV Towards educational eutopias and heterotopias 219 (39)
11. Postmodern visions, costs and multi-temporalities 221 (24)
12. Epistemic change and the transformation of education 245 (13)
Notes 258 (5)
Bibliography 263 (26)
Index 289

Purchase via Routledge or Amazon

Spirituality as the Fourth Bottom Line (2005)

Posted on by

Sohail Inayatullah, Professor, Tamkang University, Sunshine Coast University, Queensland University of Technology – www.metafuture.org

Invariably, at the end of a lecture on paradigm change, new visions or community capacity, there is always some one in the audience who asks: but what is the bottom line? This is especially so at technical universities and business organizations.

The “bottom line” question asserts that argument, visions and language display are all interesting but ultimately unimportant. What is important is what can be counted, that which leads to economic wealth: measurability and profit.  Related is the challenge to the capacity to transform, that is the world is considered a tough place and only ego-maximizing real politics (money and territory) is possible – everything else is illusion.

For any speaker focused on gender, community, health, cultural or spiritual issues suddenly there is very little to say, since, well, it is not about the bottom line but everything else. The audience walks away save for a few who are thrilled and desire to save the world, either through community building, learning meditation, or recycling bottles.

Times have changed

In Australia, Westpac Bank recently issued an expanded approach to traditional accountability standards. They now measure their progress through three criteria: prosperity, social justice and environment. Their recent corporate report (www.westpac.com.au) includes claims of ethical business, transparency, human rights, environmental concerns, caring for employees, and more.  Suddenly the bottom line is not so simple – it has become the triple bottom line. Organizations have their own interests – profit, survival – but as well they live in a local and global community, and are increasingly being forced to become accountable to them.  These demands by shareholder groups and social movements have led to the need for social justice and social measures. And organizations and communities live with and in a natural world, and believe that they have a responsibility toward planetary sustainability – environment is no longer something out there for others to solve, an economic externality, rather, it has become defining for the success of an organization.

The triple bottom line movement has taken off. Indeed, 45% of the world’s top companies publish triple bottom line reports.[i]  This change has not come about because of the graciousness of organizations but because of a variety of other reasons. First, changing values among stakeholders (and, indeed, the notion that multiple stakeholders define the organization, not just stockholders, but employees, managers, the larger community, and the environment itself!). Employees desire an organization that they can be proud of. Along with profit, organizations are expected to consider human rights, evaluate their impact on the environment, and on future generations. Jennifer Johnston of Bristol-Myers Squibb writes: “Work is such a large part of life that employees increasingly want to work for organizations which reflect their values, and for us, it’s also an issue of attracting and retaining talent.”[ii]

Second, CEOs are part of this value shift.  This has partly come about because of internal contradictions – heart attacks, cancer and other lifestyle diseases – and because of looking outside their windows and seeing angry protestors, often their children. It has also come out because of external contradictions, stock prices falling because of investor campaigns. As well, ethical investments instruments, as with Calvert, championed by alternative economist, Hazel Henderson, have done well. Moreover, as John Renesch argues, leaders and organizations themselves are becoming more conscious – self-aware and reflective (www.renesch.com). We are moving from the command-control ego-driven organization to the learning organization to a learning and healing organization. Each step involves seeing the organization less in mechanical terms and more in gaian living terms. The key organizational asset becomes its human assets, its collective memory and its shared vision.

Even nations are following suite. Bhutan has developed a gross happiness index. While OECD nations have not gone this far, the UK is taking happiness seriously. “In the UK, the Cabinet Office has held a string of seminars on life satisfaction … [publishing] a paper recommending policies that might increase the nation’s happiness (wwww.number-10.gov.uk/su/ls/paper.pdf). These include quality of life indicators when making decisions about health and education, and finding an alternative to gross domestic product as a measure of how well the country is doing – one that reflects happiness as well as welfare, education and human rights.”[iii] There are even journals (www.kluweronline.com/issn/1389-4978) and professors of happiness.

Happiness thus becomes an inner measure of quality of life, moving away from the quantity of things. As nations move to postmodern economies, other issues are becoming more important, among them is the spiritual. It is ceasing to be associated with mediums or with feudal religions, but about life meaning, and about ananda, or the bliss beyond pleasure and pain.

But where there may be a subtle shift toward the spiritual, can it become the 4th bottom line? We certainly don’t see stakeholders holding long meditations outside of corporate offices and government buildings? And writes Johnston, “Corporations are already challenged trying to incorporate social indicators.”[iv] Certainly, more measurement burdens should not be the purpose of a fourth bottom line. It must be deeper than that.

By spiritual we mean four interrelated factors.1. A relationship with the transcendent, generally seen as both immanent and transcendental. This relationship is focused on trust, surrender and for Sufis, submission. 2. A practice, either regular meditation or some type of prayer (but not prayer where the goal is to ask for particular products or for the train to come quicker). 3. A physical practice to transform or harmonize the body – yoga, tai chi, chi kung, and other similar practices. 4. Social – a relationship with the community, global, or local, a caring for others.[v] This differs from a debate on whose God, or who is true and who is false, to an epistemology of depth and shallow with openness and inclusion toward others.

Thus, there are two apparently external factors – the transcendental and the social (but of course, the transcendent and social are both within) and two internal factors – mind and body (of course, external as well and interdependent).

Are there any indicators that spirituality can become a bottom line? There are two immediate issues. First, can the immeasurable be measured? I remember well the words of spiritual master, P.R. Sarkar on the nature of the transcendent – it cannot be expressed in language[vi] – that is, it cannot be measured. There are thus some clear risks here. By measuring we enter tricky ground. We know all attempts to place the transcendent in history have led to disasters, every collectivity that desires empire evokes God, claiming that “He” has bestowed “His” grace on them. Languaging the Transcendent more often than not leads to genderizing, and thus immediately disenfranchises half the world’s population. Along with the problem of patriarchy, comes the problem of caste/class, elite groups claiming they can best interpret the transcendental. The transcendent becomes a weapon, linguistic, political, economic; it becomes a source of power and territory, to control.

And yet, this is the nature of our world. All concepts can be utilized as such, especially, profound ones. The key, as Ashis Nandy[vii] points out, is that there be escape ways from our visions – that contradictions are built into all of our measures and that we need competing views of the spiritual, lest it become official.

Taking a layered view might thus be the most appropriate way to consider measuring the immeasurable. Using the metaphor of the iceberg of spirituality, the tip of the iceberg of could be measurable, as that is the most visible. A bit deeper are the social dimensions of the spiritual – community caring, even group meditations, shared experiences. – the system of spirituality. This too can be evidenced. Deeper is the worldview of spirituality – ethics, ecology, devotion, multiple paths, transcendence – and deepest is the mythic level, the mystical alchemy of the self. As we go deeper, measurement becomes more problematic, and the deepest is of course impossible to measure.

Is there any evidence that spirituality as an issue is gaining in interest? There appears to be. As anecdotal personal experience, workshop after workshop (in Croatia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, Germany, Taiwan, New Zealand, Hawaii, for example) the spiritual future comes out as desirable.[viii] It is generally constructed as having the following characteristics. 1. Individual spirituality. 2. Gender partnership or cooperation. 3. Strong ecological communities. 4. Technology embedded in society but not as the driver. 5. Economic alternatives to capitalism. 6. Global governance.

Of course, other futures also emerge, particularly that of societal collapse and that of “global tech” – a digitalized, geneticized, abundant and globally governed world.

Interestingly, the spiritual (gaian) vision of the future confirms the qualitative and quantitative research work of Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson. They document a new phenomena, the rise of the cultural creatives.  This new group of people challenge the modernist interpretation of the world (nation-state centric, technology and progress will solve the day, environment is important but security more so) and the traditional view of the world (strong patriarchy, strong religion, and strong culture, agriculture based and derived). Ray and Anderson go so far as to say that up to 25% of those in OECD nations now subscribe to the spiritual/eco/gender partnership/global governance/alternative to capitalism position (www.culturalcreatives.org). However, they clearly state that cultural creatives do not associate themselves a a political or social movement. Indeed, they represent a paradigm change, a change in values.

It is this change in values that Oliver Markley, Willis Harmon and Duane Elgin and others have been spearheading (www.owmarkley.org). They have argued that we are in between images. The traditional image of “man” as economic worker (the modernist image) has reached a point of fatigue, materialism is being questioned. Internal contradictions (breakdown of family, life style diseases) and external contradictions (biodiversity loss, global warming) and systemic contradictions (global poverty) lead to the conclusion that the system cannot maintain its legitimacy. The problem, especially for the rich nations, has become a hunger for meaning and a desire for the experience of bliss.

There is data that confirms that materialism does not lead to happiness. “One study, by Tim Kasser of Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, found that young adults who focus on money, image and fame tend to be more depressed, have less enthusiasm for life and suffer more physical symptoms such as headaches and sore throats than others (The High Price of Materialism, MIT Press, 2002).”[ix] Indeed, Kasser believes that advertising, central to the desire machine, should be considered a form of pollution, and be taxed or advertisers should be forced to include warning messages that materialism can damage one’s health.

Spirituality, while enhancing, economic productivity, social connectivity, inner and outer health, should not be confused with economic materialism or indeed any type of materialism (even the spiritual variety, that is, collecting gurus, mantras, or using the spiritual to accumulate ego).

Spirituality and educational-life transformation

However, the emerging image of cultural creatives may not have enough staying power as it is largely associated with the baby boomer generation.[x] While the  spiritual is linked to health, it is yet to be linked to economic prosperity/justice and social inclusion. Spiritual practices often lead to an escape from the material world. Moreover, the languaging of the spiritual remains nationalistic or groupist, and not neo-humanistic (ie outside of the dogma of class, varna, nation and gender)

But as Sarkar has argued, a new theory of economy would make the spiritual central (www.anandamarga.org). This is partly evidenced by reports from the TM organization (www.tm.org), which documents hundreds of scientific studies claiming increased IQ, productivity and even increased community peace. But for Sarkar, spiritual practices lead to clarity. It is this clarity, argues Ivana Milojevic,[xi] which can enhance productivity. Most of our time is spent uncertain of our mission, uncertain as to how to do what we need to do. Spiritual practices allow clarity of intent (and a slowing of time) thus enhancing productivity. Sarkar’s model of political-economy, PROUT, is based on this – increasingly using intellectual and spiritual resources for the good of all. Of course, along with the progressive use of resources is a clear ceiling and floor of wealth – a progressively linked top and bottom.

However, educator Marcus Bussey (www.metafuture.org) argues that the pedagogy of meditation must be stage-like. Schools clearly should not push spirituality for productivity purposes. Primary, is the creation of a more balanced, integrated and holistic individual and community. Children have dreamlike phases in their development and these should be supported, not quickly framed in bottom-line language. Of course, as they move to adulthood, then work practices and outcomes should benefit from regular spiritual practices and approaches. One measure or approach cannot be the same for all.

Part of the challenge in the future is to transform our template of our life itself. Currently it is: birth, student, work, retirement and death. In the Indian system, it is student, householder, service to society and then monk. In a spiritual model, spirituality would travel through all these stages. As well, “studenthood” would never terminate but rather continue one’s entire life – true life long learning.  In addition, the worker phase would be forever, transformed to mission, doing what is most important, and into life long earning. Service to society as well would be daily, finding some way, every day, to contribute to others. Thus, seeing spirituality as the fourth bottom line means transforming the foundational template we have of our lifecycle. This is especially crucial as the aging of society changes our historically stable age pyramid.

Health changes

The rise of the spiritual paradigm comes as well from the health field. This is partly as the contradictions of modern man are in the health area – civilizational diseases are rampant, and not just from lifestyle but from structure. A recent study reports that city design as in suburbanization is directly related to obesity, and thus cancer/heart disease rates.[xii] Thus the paradigm of modernity – the big city outlook, faster – becomes the site of weakness, and transformation.

As a sign of public acceptance, the August 4, 2003 issue of Time Magazine is titled “The Science of Meditation.” “Meditation is being recommended by more and more physicians as a way to prevent, slow or at least control the pain of chronic diseases”[xiii]

An article in the Medical Journal of Australia finds that over 80% of general practitioners in Victoria have referred patients to alternative therapies, 34% are trained in meditation, 23% acupuncture and 20% herbal medicine. Of particular interest is that nearly all GPs agreed that the federal government should fund/subsidize acupuncture, 91% believe hypnosis should be, and 77% believe meditation should be government funded, and  93% believe that meditation should be part of the undergraduate core medical curriculum[xiv] Doctors, of course, only accept practices of which there is an evidence-base. And meditation continues to build an impressive evidence base. A recent study, reports Time magazine, shows that “women who meditate and use guided imagery have higher levels of the immune cells known to combat tumors in the breast”[xv] Even near American president, Al Gore meditates. So, does the evidence stick at the “bottom” of society, with meditation leading to decreased recidivism among prisoners

Grand Patterns

For those who study macrohistory, the grand patterns of change, this is not surprising. Modernity has brought the nation-state, stunning technology, material progress but the pendulum has shifted so far toward sensate civilization that it would be surprising if the spiritual as a foundational civilizational perspective did not return. In this sense, spirituality as fourth bottom line should not be seen as selling to global corporatopia but in fact ensuring that the pendulum does not take us back to medieval times but spirals forward. This means keeping the scientific, inclusionary, mystical parts of spirituality but not acceding to the dogmatic, the sexist, the feudal dimensions. That is, all traditions grow up in certain historical conditions, once history changes, there is no need to keep the trappings, the message remains important but there is no need to retreat to a cave.

It is also not surprising that it is gender that defines cultural creatives. Modernity has been defined by male values as were earlier eras, there is likely gender dialectic at work. Patriarchy has reached its limits. It is often those outside the current system who are the torch bearers for the new image of the future. In this case, gender is crucial. Of course, the system remains patriarchy laden. Individuals may change but the system, for example, city design, remains faulty.

However, the triple bottom line, and spirituality as the fourth, may be a way to start to change the system so that it is spiritual-friendly, instead of ridiculing and marginalizing it. This could be the very simple use of Feng Shui to a rethinking of shopping to suburban planning. And, individuals want this change. Philip Daffara in his research on the future of the Sunshine Coast reports that over 30% desire a Gaian coast – a living coast where technology and spirit are embedded in the design and policies of the area. Others preferred the triple bottom line sustainability model and the linked villages model. Only a few percent still desire business as usual.[xvi]

The evidence does point to a desire for a spiritual future, throughout the world. Indeed, sociologist Riaz Hussain writes that this complicated matters for Al-Quaeda. They become even more radicalized as the Islamic world is in the process of a religious revival.[xvii] However, religiousity is not necessarily spirituality. They overlap. But one is exclusive, text-based only and generally closed to other systems and worldviews. The spiritual is not linked to race or nation. However, it is certainly the deeper part of every religion.

For spirituality to become part of the global solution it will have to become transmodern, moving through modernity, not rejecting the science and technology revolution and the Enlightenment, nor acceding to postmodernity (where all values and perspectives are relativised) or the premodern (where feudal relations are supreme).

Measures

But for spirituality to become associated with the quadruple bottom line, the bottom line will be finding measures. Measuring the immeasurable will not be an easy task.

We need to ensure that measures match the four dimensions – transcendental, mind practice, body practice, and relationship, the neo-humanistic dimension of inclusion, an expanded sense of identity.

Measurements as well would need to be layered, touching on the easiest and obvious – the ice berg metaphor – physical practices (% in a locale engaged in regular meditation or disciplined prayer) to systemic measurements (city design) to worldview ones (neo-humanism as demonstrated in educational textbooks). Of course, this is for spirituality generally, for organizations, we would need measures that showed the movement from the command-control model to the learning organization model, to a vision of a living, learning and healing, conscious organization.

What are some potential indicators (explored further by Marcus Bussey in this issue). There are positive indicators such as well-being, happiness (qualitative measures) and negative ones (far easier to collect). Death by lifestyle diseases to measure worldview and system contradictions. Suicide indicators to measure societal failure.  Hate crime indicators and bullying in schools and organizations that help us understand levels of inclusion. Cooperative growth, looking at economic partnership, at new models of economy. Cigarette consumption. Treatment of animals (wider ethics).These are just a few. This is not an easy process at any level. For example, some believe that enhanced spirituality in itself can lead to reduction in automobile fatalities ( http://www.tm.org/charts/chart_48.html) However, I would argue that it is not driver education per se but changing the nature of transportation. However, I am sure those making the meditation = decrease in car accidents would argue that there is less road rage, more clarity, less drunken driving.

One way to move toward indicators is to ask foundational questions of society or organization. These would include: 1. is the organization/society neo-humanistic (that is, expanding identities beyond nation-state, race, religion and even humanism)? 2. Is there a link between the highest and lowest income, that is, are they progressively related, as the top goes up, does the bottom go up as well. 3. Is the prosperity ratio rational, especially in terms of purchasing capacity for the bottom? 4. Does gender, social and environmental inclusion go beyond representation (number of women or minorities on a leadership board) to include ways of knowing (construction time, significance, learning, for example)? 5. does the leadership of the organization demonstrate through example the spiritual principle (and the other three bottom lines)?

Finally, there is an additional challenge. In spiritual life there can be dark nights of the soul, where one wrestles with one’s own contradictions – it is this that cannot be measured, nor can the experience of Ananda. However, after the experience of bliss, there is the issue of translating, of creating a better world.

Even with a world engulfed by weapons sales, by killing, even in a world of rampant materialism, of feeling less, of unhappiness, even in communities beset by trauma, what is clear is that the spiritual is becoming part of a new world paradigm of what is real, what is important. What is needed is a debate on indicators that can evaluate this new paradigm in process.

[i] Lachlan Colquhoun, “Corporate Social Responsibility,” Silverkris, August 2003, 57.

[ii] Ibid, 57.

[iii] Michael Bond, “The pursuit of happiness,” New Scientist (4 october 2003), 40.

[iv] Email, October 3, 2003.

[v] Riane Eisler argues in The Power of Partnership that this caring for others is central to creating a partnership spirituality – with nature, society, family, and self. “Partnership spirituality is both transcendent and immanent. It informs our day-to-day lives with caring and empathy. It provides ethical and moral standards for partnership relations as alternatives to both lack of ethical standards and the misuse of “morality” to justify oppression and violence.” Eisler, The Power of Partnership, Novato, New World Library, 2003, 185.

[vi] Sohail Inayatullah, Situating Sarkar. Maleny, Gurukul, 1999 and Understanding Sarkar. Leiden, Brill, 2002.

[vii] Ashis Nandy, Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias. Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1987.

[viii] For more on this, see reports and articles at www.metafuture.org and www.ru.org

[ix] Michael Bond, “The pursuit of happiness,” 43.

[x] And the research is far from established!

[xi] Personal Comments, August 2003

[xii] Reid Ewing et al, “Relationship between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity and Morbidity,” The Science of Health Promotion, Vol, 18, No. 1, 2003.

[xiii] Joel Stein, “Just say Om, Time, 4 August 2003, 51.

[xiv] Marie V. Pirotta, March M Cohen, Vicki Kotsirilos and Stephen J Farish, Complementary therapies: have they become accepted in general practice? MJA 2000; 172: 105-109.

[xv] Op cit, Time, 55.

[xvi] Sohail Inayatullah, Scanning for City Futures. Brisbane, Brisbane City Council, 2002.

[xvii] See Hasan’s Faithlines: Muslim Conceptions of Islam and Society. Oxford University Press – forthcoming.