We Are All One: Rediscovering Our Connection To Nature and Ourselves

On my journey to discover my calling and to change the world, I’ve realized that oftentimes I can’t explain why I feel so compelled to work for change. If someone inquires, I usually tell them I have a deep sense of empathy for the downcast and the oppressed, probably instilled in me by my lifelong Christian faith and my Jesuit education infused with social justice. As I’ve grown more familiar with the environmental movement in recent months, I think I’ve found a way to articulate my motivation more clearly by describing how I achieve fulfillment and wellbeing versus how society tells me I can achieve wellbeing. In the deepest fibers of my being, I believe that my wellbeing is tied to the wellbeing of not only my friends and family, but of everyone on the planet, as well as the planet itself. I feel connected to everyone, intimately related to every animal, and inextricably linked to nature itself. When a forest is clear-cut, when a species goes extinct, or when my actions (including my purchases) result in the harm or exploitation of a fellow human being, I feel like I am in a way inflicting self-harm and committing spiritual suicide.

Unfortunately, the modern world that surrounds me tells me that I am crazy for feeling this way. It labels people like me “eco-freaks,” “hippies,” and “social justice warriors,” all things which are seen as moderately derogatory. Instead of telling me everything is interconnected, modern society tells me that I am separate from every other human being, and completely separate from nature. It tells me the Earth is full of resources that I ought to harness and bend to my will, not gifts and miracles that I ought to revere as sacred. It tells me that I must compete with other people in order to earn money, gain power, or achieve status. And it tells me that only by acting out of self-interest can I protect myself from being deceived, conned, and taken advantage of. Everything society tells me hinges on my willingness to accept that I am an individual, and that self-interest and competition are the name of the game. Anyone who believes or acts differently is merely kidding themselves.

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It hasn’t always been like this. In fact, for most of human history humanity recognized its deep connection to ourselves and the natural world around us. In many traditional cultures, concepts of a deep spiritual connection between humans and a deep bond with the wider world are commonplace. As Thomas Berry describes in his book “The Dream of the Earth,” “Our relationships with the earth [must] involve something more than pragmatic use, academic understanding, or aesthetic appreciation. A truly human intimacy with the earth and with the entire natural world is needed…. Such intimacy with the universe we find with the Omaha Indians. When a child is born, the Omaha declare its newborn presence to the entire universe. First they address the sun, the moon, the stars, and every being that moves in the heavens, declaring: ‘In your midst has come a new life. Consent ye, we implore! Make its path smooth, that it may reach the brow if the first hill.’ Then to the atmospheric world, to the winds, clouds, rain, mist, and all that moves in the air. Then to the hills, valleys, rivers, lakes, trees, and grasses. Finally, ‘Ye birds, great and small, that fly through the air. Ye animals, great and small, that dwell in the forest. Ye insects that creep among the grasses and burrow in the ground, I beg ye all to hear me. Consent ye, we implore! Make its path smooth. Then shall it travel beyond the four hills.’” (p 13-14)

Another beautiful passage from Berry’s book explains that “There is need for a great courtesy toward the earth. Such courtesy we might learn from the Iroquois. Their thanksgiving ritual is one of the most superb ceremonies that humans have ever known. Too long to present in its entirety, it does have a refrain that is relevant here: ‘We return thanks’ – first to our mother, the earth, which sustains us, then on to the rivers and streams, to the herbs, to the corn and beans and squashes, to bushes and trees, to the wind, to the moon and stars, to the sun, and finally to the Great Spirit who directs all things. To experience the universe with such sensitivity and such gratitude! These are primary experiences of an awakening human consciousness. “ (p 14)

All across Sub-Saharan Africa, the concept that human beings are all family and that we share a deep spiritual bond with one another type is referred to as Ubuntu.  As one of my favorite professors at Gonzaga, Fr. Patrick Baraza, puts it, the concept of Ubuntu can be explained by the phrase “I am because we are,” or “A person is a person through other people.” Ubuntu is the very essence of collaboration and cooperation, and the very opposite of competition. It is the fundamental recognition of the duty and responsibility each person has to assure that the people around them are taken care of and respected. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes in his book “No Future Without Forgiveness,” “Ubuntu… speaks of the very essence of being human…. A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are.”

The belief that the wellbeing of all living things are connected is shared by the cultural philosophies of the Omaha, the Iroquois, and traditional African communities across the continent. These philosophies resonate with our most authentic self, beneath the layers of cultural conditioning that we have been subjected to. Those of us who feel estranged from nature and each other in this modern world yearn for this cultural philosophy to permeate our everyday lives.

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How did we stray away from these ancient concepts of interconnectedness and oneness with nature? Is there any hope of overcoming the self-interest omnipresent in modern society and return to a more communal notion of human existence and oneness with the earth?

To answer these questions, I find it necessary to understand the origins of self-interest and estrangement from nature, specifically in the historical roots of American capitalism and consumerism. When Adam Smith published his book The Wealth of Nations in 1776, he explained that individuals  pursuing their own self-interest in a capitalist society unconsciously serve the benefit of society as a whole. Self-interested producers, he argued, will make the things that people will pay a premium to obtain, thus guaranteeing them a hefty profit for every item sold. As a result, society benefits because the unmet needs of consumers are met by the self-interested producers. When this theory is played out in real life, however, there is one  major problem: although the needs of individuals are generally met, producers become greedy and seek out ways to obtain more  money from consumers. This can include colluding with competitors or creating monopolies to drive up the prices of goods artificially and earn more profit for themselves. By the late 1800s, American society found itself being run by industrialists amassing huge fortunes through monopolistic or flat-out unethical business practices, such as John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil), Andrew Carnegie (Carnegie Steel), J.P. Morgan (banking), Leland Stanford (railroads), and Henry Ford (cars). Historians would later call this period the “Robber Barron Age.”

At the turn of the 19oos, powerful industrialists and  big business owners started looking for ways to increase consumers demand for products themselves. Business owners had created the infrastructure to produce massive amounts of products, but there was no way of guaranteeing there would be enough customers to buy them… unless they took drastic measures to create demand where there otherwise wouldn’t be. In a 1927 article in the Harvard Business Review, the banker Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers described the situation by saying that “We must shift America from a needs, to a desires culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”

America was turned from a needs to a desires culture by Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who developed the field of public relations in the 1920s to create public desire for specific products. Bernays had previously served on the Committee on Public Information during World War I, which had been in charge of creating propaganda support the war effort. When Bernays attended the Paris Peace Conference with President Woodrow Wilson in 1919, he was shocked to see how effective their message had been: the crowds that greeted him and the President showered them with adulation and hailed them as heroes. Upon his return to the US, he set out to make his fortune by implementing this same technique for manipulating public perception in the corporate world, mainly by using his uncle’s study of psychoanalysis to pair products with people’s deep, unmet desire for power, acceptance, beauty, and so on. By 1927, public relations had become deeply engrained in the business world, so much so that one journalist wrote “A change has come over our democracy, it is called consumptionism. The American citizens first importance to his country is now no longer that of citizen, but that of consumer.”

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The role of the individual and the ideology of big business was repressed for much of the period between the 1930s-1960s, due in part to business’ role in precipitating the Great Depression.  However, big business and self-interest began to re-emerge in the 1970s. Why then? Several right wing policy think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute, actively shifting the public discourse away from the necessity of government and towards the possibilities deregulated businesses could provide for personal wealth generation and short term economic growth. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher rose to power in the 1980s, relying heavily on reports issued by these right-wing think tanks as well as the free-market ideologies developed by economists Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman. They ushered in an era of small government, deregulation, and privatization that allowed big businesses and multinational corporations (MNCs) to thrive, a philosophical movement referred to as “neoliberalism.” Communities driven by powerful communal philosophies such as the Omaha, the Iroquois, and traditional African communities are seen as threats to the neoliberal paradigm, and as such they are pressured to comply with the dominant ideology rather than express their own. 

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So, is there any hope of restructuring society around a fundamental principle of human interconnectedness and oneness with the earth? Yes! It starts by choosing to actively oppose society by changing our personal behavior, beginning with adjusting what we buy, how much we buy, and what we talk about with those close to us. It involves taking part in social action and joining interest groups opposing the destruction of nature, the extinction of species, and the harm or exploitation of fellow human beings. It means making space for indigenous communities to speak truth and wisdom into our broken society. And it means being unafraid to confront the fact that we need to open ourselves up to each other, to collaborate and love each other and grieve over the self-inflicted harm being done to us by our society.

Conventional wisdom tells us that we are foolish if we believe that cooperation is fruitful, that we only make ourselves vulnerable to pain and loss. However, our guttural instinct tells us something different. It tells us that the world is interconnected, and that our perceived individuality is an illusion make popular by our culture. It tells us that the only way to truly harm ourselves and our planet is to refuse to cooperate, and instead simply go about pursuing our own self-interest. And if we really listen closely, it tells us that we cannot be truly human unless we work to heal our broken relationships with each other, wildlife, and our planet. We all have to choose whether or not to heed this voice. What will you choose?

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Thanks for visiting aarondanowski.com! Leave you comments below, and be sure to stay up to date on my travels by clicking on the “Following” button on the right hand side of your page!

If you would like to contact me directly, please do so via email: adanowski@zagmail.gonzaga.edu

For more on the history of PR and consumerism in the US and the UK, watch the BBC documentary series “The Century of the Self”, by Adam Curtis

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 Posted on July 24, 2016 by

 Economics, Latest Posts, Social Change, Student Discernment

     

On The Frontlines of the Climate Justice Movement: Breaking Free From Fossil Fuels

Over the last two weeks, the world witnessed the largest coordinated act of civil disobedience against the fossil fuel industry in history. Over 30,000 people across six different continents took part in the “Break Free” movement, which is calling for “the rapid, just transition from the fossil fuel economy of the past to the 100% renewable and clean energy future that climate justice demands.” This movement manifested itself through acts of civil disobedience and mass protests at twenty epicenters around the world. For example, over 2000 protesters in Newcastle, Australia shut down the  world’s largest coal port on May 8th:

In Germany, 3000 people from all over Europe shut down the Vattenfall coal mine in Lusatia over three days of action May 13th-15th:

On May 4th, 10,000 people marched in Batangas City in the Philippines demanding the cancellation of plans to build a 600 megawatt coal plant in the area. Thousands protested against fracking in the state of Parana, Brazil on May 9th, and other “Break Free” actions took place across Nigeria, South Africa, Indonesia, Turkey, and the US.

Via:breakfree2016.org

Via: breakfree2016.org

 

Via: breakfree2016.org

I was lucky enough to participate in this historic movement right by travelling up to Anacortes, Washington from May 13th-15th to join hundreds of activists from across the region to protest outside the Shell and Tesoro oil refineries in Anacortes. These two refineries represent the largest source of carbon emissions in the region, and combined they supply 47% of the fuel used in the Pacific Northwest. Hundreds of us participated in an Indigenous Day of Action, marching three miles calling for a just transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, as well as an increased ability for Native Americans to preserve their heritage and practice their traditional way of life. The land the refineries are built on belongs to the Samamish people, and powerful community symbols such as the clams and crabs that live in the area have become too toxic to eat, thanks to the pollution emitted by the refineries 24 hours  day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The march was intended to be a show of solidarity for the indigenous communities  that are struggling to have their rights respected by profit-hungry companies like Shell and Tesoro.

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Several dozen protesters were arrested at a separate event on Sunday, when they blockaded the railroad tracks that oil trains use to reach the refinery, but I decided not to participate in that. Nonetheless, I felt privileged for having had the chance to participate in this event, and for being surrounded by hundreds of passionate, dedicated climate activists, young and old. 

As news of other Break Free events worldwide trickled into the group, and as the activities wrapped up on Sunday after the police crackdown on the railroad blockade, I was reminded that we are all engaged in a common struggle. The issues the climate justice movement in the US are fighting against are the same ones that groups are facing worldwide. Corporate power and capitalist profit-seeking is hurting indigenous, marginalized communities in Cameroon, India, Washington State, and beyond. Extractive industries such as coal, oil, and gas are creating harmful amounts of pollution in North Dakota and Pennsylvania, just the same as they are in Nigeria, Australia, and Indonesia. And ultimate, the biggest takeaway from the weekend was just how much we have to learn from indigenous communities who have successfully lived  in harmony with nature for millenia. I wrote the following in my journal Saturday night:

“The indigenous flute player at dinner tonight told a story about his grandmother, when his mom was little, going down to the river before her kids took a bath, placing her hands in the current, and praying the following prayer: ‘O sacred water, we have not come to desecrate you. We ask you to give us your strength and to keep us well and strong. We honor you.’… Imagine how different our world would be if we approached the mundane activities in our lives with such reverence, intentionality, and recognition of the inherent value of nature. This is the complete antithesis of using seven million gallons of water to frack an oil well in North Dakota, transporting it to Oklahoma, pumping it into underground storage tanks, and coping with the multitude of earthquakes that is the result… Lord help us, we know not what we do.”

Ultimately, the only way to address the issue of climate justice is to humble ourselves and learn from the wisdom of those we have exploited for so long: indigenous people and women. If we are able to do that, we can create a transnational global people’s movement that can save our planet from the extractivist, dominator complex our society has embraced since the Age of Exploration 400 years ago.

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There’s just one big problem impeding us from reaching this global consensus: While the issue of global warming and climate justice is seen as a very serious issue in some places, especially by indigenous communities and citizens in the Global South, it is still seen as a fringe issue here in the US and in the Global North. The North-South divide on this issue is painted quite clearly in the Pew Research Center’s 2015 Global Attitudes survey, which asked 45,435 people across 40 countries to rate their level of  concern about the personal toll climate change would have on them. The average level concern was found to be much greater in developing countries than in industrial, developed countries:

Concern about Personal Toll of Climate Change Greatest in Latin America

Why such a big difference? Part of the difference may boil down to the fact that people only consider the direct impact of climate change on them, rather than the indirect impact it may have. This means places where a greater percentage of their population works in agriculture, such as Brazil (15.7%), Peru (25.8%), Kenya (75%), and Uganda (82%) are more likely to consider themselves at greater risk of being directly affected by changing weather patterns. Conversely, people living in more service-based economies where less people work in agriculture are less likely to be directly affected by weather pattern changes. This includes places like the US (0.7%), the United Kingdom (1.3%), and Australia (3.6%) (Percentages from the CIA World Factbook).

Ultimately, however, citizens in service-based economies ought to be just as concerned as people in agriculture-based economies, since the indirect impacts of climate change on their lives promise to be incredibly severe. For one, people in service based economies buy food that is grown internationally and imported. In addition, much of the agriculture in service-based economies is highly industrialized, which means it relies more heavily on fossil fuels and chemical fertilizers than less industrialized, subsistence farming in the Global South. This means that, as the world warms up and as countries begin to take action to decrease their carbon emissions, developed countries will be required to rethink the way they approach agriculture, which will drastically affect all citizens living in these countries.

Ultimately, I think most people in developed countries are in denial. If the climate is indeed warming, and if human beings are deemed to be the main culprit, then a person in the US has more to lose than a subsistence farmer in rural Uganda or Peru. Energy- and carbon-intensive lifestyles will quickly become impossible to maintain if serious efforts are taken to mitigate climate change and transition away from fossil fuels. People will be forced to live in smaller houses that use less energy, or in more concentrated urban apartments that require less travel to get places. Public transit will need to replace automobile culture, energy usage could be rationed, especially during peak consumption times in the evenings and during the summer (air conditioning) months. Local, seasonal foods would be available at local supermarkets/ farmers markets, not the panacea of exotic fruits and vegetables available in Safeway and Walmart year round. In addition, meat consumption would need to drop considerably in order to maximize the productivity of farmland for human consumption. All of these changes in lifestyle provide plenty of reasons for the average US citizen to want to believe climate change isn’t real, that it isn’t a serious problem, or at least that it won’t affect them personally.

I believe it’s only a matter of time before everyone starts waking up to the reality that climate change will affect them personally. But it’s up to the climate justice movement and those who are already being affected, like the Indigenous communities in Anacortes and around the world, to make their voices heard and sound the alarm.

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A few days before I went up to Anacortes, I stumbled across a very insightful documentary called “Do The Math“, sponsored by the environmental group 350.org. In it, 350’s founder and one of the leading environmentalists in the world, Bill McKibben, says the following:

“Like most people, I’m not an activist by nature. There’s really not that many people whose greatest desire is to go out and fight the system … I’ve been forced to go against my sense of who I [am] … It seems like it’s what’s required now and I think it’s required in an awful lot of us; do things that are a little hard for us, make a little noise, be a little uncomfortable. Push other people to be a little uncomfortable. This is really the fight of our time.”

That passage really spoke to me. I’ve gradually come to the realization that, like it or not, my travels and experiences abroad have opened my eyes to economic, social, and environmental injustices that are committed every day in the name of preserving the status quo. And more and more, my conscience is compelling me to go against what I am comfortable doing and stand up to actively counter these injustices. I’ve seen the real effects of neocolonialism in Cameroon and the imperial tendencies of the US, the false promises of aid and development in places like Haiti and Sub-Saharan Africa, and the ugly truths of caste discrimination and racism in places like India and the US. All of these issues call for activists and passionate leaders to right these wrongs, but ultimately I believe all of these issues intersect in the climate justice movement. If we don’t come together to fight for our planet, if we don’t come to terms with the fact that climate change is the result of four hundred years of domination-mentality, manifested through capitalism, colonialism, and oppression, we might not have a future on this planet very much longer.

Luckily, there are millions of people coming to that same conclusion, and the time is now for all of us to stand up and begin the process of healing the earth, mending our cultures, and acknowledging our societal mistakes. As Bill McKibben says, now’s the time to “make a little noise” and “be a little uncomfortable”, because we truly are in “the fight of our time.”

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Thanks for visiting aarondanowski.com! Leave you comments below, and be sure to stay up to date on my travels by clicking on the “Following” button on the right hand side of your page!

If you would like to contact me directly, please do so via email: adanowski@zagmail.gonzaga.edu

 

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 Posted on May 17, 2016 by

 Economics, Latest Posts, Social Change

     

Abdoulai and Kaladou: Two Stories of a Failed Development System

What would you do to provide for your family? Travel thousands of miles? Risk your life navigating terrorist-occupied forests or the bone dry Sahara Desert? Spend three months in prison? Go years without seeing them? Abdoulai (below,left) and Kaladou (below, right) not only would… they have.

In one of the most heartbreaking and vulnerable exchanges of my life, I spent two hours listening to the stories of these two 28 year old Senegalese men who have risked their health and safety again and again for the sake of their loved ones back home… with no end in sight. When I dropped by the cornerstore down the street Saturday afternoon to say goodbye to Abdoulai, they gave me a free bottle of Coca Cola and allowed me to step into their shoes and see life from their perspective, and their stories rocked me to my core…

Capture63

He finally decided to take the risk , so he picked up his things and left. After two weeks spent trekking through the Sahara desert and watching those around him die of thirst and exhaustion, Abdoulai peered over the bow of the boat full of migrants traversing the Mediterranean and saw the blurry lights of Italy on the horizon. They were distant, but for a second, they shone with bright potential of a new life, a life that promised economic stability. But it only lasted for a second, because soon after that, the Abdoulai’s boat was caught by the Italian Coastguard and was sent back to Libya. Upon being offloaded in Tripoli, Abdoulai and his fellow migrants spent three months in a Libyan prison, being beaten by the security guards, and being given minimal food and water before ultimately being let loose in the desert and told to go home. After returning to Cameroon for a short time and saving up his money, Abdoulai made a second attempt to make it to Italy, traveling to Lake Chad in the Extreme North of Cameroon and payingCapture64 smugglers to help him reach Libya. That time, his boat successfully made it to shore in Italy, only to have the migrants apprehended by local authorities and sent back to Libya. Since then, Abdoulai has searched unsuccessfully for full-time work in Senegal, Benin, Nigeria, and Cameroon that can support his parents and elder brothers back in Senegal, but all he has managed to find is his work at the cornerstore that barely pays enough to send anything back at all. Ultimately, he finds it better to save up his money to try and make it to Italy a third time. He understands the risks, but the reward is too much to turn down: “You see two boats leave, one capsizes and everyone in it dies, but you keep going, that’s how it is… When you go live in Europe and have your papers in order, you can come back and visit your friends, but when you only spend your life in Africa its not good, you won’t have anything, just difficulties.”

For Kaladou, his journey started in 2001 at the age of 15, when he left to find work in Morocco for 5 years to provide for his widowed mother. When he returned with approximately $1300 , his uncle took it all and sent him to the Congo where he found work as a dishwasher for 6 months and did odd jobs for another 2 ½ years before returning to Senegal. Once back, he married and had three children (“their names are Tijang, Saidou, and Fatima”, he tells me), and he worked for 4 years to provide for his growing family with limited success. Since 2013 he has been steadily making his way down the African coast seeking opportunities that earn enough money to send back to his family. Recently, a smuggler that promised to take him from Senegal to Yaounde left him stranded in Nigeria, and when he called his uncle asking him to pay back some of the money he had earned, he refused. After three months working odd jobs in Capture65Nigeria, he managed to scrape together enough money to join a group trekking across the Nigerian border. On their journey through the forest, he told me they came across corpses, victims of Boko Haram, laying strewn on the ground. They lived in fear for several days, afraid that they would be next. Luckily, he made it safely to Yaounde, and how he is working as a shoe repairman and sending back what he can each month (he showed me the remittance transfer for November: 20,000 CFA, about $32). His ultimate goal is to save up and reach Equatorial Guinea. “They treat people very poorly over there” he tells me, “but we’re obligated to go. If that’s where I can earn a living. When your kids call you and say “we need money for food”, and when your wife and your mother say the same thing… it’s a big problem… I leave for work at 6 am and get back at 6 pm, but you know when your kids are back there, your wife is back there, you can’t just shrug your shoulders, what are they going to eat? You have to fight, and if you find a little bit, you send it back.”

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I was shell-shocked walking away from our discussion… these two friendly guys who I’d been saying hi to at the corner store for the past month were two of the most courageous, hardworking people I’d ever met, and both of their lives could very well serve as the basis for Hollywood movies. But the thing that struck me most about Abdoulai and Kaladou’s stories was that they highlight the imperative that exists for developed countries to acknowledge that the Mediterranean migrant crisis is not going away, and if anything, is only going to get worse. Both of these men have literally risked life and limb in pursuit of economic opportunity for themselves and their families, because they realize they no scenario exists where they and their children have a bright future when they are forced to migrate to merely scrape by. With the best population estimates expecting Africa’s population to make up 1/4th of the world population by 2050, its imperative to ensure Abdoulai and Kaladou’s children’s generation feels like they have a future in Africa… or else the entire world will suffer the consequences.

So what would that require? Well, given the fact that record numbers of refugees and economic migrants from Africa like Abdoulai are landing on the beaches of Europe seeking a better life, we need to examine what is forcing them to risk their lives in the first place. On the surface, the answer is easy: there is a lack of jobs in Africa, so people go elsewhere looking for work. Digging a layer deeper however, we find the root problem: Africa’s economy is based on the export of raw materials, such as timber, oil, rare earth materials (which power the technology industry), aluminum, and plantation grown fruits and vegetables,as opposed to the model the industrial world is built on, which is the transformation of raw materials (creating rubber, steel and concrete and producing computer chips and building airplanes). This phenomenon is clearly visible in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN’s 2014 “State of the World’s Forests” report, which shows that Africa is the only continent where primary materials make up the bulk of the economic value added by forests. Every other continent derives most of their forests’ economic value from processing industries… and the contrast is stark:

Capture66.PNG

Source: Les Communautes de Pratique Forets Modelles: Pour un Basculement du Paradigme Participatif dans L’economie Sociale et la Transformation Structurelle,  by Diaw MC, Nguiebouri J., Gagoe Tchoko J., NgoBaneg MF., Vambi B., Nlend E. and Keugni MC.

In more concrete terms, this means that, while a tree that is cut down in Cameroon creates a job for man or woman selling charcoal, or the person exporting the tree out of the country, a tree that is cut down in the US creates a job for the logger, the truck driver that transports the tree to the processing plant, the workers at the lumber plant that transforms the tree into two by fours, another truck driver who delivers the lumber to Home Depot, the guy at Home Depot in charge of the lumber department, and the construction worker who buys the wood and uses it to build a house… not to mention a job at the EPA to ensure the logging company replants trees after logging!

This layered transformation of raw materials is called a value chain, and the lack of value chains in Africa extends to most raw material industries here in Cameroon and in other sub-Saharan African countries, which makes stories like Abdoulai’s and Kaladou’s all too common. In a way, its kind of our fault… Under the current global economic system, its implicitly understood that stories like Abdoulai and Kaladou’s are “collateral damage” in the process of ensuring that the US and European countries can exert their control over African raw materials and transform them themselves, rather than allowing local African industries to develop and buying finished products from Cameroon, Namibia, or Tanzania.

If we are serious about ending the migrant crisis and reducing the number of human tragedies like the ones witnessed off the coast of Italy over the last several years, we need to realize that true African development can only happen when local value chains and industries develop that transform raw materials and create employment and wealth in sustainable ways that stay in Africa. Even if a multinational company like Firestone comes to a country like Liberia and employs some local people to work on a rubber plantation, or an international logging company employs some Cameroonians, the economic value of those resources is still being drained out of the African context… which contributes to the cycle of poverty and underdevelopment. As Dr. Mariteuw Chimere Diaw, a Senegalese PhD holder running a social enterprise called Africa Model Forest Network here in Yaounde explained to me several weeks ago:

“The mining industry, the forest industry, they are totally oriented toward exporting raw material. When you look at it, people [are] investing a lot [of energy] into issues of rights and deliberative democracy, formal democracy, all kinds of democratic things, but the economy is too weak, so people jump into the sea to cross the ocean, so what is your democracy bringing to them?”

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So what concretely can be done to resolve this problem, to restore Africa’s future? One thing is for sure: the solution is not more development aid from the US and other developed countries. Aid money does not address the root cause of the economic problems Africa faces. Development aid is the token solution that conveniently produces some feel good stories and impacts a few people, but it distracts from the root of the problem, which is the global economic system that is skewed by political maneuvering to favor the most powerful countries in the world. Its why populist leaders like Mossadegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Allende in Chile, Roldos in Ecuador, Torrijos in Panama, and Lumumba in the Congo, who refused to cede to Western interests, met with untimely fates. Whenever a new government takes power in a country rich with raw materials, they know they must tread a fine line between appeasing the powers that be by granting them access to raw materials and looking out for the best interests of their people… and development aid projects often serve as a nice compromise.

But there is some good news: See, since the issue is economic at its core, that means it is a system driven by the everyday purchases we make as consumers. As such, we can consciously choose to fight against the systemic violence and exploitation that currently ravage the African continent and produce stories like Abdoulai’s and Kaladou’s. We have the power to contribute our voice to the chorus calling for an economic system that provides opportunities for people like Abdoulai and Kaladou. One of the best ways to do so is by buying products made by local cooperatives and social enterprises in developing countries, rather than the big companies that don’t invest in jobs and production facilities in these communities. Here are a few examples (perfect for you last minute Christmas shoppers!):

Want some bath or beauty products that support local economies in Africa? Check out Rain Africa, a South African organization with a commitment to “provide jobs, skills and hope to people living in desperate poverty, particularly women and the disabled. Our production cycle is deliberately low-tech and labour intensive. Our products and packaging are hand-made by trained crafters. We support small local suppliers and producers. Our wild ingredients are hand-harvested by women living in remote areas of Southern Africa where economic opportunities are almost non-existent. We are the only Southern African beauty and body product company which is accredited by both Fair Trade in Africa and the international Fair Trade body in Europe.”

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Another organization, “Proudly Made in Africa“, identifies and exports high quality finished African products to European markets, but many of the products they promote (from coffee, footwear, and jams to garments and beauty products) can be searched and bought online via this page on their website. You can also check out a short animation below produced by a Kenyan production company detailing their business model!

 

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And finally, for an even greater selection of products from cooperatives and local communities around the world, check out Serrv, a nonprofit fair trade organization that proudly believes that “disadvantaged artisans and farmers around the world should have the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty and support their families through fair payments and respectful relationships. Every basket, every tablecloth, every necklace we offer has a story behind it–of an empowered artisan or farmer who works in a safe environment, can send his or her children to school, and can save for the future with the reliable income he or she earns through fair trade.”

 

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While those actions support the initiatives that have already started, lots of work needs to be done on the legislative side to incentivize large companies to invest in local production facilities rather than simply exporting raw materials to be transformed in China or the US. Maybe one day you’ll order a smartphone by the Kenyan version of Apple, or the “Dell” of Cameroon… but that may be too optimistic given the number of international institutional reforms that would need to take place to provide space for such organizations. Whatever the case, it’s only a matter of time before the current (dare I say neocolonial?) economic system is forced to undergo some massive readjustments, as Dr. Chimere expressed to me in our meeting:

“There is a struggle between the old ways of producing wealth and [the] need to do it differently. And that is going to be discussed a little bit in Paris, at COP 21, and we’ll see what comes out of it, but fundamentally, to me, the discussion and the stakes that are behind it are the stakes about the new economy… it’s not conceivable that Africans will just remain poor, they’re too wealthy, you know, with their environment, all the natural resources, all the untapped wealth that exists for this to continue forever. But whether it’s going to be slow, whether we’re going to control it or whether some other entity is going to control most of it, that has yet to be decided… I do believe that there is room for a collaborative economy that isn’t going to be one dimensional,[but] it’s going to have very different ways of existing, of emerging. It has already started, but a lot will be decided by the way Africa is going to catch up.”

Hopefully that economy will develop in time for Kaladou’s children, Tijang, Saidou, and Fatima, to know they have a future in Africa.

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Thanks for visiting aarondanowski.com! Leave you comments below, and be sure to stay up to date on my travels by clicking on the “Following” button on the right hand side of your page!

If you would like to contact me directly, please do so via email: adanowski@zagmail.gonzaga.edu

 3 Comments

 Posted on December 6, 2015 by

 Cameroon, Economics, Latest Posts, Social Change

     

Mission Possible: How to Create Social Change

When I was in seventh grade, I remember being selected by several of my teachers to attend a conference at Portland State University on Africa: Past, Present, and Future. I remember running out of the principal’s office towards the outdoor common area, pumping my fists and thinking to myself “This is awesome!! I get to miss class on Friday for this!”

Several days later, sitting at a wooden desk in a dimly lit classroom at PSU, listening to men and women my parents’ age network and exchange business cards, I kept to myself, preferring to make sure my pencil was still sharp and flip through my notebook. I momentarily glanced up at the backlit woman standing at the podium in front of the classroom, and observed her as she greeted attendees. She was short, no more than five foot two, in her mid-forties, with straight blond hair. She looked up, smiled, and waving at a colleague across the room before turning back to her computer and furrowing her brow as she and made last minute adjustments to her notes. The small talk suddenly died down, the doors at the back of the classroom swung shut, and the woman launched into her presentation:

“Good morning everyone, thank you for being here today! I want to kick off our hour together by asking you a quick question:

What is Lesotho?

Is Lesotho a type of food prepared by the Massai tribe in Kenya, consisting of braised beef, rice, and steamed vegetables? Is Lesotho it a small, densely populated country which is completely surrounded by South Africa? Or is Lesotho a communal dance practiced in rural Namibia during an annual male initiation ceremony?”

After pondering the question for a couple seconds, I decided to go with the food option, which got my young adolescent mind wondering what would be served for lunch that afternoon. Probably some traditional African food from Ethiopia or someplace, catered by a local restaurant… Suddenly, I was snapped back to attention by a shout from the front of the room:

“Lesotho is in fact a country! How many of you guessed correctly?”

I don’t recall how many people raised their hands, or honestly anything else from the rest of that day. The only thing I remember is the thought that hit me at that moment, an idea that burned into my conscience at thirteen years of age in that classroom:

“Lesotho is an African country… and I never knew about it until today. What else is out there just waiting for me to learn about it?”

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Meeting with the Bagyeli tribe to discuss the effects of modernization on their traditional way of life

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I haven’t thought about that moment or that conference in years, but it occurred to me the other day as I was journaling at my homestay on the coast of Cameroon that, in many ways, the idea that took root in that moment was one of the major reasons I felt the need to come to Cameroon. I’ve become addicted to learning, to uncovering the unknown, and to expanding my image of reality Capture18by experiencing the world from different perspectives. One of the things that attracted me to SIT for study abroad was the fact that all their programs are centered around the experiential learning cycle (see the diagram on the right), so at every step of the program we’re constantly encouraged to reflect and analyze our experiences, identify key insights, and then apply them to future experiences. As a result, many of our classes turn into field trips: One day our French class will consist of going to the beach and striking up a conversation with local fishermen on their daily routines. The next day, our Social Pluralism and Minorities class will spend the day visiting groups of autochthonous Cameroonians struggling to adapt their traditional forest-dwelling way of life to a new age of modernity. After that, we’ll meet with a local NGO leader to debrief the experience and discuss key takeaways from the visit, before going to visit a local development organization striving to address women’s issues in a comprehensive manner, targeting education for at-risk children, HIV and AIDS prevention sessions for prostitutes, and professional training for women to dye cotton garments and earn an income.

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Our french teacher, Thomas, talking to Haley as we head down to the beach to talk with local fishermen for class

In addition to the experiential learning we use in the classroom, we use the same process to experience, analyze, and learn from everyday life in Cameroon. Thus far, I’ve spent two weeks living with an upper class host family in the capital city of Yaounde and two weeks with a lower-middle class host family in the coastal town of Kribi, and they have been incredible teachers in their own right! I speak only in French with my host families, I’ve learned to wash my clothes by hand, and in Kribi I learned to live without running water by using a well behind the house, taking bucket showers and using a squat toilet. Even for upper class Cameroonians, washing machines are extravagant luxuries as opposed to basic necessities. I’ve learned what it means to live life around personal relationships as opposed to time, stopping to have in-depth conversations with strangers about their hopes and dreams for Cameroon and Africa in general on my way to run errands at the supermarket. I’ve learned firsthand how Cameroonians strike a delicate balance between ethnic diversity and national unity in a country with over 240 ethnic groups and 280 different languages. I’ve dug into Cameroonian history with local experts and learned how to understand popular sentiments towards France, China, the US, and neighboring countries such as Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. And I’ve had long discussions with my American peers about how we can take this experience back home and educate people on the realities of development aid and westernization here in Cameroon. All of these experiences have expanded my concept of reality, challenged what I believe about the world, and advanced my understanding of what my personal role in the world is, and what role everyone in the US and around the world has to play in creating a more fair, just world through political and economic reform.

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My host family in Kribi (Mama Julie and her brother Salomon)

Starting with my personal role, I’ve realized that, although I will not be able to “fix” neo-colonialism on my own or single-handedly replace the current paradigm of big business with social entrepreneurship and social innovation, I CAN use my career to work with other passionate, dedicated individuals on behalf of the millions of people excluded from our modern political and economic systems. Jesuit education often cites the importance of pairing charity with justice to achieve social change, and in my mind, justice can only be served by working towards more inclusive, flexible social structures that grant everyone the chance to live a healthy, fulfilling life. Not pursuing justice for the millions of African youth currently unemployed, underemployed, or idle as a result of neo-colonialism, the hundreds of thousands of innocent refugees escaping violent conflict in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, or the chronically homeless men, women, and children back in Portland, Oregon would be fatal to my sense of integrity, because they are not solely responsible for their state of affairs. The social structures that surround them never gave them a fair shot to succeed. I can’t change it all on my own… but I need to do my part, and that’s why I need to find a career that works to create social change, rather than one that feeds into the status quo. And I know I’m not the only one that feels this way. I’ve talked to hundreds of students and young professionals from all over the US who want to use their careers to solve social problems and create more inclusive social structures, and ultimately they are the reason I feel confident enough to maintain this blog. Nine such students are here with me on this trip, dozens are back with me at Gonzaga University, and hundreds from all over the world stood in unity with me at the AshokaU Exchange in Washington DC and the Net Impact Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota this past year. I firmly believe that it only takes a few passionate people working together to prime the gears of change, and I want to use my voice to encourage like-minded people to join me in making a living and changing the world. For resources on how to make this possible, check out the Resources page of my website or email me directly for individualized advice on how to turn your passion for social change into a career!

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Asking questions with my peers at the Bagyeli site visit

For anyone reading this who is already established in a career or is retired, we need your help too! I know that working for a big company is often most people’s only option to put food on the table and provide for their families, and even if someone believes the system they are a part of is taking advantage of them or other people, chances are they won’t feel like they are in a position to change it, especially if it means potentially putting their job at risk. If this is you, I have a different challenge for you: Are you willing to acknowledge that you still have a critical part to play in the process of systemic reform? If not, this might not be the right blog for you… but if so, congratulations! You are part of a community of millions of hard working Americans willing to throw their support behind substantial efforts to fight the unfair, unjust status quo (e.g. income inequality, the lobbying power of big business, and the role of big money in politics), and I want to encourage you in your efforts too. Change is possible, but only if we all work together and BELIEVE it’s possible. If a few passionate people dedicating their careers to creating more fair and just social systems (like my colleagues I described above) can prime the gears of change, support from people like you is the fuel we need to get these gears turning!

Your role is straight-forward, but by no means easy: To eradicate the biggest threat to justice and equality of our day and age… the deceptively subtle feeling of apathy. Apathy is the insidious feeling that convinces people that it takes too much effort to try and go against the status quo, and that the best thing to do is just kick back and enjoy the ebb and flow of popular opinion. How do we fight apathy? By using three readily accessible weapons:

  1. Information: The first weapon is to stay informed on current events by accessing the information at your fingertips! Watch the PBS NewsHour on TV or online, read BBC News (their smartphone app is excellent), read non-fiction books on current issues, and cross-reference different sources of media to understand the root causes of these events.
  2. Community: Get together with other people in your social circle (a group of friends, neighbors, family members, religious community members, co-workers) and schedule regular times to meet as a “Social Awareness Group” to discuss the current political, economic and social events you’ve been reading about. Commit at the outset to create a safe space where all ideas and perspectives are respected, and where the goal is to create a dialogue about what is happening and what is being done to address it, not just a time to lament how terrible the world is becoming.
  3. New Experiences: Go together with members of your “Social Awareness Group” and seek to interact with change agents in your community and see the world from different perspectives. Volunteer with a local nonprofit and speak to beneficiaries, attend guest lectures at local colleges and universities, watch performances and documentaries with political messages, and debrief each experience in your “Social Awareness Group”, making sure to discuss potential action items in addition to lessons learned.

With these three weapons, you can eradicate apathy in your own life and inspire others to do the same. By engaging with critical social topics in this way, you will come across passionate people pursuing systemic change fulltime, and you can play your part by supporting them with your time, expertise, money, or simply by spreading the word about their work! Whether you’re 8 or 81, rich or poor, a single mom or an empty nester, you can employ these three weapons in your own life and become a positive change agent in your community. All it takes is acknowledging the need for systemic change, exposing yourself to social issues and passionate change agents, and believing in the value of your support.

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Thanks for visiting aarondanowski.com! Be sure to stay up to date on my travels by clicking on the “Following” button on the right hand side of your page!

Leave you comments below, and if you would like to contact me directly, please do so via email: adanowski@zagmail.gonzaga.edu

 2 Comments

 Posted on October 2, 2015 by

 Cameroon, Economics, Latest Posts, Social Change, Student Discernment

Successful Development: Why Africa Should Never Look Like America

This past weekend I bought a ceramic art piece made my some students in Cameroon’s only professional arts school, located in a city outside of Yaounde called Mbalmayo. Take a look at it below (It’s about 10 inches wide and 6 inches tall). The artist uses toned dust and locally sourced Cameroonian clay to depict three Cameroonian children admiring a sunset, as a flock of birds fly towards the mountains in the distance

Take a second to look at it… What do you see?

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When I first came across it in the studio, I saw three Cameroonian youth envying the birds. Unlike the children, the birds were able to easily escape their environment and find greener pastures beyond the horizon.

I circled back to this piece three times to admire it, each time spending a few minutes analyzing the composition and the meaning of the piece. The third time around, SIT Cameroon’s program director, Christiane, came over beside me and remarked how much she liked the piece. I asked her what she saw. As soon as I heard her reply, I immediately took it off the wall and rushed over to the counter to buy it.

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One of the major themes we’ve been discussing in class is the idea that there is not a “one size fits all” path to development. The path to wealth in the US and Europe isn’t necessarily the path to wealth for Africa and Latin America. Successful development is more than economic growth at all costs; it’s culturally appropriate economic growth. Successful development doesn’t mean creating copies of “America” around the world and helping countries “westernize” by adopting American values. It involves helping countries create jobs and transform natural resources while respecting cultural differences and preserving local values, beliefs, and traditions that provide people a sense of identity and community.

Successful Development = Culturally Appropriate Economic Growth

Let me give you an example: In the US, one of our core societal values is the idea that “I am my own person”, that our identity is individualized and self-made. In contrast, Fr. Patrick Baraza (a Kenyan professor at Gonzaga) teaches his students that one of the bedrock values of African traditional communities is community identity, the belief that “I am because we are”. This is the clash between American individualism and African traditional communalism. The key thing to recognize is that, objectively, neither of these values is inherently “better” than the other. They both have their merits: individualism encourages personal achievement and innovation, while communalism stresses strong relationships and cooperation. However, people are hardwired to believe that their culture is better or more correct than other cultures, and as such they seek to replace alternative ideologies with their own, a phenomenon referred to as ethnocentrism.

International development experts from developed countries often inadvertently make the mistake of not recognizing their ethnocentrism when they work in different cultural contexts. In doing so, they place too much emphasis on the economic growth portion of “successful development”, at the expense of the “culturally appropriate” portion. It’s the reason why the period of “structural adjustment loans” undertaken by the World Bank and the IMF in the 1980’s proved so disastrous. According to the program, countries that applied for development aid from these organizations had to meet certain benchmarks of economic reform, specifically privatizing state-held assets, cutting government spending, decreasing taxes, and increasing access to foreign capital, all things that were “working” in the developed North and which were thought to be the key to developing the global South. Ultimately, the program failed because it was not culturally appropriate in the countries it was working in. Politically centralized leaders sold state assets to cronies and political allies, the cuts in public spending led to an explosion of NGO activity to fill in the gaps, and local industries that relied on government assistance such as national banks went out of business, allowing multinational companies to enter the market and further create dependency on the developed American and European countries.

The key takeaway from the failure of the structural adjustment plan is that successful development is very difficult for outsiders to direct, since it requires more than just economic knowledge. If development is ever going to succeed, there needs to be a marriage between economic policy and cultural knowledge. Development leaders must have a deep, personal understanding of their society’s hopes for the future, valued traditions, worries about development, and deeply held beliefs. Yes, international economists and development experts have a role to play in development, but they must realize that oftentimes that role is to recognize their ethnocentrism and allow local ownership of development to take hold. If they truly care about development, once they’ve acknowledged their cultural bias, well intentioned foreign experts will adopt a servant leader approach and choose to limit their involvement, allowing young, passionate local leaders to craft culturally-appropriate development goals for their countries.

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Flash back to the scene where I’m standing in the art exhibition showroom, admiring the ceramic painting of the three children watching birds fly towards the mountains into the sunset. What did Christiane say that pushed me to to buy the piece? Rather than seeing the children as helpless prisoners of circumstance as I had, she saw them as empowered future leaders of Africa, coming together as a community to enjoy the beauty of their homeland. Christiane’s response showed me my ethnocentrism, and reminded me of how important it is to acknowledge my cultural bias before pursuing culturally appropriate international development:

“I see three intelligent children who, at the end of a long day, have come together to admire the natural beauty of their country. I think it’s the best piece in the shop, good choice.”

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Thanks for visiting aarondanowski.com! Be sure to stay up to date on my travels by clicking on the “Following” button on the right hand side of your page!

Leave you comments below, and if you would like to contact me directly, please do so via email: adanowski@zagmail.gonzaga.edu

 4 Comments

 Posted on September 17, 2015 by

 Cameroon, Economics, Latest Posts, Social Change

     

Cameroon: Checking in From Central Africa

Greetings from Yaounde, Cameroon! I haven’t had a good internet connection in about a week, but I’ve been kept busy by the SIT Cameroon program orientation and starting classes on Monday, so this is my first real opportunity to check in and offer my initial insights from over here in Africa.

One of the biggest themes I notice looking back on my first couple weeks here is that I’ve had a really difficult time separating my experience in Haiti from this one here in Cameroon. Its tempting to compare the two countries and lump them under the term “developing” or “third world”, but upon closer inspection they really are quite different. When our group went downtown to explore the city of Yaounde during orientation last week, I immediately felt at ease, connecting with the routine I had established over the summer in Haiti. My friends and I were the only white people around, the chaotic traffic and the street venders felt familiar, and the red soil beneath my feet looked similar to that I had encountered in the hills above Port-au-Prince. All the differences between the two countries seemed to favor Cameroon in my opinion: there wasn’t as much trash littering the streets, the electricity stayed on all the time, and the weather was a pleasant 75 degrees with occasional rain showers, rather than the persistent 100 degree heat and humidity I grew accustomed to in Port-au-Prince. In addition, it’s nice being around other college students who understand why you decided to study abroad in Africa. Ever since I choose to spend this semester in Cameroon, people have constantly asked me why. Why go to Sub-Saharan Africa? Why go to a country with terrorist attacks happening in the north? Why not go someplace “fun” like Paris or London? The six other students on the program all share a common understanding that studying in Cameroon was something we had to do.

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The past several days I have begun to understand that living and learning here in Sub-Saharan Africa is inherently complex. The physical considerations of living here don’t bother me as much as they did in Chennai or Port-au-Prince (I’ve become quite good at brushing my teeth using bottled water and identifying when it’s ok to eat raw fruits and vegetables), but the mental realities are far more challenging. Yes, its only been a week and a half, and yes, I still have lots of time left here, but I’m already scared about what it will be like going back home. I’m scared at the prospect of returning to an environment where not everyone agrees about the importance of international development. I’m terrified of becoming good friends with the other students on the program and then being flung back across the country and feeling alone when we return to “normalcy”. And I’m worried about being able to describe the imbalance of power that exists between the global North and South to anyone who hasn’t walking past tin shacks and begging children every morning. In short, I’m afraid of facing the reality of “life as usual” in the US, and knowing in my heart that the wealth and prosperity I am used to in the US is a result of extractive foreign policy decisions that have impoverished millions of men, women and children around the world, from the DRC to Cambodia, Ecuador to Afghanistan.

It’s funny, I now understand why its so appealing for Americans to create a bubble and focus solely on domestic issues. It distracts us from dealing with the negative impact we have on much of the rest of the world. Looking outward requires you to be willing to acknowledge that our nation’s success is not as glorious as we like to imagine. Ever since the end of World War II, we have made it a point to control our interests overseas by calling anyone who disagrees with privatization and westernization a “communist”, and as a result we have enriched American companies, and secured access to foreign oil, and tricked ourselves into believing that we are doing these countries a favor by helping them “develop” to become just like us.

I wouldn’t have agreed with that last statement if you had told me that 4 months ago, but now I have met and spoken with men and women in the global South who have lived their lives with the consequences of western “development”, and it has changed my perspective. Meet several of them below:

It’s the young farmer I met in the hills outside Port-au-Prince who can’t afford to feed his mother and younger siblings because subsidized American imports undercut the price of the vegetables he grows.

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It’s the elderly Dalit “untouchables” I spoke with who have spent decades cleaning human waste from the sewers and streets of Chennai with their bare hands, and who live under tarps and in decrepit apartments on the outskirts of the city.

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And it’s the twenty four year old here in Cameroon earning a masters degree in physics who, when asked what his dream is, answered “to get a job… any job”, because his country suffers from high youth unemployment and hasn’t been allowed to develop domestic industries to transform its natural resources into goods to sell in the rest of the world.

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This is the legacy of neo-colonialism, and the reason why the US has lost much of its respect in the developing world. It’s because we have tricked ourselves into believing that it’s possible to advance our national interests and at the same time “develop” other countries to become richer and self-sufficient. It’s a conflict of interests: The US has benefited immensely from taking advantage of countries like Cameroon, and as long as US businesses and politicians benefit from this current system, they won’t want to “develop” the countries or help them become “self sufficient”. If left unchecked, US companies will continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor by earning favorable contracts with foreign governments (See Frontline’s episode on Firestone in Liberia), the US government will remain unwilling to allow democratically elected officials represent the voices of their citizens if those views contradict US interests (read Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins), and the global North will continue to pressure Southern countries to export raw materials at discounted prices in exchange for increased loans from the World Bank and the IMF that cripple their economic future. All of these things carry forward the legacy of European colonialism, and together these things are referred to as neocolonialism: forcing independent developing countries to be economically dependent on developed countries.

Now that I understand this phenomenon better, I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it, but one thing is for certain: I know I need to do something. Some may say “This is all well and good Aaron, but there’s no better alternative! It’s unfortunate that capitalism doesn’t help everyone, but that’s just the way the world works.” I say to these people, we can’t afford to think that way. If this system of neocolonialism is allowed to continue, we will see an increase in violence, war, famine, and unrest the world over. Lack of opportunity and high rates of poverty lead to terrorism and extremism (Iraq, Afghanistan), political instability (Syria, Libya, Egypt), and increased incentive to migrate to developed countries, either legally or illegally (Latin America, European migrant crisis). The more I travel, the more I realize how important it is for leaders in the developed world to recognize they have a responsibility to represent not just their nation’s interests, but rather the interests of the global poor. In our increasingly globalized and connected world, we must recognize that the wellbeing of those in the developed countries can only be ensured by ensuring the wellbeing of those in the developing world. Only by working to achieve mutually beneficial, equal national and international relationships will we create a more stable, secure, and prosperous world. We often worry about dictators and oppressive rulers taking advantage of those they govern, but history has shown us that those who seek after their own interests will not survive. Dictators, kings, emperors, and Fuhrers have been swept away by the sands of time, overthrown by popular uprising and the power of the popular majority. In the end, the surest way to create prosperity and stability for oneself is to look out for the interests of others.

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Today, the biggest obstacle keeping us from pursuing true international development through international cooperation and is a decentralized, almost invisible enemy: neo-colonialism. The idea that we must protect our interests at all costs, and the notion that we can’t afford to trust anyone but ourselves results in a global economic system that works to enrich and empower those who already control the wealth and the power. OXFAM recently reported that by 2016, the richest 1% of the world population will be wealthier than the bottom 99%. Another report says that last year there were more refugees fleeing violence and war than ever before. Still other statistics indicate that youth unemployment in many areas of the world is over 40%. All of these things point to one simple fact: The system is broken… and the rich and powerful countries are beginning to experience the negative consequences of creating such an unequal global system.

If we in the developed world truly believe in the values we claim to uphold: freedom, democracy, and opportunity for all, then we must examine the structures of which we are a part and be unafraid of asking ourselves that most powerful of questions: “What if?” What if there’s a better way forward? What if we recognized its in the best interest of rich countries to allow poor countries to develop on their own, not according to our goals and objectives? The world needs men and women who recognize that apathy and resignation are the most dangerous phenomena of our day and age. The time has come for the developed world to acknowledge that our system is broken, and that only by uniting, cooperating and trusting one another can we ensure that we live in a world with freedom and opportunity for all.

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Thanks for visiting aarondanowski.com! Leave you comments below, and be sure to stay up to date on my travels by clicking on the “Following” button on the right hand side of your page!

If you would like to contact me directly, please do so via email: adanowski@zagmail.gonzaga.edu

 3 Comments

 Posted on September 11, 2015 by

 Cameroon, Economics, Latest Posts, Social Change

     

The Purpose Economy: Creating a Human Centric Society

Several weeks ago I was fortunate enough to participate in the first ever Zag Talks, Gonzaga’s local version of TED Talks. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to give my talk on the need to update our concept of work in the 21st century. You can watch the talk below:

Since giving this talk, however, I’ve begun to realize that despite making some strong points about the need for well-rounded organizations and meaningful work, it has several significant problems:

  1. First, it makes it sound like purposeful work is reserved for only the select few who are lucky enough to work for a triple bottom line organization. There are tons of people who experience purpose in their work with all types of organizations.
  2. Second, it makes it sound like low level jobs such as administrative assistants, hotel clerks and waiters are not noble careers. Many people derive a great deal of purpose from these jobs and others like them.
  3. Third, I don’t give a definitive reason why organizations should change their models and embrace a triple bottom line.

I want to expand on my talk and address these issues in this post. Based on my experiences with the Opus Prize and my exploration into the topics of social entrepreneurship and impact careers, I would like to make the claim that if we want to create a more peaceful, equitable world, we need to set a goal of providing every working age adult with a quality job that gives them a sense of purpose.

To understand my rational we need to consider Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In Maslow’s hierarchy, there is a natural order in which human beings are driven to fulfill our desires, starting with the basic physiological needs to eat, sleep and stay hydrated. These physiological needs, as Maslow terms them, are essential desires that help us continue to survive. As these needs are taken care of, we gradually transition towards addressing our need for safety. This need includes our desire to be free from fear, overwhelming anxiety and chaos. As we structure our environment and make sense of our surroundings, we begin to feel a strong desire for belonging, which is the basic human hunger for relationships. We strive to overcome loneliness and become part of a larger group in order to develop a sense of who we are. Next, we encounter our desire for self-esteem and respect in the eyes of others. Fulfilling our desires for achievement, independence, recognition and prestige allows us to feel valuable and important, an essential piece of being human. These four categories of needs are referred to as deficit needs, meaning that you feel the desire to fill them when they are running low. If you have enough water you simply say you “Don’t feel thirsty”. If you feel secure, chances are you won’t think to yourself how nice it is to be safe. In this way, as you satisfy these needs, you return to an equilibrium rather than experiencing a psychological high. Typically you don’t feel any lasting sense of wellbeing after gratifying these needs, just the emergence of the next level of need.

If we want to create a more peaceful, equitable world, we need to set a goal of providing every working age adult with a quality job that gives them a sense of purpose.

The last level of Maslow’s hierarchy, however, is different than the other four. Self-Actualization refers to “man’s desire for self-fulfillment”, or in other words, the human desire to “become everything that one is capable of becoming” (quoted from Maslow’s book “Motivation and Personality”, p 46). The way this desire can be fulfilled varies greatly from individual to individual. For some people “it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventions” (46). As opposed to being a deficit need, self-actualization is a being-need: as it is fed, it continues to grow stronger and it gives us a feeling of well-being and fulfillment. This is the epitome of humanness, attaining one’s potential by fully expressing oneself. Maslow estimated that only about 2% of people achieve this level of needs gratification. Since self-actualization is conditional upon the fulfillment of one’s lower level needs, our ability to achieve this level of humanness is inextricably tied to the health of our ecosystem. If our ecosystem provides us with the opportunity to seek information, speak freely, express ourselves and do whatever we want without hurting others, the odds of being able to self-actualize grow larger. Since this is the case, many people are not able to self actualize due to the conditions of their environment, not because of their lack of willpower or effort. A young Syrian girl in a refugee camp in Turkey stands little to no chance of achieving her full potential, while her counterpart in suburban Ohio who has strong support from her family, her community and the broader society in the form of public services has much more control over her ability to self-actualize.

“Human life will never be understood”, Maslow said, “unless its highest aspirations are taken into account. Growth, self-actualization, the striving toward health, the quest for identity and autonomy, the yearning for excellence (and other ways of phrasing the striving “upward”) must by now be accepted beyond question as a widespread and perhaps universal human tendency”. This is the foundation for my assertion that we must work to provide every working age adult with a purposeful job. It goes like this:

1. There is a universal pull on human beings to self-actualize and reach their potential.
2. If we make it possible for individuals to achieve their potential, the outpouring of human innovation and creativity will produce bottom-up solutions to the pressing social problems of the 21st century.
3. In order to help more individuals to achieve their potential, we need to shape the driving force of industrial society, the economy, in such a way so that it promotes the goal of human self-actualization. This can be achieved by providing everyone with the opportunity to have a purposeful job.

To put it mildly, our current economic system does not promote the goal of self-actualization… it promotes wealth accumulation, which can go directly against the idea of cultivating human potential. However with that said, I think it can be pivoted in order to align with such a vision. I believe it is possible to create an environment where the opportunity to self-actualize is a possibility for everyone, and where the benefits of self-actualization (a sense of personal well-being and peak productivity) would motivate individuals to work and succeed.

To understand why I think that, lets analyze the issue. The fundamental problem with our current economic model is that we’ve convinced ourselves that money is the end goal: it can buy happiness, and accumulating it gives us access to the things that fulfill our desires. I know that sounds like a broken record, we tell ourselves all the time that money isn’t the key to happiness, but do we live that out? Lets do a quick experiment: Watch these three advertisements and count how many times you see something other than the products delivering happiness:

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These ads are classic examples of the double standard we have in our society: we verbalize that things don’t buy happiness, but we’re constantly bombarded with messages that tell us the opposite and we internalize them unconsciously. An article published last year reports that the average American watches 5 hours of TV per day, and that roughly an hour of that time is paid advertisements! If the average advertisement lasts for 30 seconds, that’s over 100 ads per day telling you, like the three ads above, that you need to buy things in order to be happy… and that’s not even counting the hundreds of other messages that reach you through other mediums. It’s a dangerous double standard, and if we want to reshape the economy to promote self-actualization, we need to start by shifting this message.

Rather than selling products that aim to increase profit, we need to sell products that, by their very nature, aim to improve the lives of our fellow man.

So how can we fix this problem? We need to pivot the economy. Rather than selling products that aim to increase profit, we need to sell products that, by their very nature, aim to improve the lives of our fellow man. We need to create a sense of purpose by moving towards a people-centric economic system. In this system, companies and organizations deliver value to society by creating purpose for their customers, their employees and their supply chains, and the profits they make go towards making their impact sustainable. This is the vision laid out by entrepreneur Aaron Hurst in his book “The Purpose Economy”, and it’s a vision that has begun to manifest itself through the rise of the sharing economy (e.g. Zipcar, Uber, Airbnb) and purpose driven products and services such as Tom’s shoes, Warby Parker glasses and Whole Foods organic produce. In the industrialized world, “most people’s basic needs for sustenance, shelter, and information are met. Accordingly, we have emerged from the Agrarian, Industrial, and Information economies to the Purpose Economy, that we might fulfill our higher-order needs: meaning and purpose” (The Purpose Economy, 44). In this way, Maslow’s hierarchy predicts the evolution of human society, and the transition from the Information economy to the Purpose economy.

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But what exactly is purpose, and how can companies deliver it? As human beings we experience purpose in three ways, according to Hurst:

1. Personal Purpose: Doing things we love, attempting new challenges and expressing our voice to the world.
2. Social Purpose: Developing meaningful relationships that reinforce our sense of value, require us to engage, and which ultimately help us learn and grow.
3. Societal Purpose: Contributing to a greater cause we believe matters to others, to society and to ourselves. This is the most powerful source of purpose.

All of these sources of purpose are important, but according to Hurst, societal purpose is the most powerful. “Societal purpose isn’t isolated to volunteering and philanthropy, or careers in education and social work”, he says, “we can also derive purpose through decisions about how we consume, from decreasing our carbon footprint to buying local produce at the farmers’ market. We can also discover meaning through our daily work, where we help the people on our teams and provide customers with our products and services” (The Purpose Economy, 28).

Purposeful consumption and work is the beginning of a major shift in how we buy and sell products and live our lives. Over the past 40 years as the information economy has progressed work has become more segmented and specialized. As a result a workers’ average tenure at a given company has dropped to 4.5 years and work has become inherently unstable. As Hurst puts it, “The instability caused by these major structural changes and magnified by the economic recession brought with it a need to find stability and a future path within ourselves, rather than from an employer… purpose, rather than career longevity, now provides the stability we need” (36). In the Purpose economy, the purpose organizations create through their products and services is the key to ensuring high employee morale, customer satisfaction and supply chain stability. Take for example Rebuild Globally, the social enterprise I am interning with this summer in Port-au-Prince, Haiti:

Rather than orienting themselves around maximizing profit, Rebuild’s main priority is providing purpose for their stakeholders:

  1. Employees: By offering high quality employment and paying over two times Haiti’s minimum daily wage, Rebuild Globally offers its employees the change to make a living and develop themselves as individuals. Employees can afford to send their children to school and support their communities.
  2. Customers: Each purchase of a pair of sandals from Rebuild Globally gives the customer purpose because they know they are contributing towards the empowerment of Rebuild’s employees and stewarding the environment by reusing tires. Rebuild also runs an apprenticeship program for youth in Port-au-Prince partially funded by sandal sales, so each purchase goes towards empowering Haiti’s youth and future leaders.
  3. Supply Chain: Rebuild’s leather supplier earned more than the daily minimum wage just through their contract with Rebuild, allowing them not only to support their family, but also take part in the empowerment of Haitian artisans and youth.

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One important note to address is that, although there will always be undesirable jobs in society, this does not mean that the people working in those jobs are exempt from the possibility of finding purpose in their work. Aaron Hurst makes the claim that purpose is not a noun describing meaningful jobs, it’s a verb describing the way you approach your work. Angelo Bruno and Eddie Nieves are a perfect example of this concept in action. These two men worked as partners on the same garbage route in Manhattan for almost a decade, and after Angelo retired, the two spoke about the lessons he learned from being a garbage cleaner:

Angelo found purpose in his job by imbuing it with social and societal purpose. Thanks to the relationships he cultivated and the impact he saw his work having, the value of his work became apparent to him and he found a deep sense of purpose that helped him to serve his community for over three decades and that made it difficult for him to give it up.

This is the value of the Purpose economy. It creates meaning and connection, it helps us grow as people, and ultimately, it gives us the ability to address the social problems of the 21st century by empowering more people to be all they can be. By helping people reach their potential and fostering a human-centric society, we truly can change the world.

You can buy Aaron Hurst’s book “The Purpose Economy” on Amazon by clicking here.

 5 Comments

 Posted on May 19, 2015 by

 Economics, Social Change

     

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