The trajectory of his remarkable life, writings and work is easy to follow. Yet, most of what is written about him online is couched in simplistic, sloppy terms, revealing both the shallowness of social media and its power in creating and controlling narratives.

Erdogan’s rapid morphing into a 21st century absolutist sultan with plans for a 1000-roomed palace—which Gülen denounced as prohibited by Islam and which Erdogan completed—and his removal of prosecutors investigating allegations of his family’s financial corruption were but some of the things that provoked Gülen’s ire. Erdogan had to deal with an ancient challenge faced by numerous dictatorial sultans before: “Who will save me from this pesky cleric who had grown too big for his boots?”

The perfect opportunity came in 2016 with an attempted “coup”. (Among academic scholars, the jury is still out on whether this was a genuine coup or a planned sideshow by Erdogan to rally support.) Gülen and the movement he led were held responsible.

Gülen’s well-documented written works and speeches testify to a person deeply moved by his faith, simplicity, moral values, calls to justice and the spiritual underpinnings he desired as lodestars for Turkish society. He led an austere life, leaving no property or wealth behind.

Not once did Gülen suggest that he was interested in political power. He rejected what he regarded as the politicisation of religion. All the education institutions founded by the Hizmet Movement aimed to produce quality, well-rounded scholars in all fields, including education, science, Islamic and contemporary law.

I have closely observed the Hizmet movement in the US, Europe and South Africa for more than two decades. As a scholar of religion, I can smell a cult a mile away.

Wherever the Hizmet Movement has planted its seeds, its work has been characterised by serious attempts to engage — not proselytise — people of various communities. Notions of winning over “other Muslims” or non-Muslims are absent from its programmes. Its frequent inter-faith dialogue events are just that — to promote understanding between faiths and to advance the values that drive them.

As in 160 countries, Gülen’s vision inspired the global Hizmet Movement in South Africa. This movement has established schools producing the finest matric results in the country, charitable organisations and platforms for interfaith dialogue mainly focusing on promoting science, literacy and community service. The movement has a significant and deeply impressive footprint and is run by full-time volunteers and staff on a small budget.

Most moving is watching these volunteers set aside their pain as they go about the daily basis of their calling: living and acting in service of humanity in general and, more specifically, South African society.

As a Social Cohesion Advocate and a member of the South African Human Rights Commission’s Section 11 Committee responsible for diversity education, Mr. Gülen’s principles have shaped my work and advocacy for tolerance, understanding, and unity in South Africa. His philosophy of embracing others regardless of faith or culture resonates deeply with the African context, where diversity is both a strength and a challenge. Through my work, I have sought to integrate these values of compassion and respect, creating a more cohesive society.

The global vision of Fethullah Gülen

Fethullah Gülen’s impact reached far beyond his native Turkey; he was a global figure whose message of interfaith harmony, peace, and community service has inspired countless individuals and movements. Through the Hizmet Movement, Mr. Gülen emphasized the power of education, dialogue, and selfless service to bring communities together, break barriers, and foster understanding.

Mr. Gülen’s vision was translated into action through educational institutions, dialogue centers, and humanitarian initiatives in over 160 countries, which continue to empower young minds and shape global citizens grounded in values of tolerance and integrity. The essence of the Hizmet Movement lies in the belief that education and dialogue are key to solving societal challenges. By educating the youth with the principles of empathy, intellectual growth, and social responsibility, Mr. Gülen ensured that his message transcended borders and cultures.

Preserving and expanding the legacy

Mr. Gülen’s passing is a reminder that the work of the Hizmet Movement must not slow down; instead, it is a call for a multiplicity of efforts. While Mr. Gülen is no longer with us physically, his teachings and principles remain an enduring source of inspiration. His legacy must be preserved and actively expanded by those who have been influenced by his vision.

In fact, his life’s work calls for a greater commitment and expansion of the movement’s efforts, ensuring that the values he championed—peace, social cohesion, and community service—gain even greater traction. It is vital to ensure that the work of the Hizmet Movement continues to thrive, reaching every corner of the world. Mr. Gülen would have deeply desired to see the principles of peace, understanding, and community upliftment carried forward with renewed energy and dedication.

An African perspective: Ubuntu

In reflecting on Mr. Gülen’s legacy, I am reminded of the African concept of Ubuntu, which speaks to the interconnectedness of all people. The essence of Ubuntu is captured in the phrase, “I am because we are,” emphasizing that our well-being is inextricably linked to the well-being of others. The spirit of Ubuntu encourages solidarity, empathy, and a shared responsibility for one another.

Mr. Gülen’s teachings are in harmony with this principle. He recognized that embracing our shared humanity was essential to achieving lasting peace and harmony. Leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu embraced Ubuntu as a foundation for reconciliation, social justice, and nation-building in South Africa. Similarly, Mr. Gülen’s commitment to dialogue and community-building reflects a deep belief in human dignity and solidarity. By cultivating mutual understanding and respect, he inspired people to find common ground, even amidst differences.

An Indian perspective: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

Another perspective that aligns with Mr. Gülen’s teachings is the Indian concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which translates to “the world is one family.” This ancient principle emphasizes the interconnectedness of all living beings and calls for universal acceptance and love for others. It highlights our shared human experience and the necessity of overcoming divisions to build a unified and compassionate world.

Fethullah Gülen’s life exemplifies Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam in his unwavering belief that, despite our differences, we are part of one human family. His advocacy for interfaith dialogue, his dedication to education, and his emphasis on the value of every individual demonstrate his commitment to fostering a sense of global unity. His belief in the potential for peaceful coexistence despite differences is reflected in the establishment of dialogue forums, schools, and humanitarian projects across the globe. These initiatives continue to promote understanding and a sense of connectedness.

Honoring the legacy in Africa and beyond

In Africa, where the principles of Ubuntu and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam have deep cultural roots, Mr. Gülen’s teachings offer a valuable framework for building inclusive and cohesive societies. His emphasis on dialogue and education provides tools for addressing the unique challenges of diversity and social division on the continent. By embracing his values, we can cultivate a stronger, more harmonious Africa and contribute to the global movement for unity.

The legacy of leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and now Fethullah Gülen, calls on all of us to remain dedicated to the ideals of compassion, service, and peaceful coexistence. Just as these leaders left indelible marks on humanity, Mr. Gülen’s passing should inspire us to continue his work with renewed vigor and dedication.

Conclusion

The passing of Fethullah Gülen marks the end of an era, but not the end of his mission. As we grieve his loss, we must also celebrate his contributions to a more peaceful and interconnected world. We must remember that this journey towards unity is far from over, and that his teachings provide a roadmap for the work ahead.

Let us honor his memory by committing ourselves to the multiplicity of his mission, ensuring that his legacy of service, education, and dialogue reaches even greater heights. Fethullah Gülen’s dream of a unified world must continue to inspire and guide our actions, fostering a global movement of empathy, understanding, and solidarity.

May Mr. Gülen’s soul rest in peace and may his life’s work continue to be a beacon of hope for generations to come.

The origins of a seemingly nameless civic-social movement which later became popularly known as the “Gülen Movement” or “Hizmet Movement” date back to the early 1970s in Turkey.  The Movement’s goal is to produce “social good” throughout the world, which are manifested around peaceful activities like promoting dialogue among communities, human rights, love, tolerance, ethics, education, women’s issues, and eradication of poverty. It derives inspiration from the ideas and thoughts of Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric who is known as “Hojaefendi.” The Movement has successfully nurtured a generation to establish a global network of socio-cultural institutions including schools, coaching centers, universities, media outlets, publishing houses, hospitals, dialogue centers, and relief organizations.

At its core, the Movement is a faith based social movement that takes inspiration from Islamic ideals to reinforce the civic, moral, and ethical goals of Islam. The goal is to transform individuals and society in such a way to produce a “golden generation,” which in turn provides leadership to all walks of human life.

The Movement has espoused a purely civic social aspect of Islam – as opposed to discourses of “Islam and modernity” – to universalize the message of the Movement which has ultimately paved the way for it to become transnational.

“The movement encapsulates a faith-inspired peace-invoking service. It promotes universal values, superiority of the law and human rights along with freedom of belief, freedom of religion and freedom of expression.” [1]

As the movement’s chief source of inspiration, Fethullah Gülen dwells upon the universal values of humanity as an integral part of Islam’s fundamental doctrine and values. His approach to faith bends on Sufism and this has always made him a propounder of the human-centric discourse of Islam. The goal of this discourse is to promote a civic and ethical transformation of an individual and society at large, based upon the prophetic model of insan al-kamil (perfect human being). Gülen maintains that “Morality is the essence of religion and a most fundamental portion of the divine message. The Prophet, who is the greatest embodiment of morals, said: Islam consists in good morals; I have been sent to perfect and complete good morals” [2].

Gülen further underlines that the basic dynamics of a life of action and thought is directly tied with our spiritual life, which is based upon our religious values [3]. Gülen’s very idea of hizmet, meaning “service,” reminds the spiritual fervor of Imam Rabbani’s “abadiyat,” (meaning eternity) notion, becomes in a way “service to eternal God.” The attainment of “service to eternity” can only be achieved by serving the humanity. This universal Islamic discourse of Gülen discards the need of state agencies as a perquisite to serve Islam and its interests. Rather, he maintains that Islam can best be served by participating in socially beneficial activities such as promoting peace, imparting education, providing relief and health facilities. To emphasize this point, Gülen has said; “Islam does not need a state to survive; in the modern age, civil society can independently maintain Islam even where Muslims are not in majority” [4].

These conceptual and ideological clusters helped create and broaden the vision of transnational networks of Hizmet Movement that had entered the global arena and made it to engage in a comprehensive perspective on social-civic challenges. Its transnational character became even firmer when Gülen himself moved to the United States and was actively involved in promoting and improving the overall wellbeing of society investing his robust efforts to foster dialogue and peace. Since then, themes such as peace, human rights, ethics, pluralism, altruism, reconciliation and dialogue have occupied even more space in the center of the Movement’s agenda in order to gain a better understanding of, and appreciation for, cultures, histories, civilizations and traditions.

Despite its current national experience in its homeland Turkey differs widely in terms of the social relevance and political interactions, at the transnational level one can hardly doubt that the Movement has progressively developed an ability to address and mobilize around problems of a social and civic nature.

Unlike many other Islamic modernist movements including Salafism and al-Nahdah in Arabia, the Muhammadiyah movement in Indonesia, the Aligarh and Nadwa movements in India, the Hizmet Movement has been characterized by mass interaction and participation at local, national, and transnational levels. This interaction and participation have attracted thousands of volunteers across the globe and have generated a global network of thousands of socio-cultural institutions including schools, coaching centers, universities, hospitals, dialogue centers, relief organizations etc. Their transnational networks active on global and local civic social issues have multiplied, built alliances with national and supranational civil actors including UN’s institutions, and influenced their views and actions.

Professor Anwar Alam maintains:

“Hizmet is a transnational civil society movement calling up everyone to collaborate around a common ideal of good work for humanity. The movement aims to facilitate an environment in which all can work together in a pluralistic, peaceful, all embracing spirit and voluntary altruism, regardless of subscription to a certain faith.” [5]

Unlike other movements, Hizmet’s most effective paradigm of conceptualizing such an unusual combination of coalitions, coordination, and diversities of convergence and pluralism, of national and transnational struggles is an example of a model grassroots movement.

Transnational networking of the Movement has emerged as a crucial aspect of its global activities and as the main form of organizational linkage between local nation-based civic actors to the cross-border activism of Hizmet. The Movement aptly fits into Robert Putnam’s theory on “Social Capital” which refers to “the connections among individuals, social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” Hizmet’s transnational network is a result of its employment of “social trust” and “reciprocity.”

Thus, these forms of movement within Hizmet can be characterized by voluntary horizontal and, at times, vertical patterns of coordination that are reciprocal and asymmetrical. Within the Hizmet Movement, in particular, the transnational network can be understood as maintaining coordination among different civil society actors including both organizations and individuals such as experts, located in several countries, based on a shared frame of work, and investing joint efforts for common good. Being a faith based movement, the crucial factor that motivates its volunteers is, as Anwar Alam rightly observed, “the in-built Islamic cognitive structure of the ‘ikhlas-iman-hijrah-dawa’” linkage that provides the motivational resources for the expansion of the movement.” While detailing the micro structure of the Movement he concluded, “in short, the whole Hizmet Movement runs on the informal principle of consultation, trust, cooperation, and faith” [6].

In spite of the different perspectives and viewpoints in course, the Movement flourished as a self-organized and self-sustained actor on the global scene with its own policy priorities and agenda for social-civic changes. The Movement is clearly transnational in its very nature and in the reach of its activism that converges in fostering universal values. While having such a vivid picture of the transnational character of the Movement, one can rightly argue that this transnational character became the reason the Movement not only survived but thrived, in wake of the so called failed coup attempt of 2016 and subsequent witch hunts and purges that were launched by the Turkish regime.

References

1 Alam, Anwar. 2019. For the sake of Allah, The Origin, Development, and Discourse of the Gülen Movement. Blue Dome Press, USA, p. 28.

2 Gülen, M. Fethullah. 1998. Towards the Lost Paradise. Izmir: kaynak.  Al-Bukhari, “Al-adab-ul-Mufrad” no. 273, and  Ibn-Sa’ad, “al-tabaqat” vol.1, p. 192.

3 Ibid, p. 87.

4 Quoted in Mustafa Akyol, “What made the Gulen Movement Possible” in International Conference Proceedings: Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gülen Movement, Leeds Metropolitan University Press, London, October 2007, p. 31.

5 Alam, op. cit. p. 27.

6 Alam, op. cit. p. 159-164.

Global Climate Report. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov). July 2019.

It’s summer, and it is hot out there; but if it feels like record-breaking temperatures are becoming more common globally, they are. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and European Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that July 2019 was the hottest month across the globe ever measured since measurements began, in 1880. Global temperatures averaged 16.73°C in July, which is 0.95 °C higher than the 20th-century average of 15.78°C . Average Antarctic sea-ice coverage was 8.5% below the 1981-2010 average. And sea ice coverage was 10.5% below the overall average, which is based on records beginning in 1979. The scientists also released geographical data, showing that the regions where temperatures varied furthest from averages, were Alaska, Central Europe, Northern and Southwestern parts of Asia, and certain regions in Africa and Australia. These findings corroborate scientific predictions regarding the effects of man-made climate change. Human activities, primarily from burning fossil fuels, emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. Increasing greenhouse gas emissions are associated with warmer global surface temperatures. The planet’s 10 hottest years on record have all fallen in the past two decades. Scientists and policymakers around the globe are also feeling this heat.

Unless significant measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions are adopted, scientists expect temperature records to keep falling. Scientists say global temperatures could increase by at least 3°C this century, which will create conditions on Earth that have not been seen in more than 2 million years. Given the notable trends in higher temperatures and natural disasters, we might be pushing the climate system toward states that we haven’t seen in our societal experience – and even in our species’ experience.

Manipulation of brain circuits using smartphone-controlled device

Qazi R et al. Wireless optofluidic brain probes for chronic neuropharmacology and photostimulation. Nature Biomedical Engineering, August 2019.

Scientists recently designed a device that can regulate brain circuits using a tiny brain implant controlled by a smartphone. This bluetooth-enabled device utilizes replaceable lego-like drug cartridges to target neurons with drugs and light. Existing methods to deliver drugs and light to the brain typically involve metal tubes and optical fibers. These tools are rigid and can substantially damage the brain’s soft tissue over time. Moreover, this bulky equipment often limits the patient’s movement because of the wired connections, making them unfit for long-term use. To achieve chronic remote-controlled drug delivery without exhaustion and evaporation of drugs, scientists invented a neural device with a replaceable drug cartridge, which could allow neuroscientists to study the same brain networks for several months without depleting the drug supply. These “plug-n-play” drug cartridges were integrated into a brain implant for mice with a soft and ultrathin probe (about the thickness of a human hair), which consisted of microfluidic channels and tiny LEDs (smaller than a grain of salt), for unlimited drug doses and light delivery. The implant is regulated via a smartphone, allowing researchers to trigger precise combinations and sequences of drug and light delivery. In animal models, these stimuli can be triggered with the target outside of the laboratory, allowing researchers to wirelessly instill changes in the animal’s brain while in its natural habitat. Using these neural devices, researchers are now able to perform fully automated animal studies where the behavior of one animal could positively or negatively affect behavior in other animals by conditional triggering of light and/or drug delivery. This device will allow researchers to better dissect the neural circuit basis of behavior and how specific neuromodulators in the brain tune behavior in various ways. In addition, the device can be utilized in complex pharmacological studies to develop potentially new therapeutics for pain, addiction, and emotional disorders.

The secret weapon of E.Coli 

Melson E. at al. The sRNA DicF integrates oxygen sensing to enhance enterohemorrhagic Escherichia colivirulence via distinctive RNA control mechanisms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 2019.

Scientists have revealed how E. coli (Escherichia coli) bacteria seeks out the most oxygen-free parts of your colon to cause the worst infection possible. E. coli normally live in the intestines of healthy people and animals. Most varieties of E. coli are harmless or cause relatively brief diarrhea. But a few particularly nasty strains can cause cramps, diarrhea, vomiting – even kidney failure and death. Children are particularly at risk. A new study uncovers how this foodborne pathogen knows where and when to begin colonizing the colon on its way to making you sick. Bacterial pathogens typically colonize a specific tissue or organ in the host. Therefore, as part of their infection strategies, bacterial pathogens precisely time deployment of proteins and toxins to these specific colonization niches in the human host. This allows the pathogens to save energy and avoid detection by our immune systems and ultimately cause disease. The researchers in this study identified how E.Coli detects low oxygen levels in the large intestine and then produces proteins that allow it to attach to host cells and establish infection. Oxygen actually diffuses from the intestinal tissue into the gut, and there are comparably higher levels in the small intestine than the large. Remarkably, E. coli specifically waits until it has reached the-low oxygen large intestine before striking. E. coli controls this process via a small form of RNA that activates particular genes when oxygen levels are low. This is the point when the infection really gets established and the bacteria are able to begin to manufacture harmful Shiga toxins. The researchers predict that other bacterial pathogens, such as Shigella and Salmonella, likely utilize a similar control mechanism. Researchers suggest that if we can find a way to block oxygen sensing, we may be able to prevent the infection by allowing E. coli to pass harmlessly through the body.

Why is STEM Education Critical?
STEM’s importance grows from the fact that STEM knowledge is diffused to almost each and every part of our lives. If we just look at our environment, we can see how we experience things that are STEM-related. At this point, if a country wants to produce innovative economic leadership, it will depend upon producing STEM professionals (engineers, mathematicians, physicists, etc) who develop inventions and innovations in all areas of the economy. In addition, the 21st century workforce requires an almost entirely new set of skills due to the rapid changes in technology and the internet; we have to prepare our young population for the challenges they are going to face. The 21st century has brought many changes to our lives, from manufacturing to broader dissemination of information and technology. Today’s students know that the future holds jobs that require more advanced skills (Roblin, 2012; National Research Council, 2011) because many traditional jobs have been outsourced or replaced with high-tech tools. Therefore, students must also be prepared for jobs that do not yet exist (Dede, 2010). A lack of a skilled or, a STEM-illiterate, generation is a threat to each and every economy that worries about their future.

How do we experience STEM in our daily lives?
The Science Pioneers website gives many good examples of how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are diffused into things happening around us every day. The website defines science as our natural world. We ride a car, fly a plane, or sail a ship, and each has its own system and set of sciences.

We also live in the digital age where all types of technology enter our lives via desktops or laptops, iPads or smartphones, and countless other information sources. We witness the construction of colossal structures, as well as engineers’ amazing solutions to today’s challenges of a growing population and global warming. We don’t need to search very hard to see the contributions of engineers to our daily lives. All we have to do is look at the world around us, including the houses we live in and the cars we drive.

When it comes to recognizing the use of mathematics, evidence is everywhere. Math is used for such minor tasks as going to a grocery store, bank, or shopping center, or for budgeting or investing. Mathematical calculations are part of our daily routines. Almost every other field (STEM and non-STEM) depends on mathematics. I remember an example one of the STEM teachers gave me. He explained why mathematics is not fully appreciated. He used an analogy of a tray, which represents mathematics. When you serve other subjects – including physics, chemistry, biology, technology, and even reading – on the tray, people pay attention to the things on the tray, but not the tray. But without the tray, you cannot serve anything.

In sum, STEM education is a must in today’s economy; it’s very important, because “it pervades every aspect of our lives” (Science Pioneers, p.1).

STEM Education’s role in countries’ global competitiveness: the case of STEM in the United States
It is better to explain this section with an example. The United States will produce more than 1.8 million STEM jobs by 2018. In fact, it is expected that STEM-related jobs will grow at a faster rate than other fields – 17 percent versus 9.8 percent (Bertram, 2014). Unfortunately, it is estimated that 1.2 million of these STEM jobs will go unfilled. Why? Because the current US workforce does not possess the skills to fill them (Bertram, 2014). Moreover, the World Economic Forum ranks the United States 52nd in the world when it comes to the quality of mathematics and science education, and 5th in overall global competitiveness or innovativeness. Moreover, the United States comes in 27th among developed nations in generating college graduates in science or engineering. Not surprisingly, many graduate students studying in US graduate schools are mostly non-American citizens, including over 2/3 of the engineers who receive Ph.D.’s from United States universities. What’s more, only one third of the annual 1.8 million bachelor graduates in the US choose STEM majors. One very important quote from the US Department of Labor (cited in Vilorio, 2014) summarizes why STEM education is important for the US economy: “The STEM fields and those who work in them are critical engines of innovation and growth: according to one recent estimate, while only about five percent of the US workforce is employed in STEM fields, the STEM workforce accounts for more than fifty percent of the nation’s sustained economic growth.”

Therefore, STEM education has a critical role in countries like the US. The importance of STEM education is not limited to only the United States: when you look at the research literature, you will see that many other European and non-European countries have started investing millions of dollars to improve their STEM education and increase their STEM-literate college students (Archer, DeWitt, & Wong, 2013; Ayar, 2015).

What a good STEM Education should look like
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) (2010) identified four major goals of STEM Education. But again, these goals were developed for the American people and government. Thus, any community or country can develop their own STEM education goals based on their needs or expectations.
According to PCAST, the first goal of American STEM education should be to ensure a STEM-capable citizenry where average Americans have the knowledge, conceptual understandings, and critical thinking skills that come from studying STEM subjects. The second goal of American STEM education is to generate a STEM-proficient workforce, one that has the skills to meet the needs of the American economy. The third goal of American STEM education is to cultivate STEM experts who can contribute “to economic growth, to technological progress, to our understanding of ourselves and the universe, and to the reduction of hunger, disease, and poverty” (p.6). The last goal of American STEM education is to close the achievement and participation gap among students of color and women, in order to tap into the country’s full potential.
In conclusion, it seems that policymakers and researchers agree on the strategic and scholastic importance of STEM education. In order to produce the workforce countries need, research suggests STEM teaching has to be engaging, rigorous, relevant to students’ lives, and must cultivate an interest in STEM subjects (NRC, 2011). But the pivotal question we need to ask is: how will educational institutions teach STEM subjects and raise a STEM-literate generation? This is another article topic to ponder!
References
Archer, L., DeWitt, J., & Wong, B. (2013). Spheres of influence: what shapes young people’s aspirations
at age 12/13 and what are the implications for education policy? Journal of Education Policy, 29(1), 58-85.

Ayar, M. C. (2015). Engineering design at first-hand and career interest in engineering: An informal STEM education case study. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice 15(6), 1655.

Bertram, V. M. (2014). One nation under-taught: Solving America’s science, technology, engineering, and math crisis. New York: Beaufort Books.

Bouchillon, E. (2015). What is STEM education?: Definition, importance, & importance. Retrieved from http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-stem-education-definition-importance-standards.html

Dede, C. (2010). Comparing frameworks for 21st century skills. In J. Bellanca & R. Brandt (Eds.), 21st century skills: Rethinking how students learn (pp. 221-240). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Roblin, N.P. (2012, November). 21st century competences: A new challenge for Higher Educationinstitutions?Retrievedfrom http://www.fue.es/HTML/PDFS/01%20EUGRAD%20DISSEMINATION/%20SEMINA
R_21st%20CENTURY%20SKILLS.pdf

Science Pioneers. (2016). Why STEM education is important for everyone. Retrieved from https://www.sciencepioneers.org/parents/why-stem-is-important-to-everyone

National Research Council. (2011). Successful K-12 STEM education: Identifying effective approaches in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Washington: NAP.

President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. (2010). Prepare and inspire: K-12 education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for America’s future. Washington. Retrieved from
http:// www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ microsites/ostp/pcast-stem- ed-final.pdf

Vilorio, D. (2014). STEM 101: Intro to tomorrow’s jobs. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2014/spring/art01.pdf

Scientific psychology corroborates these truths and lays bare the inescapable responsibility to know and manage the self (C.G. Jung, 1957). Knowing and accepting realities about ourselves positively offers a platform for personal growth and development, and further permits cathartic motivations for transcending flaws. While religions approach the path to transcendence differently (e.g. based on organic time and place), each testifies to human dignity that is capable of finding safe passage through the contradictions of life without compromising the safety of others.

Religious and secular histories reveal tragic outcomes for humanity when these responsibilities are ignored. The current neoliberal, capitalist ideology, which was systemized by economic theorist Milton Friedman, externalizes, or factors out, human and environmental damage, for these interfere with the profit principle. His open defiance of social responsibility not only shows a separation between the rational mind and rational heart, but clears the way for nullification of the universal human rights principle and bows to nefarious economic warfare waged between groups.

Within earlier historical memory, power’s unwillingness to analyze the subjective and blame the objective played-out on the global stage with catastrophic consequences. Between 1914 and 1945, the world was at war with itself. Yet, national leaders and their people denied their own failed-policies, and chose to violently project responsibility onto others (Fromm’s, 1973). Analyses of Europe’s part in the atrocities of WWII illuminate a reoccurring historical fact: non-defensive wars are often complicated and motivated by un-dealt with personal projections of a nation’s leaders and its peoples. At the heart of humanity’s violent history lie legions of self-denials and self-failures, too colossal to list. Perhaps more ironic than the irresponsible projections themselves is the denial of responsibility, as expressed in the question: where was God?

With the beginning of the West’s wars in the Middle East, in 2003, human rights experts recognized that the topic of human rights was off the table, a frightening but conscious decision that reconfirms the warnings of sages and prophets: human history is a history of choice.

A catharsis for the events of 1914 – 1945 was the establishment of the Bretton Accords, which established international institutions aiming to prevent future crimes against humanity. The sets of principles laid out in the accords sought to mandate individual rights of vital protections, by humanizing finances, employment, and governance. Rights of human security were embedded within a constellation of personal, social, economic, and political rights. The United Nations, which signed the 1948 Convention on The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, agreed to this universal principle, and applied it clearly to the subjugated children and women of the global patriarchy by creating the special conventions: Rights of the Child and The Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

While many nation-states embrace moral responsibility to ratify conventions for universal human rights, many UN representatives continue to face non-ratification resistance at home. While the new, global power-brokers of trade and finance systemically and tactically block universal human rights, the global under-privileged are taking their arguments to the streets. Taking responsibility to occupy their own policies is a response validated by scholar Noam Chomsky (Occupy, 2012, p.89) and reflects the Jeffersonian idea of democratic action. Taking possession of rights far exceeds passive verbalization.

A watershed of responsible self-action is being witnessed around the globe: workers are organizing to buy-back their closed factories; students organize to undermine dictatorships and corrupt governments; sexually exploited children are naming criminal-priests; women are fighting the slave-trade; independent journalists air photos of government backed genocides and externally organized coups; neighbors take video of real-time police brutality; independent filmmakers document corporate damages; veterans bow to their own shame and expose military atrocities; whistle-blowers expose mass government fraud; and high-ranking bank officials make tragic, but telling testimonies against system-exploitation by committing suicide. While these examples reflect an existing depth of global darkness, self-responsible action affirms our awareness of our right to live change and change living.

Considering our ever changing universe and the human capacity to re-imagine new life, it is possible to more clearly understand the discreteness of the great religions which direct responsibility to each individual. By means of self-awareness, self-responsibility and self-regulation, we each hold the best possibilities for peaceful co-existence and the preservation of human rights.

June Dayle Jelm, PhD in International Relations, is a Professional Mediator specializing in Domestic Violence in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Educators have identified some skills that are necessary for students to succeed in their lives – these are called 21st century skills (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2008). In the age of innovation and information, certain skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication, innovation, and technological proficiency are vital for succeeding in the new workforce, yet many countries have not yet utilized their resources to teach and assess these skills. It is believed that if countries fully understood the link between students developing these skills and the future of their economies, these countries would invest and develop ways to foster the aforementioned skills in their students.

Due to this, educational researchers have proposed that it is an economic and social imperative for everybody to work towards ensuring the next generation will be eQuipped with 21st century skills (Triling – Fadel, 2009; National Research Council, 2010). In this article, I will discuss some of the 21st century skills, their importance, and whether these skills are enough for today’s students to succeed in the workforce and be happy in their social lives.

21st century skills

Due to increased globalization and access to technology, new skills are needed to succeed in the workforce. Educators, government officials, and business people were asked about what these 21st century skills” entailed. I’m going to address some of their most common answers.

Jerald (2009) justified and explained what skills our students need in this age – and why they need them. He believes we need a generation with newer skills due to changes in automation, globalization, workplace, demographics, and personal risk and responsibility. Computer technology in manufacturing has led to the automation of many jobs that humans once performed better, faster, and cheaper than machines. Technological and political changes as well as competitive forces have caused economies to be globalized. Together, these factors have changed how businesses operate. There is less hierarchy and supervision, and greater autonomy and personal responsibility for workers. Also, the global economy and ever-changing technology create a mobile population; thus, the population demographics of many countries are changing. As a result, individual risk and responsibility have increased. The skills defined as imperative for the 21st century have some commonalities, and they include reading literacy, mathematical literacy, scientific literacy, communication and collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving, and creativity (Jerald, 2009; Pacific Policy Research Center, 2010). I want to look at each of these skills in detail.

Reading literacy: Reading literacy is more about reading to learn rather than learning to read (Jerald, 2009). It is expected that employees are able to decipher many kinds of documents to carry out all kinds of tasks. This task may change from getting a driver’s license to voting in an election to learning how to run new eQuipment. There are a number of national and international assessments that examine teenage and adult literacy. For example, the PISA reading literacy assessment measures students with reading charts, graphs, tables, maps, diagrams, forms, information sheets, advertisements, political flyers, vouchers, and myriad different certificates. Research supports the importance of strong literacy. Adults with stronger literacy skills are more likely to be employed, paid higher, and to have better jobs. Therefore, both individual and organizational success is highly dependent upon a high level of literacy.

Mathematical literacy: Mathematical literacy is sometimes called Quantitative literacy or numeracy.” This implies something other than what students do in a classroom, like answering a multiple-choice Question or solving a test Question. Jerald (2009) says it’s possible that even highly educated people cannot be successful in understanding real life Quantitative information, such as understanding credit card offers or comparing the cost per ounce of food.

Lynn Steen, a professor of mathematics at St Olaf Collage, points out that the roles played by numbers and data in contemporary society are virtually endless” (in Jerald, 2009, p.39). Professor Steen summarizes why mathematics literacy is so important by saying:

Virtually every major public issue-from health care to social security, from international economics to welfare reform-depends on data, projections, inferences, and the kind of systematic thinking that is at the heart of Quantitative literacy (In Jerald, 2009, p.39).

Scientific literacy: Science is known as one of the least favorite or most difficult subjects for most students, but experts say that all adults need to understand and apply science in daily life. There are several types of knowledge necessary for scientific literacy. The first is to be familiar with important scientific topics. OECD’s PISA science literacy assessment measures 15 year old students’ knowledge of physical systems, living systems, earth and space, and technology. The second necessary knowledge is how science works and how to apply scientific methods such as observation and testing. The third piece of necessary knowledge is an understanding of how science and technology impact our society and physical world, for good or ill. Therefore, scientific literacy is one of the critical skills that people have to possess in the 21st century.

Financial literacy: This skill is particularly important for each and every citizen to make healthy economic decisions. Educational research points out that there are considerable weaknesses in financial literacy among students and adults in the United States. For instance, the Jump$tart Coalition’s 2002 biennial financial literacy test results showed that American high school seniors answered only 50 percent of the Questions correctly. Likewise, the Institute of Certified Financial Planners conducted a survey and found that making individual financial decisions is one of the major problems for participants.

Communication and collaboration: Learning is a social activity that happens either in a formal school setting or other environments. Communication and collaboration skills entail students’ ability to communicate clearly by using oral, written, and non-verbal means, and to collaborate effectively and responsibly with the people around them (Pacific Policy Research Center, 2010). The world is shrinking and becoming like a small village thanks to the Internet and new technologies. This creates new communication challenges. Although education has reQuired good communication skills, including speech, writing, and reading, the increasing diversity of the global economy demands a much more complicated and advanced set of skills for communication and collaboration (Trilling – Fadel, 2009). For example, it is expected that students and workers are able to listen effectively to superiors to decipher deeper meanings within the speaker’s speech and attitudes. An effective communicator shouldn’t just be able to listen well, but should be able to speak with diverse groups about different topics – and oftentimes in different languages. For collaboration skills, each individual has to demonstrate the ability to work productively and respectfully with diverse groups. Being flexible and helpful, and making necessary compromises are essential components of effective collaboration skills. Researchers suggest that using active learning methods, including project-based learning, problem-based learning, and game-based learning may help students develop the aforementioned skills.

Critical thinking and problem solving: Employers value critical thinking and problem solving skills the most (Jerald, 2009) because research indicates that workplace tasks demand employees doing things without having to be told or directed to do so (Levy – Mrunane, 2007). For instance, almost 60 percent of companies rate critical thinking and problem solving as very important skills which they expect high school graduates to possess. Unfortunately, 70 percent of employers report that students are mostly lacking in these areas. Mark Maddox, of Unilever Foods North America, explains why critical thinking and problem solving skills are so important and necessary in the workplace, saying, For our production and crafts staff, the hourly workers, we need self-directed people who either have problem-solving skills or can easily be trained to think on their feet and find creative solutions to some very tough, challenging problems” (In Jerald, 2009, p. 51). His company has such high expectations because they no longer employ supervisors who take control or explain things. Students or employees with such skills are good not only for the workplace, but also for their participation in solving local, national, and global problems that pose threats to everybody.

Creativity and innovation: The new Skills Commission (2007) did extensive research on the workforce and global economic indicators; they concluded that in addition to all the important above-mentioned skills, the U.S. needs a crucial new skill that will maintain its competitiveness in the global economy – a skill called creativity and innovation. Creativity is an essential skill that incorporates communication, problem solving, risk taking, curiosity, tolerance of ambiguity, and Questioning (Conference Board, 2008). The type of creativity adults need in today’s workplace is the one that enables workers to solve problems not encountered before. It also helps them cope with ill-structured tasks or problems that have no single right solution – or even any good solution.

Global awareness: This theme emphasizes the importance of working collaboratively with diverse people from different cultures, lifestyles, religions, ideologies, and backgrounds; this work must be done with an attitude of mutual respect. Also, promoting the study of other languages is very meaningful and necessary for understanding different nations and cultures. Doing this will enable students to feel closer to global issues and diverse learning communities; thus, they will create a new world where everybody respects each other, accepts others in their positions, and seeks ways to solve problems rather than fighting and killing innocent people and destroying valuable land.

Conclusion

I believe that these are all important skills for an individual’s success in life and countries’ success in the global economy. But today, it is not only the economy that reQuires a different set of skills. Rapidly changing technology and the internet have changed both personal and international affairs, from relationships to trade. The only meaningful way to make each and every country’s future bright and promising is to develop a generation of citizens who are aware of their responsibilities to preserve and strengthen diversity and democracy. This will ensure our world is a better place. Thus, we want our schools, regardless of culture and location, to prepare students eQuipped with the aforementioned skills to face a changing world.

Sahin, PhD, is a Research Scientist at Aggie STEM.

References

• Jerald, C. D. (2009). Defining a 21st century education. Retrieved from http://www.cfsd16.org/public/_century/pdf/Defininga21stCenturyEducation_Jerald_2009.pdf
• Levy, F. – Murnane, R. J. (2007). How computerized work and globalization shape human skill demands. In Suarez-Orozco, M. M. (Ed.), Learning in the global era: International perspectives on globalization and education (pp. 158-176). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Nelson, C. (2005). Fethullah Gulen: A vision of transcendent education. Retrieved from http://fethullahgulenconference.org/houston/read.php?p=fethullah-gulen-vision-transcendent-education
• National Center on Education and the Economy. (2007). Tough choices or tough times: The report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American workforce. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. (p. 19)
• National Research Council. (2010). Exploring the intersection of science education and 21st century skills: A workshop summary. Margaret Hilton, Rapporteur. Board on Science Education, Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
• NCREL – Metiri Group. (2003). enGauge 21st century skills: literacy in the digital age.Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2008). 21st century skills, education – competitiveness: A resource and policy guide. Retrieved from http://www.pkwy.k12.mo.us/projectParkway/File/21st_century_skills_education_and_competitiveness_guide.pdf
• Pacific Policy Research Center. (2010). 21st century skills for students and teachers. Retrieved from http://www.ksbe.edu/spi/PDFS/21%20century%20skills%20full.pdf
• Trilling, B. – Fadel, C. (2009). Q – A on 21st century skills. Retrieved from http://21stcenturyskillsbook.com/blog/Q-a/

It seems that uncertainty instead of diversity is prevailing from the eve of post-modernism, thinning the lines between world cultures and societies from day one. In search of “theory of everything,” we have almost forgotten all good and great theories and ideas about everything, leading us to skepticism and unbelief. The challenge of open skepticism tends to create more refusals than acceptance and the objective of higher education fails bitterly here, an objective that is to create a global level of understanding of the universal phenomena and to proceed with a uniform level of evolution of the intellectual mind. Instead of growing intellectual maturity and reflexivity, the symptoms of anxiety and panic and/or withdrawal are prevailing. Is this a healthy sign? Will we be able to save the sanity of the world?

In sanity lies peace and stability, and both are at stake. Now there are two choices: The first is whether the world knowledge leaders should aspire to regress back to pre-industrial revolution’s feudal monarchy based upon resignation to a single authority, where people are more entitled to powers by declaration of ownership and where there are no choices but moralized obedience to such authorities. In corporate world, Machiavellian moral has already been resounding that might is right and means may not justify the end. Such regression calls for the indoctrinated agenda of the education with priests and preachers ruling the mobs and world streets are rushing for it. The second choice or alternative is that people should embrace postindustrial Marxist-Socialist interventions, which celebrate sharing rather than ownership. The individuals sub-serve the community and in turn communities the nation; whereas, the nations must not compete in status but protect the welfare of its citizens. Whether the traditional concepts of “welfare” and “citizenship” still exist in today’s world is questionable.

Since the right of choice is still available, the nations and communities are making blind choices without thinking of the outcomes of the outcomes. What will happen to nations who will fail to attain socio-cultural and political balance in their visions? They may hear the sound of the doomsday bell ringing in their ears, thinking that they have enough time to fight till the “end.” Actually, sound travels slower than light and people are misled to believe that doomsday has yet to come, whereas, the reality has crossed that threshold much earlier and what they are witnessing is the after-math; just like a Tsunami that passes in a few minutes and only some people survive to witness its after-effects. The victims remain in shock, while those who have not experienced a Tsunami themselves hang in confusion, pondering whether their present condition is the result of the Tsunami or post-Tsunami mishandling of affairs. They may continue creating split-hair logics till doom, but their wish to reverse time remains a dream.

Similar has been the case with the “corporate” Tsunami; it came and it won – not just overpowered but overthrew everything else. We were in midst of celebrating the glory of human worth crowning individual freedom and liberalism while achieving the impossible, reaching beyond skies and galaxies through advents of natural science. We are unable to justify from where this financial meltdown came and suddenly we found ourselves struck with global recession, as if travelling on the smooth pathways of the Milky Way, we were suddenly engulfed by a black hole.

Will this mammoth spit us out alive? Is living inside a dragon “life”? Are we not inside a cave as Plato had remarked, but inside a dragon? The world outside is no more a safer place to live with nuke ideas, but living inside the dragon, the corporate culture, is wearing us out of our vitality and enthusiasm. Our weakening may weaken the dragon but do we want to die with the dragon or live with it? Those of us who believe in the afterlife, we may have the spirit to risk martyrdom or if we have the feudal courage, we may have cut the stomach line of the dragon with our bear hands, as if ploughing the fields. Kingship and martyrdom are the stories of the past. We believe in peace not war, therefore we should manage to live with the dragon. Now onwards, every tear or drop of perspiration is creating dwarfs of “relativism” and “nihilism.” The harder we work, the more we reduce in size, creating our own prototypes. Small is beautiful, but what will happen when all of us will be cut to the same size? We are shrinking together; whether or not will we grow together is questionable. I grew up listening to the stories that explained how once the earth was populated by giants and dinosaurs, and a Tsunami came and all of them became extinct.

I’ve been informed that post-modern life knows no ethical limits, understanding that values are a matter of choice, a matter of aesthetical personal taste, and suddenly I am reminded that the purpose of higher education was to develop that aesthetical taste in favor of public good. Why then should we refuse the hegemony of valued knowledge and insist on creating new knowledge of “no taste”? No wonder this “new knowledge” is impoverishing both bodies and minds rather than nurturing them. The knowledge remains stratified and complex, non-chewable and non-digestive for the common as it was engineered to fit the purpose of the “elitist corporate.” The elitism is created on the type of education one has received rather than how knowledgeable one is, where reason reigns supreme and traditional methods of acquiring knowledge are blandly rejected being accused of spreading false prophecies and hearsay.

It is not only in the field of knowledge that legitimization of factionalism and particularism has gone too far, it has also affected the social fabric of society as well. When we witness the mixing of gender and social identities, the puzzled mind asks: which gender of which race do you belong to? Elongation of the ego exposes shadows and in a consumerist world, the question is how we can cease any production. Who will dare stop them? Who has the right to exercise “choice”? Whatever come may, the post-modern world is committed to the challenge of social change and social justice, no compromise, no deal to public freedom, whether they create demons or mole hills. They are liable to create colonies and their inhabitants. Does residence and citizenship still matter?

As the Tsunami of media and information technology has been rising, social sciences have remained dumbfounded as individuals become plain victims questioning oneself in sheer pain and guilt about one’s identity: who is the citizen of which world, real or cyber? Citizenship itself is challenged employing virtual rights over social networks. With the population of cyber networks increasing at a faster rate than the population of countries and may be that of small continents, everyone is jubilant at the promise of post-modernism fulfilled – the promise of diversity. It is not setting new world order, but a new social order, defining rules of communication and relationships, where virtual existence matters more than the real one and remarkable solutions for issues related to time and space are readily available.

The citizens of a global world have never experienced such flexibility before. The gates of Eden are wide open and you do not need to carry a “good deeds license” to enter. All you need is a cyber-work-space to enter the world of ideas. Is it a dream or an “afterlife” because that too appears to be more virtual than real. Again the boundaries are thinning between the virtual and the real, between a scope of possibilities and number of its realization, all that corporate citizenship wants is huge numbers so the giants are feeding on numbers and digits. Should I worry?

While waves of uncertainty crash to a shore nearby, I embrace the warmth of diversity emanating from the Sun above. I recognize my impotence before such radiance and realize that just like the sun, there is a unity that binds humanity together.

Dr. Arif is the Head of Department Psychology, University of Central Punjab, Pakistan.

Note

[1] Heterotopia: An idealized utopia of heterogeneity, that of mixing social gender and identities by realizing the principle of diversity

What I would like to say in this paper is from a glocal perspective even though the case study I will offer at the end is local. That does not mean that I believe that Ireland is the centre of the universe, though for three decades at the end of the twentieth century we had that tragic privilege. An introverted narrative is negative, be it Irish, British, American, Canadian or wherever. My Irish case study is informed and underpinned by global perspective and is therefore, I hope, a glocal story. I would also like to explore two key components of peacebuilding which education can address, indeed I believe, must address, if humanity is to live at peace on the planet as well as with the planet.

PEACEBUILDING THROUGH EDUCATION

In June of this year Aung San Sui Kyi visited Europe. She is a woman who has suffered greatly, remains committed to non-violence, and is a champion for democracy in her own Burma. She reminds us that peacebuilding is about building democracy, which is essential to sustainable peace.

Just over two decades ago many of us sat glued to the television screen. The image is indelible, that of Nelson Mandela finally emerging from his Robben Island prison compound. He walked to freedom to lead, with others, the transformation of apartheid South Africa into a Rainbow Nation. It’s still a work in progress. Mandela has reminded us that peace building is the creation of a pluralist, participative democracy. Peace building is pro-democracy and it is about actively creating rainbow nations and societies, pluralist, participative democracies – at least! Education has a crucial role to play in all of this.

Education for pluralist democracy

Democracy is developing. There is no finished product and there is no one model to be imposed universally irrespective of contexts and cultures. It is not a flawless system either. Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst of political systems, except for all the others.” Democracy is about freedom. What the promise of freedom and potential for democracy does induce is an almost universal abhorrence of tyranny. Dictatorships, totalitarian regimes and fascist states do not last and do not satisfy the deepest longings and needs for freedom and participative belonging. Whatever past history, newly liberated nations usually move towards democracy. In 1918 when Czechoslovakia was born, its President said, “Our whole history inclines us towards the democratic Powers.” That was repeated in 1989-91 by leaders of all the countries of the ex-Soviet bloc (Norman 1997, 131).

Education for pluralist democracy as part of peace building needs to engage history. Democracy has a lineage, a family tree and young people and adults should be aware of it.

The Greeks invented politics and it began with our city states. The polis needed governance and there was a recognition of a public good, a shared public interest and common concerns, and over these issues there could be argument, debate, discussion, decision and policy making. The assembly of citizens was known as the ecclesia, though it was far from being fully participative. It was only for wealthy males, people of power, excluded women and certainly had no place for slaves and lower classes. Athenian democracy lasted for 185 years. It had limited participation and Plato even thought that democracy meant the rule of the incompetent. Democracy was forgotten for a millennium.

European democracy owes more perhaps to the democratic practices of the Viking world. Popular assemblies enter European history in the 9th century in Sweden and Denmark. Iceland’s national assembly came into being in 930 CE. Long before England had such a democratic assembly, it existed in the Manx assembly, the Isle of Man, a small island between Britain and Ireland with a Viking history. The Manx Tynwald or assembly is also 9th century. Wherever the Vikings went, Nordic democracy went with them.

In the modern era the two great shapers of democracy were the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Any education in pluralist democracy needs to be aware of these seismic events. The history of the 18th-19th century Europe was a history of wars and conflict, and absolutist monarchies and imperial powers. The first political revolution of a new time in European history happened outside of Europe and it led to the dissolution of the first British Empire. It began in 1773 with the Boston Tea Party and a decade later at the Paris Peace Conference American Independence was recognised. Now the people of North America “could work out their problems virtually untroubled by foreign intervention, a blessing to much that was to follow” (Roberts 1997, 347). Popular sovereignty was embodied in the opening words of the Constitution, “We the People.” All governments derive their just powers from the assent of the governed. The American Revolution was a landmark in world history.

Then followed the French Revolution and by 1789, notwithstanding the Terror, great reforms were achieved.

The formal abolition of feudalism, legal privilege and theocratic absolutism, and the organisation of society on individualist and secular foundations were the heart of the principles of ’89 distilled in a Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen… legal equality and legal protection of individual rights, the separation of Church and State and religious toleration were their institutional expression. The derivation of authority from popular sovereignty acting through a unified National Assembly, before whose legislation no privilege of locality or group could stand… (Roberts 1997, 353-354).

Modern democracy is born and by 1900 the principle of democracy was an idea, albeit still resented in some parts of Europe, whose time had come. An education process needs to engage with the historical development of democracy. We may have little consensus about its essence and it remains flawed in practice. “We the People” may even be impossible, strictly speaking, in practice. But democracy as a theory of governance and the ordering of the public good has promoted “all the virtues, from freedom, justice and equality to the rule of law, the respect for human rights, and the promotion of political pluralism and of civil society” (Davies 1997, 131).

Democracy is not amoral. It implies a need to be underpinned by a value system. Values and ethics are the foundation of democracy at work. Peace building is an ethical task, it needs democracy and the values and ethics that underpin democracy. Democracy involves pluralism and freedom, it also requires tolerance or respect. The education process needs to draw the distinction between passive tolerance and active tolerance. The former is the tolerance of indifference. The latter is “The attitude of one who positively co-lives with the other because one respects the other and accepts the multi-faceted richness of reality” (Boff 2011, 8-9). At the heart of any education for democracy is justice, especially justice as distributive and restorative. Democracy is for human, social flourishing. And distributive and restorative justice are core to peace building.

Education for global citizenship

Yale historian, Jay Winter, believes that a new kind of vision emerged at the end of the dark 20th century after the momentous events of the late 1980s and early ’90s. It is a vision set in the framework of globalisation which aims to create a new kind of politics called the “politics of global citizenship.” It has also been described as “globalisation – from – below.”

Global citizens are emerging out of an array of transnational social forces animated by environmental concerns, human rights, hostility to patriarchy, and the vision of humane community based on the unity of diverse cultures seeking an end to poverty, oppression, humiliation, and collective violence. (Winter 2006, 169-170)

A new kind of political consciousness is developing which is transnational and is flowing across national borders. It is a glocal movement holding together the local and global. “Global citizenship is a political project helping people to imagine a different kind of world.” Citizenship is not tied to the state, it is “participation in a transnational set of struggles for dignity and justice” (Winter 2006, 170). The nation state is no longer primary. We are no longer just Irish, American, Turkish or Indian citizens but global citizens, in a different and larger solidarity on environmental rights, women’s rights and human rights. Transnational citizenship is about all of these glocal justice issues none of which is limited by national boundaries. Community now is in the local and the global.

Perhaps this began for many of us as children when we put our name and address on the inside page of a school text book. Name, street, town/city, Ireland, Europe, The World, The Universe! It is now the reality in a globalised world. Transnationalism and global citizenship may still have an unmapped future, but like modern democracy at the beginning of the 20th century this new local – global reality is and will shape who we are in the 21st century. It will be a peace building project stretching us well beyond any introverted narrative. Citizenship education now needs to be global for all ages, and it is not only an alternative to introverted narratives, but also to economic globalisation as the sole determinative factor for human and environmental life on the planet.

A GLOCAL CASE STUDY

I currently work on an initiative called Ethical and Shared Remembering. It is an initiative which will respond to the centenaries of events that occurred in Ireland between 1912-1922 and shaped the rest of the 20th century for the people in Ireland. It was a decade of enormous political change ending with the partition of Ireland, and it was also a decade of brutal violence.

How the centenaries will be handled between 1912-1922 will shape the decades ahead for better or worse. Ethical remembering is an approach that is critical in relation to the militarisation of politics and the violence that was so deeply embedded in culture and practice. Shared remembering is an approach that encourages the protagonists in all their complexity to engage with each other as human beings and to understand better each other’s perspectives on this crucial Irish decade and its legacy. The legacy has left many issues unresolved which have been re-played in the more recen phase of violence and conflict in Ireland. Some of these issues are; nationalism, nation-state, faith and politics, faith and violence, class and labour relations, feminism and equality issues, trauma and peace building. These constitute for any educational programme a generational peace building agenda which needs to be set in a global or glocal context.

There are multiple Irish narratives from this decade. Not only will this initiative try to recover them, especially the alternative, repressed or forgotten narratives, but the events of 100 years ago will be carefully set in the larger global, at least European context of that time. The memory of the Irish narrative(s) has often been introverted, but this community education initiative will seek to provide a larger and more critical perspective on a century ago by placing the events in a more global context. Early 20th century imperialism and the catastrophe of the Great War, provide a larger and rather different perspective.

The framework for an educational exploration will not only include global contextualisation but also narrative hospitality. This is about generosity of spirit and openness to engage with multiple narratives, especially those of one’s sectarian tradition or narrative perspective. Narrative hospitality will also include narrative pluralism and narrative flexibility. These latter two approaches will encourage an openness to recognise that there are multiple histories and diversities of interpretation of historical events and never a fixed or final norm. It is openness to realise that history is a plethora of interpretations, little of which may be about what actually happened even if ever that can be fully known.

Another educational framework will be integrative complexity. This is also getting beyond mono-narrative or mono-truth, simplism or fundamentalist politics or religion. Integrative complexity (IC) is a way of seeing history, culture, politics, faith, the world in all their diversity and complexity and integrating or weaving together the complexities of personal, communal and historical existence, and to see this complexity in the other.

Key to this project will be the development of critical thinking skills in a community where there has been, through the dynamics of violence and conflict, a culture which is unquestioning. The latter has often been understood as being disloyal or unpatriotic. Few people have thought for themselves and this educational methodology will engage with critical reflection on matters of history, politics, religion and cultural identity without reducing their complexity.

Essential to the educational exploration of the past will be future visioning. This is not just about a 2030 vision for Ireland. It is about transcending local nationalist politics of whatever shade and visioning a common good. It will also be about global citizenship, a transnational vision that will require the imaginative creation of a larger identity myth, beyond introversion, and glocal in perspective and complexity. Not only will the initiative encourage the development of an ethical vision for future society but will also unpack the need for ethical leadership in a society where the moral authority of the major institutions has collapsed. The initiative is being delivered through community education programmes, dialogue events, training resources and materials and a series of in-depth publications, and also the use of the arts. The community of ethical and shared remembering will include people from the community development and community relations sector, education, youth, the faith sector, politicians, ex-prisoners, commemorative groups and institutions. This is an initiative which we hope will make a positive contribution through education to peace building as a glocal task.

References

1. Davies, Norman. 1997. Europe: A History, London: Pimlico.
2. Roberts, J.M. 1997. The Penguin History of Europe, London: Penguin Books.
3. Boff, Leonardo. 2011. Virtues: For Another Possible World, Oregon: Cascade Books.
4. Winter, Jay 2006. Dreams of Peace and Freedom: Utopian Moments in the 20th Century, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. The extended quotation is from Richard Falk.

M&B: Your area of study is social ethics. In what way your approach to environmental problems is different than an ecologist, environmental scientist, or a purely religious scholar?

Dr. Hadsell: As social ethicists, when we look at the question of the environment we look at other questions in the human social world. So for example questions of peace and conflict, questions of population, questions of rich and poor within countries, questions of rich nations and poor nations, north and south, east and west so forth. In every case the goal is also to get the science right, to get the data right. So if you’re looking at issues of north and south for example what is the north what is the south what are the relationships we’re talking about are those political relationships? Are those economic relationships? How are political relationships related to economic relationships and culture and language and history and so forth? And when we therefore turn our attention to the environment we’re doing the same thing. We’re asking “whose environment?” According to whom what aspects of the environment. We also look at how are the environmental questions are being raised today. We look at issues of global warming and our use of natural resources accelerated use of natural resources and so forth. The social ethicist will say how these environmental issues are related to other issues that we know something about? That is how are they related to political issues, to economic issues to historical cultural interactions and so forth?

While some environmentalists takes the environmental issue as an object in itself and see it from their own perspective, a social ethicist will say as we look at the environment how is that question embedded in all of these other questions? They want to know the data about the environment the scientific data about the use of the consumption of natural resources and the acceleration of global warming and who is using the most resources? They want to know all of those things but they drive that discussion also from the philosophical religious side of things and ask from a religious perspective from a Christian perspective from a Muslim perspective let’s say, what is the human responsibility here? What does scripture tell us about the proper relationship between humans on the one hand nature on the other and God on the other? What is this relationship between these 3 things?

M&B: It seems like many different factors must be taken in to considerations.

Social ethics is really a composition of a number of things including sociology, political science studies of the social world, sometimes cultural anthropology as well as the more philosophical and religious area of ethics. And if you put those all together you have what is really called social ethics. People often work out of traditions, for example one can be an ethicist who’s interested in the social world and political issues in the social world out of a Muslim perspective or out of a Christian perspective or out of a Hindu perspective and so forth. There are also a humanist perspective so there are various approaches and they can be grounded religiously or not. That is religious people using scripture and faith but also then drawing upon as I said political science, history, sociology, cultural anthropology. When you put that together then it really is what in the United States we call the discipline of social ethics.

M&B: What are the challenges in working in such a diverse multicultural setting?

Multicultural settings are challenging be cause the history of human relationship with the environment varies with the cultures and religions. Different cultures approach nature in different ways and have a history with nature that is specific and different from other cultures.

In the United States and in our school Hartford Seminary we have a lot of cultures interacting as well as religions interacting. So you get a wide spectrum of perspectives and a wide spectrum of experiences and each perspective and each experience may assume that its own perspective is the normative one because of course it comes out of their own experience. It’s very important to think and to discuss these questions of the human relationship with nature across cultures and across religions to check the tendency for each perspective to blow its own perspective up and to call it common sense and to assume that its common to everyone.

M&B: Not only there are various religious and cultural settings but also geography seems to be an important factor when we approach to environmental problems.

In the United States for several decades there was an assumption that the environment is an issue that is of concern to white rich people. And that the rest of the American population or maybe the rest of the global population outside of north America and Europe for example don’t have the luxury of thinking about environmental issues. Of course that’s not true. The environmental issues such as global warming are going to affect most directly the very people who, once thought, shouldn’t care about the environment because they have other things to worry about like getting food on the table and so forth.

So these issues are complex and I think in recent years the environmental movement has become more able to think across cultures and across specific social classes for example and nations to think about the environment in more subtle ways. In the United States one of the things we’ve started talking about already 10 years ago is for example the issue of environmental racism. That is African Americans in the United States and inner cities of the United States may think of the environment as being something that people in the suburbs who are worried about who want to protect their trees or their streams or you know the kind of natural environment that they have and the reason that they’ve moved out into the suburbs in the first place. Whereas there are many environmental issues going on right in the inner cities which is often the place where the dirtiest processing plants are located. Many environmental issues are very close to home to a variety of cultures and a variety of income groups. The environment is far too important for global humanity to leave it up to one group as an issue for that particular group. It has to be an issue that is on the agenda for all of us from our own perspectives because we all get hit with these environmental issues. They’re moral issues for all of us and we need to have that conversation across these groups.

M&B: You said that the environmental problems hits the communities who depends on nature first. On the other hand the ones who are doing the pollution actually do not depend on nature so much. Do you think this adds another layer of responsibility or accountability to the problem?

I think it’s very true that the people around the world who are already vulnerable often already poor and often already living very close to nature. I think about people in the Pacific Islands for example. They are the people who are most immediately affected by changes in the environment as we see with the studies about the rising sea level in relationship to global warming. Many the people who will be most immediately affected are people who live as fishermen for example in villages who can’t protect themselves and can’t protect their villages and their livelihoods from the effects of global warming.

So yes, it’s very much the case that the people who are already vulnerable are the people who are poor and don’t have a lot of political participation or representation. The people who don’t have a lot of control over their lives are the people who will be most immediately affected by global warming. The people who live in big cities and lives removed from nature in the sense that they don’t know where their food comes from it’s shipped in from wherever all around the globe. They live in heated buildings and air conditioned buildings and they drive cars and so forth. They may not understand the complexity of the environmental issues and they may think themselves to be less vulnerable to questions like global warming.

I think one of the challenges of social ethics pertaining to the environment is to get the people in the cities who feel separate from nature and from the processes of nature to understand the direct although sometimes hidden links they have with the natural world and how their lifestyle and their consumption of resources effects the natural world and how the depletion of nature will in turn affect them and their lifestyles and even in big cities.

M&B: In what way religious traditions or ethical approaches could motivate them to take a new look at the nature?

I think that the sense of the sacred is a very important concept for the environmental movement. I think that as religious people the worldview of religious people is that everything that is given by God is endowed with a kind of sacred quality. So that all of the resources given by God should be approached with a sense of respect and honor the same kind of sense of respect and honor that we give towards sort of classically sacred moments or objects. It’s very much the case that many people in the environmental movement even if they are secular people, they have an experience with nature, an intuition of something bigger, grander and outside of human control and domination.

Many people, even if they’re secular, they sense in nature a kind of sacredness and it brings them that sense that they have even if they can’t talk about it in religious terms or don’t choose to talk about it in religious terms. I’ve met a number of people for whom direct experience with nature has brought them back into religious exploration in religious traditions because they’ve sensed a presence of the sacred in nature. And it takes them into an exploration in their own traditions or new traditions for them. It’s very clear that nature and the sacred are in many ways connected.

Unfortunately there is also a sense in which the leveling of the human perception and imagination in an extremely secular spirit so that the only measure is the human. To think that there are no measurements, no dimensions outside of the human is an impoverishment of human imagination and leads to a disregard for the intrinsic value of nature. Nature is not simply a reflection of what it does for me or how I can use it but that the things of nature are intrinsically in and of themselves valuable.

M&B: Do you think interfaith dialog is an important step to solve environmental problems?

I do think that when we think about religious plurality there are varieties of ways to structure conversations across different religious groups. And some people really want to spend their time talking about religious doctrine. That’s what they like to do and they really want to spend their time talking about religious doctrine and I think that’s a wonderful occupation, its time very well spent, and those people ought to spend their time doing that.

There’s other people who want to work together inter religiously not so much on the issues directly of religious doctrine, but on other issues. They want to problem solve together and they want to attack together across religions questions that are facing all of us. And it is for those kinds of people that the environmental issues are good possibilities for bringing people together across religious traditions to work together on environmental challenges. That is how Hindus or Buddhists or Christians or Muslims or Jews, each formed by and carrying with them their religious values can come to a common table and think together about environmental challenges and work together on those environmental challenges.

And I think that’s a very interesting way to work and it is a way that in some ways will go farther than either political conversations – specifically political conversations – or specifically doctrinal conversations; this is a different way of working together and I think it can be very positive.