Is the word “sustainable” unsustainable?

Courtesy of xkcd.com

The Power of Nothing

Zero.

Nada.  Niente.  Nought.  Nil.  Nothing.

There’s astounding power in Zero, these days.  The latest mystifying aspiration on the post-industrial development path.  An aspiration towards… Nothing.

“Zero tolerance“
“Zero carbon“
“Zero fat“
“Size zero“
“Zero interest“

The list goes on. 

When did “zero” become the hallmark of innovation, progress and success? 

At what point did our pursuit of “something” become so monotonous that we shifted our goal to “nothing”?  And indeed, can “nothing” ever be reached?

Major global brands are now marketing themselves on the premise of Zero.  There must be money in nothing. 

But what kind of modernity is Zero? 

Maybe we’ve come full circle.  0.

Diablogue #3, Part 3: Hurry up and stop

Welcome to Part 3 of our [slow] musings on the nature of Speed.  Here, The Owl’s Post takes up where we left off in Part 2, to question whether speed and slowness are necessarily polar extremes, or whether in fact they interact and co-mingle as counterparts to progress.  The following is a precis of the full article.  Over to you, Ms. Damatac…

 

Speed Limits, a 2009 exhibition by Stanford University professor Jeffrey Schnapp, “explores the concept of speed and its cultural evolution in all aspects of life, including construction and production, household functions, traffic and transit, and workplace rhythms, into its role in contemporary life”.  The exhibit also seeks to “enhance conceptions of the contrasts between fast and slow and also questions our reliance on speed and its effects”.  A series of talks led by Schnapp and spawned by his Speed Limits exhibit further ponders this mercurial entity’s seeming plethora of roles and incarnations, most interestingly by juxtaposing speed, industrialism, and modernity with slowness, naturalism, and tradition.  Here, we pay close attention to two speakers in Schnapp’s exhibition who focus on the role of speed in modernity, technology, architecture, and, ultimately, in society and life.

Speed as consequence of slowness

In one of Speed Limits’ talks, Guy Nordensen, a professor of architecture and structural engineering at Princeton University and the founder of engineering giant Arup’s New York City arm, linked speed with its slower kin:  resoluteness, deliberation, tenacity, and premeditation.  Emphasizing the importance of thoroughness and thoughtfulness in the development and experiencing of new methodologies, Nordensen draws parallels between the advancement of technology with the unlikeliest of subjects:  poetry and samurai sword making.

>> Read on at The Owl’s Post.

Slowness as consequence of speed

Professor Jeff Meikle of University of Texas – Austin analyzes speed from a different perspective in Speeding Towards Statis, another Speed Limits talk.  Centered on what he calls the “central paradox of modernity”, Meikle focuses on the beginnings of streamlined architecture in the United States during the 1930s, which pulled away from ostentatiousness and ornamentation in its architectures and industrial structures (it was the Great Depression, after all) and began to more increasingly focus on simplicity, austerity, and speed.

>> More, at The Owl’s Post.

Meikle makes an excellent point:  what is all of this speed for if it gets us nowhere and seems to hold nothing dear or sacred?  Therein lies what he calls the “central paradox of modernity”:

No matter how impressive is technology in our daily life or in social relationships, no matter how tenacious our attempts to enjoy the results of  our modernization…everything we rely on will be swept away in accelerating process of continuous transformation.  Speed, sometimes a literal multiplier of the process, sometimes a metaphor through which to represent it, is of the essence.”

In other words, Meikle asks:  should the means also be the end?  Upon continuing his talk, we discover not only the answer (no, speed is not an end), but also his elegant solution to this paradox of modernity, which he summarized, most appropriately, in four simple words:  “hurry up and stop”.  The increasingly faster machines, modes of transportation, and technologies are not only meant to get us from Point A to B in minimal time, but are also meant to allow us to take more time in enjoying the results, the destination.  Meikle also adds that the increasingly streamlined stylings of transportation, mass products, and commercial environments not only celebrate modernity, but also interestingly reflect and even mimic the more organic, unornamented forms found in nature…the very thing that lamentors of modernity initially feared losing.

Hurry up and stop, then, shall we?  Life awaits.

Diablogue #3, Part 2: The Pace of Life

I – am – in – the – slow - read – ers’ - group – my – broth – er – is – in – the – foot – ball – team – my – sis – ter – is – a – ser – ver – my – lit – tle – broth – er – was – a – wise – man – in – the – in -fants’ - Christ – mas – play – I – am – in – the – slow – read – ers’ – group – that – is – all – I – am – in – I – hate – it.”     Slow Reader from Please Mrs. Butler, Allan Ahlberg (Penguin, 1983)

Please Mrs. Butler - a favourite from my childhood, recalled via Jill’s opening contribution to this third diablogue.  I can remember being amused by the poem Slow Reader, as I was by all of Ahlberg’s poems, which cast a comedic light over school tales at a time when school itself was an obstacle to Fun.  What I didn’t appreciate, however, was the darker side of this poem.  Looking back on it as an adult, it seems a poignant reflection on a child’s upbringing in modern society, where speed is the essence from Day One.

Image courtesy of www.singletracks.com

The question I want to ask is this: How, and why, has speed become a metric for success?

In the classroom, those slow to grasp words and numbers are deemed less fortunate than their speedier classmates and are quickly placed ‘bottom of the class’.  On the sports field, the children who lag behind in a race or struggle to keep pace in a game are considered unworthy of making the team, and instead stand at the sidelines awaiting the tiredness of a faster player.  When it comes to exams, if you can’t think fast enough or scrawl with sufficient haste to finish in the allotted time, you’re penalised in the grading system such that your prospects of success may be damaged for years to come.  Irrelevant is the fact that you can think, write, run, read, add, subtract (and may do so more accurately than others); if it can’t be done quickly, well, better luck next time.  Whatever the proverb might suggest, slow and steady does not win the race.

This is The Pace of Life.  Jump on the treadmill at the age of three, and scramble.  Keep scrambling.  Because the pace only quickens with time.  Pass through university, which - granted – carries us at varying speeds of ‘dead slow’, ‘stop’, and ‘scramble like fury’, and enter… The Rat Race.  If you’re a glutton for speed, you’ll choose The Urban Rat Race.  The City, where speed brings new anonymity, even hostility, to fellow mortals.  Take New York, “the city that never sleeps”, where people hurry through life often oblivious to their surroundings, rarely acknowledging others even when jostled unceremoniously against each other on the subway.  How did it come to be that “every second counts” so much that people are willing to squeeze uncomfortably into a crowded train each morning, face pressed against the window and inhaling the bodily odour of a co-traveller’s armpit, simply to save the two-minute wait for the next, emptier train?  How did we reach the stage where people will brazenly grumble, groan and nip the heels of pedestrians dawdling unhurriedly along a city street?  Can’t take The Pace?  Get out of the city!

But in the urgency of modern life, there are refreshing moments of stillness.  Travelling home this evening, I stumbled across a heart-warming scene.  Typically, as the train stopped, passengers spilled from the opening doors and darted across one another in conflicting directions, in their anxiety to reach ‘Destination Next’.  A busker was playing what I think was a bouzouki, in a lilting melody of highs and lows to which (again, typically) most passers-by turned a blind eye.  Until one little girl, young enough still to be untouched by the demon of speed, stopped to watch.  And as she watched, she began to dance.  Freely, in the subway station, without a care in the world, she danced.  And as she danced, the frantic dashers-by stopped to watch.  And not only did they watch, they smiled.

The scene lasted for just a few moments, like a piece of slow motion film in a Hollywood blockbuster, before the onlookers gathered themselves up and remembered where they had to be.  But it was a moment that reminded me how much we miss as we speed through life.  There’s pleasure in slowness, which shouldn’t be forgotten.  There’s quality of life and of living.  Are we really such important stakeholders in the world these days, that catastrophe might strike if we pause awhile?

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.”   

From Songs of Joy and Others, W.H. Davies, 1911.

Diablogue #3, Part 1: The need for speed… reading?

In our third diablogue, we take on topics related to the concept of ’Speed’.  In a series of articles challenging different manifestations of speed, we question why society is pervaded by a need for speed, and whether we gain any real value by chasing the speedy solution.  Jill Damatac starts us off in Part 1, exploring the need for speed… reading.

Image courtesy of www.treehugger.com

I remember learning to read at the age of four.  My first word?  Business, from the top of the Business section of my grandfather’s Manila Times.  I read it phonetically:  “bi-zee-ness”, over and over, rolling it around like a gumball (or a Lemon Warhead.  Oh, man.  Where do they sell those around here?).  Ever since then, I’ve had quite the obsession with reading, writing, words in general.  I’m even dorky enough to admit that the two things I’m proudest of having done with words are, in order:  sounding out “business” at the age of four, and having the ability to read—and memorize—fast.

Really, really fast.

>> More at The Owl’s Post.

There is apparently even a movement for leisurely page-turning:  Slow Reading, a trend that, like Slow Food or Slow Travel, encourages participants to revel more in the experience, in the medium, rather than mere results.  It encourages pauses, thinking, feeling, maybe even extrapolating what one has just read into other thoughts, past experiences, ideas and sources.  It also defends the idea of taking one’s time while reading, and justifiably so—as I’ve just written, speed doesn’t necessarily translate into superior ability, comprehension, or analysis.

Why, I think I’ll like this Slow Reading business so much, I might even start Slow Writing.

Jessica Jackley brings us… Microfinance with added TLC

It seems we’re not the only ones to be inspired by the magnificent potential of microlending.  But Jessica Jackley did more than just write about it.  In her incredible TED Talk, Jessica tells the story of Kiva; an online community that brings individuals together with low income entrepreneurs throughout the world, to add the ‘personal’ touch to microfinance.

A Question of Sportsmanship: searching for integrity off the pitch

The concept of “sport” is intrinsically connected with principles of morality, honour and “playing by the rules”.  Take, for example, the definition of “sportsmanship” provided by Webster’s English Dictionary:

conduct (as fairness, respect for one’s opponent, and graciousness in winning or losing) becoming to one participating in a sport.”

And thus, a “sportsman” is one who is “considered with respect to living up to the ideals of sportsmanship”.  On this basis, perhaps, one might imagine a professional sportsman to stand at the pinnacle of social ideals: someone to look up to, someone we might aspire to be.

But does the reality of sport align with this textbook perception?

Over the past twelve months alone, the media has cast aspersions on the integrity of some of our highest profile sporting stars.  In November 2009, golfing great Tiger Woods admitted to a series of extra-marital affairs.  As his sponsors deserted him, Woods took an “indefinite break” from professional golf while the media sting abated.  In January 2010, attention shifted to Chelsea footballer John Terry, when his own affair was dramatically exposed as the latest in his record of misdemeanours.  Tales of drunkenness, violence, drug-taking and debauchery have plagued the sporting world, so why do we place its actors on such a pedestal?  Are we wrong to expect them to toe the moral line in their private lives, simply because they have to play by the rules on the sports field?  Surrounded by such media hype, grandiose salaries and equally over-inflated egos, could anybody live up to such ideals?  Questions like these are rife in the current affairs media, as we see the fall from grace of global sporting icons.

A recent (February 2010) debate hosted by the BBC News website invited opinion as to whether sportsmen are acceptable “role models” off the pitch.  The question met with a tirade of comment, many of which echoed this reader:

I have no desire to aspire to be like any of the sports people I see or hear about in the media! What a bunch of ‘think’ fame seekers! If we have to have ‘role models’, could we at least aspire toward intelligence or would it undermine a social system of dumbing down humanities [sic] expectations of possibility?”

But let us stop a moment and remember our idioms.  Did not our mothers teach us ‘never to judge a book by its cover’, and not to ‘tar everyone with the same brush’?

Rightly so.  It would be ignorant to write off so easily the incredible potential that sport can have for philanthropy and social gain, and the quiet diligence with which real sporting excellence is being played out around the world.  Cameroonian footballer Samuel Eto’o is a case in point.  Trained in his home country, Eto’o has risen to fame as one of the world’s top strikers, playing club football with FC Barcelona and captaining the Cameroon national side in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.  Less well known, however, have been the incredible time and money that Eto’o has ploughed into development projects back home.  Speaking on the website of his private foundation, he explains that

football has given me everything and I feel obliged to repay my people. There is nothing nicer and nothing which makes me happier than sharing with the disadvantaged. And I am convinced that thanks to football I can return to my people a part of what they have given to me.”

Through the foundation, Eto’o has contributed to the improvement of orphanage facilities, the provision of basic care to street children, and the expansion of medical services to communities in Cameroon.

His sentiments are shared by fellow star of the African football scene, Didier Drogba, whose own foundation was launched in 2007, with the mission to “provide financial and material support in both health and education to the African people”.  Widely credited with bringing peace to an intensely troubled nation, the power of Drogba’s influence in his native Ivory Coast has been astonishing.  The country had been in the grip of civil war for five years when, in 2006, Drogba made a public appeal from the dressing room of the World Cup finals in Germany.  Within a week of his call for both warring factions to set down their weapons, “his bold wish had been granted”.  In an interview with The Telegraph, Drogba explained, “all the players hated what was happening to our country, and reaching the World Cup final was the perfect emotional wave on which to ride.”

These are just two in the many examples of how sport can fulfil the fair and gracious ideals of its existence, and yield incredible benefits for society.  Tennis supremo, Andre Agassi, and Chicago Bulls basketball star, Luol Deng, offer further exemplary initiatives.  While the questionable moral conduct of the few carries the media headlines by storm, let us not forget the ongoing efforts of the many, and offer them the respect they deserve as the true role models of the sporting world.

We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly.”  Aristotle, 384-322 BC

Diablogue #2, Part 3: Drawing the Triple Bottom Line

In the latest contribution to Diablogue #2, Jill Damatac looks beyond traditional business models to explore the rapidly growing trend towards socially conscious business.  In Jill’s article, posted today at The Owl’s Post, the focus is on social enterprise.  Excerpted below, the full text can be found by clicking through to The Owl’s Post.

“The human capacity to innovate whilst stuck between a rock and a hard place prevails yet again.  With a seemingly prolonged global economic contraction that has already wreaked widespread havoc, fiscally conscious governments and businesses are increasingly cutting back on social and environmental expenditures as part of an attempt to regain more stable financial footing.  To the rescue?  Social enterprise.  Creating solutions for social issues and environmental issues through activities and innovations that generate sustained income (known as the ‘triple bottom line‘), these entities,  a supercharged version of traditional nonprofits whose activities don’t generate income (like a soup kitchen, or any other nonprofit which relies solely on charitable donations to operate), stand at the forefront of a more evolved and integrated strategy for social and environmental change.

The momentum gained in recent years by social entrepreneurship seems to have reached new heights…

>> Click here to see how the wave has spread…

As quickly as this new model for ‘good’ is growing, certain challenges remain, particularly in the world of more traditional non-profits, and especially as they seek to transition to the entrepreneurial model.  Once such challenges are better conquered (and in greater number) by the traditional nonprofit sector, social enterprise, especially when partnered with legislative and fiscal support from governments, can only continue to spread and flourish.  It is, after all, the latest evolution of business:  21st-century capitalism…only this time, with feeling.”

 

Life’s Great Riches

Life may be seen through many windows, none of them necessarily clear or opaque, less or more distorting than any of the others.”     Isaiah Berlin, 1949.

Never have Berlin’s words resonated as loudly as they do today.  In the 21st century we live in a global community, comprising members from widely differing cultural backgrounds.  The modern world is one in which borders have been dissolved to liberalise the movement of goods, knowledge and people in greater volumes, at faster rates and across distances more expansive than once thought possible.

But migration is no phenomenon of modernity.  Throughout history, explorers from Vasco da Gama to James Cook, and civilisations including the Ottomans and Romans, departed their homelands to seek new opportunities in distant lands.  The multicultural society we live in today is founded upon millennia of mass movements, combining ethnic and cultural identities within what we have come to recognise as “nations” defined by geographically delineated sovereign states.

Contrary to currently perceived wisdom, a “nation” does not describe a group of people with a single cultural identity.  In the UK alone the country’s “national” heritage is influenced by Romans, Vikings, Saxons, Celts and Normans, blended into not one, but four modern day nations of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.  The populations of Australia and the USA are built almost entirely by patterns of immigration that continue to this day; in the 2006 census, the Australian population claimed a total of 30 national identities to describe its ancestry.   Nations have never been ”one” people, and so much the better for our diversity.  Migration has given us multiculturalism.  It has given us individuality, unique characteristics and perspectives, folklore, beliefs and traditions.  Migration has given us a vibrant, dynamic society within which cultures co-exist based on shared values.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk/news

It’s true that the rate of migration has gained momentum during more recent history, and the degree of cultural mixing has upped its pace concurrently.  The Jewish diaspora dispersed globally as a consequence of World War II, while migration towards Europe from South Asian, African and Caribbean states increased significantly in the post-war years.  But this is not to say that the value of multiculturalism has been diluted.  Britain’s “national” dish – the Balti - was introduced by migrants from South Asia and popularised during the 1980s and ’90s to become one of the country’s most frequently eaten foods.  In entertainment, the film industry has broadened its horizons as Bollywood rises up to rival the flashing lights of Hollywood.  The annual Notting Hill Carnival in London lights up the city’s streets with an explosion of Caribbean colour, food, music and dance.

In the USA, people of Hispanic origin comprised 15 per cent of the total population in 2008, forming the second largest Hispanic population in the world.  Only this week the BBC reported the easy bilingualism of Hispanic children living in the United States, who “very often switch between languages within a single sentence, or borrow English words and put them into Spanish, making a hybrid known as Spanglish“.  This is a skill achieved only through intensive exposure to other cultures, and will expand the future opportunities of these children in a globalised world.  Such examples give credence to Kenan Malik’s words in The Guardian, that “the experience of living in a society transformed by mass immigration, a society that is less insular, more vibrant and more cosmopolitan, is positive”.

Nevertheless, so often the world’s history of migration, the multicultural foundation of nations and the vibrancy that this offers are forgotten in the great hubbub of voices stigmatising “immigration” as a threat to so-called ”national” identities.  The volume of debate currently playing out around the world over immigration policy is startling.  In 2010 this topic has been fundamental to national election campaigns in the UK and Netherlands, as well as the American primaries.  Radical policy proposals are coming forth from all levels of government.  Take, for example, the widely condemned law adopted in the US state of Arizona in April, which makes failure to carry immigration documents a criminal act and gives police the power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally; a hostile response to immigration in a state whose population is 30 per cent Hispanic in origin.  Taking this controversial approach still further, the state is now proposing to deny US birth certificates to Arizona-born children of illegal immigrants.  Meanwhile in Europe, a Belgian parliamentary committee recently voted to ban the niqab and the burka – veils covering the faces of Islamic women – from being worn in public; a step towards establishing universal societal norms.

But given our ancestry and heritage, anchored in millennia of migration and cross-cultural exchange, why this sudden backlash?  Why this desire to turn the tide?  People move.  They always have done.  They always will, in spite of political moves to halt the trend.  A lot of good has come from our movement.  We’re better educated and more aware of other cultures and nationalities than ever before, due to our substantially increased exposure in personal relationships and through the media.  But the political culture of fear which has begun to pervade every dimension of society is leading us to lose our appreciation of all that is positive about heterogeneity.  If politics has its way, how far may our community identities be homogenised in the coming generations?

As Malik states:

The irony of multiculturalism as a political process is that it undermines much of what is valuable about diversity as lived experience.  When we talk about diversity, what we mean is that the world is a messy place, full of clashes and conflicts. That’s all for the good, for such clashes and conflicts are the stuff of political and cultural engagement.”              Kenan Malik, The Guardian.

Street children follow in the footsteps of FIFA

The preparations are over.  The countdown is complete.  This weekend, the world looks to South Africa with eager anticipation as FIFA World Cup 2010 commences.  And what an incredible feat this World Cup should be.  Only 16 years since the end of apartheid, here is South Africa’s opportunity to show the world just how far the country has come.

South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup is testimony to the achievements of our democracy.”  Kgalema Motlanthe, President of South Africa.

With bated breath, critics look on expectantly.  “There was doubt and scepticism from many parts of the world”, FIFA president Sepp Blatter reflected on his organisation’s decision in 2004 to award the tournament to South Africa.  The successful delivery of this World Cup may have a profound impact on how the African continent as a whole is perceived overseas, and may forge increased unity within the continent itself.  South Africa has worked closely with a number of neighbouring states to ensure a positive legacy is shared.  Former President Thabo Mbeki emphasised the Government’s goal to “stage an event that will create social and economic opportunities throughout Africa”, such that “historians will reflect upon the 2010 World Cup as a moment when Africa stood tall and resolutely turned the tide on centuries of poverty and conflict”. 

The first signs are, on the whole, strong.  The infrastructure and development works completed for the tournament have produced impressive results, not least the 94,000-capacity Soccer City in Johannesburg.  Visitors have arrived to an array of quality accommodation, and a buzz of excitement is reported to pervade even the poorest areas of the country following Friday’s spectacular opening ceremony.

But the shiny buildings and colourful celebrations scratch only the surface of this World Cup story.  South Africa’s local FIFA World Cup chairman, Danny Jordaan, stated boldly last year that he would not support any move to “create a false impression about South Africa… We are a country of diversity, rich and poor, employed and unemployed, and the world must know that we have massive challenges of poverty and housing, and we must address these issues”.  And elements of South Africa’s frictions have indeed been felt in the lead up to the tournament, with dubious reports covering the forced removal of street children from city streets and the legalisation of prostitution.

However, by recognising and embracing its ongoing challenges South Africa has also demonstrated its capacity to offer new mechanisms through which to stage a truly historic and noteworthy event.

Not least of these initiatives has been the Street Child World Cup, held in the city of Durban in March.  Hosted jointly by the charity Umthombo and Durban Institute of Technology, partnered by the Ethekwini Municipality and led by the children themselves, the Street Child World Cup brought together teams from eight countries to realise their potential in a game they love.  Children from Brazil, India, Nicaragua, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Ukraine and the UK travelled to Durban to participate in football coaching, arts and music.  The children were encouraged to engage in debate about issues of importance to them, in order that they might return to their home countries to act as mentors to other street children and find practical solutions to the issues they raised.

Source: www.nowiamaperson.co.uk

The Street Child World Cup began the process of reaching a global Street Child Manifesto calling for the fulfilment of street children’s rights to a full, healthy and dignified life, as set out by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).  Agreed in 1989, the Convention recognises the basic human rights of children to survival; personal development; protection from harm, abuse and exploitation; and to full participation in family, cultural and social life.

Unknown millions of vulnerable young people live on the streets of cities throughout the world.  Driven by varying  circumstances of poverty, hunger and violence, they are often greeted by further poverty, crime, disease and abuse.  Governments and the public frequently fail to address this marginalised group in society and neglect to provide them with the intensive support that they need.  14-year old Wanda Msani, captain of the South African children’s football team, described how “when people walk past us, they look at us like we are dogs. They look down on us like we are not even people, just because we eat from bins”.  The World Cup gave the children an opportunity to prove to themselves and others that “we can be something”.  Football provides a moment of escape from the stigma of being a street child, to play like ordinary children and to dream of a better future; Brazilian national star, Adriano, was plucked from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to shoot to international football success, while Argentinian Carlos Tevez was raised in one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires, Fuerte Apache.

South Africa may not offer the perfectly honed package of national attributes expected of a global sporting venue, but its ability to accept and stand up to ongoing challenges provides an invaluable chance to bring internationally important issues to the forefront of what will be the most-watched event this year.  What an incredible awareness-raising opportunity.

In the children’s nerve-wracking final, India triumphed over Tanzania, 1-0.  We’re yet to see how the professional teams will fair, but our best luck and support goes to South Africa to deliver a tournament to be remembered.

Umthombo is a Durban-based charity run predominantly by former street children, with the mission to change the way society perceives and treats street children.  The charity works by educating society about the realities of life on the streets, and by formulating effective strategies to address the issue in South Africa.