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Parliament discusses Alternatives to Empire
Dec. 11, 2009
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Monk designs mandala at parliament gathering
Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionMelboure, Australia
That the United States is the only superpower in the current world order needs no discussion. But that its superpower status is coming to an end is fueling both fear, of what lies ahead, as well as hope, that “another world is possible.” This cliché was the subtopic of a session at the Parliament of the World’s Religions which met in Melbourne from 3-9 Dec, 2009.
Entitled “Alternatives to Empire,” the session began with Professor Chandra Muzaffar, president of the International Movement for a Just World , enumerating signs of the impending fall of the American empire.
“More obvious than four years ago, when the Alternatives to Empire project was launched,” Muzaffar recounts, “the decline of the empire today is clearly manifest in three major areas:”
- The financial and economic crisis which began in the United States, involving the dollar and fundamental structures of the economy and means of production, have impacted practically all the rest of the world;
- The foundational pillar of the U.S. empire, i.e., military power, with bases girding the globe and a budget which exceeds one-half the total military expenditure of the entire world, has proved ineffective in achieving the empire’s aims. Hard-power, whether in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, or Afghanistan, has not been able to withstand the challenge of the people’s movement;
- If the empire has not been able to contain its own backyard (read: Latin America), how can it continue to wield an influence on the rest of the world? Considering that the implosion of the Soviet Union began with the revolutions in the surrounding Eastern European nations, the rejection today of United States’ influence by a number of Latin American countries is certainly cause for concern for the empire.
What are the alternatives? Rev. Harry Kerr, the Convenor of Pax Christi Victoria, suggested that just as in Christianity “when the first disciples were proclaiming Jesus is Lord they were actually challenging the Lordship of the Roman Empire,” so too people of faith today can rise up to offer alternative ways of organizing and of living, especially “in ways which are as radical as Jesus’ fundamental option for the poor.” This was the early Church’s role until, Kerr laments, “Christianity was co-opted by the empire and bishops began donning imperial vestments.”
Professor Larry Marshall, Officer of the Alternatives to Empire project, then asked, “How do we challenge and respond when indeed our religions have been co-opted by the empire today?” It is the task “of good people of faith to bring their faith in values such as peace, justice, and love to bear on the decisions of the empire and to challenge structures of power and dominance.”
Professor Joseph Camilleri, founder and director of the Center for Dialogue at La Trobe University, suggested that “we question the way we currently organize human affairs which is by and large based on imperial structures.”
It is important “to raise questions about the necessity for a dominant and domineering work and power ethic” of not only the empire and the State but of also the market place. And this is where the religious and ethical traditions can contribute, to help move us forward, and “inject values of human dignity, sociality, justice, and the principle of respect for humanity,” Camilleri proffered.
All the panelists were of the view that we are in a global transition phase. The signs are all over that this is the era for change. “The epoch of western dominance is coming to an end,” Muzaffar announced. The trends in the last few years, “as manifest in the global economic crisis, the environmental crisis, the food and energy crises, and the water crisis which is yet to come, cry out for the need of an alternative.” Either people of faith offer that alternative or others, especially those with less than noble visions and values, will offer them for us.
But for sure, it will be a changed world order, moving away from a unipolar global system to a multipolar global system. No single nation-state has been able to accumulate the massive power which the United States currently enjoys: economic, political, technological, and military power. While China may have the economic might and Russia the military might, they lack the other dimensions of power which the United States was able to muster in the post World War II world.
The signs of hope are that there is a rise of religious consciousness on a global scale, where people of faith have taken on a deep interest in and are actively involved in the public arena. This resurgence is multipolar as well. For example, in the United States, while there is the Evangelical resurgence which tend to be fundamentalist and narrow in its concerns, “there is also the resurgence,” Muzaffar said, “of Christians inspired by the likes of Jesuit Fr. John Dear who are standing up to the empire.”
Likewise, in the Muslim world while we have fundamentalists such as Osama bin Laden standing up to the empire we also have countless number of movements and individuals who are doing the same but abhorring violence. As presently constituted some of these religious resurgences remain inadequate but “must ask the searching questions and provide an alternative to empire as well as to religion,” Muzaffar acknowledged. They must move away from insular and exclusivistic approaches and an obsession with issues of identity politics.
Meanwhile, the small efforts of individuals and groups to provide wholistic alternatives need to be sustained so that, truly, “another world is possible.” We have actually not much of a choice, Muzaffar concludes, “for in the current world ethos it is either we flourish together or we will perish together.”
Edmund Chia is on the faculty of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
As a side note, the genocides
As a side note, the genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia occurred after the collapse of the Belgian and French colonial empires. Neither genocide would have happened under French or Belgian authority.
The collapse of U.S. power may not herald the brighter tomorrow so often foretold by left wing activists
The Belgian (catholics
The Belgian (catholics mostly)colonial period in thge Congo was one of the most brutal/savage occupations in history. Torture was commonplace. Common punishment was to hack off a limb. Brutality just begat more brutality.
The mindlessness of religion
The mindlessness of religion is male mindlessness: if religions are male-minded, their mindlessness is male-biased. Religious mindlessness is toward nature, toward natural/ human reciprocity, and toward female/ male reciprocity. Female/ male reciprocity can no more be denied, ignored and alienated than can spiritual/ material reciprocity, religious/ secular reciprocity, essential continuity, dependent inherency, and codependent coherency. Continuity, inherency and coherency are as critical to “The Commons” as to human wellbeing.
Earth’s ecological venue is “The Commons”, the place and condition of evolving vitality. The Commons is essentially, one, joined, global vitality. The vitality of the Commons, of conscious soul/ substance, is essentially inherent, coherent and continuous.
http://www.secondenlightenment.org/SOUL%20SUBSTANCE,%20One,%20Consciousl...
The health of the Commons is sustained in the health of codependent relationships, that is, in the sustained health of harmonic functions and relationships of web-life members. Tampering with and wasting the genetically correlated Commons disrupt and disorder codependent linkages and put at risk the health, sustainability, and survivability of the Commons. One developing tragedy is the dying off of plant pollinators (honeybees) upon which floral and faunal life both depend as does humankind. Change that is needed is greater mindfulness of relationships to essential web-life and mitigation of mindlessness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder
Humanly induced collapses of web-life is most assuredly a “tragedy”. Habits that trash nature and disrupt the essential continuity of codependent systems need to be reversed if humankind would reverse cultural violence that ultimately turns on humankind. Energy-intense agriculture, mono-culturing and gene-splicing are practices that violate evolved life’s genetic continuity, inherency and coherency.
The “tragedy of the Commons” is a tragedy of religious mindless and corporate greed. The Commons are in a dire state of disruption and degradation, in religious terms, they are “sacrileged.” “Change that is needed” is collective effort to salvage the Commons, humankind and religion. First need is, to step back, admit common denial and recognize common mindlessness. Humankind and religious sense together must step forward and salvage mindfulness; salvaging mindfulness begins with healing the cultural breaches of female/ male reciprocity in all venues of human involvement. This is a matter that Walter Brueggemann has been advocating for years.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?grpId=3659174697239231&articleI...
The Commons is sown in seeds of hope, fear and promise. It’s for people of the present to face the tragedies of the Commons that are now realities. Faith, hope and love compel conscious effort not to deepen male-prejudiced tragedies of the Commons. The change that is needed is for humankind to engage dream, memory and promise, and to sow seeds of faith, hope and love that have the power to green the future and mitigate common tragedies—this is what authentic religion is about. Religion exists in reality to the extent that conscious cultures are faithful in dream and promise to common and essential necessities.
Peace with nature, intentional symbiosis, Christian Humanism and Eucharistic altruism are ways of harmony and survival for the Commons and humankind. To wage peace is to wage health and survival; to wage war is to wage destruction and assured disruption of the Commons and humankind. Hope for the future, human wellbeing and survival depend on global, peaceful collaboration not exploitation. This is “change that’s needed.”
"Our objective is clear. To
"Our objective is clear. To unleash the creative, loving and play potential of humanity and erupt the entire planet in peace and harmony. Nothing else will satisfy us".
God bless ....
from the Assemblies of Sisterspure.
Kerr laments, “Christianity
Kerr laments, “Christianity was co-opted by the empire and bishops began donning imperial vestments.”
I remember when I visited Rome a few years ago, I walked up towards St. Peter's and was impressed by the fact that it reminded me more of Augustus Caesar than it did of Jesus of Nazareth.
If the American Empire is to come to an end, as it must sooner or later, let us hope that we do it with more dignity and less violence than past empires have done it. And hopefully, our bishops will not don imperial vestments in the process.
Edmund, thanks for your
Edmund, thanks for your article on Alternatives to Empire and for the link to the website. It is an exciting project. It is also challenging because Empire affects our lives in so many ways. As you suggest we need to link up and share our stories with each other, to share our successes and our failures, and to encourage and support each other.
We have yet to witness the
We have yet to witness the light of Christ in the world against the abuses of this modern Roman Empire of death and self-destruction. 9/11 2001 symbolizes the beginning of its end. The democracy of the United States is imploding from its waste of billions to the instruments of war and the corporations of greed that profit from it. The United States empire of Rome is imploding from its own inability of its leaders, secular and religious, to discern what is right and what is wrong in foreign and domestic policies, what is truly Christian and what is truly pagan-like, what is idolatry of money and what is for the common good.
The wages of sin is death. The US is earning its wages as a nation. Follow the ways of the empire to your own doom. Follow Jesus for life.
Having experienced the
Having experienced the destruction and loss of 9/11 personally (which included the loss of several family members), I'm probably not the most objective commentators. I hope, for one, that this was not the beginning of the end of our "Empire." I don't say this, however, with the expectation that this won't happen, but rather the hope that more typical political forces might be in play.
Yes, the U.S.A. will likely end at some point. When it ceases to exist as a political entity, I also hope that the religious and progressive social elements entwined in the roots of the nation will be the saving grace of its legacy. I was given hope in the past by the election of Clinton, only the second Democratic president since Johnson. Certainly that of Obama shows how the people can come together when the need for change is evident to most.
Yes, the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem dismissed the prophets, from Micah to Our Lord. Likewise the people of this nation have embraced those who have led us down roads which would have been better left untrod. But as a nation, we have also sacrificed to protect the helpless and wounded around the word repeatedly. Let us be remembered for that, and keep it foremost among our national goals and traits at it as long as we share the citizenship of this country.
So when the "end" comes, we can say we contributed to the world together.
Not a word about the
Not a word about the historical and current 'norm' of government: tyranny. Not a whiff of the Democratic party's age-old platforms promoting abortion and in vitro death, pollution the world's youth via sex education, porn, and the pop culture.... not a whiff about the rise in paramilitary police and intelligence capabilities the world over and in the US particularly that are designed for population control, not freedom from foreign invasion...
Rah rahing for end of "empire" as though historically regional and hemispheric wars aren't virtually the norm for what happens in the collapse and re-building phase. If one despies the US military now for spending what it does on largely stategric deterrance what will happen in the aftermath based on world history? You think 3rd world nations give us hope that innocent populations will be spared bloodshed? Has the UN peace keeper scandals in Africa told us nothing?
Much heat and anger over Israel's "wall" or the proposed US fence. Not a peep about Saudi Arabia's wall, West Africa's berm, Burma's militarized zone, or smaller walls separating peoples and nations... so is opposition principled (one size fits all?) or partisan (it's only bad if the US or Jews do it?)
Will a Chinese Hegemony be more 'progressive' and peaceful than the US? Ask a Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese citizen sometime about that prospect. Will the Russians come through a US collapse as light bearers of peace for Eastern Europe without NATO to buttress the crumbling EU? Something tells me those who sneer at the NRA and private ownership of firearms will be eager to sign up with various paramilitary ops in the future just to access firepower....
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