Chapter 41: One Does Not Fit All

This chapter was written when the Transition was imagined as a single, rapid, coordinated event. Passages from that original plan are kept for transparency in marked boxes; the current approach is gradual, voluntary and democratic (how the approach has evolved).

In the human world, there are a wide variety of paradigms in operation.

Some countries are in urgent need of Transition. Some may not be.

People around the world will do well to examine their socio-economic and political environment to decide what is needed. In countries such as the United States and others dominated by laissez-faire Capitalist economic systems coexisting with democratically-founded constitutional political systems, the kind of Transition described in this writing is absolutely necessary in order to break the pattern of feudalization that inevitably emerges out of Capitalism.

Once Capitalism is replaced with the new synergistic Paradigms, elected governmental personnel and their institutions will have no choice but to work within the parameters of the new Paradigms. The current reinforcers for corruption will be absent. There will be no corporate or other wealthy lobbyists to influence government, because there will be no corporations and no ultra-wealthy neo-feudal lords to drive such dynamics. The loudest, most audible voices that politicians, representatives, legislators and others will hear will be the authentic voices of the People. These voices will not always agree. Difficult decisions and compromises will have to be made many times; but the context will be an honest, pertinent public dialog based on authentic human issues and principles. The domination of political institutions, mechanisms and actors by the power structure and interests of a feudalistic economic Pyramid will be over. The pyramid will be dismantled. In democratically socialistic countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and others, no Transition may be necessary. Countries implementing such paradigms tend to be strong in principles similar to those of the Transition. According to current and ongoing research, members of such Communities tend to have a high quality of life, freedom, access to necessities and resources, respect, health, and happiness (Helliwell, Huang and Wang, World Happiness Report, 2019). Such countries may require occasional adjustment and problem-solving to stay in keeping with the greatest good and well-being of their people. In such paradigms, reinforcement of abusive or predatory behavior is low, and the voices of the People are much more clearly heard and expressed than in other existing paradigms. Necessary changes and adjustments can generally be made within the existing mechanisms of the system. In countries such as Vietnam and the People’s Republic of China, we see the language of Communism alongside the practice of state-directed capitalism, with sharp inequality and one-party rule, in which political and economic power are deeply intertwined. As in the European Middle Ages, when the Church and the feudal lords were part of the same power structure rather than checking each other, so in China today the business elite and the institutions of government are fused. And just as the language of equality and a “classless society” serves China’s rulers, the language of freedom and “anybody can make it” serves the powerful in the United States, though Americans still have free elections, courts and a free press with which to push back.

We simply will not do any business with such countries. We will form no alliances with their power structures. While post-Transition countries and communities will not engage in covert or overt invasions or interference with internal affairs of other countries, we will openly support those seeking to free themselves and enact their own Transitions.

While individual countries of the Transition will not interfere directly, once such a scenario of peaceful but determined people striving to free themselves of oppressive regimes becomes an internationally recognized humanitarian crisis, it may be possible for the United Nations, through its own procedures, to send humanitarian missions and, where it authorises them, peacekeeping forces, alongside humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent and Doctors Without Borders. The international community will likely unite to send humanitarian aid to the people initiating the Transition, and to isolate and pressure the dictatorship: refusing to recognize or cooperate with it, applying diplomatic pressure, and acting to prevent atrocities against the people. For this to work, it is vital that the people of the Transition maintain an unwavering commitment to nonviolence; force is used only in self-defence against immediate physical assault, and only the minimum necessary. We must always strive sincerely to act with a high level of integrity and compassion. Countries with theocratic dictatorships are perhaps the most challenging of all. Any Transition worthy of undertaking will respect the basic core religious and cultural identity of the people. The paradox is that when religious or cultural parameters are injurious to and incompatible with a free and empowered community of free and empowered individuals, there will have to be changes, made through the community's own law and led as far as possible by voices from within, ideally drawing upon an available basis in other aspects of the local religious or cultural context. For example, in cultures which practice female genital mutilation or forbid women from studying or expressing themselves, those patterns will have to change, with no exceptions. There are cultures which practice ritual cruelty to animals, cremation of the living wife on her husband's funeral pyre, forced arranged child marriages, "honor" killings, various forms of slavery and forced servitude and more. Such practices will need to be stopped, but not in a manner that fundamentally negates or disrespects the faith and cultural identity of the people of the affected community. As a case in point, nothing in the Quran mandates female genital mutilation; most Islamic scholars hold that the few hadiths cited in its favour are weak, and Egypt’s highest religious authority, Al-Azhar’s Supreme Council for Islamic Research, has declared it harmful and without basis in Islamic law (Asmani and Abdi, Population Council / USAID, 2008; Al Jazeera, 2007). It is practised in some thirty countries, mostly in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, by Muslim, Christian and other communities alike, and many of them mistakenly associate it with their religion (WHO). In fact it is a brutal cultural practice that none of these faiths teaches. In ending it among Muslim communities, it would be optimal to base the change on Quranic scriptures that prohibit or discourage cruelty, abuse, oppression, and mutilation of human beings. Religious persecution is not the failing of any one faith. Across history and around the world, followers of nearly every religion and ideology have both persecuted others and been persecuted themselves: Hindus and Muslims in South Asia, Christians and Muslims in many regions, rival Christian denominations and rival Muslim sects, Buddhist majorities and minorities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and secular regimes against believers of every kind. Wherever it happens, the most effective challenge comes from within the tradition itself. Where Christians use their faith to justify persecuting gay people or people of other faiths, the challenge can be based on Biblical teachings of non-judgment, forgiveness, and judgment belonging to God alone. Where Muslim and Christian communities are persecuting each other, it can draw on Quranic verses directing Muslims to respect ‘the people of the Book’, and on Biblical teachings instructing Christians to love their neighbors and even their enemies and treat all with respect. Where Hindus and Muslims are set against each other, each tradition has its own teachings of compassion and respect to draw on. The way Japanese culture was treated after the end of World War II is instructive. Though the Emperor had led Japan in an aggressive and brutal war, the occupying forces largely treated the Emperor, the Japanese people and their culture with respect (though they also censored the press), while introducing improvements to many aspects of Japanese life. The result was a thriving, more democratic, humane Japan that has still retained its cultural identity and dignity.

Negating or invalidating a people's cultural or religious identity is both oppressive and ineffective. It engenders covert resistance and a backlash that does more harm than good.

Whenever practices harmful to human well-being and happiness are present, they must be stopped in ways that respect and honor the overall identity of the people. Every culture and religion has its unique mix of beneficial and harmful expressions. When post-transition communities are supporting and advising those working to bring Transition in other communities, care must be taken to study and learn their culture and religion in depth so that necessary changes can be introduced in ways that strengthen and reinforce the uniqueness of the people. It would be contrary to the very nature and purpose of the Transition for any country, ethnicity, religion or culture to attempt to impose its aesthetics upon another.

As we work to bring about Transition within our own respective cultures, it will most likely result in greater human happiness and thriving if we neither throw out our entire cultural identity in favor of that of another culture, nor blindly perpetuate all aspects of features of our own culture.

The core principles of the new Paradigms include respect for all people, the importance of government and economics of by and for the People, reinforcement of mutual effort for mutual good, equality, the right of open access to all resources for all, peer-based social structures, distributed rather than centralized production and distribution, and more. Yet the strength of our unity at every level will be in the embracing and choreographing of our diversity in the human community.