It was an unusually bright sunny day in Athens, Ohio when I was sitting outside the laundry, waiting for my clothes to dry. I haven’t had enough sleep the previous night and the sun-rays, after the long period of continuous snowing, were rather intoxicating. I had assignments to finish. One of them was this very assignment; to write the field notes of a situational observation. And outside this huge laundry, where students came with bucket full clothes, I noticed a strange pattern; that all buckets were blue and that all of them were painfully heavy and that the carriers of the buckets, mostly the students, had to stretch their body really hard to be able to make it to the washing machines. They all struggled against the gravity and the weight of the bucket. Another strange pattern that was quite apparent was the presence of at least one book on the top of the dirty clothes, which did not look as dirty to me as the bucket itself, with brown and green mud-like marks on almost all buckets I noticed. Another observation that I invariably noticed was that the book was never read! People came with the book and the clothes, put the clothes in the machine and started talking on the their multi-colored, jazzy looking cell phones, while the book they brought along, peacefully lying on their laps or in their now empty bucket. I just wondered why add the weight of the book which is never to be read and pain the body?
Anyway, in the midst of this “patternful” laundry, I started writing my assignment from the notes I took while observing a meeting of undergraduate students with a local NGO representative, a few hours ago. Suddenly, I felt a stroke of pain in my left molar-tooth. I recalled that the pain had been there for quite some time and that I had been ignoring it. But this time it was not only sudden, it was sharp. So I decided to see a doctor. On my way, up the hill to the heath center, I decided to observe the heath center and write about it instead of the undergraduate meeting. So as a patient at the health center, I converted myself into an observer as well. As a patient, I think during my observation, I was also a participant in some ways.
So I reached the heath centre and pulled the door open. The door was rustic and made a big sound, which was equally rustic. The board hanging cautioned “No pets please”, which was reassuring that I am not in veterinary clinic! Within a span of 3 seconds, there was another rustic door which made another rustic sound. It seemed to me that these doors are some kind of a declaration of the clinic-staff for the arrival of the patients saying “You are here again, damn it?”. And on my way back, the door seemed to be saying, “Don’t you dare show up again, you sick people!!”.With those loud noises and my perceived meaning of them, I entered.
As I entered, I noticed a huge array of people, again, like in the laundry, mostly students. And yet again, like the clothes never looked dirty, none of these, supposedly patients, did not look sick at all. They were all reading business and entertainment magazines which were very decoratively kept on the shelves. Some of them were talking on phones and yet another set of people were only staring at the first two set of people I mentioned! Later I realized it is this last category of people which actually look ill at least in some ways; they looked lazy, tired, their eyes were drowsy and so on. But let me not run ahead of my discoveries. I entered the gate and went to the reception only to find a male receptionist. After many years of going to places with a Reception, this was clearly a break. I hadn’t seen a male receptionist in many years. And in this case, a white male receptionist was really exotic and rare. But these things do not matter if you have a terrible toothache. And therefore I immediately came out of my observer’s mode, and became a patient. I went to the reception and shared my shooting pain with the receptionist thinking he would stand up and rush me to the doctor. But he looked at me and in a matter- of- factly, routine manner asked, “ Are you a student?” and before I could answer ,he directed me to the computers, installed behind me which was his front asking me to fill-in the details. His 100% flat face which did not react at all to my shooting pain convinced me why we have more women receptionists across the globe than men; for a simple reason; they react at least to a shooting toothache!
With one hand on my left cheek, I turned and went to the computer to fill-in the details. I was happy to find “toothache” as one of the “reason to visit” option. It was soothing. After I filled in the details, I tried to go back to the receptionist but he as I took the first step towards him, he popped up and said, “ Sit there!” directing me to a bunch of chairs, which were already occupied by people I described above.
I went away from him and stood against one of the corners of the hall. I waited for another 5 minutes during which I heard the receptionist yelling people’s name and also the nurses in blue trousers and blue jacket coming in from the other direction and also yelling names. “Blue is certainly the color of the day”, I thought while being in a toothache- blues. Almost after 15 minutes, I heard one name being repeated yelled by the receptionist and no one was showing up. The name was yelled at least 5 times, piercing the silence of the pin-drop silent hall. The hall was really silent. The only sound that registered in my mind, besides this yelling, was the sound of the pain pounding my tooth!
After repeatedly yelling the same name several times, the receptionist picked up another name and then another. “Ricky!”, “Michael!”, “Sophia!”, “Martin!” and so on. My pain was now at its peak and reluctantly, I went to the reception to try my fate one more time. “I will go home and gargle with lukewarm water with salt in it, if he doesn’t take me to the doctor this time”, I told myself while heading the cream-colored desk where he sat. As I went to him and tried to convince him of my emergency-like situation if not fully 9/11- types- emergency, he punched in few details on his computer and almost ferociously looked at me to say, “Where were you?”. I said I was here. He irritatedly said he called my name several times, to which I enquired, “Which name?” ,to which he responded, with full confidence, “ Your name, Saied!” , pronouncing the name with a heavy American accent with all the force on the last “ed”. That was a mispronunciation. And that wasn’t the name my parent gave me 26 years ago. So it wasn’t wrong on my part not to respond to anything that was not pronounced Syed, my first name that he chose to pick or at least something close to it like Saeed, Said and so on. But with the pain already bothering me, I simply apologized and requested to send me to the doctor now. I also urged him to call me with my last name which was much easier to pronounce and I think it cannot be mispronounced, no matter how lyrical one tries to be with it.
To my surprise, I was told to wait. Again. And I did, against the same corner of the wall. But this time in almost 4 minutes, a woman with a stethoscope around her long neck and blue jacket came and yelled my name; correctly enough probably because she used my last name. I immediately stood up and went with her. She smiled and I tried to smile back but couldn’t. The pain blocked the smile completely. She took me to a room with a computer, three chairs and a table with lots chocolate cookies on it. Asking me to sit and she went out. I was alone with those cookies. I picked one to eat but realized I shouldn’t, given my toothache. So I grabbed some 10 of those cookies and stocked the inner pocked of my blue (yet again!!) coat. This, I did as a kind of a small revenge on the clinic that hasn’t treated me at all in the last 55 minutes now!! But in a few minutes, fortunately, the woman, who I thought was doctor because of her possession of a stethoscope, which, in my country, only doctors carry, returned, with another elderly woman. As I discovered they were both nurses. And one, who brought me to this room, was a trainee nurse. Now we all three sat there. The elderly nurse asked the trainee, loud enough and I could hear, to ask me, “What’s your student –ID?”
I waited for the trainee to ask me so that I could answer. She did ask and I did answer. And she punched that in to the computer. Then the elderly woman asked the trainee to ask me, “How are you doing today?”I again heard it but again waited for the trainee to ask. And when she did ask, I answered by lying and saying that I was “fine”. And yet gain the elderly woman asked the trainee to ask me, “What’s the problem that I have?”.This time I did not wait and looking straight into the eyes of the elderly woman I said, “I have terrible toothache and would really appreciate if you can do something about it!”.The elderly nurse looked at me and then calmly looked at the trainee winking with both eyes. The trainee smiled and started punching “that detail’ in to the computer. By now I understood that this was a training session going in progress and not my treatment may or may not be one of its manifestations. I prayed for it being one! After punching for over 3 minutes the trainee nurse asked to follow her. I did. As we walked down the corridor of the clinic for some 50 seconds, we came across a table. I saw one young man in his early twenties sitting. He looked weak and sleepy. But he sat straight on the table occupying only 30% of the table space. The trainee without looking at the table or me or the person on the table, directed me to sit while she slipped my file into the room on my left through an opening in the middle of the door. Without uttering any other word, she moved away from me and almost faded-out in the corridor. I was finishing almost 1 hour in the clinic with my terrible toothache only accelerating every minute while I was being engaged in all sorts of so called, medical- procedures of the health clinic.
Helplessly and by now, hopelessly, I waited for the doctor’s call. Another 15 minutes of silence passed during which the person beside me barely moved. He sat straight demonstrating some kind if a military regimentation in sitting position. I tried sitting like him for a few minutes but soon gave up. “There is no need for another pain”, I soothed myself, almost couching into the table with my fingers running through my oily hair and finally resting on my somewhat-sweaty neck.
And then, the door opened, a name was called. It was “Mike!”. I heard it clearly but by now I could not take any chances and I did not want to take any chances! So, I stood up while the person beside me also standing with me, hinting enough that he was Mike, I still asked him his name while both of us entered the doctor’s room. As we took the first few steps inside the doctor’s room, he said, clearly shockingly, “I AM Mike!!”. I said, “OK” and came out of the room.
After another 10-12 minutes, Mike came out. My name wasn’t called yet and I wondered painfully, “Lunch time??No??”.Thankfully, it wasn’t. I WAS called-in, again by the name which wasn’t mine! But I knew “it” was me. For, there was no one else waiting.
And there I was, finally sitting face- to-face with a doctor who would just give me a painkiller. But I again, I am rushing.
The doctor, like everyone else till now, was very calm-looking. And as humanely as possible, in that shooting pain, I hated it. But this time, I managed to smile and sit on the chair as the doctor directed me. The chair was at least 7 feet away from the doctor. This was an overwhelmingly long patient-doctor distance for me. I had to listen hard to the singing accent. Back home, this distance was never more than 2 feet! I took another deep breath and decided to continue the internal “struggle” with patience.
I did not want the doctor to ask me how I was and how my day was and all of that protocol questions so I went ahead and started speaking: Hi doctor! I have been ok for the last 6 months ever since I came from India. But since this morning I am having a terrible toothache and would appreciate if you can please do some thing it.
The doctor looked little bugged at my decision to speak first without being asked anything. After few seconds, which he utilized to utter a long “hmm..mm”, he started by asking a question and then another question and then another:
“Where is the pain? I wondered where else can a toothache? Heart? Kidney?
I politely said, “My tooth”.
“Which side?”
Left.
“At the end?”
Yes, the very end!
“ For how long?”
Since morning!!
“What kind of pain..is it bleeding?”
And, on and on…
“If only he sees my tooth, he would know all the answers in just one go. That’s what the doctors back home would do. See and not ask!” I thought to myself. So I went-on to suggest if “he would like to see my tooth please. That might help”. After another long “hmm..mm” he said, “Sure”. I spell that “sure” with only one “r”, but as he pronounced that word, I could hear at least five of them!
And then, he continued, “ theek ho.” .Those are Hindi words. He found out from my records that I am from India and assumed that I understand Hindi despite coming from a country, housing 1/6th of the world population and having at least 17 official languages, with 1.5 billion people speaking and understanding not more than one or two languages, one of which is mostly English!
“ Theek hai”, I corrected him and he nodded with a receptive smile. Those words mean “ok”
Anyway, he directed me to another room and told me to sit on a bed-like table. I almost jumped in excitement. He told me if I would stretch my mouth open and use my index finger to point where the pain is. But before he told me that, I had already done it. There I was, stretching my cheeks from inside, so that he could see clearly. But alas! He couldn’t! He pulled himself back and said, “It too dark there. I can’t see.”. I suggested using a lamp, which was safely parked next to the bed-like table. He said we could use it but it has a hot-light.
I responded with courage, “No problem sir. Please use it”. He agreed after deciding to keep the lamp little away from my face because the lamp had a hot-bulb radiating hot rays and not the cool florescent light, which normally are used in such cases. He again uttered “ theek ho”, but almost immediately correcting himself .. “oh o..theek hai.”, followed by his, now standard smile. He kept looking for over 3 minutes and then switched off the lamp, which was a hint to me that he was done. Then he pulled himself back and asked to come back to his room and again directed me to sit on the “distant” chair. I did without a choice. And then he started explaining to me what all he discovered in my mouth. Worse still, his explanations were so “medically jargoned” that I couldn’t believe my mouth was so “full of those alien and scary stuff”. While he was still speaking, I interrupted and asked, “So.. Sir what’s the treatment please?”. But without answering my question he went on and said few other things I heard but did not listen to at all. But after that he said, “It’s normal.”
I did not understand what he was referring to; the stuff in my mouth, his habit of not answering the questions, his pathological urge to tell everything.
Or, my pain?
Or, something else?
I knew my pain wasn’t normal, because it was shooting! And I didn’t care what else was what!! So I simply agreed with a nod to his telling me, “ Its normal.”
Finally I asked him if there’s any treatment for what I came here for. And for the first time in the last one decade (well YES, that’s what I felt at that moment!!) someone said that word; Prescription!! But again followed by three more Hindi words in lyrical accent: Elaaj hai na!, meaning “ Indeed, there is a treatment!”
I normally like non-native Hindi speakers, speak or try to speak Hindi to me but for some reasons this was an exception. Every demonstration that this doctor made of showing-off his knowledge of few phrases of Hindi that he learnt from his son who was in India for a few days, was the most annoying moment for me in that clinic on that day. And probably, as I now recall, anywhere, any time in my whole lifetime!
Finally, he handed over an A-4 prescription sheet to me and said I have to take these medicines twice a day for two weeks. As I said “ok” in a concluding tone while standing up holding my left cheek, he yet again demonstrated his knowledge of lyrical, accented Hindi, uttering this: Slumdog Millionaire dhekhee?”
Meaning, “Did you see Slumdog Millionaire?”
I had seen this film which was weaved around a story in India, almost three months ago, but to avoid any further conversation and gulp the painkillers he prescribed, as soon as possible, I said “No, not yet”. And he suddenly was delighted to find an opportunity to share the film he had seen the previous night!
“This is about “Moom-bai city”, he began, referring to a financial Indian city called Mumbai.
“Terrible life, you know. I was thinking it would a musical Indian film with dance and pleasant story but I was very disturbed.. you should watch and see..and ..and..”
“Does it really happen? “ Have you been to Moom-bai” “ My son was working there last year and he..”
I stood up, painfully smiling and interrupted, “Sir, I will watch this film for you. I have a class now.. Where would I get the medicines?..
While saying those last few words, I was almost out of his room leaving him behind me saying, “there’s a pharmacy out there behind the reception..Straight.. Left..Right..”
And the words faded out behind me, as I rushed out through the corridors.
I found the pharmacy and stood there. The pain of the tooth wasn’t as prominent now as the pain of my recent memories.
In the midst of those memories, I saw Mike, standing just at the pharmacy counter right in front of me; No movement at all. Militarily, straight as ever. I closed my eyes for few seconds, waiting for him to turn to me so that I could give him a farewell smile. But before my few seconds could pass, I heard an accented, melodious “ Yesss.. pleeease!”. I was finally getting the painkiller for the pain that was almost fully treated by the experiential richness of my graduate program’s Observation-assignment.
Everything was Normal.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Forging Progressive Education
Conclusion
The working dynamics and its purposes of the Gulen movement conclude that such a movement is not only addressing the student-education but is also addressing all members of the society who are interested in resolving their issues. It does that by providing them with a deeper understanding of human psyche, desires and aspirations of peace and co- existence. At the same time, this movement also addresses those people who are not interested in keeping aside the differences due to their ignorance and lack of vision. It does it by educating them with the renewed vision and understanding using the tools of dialogue and tolerance. In the movement there are inherent characteristics of ‘humanization’ and the avoidance of ‘dehumanization’ (Freire, P. 2000) through the inclusion of worldly factors being meshed with morality and ethics.
In its dynamics, it is evident that the way the movement operates, it avoids questioning the status quo by not confronting the State stand, but at the same time it also completely questions and demolishes the status quo manifested in the decades of ongoing conflicts and lack of understanding between civilizations, cultures and religions. This is the uniqueness of the movement, which ,on one hand offers a special kind of apparent irony while on the other, breaks that irony by it dynamics of results .One can also see an element of ‘quietness’ in the movement because of its deliberate choice of non- confronting stand and spiritual aspects. This is quite opposed to the Freirian notions, which clearly differentiates the ideas of the oppressed and the oppressors and questions the status quo, being created by the ‘oppressors’ for their own benefits and at the cost of the oppressed (Freire, P. 2000).Gulen movement seems to be borrowing the concept of a ‘dialogue’ that Freire writes about but at the same time deliberately excludes the exact notion of status-quo in the Freirian theory. Interestingly, the Gulen movement adopts the ‘culture of silence’ (Freire, P. 2000) for the sake of empowering the un-empowered by channelizing all its energies into the education rather than in the fight for the education. The clear differentiation between teaching and education and clear emphasis on mutual learning between student and teachers, however clearly matches with Freire’s ‘problem solving education process.’
It is also interesting to note that Gulen community functions without particularly classifying the environment of it working into two separate conflicting groups which Freire so strongly classifies as the ‘oppressor’ and the oppressor’.
In the dynamics of the Gulen movement what is seen is the complete exclusion of the potential ‘oppressor (Freire. P, 2000 ) such as the State, by a strategic agreement with it and thereby working on and working with the fighting communities who are both, oppressed, because of the belligerent behavior of the other and at the same being ‘oppressed’ due to their belligerent behavior towards the other. The movement however achieves and buys peace between the conflicting parties with the use of a ‘dialogue’ which is an integral part of the Freirian theory. Thus on one front, Gulen movement runs parallel with the Freirian movement without having to meet each other’s viewpoint, whereas on the other hands it clearly overlaps with its belief of ‘dialogue’.
One can also see the complete absence of ‘banking system of education’ in the Gulen movement, which uses its energies not only to let student learn from teachers but also to let teachers learn from students ,as well as from the constantly changing teaching environment.
The movement’s emphasis on the joy in the learning- process echoes with the experiences of Bell Hooks who experienced ‘classrooms as a place of sheer joy” (Hooks. B, 1994). The fact that Gulen schools embrace learners from a diverse religious, ethnic, class, and cultural background and foster social virtues such as respect, co-operation and tolerance to integrate its learners into pluralist, democratic society shows a dialectally opposite scenario, when seen with the experiences of Bell Hooks who enjoyed ‘Black schools’ as emancipating while tolerated ‘White schools as ‘prisons’(Hooks. B, 1994)
The broad inclusion of community as a family and the fact that the members of the community played an active role, not only as the beneficiaries of the movements but also as the active players of the movement itself, takes the movement very close to Myles Horton’s conceptualization and later construction of the Highlander School (Horton, M., 1990).Both Schools, Gulen’s and Horton’s, achieved its results by educating the members of the society by tools of sharing.
In order to address the masses with effective communication the ownership of media houses, foundations, trusts and other such organizational structures by of the Gulen community strengthens Myles Horton’s realization that ‘as individuals we are powerfulness but when we become organization, we become powerful”. (Horton. M, 1990)
Using the vales of dialogue and cooperation the Gulen movement is able to create and maintain a truly dynamic educational fabric, in many of its forms. These forms are schools, colleges and universities. They also include the unification of diversified communities and individuals through a common thread of compassion and love for each other’s diversity and acknowledgement of each other’s commonality. Also the secular structure of the Gulen schools has helped to create a balance between the individual’s needs as well as the collective needs of the society in which the individuals dwell. The constant emphasis of the movement to build the individual character and therefore the character of a collective society through universal moral values, prepares the new generation to become useful and constructive citizens of a more humane society, which is the purpose of a true education and a dream of the true educator.
The working dynamics and its purposes of the Gulen movement conclude that such a movement is not only addressing the student-education but is also addressing all members of the society who are interested in resolving their issues. It does that by providing them with a deeper understanding of human psyche, desires and aspirations of peace and co- existence. At the same time, this movement also addresses those people who are not interested in keeping aside the differences due to their ignorance and lack of vision. It does it by educating them with the renewed vision and understanding using the tools of dialogue and tolerance. In the movement there are inherent characteristics of ‘humanization’ and the avoidance of ‘dehumanization’ (Freire, P. 2000) through the inclusion of worldly factors being meshed with morality and ethics.
In its dynamics, it is evident that the way the movement operates, it avoids questioning the status quo by not confronting the State stand, but at the same time it also completely questions and demolishes the status quo manifested in the decades of ongoing conflicts and lack of understanding between civilizations, cultures and religions. This is the uniqueness of the movement, which ,on one hand offers a special kind of apparent irony while on the other, breaks that irony by it dynamics of results .One can also see an element of ‘quietness’ in the movement because of its deliberate choice of non- confronting stand and spiritual aspects. This is quite opposed to the Freirian notions, which clearly differentiates the ideas of the oppressed and the oppressors and questions the status quo, being created by the ‘oppressors’ for their own benefits and at the cost of the oppressed (Freire, P. 2000).Gulen movement seems to be borrowing the concept of a ‘dialogue’ that Freire writes about but at the same time deliberately excludes the exact notion of status-quo in the Freirian theory. Interestingly, the Gulen movement adopts the ‘culture of silence’ (Freire, P. 2000) for the sake of empowering the un-empowered by channelizing all its energies into the education rather than in the fight for the education. The clear differentiation between teaching and education and clear emphasis on mutual learning between student and teachers, however clearly matches with Freire’s ‘problem solving education process.’
It is also interesting to note that Gulen community functions without particularly classifying the environment of it working into two separate conflicting groups which Freire so strongly classifies as the ‘oppressor’ and the oppressor’.
In the dynamics of the Gulen movement what is seen is the complete exclusion of the potential ‘oppressor (Freire. P, 2000 ) such as the State, by a strategic agreement with it and thereby working on and working with the fighting communities who are both, oppressed, because of the belligerent behavior of the other and at the same being ‘oppressed’ due to their belligerent behavior towards the other. The movement however achieves and buys peace between the conflicting parties with the use of a ‘dialogue’ which is an integral part of the Freirian theory. Thus on one front, Gulen movement runs parallel with the Freirian movement without having to meet each other’s viewpoint, whereas on the other hands it clearly overlaps with its belief of ‘dialogue’.
One can also see the complete absence of ‘banking system of education’ in the Gulen movement, which uses its energies not only to let student learn from teachers but also to let teachers learn from students ,as well as from the constantly changing teaching environment.
The movement’s emphasis on the joy in the learning- process echoes with the experiences of Bell Hooks who experienced ‘classrooms as a place of sheer joy” (Hooks. B, 1994). The fact that Gulen schools embrace learners from a diverse religious, ethnic, class, and cultural background and foster social virtues such as respect, co-operation and tolerance to integrate its learners into pluralist, democratic society shows a dialectally opposite scenario, when seen with the experiences of Bell Hooks who enjoyed ‘Black schools’ as emancipating while tolerated ‘White schools as ‘prisons’(Hooks. B, 1994)
The broad inclusion of community as a family and the fact that the members of the community played an active role, not only as the beneficiaries of the movements but also as the active players of the movement itself, takes the movement very close to Myles Horton’s conceptualization and later construction of the Highlander School (Horton, M., 1990).Both Schools, Gulen’s and Horton’s, achieved its results by educating the members of the society by tools of sharing.
In order to address the masses with effective communication the ownership of media houses, foundations, trusts and other such organizational structures by of the Gulen community strengthens Myles Horton’s realization that ‘as individuals we are powerfulness but when we become organization, we become powerful”. (Horton. M, 1990)
Using the vales of dialogue and cooperation the Gulen movement is able to create and maintain a truly dynamic educational fabric, in many of its forms. These forms are schools, colleges and universities. They also include the unification of diversified communities and individuals through a common thread of compassion and love for each other’s diversity and acknowledgement of each other’s commonality. Also the secular structure of the Gulen schools has helped to create a balance between the individual’s needs as well as the collective needs of the society in which the individuals dwell. The constant emphasis of the movement to build the individual character and therefore the character of a collective society through universal moral values, prepares the new generation to become useful and constructive citizens of a more humane society, which is the purpose of a true education and a dream of the true educator.
Education of Gulen movement
Educational perspective and functions of the movement
The movement understands education broadly as a tool to bring a change for a peaceful coexistence. It regards ignorance, poverty, and internal schism as the greatest enemies of the human civilization and believes that only knowledge, work-capital and unification can help it overcome these. It acknowledges ignorance as the main source of all evils and uses education to struggle against it. The most visible manifestation of the struggle of the movement against ignorance are the schools being opened by the Gulen community across the globe .These schools which are in many forms, such educational dormitories, universities and conventional schools such Chartered schools in the United States, intends to pin down ignorance through education, poverty through work and internal schism and separatism through unity, dialogue, and tolerance. It regards education as the most effective tool for all kinds of paralyzed system whether social or political.
Gulen, as an educator believes that modern secular schools have been unsuccessful in freeing themselves from the pre- conceived notions and prejudices of the modern theology. He also believes that, the so called traditional schools have lacked the intellectual pace to cope up the ever increasing complicated concepts of science and technology and the challenges they pose. Both these institutions have therefore failed the test of changing times and developing the required flexibility with the new world’s vision.
The movement, therefore, believed in the integration of strengths of traditional education with modern educational system. For this , the movement believes, there is a need to mainstream the youth and help them rise above the present system of education, which only ‘informs’ them and keeps them devoid of absorbing the true education. The movement tries to establish a perfect balance. (Michel, T. 2003)
“With a balanced education learners can become agents of positive change; but if they do not have ideals, and are only taught marketable skills, they will add to the crises of the society. Intellectuals seem to prefer "the spiritually impoverished and technologically obsessed modern culture to a traditional cul tural foundation that grew in sophistication and subtlety over the centuries" (Michel, T. 2003).
Such a balance requires a holistic training, not only of the students in an educating atmosphere, but also of the teachers. But such trainings, movement believes, cannot be provided to nurture new learning environments unless there is new training environment.
According to Gulen, “Teacher training is essential; not only in methodology, but also in nurturing the whole person. Teachers should lead by example; otherwise they cannot hope to reform others. In order to bring others to the path of traveling to a better world, they must purify their inner worlds of hatred, rancor, and jealousy, and adorn their outer world with all kinds of virtues" (Michel, T. 2003)
Thus, teachers have to combine the study of science with character development. Success must be measured by scientific progress and moral progress. Material advancement without morality will destroy humanity.
It therefore proposes the following principles for all its educational institutions:
1) Dialogue and tolerance
2) Self-sacrifice
3) Avoidance of political and ideological conflict
4) Taking action on a positive and harmonious way
5) Taking responsibility
6) To give with no expectation of praise or reward. For example a person should be in the first line to give and the last row to receive any reward or thanks.
7) Humbleness.
Some of the basic educational pillars of the movement are the its emphasis of reading and listening ,which are extensively taught in all the institutions, relationships between the students and the teachers, which requires the presence of ethos such truth, respect and dignity, and highly ethical standards ,being attached with the schools working as well as the teachers employed.
The movement strictly differentiates between education and teaching. It holds that not all teachers are educators and therefore all teaching does not necessarily lead to education. It considers teaching as more superficial, and technical whereas education to be deeper, more meaningful and holistic activity.
In order to ensure true education, schools are defined as “a laboratory that offers an elixir that can prevent or heal the ills of life. Those who have the knowledge and wisdom to prepare and administer it are the teachers. A school is a place of learning about everything related to this life and the next. (Ibid, I. 2008). And that “a good school is not a building where only theoretical information is given but an institution or a laboratory where students are prepared for life. (Ibid, I. 2008).
The movement strongly believes that science and technology alone cannot explain the meaning and the purpose of human life. They are however facilitative the process of finding meanings and deveoping the broader purpose and aims of life. It also believes that science and technology must be used in the proper way to be beneficial for the humanity and if they are controlled by unjust and irresponsible people they a can in fact cause immense harm to the mankind. In the light of these believes, one can analyze the recent incidents of human miseries such as the Hiroshima –Nagasaki bombing, Worlds Wars, Worldwide conflict for resources such as oil and gas, abject poverty and inequality between communities, individuals and nations, and its ever increasing ills such as increasing suicide rates, diminishing heath care, rampant fatal dieses such as HIV/AIDs and cancer, human trafficking, child labor and many other avoidable human pains and suffering emanating from the vested interests of the few nations or individuals. Global problems such as environmental pollution and emergence of corruption and greed at local level further strengthen the above point.
In order to channelize all its energies to address the contemporary issues, through harmony and amicable ways rather than any confrontations’ with state or other interests groups, most of the Gulen schools follow national curriculum but what makes their education unique is the inclusion and rigorous emphasis on vales such as spirituality, idealism,good morals, scientific and technological progress as well as lessons on trades and crafts in the elementary level. Other vales such as reflection, thinking, active reading an listening skills, and mutual respect for the co fellows also remain at the very core of the conscious- teaching and learning processes.
These schools also take into account the specific qualities of teachers such as true dedication to education as tool for a social change and not just a mechanism to make a living, ability to inspire others with the conviction of this dedication. In most cases teachers are expected to be frugal; they are not permitted, or encouraged, to live in expensive apartments, drive expensive cars, and wear expensive clothes. It is believed that such extravagances could blemish the image of the school and damage the trust of the funders. However, teachers do not live in poverty; they earn a decent salary, receive hospital care and obtain a pension upon retirement. Also teachers are regularly transferred from one place to another place, with significantly different culture and sub-culture. This is expected to bring, the new inherent learning that comes to the new students with the new teacher, and hence more enriched learning atmosphere. It is also expected that with such practices the students will develop abilities to learn from different people while teachers will sharpen their abilities to absorb into a new teaching atmosphere and adapt to its intricacies. This practice however is practiced despite acknowledging its pitfalls such as the instability in the teaching structure that it brings along; the new teacher takes time to settle in a new place while new students take time to settle with new teacher and by the time both of them begin to understand each other’s attitudes and ways, which normally take 4 to 5 years, the teachers are transferred again. This instability, however, contains the potential to nurture, both in students and in teachers, the immunity to the fear of the ‘new’ and ‘unknown’. Thus, bringing along the experiential richness of the old, mingling with the new.
In the same context, movement believes that:
“For the ideal of love to live in schools, there must be a shift away from the school as a factory in which teachers view students as objectives rather than human beings, a factory in which knowledge is produced rather than character constructed. Instead, there must be a move toward schools and educators who not only have a mastery of their subjects but who also care for their students and seek their welfare past the ringing of the bell.” (Huebner, 1999)
With this belief the movement's activities within any community start by first making personal contacts with the individuals in that community. In other words, the movements’ vision enters the new community through an exiting human representation and shares that vision with the new individuals of the new community. Once this inter personal relationship is established between the party of the movement and the party of the community, the two become one and together they discuss the necessity of dialogue and the terms of education is then formed with mutual understanding. The resulting manifestation then takes the form of schools and educational institutions which carry the common vision, and act as the media of tolerance and dialogue to raise more people to join the movement.
In order to promote the holistic vision of education the movement also works on several fronts and with several communities, which it considers to be a part of its educational-family. It includes business networks and financial institutions that is it owns and that is backed by sixteen other partners, Its vast array of media outlets including a scientific monthly, an environment-related magazine, a theological journal, a weekly magazine, a daily newspaper, a TV station and an FM radio station. Besides the movement is supported by a powerful association of businessmen, which includes over 2000 businessmen and merchants, who support the educational activities by not only providing funding and logistical support but by also running the schools. The infrastructure support of the movement’s family includes universities and colleges, high schools, dormitories, summer camps, and over 100 foundations. All of these institutions are organized and are run by the people who are given roles on the basis of trust, obedience and duty to the community. These people are essentially businessmen, teachers, journalists, and students. Thus it is evident that the movement threads the member of the society as the member of a family. In such an environment the students are not only equipped with skills and knowledge necessary for their future careers but they also prepare them for the broader leadership roles that they may perform to construct a society that is expected to give importance to jobs, work, technology and consumerism while keeping the metaphysics of education above all.
The impact of this prioritization of worldly and spiritual values can be seen in the way the movement has played a key role in bringing or at least maintaining peace in conflict areas with a challenging and belligerent demography, such as Bosnia, Northern Iraq, Afghanistan and Philippines. In each of these areas the movement has established cordial relations with its tolerant, faith based, but not faith limited educational ways, to bring fighting communities together and build peace between them by emphasizing on their communities.
In Bosnia, the fighting communities were the Muslim Bosnians, Christian Serbs and Christian Croats. Despite their common ethic identity and culture coming from their common Yogoslovanin background, these communities have been involved, for over a decade in ethics conflicts. They differed on their nationalistic aspirations and religious differences.
The case of Northern Iraq was no different. The communities involved were Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Turcoman, Shiites and Assyrian Christians. They again engaged in violent conflicts resulting from the differences of their religious beliefs and practices. Similar is the case with Afghanistan with ethic groups such as Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Baluchi, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Nuristani and Pamiri who had different political affiliations and ideology despite sharing common religious beliefs. Due to their differences, they were unable to identify and acknowledge their common beliefs and thus were unable to come to common terns of mutual respect and reconciliation. Finally Philippines which offers a different case of different religious groups such as Muslims and Christians, who had different locations in terms of demography and who tried to control each other with their respective political structure and nationalist ideologies.
In all of the above theses cases, the result was the same; Wars, conflicts and clashes. Gulen community with their schools in all of these played a key role of bringing the Christian and Muslims student together in a peaceful atmosphere, thus demonstrating a and creating a platform for dialogue between communities. The result of the dialogue was the strengthened understanding between communities, mutual acknowledgment of differences and the newly inspired will to work on commonalities, to resolve existing issues. The Gulen community led to the decrease of violent conflicts and it was seen that the conflicting communities either refused to take part in new conflicts or continue the existing ones or both
The movement understands education broadly as a tool to bring a change for a peaceful coexistence. It regards ignorance, poverty, and internal schism as the greatest enemies of the human civilization and believes that only knowledge, work-capital and unification can help it overcome these. It acknowledges ignorance as the main source of all evils and uses education to struggle against it. The most visible manifestation of the struggle of the movement against ignorance are the schools being opened by the Gulen community across the globe .These schools which are in many forms, such educational dormitories, universities and conventional schools such Chartered schools in the United States, intends to pin down ignorance through education, poverty through work and internal schism and separatism through unity, dialogue, and tolerance. It regards education as the most effective tool for all kinds of paralyzed system whether social or political.
Gulen, as an educator believes that modern secular schools have been unsuccessful in freeing themselves from the pre- conceived notions and prejudices of the modern theology. He also believes that, the so called traditional schools have lacked the intellectual pace to cope up the ever increasing complicated concepts of science and technology and the challenges they pose. Both these institutions have therefore failed the test of changing times and developing the required flexibility with the new world’s vision.
The movement, therefore, believed in the integration of strengths of traditional education with modern educational system. For this , the movement believes, there is a need to mainstream the youth and help them rise above the present system of education, which only ‘informs’ them and keeps them devoid of absorbing the true education. The movement tries to establish a perfect balance. (Michel, T. 2003)
“With a balanced education learners can become agents of positive change; but if they do not have ideals, and are only taught marketable skills, they will add to the crises of the society. Intellectuals seem to prefer "the spiritually impoverished and technologically obsessed modern culture to a traditional cul tural foundation that grew in sophistication and subtlety over the centuries" (Michel, T. 2003).
Such a balance requires a holistic training, not only of the students in an educating atmosphere, but also of the teachers. But such trainings, movement believes, cannot be provided to nurture new learning environments unless there is new training environment.
According to Gulen, “Teacher training is essential; not only in methodology, but also in nurturing the whole person. Teachers should lead by example; otherwise they cannot hope to reform others. In order to bring others to the path of traveling to a better world, they must purify their inner worlds of hatred, rancor, and jealousy, and adorn their outer world with all kinds of virtues" (Michel, T. 2003)
Thus, teachers have to combine the study of science with character development. Success must be measured by scientific progress and moral progress. Material advancement without morality will destroy humanity.
It therefore proposes the following principles for all its educational institutions:
1) Dialogue and tolerance
2) Self-sacrifice
3) Avoidance of political and ideological conflict
4) Taking action on a positive and harmonious way
5) Taking responsibility
6) To give with no expectation of praise or reward. For example a person should be in the first line to give and the last row to receive any reward or thanks.
7) Humbleness.
Some of the basic educational pillars of the movement are the its emphasis of reading and listening ,which are extensively taught in all the institutions, relationships between the students and the teachers, which requires the presence of ethos such truth, respect and dignity, and highly ethical standards ,being attached with the schools working as well as the teachers employed.
The movement strictly differentiates between education and teaching. It holds that not all teachers are educators and therefore all teaching does not necessarily lead to education. It considers teaching as more superficial, and technical whereas education to be deeper, more meaningful and holistic activity.
In order to ensure true education, schools are defined as “a laboratory that offers an elixir that can prevent or heal the ills of life. Those who have the knowledge and wisdom to prepare and administer it are the teachers. A school is a place of learning about everything related to this life and the next. (Ibid, I. 2008). And that “a good school is not a building where only theoretical information is given but an institution or a laboratory where students are prepared for life. (Ibid, I. 2008).
The movement strongly believes that science and technology alone cannot explain the meaning and the purpose of human life. They are however facilitative the process of finding meanings and deveoping the broader purpose and aims of life. It also believes that science and technology must be used in the proper way to be beneficial for the humanity and if they are controlled by unjust and irresponsible people they a can in fact cause immense harm to the mankind. In the light of these believes, one can analyze the recent incidents of human miseries such as the Hiroshima –Nagasaki bombing, Worlds Wars, Worldwide conflict for resources such as oil and gas, abject poverty and inequality between communities, individuals and nations, and its ever increasing ills such as increasing suicide rates, diminishing heath care, rampant fatal dieses such as HIV/AIDs and cancer, human trafficking, child labor and many other avoidable human pains and suffering emanating from the vested interests of the few nations or individuals. Global problems such as environmental pollution and emergence of corruption and greed at local level further strengthen the above point.
In order to channelize all its energies to address the contemporary issues, through harmony and amicable ways rather than any confrontations’ with state or other interests groups, most of the Gulen schools follow national curriculum but what makes their education unique is the inclusion and rigorous emphasis on vales such as spirituality, idealism,good morals, scientific and technological progress as well as lessons on trades and crafts in the elementary level. Other vales such as reflection, thinking, active reading an listening skills, and mutual respect for the co fellows also remain at the very core of the conscious- teaching and learning processes.
These schools also take into account the specific qualities of teachers such as true dedication to education as tool for a social change and not just a mechanism to make a living, ability to inspire others with the conviction of this dedication. In most cases teachers are expected to be frugal; they are not permitted, or encouraged, to live in expensive apartments, drive expensive cars, and wear expensive clothes. It is believed that such extravagances could blemish the image of the school and damage the trust of the funders. However, teachers do not live in poverty; they earn a decent salary, receive hospital care and obtain a pension upon retirement. Also teachers are regularly transferred from one place to another place, with significantly different culture and sub-culture. This is expected to bring, the new inherent learning that comes to the new students with the new teacher, and hence more enriched learning atmosphere. It is also expected that with such practices the students will develop abilities to learn from different people while teachers will sharpen their abilities to absorb into a new teaching atmosphere and adapt to its intricacies. This practice however is practiced despite acknowledging its pitfalls such as the instability in the teaching structure that it brings along; the new teacher takes time to settle in a new place while new students take time to settle with new teacher and by the time both of them begin to understand each other’s attitudes and ways, which normally take 4 to 5 years, the teachers are transferred again. This instability, however, contains the potential to nurture, both in students and in teachers, the immunity to the fear of the ‘new’ and ‘unknown’. Thus, bringing along the experiential richness of the old, mingling with the new.
In the same context, movement believes that:
“For the ideal of love to live in schools, there must be a shift away from the school as a factory in which teachers view students as objectives rather than human beings, a factory in which knowledge is produced rather than character constructed. Instead, there must be a move toward schools and educators who not only have a mastery of their subjects but who also care for their students and seek their welfare past the ringing of the bell.” (Huebner, 1999)
With this belief the movement's activities within any community start by first making personal contacts with the individuals in that community. In other words, the movements’ vision enters the new community through an exiting human representation and shares that vision with the new individuals of the new community. Once this inter personal relationship is established between the party of the movement and the party of the community, the two become one and together they discuss the necessity of dialogue and the terms of education is then formed with mutual understanding. The resulting manifestation then takes the form of schools and educational institutions which carry the common vision, and act as the media of tolerance and dialogue to raise more people to join the movement.
In order to promote the holistic vision of education the movement also works on several fronts and with several communities, which it considers to be a part of its educational-family. It includes business networks and financial institutions that is it owns and that is backed by sixteen other partners, Its vast array of media outlets including a scientific monthly, an environment-related magazine, a theological journal, a weekly magazine, a daily newspaper, a TV station and an FM radio station. Besides the movement is supported by a powerful association of businessmen, which includes over 2000 businessmen and merchants, who support the educational activities by not only providing funding and logistical support but by also running the schools. The infrastructure support of the movement’s family includes universities and colleges, high schools, dormitories, summer camps, and over 100 foundations. All of these institutions are organized and are run by the people who are given roles on the basis of trust, obedience and duty to the community. These people are essentially businessmen, teachers, journalists, and students. Thus it is evident that the movement threads the member of the society as the member of a family. In such an environment the students are not only equipped with skills and knowledge necessary for their future careers but they also prepare them for the broader leadership roles that they may perform to construct a society that is expected to give importance to jobs, work, technology and consumerism while keeping the metaphysics of education above all.
The impact of this prioritization of worldly and spiritual values can be seen in the way the movement has played a key role in bringing or at least maintaining peace in conflict areas with a challenging and belligerent demography, such as Bosnia, Northern Iraq, Afghanistan and Philippines. In each of these areas the movement has established cordial relations with its tolerant, faith based, but not faith limited educational ways, to bring fighting communities together and build peace between them by emphasizing on their communities.
In Bosnia, the fighting communities were the Muslim Bosnians, Christian Serbs and Christian Croats. Despite their common ethic identity and culture coming from their common Yogoslovanin background, these communities have been involved, for over a decade in ethics conflicts. They differed on their nationalistic aspirations and religious differences.
The case of Northern Iraq was no different. The communities involved were Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Turcoman, Shiites and Assyrian Christians. They again engaged in violent conflicts resulting from the differences of their religious beliefs and practices. Similar is the case with Afghanistan with ethic groups such as Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Baluchi, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Nuristani and Pamiri who had different political affiliations and ideology despite sharing common religious beliefs. Due to their differences, they were unable to identify and acknowledge their common beliefs and thus were unable to come to common terns of mutual respect and reconciliation. Finally Philippines which offers a different case of different religious groups such as Muslims and Christians, who had different locations in terms of demography and who tried to control each other with their respective political structure and nationalist ideologies.
In all of the above theses cases, the result was the same; Wars, conflicts and clashes. Gulen community with their schools in all of these played a key role of bringing the Christian and Muslims student together in a peaceful atmosphere, thus demonstrating a and creating a platform for dialogue between communities. The result of the dialogue was the strengthened understanding between communities, mutual acknowledgment of differences and the newly inspired will to work on commonalities, to resolve existing issues. The Gulen community led to the decrease of violent conflicts and it was seen that the conflicting communities either refused to take part in new conflicts or continue the existing ones or both
The Journey and Work of Gulen Movment
Abstract
21ST century is clearly one of the most turbulent times of the human history; wars, famine, diseases, riots, ethnic violence and all such kinds of disasters, both human and natural have been witnessed. But one thing that surpassed all disasters is the clash between of civilizations and religions. The result of such multiple clashes has caused immense loss, both to human lives and human spirit. Both have been severely wounded. In order to heal the pain, many attempts have been made in the past, while many are still are ongoing. Gulen movement is one such attempt which uses education as a tool to bring social change in the form a bride between the clashing parties. This is done by building schools, propagating dialogue and tolerance and indeed tolerant- dialogue. This paper explores the movement; its brief history, its methods, its dynamics and the values it stands for.
Introduction
This paper looks at Gulen movement as a way to create a culture of reconciliation on a world scale using Education as a tool. The movement started in Turkey by Fethullah Gulen and gradually spread across 90 countries of the world. Tolerance and dialogue are among the most basic and broad dynamics of this movement. It intends to build brides of peace between religion and civilization through interfaith dialogue. The movement believes that international relations of past empires were founded on conflict and war. Different civilizations emphasized more on their differences rather than their commonalities and remained distanced, separated by thick walls of individual identities of politics, ideology and religion. This led to the conflict and the lack of dialogue.
However with new technology and phenomenon like that of globalization, which has made world a global village, there is a possibility of creating a missing link through dialogue and social pluralism. Gulen movement intends to provide this missing link by building schools across the world especially in the areas of conflict, where there is an increased need of understanding between different cultures and faiths, given their ethno-religiously fractured societies. This movement works with civil societies, which are formed by the informed citizens from voluntary, government and non government organizations. The role that the movement plays is that of bringing the actors of civil societies together, unite and organize them for common goals, thus removing the differences of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and creating the solidarity of ‘we’. The movement believes that absence of education, dialogue and tolerance is the reason of all conflicts and under-development. Through its unifying dynamics, the movement envisions societies with idealistic and patriotic members, who share common values with their counterparts with different ethno-religious backgrounds. These values are mainly dialogue, tolerance and individual perfection, all of which can be achieved through education. This vision of the movement and it enables it to communicate with a wide range of communities and cultures across the world to unite on the principles of peace and cooperation.
History, Sociology and Politics of the Movement
As an educational movement, Gulen movement started in early 80’s under the leadership of an sufi educator Fethullah Gulen who is a Turkish and lives in the United States. His attempts to bring science and religion together began in early 70’s, where the emphasis was on the scientific discourses of religion and how one religion can co exist, peacefully with many others. Since then, the movement evolved from building a religious community to building a global educational system that leads to integration into the modern world. While trying to achieve its goals, the movement avoids any kind of confrontation with the State. In fact by consciously understanding the State-centric political culture, the movement builds strong ties with the state to build and expand its social base. But at the same time it also maintains a distance from a particular party especially the ones with political nature or affiliations, or those in power. In this context Gulen, as a leader argues,
“We do not support any ruling party just because it is in power. There are ways in which they come in power and leave it. We need to control the ways and doors that play a key to walk to power. We should respect the government and express our opposition as is done in the most developed, western countries”. (Gulen, F. 2004)
From this statement it is clear that the movement is impressed if not inspired by the western political system. It is however also clear the movement does not have political inspirations .In fact, movement's strict avoidance from politics and from being politicized makes it able to communicate communities that are radically distant from each other on the political spectrum”.
The movement communicates with these different communities through a wide array of outlets that it owns and which it uses for educational purposes. This includes its own newspaper, television channel and a radio station .In addition, it distributes video and audio tapes. To promote the movements’ views and its beliefs, the followers have also set-up a wide range of organizations in Turkey, where the movement made it origins. It includes the Turkish Teachers' Foundation, which publishes academic journals and organizes national and international symposiums, panel discussions, and conferences. Another foundation, the Journalists' and Writers' Foundation, works towards bringing together the intellectuals possessing different worldviews and inviting them to speak on issues such as dialogue among civilizations.
The Gulen community owns and runs about 100 schools in Turkey. Followers of Gulen movement have also founded more than 200 schools around the world from Tanzania to China, but mostly in the Turkic republics. The movement also founded more than 500 places of learning in 90 countries including Uzbekistan, South Africa, Iraq, Palestine, Philippines, Pakistan, Albania, Afghanistan and Bosnia.
21ST century is clearly one of the most turbulent times of the human history; wars, famine, diseases, riots, ethnic violence and all such kinds of disasters, both human and natural have been witnessed. But one thing that surpassed all disasters is the clash between of civilizations and religions. The result of such multiple clashes has caused immense loss, both to human lives and human spirit. Both have been severely wounded. In order to heal the pain, many attempts have been made in the past, while many are still are ongoing. Gulen movement is one such attempt which uses education as a tool to bring social change in the form a bride between the clashing parties. This is done by building schools, propagating dialogue and tolerance and indeed tolerant- dialogue. This paper explores the movement; its brief history, its methods, its dynamics and the values it stands for.
Introduction
This paper looks at Gulen movement as a way to create a culture of reconciliation on a world scale using Education as a tool. The movement started in Turkey by Fethullah Gulen and gradually spread across 90 countries of the world. Tolerance and dialogue are among the most basic and broad dynamics of this movement. It intends to build brides of peace between religion and civilization through interfaith dialogue. The movement believes that international relations of past empires were founded on conflict and war. Different civilizations emphasized more on their differences rather than their commonalities and remained distanced, separated by thick walls of individual identities of politics, ideology and religion. This led to the conflict and the lack of dialogue.
However with new technology and phenomenon like that of globalization, which has made world a global village, there is a possibility of creating a missing link through dialogue and social pluralism. Gulen movement intends to provide this missing link by building schools across the world especially in the areas of conflict, where there is an increased need of understanding between different cultures and faiths, given their ethno-religiously fractured societies. This movement works with civil societies, which are formed by the informed citizens from voluntary, government and non government organizations. The role that the movement plays is that of bringing the actors of civil societies together, unite and organize them for common goals, thus removing the differences of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and creating the solidarity of ‘we’. The movement believes that absence of education, dialogue and tolerance is the reason of all conflicts and under-development. Through its unifying dynamics, the movement envisions societies with idealistic and patriotic members, who share common values with their counterparts with different ethno-religious backgrounds. These values are mainly dialogue, tolerance and individual perfection, all of which can be achieved through education. This vision of the movement and it enables it to communicate with a wide range of communities and cultures across the world to unite on the principles of peace and cooperation.
History, Sociology and Politics of the Movement
As an educational movement, Gulen movement started in early 80’s under the leadership of an sufi educator Fethullah Gulen who is a Turkish and lives in the United States. His attempts to bring science and religion together began in early 70’s, where the emphasis was on the scientific discourses of religion and how one religion can co exist, peacefully with many others. Since then, the movement evolved from building a religious community to building a global educational system that leads to integration into the modern world. While trying to achieve its goals, the movement avoids any kind of confrontation with the State. In fact by consciously understanding the State-centric political culture, the movement builds strong ties with the state to build and expand its social base. But at the same time it also maintains a distance from a particular party especially the ones with political nature or affiliations, or those in power. In this context Gulen, as a leader argues,
“We do not support any ruling party just because it is in power. There are ways in which they come in power and leave it. We need to control the ways and doors that play a key to walk to power. We should respect the government and express our opposition as is done in the most developed, western countries”. (Gulen, F. 2004)
From this statement it is clear that the movement is impressed if not inspired by the western political system. It is however also clear the movement does not have political inspirations .In fact, movement's strict avoidance from politics and from being politicized makes it able to communicate communities that are radically distant from each other on the political spectrum”.
The movement communicates with these different communities through a wide array of outlets that it owns and which it uses for educational purposes. This includes its own newspaper, television channel and a radio station .In addition, it distributes video and audio tapes. To promote the movements’ views and its beliefs, the followers have also set-up a wide range of organizations in Turkey, where the movement made it origins. It includes the Turkish Teachers' Foundation, which publishes academic journals and organizes national and international symposiums, panel discussions, and conferences. Another foundation, the Journalists' and Writers' Foundation, works towards bringing together the intellectuals possessing different worldviews and inviting them to speak on issues such as dialogue among civilizations.
The Gulen community owns and runs about 100 schools in Turkey. Followers of Gulen movement have also founded more than 200 schools around the world from Tanzania to China, but mostly in the Turkic republics. The movement also founded more than 500 places of learning in 90 countries including Uzbekistan, South Africa, Iraq, Palestine, Philippines, Pakistan, Albania, Afghanistan and Bosnia.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
And finally..
This analysis of No Logo and The Corporation will clearly show that media can be used to manipulate behaviors and the vulnerable members of the society. This is demonstrated in both films. In No Logo, Naomi’s research shows that branding is used as tool to ‘create’ unwanted desires and life styles. And people give in to it. In the corporation, Dr. Susan Linn, Professor of Psychiatry, Baker Children's Centre and Critic of the Nag Factor study and of exploiting children's developmental vulnerabilities, states that nagging of the children’ is being used by the marketers to push sales and make profits despite it being unethical. The representative of the Nag factor Study admits that she is ‘not sure’ of the ethics but felt that the campaign works. In both these instances it is clear that products of globalization such as media and concepts like branding and marketing campaigns are used to influence people against their wills. They are manipulated. Therefore it may be argued that the same tools are also used to produce slavery, which is characterized by the ‘absence of willingness’ of the subject. In one of the scenes of No Logo Naomi states that greater choices is a facade that branding creates; On the contrary it has not only lessen the choice but has also diminished the quality of work. Thus in essence creating a situation of desperation amongst the customers who become vulnerable and at the same time are put on a kind of assembly line where they see and think according to the branding missions. We therefore see that with branding people are controlled; their choices and their behavior are controlled. This again, is a symptom of slavery. Further, while talking about the mass production and mass transportation, No Logo observes that previously, in the market place, the customers personally knew and identified with the farmers. And therefore there was a communication taking place at the point of purchase. With mass production and mass transportation, the products, being manufactured at far-off places were sold in malls and stores and this took the communication away. Thus, creating a kind of ‘alienation’ amongst customers and farmers. It should be noted that alienation is also one of the tools which is used by the slave masters for the process of enslavement. Another factor that facilitates slavery is the control of solidarity amongst the groups( slaves).In No Logo, we see that in many cases multinationals do not allow unionization of the workers and keep them under extreme repressive working conditions to control their ‘groupings or solidarity’ and prevent any kind of resulting ‘reaction’. In spite of such observation and its similarity with slave-phenomenon, the reference of slavery in the film was not made. Although the film does narrate the experiences of workers who work for almost 24 hours in a shift without any breaks, are not allowed to go home, sleep under sewing machines, their work places being guarded by physical guards and high fences; all of which shows the physical control of the workers from the outer world, atypical slavery practice.
Also, in the film Naomi explicitly speaks about the women workers who were being hired by multinationals; these women worked under repressive regimes being mentioned above. More importantly ‘No Logo’ expose the recruitment process of these women which showed that they were not from the neighboring places and came from places which were 6to 7 hours away from the work place. The analysis of this clearly shows that this was done to control them with repression were young women as opposed to young men who are expected to have a greater tendency to rebel against the repression being inflicted. However inspite of such observations of physical and mental control by the organizations, the film did not draw any parallel, of these observations, with slavery which is exercised in the same fashion and using the same operating mechanism of control of threat to vulnerabilities. In fact the film categorically mentions that multinationals are competing with each other in terms of who abuse their workers more, and therefore who exercise more control for greater profits. A clear direct link to this is the slave master’s case, who also keeps the slave under inhuman conditions to squeeze the best out of him/her, while at the same time nullifying all kinds of potential reactions by force and violence. No logo also clearly talks about the financial institutions like the World Bank and International Monitory Fund. These big organizations support the business- cause on the assumption that anything good for these businesses would also be good for all. This, the film consider, as an assault on the democracy because it takes away the freedom of choices of people at large who are forced to make their choices same as that of the big corporations. This leads us to other key characteristics of slavery which is control of the masses by a few.
Big corporations supported by the IMF and the World Bank are able to force their opinions, choices and decisions on the majority of the nations of the world without any consultation with them what so ever. In essence, enslaving them, through the most undemocratic institutionalized, financial, global support systems. This is true to slavery also where slaves are sold and resold to slave masters, who are in complete organization with each other to ensure that they are able to exercise their terms on the slaves. However this aspect is completely ignored in the film. Globalized concepts like Mcjobs (Ritzer) offer no security, no respect, no benefits and no control over work, workplaces, or work timing. All of these are also the core characteristics of slavery system in which the democracy of the people is taken. No logo acknowledges that democracy is being hijacked by the barding mechanism but it does not refer to the resultant slavery situation amongst the workers across the globe.
The second film ‘The Corporation’ specifically talks about and shows the working on corporations, primarily the multinationals working across the global demography. The film begins to shadow that corporations are all pervasive and that they influence and exercise power over lives thus creating lack of public control and more of power concentration in the hand so privatized organizations and individuals. The film features 40 corporate insiders and critics including stalwarts like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Milton Friedman, Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva and Michael Moore. In the very beginning of the film, corporations are compared with an eagle which is prepared to strike. In another scene they are compared with a monster, which is shown to be squeezing a person almost to death. This shows a violent analogy. And therefore the use of violence by the corporations can be perceived by the visual narrative. Historically speaking the film says that corporations, as form ownership, came into being 1712 out of industrial revolution and those wars created massive scope for corporations. In the light of this we can understand that the very origins of corporations were based on the opportunistic attitude while the profits remains at the core, they try to exercise power. It is also interesting that in the film while tracing the origins of the corporation, the films informs us that after the 14 amendment which was meant to protect the newly freed slaves, corporate lawyers cunningly presented corporations as persons and therefore like all humans being could enjoy rights similar to a person. Interestingly between 1890 and 1910 there were 307 cases filed under the 14 amendment. Out of these, 288 were corporations and mere 10 were African Americans. This is a clear testimony of how corporations have historically used not only scientific inventions, discoveries but also laws for their own benefits. While the film makes this clear, it do not say anything about the potential emergence of modern slavery due to the character of corporations. It is, however, quite clear with the narrative of the film that such a potential does exist and is indeed being realized by the big corporations across the world. This was further strengthened in the film, by the fact that the corporations are considered as a ‘legal person’ without morals or conscience. Corporations remain responsible to their stockholders, which are the owners and not to the ‘stakeholders’ like the general public(Noam Chomsky, The corporation) .It can therefore be assumed that corporations as the film suggest are responsible to only a few and therefore takes all it decisions according the good of the these few. Can this not mean the use slavery if need be, through force, manipulations of laws and scientific technology. I think it can .with amble evidence available for this, this film also ignores the link of corporation and the exercise of slavery. The film also refers to the concept of externalities which means avoidance of any major responsibilities on the part of corporations’ like worker's unions, factory accidents, compensations and so on. Companies want to avoid these externalities. This is done through a very systemic institutionalization of organizations such as Manpower who supply labor to other organizations. The responsibility of labor in such cases do not lie on the organizations on companies like manpower who tale workers and labors at all levels, from lower to managerial , on their pay rolls. This relates to the mechanism of slavery too where the slave master is unwilling to nurture the slave or providing any compensation other than making use of its labor abilities without any accountability, moral or otherwise.
The corporation like No Logo also travels to some of the most oppressive workplace across the globe and exposes the realities of ruthless and inhumane conditions in which workers are force to work while remaining underpaid or unpaid and economically exploited through fear and violence. The Corporation in fact runs a parallel narrative in which it identifies certain traits of a psychopath and shows how they are present in the corporations of the globalized world. The diagnostic checklist was used to measure the mental disorders (drawn from World Health Organization) in The Corporation, thereby personifying the corporations. The result was this: Corporations, as persons, act like psychopaths with the following characteristics:
1. Callous unconcern for the feelings of others. In other words exploitative
2. Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships
3. Reckless safeguard to safety of others.
4. Deceitfulness- repeated lying and conning of others for profits.
5. Capacity to inexperience guilt.
6. Failure to conform to social norms, with respect to lawful behaviors.
All of these characteristics are further complimented by other instances in the film like the practice of despotism by the corporations, involvement of IBM with Nazi government, provision of tax holidays by several government o corporations thus ripping poor of the basic facilities that government can provide through tax revenues, production of cancer epidemic by chemical industries and the use same chemical being produced by the corporation on people and farms during Vietnam War. In essence the film made clear that corporations are ruthless and despotic. They are also degrading environment, air and water and thus creating ill heath on mass scale. This in turn produces diseases but because corporations control the business of medical treatment through privatized hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, they control and hike the price of healthcare. This takes us back to the situation of creation of economic exploitation and also facilitating the emergence of slavery which finds fertility in such exploitative, poverty stricken situation. Historically understanding slavery and the way it changed and re emerged will help us understand the role that these global corporations play, not only in the creation but also the sustainability of slavery especially in the developing nations which are highly controlled by global financial hours like IMF and the World Bank. The film further shows a campaign in which, 100 of the world’s biggest corporate were being classified as criminals and were fined in the tunes for 500millon dollars for causing environmental and tax violations. These corporations includes name such as Pfizer, a drug company, GE, IBM, Roche. Exxon, Sears and others.In the light of these facts one also sees, in the film, that these corporations are quite aware of the violations that they cause and choose to look at it a business decision as long as the cost of compliance is higher than the cost of penalty, they continue to violate. All this is because the bottom-line is profits. While this is true, can the possibility of using slavery (because it also brings profits) be ruled out by the corporation given their ruthless and monstrous character? I do not think it can be because the fact have clearly shown that the mechanism which run these corporations are inherently enslaving and do produce slavery. The film does not, however, take this vantage point into account. It does make it clear that in their individual roles, mangers of corporations may be noble and kind, but in their institutional role, they are monstrous , producing ‘generational tyranny’. And therefore all possibilities should be taken into account with the exclusion of slavery.
In one of the interviews in the film (The Corporation) a commodity trader explains how the devastation of 9/11 was being looked upon as an opportunity for the gold holding clients. Thus again we see highly globalized economy where stocks and commodities are traded not only creates wealth but creates immune to human feelings and the ability to see opportunity where there is pain and suffering. This again is the most visible characteristic of classical form of slavery and is so highly manifested in our global systems. As one of the interviewees, Noam Chomsky speaks of privatization as a result of globalization, as process of taking over of public institutions by an unaccountable attorney. This means that schools, hospitals , road constructions , bridge building medicine, education , restaurants and many other institutions which have a direct bearing on the public’s life are now taken over by the private individuals, and are used not to benefit the people at large but to bring profit only to the few. This obviously is not possible unless there is exploitation of the masses by these few. As result of this exploitation the situations of economic inequality are created, human vulnerability is strengthened and the grounds of slavery are prepared. With new concepts such public relations, advertising, perception management which are highly scientific tools, the demands of insignificant products and services like fashion are created by boosting created-wants and created- desires for increased consumption. This leads to’ manufacturing consent’ (Chomsky).Such practices can create horrendous situations like the one anticipated in the film; two-third of the world will not have drinking water by 2025.
Support of oppressive regimes by global financial institutions as in the case of Indonesia where a military’s dictator was supported by the World Bank and the IMF in order to acquire Indonesian markets( john Pilger the new rulers of the world) will only make things worse and will provide favorable grounds for problems like slavery to re-emerge and prevail. What does this mean? I think it means increasingly high level of exploitations in the hand of multinational corporations to create enslavement for the want of more profits.It is ample clear that the globalized economy has also created globalized poverty and this, in turn has produced globalized slavery, a new form of slavery which is an inherent endowment of the process of globalization. The analysis of the facts produced by these two cases studies in addition to other work that I studied and research, it is quite clear that the rules and actors of slavery have changed; the slave masters are no longer remote individuals working within small physical boundaries controlling handful of slaves but they the globalized multinationals and white- nations of the west, operating at a vast scale controlling and enslaving millions with the use of modern technology, media and the process of institutionalization which is a part of larger process of modernization, enslaving the vast majority of ‘blank and brown’ people including women and children of the east. To complete the broader analysis of this paper it becomes necessary to answer the following questions while carefully looking at the present analysis, history and emergence of slavery and also the acts and actors of the prices of globalization to be able understand fully and therefore study more systematically, the relationship between silvery and globalizations:
1. How has slavery graduated from ‘one man or a small group of men enslaving another man or a small group of men’ to grand scale where one nation enslaves another nation, or one corporations enslaves another nation, or one nation or a group of nations together with one or corporations enslave another nation or a group of nation, or both
2. In this graduation of slavery what role does globalization plays; directly and indirectly?
3 Who are the national and international beneficiary if national and international
slavery that is being talked about in the paper?
4. What characteristics would a nation-slave master demonstrate and are these nation-master slaves not present today in the west?
5. What characteristics would a nation-slave demonstrate and are these nation-slaves not present today in the East?
6. What facilitates such new equations?
It is only in the light of these questions that the chapter of modern slavery be fully understood as it would take into account the nature of national and international political policies, funding, socio-economic conditions and over all fabric of human civilization, with it vast and varying interests amongst its member groups and individuals.
Also, in the film Naomi explicitly speaks about the women workers who were being hired by multinationals; these women worked under repressive regimes being mentioned above. More importantly ‘No Logo’ expose the recruitment process of these women which showed that they were not from the neighboring places and came from places which were 6to 7 hours away from the work place. The analysis of this clearly shows that this was done to control them with repression were young women as opposed to young men who are expected to have a greater tendency to rebel against the repression being inflicted. However inspite of such observations of physical and mental control by the organizations, the film did not draw any parallel, of these observations, with slavery which is exercised in the same fashion and using the same operating mechanism of control of threat to vulnerabilities. In fact the film categorically mentions that multinationals are competing with each other in terms of who abuse their workers more, and therefore who exercise more control for greater profits. A clear direct link to this is the slave master’s case, who also keeps the slave under inhuman conditions to squeeze the best out of him/her, while at the same time nullifying all kinds of potential reactions by force and violence. No logo also clearly talks about the financial institutions like the World Bank and International Monitory Fund. These big organizations support the business- cause on the assumption that anything good for these businesses would also be good for all. This, the film consider, as an assault on the democracy because it takes away the freedom of choices of people at large who are forced to make their choices same as that of the big corporations. This leads us to other key characteristics of slavery which is control of the masses by a few.
Big corporations supported by the IMF and the World Bank are able to force their opinions, choices and decisions on the majority of the nations of the world without any consultation with them what so ever. In essence, enslaving them, through the most undemocratic institutionalized, financial, global support systems. This is true to slavery also where slaves are sold and resold to slave masters, who are in complete organization with each other to ensure that they are able to exercise their terms on the slaves. However this aspect is completely ignored in the film. Globalized concepts like Mcjobs (Ritzer) offer no security, no respect, no benefits and no control over work, workplaces, or work timing. All of these are also the core characteristics of slavery system in which the democracy of the people is taken. No logo acknowledges that democracy is being hijacked by the barding mechanism but it does not refer to the resultant slavery situation amongst the workers across the globe.
The second film ‘The Corporation’ specifically talks about and shows the working on corporations, primarily the multinationals working across the global demography. The film begins to shadow that corporations are all pervasive and that they influence and exercise power over lives thus creating lack of public control and more of power concentration in the hand so privatized organizations and individuals. The film features 40 corporate insiders and critics including stalwarts like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Milton Friedman, Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva and Michael Moore. In the very beginning of the film, corporations are compared with an eagle which is prepared to strike. In another scene they are compared with a monster, which is shown to be squeezing a person almost to death. This shows a violent analogy. And therefore the use of violence by the corporations can be perceived by the visual narrative. Historically speaking the film says that corporations, as form ownership, came into being 1712 out of industrial revolution and those wars created massive scope for corporations. In the light of this we can understand that the very origins of corporations were based on the opportunistic attitude while the profits remains at the core, they try to exercise power. It is also interesting that in the film while tracing the origins of the corporation, the films informs us that after the 14 amendment which was meant to protect the newly freed slaves, corporate lawyers cunningly presented corporations as persons and therefore like all humans being could enjoy rights similar to a person. Interestingly between 1890 and 1910 there were 307 cases filed under the 14 amendment. Out of these, 288 were corporations and mere 10 were African Americans. This is a clear testimony of how corporations have historically used not only scientific inventions, discoveries but also laws for their own benefits. While the film makes this clear, it do not say anything about the potential emergence of modern slavery due to the character of corporations. It is, however, quite clear with the narrative of the film that such a potential does exist and is indeed being realized by the big corporations across the world. This was further strengthened in the film, by the fact that the corporations are considered as a ‘legal person’ without morals or conscience. Corporations remain responsible to their stockholders, which are the owners and not to the ‘stakeholders’ like the general public(Noam Chomsky, The corporation) .It can therefore be assumed that corporations as the film suggest are responsible to only a few and therefore takes all it decisions according the good of the these few. Can this not mean the use slavery if need be, through force, manipulations of laws and scientific technology. I think it can .with amble evidence available for this, this film also ignores the link of corporation and the exercise of slavery. The film also refers to the concept of externalities which means avoidance of any major responsibilities on the part of corporations’ like worker's unions, factory accidents, compensations and so on. Companies want to avoid these externalities. This is done through a very systemic institutionalization of organizations such as Manpower who supply labor to other organizations. The responsibility of labor in such cases do not lie on the organizations on companies like manpower who tale workers and labors at all levels, from lower to managerial , on their pay rolls. This relates to the mechanism of slavery too where the slave master is unwilling to nurture the slave or providing any compensation other than making use of its labor abilities without any accountability, moral or otherwise.
The corporation like No Logo also travels to some of the most oppressive workplace across the globe and exposes the realities of ruthless and inhumane conditions in which workers are force to work while remaining underpaid or unpaid and economically exploited through fear and violence. The Corporation in fact runs a parallel narrative in which it identifies certain traits of a psychopath and shows how they are present in the corporations of the globalized world. The diagnostic checklist was used to measure the mental disorders (drawn from World Health Organization) in The Corporation, thereby personifying the corporations. The result was this: Corporations, as persons, act like psychopaths with the following characteristics:
1. Callous unconcern for the feelings of others. In other words exploitative
2. Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships
3. Reckless safeguard to safety of others.
4. Deceitfulness- repeated lying and conning of others for profits.
5. Capacity to inexperience guilt.
6. Failure to conform to social norms, with respect to lawful behaviors.
All of these characteristics are further complimented by other instances in the film like the practice of despotism by the corporations, involvement of IBM with Nazi government, provision of tax holidays by several government o corporations thus ripping poor of the basic facilities that government can provide through tax revenues, production of cancer epidemic by chemical industries and the use same chemical being produced by the corporation on people and farms during Vietnam War. In essence the film made clear that corporations are ruthless and despotic. They are also degrading environment, air and water and thus creating ill heath on mass scale. This in turn produces diseases but because corporations control the business of medical treatment through privatized hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, they control and hike the price of healthcare. This takes us back to the situation of creation of economic exploitation and also facilitating the emergence of slavery which finds fertility in such exploitative, poverty stricken situation. Historically understanding slavery and the way it changed and re emerged will help us understand the role that these global corporations play, not only in the creation but also the sustainability of slavery especially in the developing nations which are highly controlled by global financial hours like IMF and the World Bank. The film further shows a campaign in which, 100 of the world’s biggest corporate were being classified as criminals and were fined in the tunes for 500millon dollars for causing environmental and tax violations. These corporations includes name such as Pfizer, a drug company, GE, IBM, Roche. Exxon, Sears and others.In the light of these facts one also sees, in the film, that these corporations are quite aware of the violations that they cause and choose to look at it a business decision as long as the cost of compliance is higher than the cost of penalty, they continue to violate. All this is because the bottom-line is profits. While this is true, can the possibility of using slavery (because it also brings profits) be ruled out by the corporation given their ruthless and monstrous character? I do not think it can be because the fact have clearly shown that the mechanism which run these corporations are inherently enslaving and do produce slavery. The film does not, however, take this vantage point into account. It does make it clear that in their individual roles, mangers of corporations may be noble and kind, but in their institutional role, they are monstrous , producing ‘generational tyranny’. And therefore all possibilities should be taken into account with the exclusion of slavery.
In one of the interviews in the film (The Corporation) a commodity trader explains how the devastation of 9/11 was being looked upon as an opportunity for the gold holding clients. Thus again we see highly globalized economy where stocks and commodities are traded not only creates wealth but creates immune to human feelings and the ability to see opportunity where there is pain and suffering. This again is the most visible characteristic of classical form of slavery and is so highly manifested in our global systems. As one of the interviewees, Noam Chomsky speaks of privatization as a result of globalization, as process of taking over of public institutions by an unaccountable attorney. This means that schools, hospitals , road constructions , bridge building medicine, education , restaurants and many other institutions which have a direct bearing on the public’s life are now taken over by the private individuals, and are used not to benefit the people at large but to bring profit only to the few. This obviously is not possible unless there is exploitation of the masses by these few. As result of this exploitation the situations of economic inequality are created, human vulnerability is strengthened and the grounds of slavery are prepared. With new concepts such public relations, advertising, perception management which are highly scientific tools, the demands of insignificant products and services like fashion are created by boosting created-wants and created- desires for increased consumption. This leads to’ manufacturing consent’ (Chomsky).Such practices can create horrendous situations like the one anticipated in the film; two-third of the world will not have drinking water by 2025.
Support of oppressive regimes by global financial institutions as in the case of Indonesia where a military’s dictator was supported by the World Bank and the IMF in order to acquire Indonesian markets( john Pilger the new rulers of the world) will only make things worse and will provide favorable grounds for problems like slavery to re-emerge and prevail. What does this mean? I think it means increasingly high level of exploitations in the hand of multinational corporations to create enslavement for the want of more profits.It is ample clear that the globalized economy has also created globalized poverty and this, in turn has produced globalized slavery, a new form of slavery which is an inherent endowment of the process of globalization. The analysis of the facts produced by these two cases studies in addition to other work that I studied and research, it is quite clear that the rules and actors of slavery have changed; the slave masters are no longer remote individuals working within small physical boundaries controlling handful of slaves but they the globalized multinationals and white- nations of the west, operating at a vast scale controlling and enslaving millions with the use of modern technology, media and the process of institutionalization which is a part of larger process of modernization, enslaving the vast majority of ‘blank and brown’ people including women and children of the east. To complete the broader analysis of this paper it becomes necessary to answer the following questions while carefully looking at the present analysis, history and emergence of slavery and also the acts and actors of the prices of globalization to be able understand fully and therefore study more systematically, the relationship between silvery and globalizations:
1. How has slavery graduated from ‘one man or a small group of men enslaving another man or a small group of men’ to grand scale where one nation enslaves another nation, or one corporations enslaves another nation, or one nation or a group of nations together with one or corporations enslave another nation or a group of nation, or both
2. In this graduation of slavery what role does globalization plays; directly and indirectly?
3 Who are the national and international beneficiary if national and international
slavery that is being talked about in the paper?
4. What characteristics would a nation-slave master demonstrate and are these nation-master slaves not present today in the west?
5. What characteristics would a nation-slave demonstrate and are these nation-slaves not present today in the East?
6. What facilitates such new equations?
It is only in the light of these questions that the chapter of modern slavery be fully understood as it would take into account the nature of national and international political policies, funding, socio-economic conditions and over all fabric of human civilization, with it vast and varying interests amongst its member groups and individuals.
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