SGIQuarterly

Number 87 | January 2017A Buddhist Forum for Peace, Culture and Education

S o k a G a k k a i I n t e r n a t i o n a l

Dialogical Citizenship Joseph A. Camilleri Coding for a New Future Hugh Bosely Music Lessons Elaine Sandoval

In This Issue

SGIQuarterly

Editorial Team:Anthony George Azumi Tamae Margaret Sutherland Marisa Stenson Michael Salsbury Motoki Kawamorita Richard Walker Sonal Malkani Yoshiko Ogushi Yoshinori Miyagawa

Published by Soka Gakkai International

Art Direction & Design by Modis Design Printed by Japan Print Co., Ltd.

© 2017 Soka Gakkai International All rights reserved. Printed in Japan.

Printed on FSC certified paper, supporting responsible forest management.

ISSN 1341-6510

The SGI Quarterly brings together voices of a diverse range of individuals and groups exploring creative responses to the shared challenges of our time.

The Forum aims to generate dialogue and interest in topics related to building a culture of peace and to stimulate a growing network of global citizens active for the betterment of society. To view an archive of past articles and join the discussion, visit Common Threads, a tumblr page hosted by the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), at commonthreads.sgi.org.

In Focus highlights activities of SGI organizations and affiliate institutions around the world; People & Perspectives presents stories and reflections on a Buddhist approach to life; and Buddhism in Daily Life explores Buddhist principles and their application to modern living.

The views expressed in the SGI Quarterly are not necessarily those of the SGI. For permission to reprint material from the magazine or from Common Threads, please contact quarterly@sgi.org. This issue and back issues can be downloaded from the SGI website at www.sgi.org.

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“These new sensibilities

that arose from diverse

music experiences changed

my own ways of thinking

and of imagining the

experiences of others.” Elaine Sandoval

“Individualistic notions of

citizenship are distinctly

unhelpful when it comes to

dealing with the complex

realities of ethnic, racial,

cultural and civilizational

difference.”Joseph A. Camilleri

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Contents

Forum

People & Perspectives

In Focus

Buddhism in Daily Life

02 Coding for a New Future Interview with Hugh Bosely

06 Music Lessons Elaine Sandoval

08 Women Planning for Peace Asha Hans, Betty Reardon and Anwarul K. Chowdhury

13 Alethea’s Lesson Bayo Akomolafe

16 Dialogical Citizenship Joseph A. Camilleri

20 Nurturing the Roots of Resilient Communities Daisaku Ikeda

22 An Ethical Future for Fashion Satoru and Kiyoshi Inoue

26 Seeds of Hope: The Power of One Barbara Jenkins

28 The Lotus Sutra

1January 2017

ReBootKamp (RBK) is an immersive code boot camp for refugees—the first of its kind in the Arab world—located near Za’atari refugee camp in Amman, Jordan. Using a powerful new training methodology, RBK produces highly qualified software engineers—accomplishing in four months what would normally take a university four years—empowering refugees with sought-after skills to help them navigate their way out of poverty.

The RBK program is 12 hours per day, 6 days per week for 16 weeks. In keeping with good humanitarian practice, RBK trains an equal number of refugees and at-risk host nationals. RBK also provides a mentorship program whereby tech professionals throughout the world can “adopt” an RBK student, allowing the student to be introduced to the culture of their future profession and begin building a career network.

Hugh Bosely, founder and executive director of RBK, describes how the program is transforming the lives of those displaced by war and conflict.

Coding for a New FutureInterview with Hugh Bosely

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What led to the creation of ReBootKamp?

In 2014, I was working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees establishing athletic programs for residents of Za’atari refugee camp in northern Jordan. After a visit to the camp in mid-October, I asked a UN representative how many public computers were in the camp. She replied, “None,” which was a bit alarming considering that this camp at the time was the fourth largest city in Jordan. On the ride back to Amman that day, I mapped out a training program to promote digital literacy. In formulating the concept, I connected three dots: (1) the ten million+ skills gap worldwide of which two million are tech jobs, (2) the massive surplus of untapped intellectual potential in the refugee space, and (3) the rise of career accelerators (code boot camps).

Boot camps appeared to be a way to rapidly extricate refugees and their families from poverty. It struck me that we could use one problem (forced migration and the vast supply of intellectual potential) to solve another (the ten million+ skills gap). Back in the US, I designed a program to use innovative boot camp technology to rapidly skill up refugees and pitched the proposal to my contacts at Za’atari. To my surprise, they accepted the proposal, and by the second quarter of 2015, we had refined the project particulars and roughed out a partnership agreement. Meanwhile, I formed a partnership with one of the top coding boot camps in the world, Reactor Core, whose partner school, Hack Reactor, is supplying the curriculum, staff and massive support.

Can you give us an overview of the program, how candidates are selected and what makes it so successful?

Learning is immersive, done in sprints (a complex body of knowledge is broken down into discreet chunks) and utilizes heavy staff facilitation—10 staff to 30 students. Our training and approach includes:

• a selective admissions process that screens for traits that correlate with leadership;

• paired and problem-based learning as well as use of the “fire hose” method where content is delivered faster than students can assimilate it;

• a fail-based pedagogy where students try and fail repeatedly until they succeed and are given a how-to lecture at the end;

• autonomous learning training where students are taught how to stay current and retool as technology changes;

• a focus on the development of soft skills that are nurtured through role-play and group projects, for example;

• hands-on and ground-up training;

• psychosocial support that includes twice-weekly group therapy sessions referred to as “tapouts” as well as individual psychological counseling;

• self-awareness training utilizing interactive exercises as well as yoga, meditation and mindfulness visualization;

• postgraduate support.

RBK’s cofounding partner, Hack Reactor, has a proven track record. The training is 100 percent market driven and focused on producing entry- and mid-level technicians with very deep technical skills, strong soft skills and a strong autonomous learning ability.

How do students support each other to deal with the trauma of displacement and conflict?

Although we expected the stress of immersive education would compound the stress of dislocation, the opposite has generally occurred. The shear intensity of the program has, in effect, displaced the trauma and become a powerful dampening mechanism. Additionally, built into the curriculum are two tapouts per week. These group therapy sessions are led by a trained counselor. Students love these sessions, as it is the first time in an educational context someone has asked them how they are feeling about their learning experience. The tapouts allow us to clear away or reduce any emotional hurdles that may get in the way of learning and establish a more direct pathway to knowledge. We also offer one-to-one psychosocial support and deeper remediation as needed.

Boot camps appeared to be a way to rapidly extricate refugees and their families from poverty. It struck me that we could use one problem to solve another.

3January 2017

All staff members receive training on how to identify and respond to post-traumatic stress disorder.

What is the thinking behind reserving 60 percent of spaces in the program for women?

The decision to favor young women is motivated first by the consideration that in Arabic culture females generally perform better than males academically. This can translate into measures that the IT industry values—soft skills, professionalism, self-awareness and autonomous learning. As we are an outcomes-based organization, females increase our capacity to be effective and ultimately empower more young lives.

Second, because women, as a class, have been subject to institutionalized discrimination, RBK is proactive in challenging outdated attitudes and promoting equality. Third, the unemployment rate for women is extremely high, approaching 80 percent in some areas. Couple this with the pressure to marry early, and young women have a much steeper climb out of poverty. The young women in our program have had dramatic changes in their outlook and worldview as a direct result of the RBK experience.

Some representative testimonials from participants include:

My experience at RBK has given me much more self-confidence. I truly feel I can learn anything now. I am changed. I can’t say how exactly, but I see things differently now. I feel more capable, more in charge.

Elham Rababah, Jordanian national

RBK has taught me more patience. I look at things in a more practical way now. I have more self-confidence and am much more able to find answers to my own and others’ questions. I believe I can learn anything now where I didn’t before, and now I have much more confidence in my own abilities.

Mihyar Almasalma, Syrian refugee

I learned more in one month than I learned in four years at the university.

Mohammad Dabdab, Iraqi refugee

In addition to the benefits of being able to leave the refugee camp, become independent and have a stable job, what other skills do the students learn? What kind of support does RBK offer students once they have relocated abroad for a job?

Fundamentally, our graduates are hired not because of their ability to code—they can!—but because of their soft skills and autonomous learning ability. Our graduates are fun to work with, good communicators and listeners, able to work collectively and build consensus, good problem solvers and ultimately the kind of employees that will grow and perhaps someday lead a company or be effective peacebuilders. More importantly, they have the ability to “sharpen their own saw” and, if required, retool. Technology changes fast. You are an expert today and obsolete tomorrow. University programs don’t teach soft skills nor do they teach autonomous learning. For our hiring partners, these abilities are far more important than technical ability. We give our students both.

RBK’s outcomes team is focused on matching graduates with employers that best serve their interests and career goals. We have several dozen hiring partners locally and abroad. Because we are fundamentally a peace institute giving our graduates the kinds of skills required to rebuild a country, we discourage international migration as this reduces the likelihood of participating in the peacebuilding and rebuilding processes. That said, we have discovered a mechanism whereby our graduates can be employed by international partners but work locally. Called “remote seats,” our graduates are hired directly by our Silicon Valley partners but work in Jordan in a space we provide.

Students giving a presentation

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Essential to our success and impact is maintaining a strong alumni network and providing a lifetime of career support. The RBK experience is life changing, and alumni want to stay connected with the school, returning to give guest lectures and mentor. Additionally, RBK provides free weekend workshops in entrepreneurship, management training, scrum master and other technical certifications.

What are some of the most dramatic transformations you have seen in students through their involvement with RBK?

Early on in the program, I do a two-minute self-awareness lecture where I draw a circle on one side of the board and a square on the other side. I point to the circle and say, “This IS who you are.” Then I point to the square and say, “This is who you THINK you are.” Students approach me later and remark that that lecture changed their life, indicating that for the first time, they are aware of self. This realization is as dramatic and transformative as any. The ability to grow is grounded on an accurate understanding of self and marks the beginning of the path toward success and happiness. In the words of one student: “I now have a reason to live.”

A group of students talk in a tapout session about challenges they are facing during the training and how to overcome them

Hugh Bosely is founder and executive director of ReBootKamp (RBK), a nonprofit based in Amman, Jordan, and San Francisco. He believes strongly in the power of education to fundamentally improve society and in the use of technology for the promotion of peace. For more information, visit rbk.org.

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As she reflects on her experiences of music growing up, Elaine Sandoval invites us to consider the possibilities of a cosmopolitan music education and how it might change our understanding of the world.

When I was in elementary school, my mom would take me to orchestra concerts, and I still recall her leaning over before the program or while we waited in the

intermission bathroom line, quietly encouraging me to check out the other people around us. Through these demographic observations, I learned that they didn’t often look like us but that I could also imagine myself as belonging in this space, especially the more I trained as a classical musician myself.

In junior high school I played in a small wind ensemble with other girls my age, and we enjoyed a repertoire that included many Japanese march-like pieces. One day, our rehearsal was gently interrupted when an adult coach urged us to consider that our audiences in the San Francisco Bay Area often included Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese immigrants and to imagine what it might feel like to hear these songs and be reminded of violent colonial pasts.

Each day in high school I would slip into heeled dance shoes for an hour of training in Mexican folklorico dance. Tucked within mainstream public school education, where I often found myself struggling to identify with the content of our history classes or the repertoire of concert band, folklorico class felt like a secret time when I could imagine the feeling of fully embracing my heritage, the memories of my grandparents and being in a world that didn’t require assimilation.

In China during study abroad in college, my host grandmother would take me to weekend senior citizen choir practices where the songs and memories of the Mao era were reinvigorated. Fitting my voice into unfamiliar harmonies and around the new Chinese words I was learning in class, my own mouth and vocal tract seemed to become like theirs, and my body learned to imagine the pride and nostalgia they were

Music LessonsElaine Sandoval

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reliving, even when it contradicted the narratives I was being taught in history classes.

In 2013, a classmate was wounded during the Boston Marathon bombing. Only weeks later, we planned a small graduation ceremony for our music fellowship, and while several in our cohort wanted to celebrate with music, she shared with us how her anxiety continued to rise painfully with loud sound. While we were all committed to promoting the values of music education, as a group we were also made to imagine the experience of music for a temporarily other-abled and traumatized body.

Our typical models of music education, often drawing on the values of classical Western music, tend to privilege the idea I understood since childhood—that music education is valuable as a mechanism of social mobility, or a way of gaining the knowledge and habits of “high” culture and the skills for workplace success. I trained seriously and rigorously as a classical musician for over a decade and indeed gained many privileged skills and understandings. But it is these other music education experiences that I continue to reflect on. These experiences forced me to imagine realities of others and contexts besides my own, imaginings that required new boldness, discomfort and reflexivity and that changed my understanding of the world.

For too long, ideas of music education have emphasized the value of upward mobility. But I believe music pedagogy also allows for mobility in multiple, layered dimensions. It is a space that can give access to alternative ways of being, to an empathetic understanding of others’ experiences and to a deepened understanding of one’s own community. As such, I understand music as capable of cultivating the imagination, openness and sense of self required to navigate increasingly complex cultural worlds.

Philosopher of education David Hansen would consider this sensibility as a form of cosmopolitanism. Hansen clarifies that a cosmopolitan education cultivates at once a

loyalty to the known and an openness to the new as well as an understanding of different ways of being in the world. I believe that learning music, especially musics that represent a diversity of social contexts, contributes immensely to fostering cosmopolitanism.

My own haphazard musical experiences taught me to be open to other ways of experiencing music, ones that represented historical memories, social worlds and embodied feelings that were completely new to me. They also gave me a space to more deeply understand what was already familiar and to embrace my heritage loyally as a source of my own strength. Moreover, these musical experiences disrupted—sometimes uncomfortably—the ideas and values that I had already been taught. They instead taught me to question my understandings of classical music as inherently valuable, of the neutrality and universality of musical experiences and of the music of minority cultures as belonging to the periphery.

These new sensibilities that arose from diverse music experiences changed my own ways of thinking and of imagining the experiences of others. But they also led me to rethink what could be included in music education. Developing music education that pursues cosmopolitanism not only allows for new ways of individual imagining but also for radically reimagining our pedagogical norms. The music experiences I share here are unique and accidental, and I do not yet have many concrete proposals for putting these ideas into practice. For now, I offer these as a point of departure and invite others to join me in thinking through what a cosmopolitan music education might look like in action.

Elaine Sandoval is a PhD student of ethnomusicology at The City University of New York’s Graduate Center and holds a master’s in Music from Oxford University. She is also an associate research fellow with the Min-On Music Research Institute in Tokyo.

I understand music as capable of cultivating the imagination, openness and sense of self required to navigate increasingly complex cultural worlds.

7January 2017

United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security, adopted on October 31, 2000, is a landmark resolution that reaffirms the important role of women in conflict management, conflict resolution and sustainable peace. It urges the increased participation of women and the incorporation of gender perspectives in all UN peace and security efforts.

The following is an excerpt from a dialogue between three key champions of this resolution. It took place on October 27, 2015, as part of SGI-USA’s Culture of Peace Distinguished Speaker Series, which aims to engage people in dialogue on the values, attitudes and behaviors that reject violence and inspire creative energy toward the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

Women Planning for PeaceA Dialogue on the Future of UNSCR 1325 Asha Hans, Betty Reardon and Anwarul K. Chowdhury

Sudanese women in Dar El Salam, North Darfur, discuss the potential impact of UNSCR 1325 at a 2011 UNAMID forum on the progress made in the state with regards to women’s issues

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Anwarul Chowdhury (moderator): I believe that this dialogue on the future of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 is actually dialogue on the future of the world—of humanity—because unless we ensure equal participation of all women and men, at all levels of decision-making, we are leaving 50 percent of humanity behind, and that will not be good for the future of the world.

Resolution 1325 is a wonderful expression of how civil society can help the world make forward movement, of how the UN can move with the right agenda in the right way. It has its origin in 1995 with the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. That is when people started thinking about why the security sector—the peace sector—was ignoring women’s role and contribution. So, when the NGOs came back from Beijing, they started actively working for it. There was no interest among Security Council members to move in that direction. The permanent members particularly were very opposed to it. I was at that time Bangladesh’s Ambassador to the United Nations, and we lobbied with others, because I had been working for a long time on the culture of peace agenda with the support of civil society in general.

And then the moment of opportunity came in 2000, when Bangladesh assumed its membership of the UN’s most powerful entity, the Security Council. As the lead representative of my country to the Council, I thought this was a good opportunity for me to at least start talking about it, because other ambassadors were not willing to do that. Despite a lot of stonewalling, in March 2000 it was possible to bring out a statement by consensus of the 15 Security Council members that emphasized that peace is inextricably linked with equality between women and men and thereby also underscored that women’s contribution to peace and security brings a qualitative improvement in both peacebuilding and post-conflict peace architecture.

It was not possible in March 2000 to get a formal resolution by the Council, so civil society worked diligently to change the opposition to a resolution, and after eight months of hard work and lobbying, we finally got the formal resolution on October 31, 2000. That is a sort of synoptic history of what happened before 1325 became a reality.

Fifteen years have passed—where do we stand on its implementation? That is the big question.

The Security Council also decided that to implement 1325 at the national level, each country needs to prepare a National Action Plan, and governments are obligated to do so as that is a Security Council decision. 

I remember on the 10th anniversary of 1325 Asha and I discussed this, and she said, “Our government feels that our country is not in conflict.” And in response to that, I say that any country or any society where women are discriminated

against, where there is no equality and where there is violence against women and girls—no such society can say that it is not in conflict. That country is in conflict with itself.

Out of 193 member states, after 15 years, we have only 50 National Action Plans, and that is truly disappointing. And so, recently, I have suggested that we should speed up this process and set a target of one hundred national plans by 2017.

But in cases where national governments are disinterested in preparing such plans, how can people take up the 1325 agenda? Because gone are the days when we have to wait for our governments to move—we can make the change, and we need to decide that. Asha is trying at the country level to prepare what we are calling “people’s action plans.” Asha, why don’t you tell us a little about that?

People’s Action Plans

Asha Hans: What do women activists do about 1325? How do they deal with a state that is not allowing a National Action Plan? Do we sit back quietly and say, “OK, the state does not allow it, then we cannot do it”? But, we can. If we cannot have National Action Plans, then we can create people’s action plans.

One of the things that we have to recognize is that states look for the easy way out. So many states will say, “Oh, but we are already following 1325.” Many of them will say, “We have so many more women in the armed forces today, so that is 1325.” Some will tell you, “We have so many more women peacekeepers, that is 1325.” Is that the 1325 that we are talking about? How do we deal with things like that,

I believe that this dialogue on the future of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 is actually dialogue on the future of the world—of humanity.

9January 2017

when in 1325 women are at the center, but within the state, in human society, you have a system of patriarchy? So, whether you have a patriarchy within the home or you have a patriarchy within the state, that patriarchy is interlinked right from the bottom up, putting up obstacles to the implementation of 1325 at all levels.

They overlook women’s agency, have no faith in their competence—that is the bottom line. So, if that is the ground, then how do women get out of that patriarchal trap to come together to prepare and talk about a people’s action plan?

I think one of the easiest ways to do it—and it is already happening in a number of countries—is what are called “local action plans.” So you have a number of action plans that can merge together to form what is called a people’s action plan at national and regional levels.

The first characteristic, I think, of a people’s action plan should be women’s ownership. If women don’t own these plans, they are not going to work. Women have to be the agents of change, and they will create change if these plans are in place. Here, we’re not talking about a people’s action plan that sees the Indian border here, and you have Bangladesh on one side, and you have Pakistan on one side; here we’re talking about women’s solidarity across the borders. We’re talking about transnationalism, we are talking of women civil society activists joining hands with each other across borders—that is a people’s action plan. What we have to look for at the local level are opportunities to join with others at the transnational level.

A mistake that many of my generation made was to put the emphasis on conflict. I think we have to shift our thinking and talk more of peace in the subcontinent than we do of conflict. Let us do away with the talk of conflict; let us concentrate on peace and how to create it. We need to talk about peace studies and educating for peace. We need to talk to children and prepare them to fulfill the needs that conflict denies them, prepare them to build a peaceful future, which is the purpose at the heart of 1325.

Anwarul Chowdhury: Thank you very much, that’s so energizing, Asha, to hear you, because I think a number of key elements came out of what you just said. Even in those countries where the national plans are there but only in name,

women at the grassroots level are saying, “We do not wait for the government. We have to create our own energy to bring peace to our societies, to our communities,” and that’s a wonderful thing.

Betty, please would you speak a little bit about human security, as I believe this is something that we need to connect with the way 1325 can be implemented, the way the Security Council will be better disposed to look after world peace and security. 

The Meaning of Human Security

Betty Reardon: My attraction to 1325 is that this one resolution is intended to empower women in the area that controls the world, the power and security arena. Were it fully implemented, the world could be transformed. Much of the

world is still not ready for that, including and especially the nation-states who have not drafted national plans of action.

Human security is human well-being—that’s what security is. If you can live

with the expectation that tomorrow is going to be a fairly good day, that you’ll have what you need for tomorrow, that’s human security. Human security is not knowing that your nation is as powerful as the other one or more powerful. Most of us don’t really feel very secure when we hear that—some of us might feel national pride and that kind of thing, but that doesn’t meet our needs for living our lives and not worrying how we’re going to sustain them from day to day.

So, what is it that makes for human well-being? Just four simple things: First, a decent, clean environment, air you can breathe and food you can eat. Second, having your basic needs met—being housed, clothed, fed, etc. Most important, perhaps, when we look at the nature and causes of much of the present armed violence, is the need to feel yourself and your people accepted as human beings—the fulfillment of human rights—so that all of us realize ourselves as the possessors and the acknowledgers in others of human dignity in whatever form that takes, whatever gender we are, nationality or whatever, we all have the same human worth.

Finally, human security encompasses what we need in the area of protection. We need to be able to expect that we’ll be protected from avoidable harm and that when unavoidable

Human security is human well-being—that’s what security is. If you can live with the expectation that tomorrow is going to be a fairly good day, that’s human security.

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Women at the Gado refugee camp in Cameroon in January 2016

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harm happens, our community, our nation will try to aid us, to help us through it. One of the most avoidable harms that it seems we have been subjected to forever is war. Most of what it takes to fulfill those other human security needs is eroded by the resources we put into the idea of security as being militarily stronger than other nations. That is why we have to have a gender balance in security policy-making so that men who think of security only in military terms can interact with others who don’t think that way, as happens when there are women in the security conversation. And the conversation has to be, as Asha suggests, at every single level from local to global. But it has to be mainly through civil society.

The two scariest things to those who think they’re running the world are the implementation of 1325 and civil society, because civil society is beginning to know what we really need to truly be secure. We are beginning to come together in large numbers. It was a while ago, but do you remember the conference in Rio when international civil society told us, “Another world is possible”? The powerful find that potential for change scary!

Well, here’s what I think we need to do. I think we need to comfort the scared. We need to reach out to them and say, “Look, guys, we know you’re scared. We’re scared too, but let’s be scared together and talk this over to see if we can’t push the violence and injustice away and bring into being something that is really worth struggling for.” I think that that’s what we are talking about when we talk about people’s action plans. We are articulating the struggle that’s actually going on now. We just have to get down to looking at it and see what is possible. We don’t have to wait for National Action Plans. Resolution 1325 is international law, and international law can be implemented by agents other than nation-states. So, I think we can do it, and I think we can help each other to do it.

Anwarul Chowdhury: The most significant thing we need to realize is that it is not either women’s empowerment or men’s empowerment, it is the empowerment of humanity as a whole. In advocating for 1325, we emphasize: “Women and men together; we have the power to empower.”

Anwarul K. Chowdhury is internationally known for his work on development in the poorest nations, his advocacy for a culture of peace and championing the rights of women and children. He has served as Bangladesh’s permanent representative to the United Nations, president of the UN Security Council, president of the UNICEF Executive Board, UN under-secretary-general and senior special adviser to the UN General Assembly president.

Betty Reardon, founding director of the International Institute on Peace Education, is recognized worldwide as a pioneer in peace education theory and pedagogy and for advancing peace and global citizenship education through an integrated focus on human security, sustainable development, human rights, ecology and gender. She has published widely in these areas and has served as a consultant to several UN agencies and education organizations.

Asha Hans is the founder and former director of the School of Women’s Studies, Utkal University, India, and heads Sansristi, a gender research institute. She is the author and editor of several publications related to women’s rights. She is also a member of the Feminist Scholar-Activist Network on Demilitarization (FeDem) and of the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy.

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Our mastery of nature, the triumph of our technological and scientific ascendance, has at the same time been a process of separation from the wider community of life. Our journey back to earth, to a reconnection with the vital currents of the living world and toward new, more wholesome modes of existence, entails the unsettling acceptance that human beings are not the center of the universe, writes Bayo Akomolafe.

There is a swirling, polyvocal community of celebration and voices around us. When we let our children take us by the finger and lead us, we can arrive at very

unusual places. There is an unsayable sense in which our children—most especially those that we haven’t outsourced to manicured lawns, giant buildings and the demeaning labor of providing correct answers—are our gurus. Emissaries of the impossible. Cosmic thought-experiments. Children are how the universe reconfigures itself.

I came to understand this in a powerful way recently.

My wife, Ej, our daughter Alethea and I were staying in Richmond, Virginia, with my sister-in-law. We lived in a polished neighborhood called Wesleyan Courts, populated

mostly by Indian immigrants who had come to the United States for work. There was a generously large swimming pool, a community gym with an overhead television that was permanently set to a food channel and uniformed men scurrying around in small-wheel utility vehicles—nodding gently at you in that slight, pursed-lip way that seemed to say you were approved to keep on living the American dream. The way things looked, every pretentious blade of grass might have had its own dedicated attendant. And the elderly trees did their part too, silencing their majesty to look beautiful for the residents and doing nothing to chastise the rude sprinklers that spurted nonchalant streams of water on their stumps.

It was like living in a dollhouse.

Alethea’s Lesson Queer Homecomings and the Quest for CommunityBayo Akomolafe

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There was one redeeming thing about this rather plastic arrangement—a fine lake that was accessible through adoring cascades of trees and a little bridge that could. It was a few steps away from the community pool. During the day, toward the east of the lake, you could find a raft of ducks floating without a care in the world.

One day, while playing with Alethea (an activity I don’t do as much as I should—mainly because of the inconvenient allure of a laptop and an Internet connection), I decided to do something unusual. Alethea is two years old, with powerful eyes and the fairy-like beauty of her mother. She doesn’t walk, she tiptoes—as if she’s in cahoots with chuckling gusts of wind. And she loves water. When I give her a bath, she will protest and yell just to have the chance to hold her hand under running tap water—indefinitely. On this day, Alethea wanted to go for a swim with her “Dada” as she had done many other times, and so I obliged. However, I promised her that I was going to allow her to lead the way. She tiptoe-ran through the door, beckoning me to hurry up. I quickly put on my flip-flops and offered her my pinkie in an act of surrender.

“We go to swim, Dada?” Alethea excitedly said-asked, prancing along like a rabbit toward a carrot colony.

“Yes, dear. We go to swim,” I said, already half-dragged by the indomitable will of a two-year-old.

When we didn’t make a right turn to the pool, I realized Alee had missed the way. But an implicit aspect of my promise was to be led by Alethea, even if that meant going in the “wrong direction.” So she continued to run ahead—in the direction of the lake, while she spoke animatedly about swimming in the pool.

As we approached the lake, Alethea stopped dead in her tracks.

“Remove your shoes, Dada!” she said.

So I did. I liked to walk barefoot, so it was just as well. But I didn’t expect what was to come next.

“Wear my shoes, Dada!” she said, as if it were a very natural thing for a 30-something-year-old man with size 45 feet to wear pink sandals that hardly protected his toes. But, as you already know, I did. And she slipped her little feet into my own flip-flops and reinitiated our journey. At this time, I could sense the first restless stirrings of the politics of adulthood as I struggled with feelings of embarrassment.

Moments later, we were standing by the lake, watching the ducks, the faint ripples occasioned by their gentle retreat. We simply stood there. She, by my right hand, just stared at the serene body of water. Small innocent seconds rolled into an oedipal minute. At some point, I wondered whether this might be a good time to chip in a fatherly lesson or two or to connect with her in a deep way—anything to fill the disturbing void of silence that had enveloped us. I tried to talk, but she shut me down. “Dada, don’t talk,” she said, with the cavalier eminence of a two-year-old. I had promised to let her lead, but I wasn’t sure what the joggers nearby were now thinking of the queer voiceless figures standing by the lake.

Then, I heard birds. I am not good at identifying them, but those distinctly avian sounds came wafting through, bending and melting with the wind, ruffling the green leafy protrusions above us. A murmuration of sound, creature and surprise. It felt sudden—like the arrival of a triumphant gestalt where there were merely bits and pieces of the puzzle. I noticed lichens crawling around a tree, the exuberance of the soil beneath our feet, the quack-quacking of the ducks intent on making themselves heard. It was a soft “aha” moment: I noticed that everything is alive. I understood in that very tactile and embodied way that the material world wasn’t just a backdrop for human activity, wasn’t just static being or a template awaiting the ordainment of meaning.

Alethea and I ended up playing after our unexpected libation of silence, decorating our faces and hands with mud, poking little twigs into the wet, loamy soil, occasionally interrupted by the leitmotif of quacking around us. We walked back to our apartment like veterans of an exquisite order of things. Neighbors threw quizzical glances at us; I stammered out weak explanations like “she likes dirt” or something else to account for our very dirty appearance. Ej was even less forgiving and later ordered us to the bathroom.

The stains of Alethea’s lesson were the only things that didn’t wash off that day, and they have lingered ever since. At a time when we can no longer afford to stay ensconced in our

We walked back to our apartment like veterans of an exquisite order of things. Neighbors threw quizzical glances at us.

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fortified bastions of self, when we must make the long and tempestuous journey to the “other,” when community is making a startling comeback to our reckoning, I believe we are being invited into a more stunning vibrancy of things … into a commonwealth of breath. A thicker “we.” Into knotty situations with monstrous others. Into the realization that knowledge is confusion, agency is dispersed, identity is mangled and indeterminate, and the world is always an ongoing iterative-materialization.

Now we find ourselves squarely in the preposterous. The old Newtonian-Cartesian-Copernican premises that hinted at the centrality of man, the self-evident nature of truth and techno-utopian conquests must now meet a vast sprawling body of disciplining microbes and careening lichens and stoic barnacles and howling wolf and musky moon and, of course, quacking duck. Tattooed on every rock face, every fecund leaf, every pregnant cloud is the warning that there are no homecomings that are not already takeoff points or troubling sites of departure and no projects of restoration that are not actually regenerative attempts to sidestep the stunning spontaneity and vitality of the world.

For us, gestating embryos in this womb of modernity, the quest for community begins with an affinity with the monstrous, with the mangled, with the unexpected, with confusion, with the dark.

Alethea’s lesson is our most terrifying journey and yet our most powerful hope: We are coming down to earth, and we will not arrive intact.

Author, speaker and “walkout” academic, Bayo Akomolafe is globally recognized for his poetic, counterintuitive take on global crisis, civil action and social change. He is the initiating/coordinating curator for “the emergence network” (A Post-Activist Project) and host of the online course “We Will Dance with Mountains.” A lecturer of clinical psychology at Covenant University, Nigeria, Bayo is also a special envoy for the International Alliance for Localization.

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The Modern epoch is drawing to an end, as witnessed in the erosion of the nation-state and a crisis of citizenship, says Joseph A. Camilleri, founder and former director of the Centre for Dialogue at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. Here he offers a new framework of attitudes and behavior—dialogical citizenship—that can unite humanity across the many divides that are driving us apart at this turbulent time of painful transition.

The 20th century ushered in a period of profound upheaval, marked by two world wars, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, the advent of nuclear weapons and the Cold War. This century is still precariously poised. We need only think of climate change—itself

emblematic of a more pervasive ecological crisis—financial turmoil, transnational terrorism and global human displacement.

Dialogical CitizenshipThe Key to a Habitable PlanetJoseph A. Camilleri

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It is as if the old is dying, but the new has yet to be born. We live in a world where goods and services, money, technology, arms, images, messages and people are moving across borders with bewildering speed and intensity. In the age of digital overload, we are struggling to find our balance.

To make sense of the current turbulence, we must situate it within a larger evolutionary context. The scientific, technological and economic revolutions we associate with modernity are the latest in a long line of steps that point to steadily increasing complexity in human organization.

Beyond the Nation-State

A good deal of evidence now suggests that the Modern epoch may itself have reached its limits. In our book Worlds in Transition, Jim Falk and I identify five limits as critical to an understanding of the current transition: limits to sovereignty, to empire, to national identity as a legitimizing norm of governance, to growth and even to science and technology.

The net effect of these limits has been to erode the coherence and viability of modernity’s intellectual and institutional foundations. The pace of economic change, speed of communication, inadequate regulation of market forces and the intense impact of human activity on the global ecosystem have had a profoundly corrosive effect on the institutional bedrock of the modern period—namely, the nation-state.

The responses of governments over the last several decades, including the growth of international law as well as regional and global institutions, can be seen as initial attempts to rethink how we organize ourselves across time (i.e., obligations to future generations) and space (relations between communities, societies and states). These tentative steps form part of a wider trend toward holoreflexivity—humanity’s expanding consciousness of the need for holistic diagnosis of our present predicament. Such a holistic perspective is itself a precondition for sustainable management of the rising volume, speed and intensity of cross-border flows.

The Challenges We Face

However, the development of holoreflexive capacities remains but a tendency which has to contend with countertendencies. Notwithstanding the recent Paris Agreement, the virtual stalemate of international climate change negotiations over the last two decades is a striking example of the sway of entrenched interests and mindsets. Another is the self-defeating tendency of great powers to embark upon military expeditions which are seldom the answer to intractable social, economic and cultural conflicts, as the unfolding disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen painfully remind us. Another still is the failure to find viable regional and global remedies to large refugee flows.

The question arises: Why is the path to holoreflexivity strewn with difficulty?

Three closely related impediments stand out: the lack of a coherent and accountable governance framework; our inability thus far to reconcile the competing demands of universality and plurality; and the failure to articulate a new understanding of citizenship.

As regards the first impediment, one factor is worth highlighting. Very little attention has been directed to how the different tiers of governance interact or how policy formation and implementation can be coordinated across these different tiers—local, provincial, national, regional or global.

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As for the second impediment, it has until now proven extremely difficult to develop a universalist agenda which somehow encompasses the different identities and emotional attachments that often divide ethnic communities, nations, races, religions and ideologies. Cultural, ideological and political cleavages are as potent as ever. Especially noticeable since the end of the Cold War has been the growth of collective solidarities that reflect rising levels of discontent and marginalization.

Ensuing tensions are often exacerbated by vested economic, political and military interests only too willing to exploit such differences and divisions for their own ends. In this sense, the normative and institutional innovations of the last several decades, including the creation of the UN system, though they can claim notable achievements, are still very much unfinished business. The challenge is one of harmonizing the needs of humanity as a whole with those of its constituent parts.

Given these profound undercurrents, it is hardly surprising that individualistic, state-centric citizenship should be in crisis. The question is: What might take its place? Clearly, we are looking for new ways of reconciling unity and plurality. In the cosmopolitan worldview such reconciliation is achieved by affirming the equality of all citizens. Valuable though it is, this principle is not so helpful when it comes to dealing with the complex realities of ethnic, civil and religious conflicts, let alone the civilizational divide that is the product of Western ascendancy over the last few centuries, but is now in rapid decline. It is in this context, as we shall see, that dialogical citizenship offers considerable promise.

Dialogical Citizenship

Notwithstanding the turbulence of our times, citizenship remains an essential pillar of humane and legitimate governance. However, like governance which it sustains, it needs to address a far more complex environment than that envisaged by classical democratic theory.

In today’s world, citizenship functions in a multidimensional and variable mosaic of entitlements and obligations reflecting multiple and shifting loyalties and forms of belonging. A period of uncertainty and even tension is unavoidable. But

through trial and error and vastly revamped and expanded educational programs, citizenship can lead to much richer forms of engagement. To illustrate, citizens should be able to participate in the affairs of their neighborhood or municipality in ways that enhance rather than weaken their participation in the affairs of province, nation, region or the world.

Citizenship can no longer be conceived as a territorially bound concept. While a particular space or community remains a valid object of attachment, such attachment no longer constitutes the exclusive focus of citizenship. The new citizenship must be responsive to the exciting opportunities offered by cultural, religious and civilizational diversity in local, national and international settings. I label this emerging form of citizenship “dialogical” rather than “cosmopolitan” or “global” because it conveys more clearly and sharply what distinguishes it from preexisting notions of citizenship.

Dialogue offers us the most promising bridge between the plural and the universal. Cosmopolitan approaches may be viewed as an advance on the individualistic, state-centric model of citizenship. They fall nevertheless short of the mark because even though they extend the rights and duties of citizenship to all human beings regardless of national boundaries, they continue to express an unhelpful individualism.

Individualistic notions of citizenship are distinctly unhelpful when it comes to dealing with the complex realities of ethnic, racial, cultural and civilizational difference. Collective solidarity is becoming more rather than less important. In addition to its well-known nationalist variant and often in opposition to it, a range of other solidarities have come to the fore—religious, tribal, ethnic, racial, civilizational and even ecological. Many now live with multiple identities which operate as much across as within national boundaries.

Against this backdrop, the inclusion of all remains a core element of dialogical citizenship. But those to be included are not just or even primarily individuals understood as atomized globules of interest and desire but as social persons who bring to public discourse a range of identities and solidarities. Citizenship then has a dual function: to give expression to these identities and solidarities and to find ways of negotiating differences in ways that are mutually beneficial and capable of enhancing the common good.

From this brief sketch of future possibilities it should be clear that dialogue cannot be the exotic preoccupation of a few intellectuals or religious mavericks. Simply put, the ethos of

Society has to cultivate cultural empathy, that is, a deep curiosity for and interest in the “other.”

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dialogue needs to be widely shared and carefully nurtured. It must become an integral part of educational processes in our schools and universities. There is much more to this than knowledge of different countries, cultures and religions, important as such knowledge is. Society has to cultivate cultural empathy, that is, a deep curiosity for and interest in the “other.” We have to learn how to negotiate cultural difference and acknowledge that no person or group has a monopoly on knowledge or wisdom and that no culture, religious tradition or civilization holds a monopoly on ethical discourse.

There is much to be done. In this endeavor, educational institutions must be supported by governments at all levels (national, provincial and local). International organizations, civil society, business and philanthropy have an equally important role to play, as do the professions and the media. What of religion? Faith communities are an integral part of civil society and are uniquely placed, through their schools, theological colleges, liturgical, ceremonial, pastoral and social activities, to develop the philosophy and practice of dialogue in intra-faith, interfaith and secular contexts.

Dialogical citizenship is the great challenge of our time. How well we respond may well determine how well we heed the cries of the earth and the cries of the poor, the weak and the vulnerable.

Joseph A. Camilleri is emeritus professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, where he held the chair in International Relations and founded the university’s Centre for Dialogue. He has written, researched and lectured on issues of governance, human rights, cultural and religious dialogue, development, environment and security. For more information, see www.josephcamilleri.org.

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In this excerpt from his 2016 peace proposal, “Universal Respect for Human Dignity: The Great Path to Peace,” SGI President Daisaku Ikeda reflects on how efforts to protect the natural environment can help build stronger local communities.

A round 800 million people in the world today are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Moreover, approximately 30 percent of the world’s soil resources,

the foundation for global food production, are experiencing some degree of degradation.

Healthy soil plays an important role in the carbon cycle, as well as the storing and filtering of water, thus making it a crucial component in the ecosystem. But for all too long it has not

been accorded the attention it deserves. Once degraded, soil does not recover easily—it can take more than a hundred years for even one centimeter to form.

Although the pace of net global deforestation has slowed, 13 million hectares of forest are still being lost each year, causing grave concern about such environmental impacts as loss of biodiversity.

Nurturing the Roots of Resilient CommunitiesDaisaku Ikeda

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One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) articulates the importance of halting and reversing land degradation and sustainable management of the world’s forests. These are urgent challenges both in terms of protecting the ecological integrity of our planet and enhancing carbon sequestration.

In recent years, the role that efforts to protect the environment can play in disaster risk reduction has attracted growing attention. Awareness of this was greatly heightened by the experience of the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. Studies found that coastal villages where mangrove forests served as bioshields endured significantly less damage than coastal areas where this protection was absent.

Examples of Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) projects include restorative planting to stabilize sand dunes, the use of wetlands to mitigate storm surges and the greenification of cities in stormwater management.

The Actions of Youth

Of particular note is the value that arises from the active and sustained engagement of the people living in a community. In regions afflicted by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster in northeastern Japan, children are among those actively involved in efforts to plant saplings to revive the protective coastal forests. Such activities deepen a shared sense of the importance of the local ecosystem and invite an expanding cadre of participants to imagine how the trees they are planting now might protect the lives of people in the future.

When those involved pass through this place of their labors in future years, they will look upon that landscape with an even more poignant sense of its value. People will feel the essential yet ineffable importance of local ecosystems to their daily lives as well as the invaluable nature of their own engagement in supporting that environment and disaster risk reduction efforts within it. This awareness will grow along with the trees they have planted, setting down the deep roots of a truly resilient community. In this way, people’s efforts to protect their local ecology have the direct effect of nurturing a hopeful future for that community.

Recently, the Global Action Programme for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been launched as a follow-up to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). The engagement of young people is listed

as one of the program’s priorities, and in this context, I would like to wholeheartedly encourage young people and children everywhere to participate actively in Eco-DRR, such as tree-planting campaigns.

The Sendai Framework adopted at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in March 2015 stresses that DRR “requires an all-of-society engagement and partnership” and identifies children and youth as “agents of change” who should be empowered to contribute to DRR.

Since the SGI together with other NGOs proposed the establishment of the DESD in 2002, we have shown the awareness-raising exhibitions “Seeds of Change: The Earth Charter and human potential” and “Seeds of Hope: Visions of sustainability, steps toward change” around the world. Over the years, large numbers of students, from elementary to high school, have visited the exhibitions, making them an effective tool for environmental education.

One of the reasons that the SGI has placed great importance on ESD is to encourage learning about the indissoluble links between human beings and their environment and to promote a groundswell of people of all ages who can muster the “courage of application” that Soka Gakkai founding president Tsunesaburo Makiguchi cited as a crucial goal of education. We hope that this will encourage them to take determined action in their respective communities. I believe that such sustained activities at the local level can pave a secure and effective path toward protecting the global environment.

Such activities deepen a shared sense of the importance of the local ecosystem and invite an expanding cadre of participants to imagine how the trees they are planting now might protect the lives of people in the future.

Daisaku Ikeda is president of the Soka Gakkai International and founder of several institutions promoting peace, culture and education. The full text of this proposal is available at www.sgi.org/about-us/president-ikedasproposals/.

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“Style can’t be mass-produced,” say Satoru and Kiyoshi Inoue, SGI members and founders of the design/art studio The Inoue Brothers. In this interview, the brothers discuss the ideas behind their brand and their vision for the future of fashion. Founded in 2004, their business is based on a common love for two cultures, Japanese sensibility and Scandinavian simplicity—what they call “Scandinasian Design.”

What are the ideals and motivations that guide your work—both in an artistic and social sense? What are the sources of your inspiration?

Satoru: We were born to Japanese parents and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark. Back in the late 1970s, there were not many immigrants in Denmark. 

Kiyoshi: Growing up, we were always a family of “foreigners”—we looked different from the local Danish people, and our parents struggled with the language barrier, culture gap and prejudice. Because of this, we naturally made a network of friends who came from various ethnic and social backgrounds.

Satoru: Our father, Mutsuo, who passed away in 1993, was a glass artist, and our mother, Satsuki, worked for Japan Airlines. In those days, it was hard to get by as an artist, which meant that our mother’s humble income had to support the entire family. 

Growing up in a lower-middle-class family and being children of immigrants made us feel strongly connected to less fortunate people. From a very young age, we understood that we are all a part of each other—that no borders, social status or race can keep human beings apart. But this way of seeing things, which we inherited from our parents, also made us realize how much injustice and discrimination there is in the world.

Kiyoshi: Social justice and the empowerment of the common people were always the main focus for our father. We remember clearly when our father came back from an exhibition in South Africa during apartheid and told us about the injustice he had witnessed with tears in his eyes. 

He believed that art should always be for the common people. More important than receiving praise from the elite, it should evoke hope and strength in ordinary people. He taught us that art and culture that don’t change society for the better are meaningless. He often said: “In the natural world everything is a part of a universal harmony, everything is in balance. It might be survival of the fittest, but there is no discrimination. Even the smallest insect or plant has a unique role in the holistic symbiosis.”

Satoru: Our parents were also devout Buddhists and members of the SGI. They were among the first Buddhists in Denmark, and we grew up watching them being dedicated in sharing Buddhism with other people and experiencing joy in living an altruistic life. As such, we were naturally raised with Buddhist values and principles.

Our father would often share with us the writings of Nichiren and teach us the importance of nature and coexistence. I remember him telling us: “The only thing constant is change. Everything is transient. Beauty and aesthetics are momentary expressions of the ever-changing reality. Aesthetics should be an expression of inner beauty, a homage to life and an expression of a creative interaction between the inner spiritual world and the outer material world. Nature is the ultimate teacher of life.”

Another lesson he impressed upon me was that everything comes from the Earth and that nothing natural is totally black. Everything is in shades of gray. All colors in life are reflections of light.

Kiyoshi: During the 1980s, SGI President Daisaku Ikeda often came to Europe, and our father was very active in

An Ethical Future for FashionThe Inoue BrothersSatoru and Kiyoshi Inoue, Denmark and UK

People & PerspectivesStories and reflections on the Buddhist approach to life

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The Inoue brothers Kiyoshi (left) and Satoru (right) inspect alpaca fiber handling equipment, Peru

coordinating and planning these visits. Our father passed away when Satoru was 15 and I was 12. He was still young, but through his relationship to his mentor Daisaku Ikeda, he managed to teach us how important it is to have a great mentor in life. Regardless of faith or religion, we believe that if you are able to find a mentor in life who motivates and inspires you to live your life to the fullest, you are a very fortunate person. We feel happiness and gratitude for having the same mentor in life as our father.

Business Philosophy

Satoru: In 2001, we decided to start our own design company. Daisaku Ikeda’s historical novel The Human Revolution was a big inspiration for how to do this. The novel is based on the life of second Soka Gakkai president Josei Toda, who was Mr. Ikeda’s mentor. Reading the novel, I learned about how Josei Toda ran his business. It was a revolutionary business model that didn’t regard profit but positive social change as the main goal. This novel has been the manual for our business style.

Kiyoshi: Our business philosophy is based on direct trade— a trade method that we believe is the future way of doing business. It is an ethical method where we focus on having direct contact with all the links throughout the supply chain, cutting out all middlemen, agents and distributors. In this

way, we ensure direct contact with everyone we work with. This is an expression of utmost respect that goes beyond the traditional concept of fair trade.

Satoru: The reason we want to do this is because the extra cost of paying middlemen will ultimately become a burden to the end users, who are our customers. At the same time, we can secure the best profit for those at the lowest end of the supply chain, who are often the ones exploited by modern industry.

Kiyoshi: Our concept is very simple—empowerment through business. We live in a world where constant growth and cost efficiency are more highly valued than a sustainable way of thinking that strives to strike a balance between humanity and nature.

We feel that modern corporate thinking with its focus on “more” has generated an inconspicuous greed that has in turn given rise to the kind of self-destroying logic that justifies environmental and human exploitation. This way of thinking has created the foundation for mass production, a model that is glorified because it results in lower and lower prices while simultaneously generating unimaginable wealth for a minority, the industrial oligarchs.

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Winners of an alpaca contest in Peru organized by The Inoue Brothers

Through an ethical production process, we hope to redirect attention to what we believe is of true value, offering the end user an alternative way of consuming and the opportunity to support a business model that doesn’t compromise on human values and quality. Instead of convincing customers to buy more and more just to satisfy investors, we are trying to make products that last longer and provide a brand experience that gives more to the customer than just a trendy item with superficial benefits.

Much of your work seems to involve collaborating and working closely with different communities and groups of people, ranging from indigenous communities to high-end fashion designers. Could you give some examples of these collaborations and how they came about?

Satoru: In 2006, a good friend of ours was writing a thesis on the alpaca industry in South America for the University of Copenhagen. The main theme of his research was why such an amazing material as alpaca fiber was struggling to enter the international market and why the herders who live side by side with these animals are among the poorest of the South American people. As a part of his research, he invited us to join him on a trip to Bolivia to view the situation from the perspective of designers and to get an alternative opinion on the matter.

From Bolivia, we also traveled to Peru in search of the finest fiber in the world and as a result forged a partnership with Pacomarca Farm located in Puno Province in southern Peru.

Kiyoshi: Pacomarca is a research facility that was launched to tackle the steady decline in fine fiber production over the past 30 years in the Andean region. The heritage, culture and way of life of the indigenous communities in these harsh rural environments have been jeopardized by the government’s abandonment of their interests and the lack of support and investment from educational organizations. More than five million indigenous people live below the poverty line in Peru, making them the poorest people in the country.

Pacomarca holds seminars for the herding communities, teaching them basic shearing techniques and fiber sorting procedures. This empowers the herders with knowledge to generate a much greater income from their existing herds—up to a 25 percent increase—without having to invest in expensive equipment. 

It is in no way a charity but a win-win situation for all of us. Our relationship with Pacomarca has resulted in being able to produce the finest alpaca wool available in the world today. However, the main reason for our love of alpaca fiber is the people who live with the alpaca. The lifestyle and strength of the alpaca herders is deeply inspiring and reminds us of the irreplaceable value of the natural world and the rich values of a humanistic lifestyle.

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A specialist in sorting alpaca fiber at work, Peru

Satoru: Since May 2011, we have also been working with Japan’s Tohoku region, which experienced devastation from the tsunami caused by the country’s most powerful earthquake on March 11 that year.

I remember clearly the day it happened. It was still early in the morning in Europe, and from around seven or eight o’clock I started receiving phone calls and messages telling me to turn on the news. The moment I saw the first images I was stunned and shocked.

A few minutes later, my brother called from London saying, “Brother, are you watching the news? We have to do something. We have to help in whatever way we can.” Then we went silent, eyes glued to the screen as we watched the situation worsen.

Kiyoshi: We went to Japan two months later.

When we arrived, we had no idea what we were going to do. We had just jumped on the plane with a strong determination to do something, no matter what. We started calling and meeting with our friends and partners in our network to ask for guidance and ideas on how we could be involved in supporting and creating work for the people of Tohoku.

We were so sad and disappointed to hear that several major Japanese brands and retailers chose to cancel their orders instead of supporting the area in these hard times. Learning

of the region’s textile heritage, we created a collection of simple T-shirts, engaging factories that were still operational but without work. Since the initial collection, we have kept working and increasing production to continue our support of the Tohoku region.

What is your vision for the future of The Inoue Brothers?

Satoru: We know that we are still a small player in an extremely complex and cruel industry—the fashion industry—but we, The Inoue Brothers, want to always strive to become a brand that can inspire and influence the big corporations to change their way of doing business, to adopt a business model where people and positive change are considered more important than profit and growth.

 Kiyoshi: And a really nice bonus is that doing this kind of work starts to feel so good and invigorating!

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Barbara Jenkins introduces the exhibition “Seeds of Hope: Visions of sustainability, steps toward change” and its key message—the power of the individual to effect change and create a sustainable world. The exhibition was jointly created by the SGI and Earth Charter International in 2010 and has since been seen by some 1.5 million people in 27 countries. Barbara delivered this text at the opening of an event titled “Building a Sustainable Present: What can one person do?” at the University of Toledo, Ohio, on November 10, 2015.

Throughout history, we have seen examples of how one person’s actions have changed the world: Mahatma Gandhi inspired and mobilized masses of people to end

colonial rule in India; Martin Luther King Jr. galvanized people around the US to advance civil rights; and the scientist, scholar and author Rachel Carson—whose love and study of nature led her to write Silent Spring, the handbook for living on Planet Earth—became the mother of the modern-day environmental movement.

Each of these individuals had a vision that was too great for them to ignore. That vision led them to follow their hearts and fueled their innermost determination. Each started with one small step, followed by another and then another. We may look at their examples and rather than be inspired, say to ourselves: “I could never accomplish anything as great as they did.” Especially in the face of the painful realities of today’s complex world, it is often easy to feel that we are too small to make a difference.

In an essay published in the book Hold Hope, Wage Peace, SGI President Daisaku Ikeda offers an alternative to those feelings:

I do not believe that people are powerless . . . The same power which moves the universe exists within our lives. Each individual has immense potential—and a great change in the inner dimension of one individual’s life has the power to touch the lives of others and transform society. Everything begins with us.

We are all interconnected. Every action we take creates a shift in the world around us. John Muir, often called the “Father of our National Parks,” stated: “When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe.”

Change occurs when people of vision, undaunted by the world in flames around them, continue to emerge and persevere. They are able to remain undaunted because they choose to nurture the flame of hope burning in their hearts. As Dr. King said during the height of the civil rights movement, “Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.” It is a similar sentiment that inspired the joint creation of the “Seeds of Hope: Visions of sustainability, steps toward change” exhibition by the SGI and Earth Charter International.

The exhibition showcases individuals from around the world who have taken up the challenge of creating change. For example, one of the panels focuses on Wangari Maathai. Dr. Maathai was born in a rural area of Kenya but was able to become the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree. She inspired and helped women and children learn how to plant trees in order to stop the soil erosion that was depriving their communities of their livelihoods. Through the establishment of the Green Belt Movement, Dr. Maathai’s actions resulted in more than 51 million trees being planted throughout Kenya and launched a global movement that has since inspired the planting of more than 12 billion trees. Her work, which began in 1977, was recognized with a Nobel Peace Prize nearly 30 years later.

Seeds of Hope: The Power of OneBarbara Jenkins

In FocusUpdates and reports from around the world

26 SGI Quarterly

Viewing the “Seeds of Hope” exhibition in New Zealand, one of the 27 countries in which the exhibition has been shown

Another panel depicts Joanne Wilkes, an SGI-UK member, who bought a home in Manchester’s Moss Side, an area known for crime and gang activity. She created a neighborhood street party that brought people together and resulted in opportunities for neighborhood redevelopment.

When each of these individuals took their first steps of local action, they were not thinking of big outcomes; however, our actions, no matter how small, have a ripple effect and can indeed change the world.

The first principle of the Earth Charter includes the statement: “Recognize that all beings are interdependent and every form of life has value regardless of its worth to human beings.”

To further illustrate this important principle, “Seeds of Hope” is based on the following formula:

• Learn and deepen awareness of environmental issues and realities;

• Reflect on our modes of living, renewing these toward sustainability;

• Empower people to take concrete action to resolve the issues we face.

Ultimately, the goal of the exhibition is to plant the seeds of hope in the hearts of all who have the opportunity to view it, so that they can recognize the potential they each possess to take concrete action to make a change in their respective communities and discover the difference they can indeed make, one step at a time.

Barbara Jenkins is an SGI-USA women’s leader and has been practicing Nichiren Buddhism for 41 years. Barbara holds a master’s in Communication Research and Methodology and is an independent market research consultant.

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The Lotus Sutra is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential sutras, or sacred scriptures, of Buddhism. In it, Shakyamuni expounds the ultimate

truth of life to which he was enlightened. The sutra’s key message is that Buddhahood, the supreme state of life characterized by boundless compassion, wisdom and courage, is inherent within every person without distinction of gender, ethnicity, social standing or intellectual ability.

The Lotus Sutra is a teaching that encourages an active engagement with mundane life and all its challenges. Buddhahood is not an escape from these challenges but an inexhaustible source of positive energy to grapple with and transform the sufferings and contradictions of life and create happiness. As SGI President Daisaku Ikeda has written, the Lotus Sutra is ultimately a teaching of empowerment. It “teaches us that the inner determination of an individual can transform everything; it gives ultimate expression to the infinite potential and dignity inherent in each human life.”

Ultimate Reality

Near the beginning of the sutra, Shakyamuni declares to his disciples that the principle, or “law,” to which he has become enlightened is of such profundity that it is difficult to speak about and can only be comprehended by the wisdom of the Buddha. It is the ultimate reality of life—the fundamental law that underlies the workings of all life and the universe and is expressed as all phenomena. While this Mystic Law cannot be easily explained, it is encapsulated in the sutra, and it is by devoting themselves to this sutra and sharing it with others, Shakyamuni says, that his disciples and future followers can awaken to this law in their own lives.

In Sanskrit, the language in which it was first written down, the sutra’s title is Saddharma-pundarika-sutra. Several different Chinese translations were made from the Sanskrit

version of the sutra, among which the translation by Kumarajiva (344–413), titled Miao-fa-lian-hua-jing (Jpn. Myoho-renge-kyo), is considered to be particularly outstanding and facilitated the spread of the teaching in China and Japan.

Unsurpassed Way

In the sixth century, the scholarship of the great Chinese Buddhist teacher T’ien-t’ai (538–97) did much to affirm the supremacy of the Lotus Sutra amongst the teachings of Shakyamuni. T’ien-t’ai discerned a deeply significant distinction between the first half of the sutra and the second, where a radically new perspective on Buddhism is opened up. Here Shakyamuni refutes the idea that he first attained enlightenment during his lifetime in India and reveals that he has in fact been a Buddha since the inconceivably remote past. This teaching points to the truth that Buddhahood exists as a present and eternal reality in the lives of all people.

Some 1,500 years after Shakyamuni’s passing, Nichiren (1222–82), a Buddhist priest in Japan, crystallized in universally accessible form the ultimate reality expounded in the Lotus Sutra. He defined this as “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo,” the fundamental law that is the essence of all life and phenomena. His teachings opened the way for all people to awaken to their Buddha nature. They are a fulfillment of the intent of the Lotus Sutra, an intent synonymous with the compassionate desire at the heart of Buddhism, as expressed by Shakyamuni’s words in the 16th chapter that are recited daily by members of the SGI:

At all times I think to myself: How can I cause living beings to gain entry into the unsurpassed way and quickly acquire the body of a buddha?

Buddhism in Daily LifeApplying Buddhist concepts to modern living

The Lotus Sutra

Restoring Our Humanity

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Our world today faces multiple, seemingly overwhelming humanitarian crises, including conflicts and disasters. UN agencies, governments and other aid agencies have been unable to mount adequate responses. In

order to address these crises, the commitment and contribution of each individual living on this planet is required. Resolution cannot happen without restoring our collective humanity.In the preparatory consultations leading

up to the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in May 2016, much valuable input has been obtained from the people on the front lines of humanitarian crises: aid workers, disaster-affected communities and refugees.

This exhibition reflects those discussions and encourages viewers to think about what they can do at the individual, community, and even global levels.

RESTORINGOURHUMANITY

It starts from one individual, one community

Support Local Coping Capacities

Putting people at the center requires a shift in power. This means that affected people must have greater access to information and greater involvement in decision-making, and be empowered to hold humanitarian activists, including governments, accountable for meeting their needs and upholding their safety, rights, and dignity.

It is best to support local coping strategies and community structures, increase self-reliance, and build on local capacities. To do this, humanitarian action must be designed in partnership with communities, in culturally appropriate ways, and be grounded in local knowledge.

“Responses to humanitarian crises must have a bedrock focus on the dignity of each individual.” Daisaku Ikeda, President of Soka Gakkai International

“Humanitarian action should be as local as possible and as international as necessary.” Participant in a WHS regional consultation

A youth activist in the ASEAN Youth Leadership Association in the Philippines engages in local awareness raising.

In reconstruction, employment is one of the critical issues. Engagement of local women provides multiple advantages in Nepal.

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As individuals, we can …

Join or create a local community

association involving the most

vulnerable

Check whether vulnerable groups

or affected people’s voices are reflected in our government’s

policies

Identify local risks

and create a strategy for addressing

them

Make use of local

knowledge

PUT PEOPLE ATTHE CENTER

Grounded in the belief that each individual’s actions and awareness can make a difference, the

exhibition “Restoring Our Humanity” was created to encourage viewers to think about what

they can do at individual, community and global levels to address the collective humanitarian

challenges the world faces.

This 20-panel exhibition, jointly created by the SGI and the Asian Disaster Reduction and

Response Network, highlights individual and community level initiatives and reflects input

from people on the front lines of humanitarian crises. It calls on viewers to reaffirm their global

commitment to humanity and work together toward humanistic solutions to the challenges

of today.

View the exhibition panels at www.sgi.org/content/files/in-focus/2016/Restoring-Our-Humanity.

pdf. For further information about the availability of this exhibition for educational use, e-mail

contact@peacesgi.org.

Restoring Our Humanity

The number and diversity of activists involved in humanitarian action are growing. Global power dynamics are also changing.

The four fundamental principles of humanitarian action

Many grassroots activists are involved, contributing to resolving humanitarian problems. They are profiled on the following panels.

Shelter

Protection

Nutrition

Logistics

Health

Food Security

Education

Early Recovery

Early Warning Systems

Conflict Prevention

Camp Coordination and

Camp Management

EmergencyTelecom-

munications

Water,Sanitation

and Hygiene

Mitigation

Response

Recov

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PreparednessConflict/Disaster

Humanitarian & Emergency Relief

Coordination

Activists with humanity

HUMANITY

IMPARTIALITY

INDEPENDENCE

NEUTRALITY

Collaboration among: • UN Agencies • Governments • NGOs • Red Cross & Crescent movements • Private sector • Citizens

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BASIC FRAMEWORKOF HUMANITARIANACTIVITIES

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Soka Gakkai InternationalBuddhism in Action for Peace

15-3 Samoncho, Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-0017, JapanTelephone: +81-3-5360-9830 E-mail: quarterly@sgi.orgWebsite: www.sgi.org

The Soka Gakkai International (SGI) is a lay Buddhist association

promoting peace, culture and education based on the profound

respect for the dignity of life. SGI members uphold the humanistic

philosophy of Nichiren Buddhism and are active in 192 countries

and territories.

As Buddhists with a shared understanding of the inseparable linkages

between individual happiness and the realization of a peaceful

world, SGI members strive to actualize their inherent potential

while contributing to their local communities and responding to

common issues facing humankind. Our efforts toward the creation of

a culture of peace are based on a steadfast commitment to dialogue,

nonviolence and a sense of global citizenship nurtured through our

daily Buddhist practice.

As a nongovernmental organization with formal ties to the United

Nations, the SGI also collaborates with other civil society organizations

and intergovernmental agencies in the fields of nuclear disarmament,

human rights, sustainable development, humanitarian affairs and

interfaith dialogue.

The Shanghai highwayPhoto credit: Dhi/CC BY