The impossible pact between the wolf and the lamb

Leonardo Boff

14/07/2012

Opinión

^-A ⁺A

Post Festum, we can say: the final Rio+20 document offers a generous menu of suggestions and proposals, none of which is obligatory. There is a dose of moving good will, and a scary, even pitiful, analytical naiveté. It is not a compass leading us to «the future we want», but in the direction of an abyss.

This failed outcome is due to the almost religious belief that the solution to the present systemic crisis is found in the poison that produced it: the economy. It is not about the economy in the transcendental sense, namely, the process --without regard to the means-- that guarantees the material basis of life, but the economic structure, that which actually exists, that has recently dealt a blow to everything else (to politics, culture and ethics) and installed itself, sovereign, as the sole engine of society. It is the «Great Transformation» that the Hungarian-Northamerican economist Karl Polanyi energetically denounced in 1944. This type of economy fills all aspects of life. Governed by a ferocious competitiveness, it proposes accumulating as much wealth as possible, utilizing, to the point of depleting all ecosystems, everything that can be commercialized and consumed. This logic has thrown all relationships with the Earth and among humans off balance.

Facing this chaos, Ban Ki Moon, General Secretary of the United Nations, never tires of repeating at Conference openings: we are running out of time to save ourselves. In 2011 in Davos, Switzerland, he emphatically declared in front of the «lords of money and of the economic war»: «The present world economic model is a pact for global suicide». Albert Joacquard, the well-known French geneticist, titled one of his last books: Has the countdown begun? (2009). The decision-makers do not pay the least attention to the warnings of the world scientific community. Never before have there been such chasms between science and politics, between ethics and economics. It reminds me of Napoleon's cynical comment after the battle of Eylau, on seeing thousands of dead soldiers in the snow: «One night in Paris will make up for all this». They continue reciting the creed: more of the same, of economics, and we will emerge from this crisis. Can there be a pact between the lamb (ecology) and the wolf (economy)? All indications are that it is impossible.

You can add any adjective you want to this type of economy -- sustainable, green... or any other -- but it will not change its nature. They imagine that polishing the wolf's teeth will remove its ferocity, when the ferocity does not reside in the wolf's teeth, but in its nature. The nature of this economy is to grow constantly, even if it means devastating the nature-system and the life-system. Not to grow would mean death itself.

But the Earth can no longer tolerate this systematic assault on her goods and services. To this, add social injustice, which is as grave as the ecologic injustice. The average rich man uses 16 times more than a poor one. And an African has a thirty year shorter life expectancy than a European (Jaquard, 28).

Facing such crimes, how can one not be indignant, and demand a change of direction? The Earthcharter offers us a secure path: «As never before in history, the common destiny calls us to seek a new beginning, one that requires a change of mentality and of heart, a new sense of global interdependency and universal responsibility... to reach a sustainable mode of life at the local, regional and global levels» (final). A change of mentality implies a new view of the Earth, not as a «world-machine» but as a living organism: Mother Earth, who deserves respect and caring.

A change of heart means overcoming the dictatorship of scientific-technical reason, and regaining sensible reason, wherein reside profound feelings, passion for change and love and respect for everything that exists and lives. Instead of competition, to experience global interdependency, another name for cooperation; and instead of indifference, universal responsibility, that is, deciding to face global danger together.

The words of the Nazarene are on point: «unless you change, all of you shall perish» (Luke 13,5).

- Leonardo Boff, Theologian / Earthcharter Commission

Free translation from the Spanish sent by Melina Alfaro, done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/159583?language=es