Monday, 26 November 2007
And now for the future
Sunday, 18 November 2007
Complexity: the Law vs Nature
During the past week two events took place, independent of each other yet connected in a more profound sense.
First came the release of a report by Dr Graeme Pearman and the Climate Adaptation Science and Policy Initiative at the University of Melbourne. Evidence of Accelerated Climate Change warns that the predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are too conservative. More comprehensive data from both polar regions show that an ice-free Arctic Ocean might not occur between 2050 to 2100 but much earlier. Rises in sea levels have also been underestimated.
On Friday Professor Justice Michael Kirby, one of Australia's seven High Court judges and a strong defender of human rights, gave a lecture, Fundamental Human Rights and Religious Apostasy. His main example was the case of a woman in Malaysia who wanted to leave her original religion Islam and now become registered as a Christian. Being a Muslim country eventually the High Court there decided against her, pointing out that although the constitution guarantees religious freedom, for an individual to choose leaving Islam was not permissible. Clearly, the notion of freedom of choice was not part of the wider interpretation when starting from the concept of religious freedom.
The evidence of climate change rides on an increasingly comprehensive picture emerging from the ongoing analysis of a multitude of data. The more information we have the more accurate our perception can be. Despite the opposition from so many quarters the urgency to act locally and globally becomes more and more pressing. The world of our grand children will be vastly different from what the human race has become used to, but at the very least the data necessary for a productive response are accessible.
Compare that to the situation in a religion-dominated society, where on one hand the few judicial parameters are visible but on the other do not encompass the far more complex mind set programmed by its belief system. For a Westerner the conclusion reached by the majority of the Malaysian High Court judges (two Muslims ruled against the appellant and one Christian decided in her favour) seems extraordinary, but such is the effect of a diffuse and pervasive mental landscape that almost anything is possible when an overriding compulsion demands it.
Much has been written and proclaimed in the context of human rights. Religious freedom is usually interpreted as the right to practise some belief, but rarely does that include the freedom from religion. A belief prospers when supported by an ideology, spiritual or secular, and no matter what its source has a profound effect on the cognitive processes under its guise.
Whether a challenge confronts an individual, a society, or an entire planet, productive solutions cannot be found if the steps taken have to rely on obscure and ill-defined notions.
There is a chance some societies will manage to live with the effects of climate change, possibly even ameliorate them, because their conceptualisations are mostly situated in the real. Yet there are also other demographics where ideas are far more convoluted.
A hint of what is to come can be seen in the tables shown on Demographic orientations. The figures for average life spans, infant mortality, and educational standards from around the world are relatable to the influence a belief system exerts upon the respective population. Right now there are hundreds of millions of people confined to their inner mental prisons where even under the current conditions they barely manage to survive, if at all. Now imagine what happens when rising sea levels, scarcity of water, and dislocation of food productions interfere with the already precarious existence of all those masses.
We will be able to watch the process over the coming years.
Sunday, 11 November 2007
An update... and the ego
Since the last post about Griffith University's threat of court action there has been silence.
Which is particularly remarkable because the following Thursday emails were once again sent to the staff at the School of Information & Communication Technology on Nathan Campus (ICT), pointing to that post. The last time this happened I got two responses, one complaining she wasn't a member of the staff, the other from the Deputy Head of ICT containing the threat. Now however there has been silence.
Some time ago various heads of offices (including the federal and Queensland Department of Education, The Carrick Institute, the Vice Chancellors Committee) were contacted about the affair but none was interested or it was considered outside their jurisdiction.
On Thursday the same people were emailed once again, informing them of the threat. Who knows what happens next.
Here is yet again a scenario that spans a considerable period of time, with major stakeholders adamant in their refusal to engage with legitimate complaints; in other words a situation which is allowed to fester and so gradually abandons the chances of a comfortable resolution.
Other examples can be found on a smaller as well as the larger scale. Family feuds come to mind, or relatively recent developments in the Queensland health system [1]. On a bigger scale still would be the fate of a country like Guyana, where, during the time of independence, much-needed land reform was dismissed by Britain and the US and its proponent, Cheddi Jagan, was eventually pushed aside as a socialist by his opponent, US-sponsored Forbes Burnham [2]. The irony of all this showed itself when Burnham turned the new nation into a communist state shortly after. It was a turbulent period.
By considering the scope of those examples the reader will be able to come up with similar episodes, large or small. In principle the story follows familiar lines: a contentious issue, an often self-imposed blindness by others gradually turning into opponents, and all for what? Just to feed the ego.
References:
1. Morris calls for strong dose of immunity, Courier Mail, 19 Oct 2005.
2. C. Jagan, The West on Trial, Seven Seas Publishers, Berlin, 1972.