Politics

Evolution is through the path called ‘Imagination’. Not many centuries ago the end to slavery would have appeared as a utopia to a large number of people, until the moment when someone dared to imagine it. As Albert Einstein said: “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” World without Wars and without Violence makes a call to imagine a different world

Dr Rowan Williams said the levy would be one way of advancing the “moral agenda” of the protesters outside St Paul’s. The Cathedral has cancelled attempts to evict the campsite. The City of London Corporation has put on hold proceedings and expressed an intention to open negotiations. Will the G20 listen to the voices of common sense?

Yet, a different kind of protest. ‘Compassion is Revolutionary’. Flash mob Meditation and Multifaith Service at St Paul’s stairs. Active Nonviolence, humour, global democratic links and leaderless consensus seeking Assemblies. Three priests resign from high posts at St Paul’s over divided views. The City of London Corporation begins eviction moves, it may take months.

It sounds like utopia. But it is a “concrete utopia”, very much in the spirit of Ernst Bloch’s philosophy and also with Nichiren Buddhism.
Whereas the former visualises elimination of all forms of oppression and exploitation, the latter envisions transformation of the human spirit – which would enable culture of peace to prevail over culture of violence.

Pakistani humanists organized a forum for dialogue on the “Existing Political Situation and Alternatives in Pakistan”, on 22nd October, 2011. The event was held at Hamdard Hall, Lahore, where around 60 people from Lahore participated, that figure including several lawyers. The seeds of a new Humanist Party were planted!

The tensions has increased in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli airstrike
killed at least 9 Palestinians and injured 11 others on Saturday evening.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Adham Abu Salmia said, the first airstrike on Rafah, south Gaza killed five members of the Islamic Jihad movement, while the others were killed in a separate strike.

Here we publish the speech delivered by Dr. Edine von Herold Duarte to the General Assembly of PNND (Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament), in Bern, Switzerland.
The next day, Dra. Edine von Herold Duarte, former Parliamentary from Costa Rica, was reelected in her condition of PNND board member.

Despite the big Egyptian efforts and intensive contacts led by senior
Egyptian intelligence service officials to activate the truce agreement and reach an informal mutual cease-fire between Palestinian militants and Israel, israeli aircrafts launched an airstrike on Gaza Strip, killed two men and also injured another.

Ayyaantuu News Online reported October 28, 2011 that from mid-October, the Ethiopian army – under the control of the Ethiopian Prime Minster Meles Zenawihas – started forcefully relocating thousands of families in the rural areas around Obole in the restive Ogaden region in southeastern Ethiopia where government forces are engaged in fighting rebels of the ONLF

The winds of change are blowing across the globe. What triggers such change, and when it will strike, is something that no one can predict.

Last Jan. 18, a courageous young woman in Egypt took a dangerous step. Asmaa Mahfouz was 25 years old, part of the April 6 Youth Movement, with thousands of young people engaging online in debate on the future of their country.