Making a Difference
Q I often wonder and worry about the disparity I see among various people in the world. This seems to exist along class, caste, race, and many other human characteristics. I believed that all the work that people have been doing towards social justice for years was resulting in more equity and less privileged-based opportunities for people. However, seeing the shrinking of the middle class in America and the large financial scams of the last decade, I feel that the greed of the few has more power than the good intentions of the majority. As an individual I feel weak and powerless in the face of such forces. How I can influence any positive change?
A Classism, racism, sexism and other -isms that exist in the world have been present for centuries in various forms. I believe it is more recent that such issues can be dealt with in a socio-political setting where people with much less power can have some influence. However, I believe, that to address these deep cultural issues, we also need to look at the individuals that we have become over the centuries due to collective training. We have been trained to believe that the few people in power will be interested in the common good and, therefore, don’t spend much of our own time participating in the democracy of this country. Freedom and personal power to influence society require a tremendous amount of responsibility and participation. Most of us are preoccupied with our individual and familial needs of economic survival and acquisition of personal success in a highly materialistic and self-oriented culture. We rarely put in the the time and energy to think more deeply about the issues you raise and very few of us are intelligently participating in creating a living democracy. It is not surprising that our representatives do not adequately represent us and it is corporations that are involved heavily in politics to influence policy.
I believe we can only move towards social justice as a nation if more of us realize how asleep we actually are to these realities and how much the cultural myth of material acquisition and security controls our time and lifestyle. This would wake us up to class disparity and lack of real community and motivate us to get engaged. We are seeing pockets of this, partly due to the frustration about, and confrontation with, the larger forces that you have named.
Americans can learn from the struggles and revolutionary strides made this year by the societies in the Middle East. As more of us come together in public and find collective ways to demonstrate what we want, more people will be moved to leave their lonely lives striving towards the next personal achievement or object, and engage in civic life, where we collectively struggle and work for the quality of society we want for people of every class, background, and identity. This movement can be fulfilling, empowering and might be the only way that the majority who want to share resources can begin to trust each other and, thereby, build lives and policies on new ethics.
Alzak Amlani, Ph.D., is a counseling psychologist in the Bay Area. 650-325-8393. Visit www.wholenesstherapy.com
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I'd love to see Alzak do some counseling in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Montana, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky...wow the list goes on! Wonderful, wonderful!
It is amazing what effort local councils and government in so many communities make to close libraries, minority businesses (that attempt to go beyond survival) or sabotage counselors and coaches who bring a different perspective. You have to fight at so many levels and directions that one is exhausted...In the end talent is wasted and mediocrity and old power stays or gets promoted.
There is something sad when so many Americans, yes Americans, live on top of each other like cockaroaches fighting over five or fity cents, while plenty of land between Cal and New York remains empty or subsidized. Interesting! I encourage them to step outside these familiar zones, like I did, with some protection (I had none) and go to the spaces of "power, authority and guns". Do it! I also want to see more tenured faculty boys , who preach a lot, go too! Step outside your preachy zones and do something.
I've done it, as a woman too, and nobody stood behind my back.
Here is my advice: read, think, discuss, protest, act and above all choose the right leaders in your community. Listen to Alzak and also learn from me. And, do not cunningly turn anyone's legitimate anger into "feeling powerlessness". Anger is not powerlessness, protest is not powerlessness and demanding justice is not powerlessness.
And for all those who came to the US primarily to escape poverty, inequality or injustice - rather than for education or experience or to teach this society also - it is time to stop the "mental escape" by constantly going into mosques, churches, synogogues and temples, or simplyby throwing the baby with the bathwater in the name of "any" change (which is not always improvement), or keep the dirty bathwater with the baby in the name of history and tradition. I do ask you to know your tradition and culture accurately, but don't treat it as a crutch or the complete truth. Nor let others dominate you, determine the interpretation of your truth and your experience or expertise.
I'd love to see Alzak counsel more male faculty. They all seem to get tenured faculty position so quickly. Amazing!:))
Another advice, "Get out of Cal, and go engage people different from you with confidence and clarity". I have done it without support or backup. How long can one do it when so many are sabotaged because of colonialism inside and outside one's communities? There is a huge America that is still feudal and colonial too.
I'd love to see Alzak do some counseling in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Montana, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky...wow the list goes on! Wonderful, wonderful!
There is an interesting, but an odd, article in "The Nation" with the title "Gandhi and South Africa" by Martha C. Nussbaum, printed on October 11, 2011 asking "Why was Joseph Lelyveld’s history of Gandhi’s years in South Africa attacked by India’s Hindu right?"
Gandhi has been presented as bisexual or homosexual, and Hindus as all "ultra conservative or far Right".
You can see the article on http://www.thenation.com/
Does anybody at India Currents want to respond to this? article?
Can Gandhi not be a Hindu/Buddhist/Agnostic socialist? Or is there only one way to be a Socialist in the US? Is Communism the only Socialism? And suddenly all the guys, who supported GM and Wall Street bailouts are "communists" ; "atheists" or "agnostics", in complete cahoots with the old American foreign policy?
Why does everything in America have only one face? Even Wall Street occupiers are being presented as "drug addicts, prostitutes, drunks, hippies (whatever that means), gangsters...", and the focus by the media is always on those people who can be easily dismissed, caricatured and appear repulsive.
If they do this to their owm young, would they not do worse to the poor of the world?
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