From time to time I may post extra commentary or work, I have decided.
- additional commentary on democracy, freedom and governance I read, this week, a book (called an essay, although, at 25,000 words, it’s a bit long for that, I feel … ) recommended on John Menadue’s blog: Laura Tingle’s “Political Amnesia: how we forgot to govern”, which is largely about the loss of institutional memory in the public service. It is very well written, and I largely agree with it (a couple of small points I disagree with, but you, Dear Reader, can get a copy – through your local library, if need be – and make up your own mind on all that), and have had similar experiences in my engineering career in the water industry, where the changes Kennett made in the 90s wound up, in many ways, crippling the industry and its ability to be effective. We now have water Authorities who don’t know what newer inlet works look like, don’t trust their ability to make a judgement call, and do not properly - in my view – manage Contractors. I’m in the process of writing some posts for LinkedIn on this. Now, unquestionably there were changes that needed to be made – the inherited wisdom needed better articulation, there needed to be technical flexibility, and existing Authorities needed to work together collaboratively for the benefit of their citizens, people needed to be les afraid of making mistakes: but you don’t solve problems by throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and subsequent events have shown the problems with mass privatisation in the water industry (I’ve posted links about that previously). Similarly, there were problems in the public service (such as being party to the endemic discrimination in Australian society at the time, inflexibility, perceptions – at least - of being out of touch, etc), but you attempt to solve those problems first, before you ditch everything and introduce a whole new swag of unknown problems (something I teach junior engineers about new treatment processes is that there will be a lot unknown about the new process, and much of that will be bad :) ). The problem of loss of memory in organisations is major, and endemic: I’ve only been in my current position 7 years, and have become one of the main sources of institutional memory, which is appalling. I’m going to recommend – or ask for their views on :) – this book / essay to my local politicians.
- additional commentary on violent extremism my attention was recently bought to a presentation which begins with Raheel Raza, on facebook. Looking her up on Wikipedia, and on her website, she strikes me as someone who is advocating strongly and well for some beneficial changes to Islam / cultures that are considered Islamic, although I consider her advocacy of banning all immigration from “terror producing nations” extremist. I suspect she would be as forceful even if we were not living in a world that is not flooded with simple-minded responses that result in hate for all Muslims, rather than trying to address the cause of problems - which, as I pointed out to the person who showed me the article, include: the alienation of most youth in the West, political factors (e.g., Da’esh’s origins lay in a desire for power in Iraq), there are problems in other religions, focusing on religion risks tarring all members of that religion because of a few, there have been a number of fatwas and other actions against terrorism taken by Muslims, and so on: I didn’t get around to mention the radicalising that had been caused by the conduct of Western nations, nor that those who focus on religion are doing the work of the terrorists for them. Concerningly, the take away fact that came out of all this, however, for the person concerned, was a claimed (I’m not aware of the basis yet) very high number of radicalised Muslims. The Wikipedia article includes the following (my emphasis): “She believes radical Muslims have their own interpretation of Islam, and that the Koran does not justify suicide bombings. She notes that hatred has been preached in places of worship and elsewhere, and urges parents to be on the alert for this so that extremism does not get imported into Canada.” This reminds me of the group SAVE (Sisters Against Violent Extremism) created by Women Without Borders, which supports parents on this issue, as well as supporting the families of those who have become terrorists. I’ve downloaded Ms Raza’s book “Their Jihad, Not My Jihad: A Muslim Canadian Woman Speaks Out”, although I haven’t finished reading it yet (and have not been able to access the articles she links to on her website … but no mention of numbers of radicalised Muslims as yet, so where did the claim come from?). It seems to me that she is aware of the complexities of these issues, and is taking a spiritually principled and well nuanced stance on them: for that to be reduced to a single number is disappointing, and reflects the problems faced in addressing these issues. I concede that her point appears to be that Westerners are downplaying the connection (should that be claimed? Or tenuous? Or disputed, perhaps – since it is disputed - by Muslims, eloquently and effectively) to Islam. Now, in terms of the number itself, this fact check disputes the basis of another such claim, and this analysis indicates that fewer than 1% of Muslims in Europe were at risk of radicalisation;
[1] BPM = Balanced Positive (spiritually) Mature. See here and here for more on this.
[2] Please see here, here, here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").
[3] I apologise for the formatting: it seems Blogger is
no longer as WYSIWYG as it used to be, and there are a lot of unwanted
changes to layout made upon publishing, so I often have to edit it immediately
after publishing to get the format as close to what I want as possible.
Love, light, hugs and blessings
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix
Lux … aka Morinehtar … would-be drýicgan or maga
... )
My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this
site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.
I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue
(see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me
for a few minutes at some time between 8 and 11 PM on Sunday, wherever you are,
to meditate-clear for peace), and here
for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend
learning how to flame, ground
and shield, do alternate
nostril breathing, work
with colour, and see also here and be
flexible.
The real dividing line is not between
Christianity and Islam, Sunni and Shia, East and West. It is between people who
believe in coexistence, and those who don’t.
- If your “gut” (your instinct/intuition) is telling you something is wrong, but logic and the available evidence is saying otherwise, the proper conclusion to draw is that you need better, more personally credible evidence. Your “gut” could be wrong, right, or missing the nuances / “shades of grey” . So could the available evidence.
- All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...
Tags: activism, discrimination, energy work, magick, meditation,
nonviolence, peace, society, violence, war,
First published: Laugardagr, 23rd January, 2016
Last edited (excluding fixing typo's
and other minor matters): Saturday, 23rd January, 2016
