Globalisation and People's Participatory Development

Globalisation and People's Participatory Development
A.T Ariyaratne

I wish to thank the organizers of ASEM 2000 for inviting me to Seoul to participate at this Conference as a keynote speaker for the thematic group on Religions. I must specially thank Sister Jenny Jihyun Park for using her persuasive power to get me down here away from my busy schedule of work back at home and abroad. I come from the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Sri Lanka of which I am the President. Sarvodaya means the Awakening of All. This Movement was founded 42 years ago to translate the teachings of the Buddha into the fields of development, justice and peace without any sectarian considerations. Sarvodaya is an Interfaith Organization. People' participation is the main thrust of this movement.

In whatever problems and issues we discuss, it is important that we keep in mind the centrality of the human being. The scientific facts, technology, and modern terminology that we use such as globalization, biotechnology and genetic engineering should not be allowed to take our minds away from the human being. In the same way that natural processes of our heart beat and breathing in and out are central to sustain our body and mind, it is the human personality that finally decides whether we can survive on this planet or not.

Today The Sarvodaya Movement is working in 15,000 villages of Sri Lanka that is more than half the number of village communities in the country. I will try to examine what objectives we had in mind when we started the Sarvodaya Village Awakening Movement, how we progressively attempted to reach these objectives and how the influence of globalization positively or negatively influenced our work.

Sarvodaya started its work in a culture that is very rich in values. For example, sharing, pleasant language, constructive activities, and equality in association were the four traditional principles of group conduct on which we base our work to unite the community, identify its needs, and set priorities for the satisfaction of these basic needs.

Self-reliance, community participation, and sharing labour and other resources were the principal assets we had. The main objective was to build a "no poverty - no affluence" society from where the community can further improve their physical and spiritual quality of life. In our work, we succeeded to bring about unity in the community, inter-communal harmony, inter-religious harmony and fraternal feelings among diverse people.

Environmental renewal and enrichment, preservation and enhancement of available perennial water resources; ensuring the satisfaction of the need for simple clothing; provision of shelter and health care; reverting back to sustainable forms of agriculture without polluting the soil with chemical fertilizers and pesticides; introduction of new appropriate technologies such as the use of natural fertilizers and EM technology; provision of communication facilities; organizing educational, health and nutritional programmes for the pre-school children as well as children of school going age; bringing youth and women to the forefront to take responsibilities as community organizers, office bearers of village societies, managers of village development banks and so on; were positive results we could achieve in thousands of village communities during the last forty two years of our work.

Unlike a capitalist economy that primarily helps those who have money to make more money, the Sarvodaya approach is to organize all available resources in the village without destroying the ecological balance or the environmental health, and gear the production processes to meet the basic needs of all people. In this kind of economy, the principal actors, as well as the beneficiaries, are the people themselves. Small and medium-sized enterprises that is visible and accountable to the people function. In this case, the markets can function in a fair and balanced way advancing the interest of the people as a whole. Sarvodaya does not believe in centralized planning either, as was tried in communist economies. We put our faith in visible, decentralized and people's participatory economies which only can sustain our human values, advance our spiritual being and save our environment for future generations.

With the newly introduced economic globalization, not only people but also governments lose the power to control and regularize the economies of their countries. They all have to depend on the centralized decisions taken by centres of money power located in the invisible, unapproachable places in the capitals of affluent countries. The Chief Executive Officers of the multinational corporations who have their own networks are only responsible to their shareholders to give more and more profit for their investments. Even in America, I do not think that the average American citizens own even ten percent of these shares. A very small percentage of the richest in the world benefits from the world resources, human labour and scientific and technological advances. This is a very dangerous global trend that has to be handled very wisely by governments, people, and the international community.

All Sarvodaya work has a spiritual and moral content with diverse cultures working in unity and harmony, thus, ensuring a peaceful psychological and social environment. However, the increasing effects of globalization are adversely affecting our work in all these communities. We were always thinking globally although acting locally. "May all sentient beings be well and happy," "May we go from village to village and be of help to all," and "Let us heal our mind, heal our society and heal our earth" has been the slogans with which we went about with our work.

When we work in this spirit, we hardly create waste. We will not allow greed to take over our emphasis on needs. Needs may be basic needs, secondary, or tertiary needs. We believe that we can satisfy all these needs from the community upwards as we progress in our self reliant and participatory efforts. In other words, human scale development with appropriate traditional and modern technologies and community-based people's organizations were sufficient for us to eradicate poverty. Voluntary simplicity, that is a principle we follow, discouraged us from targeting an affluent life style that was not sustainable by the vast majority of people.

While we were following a human-centered development process where the awakening of human personality, family personality and the community personality were uppermost in our minds, the official development policies of the government and inter-governmental agencies, and international financial institutions were following different policies. The relentless pursuit of economic growth that the governments followed undermined human values, family relationships and the inherent codes of ethics that prevailed in the community. Until recent times, the damage done to the environment was hardly evaluated. Instead of sharing, acquisition of more and more wealth was encouraged. Life support systems started breaking down. The value of living in contemporary society was defined in terms of money that encouraged people to follow a line of material self-indulgence.

During the last four decades in my country, to our disillusionment, we saw mega institutions of the State and Corporations taking control over the lives and livelihood of people both in the rural and urban communities. The multi-million dollar advertisements brainwashed people towards material gratification through greed and competition. Traditional spiritual goals in life that emphasized both need satisfaction and spiritual enlightenment were discouraged.

There is interconnectedness between everything in life and life-connected activities and institutions. In this context, Lord Buddha's teachings on Paticca Samuppada or the theory of Dependent Arising comes to our mind. Greed invariably leads not only to competition but also to aversions and hatred. People's consciousness gets immersed in the illusion of "I and mine." Ignorance reigns supreme believing that this is the one and only life we have. There was no past. There is no future. Therefore, the present moment has to be fully utilized to gratify the pleasures of the five senses. Steeped in this ignorance, people lose sight of wisdom given by religions on re-birth, karma and karma- vipaka (actions and their effects). Roots of religious ethics and beliefs get uprooted.

While only a small section of the affluent and powerful people in society acquire the benefits of the creation of wealth, the gap between the rich and the poor widens. Suicides, homicides, robberies, abuse of children and women, destruction of ecological and environmental life support systems, social conflicts and even civil wars result as a consequence of this kind of economic globalization which in reality is a universally centralized economic planning by the few for the few at the cost of world's human and natural resources. In short, severe economic dislocations, social instabilities, and severe threats to nature are created.

Globalization affects the entire global community. It is no longer a question of North and South. It is not even an issue pertaining only to the poor and the weak in society. This is a very serious issue that the entire global community including those executives and big shareholders of multinational corporations have to think very seriously. What is at risk is the future of the entire human species, the rest of the living world and survival of the planet itself for human habitation. The multi-million dollar propaganda that reach our homes and promote the dream of a better life for all cannot cover up the stark reality which we experience everyday in the form of increasing poverty, worsening pollution, declining health of the earth and atmosphere, and above all, damaging the spiritual consciousness of human beings.

North-South cooperation, women's issues, war and peace and other important subjects must be discussed in the context of this reality.

Thank You.