Our Human Family and Global Citizenship
Dear Reader,
Two images keep resurfacing in the waters of my thoughts: Usain Bolt, the fastest man on Earth, flashing a dazzling smile to the camera during his 100-meter semifinal race, and Omran Daqneesh, the 5-year-old survivor of an Aleppo airstrike, sitting unblinking and dazed in an ambulance.
Certainly, the Olympics bring us together as a human family and uplift us. For one brief moment it seems like we might all get along. Yet, something is off – in Rio de Janiero two million people live in poverty beneath the shadow of the Olympic Stadium, while Brazil has one of the top 10 GDPs in the world.
The city of Aleppo meanwhile is completely demolished, split between the ‘government’ and the ‘rebels’. One and a half million civilians still live there amidst the continual bombing. Silent, bloodied Omran, his parents and sister miraculously survived the airstrike, but his brother Ali died Saturday.
If only we had an Olympics for human rights and the rights of the Earth, with a torch symbolizing satyagraha, our collective soul-force, and medals for acts of courage and compassion. Unfortunately, we lack the global institutions and political will to nurture and sustain such a vision. The United Nations at one time seemed our best hope, but is mired in bureaucracy along with the corrupt World Bank and only partly effective World Court.
While he was growing up, Usain Bolt’s family managed a small grocery shop in Jamaica, barely making ends meet, but at least living in peace. Isn’t that what the human family wants – to live in peace, free from fear? If so, we are all citizens of the same dream, we are all Global Citizens. For more than a decade, Nancy Roof and Kosmos Journal have advanced the ideals and practice of Global Citizenship. In this edition of Kosmos Online two key articles from our special Global Citizenship Collection are revisited, including the most-read Kosmos article of all time, ‘What Does it Mean to be a Global Citizen?’, and also this:
In Mark Nepo’s beautiful retelling of the tale of Kuan-yin, the goddess of compassion lifts a boy from the rubble of a destroyed village. As the boy dies in her arms, she begins hearing the cries of the world and devotes her existence to those who suffer. “Wherever we go, wherever we wake, we are challenged…to hear the cries of the world very personally. …to hold them and keep them alive is how we keep the life-force we need lit between us.”
Our global citizenship depends on each of us then. Maybe these two photos – man at his best and at his worst – help us understand that Usain Bolt and Omran Daqneesh are our own brothers and sons. If we are to build a peaceful and sustainable planetary era we will have to devote ourselves the way athletes do and practice diligently to protect them and families everywhere, to preserve the rights of all beings, and take care of our precious Home.