How to Build a Global Community
I would like to share with you the text from an inspiring poster that I recently received as a gift from my Aunt Mare. www.syrculturalworkers.com
“How to Build a Global Community
- Think of no one as “them”.
- Don’t confuse your comfort with your saftey.
- Talk to strangers.
- Imagine other cultures through their poetry and novels.
- Listen to music you don’t understand. Dance to it.
- Act locally.
- Notice the workings of powr and privilege in your culture.
- Question Consumption.
- Know how your lettuce and coffee are grown: wake up and smell the exploitation.
- Look for fiar trade union labels.
- Help build economies from the bottom up.
- Acquire few needs.
- Learn a second (or third) language.
- Visit people, places, and cultures- not tourist attractions.
- Learn people’s history.
- Re-define progress.
- Know your physica and political geography.
- Play games from other cultures.
- Watch films with subtitles.
- Know your heritage.
- Honour everyone’s holidays.
- Look at the moon and imagine someone else, somehwere else, looking at it too.
- Read the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Understand the global economy in terms of people, land and water.
- Know where your bank banks.
- Never believe you have a right to anyone else’s resources.
- Refuse to wear corporate logos: defy corporate domination.
- Question military/corporate connections.
- Don’t confuse money with wealth, or time with money.
- Have a pen/email pal.
- Honour indigenous cultures.
- Judge governance by how well it meets all people’s needs.
- Be skeptical about what you read.
- Eat Adventurously. Enjoy vegetables, beans and grains in your diet.
- Choose curiosity over certainty.
- Know where your water comes from and where your wastes go.
- Pledge allegiance to the earth: question nationalism.
- Think South, Central and North- there are many Americans.
- Assume that many others share your dreams.
- Know that no one is silent though many are not heard. Work to change this.”