Humainologie creative dialogue on Building Empathy by Looking into Global Connections

“When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative about solving problems.” – Steven Covey “Stories teach us empathy. They reveal to us ourselves in the skins of others.” – Justin Simien “In this area their international companies do have manifold interests, as for example exploitation of oil and coal. These interests are often claimed through national companies, which are subsidiaries of the multinational companies, who are really going to exploit here. This is the fight of us campesinos, we fight for land tenure against multinationals” -Member of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Colombia. Watch full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0wglaEz7SY On Wednesday, May 18, our dialogue will be facilitated by Michaela Sollinger from Colombia. This will be the second in our series of topics related to the vision for a Calgary peace museum. This email is a very long one, and if you seriously want to see a peace museum in Calgary that changes the course of history, I encourage you to read the email and join the dialogue on May 18. In particular, I urge you to read the proposal for a Calgary peace museum appended to the text of this message. Michaela’s topic is Building Empathy by Looking into Global Connections. She explains the conceptual framework for the dialogue as follows: “I would start out with sharing one or several connections between Colombian communities, their struggle and connections with Canada or Canadians and some ideas for looking further into these connections. I am positive that the participants will have additional examples from all over the globe and that the dialogue can lead to important ideas for the Peace Museum and/or the Empathy Week.” There are countless success stories of people connecting globally to address challenging issues and build mutual support. Here is a TEDx talk that provides just one example: Building Community: Jessica Posner at TEDxMileHigh - YouTube By steadily building our familiarity with such initiatives, we can begin to contribute to them ourselves. This would give each of us the chance to make our own life’s work a gift to future generations. One issue that must be addressed is how a Calgary peace museum will raise awareness among Calgarians about Calgary-based fossil fuel companies that are complicit in the violence against peace communities in Colombia. https://pbicanada.org/2022/04/23/nomadesc-warns-of-climate-change-as-canadian-companies-invest-in-extractivism-in-colombia/ Manuel Rozental is a peace activist in Colombia and a surgeon who has worked in Canada. He has co-chaired one of our events in Calgary and is well known to the Folk Tree Lodge family. Manuel contributes this background for our May 18 dialogue: “Pacific Rubiales, the largest oil corporation in Colombia, a Canadian enterprise about which there is an array of documented abuses, corruption and cover-ups. Rather than exposing all of it (it would require several volumes), this note will suffice to point at a fact: https://colombiareports.com/canadas-pacific-rubiales-abuses-colombian-workers-rights/ “Canadian Mining corporations, as has been exposed the world over, are involved in terrible practices for profit, and these are on-going, certainly in Colombia today, but well beyond. It seems like the Obama statement to save the corrupt financial system from the 2008 crisis would apply here. Canadian Mining Corporations and interests are "too big to fail," at a huge expense in destruction and abuse.” Manuel then suggests two specific points for our dialogue on Wednesday, and a 4-point proposal for a Calgary peace museum. Here are the two points for dialogue: “1. Corruption is not an exception involving some rotten apples in an otherwise healthy crop. Corruption has become a cultural establishment and part of the norm. One obtains benefits, rights, privileges through accepted common-place corrupt practices. The extractive Canadian corporate initiatives have been exposed, together with Colombian corporate and government counterparts in customary corrupt practices. How does one address this issue? How does one expose it including the cover-up mechanisms and established practice? Can it be otherwise? “2. Terror and Violence. Although the direct systematic involvement of Canadian corporate initiatives in the extractive (mining, oil sectors) is difficult to prove and would be carefully covered-up, the relationship between terror-violence and extractive corporate interests is certainly common-place and systematic.” The 4-point proposal from Manuel for a Calgary peace museum is appended below. In my reminder email, to be sent out next Monday, I will append a synopsis of the book Silencing the Past that Manuel refers to in the proposal. In closing, Michaela, Manuel, and I will share with all of you the closing that Manuel always uses in his messages to me. A big hug to all, Arthur, Michaela, and Manuel Here is Manuel’s 4-point proposal for a Calgary peace museum: 1. Museums today are not and cannot continue to limit themselves to the exhibition of objects from the past. These types of museums, although interesting, contribute to Silencing the Past (Michel Rolph-Trouillot) and actually burying on-going and deepening concerns into a remote past. Many curators and museum directors have understood this, hence, museums are living, moving, challenging and changing beings. For example, the City Museum of Quito, Ecuador, housed the Insurgent Book Fair in 2021, where and exhibit on the 2019 popular uprising was inaugurated with thousands attending. A rigorous exhibit with the voices and faces of those involved, testimonies, media presentations and a very careful account of facts and perspectives. The museum is a mirror upon which people can see themselves, their world, the social relationships and interests. Museums support people in becoming an active and acting part of their societies overcoming the prefabricated opinions produced from specific interests. Elements to construct a social truth and the invitation to do it. 2. Canadian Corporate interests in Colombia, with emphasis on extractive industries are subjects of museum exhibits in this way. Curate the exposure of facts, testimonies, interests, voices, to challenge a superficial opinion, a headline, the power to impose a convenient truth and the impact both on the life of people and territories in Colombia as much as on the ignorance, complicity or manipulation of Canadians, who, for the most part, mean well, abut also, the recognition and alliance with those Canadians who have been and are doing something for the truth, justice and respect. 3. The people of Colombia affected by Canadian interests: their lives, territories, contradictions, perspectives, suffering, struggles. Their own faces and voices given their chance and respecting (finally) their right to speak and present and represent themselves 4. All this as a permanent and renewing exhibit that mobilizes interest, commitment, debate and action for peace and justice. Calgary and Alberta are particularly important sites for this effort, bearing in mind corporate interests in the region. Imagining an open-minded, rigorous effort to learn, share and search for truths that lead to action and rendering both Colombians and Canadians visible and sharing, would certainly be a worthwhile effort that would go beyond Colombia and Calgary.