Made in China – the Yin-yang of world peace

Posted on July 11, 2022 by malpagaia

China having become the world factory is why most products appearing in stores and households throughout the world have the label ‘Made in China’ attached to them. In recent decades products made in China have progressed from originally being associated with relatively poorer quality mass produced cheaper products, to those that now include high quality products such as smart phones, autonomous self drive electric vehicles, high speed trains, silicon chips, a functional three person space station and – not least, a modern land, sea and air defence force.

Being a practitioner of an Earth-based spiritual practice known as ‘PaGaian Cosmology’ – a seasonal celebration of the relatedness of Earth, Sun and Moon; China’s re-emergence as a major power on the contemporary world stage is no surprise to me, my daily practice enables me to readily relate to some of the more organic, down to earth features of Chinese cosmology, culture and ways of being. My spiritual practice occasionally finds me reflecting the origin of the ‘Yin-Yang’ symbol found within Chinese cosmology; if one measures the shadow a pole projects at midday, from the winter Solstice onwards, this shadow will become shorter every day, until, at the time of the Summer Solstice when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, the shadow will be the shortest. Afterwards the shadow will again increase gradually until the cycle is completed in the next Winter Solstice. If the increases in the shadow’s length are plotted in a circle because this is a cyclic, ever repeating phenomenon and the period of increased darkness that begins in summer is coloured, the image produced is that of the well known black and white ‘Yin-Yang’ symbol.

Within Chinese cosmology, the Yin-Yang dynamic is thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) natural forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. Such observation and thinking is a good example of our human capacity to synthesise the phenomenon of opposites that take place throughout cosmic creativity. Take for example one of our most profound discoveries cum inventions electricity; in the context of electric charge, it was discovered that planet Earth itself was found to be at the same natural potential everywhere, hence a reference point was given the name ‘earth’ or ‘ground’ because it is known to be an infinitely constant source of equal amounts of positive and negative charge.

From my personal PaGaian perspective, having this quality and depth of ancient cultural heritage to draw on is what better enables Chinese leaders past and present to synthesise the political, social and economic dynamics that we humans have been immersed in for millennia – for better and for worse. Hence for example, contemporary China’s ability to synthesise the political, economic and social dynamics of communism, capitalism and socialism and – so far at least, produce a form of socio-economic governance and productivity that is working relatively better than most if not all other forms. This is a most unlikely consideration let alone successful outcome within the relatively dualistic cosmologies and ideologies of the West, where the political and social dynamics of capitalism, communism and socialism are inevitably seen as a choice to be made between incompatible opposites.

We have plenty of historic evidence that being a major power on the world stage is not new to China. During the 13th Century Marco Polo was greatly influenced by Chinese culture; later during the 17th and 18th Century the so-called ‘Age of Enlightenment’, European philosophers regarded ‘Chinoiserie’ as a force to be reckoned with, a time when the likes of Voltaire and Leibnitz believed that China had perfected ‘moral science’, and that Chinese statecraft was a model for the West to emulate if it too wanted to develop into an enlightened civilization. Adam Smith described China as “one of the richest, best cultivated, most industrious, nations on earth”. Unfortunately at the time, the rulers of Japan and the West saw Chinese civilisation and culture differently; mainly from their imperialist, profit driven perspective. The Chinese system of meritocratic government was deeply troubling to an 18th Century Western ruling elite built on stratified class privilege, to them a civilization without hereditary aristocrats was unfathomable; to some considerable extent this is still the case in our 21st Century. Hence over the past 200 years China and its people have been forced to make a huge sacrifice to overcome invasion and great adversity to once again become a valuable exemplar of how a high standard of statecraft is now being ‘Made in China’.

An important tradition underlying the governance of modern China is that of ‘seeking truth from facts’. The fact that the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has overcome centuries of adversity to now be consistently improving the livelihood of about 20% of the world population reveals a pertinent truth about ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’; namely that for the past three decades at least, it works. Knowing how to make socialism and capitalism work for and improve the livelihood of a population of 1.4 billion> people over a period of decades is no mean feat, knowing if it could work just as well indefinitely for 7 billion> people is therefor also well worth considering.

China’s productive force and market economy has progressed at a relatively rapid pace – compared to the rest of the world, to arrive in 2022 at a point where it is the world’s second largest economy, already having become the world’s largest purchasing power and is predicted to become the world’s largest economy overall within this decade. Be this as it may, China now has more to offer the world than the advanced mass production of goods and services; modern China is demonstrating to the world how a socio-economic form of governance and productivity can place sufficient emphasis on meeting the social and cultural needs of a massive wide spread and diverse population, while growing its economy at home and abroad, within the context of a global capitalism. Over the past three decades ‘Made in China’ has been developing a new socio-economic form of governance and productivity, formerly referred to by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) as ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’. This relatively new brand of socialism is unique to China and is often referred to by President Xi Jinping as being the ‘early stage’ of a socialism for ‘the new era’.

However, what Xi Jinping refers to as ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’ is not without its risks; as a result of consistently applying the tenets of Marxist theory to their long term planning, the CPC knows only too well that there is no escaping the power and contradictory effects of capitalism; this is especially so while synthesising capitalism and socialism in order to develop China’s productive force which in effect has morphed into being a hybrid socialist/capitalist market economy. For this hybrid system to continue working for the PRC capitalism in China will need to remain strictly subordinate to socialism. If the power of capitalism is allowed to have its way with China then the CPC/PRC will end up with something more like a Capitalism with Chinese characteristics and their goal of achieving a modern socialist state by 2049, enjoying moderate prosperity in all respects could become difficult or impossible to reach. The negative effects of the power of capitalism are already evident within modern China, namely the emergence of billionaires and their obscene levels of privately owned wealth – including among senior Party leaders, monopoly capitalism in the private sector, social inequality between regional rural and urban populations, major real estate bankruptcies and the inevitable rumblings of class antagonisms.

It is worth noting here how and why the CPC subordinates capitalism to socialism; capitalism is such a great force that not even Marx’s ‘Capital’ could fully describe its complexity, nor could he have foreseen the power and influence of a fully computerised, globalised so called ‘monopoly capitalism’. Decades later however, Deng Xiaoping had the benefit of seeing for himself the power of capitalism and its potential for lifting China out of poverty. Known as the ‘Architect of Modern China’ Deng enabled what is known as a ‘Dual-track economy’ an economic system in which the government controls key sectors of the economy, while allowing private enterprise limited control over other sectors on a so called periphery of the economy. This has led to what the CPC refers to as a Socialist Market Economy (SME), based on state owned institutions such as banks, insurance, transport, education, energy, health and agricultural land etc; at the core of China’s overall market economy. The CPC maintains that despite the co-existence of private capitalists and entrepreneurs together with public and collective enterprise, China is not a capitalist country because the party retains control over the direction of the country, maintaining its course of socialist development. To date, capitalism remains strictly subordinate to socialism in China. If the rest of the world is going to reduce extreme poverty the way China has during the past decade, it too will need to subordinate (rather than try in vain to replace) capitalism to socialism.

As Deng Xiaoping put it in 1987, “only the socialist system can eradicate poverty”.

Domestically the extent to which the CPC/PRC upholds the political principle of democratic centralism – now also referred to as ‘whole process people’s democracy’, retains control over the great adversarial power of monopoly capitalism – thereby minimising social inequality and class antagonism; will determine whether or not the CPC can avoid economic collapse and the risk of being overthrown by the Chinese people and their army – the PLA.

Be this as it may, the collapsing of a neo-liberal political order throughout the world, combined with the negative impacts of climate change, a devastating global pandemic, and war in Europe, geopolitical tension is increasing among most if not all the so called major powers.

China and Russia recently issued a joint statement, saying that the two countries stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions and that they intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext, oppose colour revolutions, and will increase cooperation in the above-mentioned areas. A Sino-Russian alliance that focuses on trade, developing their respective domestic economies strengthening the informal BRICS alliance and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – especially now with Latin American states such as Argentina, Cuba and Venezuela benefitting from the BRI, while ensuring that they are capable of defending their aligned sovereign borders against an increasingly belligerent U.S. led NATO, QUAD and AUKUS alliance; now looks like being the only viable deterrent against war between the so called major powers.

The main difference cum contest between a U.S. dominated neoliberal world order and China’s relatively authoritarian single party governance is their respective foundational ideology; Neoliberalism is more of a top down god given theocratic ideology with a strong emphasis on individualism and state protection of privately owned property and wealth; Chinese governance is more of an organic bottom up ideology that places more emphasis on public ownership and the collective good rather than than the individual good. In the context of democracy, U.S. dominated neoliberalism no longer resembles Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 definition being ‘governance of the people, by the people for the people’; whereas China’s Marx/Lennin inspired ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ publicly advocates and demonstrates Lincoln’s definition of democracy.

Generally speaking China’s relatively authoritarian centralist single party form of governance and productivity is – almost by definition, more disciplined and efficient than Western neoliberal multi party forms of governance and thereby more capable of synthesising otherwise opposing economic and social dynamics; including and especially those within China itself and more importantly throughout an emerging new multipolar world order. It may well be that nothing less than the project for world peace and development is also now being; ‘Made in China’.

malpaTaffy

Southern Summer 2022.

Ngayuku puli tjukurpa – Uluru.

Posted on July 3, 2022 by malpagaia

My story stone.

Story telling.

For better and for worse, todays information sharing technology makes it so much more evident that the human race is primarily a story telling species, everything we do and say, all our thinking and behaviour is almost entirely influenced by the stories going on between our ears, be they fact or fiction, be they well intended or otherwise, stories are our primary and most influential source of information. So, it is with this grand philosophical premise in mind that I offer you My Uluru story – Ngayuku puli tjukurpa, this by way of celebrating NAIDOC 2022, here on the traditional land of the Wakka Wakka people (S.E. Queensland Australia).

This is a story of how I was literally re-minded by such a remarkable place – Uluru, and its indigenous custodians – the Anangu, about the importance of our relationship to place and family – walytja or kin. Thanks to its indigenous Anangu custodians, over millennia the landscape and rock formations of Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park has invoked stories cum lessons that I believe are of potential value for the whole human race, especially now that our relatively advanced information sharing technology is being deliberately used in so many subtle and not so subtle ways to divide and separated us from our sense of place, from each other and all too often, from reality.

‘Uluru-Kata Tjua National Park, an isolated tiny patch in Australia’s vast arid zone at the very centre of the continent, is the symbol for a special, almost intangible quality of the continent’s interior but also for the co-operative human spirit. It is one of the most remarkable places on earth. From the start I was determined to find out as much as I could about it’.

Uluru Looking After Uluru Kata-Tjuta ~ The Anangu Way

Stanley Breeden 1994.

Life among the Anangu.

From 1990 until 1995, it was my privilege to have lived and worked with the indigenous Anangu of Central Australia (Northern Territory) at Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park and then from 1995 until 1998 on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands (South Australia). Uluru Kata-Tjuta is a World Heritage Area National Park, listed for both its natural and cultural values. During my time there I had the rare opportunity of being able to work closely with its Anangu custodians while re-nominating the park for World Heritage Area listing based on its cultural values, it was already WHA listed based on its natural values. During the same 1990-95 period, Anangu and Piranpa park staff along with various professional consultants and builders worked on the design and construction of the Uluru Cultural Centre. The early 1990s was when the award winning author of natural history Stanley Breeden was given permission from Anangu to produce a book about the park, particularly about the nature of the park, its flora and fauna, but also about the Anangu and Piranpa – whitefellas, who were working together to manage Uluru ‘the Anangu way’. This too was a most valuable opportunity for Stanley and us Piranpa park staff to learn more about the depth of knowing about and relatedness to their place that Anangu possessed.

‘We commend this book to you, and affirm its accuracy and value. We Anangu are strongly committed to our culture, and we believe this book shares in our commitment’

Tony Tjamiwa – Traditional Owner in forward to the book –

Uluru Looking After Uluru Kata-Tjuta ~ The Anangu Way

(Stanley Breeden 1994).

I believe I can safely say that for most if not all park staff the period 1990-95 was a particularly valuable period to have been living and working at Uluru, it was a time when the Anangu traditional owners were settling into the management of their sacred land which had been formally and conditionally returned to them by the Australian Commonwealth Government in 1985. The condition of return being that the park would immediately be leased back to the Commonwealth for 99 years. Nevertheless, the following decade was a particularly productive period during which the leadership of tjilpi – senior Anangu man, Tony Tjamiwa and his Piranpa liaison officer Jon Willis enabled Anangu to become more confident, assertive, capable and generous in expressing the more public and appropriate for sharing components of their Tjukur(pa) – their Lore. This was also a significant period when a new emphasis on sharing Anangu Tjukur(pa) and culture was in effect a maturing of the relatively early days of ‘joint management’, that is the management of the park by both the Australian Nature Conservation Agency and the parks Anangu traditional owners.

In addition to the above mentioned more prominent projects, several less publicised park management initiatives took place during this period, including placing a new emphasis on Pitjantjara language classes for us Piranpa staff. These classes were conducted by Anangu rangers and the few Piranpa staff such as Julian Barry and Jon Willis who were fluent speakers of the Pitjantjatjara language. As a result of these Anangu led language classes a healthy number of Piranpa rangers – mostly female I might add, became fluent Pitjantjara speakers, this too contributed significantly to the maturing of joint management. Another similar initiative was that of an Anangu led basic cultural training course cum certificate designed to enable visiting and local tour operators – particularly bus drivers most of whom until then were making up their own stories about the park and Anangu, to gain a more appropriate and approved understanding of the park and how it was now being managed, ‘the Anangu way’. While some bus drivers initially balked at the idea, at the end of such training sessions most of them had enjoyed their face to face interaction with Anangu and their better understanding of Anangu culture.

Back in 1994 I was highly motivated by Stanley Breeden’s chapter thirteen entitled ‘To climb or not to climb’ in which he writes –

‘Anangu find the compulsion to climb, to conquer, Uluru incomprehensible and also think that it shows disrespect by strangers for another people’s land.. They want people to understand Anangu and Uluru Kata-Tjuta. Understanding is everything. Once people understand, Anangu are convinced mutual respect will follow.

Tjamiwa expresses it.. We want tourists to learn about our place, to listen to us Anangu, not just look at the sunset and climb the rock..’

Nganana tatinja wia – we never climb, the Anangu traditional owners of Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park reluctantly tolerated people being allowed to climb Uluru. Unfortunately, even though Anangu had made it very clear how they felt about the climb, the pressure from the tourist industry and to a lesser extent the Piranpa agency involved in joint management of the park continued to resist its closure for too long a period. For some years in my role as the senior Piranpa staff member, I advocated for the closure of the climb having made various unsuccessful submissions to my supervisors in Darwin and Canberra. On reflection, my persistence over this issue cost me too much lost sleep and a few casual friendships. However, about 25 years later on Sunday 26th Oct 2019 Anangu and probably millions of us Piranpa celebrated the closure of the climb at Uluru.

From my relatively well informed perspective – albeit decades later and from afar, the closure of the climb at Uluru in 2019 was a well overdue move in the context of managing the park ‘the Anangu way’. Uluru is now being respected and protected in a way that better reflects its universal significance as a sacred site.

‘It is directly and tangibly associated with events, living traditions, ideas and beliefs of outstanding universal significance, and it is a potent example of imbuing the landscape with the values and creative powers of cultural history through the phenomenon of sacred sites.’

Renomination of Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park

Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories 1994

On reflection I often think about the eight years I spent in Central Australia with my then partner Marian Hill as a kind of pilgrimage. Our original intention was to experience what we thought might be ‘the real Australia’ rather than the sanitised version were were both immersed in an urbanised Victoria. Nowadays I do reflect on my time with Anangu in Central Australia as a pilgrimage into a time and place that gradually changed my mind, for the better and for ever.

Finding my own story stone.

My partner and I lived along with other Piranpa and the more permanent Anangu residents at a place called Mutitjulu, a small community within the park and just a few kilometres from the base of Uluru. Much of my recreation time was spent roaming and exploring the surrounding landscape and rock formations of Uluru and Kata-Tjuta. On one such occasion I stumbled upon what would eventually become my most influential symbolic story stone. Only after many visits and spending much contemplative time at its resting place did I eventually become sensitive enough to receive and relate to this stone as ‘ngayuku puli tjukurpa’ – my story stone. It is rectangular in shape with proportion similar to that of a standard matchbox and I estimated its weight to be close to a metric ton, far too heavy to have been moved by human hands. Therefor, I imagined it to have been shaken from its place of origin at a time when our Earth Mother – Gaia, was rumbling deep within her great Southern belly, probably in response to some powerful tectonic force. Since then and probably for millennia, it has rested on just two of its diagonally opposite edges, exposing itself to be observed, felt and related to through each of its six rustic faces. Almost three decades later my story stone continues to inspire me to imagine, study and write about the significance of relating to place at both the personal and cosmic levels. During such periods of contemplation I can imagine how the first Anangu hunters and gatherers, who having evidently produced some nearby cave art, received this impressive looking stone in their own unique indigenous way.

Once I felt comfortable about relating to my story stone in this way, it marked the beginning of the most creative personal journey of my adult life, a journey that released me from decades of entrapment in relatively ordinary, dominant states of consciousness, a journey that eventually reminded me of a time and place – Penarth, Wales 1944-50 the first five years of my life, when like many a young Anangu, I too was being nurtured by my mother to enjoy and cultivate our relationship with place, Self, other and all-that-is. The storying and importance of relatedness in general and relationship with family or kin in particular was literally brought home to me when a group of mapla tjilpi – friendly senior Anangu men, realised I had not been home to visit my kin for about 26 years – since leaving Wales in 1967, they thought I must be a bit sick in the head. Not long after this friendly shame job cum wake up call I returned home to Wales where I enjoyed relating to my family members – including young ones whom I had never met, in what for me was a new and healthier way. At the time I was in effect being reminded about and grown up by Anangu to the importance of my own Welsh place, heritage and kin.

‘Bob’s admiration for Anangu takes a somewhat different direction from that of the other Piranpa I spoke to.. He continues: “..I’m pretty sure that my upbringing had something to do with it. My mother was a very nice and gentle person who was close to nature, and she influenced me..”

Uluru – Looking after Uluru-Kata Tjuta~The Anangu Way (1994: p183)

Life back in mainstream Australia.

My story stone, and I are now physically separated by about 3,000 kilometres of mostly Australian desert landscape, to and from a place where it rests safely inside a small cave at the base of the northern face of Uluru in Central Australia. Nevertheless, since the year 2000 my story stone continues to inspire me to embark on exciting, new spiritual and political journeys.

One particularly influential story that came to me while living and working among the Anangu of Central Australia is about how and why it was not likely or even possible for Anangu men or women to form a centralised group within their tribe or community for the purpose of having power and control over the rest of the community. Prior to being colonised by European invaders who had already perfected such a practice, Ananguku tjukurpa – lore, their way of being and relatedness to place and other – including the other than human beings within their place, was such that there were no words in their Pitjantjatjara language that could so much as give rise to thoughts of power and control over each other, let alone the more extreme thoughts of forming a centralised group for such a purpose. Moreover, the initiation of young adolescent Anangu boys and girls into adulthood was particularly important for maintaining the level of maturity and cooperation that was essential for such indigenous hunter gatherer communities to thrive.

Such an extreme contrast between the forms of community, economy and productivity being practiced by the Anangu of Central Australia – prior to being invaded and divided, with that being practiced by their European invaders is a most pertinent and valuable story, not just for contemporary Australians but for the whole human race. Traditional Anangu society was a relatively free, cooperative and egalitarian society, when compared to their European invaders who were of a society that was deliberatively divided, unequal and mostly imprisoned. The indigenous Anangu of Central Australia had no need for standing armies, gunships or police forces, their relatedness to place and each other was demonstrably more mature, sophisticated and peaceful than that of their invaders. Unfortunately and maybe inevitably, in more recent times some Anangu leaders – usually men, have adopted their European coloniser’s practice of centralised power and control with a bit too much relish.

Not long after returning to live in main stream Australia, my Uluru experience aroused in me a new curiosity that soon had me doing some relevant academic study. In an effort to try and make some sense of what for me was an obvious and annoying lack of understanding and empathy toward the socio-economic circumstances of indigenous Australians among Australians in general, I enrolled to do a Social Ecology Masters degree at the University of Western Sydney (UWS). During my time at UWS I met another like minded story teller, Glenys Livingstone with her own emerging story, ‘PaGaian Cosmology – A Re-inventing of Earth based Goddess religion’. Glenys and I both graduated on the same day in 2003, Glenys gaining her Doctoral degree and me my Masters degree with a distinction. Several decades later we are still just as passionate about our storytelling together as we were on the day we met.

Since the year 2000, Glenys and I have been much inspired by the teachings of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme both of whom authored ‘Canticles to the Cosmos’ 1990 and ‘The Universe Story’ 1994. Both of these works together with our ongoing practice of seasonal celebrations that are mostly informed and inspired by ‘PaGaian Cosmology’ 2005, – (the book form of Glenys’ doctoral thesis), have enabled us to deepen our appreciation of planet Earth’s biosphere as being an awesome creative event. ‘Canticles to the Cosmos’ is based on Thomas Berry’s twelve principles of a ‘functional cosmology’, principle number twelve convinced me that if we are to develop our full personal and human potential, we will need the emergence of something close to what Thomas describes as –

an ‘Ecozoic era of Earth development’, an era during which we ‘activate the inter communion of all the living and non living components of the Earth community..’

Such was my new found appreciation and experience of creativity and beauty throughout an otherwise increasingly troubled world, that it soon prompted me to search for a compatible political story. I had almost given up on my search and politics in general when I came across this particular passage –

“In this world, at this point, no political revolution is sustainable if it is not also a spiritual revolution – a complete ontological birth of new beings out of old. Equally, no spiritual activity deserves respect if it is not at the same time a politically responsible, i.e; responsive, activity… The only meaningful political direction left now is synonymous with the only meaningful spiritual direction left now: towards the conscious re-fusion of the spirit and the flesh… This time it will be a global consciousness of our global oneness, and it will realize itself on a very sophisticated technological stage; with perhaps a total merger of psychic and electronic activity.”

Barbara Mor – ‘The Great Cosmic Mother’ 1987.

The above quote inspired me to revive and pursue the cultivation of my spiritual, social and political consciousness, to a point where I am now convinced that providing we take better care of the land that supports and unites us, wherever and whoever we are; providing we take better care of our sacred centre(s) – our Self places eg; The Uluru Declaration (a story) from the heart of Australia, we might yet enable the manifestation of Thomas Berry’s ‘Ecozoic era’.

Tjilpi Tony Jamiwa taught me how best to understand stories using the Anangu-ku principle of ‘ngapartji-ngapartji’, a particularly valuable indigenous story; like an onion, you can peal away the layers of such Anangu storying to reveal deeper and stronger meanings. For example, the outer layers of this story reveal a relatively simple ethic of reciprocity or fair exchange, then deeper it maybe that of the ‘golden rule’- doing unto others as they would do unto you. Closer to the core of this Anangu story reveals a more empathetic relationship whereby we do unto others what they would have us do unto them, a more organic understanding that has no need to distinguish between receiving and giving; an understanding whereby giving and receiving are one and the same thing.

Until this day, learning from the place and people of Uluru enables me to continue cultivating a more balanced sense of place and relatedness, it is also enabling in me a deeper spiritual, social and political consciousness than I otherwise might have.

Some of my story telling places