Basis of Society

While visiting a friend on 25th September 2008, I managed to forget my laptop bag in the basket of my bicycle, outside the apartment block I was visiting. When I came out after more than 30 minutes, I realised I had forgotten in on the bicycle, and further, that it was still in the bicycle basket, all contents intact. Why is this important?

Much has been written about what creates civilisation. Technology, ideas such as democracy, the existence of this or other resource (like crude oil) and so on. However, in a moment of reflection, one may quickly come to the realisation that the basis on which a society seems to function is the acceptance and pursuit of certain ideals by people within the civilisation. What are examples of these? Respect for the law, people and their property, a commitment to the public good and excellence. In truth all these are not tangible, and to know whether they are being pursued, we listen to factual stories and ask our hearts how it feels. Then, the ideas mentioned are given a mental and emotional form. It does seem that a purely material world would be very crude indeed. It would have to be kept together by a series of rules, that is, dos and don'ts, which could not possibly cover all areas of life necessary to allow sufficient harmony in society.

The people who walked past that laptop bag in the bicycle basket in the middle of that night are affected by the power of those intangible yet effective ideals.

The Silent March into the Future

There is certainly no shortage of advertising by entities who claim to be promoting sustainability. Once in a while, you come across an initiative that is not widely trumpeted, but certainly moves the world towards sustainability. Such is the use of these reusable plastic containers, instead of cardboard boxes, to transport consumer goods to convenience stores in Japan. I was definitely enthused to see this, when considering the number of cardboard boxes, which are often used only once, that are being saved by the use of these plastic containers.

Look out for more of the same, such as when plastic bags are no longer given without request (or sometimes payment) at supermarkets, when a skylight or a solar water heater are installed in a building, when a concrete only neighbourhood is infused with plants, thus decreasing the heat island effect, when your town puts in a bicycle roadway...yes, the silent, elegant march to a future you can bare to dream about.

Originally published at http://dlamini-dlamini.blogspot.com/

The vanished differences: Gospel Music in Japan.

(Originally posted with photo(s) at http://dlamini-dlamini.blogspot.com/)
Day by day, it gets more difficult to find any meaningful differences between countries and regions among the human family. Here is a stark example.
15th September 2008, I was invited to go and see a friend perform in a gospel choir. "This will be interesting" I thought, given that gospel music originated from a place which seems culturally very different from Japan, where only about 1% of the population is Christian, and monotheism is not a hot topic among the part of the population which practices religion in any form.
With such ideas in mind, I entered the church with my friends. What followed was probably the most animated gospel performance of my life - all 90 minutes of it!
More than this, the congregation was really a Christian congregation, and I could sense the conventions and attitudes that I had experienced while growing up in a Christian family. Indeed, the experience was replete with no-less lively a 10 minute sermon. Amen.
Since the experience, I believe I have no choice but to remove any remaining constructs in my head that try to qualify real differences between one human group from another. I would invite the masses to do so too. Yes, we choose conventions which are not uniform worldwide, but anyone, it seems, can happily adopt the conventions and behaviour of any other group or nation, and they would most likely not manage to remind themselves to lament the loss of anything, after a couple of months
...yes, no exceptions - a Palestinian has the potential to do whatever Israelis consider most honourable, and an Israeli is capable of doing whatever it is that Palestinians consider most honourable.

God's golden carpet

(Originally posted with photo(s) at http://dlamini-dlamini.blogspot.com/)
Last autumn, while trying to balance enjoying the moment with friends, with giving due consideration to humanity's challenges, I came upon this sight.
It was a beautiful golden carpet of autumn leaves that the Creator had laid before us. It struck me how the relatively shallow science known to humanity has probably become a deity (god) in many minds, and seen as adequate to justify tearing up landscapes and replacing them with concrete. Is it always for the betterment of the human condition, or is it often driven by the blind pursuit of monetary gain (another way of saying 'limited interest')? What is the connection? Well, the sight of God's golden carpet was like the many wonderful phenomena that inspire us, like the sunrise, the rainbow, a lightning storm, a peacock, a formation of migrating birds, a flock of flamingoes, penguins taking to water, a rushing herd of antelope, the slow and deliberate majesty of the elephant, which all, without eliciting explanation or demanding social status of the viewer, show forth beauty and glory, and in a narrower sense, just sheer pleasure...and yet the destruction continues.
Why the seemingly illogical trend? The concept of social contract might hold the key. The terms by which we come together as a society are not obvious or uniform: some societies are more equitable than others, some administrative systems are less centralised than others, and so on. Why is this important? Because in a social system that upholds the right of a few to decide everything for the many, there has been the tendency to transfer between individuals and groups, the benefits and costs of our actions in the society. No wealthy family lives in a house next to a factory or power station spewing smoke, no political leader chooses to live on the banks of a polluted river. On the contrary, those with the power always seek out the spots surrounded by beautiful gardens, singing birds and a great view of the sunset. So the next time someone asks you to allow them to build a polluting factory or a large car park where your children play among the grass, trees and flowers, because they say it is progress, ask them a question: "If it is such great progress, why don't we build it in the place where YOUR children play?"

Gambling is illegal here!..

(Originally posted with photo(s) at http://dlamini-dlamini.blogspot.com/)
Gambling is illegal in Japan, according to the Criminal Code. Indeed, there are no casinos in the country. Well, sort of. There is nothing named 'casino'. Instead, special laws have been made to allow betting on horses, a lottery and so on.
Of all these 'exceptions', the phenomenon of establishments called 'pachinko', such as 'Jumbo Slot', the one in the photo, has to be the most intriguing (photo taken at JR Notogawa station, Shiga Prefecture). Pachinkos are all over Japan, numbering 18,000 (http://mondediplo.com/1998/10/12japan) - somewhat comparable to the 25,000 post offices which are generally considered to be more vital. In the pachinkos, you pay, play and then, if you win many balls (which serve as tokens), you can exchange them, typically for little slits of gold encased in plastic. You may not exchange these for cash - at least not at the same premises, so every pachinko has a little 'exchange store' (in practice just an exchange window) next to it where you can get money for the little trinkets you have won...
Indeed, has the the spirit of the law currently gone out to lunch?

Retreat from peace

(Originally posted with photo(s) at http://dlamini-dlamini.blogspot.com/)
North Korea walks into the Bird's Nest (stadium), Beijing. Probably the saddest moment in the 2008 Olympic games event was the entry of North and South Korea separately, reversing the tradition in recent games, of walking in together...
Who turned off the lights in the hearts of brothers?

Moment of Truth...how much Social Capital?

(Originally posted with photo(s) at http://dlamini-dlamini.blogspot.com/)
I walked into a convenience store around 10 p.m. on Friday 18th July 2008, bought something and came out.
I searched my pockets for the bicycle key and thought: "I must have left it on the bicycle", and indeed I had, as the photo shows. This must surely be the moment of truth for any society...the answer to the question: "how much can we rely on each other?" ...this is social capital.

This was not the first time I had done this. In fact, that very day, I left the bicycle in the covered parking at the train station, for which I pay a monthly fee for, and soon after boarding the train, realised that I did not have the key with me, which meant it was on the bicycle that it is meant to lock. I was in no state of worry as I had done this before.

It is perhaps interesting that high social capital is not considered much in classical economic measures. However, a high level of interpersonal trust lowers the cost of security measure and increases the efficiency of an economic system.

Dare I say: "If it is efficiency that you seek, then strive to make the members of the social grouping as cohesive (bonded together) as possible".