Just for show?

In the photo is a vehicle with a sign showing commitment to stop idling, the practice of parking a car and continuing to run the engine, which is common in Japan.

It is clearly better for a car not to idle than to do so. However, are such campaigns of much value when the companies that operate the vehicles, and the cities and countries of which they are citizens in, face no limits on CO2 or any other pollutants? If one　cannot idle a vehicle, but can drive as far as one can, emitting as much CO2 as possible while conducting business, what has one achieved? There has indeed so far been little incentive to reduce the CO2 emissions from vehicles.

Such is the international situation currently when it comes to CO2 and other pollutants. What good is a little here and a little there when we set no overall limits?

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.