'The World Will be Saved by the Western Woman' True?

This is a fairly long post (with no selling or anything added in)...but stick with me...I think it will be worth it....

So this powerful quote was recited to me by a man called James Blacker who I met the other night, it stuck with me and I looked at why it struck such a chord. Here is the quote:

'The world will be saved by the Western woman' Dalai Lama

Maybe I just liked the idea of women  being the ones to save the world, maybe I am being sexist, maybe I am forgetting my political correctness and forgetting that we are all equal. On the other hand I really wanted to explore the idea and why it may be true, perhaps you would like to explore it too...in which case read on and let me know what you think.

Why the Western Woman? The Western woman is the woman who feels free to make choices in a way that other women in other parts of the world are not. Women also have an energy (as do men when they allow it) that comes at conflict in a different and perhaps more nurturing way. So as Western women...what can we take from this and why make it our mission?

Let's look for a moment at what is going on in our world. The internet is awash with images of people here and abroad enduring unbelievable hardship, abuse, fear and neglect. I despair at those who can see the faces of these people or hear their words or read their thoughts and feel nothing more than a passing or fleeting thought of - poor thing. Then I realised that maybe I am one of those people too - I can talk a good talk and be quite vocal about why we should be more active in our actions to help others (from any country and any walk of life - this is not a post about refugees, even though I suppose that is the issue seen most often at the moment), but what am I actively doing to help? Well this blog post is my start...

I think that comes down to the fact that whilst we can care, feel bad, want to reach out and help there are some fundamental things that hold us back:

1) We don't really know what to do to help, either because there are too many options - shall I donate money, clothing, go out and find these children and take them home with me? How do I choose who to help?

2) Even with there being many options we feel there may be too many barriers - will my actions actually help much? If it helps will it help the 'right' children/people/families? Will I have to give up too much time to be able to do right by my own family if I take time out to help another? Will it cost too much? Do I have enough myself? Will there be legal or moral barriers there?

3) We always think that someone else will do it - someone else is already donating time/money/resources so I don't really need to. I'm not the best person to help anyway.

4) We don't fundamentally see it as our problem - the problems of another are not our problems, we have enough problems of our own, we should sort those out first before we help another.

5) We see ourselves as separate - that is not OUR world, that is not OUR family, that is not OUR way of doing things.

6) We fear what may happen - if we help someone out and they turn out to be damaged goods who can spread their different views, beliefs, way of seeing the world, evil thoughts and general 'different-ness' around and we might not like the consequences of that. Why invite trouble into our sights, our country, our home, our thinking?

If we are to be truly powerful then do we do this quietly? Ferociously, with fear in our hearts of what will happen if we do or don't act? In small consistent ways? By ignoring it and hoping for the best? By rallying support and shouting louder? By going out to people and talking to them? By petitioning the government? By appealing online to peoples better nature and hoping they will do the work for us? HOW? 

I am reminded of a quote that I used to keep on the front of one of my school files when I was about 14 I wrote the quote in big letters and deliberately displayed it despite the bad language. It said 'Fighting for Peace is like Fucking for Virginity' the two are opposed and incompatible. We cannot fight in order to end fighting, we cannot continue to spread more fear in order to end the fear that already exists. Writing things on Facebook like 'we have to stop these people who spread racisim - who's with me to fight these bastards?' is not doing anything other than fighting your fear by spreading it to others. How is that going to help? You are spreading your own form of fear - your fear of people who are racist, you have just done the one thing that you said you don't like about another!

So what is the answer? If we can't fight fear with fear and we can't cause peace through more fighting so how do we employ a different way that is just as powerful, just as impactive and just as immense as dropping bombs or spreading hate can be? Does the Western woman really have an approach that is better?

We have to arm ourselves with a different approach, one that we all have the capacity for, one that we all can be a part of - whether young, old, male, female, able bodied or disabled....we have to choose a different emotion, a different path from which we make our approach. You already know what it is, the question is how to use it well, wisely, without fear and in an impactful way.

I remember having a conversation with my son when he was very young, about 3 or 4 I think. He was obsessed at the time with soliders and the Zulu wars and the Battle of Waterloo. He talked about it a lot and one day he was talking about the 'goodies and the baddies' as children do. I asked him how he knew who the goodies were and who the baddies were. He replied that the goodies were the ones who were on our side. I asked him if he thought that those people who were on the side of the baddies called them baddies? He thought about it a while and said he didn't know.

We had a conversation about how if the baddies were seen as goodies by the people on their side then everyone thought they were on the 'right' side and that the other side were 'bad' so how do we know who is right and who is wrong? It was a complex thought for him and he struggled to answer but I wanted him to think about how we look at things from an early age and decide that there is always a good side and a bad side and that in the main we feel that whatever side we are on is the 'good' one.

There was a video not long ago being passed around on the internet of a lady called Brigitte Gabriel who took to task a Muslim student who said that all Muslims were being portrayed badly. Whilst we do tend to generalise and there is a fear around the radical Muslims who seem hell bent on killing Westerners because we do not fit their religious agenda - this lady (Gabriel) had a fantastic point - The peaceful majority are irrelevant. Yes the majority of Muslims are peaceful, yes the majority of Germans were peaceful in the second world war, yes the majority of Japanese and Chinese and Russians are peaceful, the majority of the West are peaceful and everyone in-between...but the peaceful majority are irrelevant...what we are all against (whatever 'side' you are on) are those who we percieve are not peaceful, those we feel are out to harm, to destroy, to kill, to maim, to injure, to hurt, to punish. We can all unite on this and this was Gabriels point - if you are a citizen of this world and you feel that the Muslim radicals are tarnishing your reputation or giving your beliefs a bad name then tell that to THEM unite to speak out against this...do not tell those who are also opposed that you do not like their opposition because you are a Muslim too and you are not radical - that is totally irrelevant.

So we need to have an opinion, we need to decide what is right according to our own values and beliefs, what is wrong and why we oppose it. We have to have a code to live by and we also need to look at how we act in the face of what we oppose.

How do we react in a way that is impactive without becoming another person spreading hate in the world? 

My thoughts on this are the following:

1) Know what you believe is right and why

2) Educate yourself to the true facts - all this fury over benefit fraud for example - did you know that the truth is that according to Government reports £1.2bn was lost to benefit fraud in 2013/14. £1.5bn was NOT paid out to those who are eligible but did not claim and £34bn was lost due to people not paying as much tax as they should. The truth is not that is it the poorest in our society causing us the greatest economic problems at all but they are vilified as human scum and those who are running a business but not paying the correct amount of tax are causing us a huge loss as a country. What you make of this is up to you - these are just the reported facts.

3) Educate others to enable them to come to their own conclusions - whilst sticking to the facts, not just offering your personal opinion, trust that others can understand just as well as you.

4) Offer space for discussion - when was the last time you truly listened to an opinion you didn't like? Open your mind to another possibility, after all we all think we are on the side of the 'goodies' maybe the 'baddies' have an insight to offer us that might help us find a way to create a peaceful solution.

4) Decide what the most loving way would be to end the 'wrong' that you see in your world - Remember fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.

5) Stop generalising - look at your prejudices and ask yourself whether you have generalised them, then look for examples where you know this not to be true. Yes, there are people who we will consider are bad (I'm not a fan of Hitler) but does that mean all people who are German, Named Adolf and who talk about the Jews in a derogatory way about to try and kill them all?

6) When you fear that your generalisations are correct make an effort to challenge them productively - so my last example of the German man called Adolf is someone who you may fear...you fear that they are just a little too similar to that other Adolf...you fear that their same prejudices will result in something bad happening and you want to stop them in their tracks...you start to shout at them, tell them that they are wrong, that they are evil or whatever...you kick them with your fear in the proverbial balls and they look at you and know that they are suddenly more powerful because you are afraid. You have not claimed any power, you have given it away. Instead, ask them questions - why do you feel that way? What examples have you had in your life where this has been real for you? Do you have any examples of when this was not true? Educate, challenge, question.

The job of the peaceful majority is not to remain irrelevant but to educate themselves and others, to be vocal about their beliefs to be prepared to do battle but with loving action and a sword far more powerful than that of the metal sheaf - with a razor sharp mind, a heart that comes from a loving place and a soul that seeks to speak to the good in human nature not to the illusion of winning over the world...but of winning the hearts of every person who is ready to stop fighting.

I will leave you with one more quote: 

“Then the Warrior realizes that these repeated experiences have but one aim: to teach him what he does not want to learn.”
― Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light  

What is it that we as humans do not want to learn? And what will we do about it?   

Love Nova xxx