To me, justice is about healing. As a child, I was molested by my now deceased father when I was small and became very fearful of so many things. That is what abuse and exploitation does to the innocent. It robs them of their potential for a fulfilling life.
As an adult, I could not heal until I learned that unresolved issues are passed down in families, from generation to generation. How far back, I asked?
The answer became apparent to me: to the beginnings of man. Of humankind. I did not truly begin to heal until I began to realize what life was like for centuries, millennia, for the ancestors and humanity which seemingly could not heal. The more I looked, the more I came to realize that we are a global family, and the dysfunctions of violence, poverty,war, sexual assault, exploitation of scarce resources, pollution are all the underpinnings left over from antiquity. It is only in the last century or so have we been able to truly understand the magnitude of our human experience, our place on the planet and the universe. The final frontier I believe is the healing that’s needed for our human minds, our collective human experience.
To me , global justice is healing our global family, by recognizing that we are all individuals – no matter our gender, or ethnicity, our social status – with the same human developmental needs and rights, that if met, will enable us to reach our fullest human potential. By honoring and respecting our innate desire to reach our fullest potential we are able to contribute productively to making this world a more safer, peaceful and loving planet on which we can live sustainably in ways our collective ancestors have always dreamed of, but could never fulfill as we can now on the cusp of in the 21st century. Never before in human history have we had the technology to communicate anywhere in the world, to see and embrace and understand that we are all the same, no matter where we live, still craving the same peace and security our ancestors have lived and died for.
I believe in educating people about Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, http://www.altruists.org/ideas/psychology and Erik Erikson’s 8 stages of man. http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html. We now know what our ancestors never knew — how trauma, shame, affects the psyche and if unresolved is passed on to the next generation. Since antiquity, cur collective ancestors have always cooperated peacefully based on their environment — if Mother Nature was good to them and healthy cooperation was the norm. But for those in extreme conditions, they had to resort to violence and warfare to compete for scarce resources. Our men had to do what they needed to survive and quite often the most brutal minds were the ones who survived by violating other men and women. But this trauma to their psyches was never resolved and instead passed down from one generation to the next …. violence, patriarchy, warfare, excess capitalism, destruction of the environment because there was no technological means to quickly resolve scarcity in desperate times. Unlike today, where information and resources can be exchanged anywhere in the world, instantly or “overnight.” So unlike the days of even a generation ago. There is so much hope. That is the beginning of healing.
In order to heal, women must health from within, and also help their men to see that it’s time for them to heal our sicknesses rooted in antiquity through no one’s fault, other than it is what it is to be a mortal, a human being, a child of god and the universal life force. Women’s, men’s, family’s and the earth’s healing is not possible unless patriarchal roots in abuse, warfare, trauma are addressed and healed. That is true Global justice. Global Healing is Global Justice.
And it begins with healing our global family.
