Je Suis Charlie may be the most potent vaccine for an Ebola of the Human Soul that has been eating away the flesh of the human psyche since the first acts of terror were shouted in the name of Allahu Akbar.
God is Great. God is Good. But the God in all of US needs to be Better than Good. The God in Us needs to expand our whole understanding of the Master Code – to take care of ourselves, so we can take care of each other, so we can take care of this place/planet.
Je Suis Charlie is a clarion call for God to expand with compassion. But the God in Us needs to move beyond the Idiot Compassion that nurses the psychological Ebola that has been diminishing and disappearing the birthright fundamental to all the charters of human rights that we hold dear – namely freedom of speech.
Paris’s pain is a tipping point that is not reverberating just through France but across the Planet of Cities.
It feels as though the outrage at the murders of the Charlie Hebdo journalists and the police that came to defend them, has touched a deep nerve of outrage in the human psyche. Sparked not only by the public murders of real living particular people, but by the threat that a fundamental right of the human species has not merely been desecrated or denied but is verging on being wiped out. Some basic quality of our shared human systems (particularly of the Human Hive) feels invaded, injured and infected.
The most poignant news clip I heard yesterday (on January 7, 2015 the day of the incident) was a Parisian Muslim man mourning the hijacking of his religion – which he stated was one of love and acceptance – for the purposes of murder.
When the taking of life becomes the driving force behind a group of people, and the skills of guerilla warfare are practised in the streets of the City of Love, something deep in the human soul rises up to name and claim the right to freedom of speech that was proclaimed centuries ago on the bastions of revolution – with one word – liberté!
While the destruction of the New York World Trade Centre declared economic war on Gaia’s Reflective Organ – and destroyed more people and more built value than Paris 2015; while the hijacking of women and children by ISIL and Boko Haram has declared bodily war on future generators and progenerators of the Human Hive; the effrontery of the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris declares war on consciousness and culture that is not merely Parisian or French, but fundamental to the evolution of the human species. Such a war is an Ebola of consciousness and culture that threatens to erase stages and structures that the wellness and the future of human systems depend on.
VUCA – violence, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity – all characterize the Charlie Hebdo tipping point. And ironically to all those who can view Charlies with horror, they know somehow the most powerful forces that can address these plagues rest in the free flow of all forms of expression.
Free speech is not only an individual human right but a collective human necessity to advance awareness, intelligence, innovation, and discovery. Moreover it is central to dealing with our shadows. Free speech mirrors free thought and the reflective capacity that is the unique quality of Gaia’s Reflective Organ. It is what opens and enables the flex and flow of information across all human systems.
Paris’ Charlie Hebdo incident is a flashpoint warning to all the Cities of the Planet that an evolutionary intelligence may be in peril. Are we witnessing an Ebola of the Soul that starts by destroying the offices of a cultural commentator (using spoken/written word, humour, satire) but threatens the free expression of consciousness and culture across the world?
Or can we walk into the centre of this soul-eating war, and use it as a fulcrum to transcend and include freedom of speech to another level? Fighting Ebola of the body requires multiple and complex strategies to care for individuals, communities and countries (if not the planet). Care givers use the armour of hermetically sealed medical suits to rescue and treat the ill. Then they have used the strategies of Tough Love to separate the carriers of the disease from the rest of the community. And where necessary they separate afflicted communities from other communities by preventing mobility between them. Recently trials show one of the most effective treatments is blood transfusions from survivors to the infected. And with the art and science of innovation now vaccines are being developed to give healthy people preventative protection from the disease.
Learning from the experience of living systems, perhaps fighting Ebola of the psyche requires empowered protectors to take similar steps to expunge the hive from invaders against free speech? But it may also require separation of communities and the willingness of survivors to develop ways to inoculate others against contagion.
The greatest burden with this approach lies in the believers of the religion (Islam) that has spawned this Ebola of the Soul to stand against those who deny the value necessary for human life to progress on this planet.
As a species, perhaps we finally stand at the developmental stage that recognizes that some forms of expression are toxic at certain stages of individual and collective development and/or under VUCA contaminated life conditions? How can we learn to manage the scourge between cultures when we are not yet managing well the scourge within cultures? Are we finally ready for the Human Hive to catapult the defense of the right to free speech into opening an offence on the responsibility of free speech?
Who said living the Master Code would not require that we transcend and include the God in Us?
How do we now best call forth the God in Us to take care of ourselves, take care of each other and take care of this place/planet?
Beautifully said, Marilyn, and I’m sharing your passion about this. I especially resonated with this paragraph:
“Free speech is not only an individual human right but a collective human necessity to advance awareness, intelligence, innovation, and discovery. Moreover it is central to dealing with our shadows. Free speech mirrors free thought and the reflective capacity that is the unique quality of Gaia’s Reflective Organ. It is what opens and enables the flex and flow of information across all human systems.”
Perhaps this incident in Paris involving a couple of dozen killed and injured will call attention — as your blog so powerfully amps up our attention to the general issue — to the fact that in the Big-Lie-named “People’s Republic of” China, probably that many are killed, tortured, or imprisoned EACH DAY for many decades, in the suppression of free speech in that country which has been going on for decades now.
Thanks Alia – I appreciate your widening our lens and expanding our awareness to embrace China and the other places where people’s voices are unheard or forgotten. Since I wrote this the size of the support for “Je Suis Charlie” seems like it might registering on Dean Radin’s random generator as a moment of coherence in our collective awakening. TBD. (I hope so 🙂
Researchers of a new study have investigated the association of transformational leadership and spiritual intelligence. The study finds that spiritual intelligence in its dimensions has significant correlation with Transformational Leadership. You can find the complete study here http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/JSAR/2013/319474/319474.html