The three pillars of AID

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Ladies and gentlemen,

I am honored to speak to you on behalf of A.I.D., i.e. Association of India’s Development. I wish to say a few words about the power of our consciousness in support of mankind’s strife for dignity and freedom in face of challenges that both nature and human nature present before us .

As we have seen lately, the Tsunami disaster symbolizes the fury of Mother Nature which can be monstrous. The problems that are perpetual-- call them social problems, universal and seemingly insurmountable--are real challenges for us. It is our common destiny that glues us together as a human family. Unfortunately, it takes a catastrophe to make us realize this wisdom.

As members of this fragile global-human family, it’s upon us to see how best we can serve each other.

A few years ago, as I was concluding my last seminar at Coffee Call, yes, the CC on College Drive, some students asked what they could do to me as a returning favor for my guidance as a professor. I told them, “You owe me nothing, but…

“Do some thing to an oppressed person to alleviate her or his suffering without letting this person know what you have actually done for her. And then, feel the fire inside you that this small unnoticed act of yours has kindled inside you.” Build upon this inner power and you will feel that you have morphed into an engine of social change!

A few years later, a young man knocked at my office and he introduced himself as one of my students in a class that I had taught on human diversity and oppression. He told me that he was going to commit suicide that day… However, after listening to me, he said, he changed his mind. Instead, he went straight to South Africa. As a photographer he used his camera, and kept on talking pictures of people, who were suffering under the abominable Apartheid. Subsequently he published an award winning book of these photographs! He tells me vividly how his camera helped him to survive and help others.

I can enumerate several examples how words –simple and honest—can make a difference in real life. I can go on…but due to constrain of time, I will only summarize a few salient points of significance which have relevance to the occasion:

Never underestimate your strength as an agent of change. The little you can do will have a butterfly effect to change the world you live in. Existential philosophers whom I read and emulate call this Praxis.

If you know me and my work, I have almost single handedly launched a revolt in my profession: Social Work and its present culture has to be transformed into a new discipline which I have named as Social Praxiology! True Social work is not what you do for a living; social work is what you do to transform this wretched world!

I honestly believe: Most of our social problems are our own creations. I mean, social problems are social constructs. Social constructs can be changed and should be changed. If our knowledge, science and technology can’t help us resolve the problems created by world poverty and hunger, there is no point in getting these college degrees.

Alas, our material education only equips us to get jobs to become consumerists in a hedonist culture. Generation X has morphed into TWIXTERS who simply “won’t grow up” (Time, Jan 24, 2005). In a way our whole warrior culture is made of “permanent adolescents” who seek peace through war; virginity through sex.

If we could relate to each other on human level as human beings without racial, ethnic, gender, and class differences, and work together to resolve the problems that these hierarchies create, the world would be a better place. There will be no war; there will be no ethnic cleansing; there will no communal riot; there will be no caste lynching.

If people are dying in sub-Saharan Africa, due to massive violence and starvation, it’s not because they are underdeveloped. The evil lies in the centuries old colonial-imperial exploitation that perpetuates war and hunger in togetherness. And these evil forces are still at work every where.

Ladies and gentleman don’t be fooled by the glossy picture of our glittering advancements here and India. Poverty, homelessness, disease and squalor continue to plague this humanity which we are a part of.

There are no white and black and yellow races. These are our social concepts which we have imposed on our development. There is only one race: Human race. If you want to save it from itself, first identify yourself as a member of this global family.

Then do what Suresh, Anand, Areendam and thousands other Jeevan Sathis are doing with and through organizations like AID.

Your small efforts will boomerang; the colossus of corruption, ignorance and suffering is a hydra-headed evil. Only your consciousness, unselfish dedication and concerted efforts can overcome this danger.

In closing, as you will notice, AID’s three pillars include:

• Selfless service (“Seva”);
• constrctive meaningful development (“Niraman”); and
• nonviolent struggle (“Ahimsa”) for human rights.

Theses noble measures will involve Universal education, social justice, employment, mutual tolerance, and respect for sustainable global development and world peace.

Jan Paul Sartre one said, “Success is NOT progress.” What we need is progress which helps us stand together with our diversity.

The moment you realize this noble truth, you have already transformed the world!

Thank you for your patience and time.

Dr. Brij Mohan has been a Professor in the School of social work at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge for the past 29 years. He is also the Editor in chief of the journal called 'New Global Development' (http://www.newglobaldevelopment.com/).