Positive Outcomes

 

I haven't been home all that long from attending my brother Marks funeral in Mackay, Queensland. I am extremely reluctant to let the death of my brother pass without some navel gazing.
One of the most irritating things I was told repeatedly by people who had no real idea of what they were talking about during the 4 days I was in Mackay was "You're just like your brother".  I found this deeply irritating because I am nothing like my brother, I didn't look like him and he and I couldn't have inhabited head spaces with less in common if we had tried.

My brother functionally committed suicide. I was told by my sister that whilst he had wet himself when he died....which we all do due to muscles relaxing....he hadn't shat himself. This means that he wasn't about to have a bowel motion....nothing in or near the rectum to expel. When I was helping clean my brothers flat out shortly after arrival on Tuesday December 16, I noticed that his pantry had a number of sweet biscuits, there was chocolate, there was Cola...the high fibre foods I had encouraged him to eat...were closed. This suggests that in his final weeks that my brother had abandoned a healthy diet and returned to one consisting solely of refined carbohydrates, sugars, caffeine and red meat. Precisely the type of diet that he had been eating prior to his first heart attack in March and cardiac unit at Mackay Base Hospital had told him not to eat. This decision to return to a diet that had nearly killed him at the start of the year was a conscious one. My brother had stopped making an effort at returning to health.

Mark's life was dominated by laziness and an unwillingness to take responsibility for his life. He took easily multiples of his own body weight in medications so that he wouldn't have to get to the messy business of dealing with his mental health issues. There was always going to be a magic tablet or new psychiatrist that would fix things for him.  Mark displayed a pathological aversion to what he needed to do and I have done. He never wanted to get his hands dirty dealing with the past and character flaws that handicapped him so clearly.

Mark wanted the positive results without the effort. The simple truth is that the world doesn't work this way. He once asked me: "What do you need to do Honours?"

I replied: "You need and passion. How fucking badly do you want it and how fucking passionate are you about it?"
This is true of life itself. The best lived lives have been those that have displayed deep passion for what they were living be it their loved ones, mountain climbing, literature, or research. The best lived lives are passionate events.
What also defines the best lived lives is responsbility.  We who live properly also take responsibility for who and what we are. We accept and admit our failures both as people and in the choices we make. You cannot rejoice in your success and passion without accepting your failures.
With my brothers life as an example of how not to live and die firmly in my mind, I have made the decision to deepen my commitment to the life changes I had begun implementing before he died. I will use my brothers failure to generate the motivation to seize the positive outcomes that he never did. My changes and decisions are permanent....just like my brothers were.

A New Start

My brother has died. The body that held Mark Daniel Bowater is now a shell laying in a morgue in Mackay.
My brother, the person is now elsewhere.
Mark, as I've said numerous times, was a much nicer person than I am. He was kinder, gentler, more patient, slower to anger and much, much quicker to see the best in people. His entire life was dominated by people who he should never have given the time of day to. People who undermined him and set him up to fail. The person who did this consistently throughout his life was his own father.
Raymond Bowater just never gave Mark a break. He bullied, criticised, undermined and encouraged the worst in Mark. Mark was abused by his parents. He was different and for this he was treated appallingly. His parents beat him with the cord from an electric jug, he was fed dog food and he was never made feel that he mattered to them. In this time my parents would have been charged with abuse.
Mark kept his father in his life until relatively recently. The incident that helped Mark make the decision to exit his father from his life was the complete lack of concern by his father when Mark had his 2nd heart attack. Mark was argued with and told the doctors were wrong. Our father knew better.  I remember Mark telling me that this was when he knew that his father just didn't care...and this realisation hurt Mark deeply.
Mark was angry, deeply angry. He felt betrayed by his parents. He spent his entire life wanting to be loved by them and they had treated him like shit. He intensely disliked most of his siblings.
My brother wasn't perfect.
He desperately wanted to be liked by people and that was his single biggest failing. Because of the complete absence of parental affection, Mark spent most of his life seeking acceptance and love. He rarely found it. I wondered out loud to Mark about a year ago, that I have so much "cunt" in me and he so little. Mark was spineless and allowed people to treat him badly. I understand that this was because his parents had planted the message very early in his life that he was worthless.
Mark was a passenger in life and never took charge of it. He was also lazy. He wanted a magic pill to solve his many problems. The absence of "cunt" meant that he never adopted a combative approach to dealing with his anxiety and other mental health issues and because of this has left this lifetime with them intact.
I hope that death has given Mark the new start he so desperately needed. He certainly wasn't going to create one. Nor were his "family" ever going to start treating him as they always should have.
I love him dearly and will miss him for a very long time. I tried to encourage Mark to be the person he should have been. And it is because of this that I know that I at least treated him as he should have been treated.
Not skillful this entry. It is however, honest.

Was Aung San a Minlaung?

 Was Aung San a charismatic leader in a Western sense, or was he a uniquely Burmese creature who used concepts deeply rooted in the Burmese psyche and worldview?

I actually had to look up charisma. The word is used so frequently that I wanted to know if I was understanding it properly. The website: oxfordictionaries.com, had this to say on charisma:

Definition of charisma

Noun

1 [mass noun] compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others: he has tremendous charisma and stage presence

2 (plural charismata /kəˈrɪzmətə/) a divinely conferred power or talent.

Origin:

Mid17th century (in charisma (sense 2)): via ecclesiastical Latin from Greek kharisma, from kharis 'favour, grace'

And this definition certainly seems to describe Aung San.

In their essay “The Rise and Role of Charismatic Leaders” published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 1965, Ann and Dorothy Wilner argue that charismatic leaders are more likely to arise in periods of intense change, in times of transition where the established order is being supplanted by a new order that hasn’t quite fully come into being. Charismatic leaders according to the Wilner’s are leaders who are without exception unifying figures. They co-opt cultural symbols. They have the ability to inspire love. Even their enemies admit to succumbing to their appeal. In a Burmese context this is true of the Minlaung, the Righteous King. It is certainly true of Aung San, every author I examined, from Viscount Field Marshal Slim to Maung-Maung, without exception remarks on Aung San’s charm[1]. Even in the midst of criticising other traits such as arrogance, these men observed that Aung San possessed a deep charisma. The Minlaung, holds a deeply central place in the Burmese concept of politics[2]. The Minlaung appear regularly in Burmese history, every time a dynasty begins to lose its hold on power, a Minlaung arises to set things straight again, they are part of the natural order of things. Far from being a relic of the past, the Minlaung is still a powerful force in Burmese politics into the 21^st Century[3].

What isn’t mentioned by the Wilner’s as a characteristic of charismatic leadership and certainly applies to Aung San, is his extraordinary intelligence. Aung San was one of the intellectual elite in the Burma of his time. Only Aung San’s political activities prevented him from completing his studies at the University of Rangoon. Had Aung San not fallen in love with politics, and in particular independence politics, he was assured of a leading role in Burma.

In “Burma: A Socialist Nation in S.E Asia”, Steinberg remarks that Aung San was viewed by some of his followers as a reincarnation of King Alaungpaya who ruled Burma between 1714 and 1760[4]. I found this deeply curious until I researched Alaungpaya.  Alaungpaya it turns out happens to be the Burmese equivalent of the Siamese monarch Chulangkorn the Great[5], who ruled between 1868 and 1910. Chulangkorn is the monarch who succeeded in avoiding Siam being colonised by the Western powers Britain and France and brought much of what is modern Thailand under the governance of Bangkok.  Alaungpaya not only founded the last dynasty in Burma, he also expelled the British in their first attempt at controlling Burma and excluded the French permanently.

The similarities between Alaungpaya and Aung San are obvious. Both of them expel the foreign coloniser, which in both cases happened to be the British, and they both unify Burma, or in Aung Sans’ case, making an effort to. Both were from relatively humble backgrounds and both of them were militarily successful. Both are remarked on for the depth of their charisma. Both emerge in a time of change. With the connection to Alaungpaya, Aung San is directly connected to the last time the Burmese were powerful and independent. At the time of his death Aung San was involved in trying to bring the ethnic minorities into the fold of a unified Burma. He is a centralising figure who is directly connected to a glorious past.

This seemed as far as the connection would go. At the point where I was about to throw my hands up in frustration at just where this essay wasn’t going, I came across an essay by Susanne Prager that tied Aung San into an aspect of Burmese culture that I have hitherto been ignorant of, and it changed everything. In her essay “The Coming of the "Future King": Burmese Minlaung Expectations Before and During the Second World War” published in the Journal of Burma Studies Volume 8 in 2003, Prager writes of a Burmese prophecy that British rule would end and that a “future or righteous king” would arise, we have already met this person and he is called the Minlaung.  

In 1939, a certain verse was very popular in Rangoon, perhaps the British knew of it, if they did, they apparently didn’t understand it.  The version of it in Prager’s essay is below.

And on the lake a Brah’miny duck alights

When with a bow a hunter bold, he killed it;

The umbrella rod laid low the hunter bold

But the rod by Thunderbolt was struck.

Prager writes that the verse was pregnant with Millenarian symbolism, with the lake being the Burmese Kingdom of Ava, the duck being the Burmese ethnic group the Mon who had been a major power in the South-east Asian mainland, the hunter being no less than Alaungpaya, last two lines of this short verse referred to the British who are the umbrella rod and that a thunderbolt was about to lay them low. Little wonder that when the Japanese invaded and rapidly vanquished the British, that they were viewed as the thunderbolt. The point is, that in 1939 the Burmese were viewing British rule as an event that was about to end. A view that no doubt caused much amusement in the halls of colonial power in Rangoon and beyond, for the British had no plans to leave Burma. In this Millenarian world view, the appearance of the Minlaung was only a matter of time. In fact he was not only expected, if anything, he was late. The portents for the appearance of the Minlaung were everywhere, the rice crops were failing, the countryside was in disorder, the peasants were becoming homeless, morals were collapsing and the Sangha and Buddhism were in decline. The Minlaung was about to set aright what was awry.

As if the above was not enough, there were events happening in Burma that were a great deal more pregnant with change and symbolism than the British apparently realised. An entire culture was in the process of orientating itself towards their expulsion.

“Whereas the newly established alliance was called “Freedom Bloc” in the English language, in Burmese it was called Htwet Yat Gaing, “Association of the Way Out.” This term alluded to a prevailing omen about the impending arrival of a magician, weikza Bo Bo Aung, who was supposed to help the Burmese in driving out the British and who would finally enthrone the Minlaung, the king to-come. After a public meeting of the Freedom Bloc in June 1940 in Mandalay, many Burmese testified that Bo Bo Aung had already revealed himself in the famous Mahamuni Pagoda (Ba Maw1968:93).

I believe that the name of the association is deeply significant. It operates on at least two different levels. The first level, as Prager argues above, is the level that is directly connected with the Minlaung, the other level is the implication that this association was The Way Out….of British Rule. That it is tied into the Minlaung prophecy only deepened the level of significance of the association for the Burmese and the depth of grief that was about to befall the British in Burma. To put it simply, the British were about to have a prophecy fall on them. I am left wondering whether the Japanese in a way actually did the British a favour by expelling them from Burma in a relatively tidy fashion when they invaded, for the impending revolt by large sections of the Burman population would have been messy to say the least.

We must remind ourselves that the Burmese in common with other Buddhist cultures, view time as cyclical, not linear. Understanding this is crucial to understanding events in Burmese history and it is not uncommon for non-Buddhist Westerners to experience difficulties with understanding time as being something other than linear. The Buddhist teaching of Anicca (Impermanence) means that dynasties, even foreign ones, are viewed in Buddhism and Buddhist cultures as ephemeral things. They come, they go. They arise, grow old and die, just like everything else. The colonial rule of the British was, in Burmese eyes, fated to end even as it was beginning. The British would come, and they would go, and the Burmese and their culture would remain.

 Another aspect of Buddhism that we must remember, and it is directly related to Aung San, Alaungpaya and the Minlaung prophecy, is the Buddhist teaching on Rebirth/Reincarnation. In Buddhism it is entirely logical and possible that you could have been in a past life someone such as King Alaungpaya. It was entirely logical and possible that Aung San could be/ could have been Alaungpaya. Theravada Buddhism teaches that it is possible to remember our past lifetimes. Alaungpaya himself as it happens, was a Minlaung.

Prager writes that the Nationalists in Burma actively co-opted the Minlaung for their own ends. Every action undertaken by Burmese Nationalists according to Prager, must be seen through this lens. Aung San and the Nationalists in Burma made calculated use of the Minlaung prophecy and were careful to be seen behaving in accordance with Burmese expectations and traditions associated with the prophecy. The formation of the “Thirty Comrades” was meant to fulfil the Minlaung prophecy. The blood drinking ceremony were loyalty is sworn, is a classic Minlaung tradition. Even the presence of a cadre of blood tied band of brothers is a Minlaung symbol. That Aung San and the Thirty Comrades left Burma and returned with the Japanese Army didn’t adversely affect the prophecy. What mattered to the Burmese was that they were Burmese fighting for Burmese independence.

According to Prager, Aung San went one step further and explicitly identified with the prophecy and presented himself as embodying the essence of the Minlaung. Aung San also identified himself as the current rebirth of King Alaungpaya (something it must be noted that his daughter cannot do, as she was alive at the time her father died. Su Kyi, however has been identified as another deeply powerful Buddhist concept. She has been identified as a Bodhisattva[6]). In Burmese terms, Aung San wrapped himself in a cloak made from two very potent threads of Burmese culture. Not only was he a Minlaung coming to restore order to Burma, he was also the last successful Minlaung returning to once again free his people from the British. Which of course with the help of the Japanese, he duly did. Aung San and the Burmese Nationalists took great care to fulfil and to be seen as fulfilling every aspect of the Minlaung. They very much wanted to be seen as fulfilling the verse I quoted earlier. We can imagine the utter potency of this to the average Burman. Aung San is not only a Minlaung which whilst important in a Burmese context, are hardly rare, he is also the embodiment of a man the Burmese looked back on with affection and pride, Alaungpaya was the last strong Burmese ruler…and he had returned for his people in their hour of need. I am left wondering whether the British ever stood a chance against such a man.

Now I will wrap this essay up. In it I have shown that Aung San was a charismatic leader, as defined by Anne and Ruth Wilner. Aung San essentially ticks all the boxes that the Wilner’s defined charismatic leaders as, in that he arose as a leader in a time of deep change, he co-opted cultural symbols, in this case the Minlaung and King Alaungpaya and he concentrated power into himself. The charismatic leader according to the Wilner’s is essential to the success of change and not too many of them are democrats by nature. Aung San is nowhere recorded as being what would be regarded in the West as a democrat[7]. What Aung San is, is a uniquely Burmese example of a charismatic leader, he was a Minlaung. At that point in time he was a completely new form of grief for the British, in that he was Western educated, understood modern Western politics and used deeply Burmese concepts in his efforts to remove the British from Burma.  Aung San stood astride two very different world views and used them brilliantly to achieve his goal of Burmese independence. Aung San was a charismatic leader, a Minlaung par excellence.

With this I give this essay into your gentle hands.

References

Aung-Thwin. M “The Return of the Galon King: History, Law and Rebellion in Colonial Burma”.

Baker. C and Phongpaichit. P “A History of Thailand”.

http://ann.sagepub.com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/content/358/1/77.full.pdf

 Maung-Maung “Aung San of Burma”.

McCarthy. S “The Buddhist Political Rhetoric of Aung San Su Kyi” page 78 of Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Published online February 17 2007

Prager. S  “The Coming of the "Future King": Burmese Minlaung Expectations Before and During the Second World War” published in the Journal of Burma Studies Volume 8 in 2003.

Slim. Field Marshal Sir William “Defeat into Victory”.

Smith. M “Burma: Insurgency and The Politics of Ethnicity”.

Steinberg. D “Burma: A Socialist Nation in S.E Asia”.

Steinberg. D “Burma: What Everyone Needs to Know”

---

[1] Slim. Field Marshal Sir William “Defeat into Victory” pages 500-5. Maung-Maung “Aung San of Burma” pages 5-15.

[2] Aung-Thwin. M “The Return of the Galon King: History, Law and Rebellion in Colonial Burma”.

[3] Smith. M “Burma: Insurgency and The Politics of Ethnicity” page 455

[4] Steinberg. D “Burma: A Socialist Nation in S.E Asia” page 114

[5] Baker. C and Phongpaichit. P “A History of Thailand” pages 52-8.

[6] McCarthy. S “The Buddhist Political Rhetoric of Aung San Su Kyi” page 78 of Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Published online February 17 2007

[7] Steinberg. D “Burma: What Everyone Needs to Know” page 142.

A poem by Kipling...thanks to Nicci Brunt

IF.....

IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!' If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, ' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Now that I'm a Father

I have no relationship with my father Raymond Thomas Bowater. I haven't spoken to him in over 4 years and the last time I did shortly after my own sons birth it was both incredibly awkward and short. How do you talk to someone who completely disapproves of who you are and the people you love? Who knows the low opinion you hold of him?

The answer for me is: I can't.

Despite this I find myself longing to have a conversation with my father.
I want to talk with my father about the joys of finally being a father after the long years of grieving for the children I thought, with good reason, would be forever denied to me.

Hello Dad. How are you?
Dad: Fine for an old man. How are you?
Me: Wanting and needing a chat.

Me: Dad, Ariel is a complete reality check.
D: Yes. Children ground you in surprising ways.
M: He is so in the moment, so immediate.
D: And that is what makes them so wonderful to be with.
M: Yes. No matter how awful the people I've been researching, being with Ariel and his friends is always a reminder of why I oppose and will fight the political Islam that is poisoning so much of what is so good. They are the breath of fresh air and complete change of mindset that I need.
D: (Laughing) I imagine they are.

D: It seems, my son, that you have finally found what it is that you have spent so long searching for.
M: Yes. There are times when I look at Ariel and I struggle to accept that he is real. I look at this little boy and just lose myself in the wonder that is him. Selina often remarks that had I left this lifetime without becoming a father that there would have been a deep sense of unfulfilment in me. My ex-wife has, apparently, never appreciated the depth of the sacrifice I made in order to be married to her after she ruled out children.

D: Yes, of course, I forget that you were divorced. How was that for you? I found it very hard.

M:  Hard isn't quite the word I would use. I ripped my world apart and then put it back together. I found the death of the hopes and dreams I had had with Seesee to be sad beyond words. I refused to let them die until it was beyond obvious that they were gone.

The utter change in my social circle was well and truly needed. Selina mentioned a deep sense of frustration in me when we met that first time. I took to resolving that frustration with a vengeance. Within 3 years I had ended 99% of the friendships I had at the time I met Selina. The era in this lifetime where I was going to accept anything other than equality in my friendships was over. I also left the temples I had spent so much time in. That was hard. I had invested so much time in them, invested so much of my self identification in them and to accept that their time, like the time of my marriage to Seesee, was over, was very hard.

I changed so much and did it so quickly that the people who had always "known me" were left looking at someone they had no clue could even exist, let alone could unleash a whirlwind of deep change in their lives. And then I left. I left deeply angry and vowing never to return. They glimpsed the beginning of the profound change.

The relationship with Seesee has been strange to be honest. I know that she took the ending of the marriage very hard. Suddenly being dumped for a woman almost a third of your age has to be a kick in the goolies. Still she seems to have dealt with it. She adores Ariel and that cuts her a lot of slack in my books. She isn't the easiest of people to live with. Negotiation doesn't seem to be part of the her makeup. Having said this, I never stopped loving her.

D: That sounds really quite positive. I've found the years since your mother and I divorced to be different. I don't think we ever really liked each other. We were little more than kids when we married. We weren't at all well matched and I think everyone paid the price for that.
 M: We did. Some of us more than others. Mark and Christopher seem to have paid the highest price. I can't really speak for the others.

D: You sound different. 
M: I do. I'm told the change is due to four years of studying Indonesian and being at University.

D: Being at Uni and studying Indonesian has changed your accent? 
M: Yep. In order to pronounce Indonesian properly I've had to be clearer in my English. Less mumbling for a start. Also Universities mess with how you think. There is a complete change in our thinking methodology. I've been taught to think clearer. Things are better organised in my head.

D: I guess given the amount of essay writing that you've had to do that this is entirely fair. You were also seriously ill in 2012?
M: Yeah I nearly died.  I picked up Salmonella from somewhere.

D: How has that affected you?
M: I have a deep interest in health and fitness. Salmonella left me with chemical intolerances, I can't touch MSG in any shape or form, so anything from 620-50 on a food label and I can't eat it and the vegetable fennel gives me migraines. So my diet these days is completely junk food free and often organic vegetarian.

D: It's been good chatting.
M: A shame we can't do it in real life.

Coldstream Brewery

The wife & I had lunch at the Coldstream Brewery on Sunday November 16 2014.
I had discovered it earlier in the week on my way to Mt Samaria State Park. On my way home I stopped off and bought a mixed 6 pack.
Today we went there for lunch. I had the chicken parmagiana with chips & salad. Selina had chicken wings starter size. I also helped myself to a pint of Pale Ale. All up $ 69.
It is VERY good. The chicken was perfect and the portion large. The chips were also done to perfection. Leafy green salad to me is neither here nor there for me.
Selina found her chicken wings to be cooked to perfection.
The view out the window isn't much, but that enables you to focus on the food and the beer, which are exceptional.
We will return and we WILL be bringing friends with us.
We rated it 5:5..close to awesome.

A Review: Wilderness Shop Box Hill

 

I visited this shop on Wednesday morning. I have been shopping at the Wilderness Shop for about 20 years. I first visited it when it was in Carrington Street, Box Hill. Back then it was a pokey little shop full of hiking and climbing equipment and enthusiastic, friendly staff. I no longer live in Box Hill, I live in Clayton, so visiting this shop required planning and about half an hour each way travel time.

Now, the staff that work there during the week days are simply awful. There needs to be a serious adjustment in their attitude, in particular the middle aged male with a beard. He just didn't make an effort to engage me....though this has been the rule with this guy. He radiates hostility. I can't figure out whether the issue is my much younger wife or the fact that she is Asian. Either way radiating hostility at the people who pay your wages just isn't smart.

As it happens I was shopping for a sleeping mat for an upcoming trek. I was shown the limited selection in the shop. I explained that at 105 kg that I needed something that wouldn't compress all that much...which the mats on display were doing. I was told by the younger staff member that such a mat didn't exist. When I replied that I had found just such a mat at Anaconda I was told that I had already found my mat. Absolutely NO effort was made to engage me, to make sure I spent my money in this shop rather than the competition. You can forget any mention of:  give us the brand and the price and we'll match or better it.

My wife is a chatty, happy woman. She tried to engage the bearded horror with no success. The guy literally did not get off his stool the entire time we were in the shop.

When we mentioned that we are expecting twins....happy news by any standard we got grunted at. No smiles or congratulations.

In the final minutes of our visit to the shop, we think a Gay couple came in, certainly two males who clearly knew each other. The bearded horror was at best indifferent...afterall why treat your customers as if they're something special? So there is clearly an attitude problem. Given the age difference between Selina and myself there are always going to be wankers who have issues with us. Extending this attitude towards a same sex couple is simply stupid.

I won't return to this shop. I can find what I want in shops that are much closer to me and have friendly staff who both like their jobs and are without the bad attitudes. This is a shame because I genuinely used to like shopping at the Wildnerness Shop.

 

The Green Credentials of Islam: A comparison between Islam & Christianity

Islam, Christianity and Environmentalism.

Islam and Christianity have so much in common as religions, that I began to wonder whether they were comparable in terms of scripture that supported “Green” practices. In 1994 The World Conservation Union published an Environmental Policy and Law Paper on Environmental Protection in Islam. This paper outlines in some depth the basis for what are now considered Green practices in the Quran. I wanted to know more. Because I am neither Muslim nor Christian, I in particular I wanted to know which parts of the Quran and Hadith and the Bible were used to ground Environmentalism in Islam and Christianity.

In the West of the 21^st Century, Islam is known for many things, most of them quite awful. What is not known in the West are Islams surprisingly Green credentials. Islam can claim with some justification, to be a Green Religion.  Christianity, which is the dominant Abrahamic religion in the West, in my opinion struggles with being Green. A comparison between the two religions in terms of their respective “Greeness” would make  for an interesting intellectual exercise.    

Environmentalism runs surpisingly deep in Islam, with people we wouldn’t naturally think of as being “Greenies”, having very clear opinions in support of the environment. The much loathed and unlamented Osama Bin Ladin certainly had Green beliefs and expectedly he used them to attack the West and in particular the US for not signing the Kyoto Protocols: Osama's concern for the environment is not exactly new-found, but it is intermittent. In a 2002 letter to the American people, Bin Laden wrote: "You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and industries." (Goldenberg, 2010).     

Apart from this a quick search of online Quran and Bibles provided the quotes below:                                           

Islam

"But seek, through that which Allah has given you, the home of the Hereafter; and (yet), do not forget your share of the world. And do good as Allah has done good to you. And desire not corruption in the land. Indeed, Allah does not like corruptors. "[Quran 28:77]

“Eat and drink from the provision of Allah, and do not commit abuse on the earth, spreading corruption." [Quran 2:60]

"Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by (reason of) what the hands of people have earned, so He (i.e. Allah) may let them taste part of (the consequences of) what they have done that perhaps they will return (to righteousness).” [Quran 30:41]

“The world is beautiful and verdant, and verily God, be He exalted, has made you His stewards in it, and He sees how you acquit yourselves.” (Saheeh Muslim)

“If any Muslim plants a tree or sows a field, and a human, bird or animal eats from it, it shall be reckoned as charity from him.” (Saheeh Al-Bukhari, Saheeh Muslim)

“If anyone plants a tree, neither human being nor any of God’s creatures will eat from it without its being reckoned as charity from him.”

“If the day of resurrection comes upon anyone of you while he has a seedling in hand, let him plant it.”

The approach of Islam toward the use and development of the earth’s resources was put thus by Ali ibn Abi-Talib, the fourth Caliph, to a man who had developed and reclaimed abandoned land: “Partake of it gladly, so long as you are a benefactor, not a despoiler; a cultivator, not a destroyer. (Bagader, 2006)

Christianity

A search using “creatures of the earth” provided these quotes from the Bible:

Psalm 104:24: How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

Romans 8:39: Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Genesis 1:28: God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Genesis 2:15: The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Christianity seems to base its environmentalism on Psalm 104 which in addition to the very brief quote above goes onto say:

25 There is the sea, vast and spacious,     teeming with creatures beyond number—    living things both large and small.

26 There the ships go to and fro,  and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

27 All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time.

28 When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things.

29 When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust.

30 When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works—

32 he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke.

33 I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the Lord.

35 But may sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more.

We can quite readily see that in Islam the scripture itself deals with the environment in a much clearer and explicit manner. The quote from the Quran 2:60 is remarkably clear when it comes to explaining how Allah feels man should behave in terms of the environment. Whereas the quotes from Genesis 2:15 and Psalm 104 are remarkably vague and actually don’t address caring for Creation at all.

To me this is quite curious. It becomes more so when we remember that Christianity arose a little over 1200 km from where Islam was born. The origins of Islam and Christianity share the same geography and semi to arid environment. You would be forgiven for thinking that they would share the same theological approach to Creation. Surprisingly they don’t. Christianity seems to stop its theology at everything being for mans use (Blocker, 1996).  In fact in their article in the “Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion” Eckberg and Blocker argue that large sections of Christianity are traditionally actively hostile to the environment. Eckberg and Blocker are far from alone in this argument. This perhaps helps explain why in the West environmentalism traditionally has been such a secular event.

Reasons for this secularism may be found in “One Body of Christian Environmentalism” by Raymond E. Grizzle and Christopher B. Barrett who argue that the reason for an almost complete absence of environmentalism in Christianity is an extreme anthropocentric perspective in Christianity (Raymond E. Grizzle and Christopher B. Barrett, 1998). Eckberg and Blocker in their paper “Christianity, Environmentalism, and the Theoretical Problem of Fundamentalism” written in 1996, quoting  an earlier paper on the subject provide us with this opinion as an explanation for Christianitys lack of explicit environmentalism: Briefly, he proposed that the desacralization of nature in Genesis 1 predisposes Christians to regard the environment as having value primarily through its use by humans, and as falling properly under human dominion. People living in such a culture could be expected to be unconcerned about the general state of nature insofar as they would be oriented primarily toward its exploitation.

With these two quotes in mind it isn’t hard to see why the teachings of the traditional denominations of Christianity in the forms of the dominant Roman Catholic, the Protestant and the various Orthodox churches and environmentalism aren’t natural companions. In direct contrast to opinions expressed in the Quran and by Islamic authors, it is almost impossible in the above mentioned forms of the Christian religion with such a clear anthropocentric world view to be an environmentalist and a “good Christian”. The two ideals are functionally incompatible.

Fortunately there is a strand of Christianity that does embrace environmentalism. The Evangelical form of Christianity is the most Green of all Christian groups (Kearns, 1997), though James L. Guth et al in their article for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion “Theological Perspectives and Environmentalism Among Religious Activists” (James L. Guth, Lyman A. Kellstedt, Corwin E. Smidt and John C. Green, 1993) do provide evidence of environmentally inclined theologians in even the Roman Catholic Church. In particular they name Matthew Fox as being a prominent Roman Catholic theologian who teaches on environmentalism in a positive light (Fox, 2014), though Fox seems to have paid dearly for his environmentalist views. His website states he was defrocked from the Dominican Order by none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict the 16^th.  For the Evangelical form of Christianity Dr Calvin DeWitt is a leading theoretician (Calvin DeWitt et al, 2014). Though all authors note that Christians who adhere to a literalist interpretation of the Bible are the ones who are the least interested in any form of environmentalism.

BioLogos which is an organisation associated with Calvin DeWitt has on its “About Us” section of its webpage these entries: We believe that God also reveals himself in and through the natural world he created, which displays his glory, eternal power, and divine nature. Properly interpreted, Scripture and nature are complementary and faithful witnesses to their common Author. And We believe that the methods of science are an important and reliable means to investigate and describe the world God has made. In this, we stand with a long tradition of Christians for whom Christian faith and science are mutually hospitable. Therefore, we reject ideologies such as Materialism and Scientism that claim science is the sole source of knowledge and truth, that science has debunked God and religion, or that the physical world constitutes the whole of reality.

 We believe that God created the universe, the earth, and all life over billions of years. God continues to sustain the existence and functioning of the natural world, and the cosmos continues to declare the glory of God. Therefore, we reject ideologies such as Deism that claim the universe is self-sustaining, that God is no longer active in the natural world, or that God is not active in human history.  

When it comes to interpreting Scripture BioLogos has this: Applying a method of interpretation to scripture passages can be a daunting task.  C.S. Lewis advises us to, “Look. Listen. Receive.” Reading and understanding the Bible is a process of discovery that goes beyond a hasty read-through. One must carefully study and seek to interpret the author’s intended meaning without projecting meaning onto the text. In order to read scripture in a meaningful and accurate way, it is logical to use what the Rev. Ernest Lucas calls the “standard methods of biblical interpretation that have been well established since the time of Augustine and the early church fathers.” Lucas, who has doctorates in both biochemistry and theology, explains that these standard methods involve asking the following five questions: What kind of language is being used? What kind of literature is it? What is the expected audience? What is the purpose of the text? What relevant extra-textual knowledge is there?  Which to my understanding isn’t all that different to what Al-Jayyousi and Özdemir put forth below as Islamic opinions. Matthew Foxs website simply isn’t as well organised as DeWitts and I can’t get a sense of if or where his environmentalism connects with his Christianity. To be completely fair, Fox seems to have left Christianity behind since his defrocking.

In direct contrast to most forms of Christianity, Islam appears to not only have put more thought into the environment, but to be positively Green. In a religion that is, in its present incarnation so conservative, Islam is devoting considerable intellectual energy in its modern form to the environment than Christianity seems remotely close to doing. With Christianity proving to be very limited in Green credentials, the only way left for us to move forward is to explore Islams Green credentials.

There is the observation that Islam is a more pragmatic religion, which fits in perfectly with Islams belief that it is the final and perfect communication from God to man. With Islam “God finally got it right” and feels no further need to communicate with us. This is why Islam directly applies itself to the matter of environmental sustainability. Islam in the 21^st Century sees that there is a problem in terms of the environment that needs fixing and is setting about the task.  As we have already explored and in direct contrast to this, in the West the very fiercest of climate change deniers are Christians.

It is fitting that an examination of where environmentalism actually fits into modern Islamic thought. Environmentalism in Islamic thought actually covers a great more intellectual ground than simply doing what Allah tells us to do, which I illustrated in the quotes at the beginning of this essay. The logic supportive of environmentalism in Islam is both circular and internally consistent. Environmentalism involves: Wisdom (Hikma), Justice (Adl), Public Interest (Malasha) and Innovation (Ijtihad). 

In page 15 of “Islam and Sustainable Development” Odeh Rashed Al-Jayyousi defines Wisdom as “the purposeful acquisition and embodying of wisdom from all nations (my italics). Justice is good governance which is based on rights. Public Interest is based on consensus within the community. Most interestingly Innovation refers to applying effort and intellectual capital to solving present and emerging problems. It also involves the reinvention of tools in order to make the transition to sustainability (Al-Jayyousi, 2012).

I think the title of al-Jayyousi’s book is, in and of itself deeply interesting. Not only does the West rarely think of Islam as being Green, we equally as rarely think of it as being sustainable, the development part of the title, the West has no problems with. Just ask anyone who has been to Malaysia, Qatar or Dubai in the last ten years and they will tell you about the massive development happening in those countries. With Wisdom Al-Jayyousi explores how Islam can, and should, go about being sustainable. Importantly and in direct contrast to Osama Bin Ladin, Al-Jayyousi leaves open intellectual and technological borrowing from, presumably the West in order to solve environmental issues in Muslim countries. The important word is “all”. To me this means that if, for example, the Israeli’s develop a solar powered desalination plant that converted gigalitres at a time, then Muslim nations would be obliged to purchase it. It also means that Muslim countries are obliged to pursue research into renewable energy technologies, which are currently something the West has a technological advantage in.

Justice is interesting in an environmentally sustainable context when we remember the opinions expressed in “Environmental Protection in Islam” by Abu Bakr Bagader et al. On page 9 of the Review, there is clear mention of plants and animals having Rights. Justice in the way that Bagader uses it is derived from the fact that all plants and animals are the creation of Allah. Given that Bagader goes on to say on page 10, that Allah created plants and animals so that they may also praise him, the concept of legal equality between humans and animals is the subject of Justice in an Islamic context. We are obliged to give justice to the environment for two reasons: the first is that, in Islam and in direct contrast to Christianity, in the first place it isnt our property. It is the “property” and creation of Allah. In the second place is that in the eyes of Allah there is as I understand it, no functional difference between a person and a goat. We are both expressions of Allahs love and wisdom and both species can offer praise to Allah. Thus justice in terms of environmental sustainability and Islam means that a Muslim is obliged to treat the environment with the same love that he or she has for Allah.

Public Interest given the interpretation of Justice by Bagader is open to interpretation. I won’t venture into the intellectual and philosophical quagmire as to whether animals have the capacity to reason. Though if we take Justice to a logical conclusion, Islam accepts that animals do have a very clear ability to engage in reasoning due to their ability to know Allah and to praise Him. However, as I said, that is a door I’m only too happy to leave closed in this essay. Though what is left open is opinion from ecologists etc., on the likely impact that an environmental project is going to have on the ecosystem where it will be located. This leaves only the Public Interest of humanity as the subject of discussion. Even with just the human community in mind, with Public Interest Al-Jayyousi is opening the door to democracy, something Islam as a religion is experiencing difficulties practising. Public Interest implies consensus with and consultation from the humans who have vested interests in the environmental project. When Public Interest is taken into account in Islam, everyone affected has the right to have their opinions heard and respected when it comes to environmental issues.

Innovation is an aspect that I have in part already discussed in Wisdom. There is a crucial difference between Innovation and Wisdom in that Wisdom is the ability to recognise superior technology when you see it and then buy it for use in your own projects. Innovation on the other hand, in English means investing in and conducting your own research into how your environmental problem can be solved. Al-Jayyousi is of the opinion that a Muslim has no excuse when it comes to rectifying environmental damage. If a Muslim nation cannot buy existing technology to repair damage from another nation regardless of either religious or ideological differences between them, then it is obliged to invent the technology needed to repair the damage.

The above is all fair and reasonable, and from the perspective of a Western environmentalist perfectly logical and acceptable…even if it does wear religious clothes. Al-Jayyousi then steps into country that I understand very few Western environmentalists or ecologists or animal rights activists ever venture into. Al-Jayyousi begins to use the words Beauty (Ihsan) and Tasbeeh (Prayer) when discussing environmental sustainability. Al-Jayyousi holds the opinion that environmentalism in Islam must restore the environment to or ennable it to remain in a state of Beauty. The logic is simple, because the environment is a creation of Allah and was created for His and not our enjoyment, it is therefore beautiful in its natural state. Because environmental damage is an act of man, and not Allah who is apparently either incapable or unwilling to damage his own Creation, it is our duty to restore it to  the Beauty that it had when Allah created it and before we destroyed it, so that the Beauty of the environment may please Allah.

Prayer  is part of Islamic environmentalism according to Al-Jayyousi because of the direct connection between the environment and Allah. I think this is a significant difference between environmentalism of Islam and Christianitys extremely limited engagement in environmentalism. To find a Muslim author that directly connects, for example, noxious weed removal or Clean Up Australia Day to Prayer is, for me, to enter new intellectual ground. If, I am correct in the understanding that Prayer is the glorification and praise of Allah, then Al-Jayyousi holds the opinion that the practice of environmental sustainability is identical to other forms of worship in Islam. To practice environmental sustainability in Al-Jayyousi’s opinion is to be a good Muslim. I simply don’t know of any Christian authorities who hold the same opinion.

Given that I have been taught that Islam regards the Quran and Hadith as the sources of all Wisdom, that they teach Justice, are in the Public Interest and encourage Innovation the loop of logic can now be closed. 

However, it is unwise to accept only one opinion on a subject as complex and as relevant as environmentalism, especially Islamic environmentalism. I will now explore a number of other opinions, “Islam and Ecology” is an anthology of essays (Richard C. Foltz, Frederick M. Denny et al, 2003).

In the essay “Toward an Understanding of Environmental Ethics from a Qur’anic Perspective” Ibrahim Özdemir covers much the same ground as Al-Jayyousi. Özdemir writes: Nature has been regarded as “the prime miracle of God, cited untiringly in the Qur’an, due to its well knit structure and regularity.” The Qur’ans insistence on the order, the beauty and harmony of nature implies that there is no demarcation between what the Qur’an reveals and what nature manifests. We can see this at once if we reflect in the way that the Qur’an invites us to, by using our intellect and freeing ourselves from the boundaries and limitations of culture and tradition, looking at everything with an observant eye in the name of God” (Özdemir page 9). In another part of the same page Özdemir writes: The Qur’an employs the perfect order of the universe/nature as the proof not only of God’s existence, but also of His unity, which is known as the “cosmological evidence of Gods existence” in the philosophy of Islamic theology”.  Thus we can see that Özdemir is in agreement with Al-Jayyousi when he includes Beauty as part of enviromental sustainability, both authors directly connect the environment with Allah.

Özdemir includes a quote from the Quran in his essay that reinforces Al-Jayyousi’s opinion that we are obliged to view the environment as being created for Allahs enjoyment and not ours: “Not for (idle) sport did We create the heavens and the earth and all that is between! If it had been Our wish to take (just) a pastime, We should surely have taken it from the things nearest to Us, if We would do (such a thing)! (Quran 21:16-17)

Özdemir takes the position: “One immediate conclusion, from an environmentalist perspective, is that every individual creature or being has its own ontological existence as a sign of God, and by its very being manifests and reveals His majesty and mercy. Therefore, every creature deserves attention and consideration for its relation to the Divine. A sincere follower of the Qur’an is always aware of the fact that “Our Lord is He who gave to each (created) thing its form and nature, and further gave (it) guidance” (Qur’an 20:50) (Özdemir page 10).

Özdemir on page 16 introduces the concept that nature, the environment itself is Muslim. When we remember that nature was created by Allah in part to praise and glorify Him and that because nature is Allahs creation it submits to Allah, this makes nature Muslim.  Özdemir then quotes a number of verses from the Quran that show, that if anything, nature is more Muslim than any man or woman can hope to be: Quran 22:18, 13:13, 24:41-42, 3:83. Özdemir in common with many Islamic scholars is of the opinion, which I quote above, that a good Muslim learns about Allah from nature. Thus we have the concept that Allah and his Creation are indivisably intertwined and that a practising Muslim stands in awe of them both. So if we were to ask Al-Jayyousi and Özdemir the question: Can a practising Muslim knowingly engage in the wilful destruction of the environment? Their answer would have to be an emphatic: No!

To balance these opinions I turn to Richard C. Foltz in his essay “Islamic Environmentalism: A Matter of Interpretation” in the anthology “Islam and Ecology”. It should be noted that Al-Jayyousi is a more recent author than both Foltz and Özdemir, who incedentally contradict each other. Foltz for all the faults in the arguments he makes (word play pun intended) finds it hard to challenge the Green credentials of Islam and quotes without attribution passages where the Prophet taught that if animals are to be slaughtered it is to be done as quickly and as humanely and that the environmental impact of conflict is to be minimised.

Foltz does go on to make the valid point that most of the Green orientated writings in Islam are being sourced from either Muslim writers resident in the West or who have been educated in the West. Which seems to be true of both Al-Jayyousi and Özdemir. Foltz then points out an all too common dichotomy and problem in Islam, in that there is a very clear gap between what the Quran teaches, Muslim intellectuals write about and what happens in Muslim countries and the latter point has little or nothing in common with the former two points. Even with this troubling and ongoing inconsistency, Foltz struggles to find where Islam is less Green than Christianity.

So it is that in this essay we have explored the Green credentials of Christianity and Islam. We have sourced not only the Bible and the Quran, but also the thoughts of intellectuals both religious and secular. The only conclusion that I was able to arrive at is that Islam whilst a long way from being completely Green in outlook is still substantially closer to it than Christianity is.

There is a very clear and acknowledged dichotomy between the Quranic teachings on environmentalism and the practices of most Muslims in the modern world. What is a source of hope is that in Islam there is the basis for environmentalism in the Quran itself and that mainstream Muslim authors such as Al-Jayyousi are actively promoting environmental sustainability in an Islamic context. Another source of hope for Islamic Environmentalism is that even people as reviled as Osama Bin Ladin expressed support for the environment...even if it was in the context of giving the Western democracies he so deeply opposed another kick.

This is in complete contrast with Christianity where the Bible has very little, if anything, that supports environmentalism. In Christianity, the dominant churches are actively hostile to environmentalism, and this is perhaps best  illustrated by the defrocking of Matthew Fox by the future Pope Benedict the 16^th for his stance on the environment. It is only in the Christian Evangelical movement, which is still something of a fringe element in Christianity is an environmentalist theology being actively promoted. It is in the theology of the Evangelical Churches that Christianity comes closest to the Islamic environmentalist theology, which is, unlike its Christian cousin, part of the Islamic mainstream teachings.

Thus it is very hard not to find that Islam has the better environmentalist credentials when compared with Christianity.

Bibliography

1.       Al-Jayyousi. Odeh Rashed “Islam and Sustainable Development”. MPG Books. London, UK. 2012

2.       Foltz. Richard C.  “Islamic Environmentalism: A Matter of Interpretation” from the anthology “Islam and Ecology”.

3.       Foltz. Richard C., Denny. Frederick M et al “Islam and Ecology”. University of Harvard Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. 2003. An anthology of writings

4.       Grizzle. Raymond E and Barrett. Christopher B. “One Body of Christian Environmentalism” .  Zygon Press. Upland, Indiana, US. 1998.

5.       Guth, James L., et al. "Theological perspectives and environmentalism among religious activists." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (1993): 373-382.

6.       http://biologos.org

7.       http://islam.about.com/od/activism/a/earth_day.htm

8.       http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/307/

9.       http://www.jstor.org/stable/1386410

10.   http://www.matthewfox.org

11.   http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jan/29/osama-bin-laden-climate-change

12.   http://www.users.drew.edu/lkearns/noah.pdf

13.   Özdemir.  Ibrahim “Toward an Understanding of Environmental Ethics from a Qur’anic Perspective” from the anthology “Islam and Ecology”.  

14.   www.biblegateway.com