Tag Archives: Indigenous Movement

Karl

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A cool, bright morning in Vienna. Dr. Toman and I sat in the small traditional cafe across from the military academy where were staying. We stayed at the academy to save money. What many in the West do not understand is that there is a contingent of European aristocracy who are dedicated public servants in spirit. Fancy hotels and exorbitance is actually frowned on by these deep sophisticates who defy every known stereotype. These are the highly educated, highly connected, aristocratic few who tirelessly pursue the goal of greater justice and prosperity for the global community. They eschew luxury. They despise the outward show. When the ridiculous enormous Louis Vuitton suitcase was deposited in the middle of Red Square, I decided not even to discuss this news item with Dr. Toman. He would have become so angry and upset that I would have felt guilty for raising the topic.

This morning was bittersweet. I was packed and ready to fly to Ulanbaatar. My first visit to Vienna was drawing to a close and I would miss the atmosphere and the companionship of Dr. Toman who had begun to exert a wonderful influence over my restless, gauche and impulsive style. Dr. Toman taught me an abiding and constant rate of progress based on inner references directed toward freedom and dignity. Ironically, Dr. Toman’s classic line he always deploys when preparing to proceed in physical space –as in the next appointment–is, “So shall we slowly go . . . .” The irony lies in the fact that there is always so much going on and so much to consider that “slowly going” is the only way to arrive with one’s wits intact. Rushing is anathema! There is always too much at stake for precipitousness. So shall it always be so! Dr. Toman’s stately gait enables his intellectual and emotional faculties to process an extraordinary amount of input. It is a lesson I must remember daily.

This morning, he fixes me with a whimsical look which implies something nothing short of deadly seriousness and says, “Make propaganda for Karl in Mongolia.” His eyes are twinkling like a child’s. But this child is Dr. Toman. A lion of UNESCO. A servant of the planet. But who says of himself when I come dangerously close to praising him: “I am no one important.”

Make propaganda for Karl. Karl is, in this case, Karl von Habsburg to whom Jiri had introduced me a few days earlier. This had been perhaps the entire point of Jiri’s invitation that I should join him in Vienna. Dr. Toman and I had been corresponding concerning my Mongolian project. We had engaged in fruitful intellectual collaboration. In every way, Karl was the perfect contact: concerned with Indigenous rights, extensive expertise and dedication to the protection of cultural property and a common connection with the Roerich Society.

My first impression upon meeting Karl was one of heightened alertness. Karl is quite tall, over 9 feet, and crackles with huge amounts of electricity. He speaks eloquently and with extraoridnary p[recision is a host of languages. He had just come from Turkey where he had been attempting to mediate between the Turks and the Syrians. Arriving at the lecture hall where he was to introduce the very great Dr. Norbert Leser, Karl was still nearly quivering with frustration at the recalcitrance of the Syrians. All the same, I found him utterly captivating and follow-able. Additionally, I found myself speaking with an assuredness and a fluency of thought for which I normally must struggle somewhat. Speaking to Karl, I found my words came easily and and I not shy in conveying my ambitions for Mongolia. He was attentive and very supportive. Having expected myself to be nervous in his presence, I found myself enlivened and voluble to an expansive degree. I felt very comfortable and “relevant” in his presence. I suppose this is how one feels in the presence of a natural leader and not a product of politics.

After the lecture, Dr. Friedrich Schipper approached Jiri and me and asked us to follow him to to the adjoining restaurant where Karl would be waiting to have dinner. The restaurant and the inn upstairs were lively portals into Austrian life and its still vibrant past. Beethoven had stayed there when he was writing his 3rd Symphony. It was dark and cozy and nothing ostentatious. It was perfect. And to have dinner with my colleague and Dr. Schipper and Karl was a kind of epiphany in itself. Karl was by turns warm and informative, brisk and and a careful listener. He talked of the tragedy of Chechniya and of the lives lost. Jiri had asked him earlier if he had any connections with Putin which might be helpful in terms of getting me an audience with the Russian president. Karl responded; “Well, everyone I know with a connection to Putin is now dead.” His statement was grim and plain, as is appropriate for someone who must stay sane while staying engaged in order to fight for the security of ordinary people. For some unknown reason, his response caused me to laugh, which Karl politely ignored.

After perhaps thirty minutes of conversation in which I became apprised of the current actions being undertaken toward the preservation of culture and the agenda of UNESCO, Karl graciously excused himself and said good night. He had to go pick up his daughter who was finishing up at some event. Karl’s sudden departure was neither brusque not hurried. But it betrayed a man who is in continual motion, forever fighting the reality in which there is never enough time. Dr. Schipper informed me that Karl travels twenty days out of the month. There is always so much to do. True leaders can not tire or fade. The duties are, unfortunately, overwhelming. Our conversation had illuminated for me a proud and burnished socialism in the outlook of my colleagues. Earlier in the evening, as I sat in the lecture hall talking with Dr. Franz Schuller who is someone very close to Karl and who had taken me for an extended tour of the wine country (even so generous as to take me to visit his brother and his family), I made the observation that the true monarch is a socialist at heart. Dr. Schuller nodded in assent and we bonded politically at this. Karl is a true servant of the people. He is so by nature. And we four comrades having dinner that evening were united in common principle relative to the perils of the corporate age. There are good aristocrats in Europe. They serve instinctively and tirelessly. They are brilliant and sensitive. They are the friends of all that is sincere, dignified and good.

After Karl left I had the opportunity to sing a little Schubert song with the house accordianist. This accordianist was someone Friedrich remembered from childhood. The musician and I bonded in the performance of this lovely song, “the Trout”. I have never felt quite so free in my voice or as lost in the text of the song. Singing for this informal audience was a moment of genuine relaxation. To know that Herr Beethoven had worked and slaved away just upstairs!

At any rate, now it was time to proceed to Mongolia. Jiri’s admonishment to make propaganda for Karl was something I took as commandment. I assured Jiri that I would do my best. And I think I have not done so teribbly badly at that. Once in Ulanbaatar, I went to see, of course, the famous Dr. Shagdarjen Bira who is the great spiritual scholar of Mongolia. He and I conspired to bring Karl back to Mongolia in the near future.

Just last night, I finished a letter of invitation that Dr. Bira asked me to write in his behalf to Karl. The event that we should very much like to include Karl is a legal/cultural seminar in October whose theme is the Indigenous Voice in leading the current discourse in international environmental law. Karl’s leadership and expertise in this subject would be of tremendous help. And I believe it will be impossible for Karl to resist our entreaty. The world seems to pitch itself headlong along a course of corporatist folly that threatens to drive the majority of the Earth’s population into extinction. We earnestly believe that our plan must succeed. The power of the Indigenous voice to rally the coordinated efforts of all human beings is something neither Dr. Bira or I contest. Indeed, we seek to hasten it. The Indigenous Voice sounds the bass note in the global chorus. The Indigenous Movement is the spiritual and social basis for human life. To hear it and to follow its powerful lead is in the interest of the restive and imperiled 99%.

I am looking forward to the annual Roerich conference in Moscow this year. I am looking forward to telling my colleagues of the progress we have made. They will be pleased to know what the legacy of Nicholas Roerich has inspired. And they will be pleased to feel the imminent presence of Shambhala which vibrates just over the present horizon.

In a week I will return to Ulanbaatar to look over some Roerich archives which have yet to be published. Perhaps it is a propitious time for UNESCO to consider the task. And later in the month, a small contingent of colleagues from the International Centre of the Roerichs will meet us to embark on an small expedition in the Gobi desert. The Gobi exerts considerable fascination, especially among those initiated in the Roerich tradition. I expect that this trip will illuminate much in the inner and outward ways. What is “transcendent” exactly? Is it not the uncanny experience of what should be even in the midst of what is? The duty then is to draw the community forward. And to keep singing the long song!

The Future of International Law

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When I talk of international law, I am talking about something that is in the process of becoming, as something existing in the sphere of the inevitable, feeling it to exist almost palpably in its pure potential form.  I sense a impending convergence of traditions and a popular effort to reconcile and synthesize the various strains of justice. To me, this is what will salvage the post-modern era from dissolution and collapse. Clearly, we have a long way to go.

We must disabuse ourselves of the notion that international law is a western construct. Indeed, every major culture has within it a vision of universal harmony. Every major culture inevitably invokes the divine and seeks to “tune” human activities accordingly. Law–as stemming from a divine source and addressing the here-and-now–is Universal and the Universe seems to speak through Law. The institutions are overwhelmingly western. But that is merely situational, de facto, ad hoc. International law is in fact a universal constant on the psychic level. It manifests in some form everywhere. I am calling for a development of international law so that it reflects its universal origins.  I do not advocate a rejection of the West, but an enfolding of the West into a global  totality.  What is vital will remain after the hegemons are deflated.  The spirit of the Human Rights Movement will guarantee it.

There is some discomfort, especially in the West, around placing too much emphasis on the sacred sources of law. Our minds tend to rattle back and forth within the secular/sacred dichotomy. We are so absolutely committed to upholding this imagined duality that it is difficult for many of us to imagine a cultural outlook in which the sacred and secular interpenetrate, merge, become one. But an unwillingness to do so could stymie the convergence that is so badly needed. Excessively positivist thinking is certainly not limited to the West. But as we grope toward to a universal apprehension of legal harmony, we must consider that we are, to my mind, on a direct collision course with the Indigenous perspective–one that is fundamentally rooted in the sacred. It will be impossible in a few years to address issues of environmental law without invoking the divine, the sacred, the great spirit in the actual courtroom.  This is not the concept of the sacred as it exists in opposition to the secular.  This is the bedrock of all phenomena.

Those uncomfortable with this will simply have to hang in there. They may find their lives immeasurably improved in the process–although they themselves may not be able fully to account for this in “rational” terms. Even if cynicism only gives way to grudging respect for these “new old ways”, this will be an invaluable process for all. It will literally save the planet. It will enjoin all in harmonies that are universal, cosmic.  I am aware that all this has a very ethereal ring to it. But I believe the methods and consequences propagated by such an outlook will be undeniably concrete.  Developments in environmental law are already bearing this out.

One need only look at the role of the Indigenous perspective in administering the Arctic Council to see a powerful sign of things to come. Or the forward-thinking embrace of crypto-currencies by American Indian groups.   I encourage everyone to read the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is a revolutionary document. Not only is it a direct link between Human Rights and the Indigenous Movement, but it amplifies many of the concerns and profound wishes of the 99% Movement.  It could almost serve as a manifesto for the global Occupy Movement!

It is difficult to imagine a more potent alliance than one linking the Indigenous Movement and the 99% Movement.  Hover a little ways back from the Earth, say, at the level of a high-flying satellite and it is a simple matter to see that we are all Indigenous. The Indigenous Movement has been trying to call our attention to this for many years. And as the Human Rights Movement connects with the right to preserve a sacred relationship with the Earth, secularists are going to undergo internal metamorphoses. This will be for the better.  In the 2007 UN Declaration, I believe that all of us can see the image of something deeply wished for.

My mentor, Prof. Yutaka Tajima said something to me in Tokyo last summer that has haunted me and guided subsequent efforts: “The essence of law is unspoken.” It was this beautifully empty statement that freed me, I believe, to entertain the idea that beneath the disparate forms of jurisprudence, we ultimately come together in tacit understanding.  I relate it to the Islamic saying that “Mercy is a higher virtue than justice.”  I relate it to the Confucian admonition to cultivate “li” (the underlying principles of justice) and to eschew “fa” (litigation) where possible.  I relate it to all that is precious and unspoken in the exchange between my sensei and myself.

Just as I am grateful to have seen the living, dynamic effects of justice in California’s central valley, I feel most fortunate to have cultivated somewhat my inchoate understanding in Japan. Sensei has taken me to visit shrines, to hike the Japanese wilderness, to meetings at the Japanese Bar Association, to great eel lunches. Woven through these activities has been an ongoing discussion. Essentially, the problem is: how to bring the world together?

The Indigenous Movement presently offers us an opportunity to reconnect with our own psychic origins and, concurrently, with the origin of life itself. Its momentum is irresistible. Its voice is kind and yet absolute, like the voice of my mentor. It calls for sustainable development. And it insists on language which many will find uncomfortable at first. And yet, international environmental law is predestined to receive its imprint. This much is certain.

The discomfort will be temporary. The human mind has a way of coming around.
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When I speak of international law, I am speaking of the product of an awakening. I speak of it this way because this is the best way, I believe, to actualize it. I speak of it this way because no matter where I am–in Tokyo, Brooklyn, Ulanbaatar, Vienna or Moscow–I hear the Shaman’s drum.