AWARENESS OF OUR DIFFERENCES: 7th of March 2007

While walking in Nairobi I was very much fascinated with different kinds of flowers. Each time I looked around there were so many flowers. They were in harmony with each other and added to the beauty of this place. This invited me to think of human diversity and the uniqueness of each one of us the way we are.

This week I participated in a three day workshop, which enhanced and awakened my understanding of the complexity of human nature, a thing to celebrate. The workshop reminded me of the packages of life history we carry around with us. Some of them we are aware of and most of them are in our unconsciousness. For me, this awareness makes it even more complex because I realize I still have a lot to learn about myself before I can even make an attempt to try to learn about another person. As I keep reflecting on this process, I wish that every person can have time and resources to learn about his/herself. This will make the interaction with one another smoother.

As God’s creatures we didn’t choose to be who we are. We found ourselves to be in the culture we were born and raised and this spoke a lot to me. We are all socialized in different ways according to the society we were born and raised. Now, in this era of globalization, we are even more confused because from the beginning in whatever society we were socialized we were not prepared to face the other. The meaning making system of each society is different. We are now a global community and together we are expecting to make meaning out of it without compromising ourselves.

The big blanket of each one’s meaning making system is our cultures. In this cultural package all of us carry values, assumptions, beliefs and myths. Sometimes it is difficult to identify some of the values which might be driving us to act in a certain way. When I am in my cultural context this is not a problem at all, because of the assumptions that people know what I mean. But when I am out of my own cultural context I constantly need to be aware of every word and every action. I might even need to define them because they might have different meaning to some one else who is not from my context (Chagga tribe in Tanzania). This is not an easy thing to do. In this workshop I learned that it is good to be aware of the values we have. This will help us to know why we behave in a certain way in different situations. It will also give us room to negotiate and make healthy choices for our global world.

For all of us who are looking for a culture of peace, it is very important we constantly try to learn more about ourselves and the packages we have inherited in our life history. We need not forget this proverb “you can not give what you don’t have”. This is crucial for each of us to make peace with ourselves first before we make an attempt of reaching out there. We can do this by re-visiting our values, concepts we use and the assumptions. Take full ownership of all the privileges we have in life and then make choices. We also need to be aware of our intent and impact on the rest of the world. If we are not aware of the privileges we have we will be part of the problem, because it is easier to abuse something which you are not aware of.

Having said this, going back to the scenery of flowers and their beauty, I see they have a lot to teach the human family. If each one of us takes the initiative and be commitmented from where she/he is, eventually we will all enjoy a peaceful world.