Klaus Hart Brasilientexte

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2008/11/14/hunger-nach-macht-brasiliens-wichtigster-befreiungstheologe-frei-betto-uber-den-sinn-von-bolsa-familia/

Why wish a Happy New Year when there is so much unhappiness around us? Will the next year be happy for Afghans and Palestinians or for US soldiers under the orders of an imperialist government which qualifies wars of genocidal occupation as “just”?

Are African children who are reduced to skeletons and whose look is confused by torture and hunger, happy? Can we all be happy when we are aware of the failures of Copenhagen, where profits are saved and sustainability is compromised?

What is happiness? Aristotle pointed out: it is the greatest good we all desire. And my co-friar Thomas Aquinas warned: even when we practise evil. From Hitler to Mother Teresa of Calcutta everyone seeks their own happiness in all they do.

The difference lies in the selfishness/altruism equation. Hitler thought about his heinous ambitions of power. Mother Theresa thought of the happiness of those whom Frantz Fanon called “the Earth’s condemned”.

Happiness, the most desired good, does not figure in the market’s offers. It cannot be bought, it must be earned. Advertising tries to convince us that it results from the sum of pleasures. For Roland Barthes, pleasure is “the great adventure of desire”.

Stimulated by advertising, our desire isolates itself in consumer goods. Advertising tells us that to wear brand clothing, possess a certain car, live in a luxurious condo – will make us happy.

To wish Happy New Year is to hope the other will be happy. Is it also to hope that it will make others happy? Does the cattle rancher who doesn’t pay medical insurance for his workers but spends a fortune on vets for his herd hope that others will also have a Happy New Year?

Opposing consumerism, Jung agreed with St. John of the Cross: desire does, yes, seek happiness, “life in abundance” mentioned by Jesus but it is not to be found in the finite goods offered by the market. As Professor Milton Santos used to say, it is to be found in infinite goods.

The art of true happiness consists in channelling the desire within oneself and, starting from a subjectivity filled with values, giving meaning to existence. Thus one can be happy even while suffering.

It is a spiritual adventure. Being capable of extracting the various layers which cover our ego.

However, when probing the dark corners of the inner life, guided by faith and/or by meditation, we trip on our own emotions and especially on those which “betray” our reason: we are offensive with those we love, rude to those who treat us gently, selfish with those who are generous and arrogant with those who welcome us with solicitous generosity.

If we manage to go deeper, beyond selfish reason and possessive feelings, then we come closer to the source of happiness hidden behind the ego. As we tread the deep paths which lead us to it, the moments of joy become consubstantial in a spiritual state. As in love.

Happy New Year is, therefore, a vote for spiritual emulation. Of course many other victories can give us pleasure and a happy feeling of success. But they are not enough to make us happy. A world without poverty, inequality, environmental degradation and corrupt politicians would be much better!

This unhappy reality which surrounds us and for which we are responsible by option or omission, constitutes a loud appeal for us to get involved in the search for “other possible worlds”. However, it will still not be a Happy New Year.

The year will be new if, within and around us, we can overcome the old. The old is everything that does not contribute towards happiness as a right for all. In light of a new measure for civilisation the development-consumerist model must be done away with and instead of the GDP, the Happiness Domestic Product (HDP), founded on a sustainable economy of solidarity must be introduced.

If the new enters our spiritual life, then we shall certainly have, with no miracles or magic, a Happy New Year, even if the world continues to be in discord with cruelty disguised in sweet principles and hatred disguised as loving discourse.

The difference being that we will be aware that, in order to have a Happy New Year, it is necessary to embrace a resurrection process: become pregnant with ourselves, turn ourselves inside out and leave pessimism for better days.

*Frei Betto is a writer, author of “A arte de semear estrelas” (The Art of Sowing Stars) (Rocco).

SLAVE LABOUR, WHEN WILL IT END?
(more…)