The Separation between State and Religion

In time we will realize that Democracy is the entitlement of individuals to every right that was in its times alloted to kings. The right to speak and decide, to be treated with decency, to serve and be served by people in a State of “love” that is, to serve with one’s work for the development of ‘life’. To belong to the Kingdom of Human Beings without racial, national, social or academic separations. To love and be loved. To die at the service of the whole and be honored in one’s death, for one’s life and work was legitimately valued. To be graceful and grateful. To have the pride and the humility of being One with the Universe, One with every realm of Existence, One with every living and deceased soul. To treat with dignity and be treated with dignity for One is dignified together with All others and Life itself. To walk the path of compassion, not in the sorrow of guilt but in the pride of being. To take responsability for one’s mistakes and sufferings and stand up again and again like a hero and a heroine and face the struggle that is put at one’s feet and in one’s hands. Millions of people, millions and millions of people might take many generations to realize the consciousness of our humaneness but there is no other dignified path for the human being.

The “work” as I conceive it is psychological and political. Psychology is the connection between the different dimensions within one’s self and Politics is the actualization of that consciousness in our practical lives. Religion is the ceremony that binds the connectedness between the individual and the Universe. The separation between religion, politics and science, the arts and sports is, in the sphere of the social, the reflection of the schizophrenia within the individual and the masses. The dialogue between individuality and the "human" belongs to consciousness. The tendency to develop cults resides in the shortcomings we’are finding in life as it is structured today. “Life” has become the private property of a few priviledged who cannot profit from it because as soon as it is appropriated it stops to be “life” or “life-giving”.

We are all the victims of our own invention and each one is called upon to find solutions. The only problem is believing our selves incapable of finding them. We are now free to use all Systems of knowledge objectively, sharing them without imposing our will on each other. To become objective about our lives means to understand that the institutions that govern its experience are critically important. That we are one with the governments, one with the religious activities that mark its pace, that the arena’s in which we move our bodies and the laboratories in which we explore our possibilities are ALL part and parcel of our own personal responsibility. That WE ARE ONE WITH EACH OTHER AND EVERYTHING AROUND US and acknowledge for ourselves a bond of love in conscious responsibility. That we human beings know ourselves part of each other and are willing and able to act on our behalf for the benefit of each and every individual. That we no longer allow governments, industries, universities or any other institution to run along unchecked by the objective principles of humaneness. That we do not allow gurus to abuse their power or governors to steal the taxes and use them to their personal advantage in detriment of the whole. That we do not allow abuse from anyone anywhere because life is too beautiful to do so and that we are willing to stop the rampant crime with the necessary compassion Conscious knowledge is every individual's right. Conscious action is every individual's duty.

Blog Archive

Tuesday, 4 May 2010

Civil society and social partnership


Civil society and social partnership: alongside neoliberalism
The concept of social partnership envisages a corporatist model of social
policy based upon co-operation between government, market and civil
society. Jones and Novak (1999, p. 83) note that partnership in the UK
casts the state in the role of facilitator for the market and that it is essentially
‘a partnership with big business and few people else’. Mandell (2002, p. 83)
shares this view of partnership in the UK, which she links to the ‘New
Public Management’ strategy and similar policy approaches in other
English-speaking countries. Ling (2000, p. 89) argues that partnership is a
new form of governance in response to a growing democratic deficit,
which is eroding the legitimacy of the state. He adopts the Foucauldian
concept of ‘governmentality’ and asserts that civil society is being drawn
into ‘a new strategic arena’. Ling concludes that governmentality (which
ultimately means co-option to a new and more subtle form of governance)
‘is a double-edged phenomenon with both an inclusive dimension and a
more worrying authoritarian dimension’ (Ling, 2000, p. 90).
Marxists are highly critical of social partnership. Allen (2000) argues that
social partnership in Ireland has been used to distribute wealth by stealth to
the rich and co-opts dissenting voices. But, a national survey by Powell and
Geoghegan (2004) of Irish community development organizations indicated
a predominantly benign view of social partnership among community acti-
vists, despite reservations about the poor quality of dialogue between the
partners and lack of shared vision. However, the authors conclude that
social partnership represented a new narrative of governance in which
community development was at risk of becoming a paid arm of the state.
Not all commentators would accept such views of social partnership as
governance by social control. For example, Batliwala (2002, p. 406) observes
that grassroots movements are seeking to democratise partnerships: ‘These
are partnerships between relative equals – each brings to the engagement a
different source of power but that power is recognised and acknowledged
by the other ’. In this form, it is possible to view partnership in a very differ-
ent light, as an exercise in ‘democratic experimentalism’ (Sabel, 1996).
In reality, partnership is likely to be influenced by its structures and the
relative power of stakeholders, as well as the quality of dialogue and
respect that exists between them. These stakeholders may include many
progressive voices, with a strong commitment to the idea of social justice.
It is important to remember that organizations geared towards social
change, including trade unions, voluntary and community organizations
and, indeed, political organizations, have a tradition of self-governance
with strong local roots. They are not the creations of a central state appar-
atus. Co-operation at local level through social partnership consequently
has a more tangible sense of democratic inclusion. However, there is a
real threat. The autonomy and vitality of social partnership risks is suffo-
cated by the centralized bureaucracy of the state, with its tendency to repro-
duce hierarchies of power at local level. Effective social partnership
envisages the state as ‘enabler ’ rather than ‘enforcer ’, assisting and empow-
ering local initiative to combat social exclusion and promote inclusive
democratic forms that harness the participative potential of community
development. 

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