Category: life rights

#HumanistBecause…

Why am I a Humanist?

I look up at the sky, at the complexity and wonder of our natural Universe – so much more than we currently understand – and I marvel that I am a part of it.

Photograph: Moon from Mansfield (c) 2020 by Kirsten Trecento.

What does Humanism mean to you? A #hashtag campaign being run by Humanists UK encourages people to publicise what Humanism means to them: “share and celebrate the values and convictions that underpin [your] approach to life.”

For me, I see Humanism reflected in people and events from my past, present and future – even those who may not self-identify as Humanist, because their attitudes and actions reflect the basic philosophy of respect for common humanity and other Humanist precepts.

For a start, Humanism allows us to balance our scientific curiosity with our sense of wonder and transcendence:

I recall one woman whose children were students of mine. She was a friendly, happy woman who instilled in her kids a happy countenance and a keen desire for learning and knowledge. Sadly, she passed away from cancer, and I attended her funeral as a mark of respect. Her teenage son greeted me with a pleased smile, a warm handshake and a friendly chat. Even in his grief, he was facing reality with a cheerful disposition. We talked about his studies and his hobbies in Science. He told me that the night his mother had died, he had gone outside to study the stars and to marvel at the Universe. I wished that I was half the educator his mother had been.

Our perspective as humans should not blind us to the present-day accusation of speciesism. Humanism should demonstrate our humane respect for the interconnected web of life across this planet:

An elephant or a dolphin or a chimpanzee isn’t worthy of respect because it embodies some normative form of the “human” plus or minus a handful of relevant moral characteristics. It’s worthy of respect for reasons that call upon us to come up with another moral vocabulary, a vocabulary that starts by acknowledging that whatever it is we value ethically and morally in various forms of life, it has nothing to do with the biological designation of “human” or “animal” (Natasha Lennard and Cary Wolfe, The New York Times, 2017.)

Humanism can be found in a future for which we must strive:

Whether it is #MeToo or #BlackLivesMatter, the Global Climate Strike or Marriage Equality; whether it is peaceful protests and call for political change in Hong Kong or Nigeria or Thailand or USA; we see progressives – especially younger people – demanding change. They want to live in a better future, and they are prepared to make it happen. I see the same in the ongoing saga of local Humanists as they seek to expand beyond their traditions, and in the imminent birth of Humanists Australia, a (hopefully) twenty-first century form of activism that focuses on common humanity. I find inspiration in popular literature that optimistically conflates science with the human condition. Our future visions are perhaps best encapsulated by Star Trek creator, humanist Gene Roddenberry, who proclaimed: “We are a young species. I think if we allow ourselves a little development, understanding what we’ve done already, we’ll be surprised what a cherishable, lovely group that humans can evolve into.” For Roddenberry, and for millions of us who look to the future, the human adventure is just beginning.

For me, Humanism is greater than a faith-based philosophy. It reflects the evidenced reality that humanity is evolving into a better species due to the rise of Humanist thought and values. I am proud to add my own small, humble contribution to that quest.

And perhaps most exciting of all – we are all on that journey together.

© 2020 Geoff Allshorn

From Holocaust to Humanist

Halina and Geoff (left), holding aloft the Humanist banner at a Marriage Equality Rally, Melbourne, 24 Nov 2012. Photo (c) 2012 by Michael Barnett.

Halina Wagowska is a Holocaust survivor and a Humanist. She is also the author of an autobiography, The Testimony, published in 2012. Halina has been a human rights activist for decades and I feel privileged to call her a friend. She agreed to be interviewed for this blog, utilising postal correspondence during the days of COVID-19 lock-down.

1. How did you survive the Holocaust?

In the labour camp, my parents insisted that I eat part of their meagre food ration because I was growing fast. That enhanced my chances of survival and diminished theirs.

Prolonged incarceration combined with danger and the unpredictability of each next moment, required adjustments and survival mechanisms. Mine was to regress to a primitive state where all my tiny wits were focused entirely on the precise moment, interpreting sounds, silences and movements, all in terms of approaching danger. Rather like a small creature in the undergrowth of a jungle full of predators. I was too young to see the ‘big picture’ or to reflect, which would have kept me off guard. I believe that gave me an advantage over those whose high intellect did not allow for such regression.

2. What are your most powerful memories of the Holocaust?

The death of my mother in my arms in Stutthof. Loading bodies brought from the gas chambers into crematoria ovens in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Being beaten, kicked, and spat upon.

3. How do you think the Holocaust shaped you, and our world?

Prolonged deprivation (5 years 9 months) of any aesthetic experiences makes me appreciate and cherish art, music, books, theatre, and the beauty of nature, as great enrichments of life.

It shaped my values and attitudes, and it narrowed my focus onto issues, problems and behaviours that inflict pain and harm, eg. child abuse, racism, homophobia, bullying, social injustice, inequality of opportunity.

The world said, ‘Never again’ and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was a major civilising step.

4. What, if anything, do you think we have learnt from the Holocaust?

Possibly that prejudices can have gruesome consequences.

5. In your book, you state that, “Speaking out on behalf of the disadvantaged is my way of justifying my existence” (p. 195). Is this why you wrote your book?

Perhaps not surprisingly, I identify with persecuted minorities: people of colour, indigenous people, LGBT people, the Untouchables (Dalits). Speaking out against oppression and injustice is the least I can do.

I wrote the book to meet an obligation. In the camps, we kept saying that if we survive, we shall have to testify until we die. Friends insisted that as all my previous testifying is in the archives of research bodies, there should be a public record. Hence this book.

Halina reads from her autobiography in ‘The Testimony Book Trailer'(Hardie Grant Books/YouTube).

6. Although your book is a testimony to the horrors of the Holocaust, it is also a testimony to the positivity and determination in your subsequent life. Is this a reflection of your slogan: “Don’t remain a victim”? (p. 197)

I recall my mother (p. 59) towards the end of the war, worrying about whether I will be normal if I survive. After the war, the notion of being normal transformed itself into not remaining a victim. In the book, I try to show that with determination, it is possible to lead a normal life after a catastrophe.

7. You once told me that Marie Curie was an early hero for you. How did she influence your life?

Poland was short of famous people and was very proud of Maria Skłodowska Curie. As a child, I fantasised that if I studied hard, I too might devise or discover something of great value to humankind.

8. Why/when did you become a Humanist?

I was born in Poland to parents who were agnostic and of Jewish origin. The all-powerful Polish Catholic church pervaded all aspects of personal life, institutions and social structures. It preached a very harsh, divisive and punitive religion. Hence my passion for secularism. Years later, my training in science reinforced my preference for evidence-based facts.

My values and attitudes had many aspects of Humanism without me qualifying them as such. I joined the Humanist Society of Victoria when I became aware of its existence.

9. What do you think Humanism has got to offer the world, particularly in light of humanity’s capacity for great good and evil?

Humanism offers a vision of a better, fairer world. I am not sure how we can abolish evil.

Humanism meets my needs and passions for secularism, rational, ethical approach to problems, for the protection of human rights and dignity, for democracy, for social justice and equity and for social action through group lobbying.

What I find attractive in Humanism is its fostering of altruism, of goodness for its own sake, and the taking of total responsibility for one’s actions.

10. You have been a human rights activist for many years. Why? What do you feel are your greatest achievements?

I need to be useful. Lobbying and working to improve the lives of others seems worthwhile. With other members of HSV, I looked after homeless students; provided books for bushfire victims; helped to ‘adopt’ a village of Untouchables in India to help them up from their imposed quagmire. I am in a group to raise funds for bursaries for Aboriginal students.

11. What are the greatest human rights challenges of our time? How do we solve these problems?

The climate emergency, if left unattended, will make life hazardous for the next generation, and cause the extinction of many species. We need to heed scientific advice on climate, and we need to foster democratic governance, social justice and equality. Beware also the growing economic divide between rich and poor.

12. What message would you like to give to future generations?

Learn of past evils and say NEVER AGAIN. Check your prejudices.

13. Is there anything else you would like to add?

In this one life we have, let us work to make this a better world.

= = =

(The answers for Questions 8 & 9 include excerpted material which Halina previously presented to the ‘Australian Humanist’ magazine, No. 90, 2008.)

© 2020 Geoff Allshorn

Climate Change

NASA photo.

The Apollo 8 ‘Earthrise’ photo, taken from lunar orbit by astronaut Bill Anders on Christmas Eve 1968, captured a view that inspired the astronauts to read from the Biblical ‘Genesis’ myth. More significantly, the photograph has been credited with being a ‘driving force for the environmental movement’ because it offered humanity our first real-life view of Earth as a pale blue dot in the vast cosmos.

Yet the environmental movement probably got its first real boost in popular culture some six years earlier, via a ‘religious humanist’ lens. In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote a seminal book that helped change how society sees the world around us:

Her sensational book Silent Spring (1962) warned of the dangers to all natural systems from the misuse of chemical pesticides such as DDT, and questioned the scope and direction of modern science, initiated the contemporary environmental movement.

Rachel Carson was raised within Christianity but her view was that humans were a part of nature rather than some divinely mandated overlord:

… Carson, who was baptized in the Presbyterian Church, was not religious. One tenet of Christianity in particular struck her as false: the idea that nature existed to serve man.

‘Silent Spring’ was a humanist book because it explored the relationship between humans and the environment. It was a groundbreaking exposé that introduced and popularised dissent against traditional attitudes which condoned environmental exploitation. Carson’s views were informed by science and possibly at least partly inspired by other unorthodox viewpoints: at a time when homophobia was rampant, she developed a long-term intimate relationship with another woman.

On Earth Day we remember Rachel Carson, environmental trailblazer and best-selling lesbian author

Another populariser of environmental dissidence is humanist Margaret Atwood, whose books often interweave environmental and religious themes. Her 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, and its recent spin-off television series, warn us about the impact of religious extremism upon the environment and human rights, particularly women’s rights. Such rights are not incidental to the environmental movement – from ecofeminists to activists, women are among those most directly affected by climate change.

Image by Niek Verlaan from Pixabay

A new generation is stepping up, led by a teenage girl who stopped the world in September 2019. Greta Thunberg launched an environmental movement that closed down cities and had people of all ages – especially school children – out in the streets. In Australia, one student leader challenged our Prime Minister with the notion that thoughts and prayers were not enough. The younger generation is challenging the old by calling for actions not words; older people need to review their lifestyles and their attitudes, recalling lyrics from a famous song from their childhood: The Times They Are a-Changin’. Tinkering with recyclables or planting a few trees is insufficient; we need not only a sea change but a whole tsunami of change to implement everything from societal and economic restructure to climate justice.

Planet Earth is a sealed biosystem that we share with other living creatures. We have a responsibility to protect their interests as much as our own.

Amidst debates on how humans should interact with our environment, the fact is that our varied terrains and ecosystems have high intrinsic values of their own. Human beings can and must recognise our place in nature and solve the problems that we have created. We need to acknowledge the problem and act upon it, and implement a culture change. To save the world, we must change ourselves. Let’s make it so.

© 2020 Geoff Allshorn

The In-Between Times

Sunrise. Photo (c) 2020 by Ian James

When living through a difficult moment in history,
we have an obligation to survive and succeed.

As each new day dawns, we sweep away the cobwebs of yesterday and begin anew. Every sunrise is the promise of a new beginning, a fresh start, a chance for renewal and the dawn of a new day. But before each dawn, there must be the darkness of night – such as our journey through 2020.

It may seem self-evident to suggest that we are living in a moment of history. After all, every point in time is technically a moment in history, and very few of our days ever ordinarily suggest themselves as being anything beyond the usual. There are some moments, however, when we intuitively understand that our world is changing before our eyes: turning points like the Apollo Moon landings, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Beijing Massacre, and the September 11 attacks. Those of us old enough to remember these particular events were eye witnesses – and participants – in history.

But what of the betwixt and between? What of days which we might consider to be everyday, ordinary, or mundane? We tend to think of history as a succession of singular, significant events that crash into our lives like the waves of a high tide assailing the seashore. But history is also the gentle, quiet retreat of those same waves as the tide recedes in between its regular bursts of fury.

While it is easy to see the progression of history as the unfolding of one significant event after another… after another… perhaps such events are merely signposts along the way in a larger, longer continuum of perpetual cause and effect. History, like evolution, unfolds at its own glacial pace and often passes unnoticed during what, in hindsight, may prove to be significant eras of transition.

In the year 2020, is the arrival of pandemic a defining moment of our history? Perhaps it is, or maybe it is instead simply one of those betwixt moments, an agent of transition from an old world into a new one. It was only a matter of time before COVID-19 or some other (possibly more lethal) pathogen cast its eclipse over our landscape. The sun has set on our prior life, the human society we knew back in January 2020 is gone forever, and the creeping darkness is stealing many of our good people. We must each be careful not to get swept away in the tsunami of history, but contribute instead to the formation of a breakwater.

Humans tend to associate night-time with crepuscular, nocturnal, and cathemeral animals; sinister, supernatural imaginings; predators and dangers, and omens of eternal night – a silent, stalking world. Yet in reality, the night is also full of wondrous and active creatures: cats, dogs, wallabies and wombats, possums, owls, bats, hares, moths and insects, and many others. The world comes alive between dusk and dawn, filled with noise and colour and activities. Only humans and our ilk, with our nocturnal sensitivities and locked into our diurnal biology, would presume that night is a foreboding time. For much of the world, it is a time of frantic feeding and reproducing, enthusiastic calling and chattering and listening, carefree running and jumping and flying and leaping, happily awakening and refreshing and renewing. Like the daytime and sunlight we enjoy, night and darkness are also times of birth and death, of building up and tearing down, of change and continuity. Rather than dread the mysterious and unfamiliar, we should rejoice in an incognito world that is filled with life and overflowing with its promise of whatever may come next.

“I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.”
– Sarah Williams, The Old Astronomer, 1868.

In this time of uncertainty, we fear the unknown, but we must remember that our journey into history features not only the loud, pretentious bluster of the proud and the powerful; it is also the warm, silent embrace of a mother tending her vulnerable child. Like Soylent Green, history is people. The history of COVID-19 will not only be written by statistics from rich, affluent western nations, it will be memorialised by the currently overlooked but self-empowered voices in the favelas of Brazil, the slums of India, and among ordinary people around the world.

We should listen to these voices and learn from history, even as it is being written. We need to be a part of the change that is coming, and ensure that our next sunrise is better and more glorious than the last. Our world community must prepare not only for the next pandemic, but correct the current deficiencies in world infrastructure so that developing nations have better support frameworks in place for the everyday and for the future. We must also inculcate a culture of respect for science over superstition, environment over extinction, and compassion over consumerism.

In between the dusk and dawn, there lurk all sorts of creepy crawlies in the night – real and imagined – loitering at the periphery of our twilight fears. What can we each do to shine a light in the darkness? We are enduring the night; let us walk confidently towards a new dawn.

© 2020 Geoff Allshorn