Against a global competition based on military, political or economic force, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi – a forward-thinking geographer, educational theorist and religious reformer, founder, in 1930, of the Soka Gakkai - defined a new form of competition, what he termed the humanitarian competition.
Makiguchi saw this shift not as merely representing a change in the venue or form of competition, but a qualitative transformation, from a winner-takes-all style of competition, to one conducted within a consciously acknowledged framework of cooperation, what today might be called a “win-win” mode of competition.
This concept of Humanitarian Competition, introduced by Makiguchi about one century ago, has been deepened and developed nowadays by Daisaku Ikeda, the current President of Soka Gakkai, with its Peace Proposal to the United Nations (2009)
What is your perception of aid coming from an other culture an an other country?
It’s a challenge, isn’t it. You have to be very sensitive on how much you challenge and how much you assist countries to achieve MDGs. I think it is how you approach… is about dialogue, about communication, it is certainly not taking a dictatorial or accusatory attitude towards any country or colture.
Do you think that local communities have say in how the aid is used?
That is one of the biggest challenge, i would say. We get it badly wrong in occasion… because if you want to be inclusive and genuine then you need to work at very grass root level and you need to do you over a very long period of time because you want to include the voices of the most disfranchised. To get that authentic voice takes trust, takes time, takes investment… and very often agencies don’t have that length of time to achieve the scope of goals they want to. The challenge of listening and being inclusive of community voices means that you have a much stronger solution to their problem… and i genuinely believe that all communities can actually find their own solution if you create the right space around them, the enabling environment and create the resources to make change, they can often come up with the right answers.
Let’s give a name to the future: Development or Degrowth? Are these two theories, both named to face the most urgent human and environmental issues of our planet, in strong opposition each other or shall we find a point of connection to make the world, through the two different approaches, really sustainable?
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Against a global competition based on military, political or economic force, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi – a forward-thinking geographer, educational theorist and religious reformer, founder, in 1930, of the Soka Gakkai - defined a new form of competition, what he termed the humanitarian competition.
Let’s give a name to the future: Development or Degrowth? Are these two theories, both named to face the most urgent human and environmental issues of our planet, in strong opposition each other or shall we find a point of connection to make the world, through the two different approaches, really sustainable?
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