Diarmuid O'Murchu

"...every living organism and every living creature, including planet earth, has a right to exist, the right to thrive, and the right to have the resources to grow and flourish."

The Bio –

Diarmuid O'Murchu has spent his entire working life in social ministry. A social psychologist and Catholic priest educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, he currently resides in London, England and is a member of the Sacred Heart Missionary Order. As a counsellor he has worked with couples, those who are bereaved, people with AIDS-HIV and laterally with homeless people and refugees.

As a workshop leader and group facilitator he has worked in Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, The Philippines, Thailand, India, Peru, and in several African countries. He has published a number of books, including Quantum Theology (1996 - revised in 2004), Reclaiming Spirituality (1998), Evolutionary Faith (2002), and The Transformation of Desire (2007). His work is sometimes controversial and always thought provoking.

The Interview –

I met with Diarmuid O’Murchu on a Sunday afternoon in March /08 at St. Benedict’s Retreat and Conference Center on the outskirts of Winnipeg. He had just given a weekend workshop based on his recent book, The Transformation of Desire. However, I was more interested in the bigger vision and global perspective that he brings to the idea of rights.

D.C. - You’ve done a lot of work in Asia, and Africa, and you started the work you do now in about 1992. Can you speak to who you are and the work that you’ve done.

D.O. - Well my background is coming from a Catholic context as a priest and as a social psychologist, and it’s very much around social ministry, is how I personally define it. The work I’ve been doing overseas is either lecturing, or workshops, or facilitating renewal programs, and it’ll be mainly in Africa and Asia that I’ve been dealing with people who are very much of the cutting edge of addressing justice issues. A lot of those issues have to do with local environment, local working conditions, and usually centered around a great deal of poverty. We collaborate with NGO’s to try and explore what needs to be done in the local area and mobilize and involve local people; local politicians, local economists and so on and so forth. The outcomes are, obviously as you might expect, quite different in different places. Sometimes there are great success stories. One that comes to mind is from the Philippines, down in Mindanao, in the south, where we were able to halt one of these big international corporations from cutting down the whole area of forest on the mountainside. In other situations there is a sense the trees were cut down before the people even knew what was going on. It requires ongoing vigilance, it requires ongoing leadership which can be kind of quick, and foresee what’s going to be happening, gather the information, mobilize the people, train them in various skills they need to make presentations, to lobby, to protest and so forth. Where I will come in, very often, is backing those people up with support and encouragement, bigger vision, that’s where I would come in to the scene.

D.C. – I’m interested in talking with you about that bigger vision. In your talks you mentioned the UN, and the dream of the UN when it was first formed after the Second World War, how that has been lost through the development of bureaucracy. Could you speak a little bit more to that?

D.O. – Well, OK. I suppose right from the start there was a certain suspicion. One very interesting story that I picked up down in California a few years ago is that the United Nations was in being for something like 5 or 6 years before the State of California would allow anybody to even mention it in a public educational sphere. You were considered not just a maverick, but you were doing something illegal by invoking anything to do with the United Nations. It was seen as a total threat. Now a total threat to what I’m not even entirely sure of, although I have a pretty good idea. I think it probably was that if we take this thing seriously we’re working towards a world government and its going to make redundant or unnecessary our individual governments. In a sense I think that was part of the dream of the United Nations. I don’t think that it was ever intended to make individual governments redundant, because it was invoking a whole new way of these governments working together.

For me, what was one of the more exciting things in the dream of the United Nations was the NGO; the Non-governmental Organization, which to me is about the whole networking principle. That was already being developed in the 1950’s as I understand; it was certainly very strong in the 60’s. UN sponsored NGO’s are still very common in parts of South America, Africa, and Asia. In several locations they have been absorbed by the governments, because the governments are scared of letting them go too much on their own. So, you have that control element in terms of the dream of the NGO.
Then unfortunately what happened in the United Nations throughout the 60’s and 70’s particularly, was that the two superpowers at the time, the United States and Russia, really engineered the whole thing at the United Nations so that they could control everything that was happening. To some extent that’s still the case in the sense that the United Nations is located in the United States and the United States is one of its primary financial funders. That more global, cosmic vision of the United Nations has been pretty badly damaged and kind of derailed, if you like. It seems to me that the principle of the NGO is thriving, but not readily or publicly recognized. For me that’s evidenced very much in the works of Paul Hawken (Blessed Unrest, 2007) and Oniers, that I talked about in the course of the conference. I think networks of that nature, indeed a whole range of other networks, are kind of seen as maverick movements that local people do, just for boosting their own ego. In fact, many networks are very orientated towards justice, towards empowerment, towards mobilizing local resources, towards trying to honour local rights, not just for people but of other resources, too. I certainly believe that in the long term, the concept of the network is going to be crucial to all forms of government, both local and international. The dream of the United Nations has been subverted, but it hasn’t been destroyed.

D.C. – You just mentioned honouring rights for not only human but also other resources, could you expand on that?

D.O. – I draw from the work of Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth, and I probably won’t get the full number of parts that he mentions, but every living organism and every living creature, including planet earth, has a right to exist, the right to thrive, and the right to have the resources to grow and flourish. I think that those are three foundational rights that exist across the whole spectrum of life, not just in the case of humans. Therefore we need to expand our notion of rights, because they have been far too anthropocentric, and at times have become almost ideological, in the sense that one can’t honour rights without also honouring corresponding duties, and corresponding responsibilities. Whereas we often hear everyone clamoring for their rights, one doesn’t often hear the word duties or responsibilities used very often. That’s a very necessary balance to be brought into things. I think also if we begin to apply the concept of rights in their wider level, then people hopefully will see a bit more readily that rights and duties are two sides of the one coin; you can’t have one without the other.

D.C. – You mentioned during the conference that it made more sense to have bioregions, as a more creative way of dividing up the world. What would that look like?

D.O. – I think one of the more primary features of it would be, and what green movements have been onto for many years, (indeed also the alternative people within the globalization theme, in their plea for localization), is that local resources and people working with their local resources would be the primary focus, and would be mobilized in a far more proactive and empowering way. Whereas, in the present system of governance that we have developed, the use of goods and resources has been so globalized that in several situations people have no sense of where local produce is going to, nor indeed have they any sense of where their resources are coming from. Even in a developed country like the United States, farmers in many cases are dealing with seeds that they don’t know where these seeds have been produced; they don’t know to what extent these seeds have been modified, if they try to save some local seeds and plant them in their fields in many cases they won’t even fertilize.

[MARL note: Terminators, or GURTS (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies), are a class of genetic engineering technologies which allow companies to introduce seeds whose sterile offspring cannot reproduce, preventing farmers from re-planting seeds from their harvest. The seeds could also be used to introduce specific traits which would only be triggered by the application of proprietary chemicals by the same companies.]

D.O. - In other words, bioregions refers to the whole sense of local resourcefulness and of local community taking more responsibility for the use of its resources within the context of a local area, in a particular climate, where there are particular geographical and geological features, where maybe there is a certain sense of local weather patterns that are easily identified. The whole desire is to engage people more in their world and that’s at the heart of the bioregional philosophy.

On the bigger scale what we’re looking at is that as a human species we obviously have to segment or divide the planet into some kind of sections in terms of basic governance and in terms of basic agreement with it. If we are to consider that the planet is just one place where everybody can operate in freely, we probably would have a very destructive kind of chaos. On the other hand, we’ve gone to the opposite extreme by creating terribly rigid boundaries with all these kind of strict barriers in terms of movement and passports and so forth. What is particularly disturbing about the way we have divided up the planet is that several of the boundaries and the consequent units are totally false and artificial. The only reason they’re put there is to satisfy the outcome of treaties from wars.

D.C. – So for example, after World War II the division of Africa.

D.O. – Yeah, absolutely. There’s no logic to it actually, except a kind of human power logic. Whereas, when you look more closely at the earth, the earth itself has more natural kind of areas with a whole range of indigenous local plant life, tree life, geological features and so forth, and that’s what we call in geographical terms, the bioregion. Then there is the corresponding concept of being able to engage and involve people locally, which is more the sociological definition of a bioregion. Its about breaking down the earth into segments that are more manageable in terms of more creative human employment, but in a way that will also mobilize people’s sense of empowerment, where people can participate in and enjoy the kind of natural cycle and recycling of resources. It is those kinds of principles that are at stake.

D.C. – You’re talking about a much closer symbiosis with the local environment.

D.O. - Yes, absolutely. This in itself is not mitigating against internationality at all; which would be one of the counter arguments. I think people who are more satisfied in terms of their achievements locally, are much more open to working internationally because they feel they have something to offer. When people get disempowered locally, on the more global scale they are probably going to be even doubly disempowered, which is exactly what’s happening with the negative side of globalization.

D.C. – You mentioned in your book that millions of people throughout the world lack meaningful employment, and yet within western industrialized nations people often are employed, but very dissatisfied in the work that they are doing.

D.O. – Yeah, very poor work fulfillment in a sense. That is to do with the fact that a lot of our western ways of employing people are highly technological and require people to be away from nature and natural conditions. Now we’re partly trying to address that. In the United States there are some architects and city planners who are looking very much at green space and buildings that are more ecological in nature so that people have that. I think that from the few experiments, (I think there’s one famous one down in St.Louis, the details of which are eluding me now), people who do work in those kind of environments certainly do feel them a great deal more satisfying and fulfilling.

D.C. – Even in schools, as an example, during the 70’s energy crisis a lot of the windows were taken out, boarded up to let out minimal heat in winter, but this also let in minimal daylight. Then, after “open area” schools lost popularity, you ended up with divided classrooms in the center of schools with no windows at all. Lack of exposure to natural lighting can contribute to depression, among other things.

D.O. – Oh, absolutely. Yes, and I think it’s bound to prove very alienating ultimately, and destructive.

D.C. – In your talks you mentioned moving from empire to earth community, would that be where this bioregion idea would come into play?

D.O. – That would be one, yes. But also that’s the title of David Korten’s more recent book; The Great Turning: from Empire to Earth Community. The way we do governments around the world, whether socially, economically, politically, or religiously; we put a tremendous amount of emphasis “the hero” at the top of the pyramid. You can see that in the elections in the United States right now; all this focus on the one individual hero as if he or she could provide meaningful government. No president or prime minister can provide meaningful governance unless they have an effective team working with them.

This business of empire building, the amount of bureaucracy that we waste in the empire building philosophy of governance, again the United States is another tragic example of that, the amount money going into these presidential campaigns is outrageous by any set of standards. Commerce, economics, politics, a lot of our social realities are about empire building. David Korten is suggesting that in all areas, (his theme is mainly in the economic and the business world), we need to move into a different, more cooperative, collaborative, way of working, not just among people, but also cooperating with the entire ecosystems of the earth; the forces of the earth and creation. In that way we get to see that the cooperative mode, rather than the empire building mode, is the only long term sustainable one. That’s the point he’s making.

D.C. – To turn that pyramid on its head and have more shared decision making?

D.O. – Well, yes, exactly. Then local empowerment and the concept of the network or the concept of the bioregion all begin to make sense.

D.C. – In your view, how do you think we could either engage or change the education systems to prepare people for that kind of a world?

D.O. – I’m not sure, because one of the big criticisms launched against the educational system, certainly in Europe, as well in other parts of the world, is the system seems to be one of the most effective in indoctrinating people to be fierce competitors. We do it through the exam system, we do through games; we do the way everything is organized in schools.
I don’t know what was the wisdom behind it, but a few years ago, (it may have been in the 90’s), in Ontario, (I’m not sure if it was the whole of Ontario, or part of it), for one year they got all senior schools to hold games in such a way that credit was given for win-win outcomes, not win-lose outcomes. Apparently it worked! Now why they only kept it to one year, I don’t know. I would have thought that it’s the very thing that we need. Maybe they had to leave it be to one year because of criticism from governments or businesses that perhaps wanted people to be more fiercely competitive. I don’t know anything of the final reasons why it was not continued, but I know it did happen. From what I can gather the intention was to precisely address this problem that we need to try to find ways of inculcating young people with the idea that cooperation is more beneficial than fierce competition, in the long term.

I see that as one major massive challenge. There are a few alternative systems around, like the Montessori educational approach, they heavily emphasize cooperation. I don’t know whether it’s a matter of putting more energy behind those and trying to give them formal approval, because most Montessori schools around the world as far as I know are funded by people themselves, not by governments in any shape or form. It would be interesting to ask why not. Presumably it’s because governments don’t see them as suitable enough for preparing people for the world that the government wants, which is this highly competitive one. I guess at the end of the day, it’s like so many other things in life. I think I would want to reframe your question and say rather; how do you percolate something so powerful and closed as the educational system so that you can get teachers and pupils and others having the conversations about the things that really matter. I think that’s the right question. I don’t know what the answer to it is.

Whatever changes you bring about are more likely to come out of some kind of a meaningful dialogue or conversation, so I think your question needs to be reframed. How does one begin to make inroads? A lot of people would say try and get at the inspector, try and get the government to do it, but I’ve a strong belief that change comes more effectively from the ground up, so I’d be more inclined to go at that level. I often wonder myself if the problem with some schools isn’t more the expectation of the parents rather than what teachers or school managements are doing. Sadly, because of the world we’re living in, parents want their Johnny to get the best exam results and to have the best chances of getting into college and getting a job. Very often it’s the parent’s expectations that dictate what an education system is about.

There was a very interesting experiment done in the UK a few years back, and I don’t know whether it’s still going or not. I think it went through for a number of years despite huge opposition from some parents. You can do this with the British educational system; it’s an old piece of legislation that’s been there, going back to Queen Victoria or something, that once you have English, Mathematics, and I’m not sure if there’s a third subject or not; what is known as core curriculum, after that you can basically make any choice of subjects you like, and make it your mainline curriculum. This school…and what was required obviously was a vision on the part of the headmaster or headmistress, and then a staff that was prepared to run it….this school decided to make the next layer of the core curriculum Art, Music, and religious studies, I think, so that every student had to take those three. In other words, they were looking at the development of the whole person; it was a very creative approach.

D.C. – That’s an interesting statement, because right in the United Nations Declaration it actually states that education should be towards the full development of the human personality.

D.O. – Yeah, which it often isn’t. So, this school, that’s the curriculum they began running. Some parents removed their children from it, because they thought they should be studying subjects that would give them more opportunities to get into university and get good jobs.

D.C. - Then the focus becomes education for employment, rather than education for personal development?

D.O. – Yeah. But the school went ahead with it and kept going with it and whether it’s still going yet or not, I don’t know. I suspect that there’s more of that kind of freedom around in other parts of the world. For a school to do that requires huge cooperation. The staff itself requires a fair degree of support from parents, if the majority of parents oppose it, you’re finished. Then it requires, obviously, the approval of government. In the UK there’s no problem with the government, the legislation is there to support it. If you’re achieving the goals you’ve set out to achieve; which in this case is a fairly rounded creative personality, well then the government will fully support you, in the case of the UK.

That’s where we’re kind of stuck…what is education for? In theory, I’m sure 90% of educators would agree with the dream of the United Nations. But in practice, what you’re up against on the one hand, is what you get funding for, then parental expectations, and then in turn the expectations of the kids themselves from the conditioning they’ve been getting. Then it’s not that easy to maintain those ideals.

D.C. – The other thing about education that you addressed this weekend is that “we’re not educated to understand that change is necessary to growth and development”.

D.O. – Oh, yeah, absolutely. For example, I know it’s a bit simplistic, but it’s a really very telling example; apparently, every cell in our bodies is replicated every seven years. So, strictly speaking, the person I was 7 years ago and the person I am today is a totally different person, and if that had not happened I’d be dead! In other words the body needs to keep changing continually and that change involves the dying of old cells and old matter and the birthing of new material. It’s that cycle I talked about, about birth death and rebirth, and if that change is not happening continually we don’t grow and develop as a person, and that’s fundamentally true of everything. Change is of the essence, change is essential, change in healthy, change is normal, change is not something deviant.

D.C. – What do you think is the greatest hope for positive change in this movement away from empire and towards earth community and more towards cooperative relationships?

D.O. – Unfortunately, maybe it’s part of the human condition that it takes very serious crisis to bring us to our senses. I think that the one at the moment that is looming most strong and that is going to engage us all in the next probably 10 years is global warming. It’s reckoned that maybe 1/3 of Bangladesh will go under in the next ten years. Now I know that sounds mind swelling, but I’m sure there are parts of Canada that will go under in the next ten years.

D.C. – Ten years isn’t a very long time.

D.O. – It’s not a long time! Every piece of research shows, and some of the research has been done here in Canada, at the North Pole the ice is melting far faster than what they anticipated 12 years previously. I think this is a looming issue, and I think that we’re perhaps at the point of no return. I think that, plus, one other big crisis that will face us in the next 10 years will be ...we’re going to run out of oil.

D.C. – And those two are flip sides of the same coin.

D.O. – They are really. I think it’s probably going to get worse. We’re in a crisis. I think pollution is a very serious problem, probably more serious than we think, in parts of the world, whether it’s pollution of the air, or polluting the water systems, and of course we have the very violent world we’re living in. I think the two biggest that are definitely going to engage us I think in the next 3 to 15 years, will be global warming and the oil.

D.C. – But the hope that we’ll make it through the crisis is …

D.O. – I think it takes crisis to bring us back to our senses, so to speak, and just bring home to us that we’re not living sustainably or responsibly in terms of how we’re really working with our earth and with the earth community…

D.C. – and with each other...

D.O. – and with each other.

D.C. – Thank-you very much.

D.O. – You’re welcome.

 To read more about Diarmuid and his work go to http://www.diarmuid13.com/