| By Yossef Ben-Meir Marrakech |
| The great righteousness of Noah, the Biblical patriarch of humanity after the Flood, is explained by theologists immemorial to be relative to his generation. His was a time of unrestrained moral decay, open embezzlement, and all kinds of cries for help unmet with any justice by judges who were an unbridled contributor to the ruin. Had Noah lived during a morally uplifting period, his integrity might have been even greater, so follows the traditional assessment of Noah’s character. After all, he did not beseech God to save humanity, as Abraham pleaded for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah to be saved. Whatever the qualified caveat for Noah’s virtuosity, he was remarkable in his passion for nature and dedication not just to sparing lives on Earth but to their active care. He had the patience to build an ark over 120 years, growing seeds into the hull of the great ship. All that while, he shared with any listener about the looming doom in the hope that change could come and annihilation would be avoided. Criticism of him notwithstanding, I’m with Noah on not going inside the ark until the floods were building because I imagine the maddening claustrophobia of only the inside of the ark being his and his family’s entire world for a whole solar year. And why not accept every second outside even as the water rose, if only God might stay his most awful verdict of destruction? In any case, the enduring judgement of Noah is rendered in consideration of his particular context. And to some degree, so is ours. How often are we struck by the stark symbols of extravagant wealth that are seen daily right beside the horrid injustice of poverty, of education stunted at 12 years old, of filthy water to drink multiplying mortality? Can the conglomerates and billionaires enabled by the laws of our society to not pay taxes be considered an open form of embezzlement, a behavior that marked Noah’s time? Is the gap between the reality of the people and national constitutions, public charters, and dedicated roadmaps becoming more severe, with deepening rural-urban stratification epitomizing the fallout? Let’s evaluate ourselves against what we know following extensive time and experiences in actions to promote shared prosperity and growth opportunities accessible to people where they live. If we were to be judged against our day, we ought to ask ourselves the extent to which we are seeing local communities of people inclusively planning and implementing the projects that promote their livelihood, health, education, and environment. Eighty years of development programs since the 1940s across societies reflecting humanity’s diversity underscore that communities’ ownership of the overall development process—from prioritization and management to assessing projects’ performance—is the most determinant feature of sustainability. The ancients understood what has become established through recent generations to be the crux of successful development: people accept the decisions they are part of making and become interested in giving their energy and resources to achieve positive outcomes that are important to them. A judgment of our standing in the time we are in would measure this essential form of development to meet the needs of the people. To the extent that it is being experienced would be a fair point of assessment of societies’ performance in our generation. A series of questions come to mind that can be used to help make our own determination as to our measure of satisfaction in our time. 1. How well are we, in our local communities, meeting together, talking through difficulties and solutions, and mobilizing to create the future we decide? 2. Are we seeing historically marginalized people—women, youth, the landless, indigenous groups—participate in envisioning and deciding the local initiatives to improve their daily lives? 3. Are there local community organizations in your area dedicated to creating jobs based on local people’s own ingenuity and entrepreneurship? 4. Are we seeing our own reflection and what’s specifically us in our production activities and output that we apply to achieving every day? 5. Are our community groups partnering or federating with neighboring ones to pursue common human development goals, building toward national advocacy and effects and giving actual meaning to bottom-up movements? 6. Are local participatory discussions on needs and priorities facilitated by students and teachers, personnel from government and civil society, and the beneficiaries leading to empowerment of the participants and multifaceted development to advance entire communities? 7. Do our community associations have a self-reliant revenue source from their activities that supports investments in health, food security, equitable development, and locally-driven enterprises? A fair judgment of us against our era within the uniquely improbable arc of humanity is thankfully not as absolute as Noah’s, but the waters of worry for a growing global many are arising. As Noah planted and tilled the land after the disaster’s end, let’s hold fast and engage, building community dynamism as our ark above troubling waters. Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir is President of the High Atlas Foundation in Morocco and a sociologist. |