20130807_JM
Source: ASAP
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEK5WrkMlJk
Date: 07/08/2013
Event: Jacqueline McGlade on Tough Politics
Credit: ASAP and Jacqueline McGlade, also many thanks to Geoff Chambers for transcribing this
People:
- Jacqueline McGlade: Former Executive Director of the EEA
Jacqueline McGlade: Over the past twenty years what I have increasingly realised is that there is a disconnect between our ambition to live on planet Earth in a symbiotic way and to use resources sensibly and our actual ability to do that whether through political processes or actually just through our daily lives.
But what has happened, I think to not only humankind, but to the planet as a whole, is that fundamentally we have left our fingerprint so deeply – not only are we in the Anthropocene – but so deeply in our own psyche, that the opportunity has come about that we can look at ourselves rather critically and say: "Now is the time for change."
What the New Development Paradigm offers us is a way to hang our coats in many different places in many different ways and still feel that we're part of a way of moving forward, but where in a way we set our own pace. Yes of course it's a fundamentally new vision that we're trying to propel, but different parts of the world will be able to take different aspects of it into their culture more easily, and I think it's this multi-faceted way of living, whether in democracies or in different settings, that we really now have to grapple with.
So the New Development Paradigm has to work at the individual level, but more importantly, it has to work at the cultural level. Of course nation states will be very important in delivering those changes in a political setting. International organisations, the United Nations, will help to create a safety umbrella for us under which we can do our work, but still this will require the creative intellect of all of humankind and in a sense all of nature, understanding that we are really sitting on a cliff, and we're looking over into a potential abyss, and we need to get back from that cliff edge and re-instate ourselves in a more safe, stable environment.
Interviewer: What is the role that this Bhutanese concept of GNH and Bhutan's initiative plays in all of this effort toward creating a New Development Paradigm?
Jacqueline McGlade: I think the idea of happiness, whether it's Gross National Happiness or happiness within oneself – it's a bit like turning on a light switch. And quite clearly, within all of us we have a capacity to think in a different way. I think the Bhutanese approach is so much more deep than the simple trivial way of talking about happiness, but, in my experience of working with so many countries, different cultures, the word "happiness" itself conveys in different languages the sense that we're trying to talk about. Of course, in Bhutan you can talk about "gakhi" [?] but in Danish you can talk about "hrughe" [?] and this connection that happiness is – in the case of Denmark – sitting round a table with the candles lit, that familiar sense of: you're safe, you can talk about things, there's a security within it, and yet you have a sense of responsibility. You kind of know where you're going as a family. That's what I think the Bhutanese has brought up into the top level of discussion. So, not just simply saying - it's a very simple thing, but it's deeply embedded in ancient wisdom - is a kind of thinking that most people would have been too embarrassed to talk about, and they've taken the embarrassment level away and made it actually possible to talk about it in the mainstream.
Interviewer: How do you think this will go over, how will this play at the United Nations do you think, and how has it played so far to the United Nations?
Jacqueline McGlade: I think genuinely there's a sort of a wonderful nature that comes about when you talk about happiness, and it's a naïve reaction in a way that says: gosh! This is something that I really understand as an individual, and I would wish to see that in society. And there is not one single person I believe within the United Nations, even in the bureaucracy, who wouldn't want this. So in a sense we're tapping in to a very deep-rooted part of everybody, but you know, there's a certain embarrassment, there's a certain self-effacement of: "Ooh, that's a bit too – engaged", and you know we have to get over those inhibitions. So I think there are parts of the UN that are willing to countenance it. Of course there are others who see this maybe as an endeavour that, if taken too seriously, would actually undermine many of the vested interests around the world, and we have to, in a way, not seek compromises but seek a way through that, and the beauty of the UN is that while at one hand it's very heavy, very heavy bureaucracy, it is a place where the spark of a new idea can instantaneously become a global thinking piece.
Interviewer: That's terrific. How – what do you think? Supposing this succeeds, what does the world look like in 2015 – 2050?
Jacqueline McGlade: Well, in 2050 unfortunately I may not be a resident of this planet, but my spirit will be, so if I'm looking at it from that perspective...
Interviewer: What does your spirit look down and see?
Jacqueline McGlade: My spirit I hope will look down on a world which is actually imbued with a – not only a greater sense of vitality and biodiversity, but where even cities do not look anything like the cities of today, where the harsh edge that we see – the kind of dim gloomy alleyways that we can see in some of our high rise areas – is in fact quite a different place, it's a place where cities are designed for people to connect, to have networks, to fulfill social endeavours which they couldn't do on their own – the kind of collective endeavour and where, quite honestly as we see the population aging, that across the whole of our age span, from young children all the way through to elderly, they are in place, they're looked after, there's a sense of security and a sense of well-being across the whole population. So when I look down, that's what I would like to envisage.
Interviewer: Now this is – you have a tough job, from my perspective. You are handling a lot of people coming from very different perspectives. These are super-intelligent people, they're super-accomplished people, they have egos, they're trying to do this – how do you pull all of this together, and do you think we're going to be able to do that successfully here?
Jacqueline McGlade: Everybody I think wants to have their own view somehow reflected, and my job really is to make sure that – it's sometimes called ownership – but there's a sense that's bigger than all of us, and my job in a way is to raise everyone above their individual atomistic contributions and to realise that there is a sense of purpose that we can contribute to. Of course, it's sometimes very difficult recognising that not everyone has the same language capacity. I mean, I'm very fortunate in that much of the discussion, the discourse does happen in languages that I can speak, but I even know from my own perspective that when I change languages I change my behaviour. My brain somehow becomes more French, and I think in a different way. Or if I speak German, I think of things in a different way. So that sensitivity helps a huge amount when I'm trying to think of: well why are we getting this different view coming in, you know. And it's very very linked to culture, and culture and language, and that deep animism that is embedded in some places comes out in some settings. So my job really I think is to make sure that we hear all those voices, but that somehow we end up being a choir at the end, with one song and with one sound.