GLBT Civil Rights and Marriage.

                          

                           Friday June 24 2011, was a jubilant day for the GLBTQ community. Gay-Lesbian marriages were legalized in the NY State. It was not just a victory of the GLBTQ people but for the entire world, democratic system and the humanity. As societies become more open people become more accepting and more compassionate. Humanity had to experience a Holocaust in order to learn that Jews were not bogeymen but a group of people who had their own ways of worship, their own customs and culture and the world was not created just for CHRISTIANS-ONLY.

                             Then came the 50's, 60's, 70's and so on, where people started realizing that the world was not destined to be the playground of the WHITES-ONLY. Now at the early 21st Century all those who have issues accepting others who are not like them they should learn that the planet is not the hometown of the HETEROSEXUALS-ONLY. GLBTQ people are citizens and taxpayers who are entitled to be treated with dignity and fairness the same way as everybody else. Nobody can regulate how people should relate to others, whom they should date how they should make love and with whom. And if they want to get married it is their own constitutional right to marry the lifemate of their own choice. If s/he will be man, a woman or anything in between it is their own business.

                            There are people who believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman ONLY. They are entitled to their opinion. But they cannot force their convictions on others the same way they cannot enforce their faith, racial, cultural or political beliefs on others. They even claim that they "speak on behalf of God." 

                            I saw a posting recently in the NY Subway: "If you don't like gay-marriage, then don't get gay-married!"....

Geørgios Kønstantinou Awgérinos

What is Ubuntu?

                  

                     The word Ubuntu (pron Ouboûntou) is originally Zulu and Xhosa and has a wide spectrum of related meanings: Ubuntu means social conscience, enlightened compassion and "human interconnectedness." Ubuntu is referred to the invisible connection between every living being. It is the thread that connects every each of us, either we realize it or not.

                      In Taoist, Buddhist, and New Age practices, in all religions and pantheistic pagan beliefs there is a major emphasis that not only humans but all beings are interconnected. However our physical senses give us the illusion of form and consequently the sense of separateness between each other. They use different language and different ways to emphasize this common thread that unites us all. Southern Africans describe this common link between beings as Ubuntu. In extension Ubuntu is an analogy of what the Indians call  "Namaste." 

                      In other parts of Africa Ubuntu means kindness, humanism, while for other Africans Ubuntu is perceived as the analogy of what the Chinese mystics call Qi, the simplest form of energy that exists in the universe.

                      In Zimbabwe the main ethnic group the Shonas have their own corresponding term" Ún'hu’. In the Western part of Zimbabwe the Matabele ethnic group (who are to the Zulus what the Flemish are to the Dutch) also use the word "Ubuntu."

                   

                     Regardless of the wording or the pronunciation, the word has a cosmic meaning and in later years has been used more frequently in Africa and around the world. When Nelson Mandela was asked about the meaning of this mystic for the non-Africans word he responded: (I watched the interview in YouTube so I don't give it word by word but I just present what the South African leader articulated, by using my own words.) "Ubuntu is many meanings wrapped in one word, but I will give you a  simple, real life example: when I was young and I was traveling through South African villages, locals came to offer me water, food and hospitality without even asking them. This is one aspect of the spirit of Ubuntu."

       The legendary Liberian Peace Activist and African Women's emancipation crusader Leymah Gbowee gave another version of the same word "I am who I am because of who we all of us are." Madonna has produced a video named "I am because we are" referring to the concept of Ubuntu. There is a video clip with ex-president Bill Clinton giving an interview about “I am because we are.”
                   I would personally call Ubuntu a "A collective I"

          

                   I would also describe Ubuntu as the opposite of the “me-me-me mentality.” A very common, very popular way of living that is considered by many the right and only way to be. While Ubuntu represents universality and inclusiveness, “me” in reality is not a form of identity; it is an illusion of self-ness, self-protection and individuality. To a greater extend it is a self-imposed ghetto.

                   The greater the “me” the denser and higher the walls of the me-prison. "Me" also is a form of mental opium. "Me" feeds itself, and we need to increase the dosage. The difference is that a drug-addict is aware of his substance dependency while a Me-junkie considers his/her Me-dependency as a natural way of living. We actually may find many people who are proud of their me-ness.

Georg Konstantin Awgérinos

Operation Barbarossa, seventy years later.

              In the early hours of Sunday, June 22 1941, a massive Grande Armée of four and a half million troops supported by an advanced Airforce and artillery crossed the Soviet frontier in one of the greatest military campaigns in recorded history. Nazi Germany had just invaded Soviet Union breaking a non-aggression pact, signed between the two regimes two years earlier. The code name of the invasion was "Unternehmen Barbarossa" (Operation Barbarossa) named after the medieval German Emperor warrior and conqueror Friedrich Barbarossa von Hohenstaufen. 
              The German invasion was part of Hitler's geopolitical agenda to colonize Soviet Union and create living space (Lebensraum) for the German Volk. This was the beginning of one of the most tragic conflicts in world history that caused nearly forty million deaths from both sides and an enormous destruction not only inside the Russian and Ukrainian plains but across the entire European continent.
               We should keep in mind that the German-Soviet conflict (the Great Patriotic War as the Russians called it) was just one part of the Second World War. I don't mention here the Western Front, the Balkans, the North African campaign, the South East Asian and Far East or the war in the Pacific. Few times the world encountered the barbarity that was unleashed during that period of history not only in the German-Russian front but 

across the entire planet. Soviet Union contributed the most to the Allied victory in Europe but it was a triumph that came at a prize: the Cold War that followed would keep the world partitioned and the people of Eastern Europe "hostages" of another totalitarian system for the following forty five years.
                 Out of this human debasement and wholesale destruction, came a period of economic reconstruction but perhaps the greatest achievement of the post-war Europeans was the gradual formation of the European Union. The majority of the people in Europe still think locally but the federal ideals are gaining ground. Voices for European Federalism are increasing in numbers and volume across the continent. Europeans are dedicated to create a social economic democratic multistate, where quality of living for all citizens and market forces learn to coexist. 
              European Union is far from heaven on earth but people and politicians realize the necessity for unity. First, the continent has more than three thousand years of wars, genocides, religious pogroms, ethnic cleansings, plague, tyrannies and revolutions that kept this tiny part of the planet fragmented. Second, comes the realization that if Europeans don't unite, they will continue to be the playground of other superpowers like Russia and USA and now China. However they also realize that if they become a unified Federation they will also be one of the world's major superpowers. It seems that European Unification is a matter of time. But how about the rest of the planet? A World Federation is not an impossible Utopia. We just need to change a few basic perceptions about ourselves and our surrounding world before the politicians follow. We have to remember that politicians reflect their citizenry. "Show me a politician and I will tell you about her/his constituents."

Georg Kønstantin Awgérinos

The Fifth Dimension

My name is Geørgios Kønstantin Awgérinos, I live in New York and I call this blog: "UBUNTU CIVILIZATION"

I've been writing diaries and journals since February 14th, 1975.

I always kept them private but lately I realized that some of my thoughts and experiences could be shared with other people around the globe.

I perceive the Internet as a Fifth Dimension expanding beyond physical boundaries. It links strangers from different parts of the planet, transmits information at the press of a button, connects and befriends people who never met in person, creates communities of like-minded individuals and revolutionizes the way we communicate with each other; even the way we meet our date-mates.

People born in the eighties and beyond tend to take the online world for granted. I have lived a part of my life, so far, in the pre-Internet era, so, like my other contemporaries I can appreciate the enormity of the transformation that this Fifth Dimension has brought: a new world with less privacy, increasing access, a world where there is no place to hide for long, a source of unlimited information available at someone's fingertips.

For over 36 years I kept notes frequently, mostly observations about myself and the world around me. I shared them only with a few close friends. Now I am in a stage of my life where I would like to connect with people beyond my familiar realm, so I decided to establish as of today (Thursday, Dec 22, 2011, 18.55 EST), this public journal.

I hope that this blog will connect me with the most remote outposts of the world, proving that the end of the earth is actually nearer than we may guess. I have discovered that often we can find proximity in far places and recognize remoteness inside our own skin. But this is another story.

"Ubuntu Civilization" represents an initiative not just for worldwide social reforms but for a new aspect of personal understanding of life and the universe. Such a leap forward and upward begins with small steps before a critical mass creates a momentum. I hope that this blog, which is not more than a drop in the ocean, contributes even by a tiny percentage to the progression of the human condition.