9 May 2007

Power to the People!

Spotted around Berlin are billboards advertising a campaign to spread awareness for tolerance and understanding in communities made up of people coming from different ethnic, religious, political, whatever backgrounds.

The project is called "die Gesellschafter" which means "the shareholder", and it's inviting people to think about what kind of world they want to live in and then work to make it a reality.

The website, in German, says that for years, governments have been talking about creating future ideal societies, and that future never arrives. It goes on to say that the time for talking should end, the time for doing has arrived, and it's up to everyone to make it happen.

This particular billboard says:
Left Side: In everyone of us is a pacifist
Right Side: I would like to live in a society where no man, be he Muslim or Christian, lives in fear.

There are other billboards with different target messages included in the campaign - some can be seen here on the website.

Power to the People!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

So I say, get rid of all those radical preachers/priests, mullahs, rabbis and whoever else falls in this loop and let the people choose their path of right or wrong.

'Power to the People'

Amen!

Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

What generally is the attitude about a multiracial society in your experience? We have many friends who are pro-active in this area - Diversitat, ethic councils, etc. but then occasionally we hear people say something outrageous and are shocked.
And I get into arguments about politics at times and can't believe the views of some of my friends who actually admire and like John Howard! I used to be little 'liberal' - okay to help the small business folk, but now I am perhaps closer to the Green and some Labour views.
And my views about the Fiji situation, well, don't get me started there! The interim guys want to stop blogs!
w.
w.

Pandabonium said...

Somehow, I don't think advertising platitudes are going to do it.

Race and religion are not the primary movers of human action. They are just used to manipulate people into fighting each other for the benefit of a few who are driven by economics.

It is in the human DNA, which has evolved to value the ability to acquire resources in the short term and therefore have a chance to stay in the gene pool at least for the current generation.

The people behind wars and hatred care only about resources. It will end only when enough people stop falling for the "my god is better than your god" (or country or race or religion) nonsense and say "no more".

Living in Hawaii for over half my life, I experienced a wonderful multi-ethinic society with many different religions living peacefully, even lovingly, together for the most part (a great rarity from what I've seen in my travels). But Hawaii does not yet have large populations of politically radical religions. That is changing with evangelical xians growing in numbers in recent years.

As you can tell, I am not an optimist in this area. If we survive as a species, it may be many centuries before we achieve peace with each other and the planet we inhabit.

IMO it can only occur after we have shrugged off the burdens of racism, mysticism, and statism which have oppressed us in body and spirit for thousands of years. Not a simple task.

Imagine...

Radha said...

Thats a beautiful thought & its great to see this initiative in European countries!!

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Very beautiful indeed.