The first event will take place tomorrow November 12 all over the world including here in Malaysia. The Charter for Compassion is the brainchild of the writer and scholar Karen Armstrong who you may remember spoke here in KL last year. She articulated her vision for this Charter at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference last year and since then, she and various people round the world have worked to make it happen.
In KL, it will take place at the PJ Hilton at 10.30am and will be officiated by YAB Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. In the afternoon there will be a youth panel followed by an interfaith panel. All open to the public.
Here's some info from the website:
The Charter for Compassion is the result of Karen Armstrong’s 2008 TED Prize wish and made possible by the generous support of the Fetzer Institute. It will be unveiled to the world on November 12, 2009.
Why a Charter for Compassion?
The Charter of Compassion is a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life. Compassion is the principled determination to put ourselves in the shoes of the other, and lies at the heart of all religious and ethical systems. One of the most urgent tasks of our generation is to build a global community where men and women of all races, nations and ideologies can live together in peace. In our globalized world, everybody has become our neighbor, and the Golden Rule has become an urgent necessity.The Charter, crafted by people all over the world and drafted by a multi-fath, multi-national council of thinkers and leaders, seeks to change the conversation so that compassion becomes a key word in public and private discourse, making it clear that any ideology that breeds hatred or contempt ~ be it religious or secular ~ has failed the test of our time. It is not simply a statement of principle; it is above all a summons to creative, practical and sustained action to meet the political, moral, religious, social and cultural problems of our time.
We invite each of you to adopt the charter as your own, to make a lifelong commitment to live with compassion..
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The other event is the MyConstitution Campaign by the Bar Council, aimed at educating Malaysians about that "document of destiny" as Constitutional expert Dr Shad Faruqi calls it. It's aimed to get us all to be familiar with what is in the Federal Constitution and what are our rights in it.
It's probably not surprising that most Malaysians have no idea what's in their Constitution. Even though most schoolchildren can recite the Rukunegara and know that one of the rukuns is 'Keluhuran Perlembagaan', most probably can't explain what exactly that means. So the MyConstitution campaign aims to redress this. Hopefully every citizen , from schoolchildren to adults, will become aware of this document which basically governs the way our entire country behaves.
Considering its importance, it's amazing that we don't study it in school. I did British Constitution for my A Levels so at that age, I knew more about the (unwritten) British Constitution than ours. That's not something to be proud of.
The campaign will be launched on Friday at 3pm at the Bar Council by Deputy Minister in the PM's in charge of law, Datuk Liew Vui Keong, followed by a public forum called 'Conversations on the Constitution' where five speakers, National Human Rights Society (Hakam) president Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, veteran lawyer Sulaiman Abdullah, and academics Professor Shad Faruqi, Abdul Aziz Bari and Azmi Sharom, will give their thoughts on the Constitution. The website will also be launched that day.
So come one, come all and learn about this very important document.
7 comments:
Aw...I thought you were going to write about this one: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=180283055427&index=1
May be compassion for the weak and the marginalised in society could be added to the RukunNegara, if not written into the Constitution.
Then, compassion would be better reflected in public policy, official strategies, civil society and labour and industrial relations.
Kuching
mm, I doubt how many of your religious authorities will attend this event. Or are they very busy arresting people like Dr. Asri or peeping into other people's houses to monitor their morality? @_@ btw, Armstrong's book is banned in Malaysia, no?
And once again Joseph exemplifies exactly why we need a Charter for Compassion all round the world.
Karen Armstrong's book is not banned in Malaysia. Have you read it? She would have no time for you, Joseph.
I think even if all religion fails, COMPASSION is a common ground the human species can work on, because all religion teaches compassion, and atheist have them too. It's something humans are born with but somehow we've kind of lost it along the way towards "development".
Joseph, If you're referring to Armstrong's book, "The History of God", it's a brilliant book by the way. I reckon that is why it is banned, if it is indeed banned.
We have daily 'the world this day and the world that day' and charter after charter. Go to any Govt Dept and you will see at the entrance scrawled in gigantic letters 'QUALITY, SERVICE, PEOPLE OUR PARTNER...etc..'
Mostly, most pay lip service. I fear this Charter for Compassion will suffer the same fate and be forgotten the day after its launch.
As the old Indian saying goes, good habits must start from the baby's cot.
If we invest in the right education system, right up from kindergarten, we should have the most civil and caring of societies in the world.
Instead, we have a doctrinaire system that divides the people!
dpp
We are all of 1 race, the Human Race
Hello,
I would just like to note that the Constitution is thought in school --- a chapter in the Form 5 History course.
Of course, it gives a good introduction but does leave many a stone unturned. Most students who by this time have relatively bigger worries like exams, merely read the essentials but unfortunately do not apply in their daily lives. But its there.
Good teachers would be able to teach this well. Maybe if the Bar Council can rope in NUTP and some history teachers --- its objectives can be better achieved.
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