PROBLEMA the film *NEW Higher Quality*

Watch the film with subtitles in various languages on www.problema-thefilm.org

Inspired by
www.droppingknowledge.org

For me,
the most important question today is

how do we sit together
and lead a discussion?

Not just with one or two persons,
but all of us on this planet.

To start to raise the questions
about what's important.

-For me, what's important.
-Are you bending the truth...

about climate change?

Why are African states
less developed than Western states?

I'd like to know...

What is the proper balance
between Jewish values

and other values in a democracy?

-I have a few questions.
-Why do they dislike Americans?

How does an individual relate
to the group in the 21st Century?

This place has a lot of history.

In this place, they used to burn books

by those who say things
that other people don't like to know.

And that's why we've come here
to August-Bebelplatz in Berlin,

where books were burned,
thoughts were burned.

Freedom of speech was burned here.

THE TABLE OF FREE VOICES,
BEBELPLATZ, BERLIN

It's wonderful to see all the
beautiful faces around this table.

We have a long day ahead of us,
so we'll go right into the programme.

Today, we ask and we begin

to discover answers to 100 questions

chosen from thousands, donated
by people from all around the world.

We will ask them all over the course
of the next nine hours...

In eight sessions
of around 45 minutes

covering eight themes
of global importance.

-Chinese.
-From here. Directly from here.

Have you been to my country?

No, unfortunately, I have not.

Together, we come together as one
to celebrate our diversity

and to gather
a multiplicity of viewpoints.

-Thank you for being here with us.
-At the Table of Free Voices.

-Question one.
-From Anonymous, USA.

"What is today's
most important unreported story?"

You can start with your answer.

What ought to be reported today

and definitely does not

is how much life costs.

The price of life on this planet.

We are going from crisis to crisis

and we only report
a portion of the story.

When the guns of battle are silenced,

we then forget about that country,

about that region
that has suffered conflict.

And we go to report a different story,
and when we do so...

Well, I would begin with Darfur,

with the extermination of populations,

just because they're of
another religion or another race.

And the world
is not interested in them,

because they have no resources,
no oil.

For me,
the most unreported story of today

is the truth behind global terrorism.

We have no idea, really no idea,

what the truth behind it is.

Who is alive? Who is dead?

Who is advancing it?
Who is pioneering it?

Who is making use of it

in "his" or "their" favour.

The children who have been enslaved.

Human trafficking.

The millions of people
crossing borders illegally

in search for a better life.

I think today's
most important unreported story

is the story
of the young girl who died

ten minutes ago of malaria.

She died needlessly,

because the drugs that would be able
to kill the malaria parasite exist,

and are cheap.

But she didn't get those drugs.

And she died,

and just now another child died,

and this story goes unreported.

I don't think there is

today's one most important
unreported story.

There are many unreported stories
throughout the world.

The good things
that are happening in the world.

We don't hear about the good things.
There are wonderful things happening.

All we ever hear about is bad news.

The death, the destruction, wars,

killing, murders, rapes.

Problems.
If you squeeze a newspaper,

it seems to bleed.

Thank you.

Question twelve from Judy Twedt,

24, Denver, USA.

"Should we have the right
to choose where we live?"

Now, that's an interesting question.

I like it.

We are just born.

We're just born
somewhere on planet Earth,

and if we don't want to stay there,

we go somewhere else.

But then, when we do,
we're discriminated against.

I arrived two days ago and on the 11th
I have to leave again,

because my visa
only lasts for four days.

As a Colombian,

as a citizen of the world,

I have no right
to enter this paradise,

the paradise of the First World,
except for four days.

I believe we should have the right
to choose where we live.

We live in a world
where capital can move,

where goods can move.

Why is there so much hysteria
about people moving?

For example,
one time I wanted to go to Dubai,

but because I have

a 1951 Geneva Convention passport,

I was not allowed.

And the reason they gave me for this

was that I didn't belong anywhere.

Everybody wants to live in a place
that is free of war.

Everybody wants to live
a harmonious existence.

But some people can buy that
and others cannot.

Some people
can lay claim to that right,

and others
are just not in a position to do so.

Yes, we all should have the right
to live wherever we want,

but all of us
should be able to afford to do so.

Sometimes you have to move
to be able to support your family.

If you're crossing borders,
and you're not recognized by a state,

Does that mean you're illegal
by definitions of the state?

I think as humans,
we can't say another human is illegal.

The people
who are moving are doing so,

because they are desperate.

They're taking enormous risks.

Look at the people arriving
in the Canary Islands.

Every week in makeshift boats,

they're arriving
on the beach by the hundreds.

These people are absolutely desperate.

Otherwise, they would not have left.

That's not a choice. That's not
choosing where I'm going to live.

You're not going to choose to risk
nine chances out of ten of drowning,

or being killed
before you actually arrive.

That's not a choice!

You could also ask the question,
shouldn't we have...

the right to remain where we are?

This is a very urgent question
for many, many people on this Earth.

Tibetan people,
such as myself, being Tibetan,

we don't have this right.

Yes, we can live in our country,

but we can't necessarily
do what we want to.

The day the law

effectively realizes the possibility

of granting this right
to all people without restriction,

on that day
humanity will have done more

than pass over a boundary.

It will have attained
a degree of evolution,

which is desirable

for all cultures and nations.

It's important...

that we can live where we want to.

Everyone needs a nest.

Even the birds need a nest.

Human beings need their homes.

Question 19, from Claire Mackintosh,

25, Brisbane, Australia.

"What are the basic dignities
that each human being deserves,"

"and why do we let
so many people go without them?"

Basic dignity is human dignity,

their pride, so they can
hold their heads up, not down.

They don't have to be scared.

Maybe they live in a remote village.

In some part of a developing country.
So what?

They should be standing straight...

We let so many people go without them,

so we can let other people
do what they do.

Take lands.

Drop bombs.

Take water.

Control minds.

All for ourselves
and nothing for other people

seems to have been,
in every age of the world,

the vile maxim
of the masters of mankind.

All for ourselves
and nothing for other people.

It's Adam Smith who said that,
Adam Smith, the father of capitalism.

He knew that was the tendency.

All for ourselves
and nothing for other people.

The Universal Declaration
of Human Rights

is what should be available

for people throughout the world.

We should not accept that anyone
is denied those basic human rights,

the basic human right
to live a decent life,

to have access

to food, shelter and education.

It is unacceptable
that in today's world,

there are children dying of hunger.

It is unacceptable
that in today's world,

there are children
who have no shelter.

To prepare myself for this question,
I used the Internet, Wikipedia,

and I re-read the United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

and it made me cry.

I just wept. It is so beautiful.

Let's put it in every passport.

My father was exterminated
at the age of 37,

my mother at the same age.

My sisters were exterminated

at the age of fourteen and six
and twelve and sixteen.

I survived, and life has become
very precious for me.

And I assume it is also precious
for every human being on this planet.

And yet it is often taken away
for the wrong reasons.

We teach our children that our lives
are worth more than other people's.

Outsiders,
people with a different colour skin,

people that have less than we do,
people that don't speak our language.

People...

The other. The other people.

What happens oftentimes
is that those people

are really seen
as "them" and not "us",

and there's not much attention
paid to or much concern for

the basic rights and dignities
of those people.

But I think you have to think about
what "we" means in this question.

Who are "we" and who are "they"?

Babies, when they cry,
you cannot distinguish

whether it's a boy, a girl,
what their nationality is,

or what the mother's religion is.

It's only one voice.

Don't forget. It's only one sound.
We must remember this.

I guess if people really
saw each other as their brother,

and could imagine
that each person out there

was their child or relative,
it would be really different.

If we could really
open our hearts that wide.

Everyone can gain

human dignity for themselves.

Before this, though,
one must leave behind

the self-imposed oppression
of politics, ideology, religion,

and nationalistic narrow-mindedness.

I come...

I come from the jungle,

where I lived most of my life
with tribes,

and where

the question of freedom

is much more meaningful
than it is here.

I've never known any beings
that are more free than they are,

the indigenous people.

No, I never have.

Do you believe this project
can change something?

I knew it from the moment
that this murmur first began,

and this babble of voices.

It sent a shiver down my spine,

and I realized that
something will come of this.

I was reminded
a little of "Wings of Desire".

There are these angels
which hear all these voices.

There's a similar kind
of murmur the whole time.

I could hear this same murmur here,
only it was real.

All these people
were actually thinking aloud.

Oh, hey! Did you see Bianca?
I think she's over there.

There she is.

I think she showed up late.

Can you do me a big favour?

Don't move it when I'm talking,
because that immediately...

Could you do it before or after
or when I stop talking,

because if you do it when I'm talking
my concentration...

-I do it when I get notes from others.
-Sure.

Question 28 from Andrew,

22, Frankfurt, Germany.

"What if all Chinese people
want a car?"

Please begin.

This question is a bit racist.

Why not?

Everybody needs a car.

Why do you only talk
about the Chinese?

If you go to America,
every family has more than three cars.

Why Chinese? Everybody wants a car.

Italian, French and German people
that don't have a car, want a car.

What if all Indians want a car?

What if all Africans want a car?

If all Chinese people
wanted to have a car,

and assuming
that they would want to drive

the biggest, fastest
and most powerful cars,

then the skies above us would darken.

Not enough roads, many accidents,

not enough car parking space,

too much pollution.

What if all Chinese people want a car?

Then all German people

must be turned into automobile workers

to produce cars for the Chinese
until all the Germans are exhausted.

It's an impossible story.

The car of today in the wealthy world

utilizes 2 to 3 percent of the energy
in the gas tank

to actually move the driver.

The rest is lost
in moving the weight of the frame,

and the weight of the engine,
lost in heat and friction.

We've devised an enormously
sophisticated set

of very badly designed vehicles.

Just to move one person
from one place to another.

Petroleum prices will continue
their sharp upward movement.

And economic chaos
in the West, at the most,

or, at the very least,
the grim, inevitable realization

that something has to be done

about the excess consumption
of fossil fuels

in the United States of America
and other Western countries

will be impressed
upon people's consciousness.

China, for a long time,

was a nation of bicycles.

I'm encouraged that Chinese automakers

are looking
at the ecological impacts of the cars

and working very hard
at thinking about electric cars.

China has a huge opportunity,

and a huge responsibility

to industrialize in a way
that works for its people,

and for its environment,

and for the world.

What's behind the question
is not so much the Chinese people,

but a metaphor for a situation,
which is clearly unsustainable.

We cannot ask of them

what we're not prepared
to do ourselves.

What we need to do
is learn from our mistakes,

from the way we've lived,
from irrational and irresponsible ways

in which we have lived our life.

The problem is not
how many people want a car,

but that the door to human desires

has been opened interminably.

How can we close the door again

after opening it to our infinite,
possessive desires?

-Everything okay?
-Everything okay.

-How you doing?
-Good. A little bit exhausted.

-That's too much?
-Yeah.

This is just so cool
to be here doing this.

-Is it?
-The Nazis burned the books here.

Oh, now I get it. That stack of books
is there because of that.

Jesus, I didn't realize that...

Willem.
How many questions do you have left?

-After all these questions.
-You want to know?

I'm speaking so much
about all the problems.

I'm setting it all on fire!

-Am I doing okay?
-Question 33...

is from the New York-based novelist,

Siri Hustvedt, who asks...

I'm very curious to know, to find out,

how consumer culture

actually influences

the personalities,
the ways people live,

the way they think,

inside themselves, in a given culture.

How it becomes part of us,

and what it means to be able to resist

that visual and verbal culture,
it seems to me...

"It seems to me, it's always reducing"

"and simplifying reality
into something"

"that can be easily bought and sold."

I think...

Consumer culture...

It functions to keep creating

a desire in the society,
in the community,

that there is something new,
something better, more useful...

Man needs nothing.

He needs only himself.

He needs love.

There are enough coffee pots
in the world.

We're surrounded by enough gadgets.
There are enough chairs.

Use one of the many hundreds
that are already there,

and then put your extra energy into
developing things that really matter.

All this forms part of a culture
of prostitution.

Our values have become prostituted,

and humanity
is just a big prostitution machine.

We created monsters,

monsters of agricultural development.

McDonald's cows are killed and there's
no ceremony of killing the animal.

There's no honouring, no thanking
the animal for providing food for us.

So when there's no ceremony,
the food we eat becomes bad.

And guess what?

Where McDonald's is eaten

people become sick.

What do you expect?
There's no ceremony.

The most powerful people
on the face of the planet

are the ones
who can affect the most minds, who...

who can influence human behaviour,

and social movements,

and the way in which
societies view themselves,

the way they walk, the way they talk,
things they eat, they drink and so on.

It's all a matter of economics.

It's a model that is destroying us.

It's a model that is consuming us.

What we really need to look at

is the free market itself,

and see how we
can really bring in

the whole aspect of ethics.

Wealth in order to share, to care,

and to live happily
with oneself and others.

And the deepest, the best wealth,
is how to serve others.

Question 37

is from Tom Henze,
30, Berlin, Germany.

"Does our wealth
depend on the Third World being poor?"

The expression "Third World"
is truly an arrogant claim.

It is not a Third World,
it's just a world

that has developed differently
or hasn't developed as fast.

But it is not the Third World.
What's the First World then?

What is that definition
of the Third World anyway?

Is there a First World,
a Second World and a Third World?

Not really.

One world?

Not doing so well?
Humans fucking it up?

I mean, if our wealth depends
on the Third World being poor,

then we're in trouble,
we're in trouble...

They started by taking the gold away.

But for indigenous people

gold didn't have the same value
as it did for capitalists.

Africa has been the cradle of mankind,

and I stand very clearly on this,
and say that Africa

is also going to be
the deathbed of capitalism.

Oh plundered Africa...

Africa, terrible Africa.

It's impossible to talk about Africa
without feeling...

without feeling our hearts twinge.

Those who are well-fed
never understand

what it feels like to be hungry.

A Nigerian chief said:

"If you won't share your wealth,
we'll share our poverty with you."

If you want global peace, we have
to talk about equitable distribution.

We also have to understand
that all of the resources

are shared by all and they are,
first of all, for those in need.

Real property is property by need.
It comes about through need.

When I need a glass of water,
then it is mine by right of need.

Fair... "Fair" is not a word

that you hear in economics too much.

There is a connection
that we have to make

as to the poverty of the people,

the wealth of the land,
and be observant as to

where this wealth is going.

What I believe
globalization is really about

is forming global family,
moving out of what I call

a juvenile species mode
of hostile competition,

and into a more mature mode
of cooperation.

This has happened to many
species all through evolution

and it's our turn now as humans
to do this.

I make it very simple.

One is joining
in the generosity of the divine,

which is a power of giving.

All life is given to us.

And those who do that
are "for giving".

And if your life
is centred around getting,

then you're joining in the culture
of "for getting".

So the choice is to be part of
"for getting" and being forgotten,

or part of "for giving"
and being forgiven.

I like that!
That's great.

-He said it for me, my neighbour.
-Repeat. Repeat.

Yes. Can you come and sit in my seat
and say it for me?

I would like it if we had
more interaction in this process.

I'm enlivened
by sharing with somebody.

My brain doesn't, my brain doesn't...
I mean, this! Talking to you...

Talking to you!

-Hi, sweetheart.
Hi! How are you?

Are you having fun, baby?

-Are you having fun?
-Yeah.

Because you're so smart.
You're such a genius.

Answers just roll off your tongue.

-I don't know, I don't know.
-I don't know!

We're part of a big experiment.

It's not about the questions.
This is about us.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

While you were giving your answers
to that last question,

I walked through the circle and could
see all your faces, hear your voices,

see your expressions.

And it was deeply moving
for me to see

everything that I saw
as I walked through the circle.

It's such a diverse group
that we have here.

We're our own United Nations!

I saw people from Africa,
from Asia, Australia,

from Europe and the Americas.

It's beautiful that we're all here
investing in the future.

Question 41.

From Adrienn Meszaros,
30, Budapest, Hungary.

"Is there a modern version
of colonialism?"

Yes.

There is a modern version
of colonialism.

And it's called debt.

It is called debt,

followed by
the structural adjustment policies

imposed by the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund.

A lot of this money
coming to developing countries

is used to control the sovereignty
of our own governments,

of our own people...

The Bank and the Fund say,
if you're going to pay back your debt,

and you must pay back your debt,

then you have to put interest rates
way up...

That makes it harder for businesses
to borrow and to employ people.

You've got to privatize
everything in sight,

so that gives big opportunities

to foreign companies and local elites

to buy up all of
the previously public companies.

The United States of America
was itself built

on the decimation of an entire people.

Europe has been built

on sucking out the Congo,

on sucking out
the gold and diamonds of South Africa.

Slavery was about
the exploitation of raw materials.

Today it's about oil.

Today it's about diamonds,
minerals and primary resources.

The countries...

the Latin American countries,

continue to suffer exploitation,

the exploitation of their resources.

All of these policies
have been very beneficial

to a tiny minority
of the people in these countries.

Just like vampires.
They are vampires!

They use the energy,
the strength and the lives of others,

for their own economic prosperity.

It's modern economic colonialism
based on globalization,

but its structure
is almost exactly the same

as it has been for
four or five hundred years.

It's better than colonialism,
because it doesn't need an army.

It doesn't need an administration.

It doesn't cost you anything,
the state, the powers intervening...

"We are children of a world
that has enough for everyone."

"But so many remain hungry,
while so few are well fed."

"One will eat, the other suffers."

"This is how it's always been."

"Other nations must be poor,
so that rich ones can be rich."

And this is a really ideal system,

because it isn't even very visible.

Colonialism is visible.

People think this is rotten.
Those pictures taken.

But debt is invisible, and it works
just as well, even more efficiently.

I don't like to be sitting here
as an American talking about this,

but this is the underbelly
of the real world that we live in.

It's very real.
It has caused enormous misery,

and we have to know
what's going on in our world

in order to change it.

There must be
some democratic forms of life

and forms of organization

that can sidestep all imperial

and colonial forms of subjugation.

That's the great question
of the 21st Century.

Question 45
from Katharina, 24, Germany.

"Why do we still believe more
in nationality than in humanity?"

It is by the conditioning of mind
that we are

trained, trained, trained
all the time,

that we are part of
a national identity.

That is how we see it.

And, within a nation,
again it gets down to

smaller and smaller
and smaller identities...

And so we are fearful.

We have been put into a framework
to protect ourselves.

We're so insecure.

We do not know who is for us,
and who is not for us,

and that has destroyed humanity.

Let me give you an example.

In Iraq now, my country Iraq,

most people cling to

and trust

only their own people,

or their neighbours,
or others from their city.

Before, we did not ask
who a person was,

where they came from,
from which city,

from which tribe or family.

We would be friendly, that's all.

It is security,
psychological security,

that enables people to feel
an expanded sense of self,

that enables them
to respect difference.

It is when people feel frightened,
scared, cut off,

that intolerance grows,

and in the nation states today
people are being manipulated

through the mass media

to learn to hate the other,
whom they have never met.

We live in a world,
where we have been conditioned

to be tribal, to be nativist,

to be nationalist.

Of course,
it's important to understand

that nationalism is really fanaticism.

I believe that within each of us

there is a racist dictator.

I'm convinced of this.

Because we are closer to the family
than we are to the clan,

closer to the clan than to the tribe,

closer to the tribe
than to the nation,

closer to the nation
than to humanity.

I don't believe in nationality at all,

and I think more and more of us
in the 21st Century,

children of the world of possibility,
children of the future tense,

live in the passageways between
nations, cultures and categories,

outside the traditional definitions.

Our affiliations are not to nations,

or to the traditional order,
but to something beyond that.

I believe that, to a certain extent,

the concept of nationality
is beginning to erode

as we turn into a kind of
genuinely transnational people.

Sometimes the worst enemy

is our own perception.

Thank you.

Question 48 from Glen,
Cape Town, South Africa.

"How do we stop
our governments from going to war?"

I come from a land
where there has never been a war,

so I do not know anything about war,

but I do know of the suffering
you people have experienced.

Me? I come from the land of peace.

Where nothing but peace
had been in existence.

Where no one fears being shot.

Where no one is aiming at you.

Where no one fights for land.

We go to war: you, me, us.

Governments don't go to war.
Governments send us to war.

We pay the price,

and the price that we pay
is not only physical.

The price that we pay is psychic.

We lose our moral groundedness.
We lose ourselves.

It's really a shame.

The big powers should be ashamed

of what they are doing
with the civilizations. Killing them?

I'm a survivor of war in Bosnia.

For three and a half years
of my childhood,

millions of bombs exploded
in my city, and...

To hear a bomb explode
is an experience

that can't be explained or described,

because you feel it in your body.

I remember
just my whole body reacting

to such loudness and destruction.

My heart would jump every time,
millions of times.

There were times when it felt like
my heart could no longer take it,

like it would just burst
into millions of pieces.

We're nothing but collateral damage.
We're not talking about numbers.

We're not talking about
destroyed lives or families.

We're talking about collateral damage.
It's just numbing.

Because we're not seeing a face.
It is distant.

The political process has lost touch

with the reality that war
is only about economics.

It is incomprehensible how,
nowadays,

the world powers

can spend so much money on death.

We've lost our connection to

our responsibility
for what our governments do.

And we get lost in our powerlessness,

and we think we can change it
in a few moments.

People marched
against the war and it didn't work,

so everyone goes back to living
their lives again,

while what they
went to the streets for has become

a greater nightmare
than they could have ever imagined.

Why was it so horrible then

and not so horrible now
that no one's in the streets?

How you stop the government
is a very difficult question.

The only way one could do it
is by overthrowing that government,

by a revolution.

But then the notion of revolution
in our time is so archaic, so dépassé.

We don't think
in those terms anymore,

but that is the only way
to stop a government.

The most important step

that all the women of the world
can take

is not to give their children away

to be turned into soldiers,
to be turned into killers.

I come from a region where we all
started to hate each other,

and to kill each other savagely

as if the others were no longer human.

We have these disasters in which,
in a very short period of time,

a massive amount of destructive power
can be brought to bear.

The governments doing this
must be replaced.

The leaders individually responsible
for these actions

must be held to justice.

We've seen a wonderful trend
in the past twenty years

with General Pinochet
and a number of others,

whose actions led to genocide,
led to disappearances, led to death,

being brought before
world courts of justice.

So we must move to a world
in which every leader

is held accountable in the same way,

with the feeling that their actions
will be judged.

As a human being I feel that...
What is today's war?

We are killing each other
and it's something that

is taking peace away
from a lot of people.

Question 56.

From Moise Marabout, 23,

Agadez, Niger.

"Why is there no peace
in the Middle East yet?"

This question is extremely,
extremely, extremely,

extremely close to my heart
as an Israeli.

I can only say that, the way I see it,

there's no peace in the Middle East,

because of the vanity of Israel.

As long as justice is not addressed,

we will not have peace.

Peace is not a moment
between conflicts,

but a continuous state
one lives and strives for.

The only peace now

is false peace,

peace based upon lack of trust.

Oil.

I believe the reason is
that there are fanatics on both sides.

On both sides.

You can't ignore the fact that we are
deeply scarred as a people,

but instead of
trying to heal ourselves

by recognizing
that we must use compassion,

love and forgiveness,

and engage in dialogue eye to eye,

we keep hiding behind
our supposed righteousness,

but there is no such thing.

We feel like we can do anything,
because of what was done to us.

I believe Palestinians and Israelis
want to be able to coexist together.

The whole argument
that we were here first

that they were here first,
is irrelevant.

We are all visitors on this planet.

We are all strangers
walking on borrowed land.

Once Palestinians and Israelis
live equally with self-respect,

with respect to each other
and solidarity,

it will echo to the entire world.

It will stop these stupid battles

of the state deciding between the
culture of the West and the Muslims.

It's such bullshit.
In Israel and Palestine we can prove

that together this can be the most
beautiful culture one can have.

I know I sound like a dreamer...

In my country, in my community,
we normally say...

which means,

"Where two bulls fight, normally
the grass is the one that suffers."

Question 61 from Wolfgang Jost,

23, Berlin, Germany...

"Why is an Iranian nuclear bomb"

"supposed to be more dangerous
than an American, Israeli or French?"

Let us not ask this question
in America or France or in Israel.

But let us ask this question

in Algeria or in Iraq,

or in Lebanon or in Palestine...

Or even Japan!

August 7, 1945.

America dropped a bomb on Hiroshima.

Some hundred thousand people
were killed, school children,

civilians,
and the killing went on for years,

because of the atomic consequences.

Who has really been using
those bombs, practically?

Until now, just the USA.

Iran pledges, promises,
to destroy Israel.

And there is no doubt that
if Iran were to have a nuclear bomb,

it would keep its promise.

Israel? Israel's bombs?

Where do they come from?

We make those.

We sell them to Israel.

The American, Israeli and French bombs
should be eliminated.

France and the United States
have a legal obligation to do so

under
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

And Israel has a security interest

in really resolving the conflicts in
its region through non-violent means.

As long as some have nuclear weapons
others will want them.

As long as they want them,
they'll get them.

And as long as they exist,
it's inevitable

that either through accident
or design, they will be used.

Any use is catastrophic,
therefore they must be abolished.

Why do we have to have a nuclear bomb?

We shouldn't be...
If we were to start all over again,

no one would say that it was
a good idea to build nuclear bombs.

Insane!

Who would we be if we didn't live
in the shadow of the atomic bomb?

We would be very different people.

Would we live in this sense of fear
that is manipulated

by external powers so easily?

Would we still be allowing
the level of violence that we allow?

I don't think so.

I think we could have found
some wonderful ways

to deal with conflict
that wasn't violence.

And I do think
that who we are in the 21st Century

has deeply been affected

by the technological advances
in weaponry.

I don't think we fully understand

what that's done to our humanity,
what it's done

to American citizens
to have used the atomic bomb.

I think that contributes to how...

how violent our own inner nature is.

It has contributed
to the level of depression,

the level of addictions,

the disconnect and denial...

I think it would be
a very different world,

a very different world,

certainly one
more caring and generous...

Thank you.

Question 62 is from

the writer and activist Arundhati Roy.

"Between non-violent resistance
and armed struggle where do we go?"

"What is effective?"
"What is the right thing to do?"

"Or do we need
a biodiversity of resistance?"

Arundhati, if you could sit here
and hear this murmur...

and see all these faces.

I like the term
"biodiversity of resistance".

This is a great question

and I'm not sure
if we are the ones to answer it.

I would prefer to say that
I prefer a non-violent resistance.

I wish this resistance would make it.

But we are not the ones to choose
the resistance of the oppressed.

We certainly need
a variety of forms of resistance.

Armed struggle
must be the last resort,

and something
that we are very, very mindful of

and oftentimes suspicious of.

And yet there are conditions
under which armed struggle

becomes necessary.

For the most part we must deploy

all forms of non-violent resistance
and struggle,

understanding non-violence
as something active,

as something that's vital and vibrant,

something that requires our sacrifice,
our suffering,

something that allows us
to accent the best in ourselves

and the best in others.

The struggle for change

in every single place
where struggle has been successful

has employed what you term
a "biodiversity" of tactics.

From non-violent resistance

to political organizing,
to speechmaking

to armed struggle.

Legitimate armed struggle
based on the principles laid down by

the African National Congress
and Che Guevara,

to distinguish between mere terrorism,

violence for its own sake
with unnecessary casualties,

and armed struggle that is undertaken
to mobilize and protect

an oppressed majority.

As an organizer,
whatever decision I make

and whatever movement
I'm engaged in, I have to ask myself:

Can I live with the impact
of the tactic I'm going to use?

It never happens
that when change is taking place,

that it does not affect others.

There are always victims of change.

Ask yourself:
How much are you willing to give?

How convinced are you of your goal?

And then you can choose the weapons.

It could be a pen, it could be a gun,

it could be a camera, it could be
a piece of paper, it could be a knife,

it could be your life.

We can accomplish a lot
with non-violent resistance.

But are there times
when armed struggles are justified?

Are revolutions justified?

Concentrating on resistance,
there's something wrong with that.

We're not just
concentrating on resistance.

We have to create "attractance".

We have to create a new paradigm,
which is attractive to go to.

If everyone were to bloom
in their own beauty... Imagine that!

Everyone sitting in a circle at this
table blooming in their own beauty.

Yes, Arundhati,

we need biodiversity on Earth.

It's everyone's language,
everyone's culture,

everyone's spiritual understanding.

At this very moment,
you can see around me

a circle that represents
a global community

where there is diversity,
diversity of thought,

diversity of ideas,
diversity of concepts.

Is anyone there listening to us?

At any time?

It will probably
be catapulted into the world

like a discus.

Great.

Yes? Does that sound good?
Oh good.

Can you take your head off?

So you can really feel
what's going on around you,

sense what's going on around you.

Or are you still
in your mind, thinking?

-Our friend the camera.
-Guys!

Whatever you hear from me,
if there is one smart thing,

take it and the rest please erase
it...

You also went to the centre.
How was the centre?

It was really good. It's amazing.
You can click onto the different...

You can go to any camera.

Question 75.

From Sara Francis,
35, Dublin, Ireland.

"What does courage mean now?"

"Courage is something
I appreciate so much in a person."

"I salute people who have courage."

"Courage helps you to continue
to live your day-to-day life."

"Courage is something...
Step by step, you go up!"

It takes courage to be a human being.
It takes courage to be!

Solitude is courage.
Hermetics. Total neutrality.

To be unsure of yourself is courage.

Courage is so many things.

Courage is the courage
of Aung San Suu Kyi,

who is being kept

incommunicado
and under house arrest.

Courage is the courage of

the young students
in Tiananmen Square.

We risk our lives
in many different ways.

I've never really risked mine,
so I can't say.

I've never lived
in truly dangerous situations.

The way so many people
around this table have done.

To put it simply,
to be willing to die.

Yes, to be willing to die.

To have the courage
to take the risk to die,

to defend who I am and what I'm doing.

Well, I mean,
we're sitting in a square,

where the adventure of Nazism

took over
this beautiful country of Germany,

and distorted the laws of justice

in a most gross and horrific fashion.

Imagine the courage of people
that broke the laws of the state

to honour the higher law

of caring for human life.

You don't know
that Chinese prison labour camps

are similar to Soviet gulags,

or German concentration camps.

About 40 or 50 million people
lost their lives there.

I was there for 19 years,

before I made it to America.

I didn't want to talk about this,

but finally I have,

because we have only one lifetime.

What would Argentina have been
without the courage

of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,

who stood up to the dictatorships
and terrorism

of the Generals Videla,
Massera and Agosti,

who "disappeared" thousands of people
by throwing them into the sea.

What would have become of us

without the lesson in courage
taught by these mothers,

who stood before the Casa de Gobierno
every Thursday

with the portraits
of their disappeared sons?

Courage means to understand

that these powers are not invincible,

as is being demonstrated
by people in the world,

who, with courage and indignation,

have managed to expel
transnationals from their countries,

have managed to overthrow

and topple governments.

Courage has everything to do with

looking at the future in the face,

always acknowledging
an element of the unknown,

but believing that if one sacrifices,

if one suffers,

if one takes a risk
and allows oneself to be vulnerable,

that one can still make a difference.

We should keep this in mind

and it should make us
all the more radical and motivated,

as we don't risk our lives,

just a little boredom,

a little ostracism,
a little of our well-being.

Courage is also not just about
changing this world.

It is really also about ensuring

that the present day world
does not change me.

Question 78.

From Nancy Clemons, 57,
Cameron, Missouri, USA...

"What can I do, and tell others to do,
to stop global warming?"

"What can I do, and tell others to do,
to stop global warming?"

Please begin.

This is a big question.

Quite simply, future generations
will not be able to understand

our delirium of destruction.

There's nothing we can do
to stop global warming.

The ice is going to
carry on melting away.

And now the question is:
Who will live?

Who will live a life worth living?

We know that many will perish.

We know that many more
will barely survive with no life.

Few will have a life worthy of living.

I pray to the Great One
and ask him again and pray again

that you and me will be able
to have a life worthy of living.

Because no matter
what you and I do today

there's no way of returning.

The ice will carry on melting
until it has ceased to exist.

Actually,
we can't stop global warming any more.

As an evolution biologist,
I firmly believe

that we cannot stop it any more.

However, we can slow it down.

Global warming is not about science.
It's about experience.

Science will give us the facts,
the data and it may move us to act.

But how we move
each other to act is a question

more of the heart than of the head.

We are all part of the problem,

but we can also be
part of the solution.

I could make a contribution
if I stop driving my car.

Transitions to bio fuels
and even large-scale wind and solar

would probably
not be sufficient to sustain

an industrial system
at the present scale.

So the answer is powering down.

Right now, hundreds of communities
are starting to take these steps.

They are engaged
in what is called "power down".

They are looking at
how they as communities

can take steps right now
to localize their economies.

They realize that if oil prices
shoot up or if there's scarcity,

they may find
the supermarket shelves empty.

That they won't
be able to heat their homes,

that they won't be able to travel.

We must talk about how to control

our cheap desire.

I think something
we can all do worldwide

is to shame and ridicule
the people who are polluting.

There won't be any state of emergency.

We have been for thousands of years

in a state of emergency.

We delude ourselves into thinking

that these problems are the creation

of our nation, government,
religion or race,

but this is not so.

The problem lies within

each individual's consciousness.

I don't believe in humankind.
No, I don't.

I tell you, I'm embarrassed
to belong to that race.

And at the same time,
I'm fascinated by it.

La belle et la bestia.

Question 83

is from the photographer
Sebastião Salgado

of Aimorés, Minas Gerais, Brazil...

"Can a person be perceptive enough
to see our planet"

"in a way that tells them
that they too are part of nature?"

We all start seeing clearer
and clearer the damage that's done.

We see it at our doorsteps.

We see and feel the climate changes,
the droughts and the flooding,

the storms and the heat.

We breathe the bad air.

We suffer from allergies.

We miss the taste in food.

We watch the forest die,

the animals and plants
endangered and disappearing.

And more and more of us understand

that the planet does not belong to us,

but that we belong to the Earth.

Since the 20th Century,

when man was able to escape gravity
and move into space,

we had pictures,
beautiful pictures of our planet,

that little bluish globe
floating through the universe.

As you look at those pictures, you
become almost sentimental and think:

I live on this planet,
I am part of this planet.

Go out into a field
and lie down at night

and look down into the stars.

Pretend gravity has you glued
to the bottom of the planet,

because how do you know
which way is up?

The reason why little children
love animals is because

we have co-evolved
with the rest of creation.

We have lived close to nature
for almost all our evolution.

This little blip of modern life
cut off from the Earth,

cut off from other animals
and cut off from one another

has only happened,

because we've also become
cut off from ourselves,

from our own hearts,
from our own bodies.

Nature makes the most sophisticated
materials on the planet

out of carbohydrates.

We too can learn how to do that.

But we have thought ourselves
to be superior to nature.

We haven't looked at her four and
a half billion years of experience

in incredible technologies.

Take a wasps' nest.

It's a building
that hangs from a single thread

made of material so light
that it can hold

three hundred times
its own weight in inhabitants.

Can we learn
to make buildings like that?

Can we grow skyscrapers from
the bottom up the way a reed grows,

by building new cells at the bottom
of it and pushing itself upward?

We have so much to learn from nature.

It is by our own free choice,

by our personal efforts,

that we will achieve
balance with nature

and so become like all of nature.

Then we will feel

the eternity, perfection and harmony

that is everywhere in nature

except within our ourselves.

Everything we eat,
everything we wear,

all our houses, all our objects
come from the living Earth.

Learning how to live from that Earth
in a way that is sustainable

is not utopian, is not a dream.

What stands between us
and that possibility

is the idea that it can't be done,

the idea that they are too powerful,

that corporations can't change,

the idea
that people don't want change,

the idea that all of this comes
from innate human greed,

that it comes from overpopulation.

The planet is too crowded,

therefore it's not possible
to provide for people.

All of these are myths
that need to be reassessed,

assumptions that need to be rethought.

Question 96 comes from Miraj Khaled,

30, from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

"What is God's religion?", she asks.

"What is God's religion?"
Please begin.

I loved that question when I saw it,

because I think it's very perceptive.

Which God?

Which Religion?

What God? Whose God?

Whichever way we want to take it,

we must respect how others

see this word "God".

God is a way of defining

certain archetypes,

certain expectations

and objectives.

God is "is-ness".

God is spirit. God is not religion.
God doesn't have a religion.

God doesn't exist.

The religion of my Goddess

is reflected
in every corner of the world,

in every... leaf,

in every speck of dirt,

in every... flower.

No, I don't believe
that God has a religion.

I think that religion
is a profoundly human phenomenon.

When we talk about
God having a religion,

you can rest assured

that we're talking about
some human construction,

some human creation.

What we project onto Him.

I am of Love.

I am of the Universe.

I am God in Action.

There is no God.

God is a symbol for something

that we can't express in words.

And that's also why
there's no God's religion.

God, we have to imagine, is something

that is not only unknown to us,

but is also beyond our knowledge,

that has no quality of being known.

It's as if
we were to ask the question,

what is the colour of a circle?

Is it red, green or blue?

It's neither blue nor red nor green.

It's also not colourless.

The question about the colour
of the circle is absurd,

because a circle knows no colour.

Many people are unwilling to see this.

They take a pen out of their pocket,

draw a circle on a piece of paper

and say, "Look, this circle is blue."

Yes, the circle drawn by them is blue,

but the colour comes from my pen,

and not from the circle.

The colour of the pen is the religion

with which we express the divinity,

but we cannot
draw the circle ourselves.

It is something
that has nothing to do with colours.

There are as many religions

as there are colours
with which I can draw a circle.

I really like that one.

I believe in God,
but all I know about God is,

there is a God and it isn't me.

That's all I know so far.

Don't you think
God is in you as well?

Oh absolutely. Absolutely.

Most of my whole thing
with spirituality is...

I'm a recovering heroin addict.

I haven't met God yet.

If I meet Him one day,

then I will ask Him the questions.

-Thank you.
-Thank you, too.

-Last one.
-Question...

-100!
-100.

-Last one.
-I didn't think we'd make it!

Okay, last question. Let's do it.

From Keith Dierkx, 48,
Piedmont, California, USA.

"What are the myths
that we need to create"

"to change the world for the better?"

Creation stories are part of every
culture in human history,

and they were usually told
by some kind of a priesthood.

But now science
tells the creation story.

It has been elevated
to that status of priesthood

that gets to tell
the big story to the culture.

What story is it telling us?

That we live in a non-living,
purposeless universe

running down by entropy.

Oh! How cheery is that
for a creation story?

And then we add in
that evolution on this planet

is about the survival of the fittest,

about an endless competition
in scarcity,

and that you have to get
what you can while you can

and beat the other guy to it.

This is a totally depressing
creation story,

a universe running down meaninglessly,

you're stuck
in an endless struggle in scarcity.

This is a terrible story to tell.
It doesn't fit the scientific facts.

Every force in nature has an opposite.

If there's entropy,
there has to be syntropy.

In evolution there's a tremendous
amount of cooperation.

In fact, I'd say there's a great story

in the maturation cycle
of evolving species,

where they first are young and grabby

they multiply
and take all the territory they can,

bump off their competitors,
act like capitalists.

And then they discover, bit by bit,
the advantages of cooperation.

And, as they do so, they build bigger
and bigger cooperative enterprises

and find out
that their economies are cheaper,

more effective, more efficient,
work for everybody,

and you get
the evolution of rainforests,

and human bodies
made of a hundred trillion cells,

working in complete cooperation
even though they're so diverse.

This is a story we need to tell
in the world, a great new story

of the human species
growing up into global family,

doing win-win economics
and making a better world for all.

Human beings are appreciators,

not just observers
but appreciators, participants,

even co-creators
of the cosmic process.

The whole world is deeply entangled.

All the living organisms,
all the parts of the universe.

The whole universe is living,

the electrons
and the protons and everything.

They are all organisms.

They all have a history
and they are all entangled so deeply,

intimately interconnected,
that you cannot separate them.

And, at any moment,
this entangled universe

is creating
and recreating itself anew.

That, I think,
is the evolution of the cosmos,

the evolution of all things in it
from atoms, to humans, to galaxies.

That is the objective.
That is the ambition.

That is the ultimate aim
of divine creativity.

That's as far as we can come
as human beings to understand it.

I believe

in a measure of humility,

and in a measure of humanity,

and in an avowal of beauty

as an antidote to all the brutality,

and cruelty of the world.

I believe

that the sacred lives in nature,

not only in the supernatural,

but also in the beauty of nature.

I believe

human beings
are metaphysical animals,

and always will be
because of their mortality.

The human is the only animal
that knows it must die.

This is the source of the mystery,

of the unending mystery
of human existence.

It would have to do
with the marrying of the mind,

the soul,
and this corporeal little covering

that is supposed to be the body.

The marriage of all those,

if it indeed be that,

can only be powered by positivity.

And if the positivity

then manages
to give birth to that marriage...

then all the troubles of the Earth
will be gone.

If the human mind has got the space

in which to breathe,
to live, to pulse, to flow...

Who is ever going
to listen to all of this?

Because we're one hundred and twelve,
there are a hundred questions.

That's 11,200. Let's say...

Only two minutes each time.
That's 22,000 minutes.

You know what that is?

That's three hundred days.

Okay, we're finished.

It's over.

Copyright © 2011 TITELBILD, Berlin
Subtitle: S. Kirchner, V. Trespalacios