Catalysing the emergence of the Human Revolution
The Club of Rome is repositioning itself to challenge humanity to rise to its full potential and become good stewards of the Earth’s limited resources. Our call is anchored on the need for a paradigm shift in our fundamental belief matrix, and the complex economic, financial, social systems underpinning our daily interactions. We are determined to identify and mobilize those already engaged in the quest for a New Civilisation to become part of a Network of Networks to pursue this vision.
The Emerging New Civilisations Initiative (ENCI) has commenced the reimagining of narratives about Africa and Most of the world to challenge the dominant narratives of universality and Afro-pessimism. ENCI has also developed the ideas elaborated in the Learning New Ways of Becoming Human discussion paper. In a call for mutual learning across geographies, cultures and generations, ENCI initiated conversations with many individuals and organisations willing to engage in new processes towards global equity for a healthy biosphere. The initiative explored how the transformative potential of learning for collective action could be liberated. Some clear responses have emerged:
• Many different threads of knowledge are required at the same time: Ubuntu, Tao and indigenous worldviews are as necessary as the life-inspired elements of modern science such as cybernetics, complexity thinking or evolutionary biology.
• People who have no option other than to change their future are those who learn the most: the disempowered everywhere, marginalised communities, as well as many youth and women. All of them feel the harassment of reality and are ready to shift and learn by themselves, provided they are allowed to do so.
• The seeds of equitable human wellbeing within a healthy biosphere are everywhere, in plain sight and yet invisible. The transformation is however not happening in board rooms or in public media, but in human minds and souls.
On these grounds, ENCI has started a program of activities called “The Fifth Element – Life for Learning, Learning for Life“, as an invitation to collectively dig into these matters and address a difficult question: if the silent melody of our reconciliation with life is already there, how do we make it audible to everybody?
To develop The Fifth Element Program, the Club of Rome initiated a partnership with the #LearningPlanet platform, a network of more than 90 institutions engaged in new ways of collective learning for better futures. Several Learning Circles have been created, including the Ubuntu one, to learn from and with Africa. Also, the Club of Rome became a key partner of the UNESCO-supported BRIDGES Coalition and of The Jena Declaration, both engaged in mobilising sources of knowledge beyond disciplines to decolonise minds and foster the cultural shift humanity needs to escape from exploitative and destructive frameworks.
The Human Revolution is the response that Aurelio Peccei proposed many years ago to address the Human Gap – the difference between humanity’s capacity to act and our ability to understand the consequences of our actions. The Human Revolution is already happening, emerging in silent ways. ENCI’s mission is to open people’s eyes and contribute to its realisation in a way that is deeply respectful of the human condition and symbiosis with life at large.
