USA President Tries to Change
the World and Makes Gross Mistakes
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
Barack Obama failed to understand
what Benjamin Netanyahu,
the Prime Minister of Israel,
explained to him about the Middle East
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
A 2017 Editorial Note:
Good
intentions can provoke disasters if discernment
is scarce.
The humanistic thinker who presided one
of the most
powerful countries on Earth made ill-advised
efforts in
the direction of peace. The following text
describes his
philosophical trajectory until his first election
in 2008. The
final paragraphs refer to Obama’s mistakes
from 2014. His
failed policies with regard to Iran and
North Korea, combined with his boycott of Israel,
accelerated
the process of nuclear proliferation in the
Middle East
and around the world, causing severe harm
to the efforts
for international peace and understanding.
(Carlos
Cardoso Aveline)
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
“The true Theosophist belongs
to no
cult or sect, yet belongs to
each and all.”
(Robert Crosbie)
“In
our household the Bible, the Koran, and
the
Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside
books
of Greek and Norse and African mythology.
On
Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag
me
to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist
temple,
the Chinese New Year celebration, the
Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites.”
(Barack Obama)
“To form the nucleus of a
Universal
Brotherhood of Humanity,
without distinction
of race, creed, sex, caste,
or color…”
(The first object of modern theosophical movement)
“The walls between old allies
on either side
of the Atlantic cannot stand.
The walls between
the countries with the most
and those with the least
cannot stand. The walls
between races and tribes;
natives and immigrants;
Christian and Muslim and Jew
cannot stand. These now are
the walls we must tear down.”
(Barack Obama)
Theosophy is a planetary philosophy, and its
first goal is to stimulate an understanding of Universal Brotherhood as a law
of Nature.
Both theosophy and
the theosophical movement are beyond labels, personal names, ideologies or
organizations. The field of action for classical theosophy and its students is
defined by real, yet invisible factors, like an understanding of the laws of
nature, an ethical consciousness, and a feeling of solidarity towards all
beings.
Having access to
divine wisdom is the goal of souls, not of institutions or corporations. Hence William
Judge, one of the founders of the modern theosophical movement, wrote:
“The Theosophical
Movement being continuous, it is to be found in all times and in all nations.
Wherever thought has struggled to be free, wherever spiritual ideas, as opposed
to forms and dogmatism, have been promulgated, there the great movement is to
be discerned.” [1]
From such a
viewpoint, a citizen who has good will, who adopted noble goals and possesses an
open mind must be seen as a theosophist, even if he is not a member of any
theosophical association. It does not matter whether he is a Jew, a Muslim, a
Christian or a Buddhist; or if he follows some other philosophy. As long as he
understands and shares the universality of planetary ethics, his life helps
opening room for the perception of universal brotherhood, and he is a true
theosophist at the soul-level.
This may be the
case with Mr. Barack Obama, who was first elected as president of the United
States in November 2008, and reelected in 2012.
Upon examining a
few facts from Obama’s life and the books he wrote, one can evaluate the degree
of affinity between his efforts and the Cause of modern theosophical effort. Even
his failures - among them an appeasing attitude towards unethical, unacceptable
actions - are also not too hard to find in theosophical circles.
Dissolving Walls Between Nations, Races and Religions
In July 2008, Barack
Obama spoke in Berlin, Germany, to a multitude calculated in 200,000
people. He opened the unprecedented
event by saying he was there as “a citizen of the world”, an expression which actually
contains, in itself, the ideas of planetary citizenship and of a world
without borders. Obama was then a candidate in the U.S. presidential elections,
talking to a street meeting in a European country. On the occasion, he presented his idea of
cooperation among all nations, which corresponds to the first object of the
modern theosophical movement.
Referring to the
fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he said:
“Partnership and
cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to
protect our common security and advance our common humanity. That is why the
greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The
walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls
between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The
walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim
and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down. We know they
have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed
a union of promise and prosperity.”
And he added:
“Here, at the base
of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at
peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast,
where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans,
where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to
justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people
defeated apartheid. So history reminds us that walls can be torn down. But the
task is never easy. True partnership and true progress requires constant work
and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of development and
diplomacy; of progress and peace. They require allies who listen to each other,
learn from each other, and, most of all, trust each other.” [2]
This, of course,
is easier said than done.
To Liberate The World From Nuclear Weapons
In the same speech,
Barack Obama announced:
“This is the
moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The two
superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close
too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love. With that wall
gone, we need not stand idly by and watch the further spread of the deadly
atom. It is time to secure all loose nuclear materials; to stop the spread of
nuclear weapons; and to reduce the arsenals from another era. This is the
moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear
weapons.”
In mentioning
Iran, he declared:
“…We must help
answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East. My country must stand with
yours [Germany] and with Europe in
sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions.”
He discussed the
ecology of the planet:
“This is the
moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we
will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads
and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations -
including my own - will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your
nation [Germany] [3], and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the
moment to give our children back their future. This is the moment to stand as
one.”[4]
The Need For Remaking The World
Obama seemed to
know well the direction he would try to go. And he could not be accused of
having too modest goals. Born in Hawaii, the son of a Kenyan citizen, he closed
his first speech outside the United States with these words:
“People of Berlin
- people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time. I know my country
has not perfected itself. (…) We have made our share of mistakes (…). But I
also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we
have strived (…) to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a
more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or
kingdom - indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has
left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public
squares. What has always united us - what has always driven our people, what
drew my father to America’s shores - is a set of ideals that speak to
aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from
want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please. (…) People of Berlin - and people of the world - the
scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before
you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of
improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let
us remember this history and answer our destiny and remake the world once
again.” (“Change We Can Believe In”, pp. 270-271)
Obama had
expressed similar goals more than one year before his Berlin speech. In
February 2007, in his Declaration of Candidacy, he said he would work for an
ethical and ecological change in planetary scale:
“Let’s be the
generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil. We can harness
homegrown, alternative fuels like ethanol and spur the production of more
fuel-efficient cars. We can set up a system for capping greenhouse gases. We
can turn this crisis of global warming into a moment of opportunity for
innovation, and job creation, and an incentive for businesses that will serve
as a model for the world. Let’s be the generation that makes future generations
proud of what we did here.” [5]
Unafraid of
adopting visionary goals, and looking much further than those North American
elections, Obama said in that pioneering occasion:
“And if you will
join me in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny calling, and see, as I see,
a future of endless possibility stretching before us; if you sense, as I sense,
that the time is now to shake off our slumber, and slough off our fear, and
make good on the debt we owe past and future generations, then I’m ready to
take up the cause, and march with you, and work with you. Together, starting
today, let us finish the work that needs to be done, and usher in a new birth
of freedom on this Earth.” [6]
The Golden Rule
Obama’s project
regarding the United States and the world was accused by his adversaries of
being too vague and ambiguous. He was even denounced as “not quite American”. The
truth was that he had a deeper and more complex vision than mere nationalistic
and electoral slogans. The foundations of his approach to social reality were
simultaneously interreligious, ethical and philosophical. The center of his
thought was the well-known Golden Rule, an ancient principle of the Eastern
wisdom, and of the Greek classical philosophy, taught by Confucius in the
“Analects” (see Book V, paragraph XI) and only later adopted by Christianity. This timeless ethical
principle could be correctly called “the law of good karma”.
Obama clarified:
“In the end, then,
what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s
great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto
us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s
keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our
politics reflect that spirit as well.”[7]
The Aloha Spirit
There is a
theosophical substance in the real life of Barack Obama, which can explain why
he makes a constantly renewed “brave declaration of principles”, to use the
words from the Golden Stairs of H. P. Blavatsky’s theosophy. His “mantramic”
teaching of theosophical principles is especially clear regarding the essential
unity of all religions, in Ethics as in Wisdom. But what exactly is his direct
experience regarding universal wisdom?
Obama was born in
August 1961 in Hawaii, and it is not pure chance that his life and ideas
express, up to a certain point, the “Aloha spirit”.
The word “Aloha”
is a sacred mantra in Hawaiian culture, which is known all over the
world for its open-mindedness and its feeling of brotherhood towards people
from all nations. “Aloha” is a greeting and also a Universalist and theosophical
concept. The term is equivalent to the Sanskrit word “Namaste”, which means “that
which is divine in me greets that which is divine in you”. It also means “Shalom”, or “Peace”; and
“Compassion”, and “Friendship”.
The so-called
“Aloha spirit” indicates a mental state based on peace with oneself and peace
with all beings. The speech, the philosophy and the actions of Mr. Obama seem
to express something of this mantram and of this culture present in his youth.
His maternal
grandparents, who played a central role in his education as a boy, not only
lived in Hawaii with him, but they also were influenced in some moment by the
Unitarian Universalist Church. That was
a Church which worked for the fraternization of all religions and kept close
ties with the Hindu society Brahmo Samaj. The Russian thinker Helena
Blavatsky wrote a great deal about the Brahmo Samaj movement. She
admired its founder. She criticized the mistakes made by its later leaders.[8] Barack Obama himself wrote this on
his maternal grandfather:
“…He liked the
idea that Unitarians drew on the scriptures of all the great religions”.
According to
Barack, his grandfather considered joining the Unitarians a unique opportunity:
it was “like you get five religions in one”.[9]
The idea of unity
among religions is good and theosophical. However, it requires discernment, a
severe respect for facts, a humble renunciation to illusion and unconditional love
for truth. In that, Obama made mistakes.
An African Medicine Man With Healing Powers
Hussein Onyango
Obama was Barack Obama’s paternal grandfather. A Medicine Man in Kenya, Africa,
he was a Muslim who had healing powers and dedicated his life to local
traditions. [10]
Barack Obama’s
father, who had the same name Barack, was also Kenyan. Barack, the father, was
his son’s hero and spiritual master. He left
in the life of little Barack a transcendent presence and a mystical influence.
In the world of Barack, the son, the intangible realm where his absent father existed
got mixed with the very origins of the Kosmos. And this is more than a
psychological event.
The origin and
destiny of the Kosmos is a central topic in Theosophy. In the Eastern esoteric
wisdom, it relates to the great initiations and the path that leads to them.
All along her work
“The Secret Doctrine”, H. P. Blavatsky makes a comparative study of the main
narratives about the origin of the universe and mankind. She shows the points
in common among the Chaldean Account of Genesis, the Jewish Kabbalah, the
Jewish and Christian Bibles, the Central American “Popol Vuh”, the Hindu
“Puranas”, and scriptures of many other traditions. Students of esoteric
philosophy will see a meaning in the fact that Barack Obama faced the cosmic
issue during his very childhood, and associated it to his quest for a mythic,
heroic and inner father.
Obama confesses, with
a degree of self-irony:
“…The path
of my father’s life occupied the same terrain as a book my mother once bought
for me, a book called Origins, a
collection of creation tales from around the world, stories of Genesis and the
tree where man was born, Prometheus and the gift of fire, the tortoise of Hindu
legend that floated in space, supporting the weight of the world on its back.
Later, when I became more familiar with the narrower path to happiness to be
found in television and the movies, I’d become troubled by questions. What
supported the tortoise? Why did an omnipotent God let a snake cause such grief?
Why didn’t my father return? But at the age of five or six I was satisfied to
leave these mysteries intact...” [11]
A Universalist Mother
It was Barack’s
mother, a white North American lady, who taught him in daily life an interreligious
and philosophical view of life, besides the habit of daily self-training and
self-discipline. She kept a critical
distance regarding dogmatic religions. This she had in common with the original
and classical theosophy, while the pseudo-theosophy created by Annie Besant has
preferred to invent its own versions of dogmatic sects, with their priests and
rituals.
Barack wrote that
his grandparents transmitted to his mother a combination of realism and
joviality, and added:
“Her own
experiences as a bookish, sensitive child growing up in small towns in Kansas,
Oklahoma, and Texas only reinforced this inherited skepticism. Her memories of
the Christians who populated her youth were not fond ones. Occasionally, for my
benefit, she would recall the sanctimonious preachers who would dismiss
three-quarters of the world’s people as ignorant heathens doomed to spend the
afterlife in eternal damnation - and who in the same breath would insist that
the earth and the heavens had been created in seven days, all geologic and
astrophysical evidence to the contrary. She remembered the respectable church
ladies who were always so quick to shun those unable to meet their standards of
propriety, even as they desperately concealed their own dirty little secrets; the
church fathers who uttered racial epithets and chiseled their workers out of
any nickel that they could.”
Such a “religious”
mediocrity did not occur by chance.
There is a wider
context around this sort of narrow-mindedness, which is not a local phenomenon.
It constitutes a global problem, decidedly denounced and fought by Helena Blavatsky
and a few other theosophists since 1875.
True religiosity
cannot be the prisoner of an institution or ritual, and it can’t be far from
philosophy or science. It must make progress in an interdisciplinary way and
accepting liberty of thought. In the famous Letter 10 of the Mahatma Letters
(or Letter 88 in the Chronological edition), a Master of the Himalayas - a
raja-yogi - says that two thirds of human suffering are caused by the falsehood
and illusions of conventional, priestly religions.
Barack Obama’s
narrative goes on:
“For my mother,
organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety,
cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness. This isn’t to say that
she provided me with no religious instruction. In her mind, a working knowledge
of the world’s great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded
education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on
the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. On Easter
or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to
the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and
ancient Hawaiian burial sites. But I was made to understand that such religious
samplings required no sustained commitment on my part - no introspective
exertion or self-flagellation. Religion was an expression of human culture, she
would explain, not its wellspring, just one of the many ways - and not
necessarily the best way - that man attempted to control the unknowable and
understand the deeper truths about our lives. In sum, my mother viewed religion
through the eyes of the anthropologist that she would become; it was a
phenomenon to the treated with a suitable respect, but with a suitable
detachment as well.” [12]
Obama added this
on his mother and teacher:
“And yet for all
her professed secularism, my mother was in many ways the most spiritually
awakened person that I’ve ever known. She had an unswerving instinct for
kindness, charity, and love, and spent much of her life acting on that
instinct, sometimes to her detriment. Without the help of religious texts or
outside authorities, she worked mightily to instill in me the values that many
Americans learn in Sunday school: honesty, empathy, discipline, delayed
gratification, and hard work. She raged at poverty and injustice, and scorned
those who were indifferent to both.” [13]
A Theosophical View of Life
Barack built his
life on these philosophical and emotional foundations. While having intellectual
depth, such principles are inseparable from practical actions in the world.
In the books Obama
wrote, the reader finds many passages in which he makes once and again, and
under many forms, an open-minded declaration of principles. It is not difficult
to see that Obama’s view of life can be called theosophical, both in the
classical and modern sense of the word, as long as it is combined with a purity
of life and a purity of personal motives. He taught theosophical ethics. But
the possession of political power can change people.
Obama said:
“…Given the
increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have
been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation;
we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu
nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”
And Obama went on:
“But let’s even
assume that we only had Christians within our borders. Whose Christianity would
we teach in the schools? (…) Which passages of Scripture should guide our
public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests that slavery is all
right and eating shellfish is an abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which
suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just
stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage so radical that it’s doubtful that
our Defense Department would survive its application?”
Obama thinks and
openly says that all forms of blind belief in dead letter must be abandoned. The
essential principles must be perceived, and they are beyond visible forms.
Obama concludes by choosing common sense:
“What our
deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the religiously
motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than
religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals must be subject to
argument and amenable to reason.” [14]
As a President, he
would fail to apply that to the radical, unreasonable Islam, whose affinities
lie with Nazism.
The White House: When Intention Meets Reality
As president of
the United States, Obama didn’t make miracles: far from that.
Working under
Karma - that is, within the historical limitations of his own time - he tried
to produce an international atmosphere leading to a sense of respect for peace
and for non-violent conflict-resolution. The militaristic euphoria of previous
times seemed to be abandoned. Dialogue was possible.
Some of Obama’s critics
were happy to exaggerate the mistakes of his administration in the material
aspects of daily existence. This is part of life. The President made an attempt
to expand the ethical foundations of a future civilization which will be
hopefully based on universal brotherhood. The next step
for the international community is a shared respect for peace and justice. In
September 2011, Obama said in the United Nations General Assembly:
“It is
the nature of our imperfect world that we are forced to learn these lessons
over and over again. Conflict and repression will endure so long as some people
refuse to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Yet that is
precisely why we have built institutions like this - to bind our fates
together, to help us recognize ourselves in each other - because those who came
before us believed that peace is preferable to war, and freedom is preferable
to suppression, and prosperity is preferable to poverty. That’s the message
that comes not from capitals, but from citizens, from our people. And when the
cornerstone of this very building was put in place, President Truman came here
to New York and said, ‘The United Nations is essentially an
expression of the moral nature of man’s aspirations.’ The moral nature of man’s
aspirations. As we live in a world that is changing at a breathtaking pace,
that’s a lesson that we must never forget. Peace is hard, but we know that it
is possible. So, together, let us be resolved to see that it is defined by our
hopes and not by our fears. Together, let us make peace, but a peace, most
importantly, that will last.” [15]
Obama’s Policy Regarding Russia and Israel
During his second
term in office, President Obama lost touch with some fundamental principles of global
policy. His actions echoed the political mistakes of “progressive circles” and
shared the illusions of significant sectors of the international peace
movement. Under the appearance of a peacemaker, he created military tensions
that benefit atomic industry, accelerate nuclear proliferation and pave the way
to states which sponsor terror.
Three of such
mistakes may be mentioned as examples.
1) Probably under the influence of the
Industrial Military Complex, which uses its political strength to stimulate
international disharmony and justify its high military expenses, Barack Obama took
measures leading to a partial revival of Cold War with Russia. This was achieved
by interfering with internal Ukrainian politics in alliance with the European
Union. Under the excuse of promoting democracy, a civil war was fabricated in
Ukraine in 2014. As a matter of fact, any Anti-Russia policy is counter-productive.
From a humanistic point of view, the U.S. priority should be instead a common
Russian-North-American effort against nuclear proliferation. Cooperation with
Russia should also be essential for the United States regarding its declared goal
of peace in the Middle East.
2) Obama adopted a childish pacifism in
believing that Hamas, the notorious terrorist organization, is as legitimate as
Israel, the only democratic government in that region. By partially siding with
Hamas, Obama shared the same sort of ill-disguised anti-Semitism that one can
easily find in social-activist circles and “progressive” political circles, sometimes
funded by Islamic countries. In 2014 and 2015, such an unfortunate policy
marginalized moderate Arab countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and was
beneficial to governments whose policy was aggressively anti-Israel, like Qatar
and Turkey. Obama thus weakened the same humanitarian principles he had advocated
in previous years.
3) In his 2015 negotiations with Iran over this
country’s nuclear project, Barack Obama led to a new scenario in the Middle
East, in which Israel and moderate Arab countries have to face the actual
possibility of a nuclear Iran in the near future. In August 2015 an
acceleration of nuclear proliferation in the region was already a fact. By forgetting
his commitment to “free the world from nuclear weapons” and by abandoning the
USA allies in the region, Obama helped the atomic industry and the military
industrial complex expand their power and operations. Tensions with Russia are
a significant source of profit. Both superpowers have thus golden opportunities
to sell deadly weapons and to bring about profitable catastrophes.
There is a subtle
similarity between Obama’s appeasement of radical Islam and the childish pacifism
one easily finds in theosophical circles. Just like many a nominal theosophist,
Obama fails to use discernment between right and wrong. His mistakes do not
take place for the first time in History: a comfortable naiveté and a blind
love for short-term absence of conflict were fashionable in Europe in the
1930s, while Nazi Germany was preparing itself for world war. And
pseudo-theosophical circles have little to say about the need to fight
anti-Semitism, religious extremism or nuclear proliferation.
The matter of the
fact is that peace can only endure where there is justice. Anti-Semitism (even
if elegantly disguised) must be recognized as a major obstacle in making any real
progress towards universal brotherhood. Esoteric philosophy teaches that
ethical failures must be clearly identified and corrected as soon as possible, so
that they do not get unnecessarily strong before being defeated. [16]
The mistakes made
by Barack Obama show how dangerous mere good-will can be, in the absence of
right discernment.[17]
It is necessary to
keep respect for truth in itself much
higher, in one’s priorities, than any short-term political calculations. This
is a decisive factor in the present times, when the karma of our mankind as a
whole stands at a turning point and the substance of our common destiny is being
updated in largely unpredictable ways.
NOTES:
[1] From the article “The Theosophical
Movement”, by W. Q. Judge. It can be seen at our associated websites. It is also at “Theosophical Articles”, W.
Q. Judge, The Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, 1980, a two-volume edition, vol. II, p. 124.
[2] “Change We Can Believe In - Barack Obama’s
Plan to Renew America’s Promise”, Three
Rivers Press, New York, 2008, 274 pp., see pp. 265-266.
[3] Germany is one of the countries where
environmental consciousness is relatively strong. The then chancellor Angela
Merkel herself defended environmental causes before leading the country.
[4] “Change We Can Believe In”, pp. 267-269.
[5] “Change We Can Believe In”, pp. 198-199.
[6] “Change We Can Believe In”, pp. 201-202.
[7] “Change We Can Believe In”, p. 228.
[8] See, for instance, “The Collected Writings”, Helena Blavatsky, TPH, USA, volume III,
pp. 55-61 and pp. 286-287. And also “The
Collected Writings”, volume IV, pp. 439-443, among other texts.
[9] “Dreams From My Father”, Barack Obama,
Three Rivers Press, 1995 and 2004, New York, 458 pp., see p. 17.
[10] “Dreams From My Father”, Barack Obama, see
p. 09.
[11] “Dreams From My Father”, p. 10.
[12] “The Audacity of Hope”, Three Rivers Press,
376 pp., 2006, pp. 203-204.
[13] “The Audacity of Hope”, see p. 205.
[14] “The Audacity of Hope”, see pp. 218-219.
[15] “Remarks
by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly”, United
Nations. Link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/21/remarks-president-obama-address-united-nations-general-assembly.
[16] The
best way to create peace in the Middle East is probably a long-term combination
of various factors that transcend merely formal diplomatic efforts. One of them is an intelligent hardline action towards terror organizations whose aim
is to destroy Israel, and which forbid their own populations from living with
liberty of thought. The basic fact must be accepted that appeasing terrorists
is not an efficient tool in building
peace. Another factor and no less important in opening room for intercultural
harmony in the Middle East would be to develop powerful, large-scale grassroots
projects for creating Arab-Jewish friendship in every aspect of life, while
recognizing the uniqueness of each culture and having respect for it. The
wisdom traditions in Judaism and Islamism must be stimulated as intensely as
possible.
[17] See the article
“No More Hiroshimas and Nagasakis”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline, in our blog of “The Times of Israel”.
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The first version of
“The Theosophy of Barack Obama”
was published in 2008 in Portuguese language in our associated websites.
Original title: “A Visão Planetária de Barack Obama”. The article was published
in August 2015 in our blog at “The Times of Israel”.
000
See in our websites the articles “God and War in the Middle East”, and “Theosophy and the Middle East” by CCA.
On the role of the esoteric movement in the
ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by
Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
Published in
2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist,
the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.
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