Interfaith conversation on ecology with Jem Bendell and members of the Islamic organisation IJABI

Duration: 17:49 2012 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

Jem Bendell, an emeritus professor and founder of the Back to Basics Farm in Bali, shares his journey from a spiritual awakening at sixteen to becoming a leading voice on sustainability. His work focuses on promoting organic farming and reducing chemical use through practical grassroots efforts rather than relying solely on large-scale political solutions. He emphasizes that while catastrophic environmental damage is inevitable due to two centuries of industrial activity, the focus must shift from merely fixing problems to managing crises and supporting communities emotionally and practically. Bendell advocates for a "positive pessimist" outlook, acknowledging the grim reality of ecological overshoot while finding motivation in the resilience of nature and the potential for humans to rebuild societies when faced with great suffering. The conversation highlights a critical disconnect between superficial environmental actions, such as recycling or planting trees, and the deep systemic changes required to address the climate crisis. Bendell argues that true care for the environment necessitates transforming economics, politics, and culture, which often feels overwhelming but is essential for survival. He expresses disappointment with the limited impact of current international efforts and explains his decision to live in Bali to work directly with local networks and spiritual leaders. His approach involves creating spaces for emotional support, hosting devotional singing events like interfaith kirtans, and mentoring small groups to help individuals find positive ways to respond to a difficult future without being paralyzed by fear or despair. A significant portion of the dialogue explores the profound link between spirituality and ecology, suggesting that environmental degradation stems from a crisis of human identity and a failure to recognize the divine presence in nature. Bendell describes the universe as a single, loving entity where damaging any part of creation feels inherently wrong because it hurts the whole. This perspective is echoed by members of the Islamic organization IJABI, who introduce the concept of eco-theology, viewing humans and the environment as manifestations of God's face. They reference the wisdom of Imam Ali, noting that even small acts of kindness are seen as monumental by the Divine, and argue that recognizing one's own spiritual nature prevents the harm inflicted upon other sentient beings and habitats. The video concludes with a call to action rooted in authenticity and collective responsibility, urging participants to live their truth rather than accepting safer, less radical narratives about reality. The speakers emphasize that there is no savior coming to fix society; instead, humans must rely on their own credibility and ability to do amazing things during times of upheaval. By gathering diverse groups across different ethnicities, religions, and races, as seen in the community efforts around Bandung, they demonstrate how small, localized improvements can contribute to a larger regeneration. Ultimately, the message is one of hope grounded in the certainty that nature will recover if people choose to care for each other and actively participate in healing the planet through sincere, radical love.

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[music] >> Yeah, well, thank you for having me here today. Um So, yeah, my name is Jem Bendell. I'm a professor of or an emeritus professor now because I I stepped away from academia. And I work in the field of sustainability. So, environmental and social dimensions of life. Now, I still have to be useful in the world, which is a good thing cuz I've created an organic farm and farm school in Bali. We call it Back and Say Farm. Yeah, so we organize events both in Bali but also elsewhere in Indonesia to promote organic farming and why we should return to organic methods, use less chemicals. And I'm very happy to be here doing that kind of promotion work with my colleague Eska. Bersama. Terus. Sendiri juga sebagai bagian dari Bkanje Farm. Bkanje Farm. Kami punya event and juga ya kegiatan kampanye untuk mengajak teman-teman yang lain kembali pada pertanian organik. Apa yang memicu beliau ini tertarik dengan isu lingkungan ini? So, I began to be interested in the environment when I was 16 years old. Previously, the year before, I had become uh inspired by the Christian message. So, I was in the UK. And within a year, I felt like from my spiritual awakening, I wanted to help preserve or conserve the environment, which I was becoming very worried about how much damage we were doing. It affected what what subjects I chose at university. It I mean, I got my first job working in the WWF after university. And then I ended up yeah, writing books about it and worked at the UN and became eventually also a professor of sustainability at a university. That's my general motivation. Uh why care about the environment? Well, it's our home. It's how it's what sustains us. It's also part of the just the magic and majesty of life. So, it has its own value as well as it helping sustain us. What we have done to the environment as a as a a modern species, humans, what humans have done in the last 200 years, it's like looking in a mirror about what's what's wrong, what's bad in our culture, in our society. Yeah, if we loved each other and we cared for life in a very easy, natural way, we wouldn't have destroyed the forests, poisoned the oceans, lost so many species, and destabilized our climate. Yes, nothing we've been doing has been working at scale. My most recent thoughts on the environment are that nearly everything we have tried to do in my lifetime has not worked at the scale necessary. No matter what we do now, we're going to see a terrible catas- catastrophe unfold in the coming decades because of environmental uh damage. So, this isn't just an interesting topic. This is one which brings shocks, sadness, grief, and fear, as well as energy and motivation. So, I [clears throat] no longer talk talk about fixing the problems of the environment. We are in a situation of almost like crisis management. Um but that doesn't mean we do less. It means we can try more. So, anyone today who talk who looks at the environment or talks about the environment and just talks about some recycling or some trash collection or, you know, planting a few more trees, they don't understand it. They're not being they're not being serious about reality or about not just the environment but about caring for people today because it affects us. My message is difficult for many people to hear because I'm saying that to really care about the environment, we have to think about changing economics, changing politics, changing culture. And so many people just want to say uh don't we have to turn off a light or recycle my plastic or or swap some clothes? No, we have to do so much more. I worked very hard on this trying to create change at an international level and became disheartened. And that is one of the reasons I now live in Bali and doing something very practical literally at the grassroots. That doesn't mean everyone else should do that. I think it would be lovely to see a big political ambitious movement change economics to help stop deforestation, clean up the oceans. But I'm not fully engaged in that at the moment. I'm more in a listening phase about how our people understanding these issues in Southeast Asia, which are the different networks and the people who are doing good things. So, I'm listening and learning to decide how to help again in future at a bigger level. And I'm more interested now in finding uh ways of working on this issue that can bring some um emotional support for people in what are increasingly difficult times because of environmental damage. In the last 6 years, I've become much more interested in and worked with psychologists and people in who are spiritual leaders. And I've been learning more music and write and host devotional singing, which is why I write songs now like this one I played at the start. Um I wrote it 3 weeks ago uh both for an interfaith kirtan setting and also to lead people in circle dance or sacred circle dance where people come together and and then sing this kind of song together um as a way of uh feeling a sense of gratitude and connection with the divine as they understand it. Breaking Together. It's about how modern industrial consumer societies, which is the kind that most people on planet live now, are beginning to break down because of ecological overshoot. And if anyone wants to um translate it, then then I don't need any royalties. We can publish it. And we can issue it for free as well online. I have an audience for my um writing uh about 5 and 1/2 thousand people subscribed to my personal blog. And I organize um a monthly salon where people come together online to discuss topics that I have raised in the previous month. And I also am about to launch a peer mentoring program. So, small groups of my subscribers meeting regularly online to help each other find how to be positive and active even with this rather dark sense of the future. And that's in English. So, that's a barrier to participation, but um anyone from the global south who speaks English well enough who is interested in this worldview and helping each other find positive ways of responding is welcome to join for free. The other way is we're exploring together about helping a network of organic farms create material online. Yeah. So, it'll be in Bahasa Indonesia. Um to promote organic farming and provide people with the the advice, the guidance. And I've written a song which is a bit like an environmental anthem. And I want to finish it in the studio and do a very nice video. And maybe that'll be useful. It'll also fun to do. What is your perspective about the connection between the environment and spirituality? I don't know. You don't know? >> [laughter] >> And I might now say lots of things, but I still don't know. I have a deeper knowing that there is one universal, eternal being or entity. And therefore oh, and which is in love with itself. And therefore any stories that are any explanations about how one bit is connected to another is actually a form of fiction. But we live as separate creatures with brains and different experiences of life >> [clears throat] >> and and we have the power of language. So we try to explain the relationship of me and you and nature and sky and the divine and all of From that there is a from that broad idea there is actually a very important simple message that it feels wrong and it hurts to damage other people, other sentient creatures and habitats and the planet. It just feels wrong and it hurts and we should feel happy that it hurts. It means we're awake to life. We're not crazy. We're not full of fear and hate. So I often describe myself as a positive pessimist. Because my broad idea of what's happening, my conclusion about what's happening and what what's to come is is not very happy. But uh within that I I know so many people are motivated because they realize it's so bad. Um so don't be fooled by what's popular in society. Don't be fooled by the way that uh previous generations have um disregarded the environment. Own your own truth about what's important in life. And uh yeah. Work out what to do together yourselves. Um there's no one coming to save society from itself. Know that when when people are suffering greatly and there are big changes underway, that's when we see humans being credible and do amazing things and even start whole new societies. Know that nature will ultimately be victorious. So we may do a lot of damage, but it will recover, will regenerate. Um the issue is how much damage we do or how much we help it regenerate, how many people suffer and die or we can actually look after each other better in this difficult situation. And if this feels true to you, then don't be put off it by people wanting you to believe something less radical um to keep you quiet. Cuz I spent years of my life trying to believe a slightly safer version of reality about the environment just so that I could have a career and that I wouldn't seem so upsetting to other people and why we we only have this life. Let's live our truth. And then you're going to meet amazing people and have amazing times together. memperbaiki orang lain demikian juga kita mengajak yang lainnya gitu untuk peduli kita lihat atau makan saudara-saudara kita mengalami begitu kita harus memulai juga mulai menanam daerah-daerah yang kawasan kemarin saja saya bersama dengan beberapa ada alumni sekolah berbagai macam tidak hanya dalam satu kelompok tapi berbagai ragam baik suku agama maupun ras itu kita berkumpul walaupun sedikit-sedikit kita memperbaiki lah walaupun tidak bisa keseluruhan hampir sekeliling Bandung karena agak rawan begitu karena kejadian seperti di Cisarua kemarin serat hampir 100 orang meninggal begitu ya di Jawa Tengah itu sudah dan itu akibat ya mungkin tadi ada kerakusan keserakahan itu akan memberikan penyadaran kepada kita mungkin saya jadi teringat satu ucapan Imam Ali bin Abi Thalib lakukanlah kebaikan itu dan jangan kamu anggap enteng kebaikan itu sebab kecilnya kebaikan di mata manusia itu di sisi yang Maha Kuasa sebenarnya besar ada satu perspektif dalam Islam itu terkait lingkungan yaitu ekoteologi sebenarnya ketika kita berbicara tentang teologi itu kita tidak hanya berbicara tentang ketuhanan tapi kita memandang bahwa sebenarnya manusia lingkungan alam ini sebenarnya manifestasi dari wajah Tuhan sebenarnya kalau kata Rumi luka yang sedang menggores hati seseorang itu adalah celah-celah agar cahaya Tuhan masuk ke dalam dirimu kalau dalam pembacaan saya krisis lingkungan ini berakal berakar dari apa krisis eksistensial manusia jati diri jati diri manusia begitu sekiranya manusia itu mengenal jiwanya sekiranya manusia itu mengenal hakikat dirinya tentunya tidak akan seperti yang dikatakan Prof Jamal tadi kita tidak akan melukai sesama ciptaan Tuhan ini begitu bergerak melangkah di ketidaknyamanan walaupun kamu berbeda pemikirannya dari orang lain tapi kamu merasa sedang memperjuangkan kebenaran lakukan Allah akan kasih jalan insya Allah dan mulai dari hal sederhana yang bisa-bisa yang bisa kita lakukan iya sangat mengharukan karena saya di balik layar betapa banyak orang yang berjuang iya dengan segala caranya dengan segala pengorbanannya mungkin tidak dihargai oleh orang-orang di sekitarnya tapi yakinlah bahwa Tuhan selalu bersama orang-orang yang benar kebenaran itu akan selalu ada yang menjaganya begitu kebenaran itu tidak perlu di manipulasi kebenaran akan terungkap dengan sendirinya selama masih ada orang-orang yang tulus mau bersamanya dan hari ini kita bersama orang-orang yang tulus itu ya yang berusaha terus-menerus menyuarakan ya menyuarakan tentang lingkungan ini