Interview with Dr. Tong

As part of Templates For Changeís ëWorld Citizen Forumí, we have invited Drs. Tong and Kwan to be among the first participants in the project. The Forum, which is a gathering views from eminent thought leaders across the globe, will be presented to the United Nations later in the year. In agreeing to participate in the Forum via a series of questions and answers, the Doctors commented: ìThere will be a long way to develop and shape our future world citizenship. Each person has to do his/her part. Each community, each country and each civilization should do their parts too. This will be a global effort, and a collective initiative. Let us work together to this end.

 

 

Collective and individual development - human beings are social creatures and the well-being of a community and that of individuals must synchronize and harmonize. Educational and cultural development may be the only way to realize the objective. We must broaden and deepen our Values Education curriculum in all our schools. Both schools and families must not just teach knowledge and skills. They must also emphasize the teaching of proper Core Values of Life and Citizenship. Religions (including all religious bodies and leaders) must work together NOT to propagate and preach their own beliefs, but to genuinely respect the faiths of other cultures and cults belonging to other country folks. This is called harmony. These days many communities consist of individuals of different cultural and religious backgrounds, and civilizations too. Learning how to respect will reduce a lot of conflicts and battles.

 

Materialism is something we must leave behind in order to move to a happier tomorrow. Our current global habitat is flooded with technological innovations and materialistic temptations. How to teach the younger generation to reduce their search for materialistic improvements should be an urgent agenda for school and social educators, and politicians too. We should teach people to live a simpler life. Simplicity is good, inclulding our food. Materialism is seriously invading China and corrupting the minds of the elite (usually more educated) Chinese, especially their budding generation. Just look at the boutique shops in Beijing and Shanghai. They are much more glamorous than their headquarters in Paris, Rome, Milano, New York and London. Extending the market share of brand names has a hidden agenda: promoting materialism.

 

Certainly not the successful money makers. Many people like to read success stories ofwealthy personalities and celebrities. We should shape the values of our tender minds - the next generation with stories how true heroes help improve our spiritual and physical quality of human life, not the billionaires. For example, those who invented drug to heal uncurable diseases.

 

Our future society should be founded on respect, love, care and compassion. We need to have equality as much as equity. The deprived and the less fortunate should be helped by the more resourceful. Resouces should be more balanced and this will be the job of politicians, planners and economists. More even distribution of resouces will help reduce disparity between the rich and the poor. Scientists should find ways to develop the undeveloped and underdeveloped land and space, so that more resources could be created for the less privileged. A harmonious global village needs to have more average citizens, not the super rich, super powerful, super influential or the super witty. Political and pecuniary powers corrupt.

 

The first action is school and social education. Charity starts at home. To bring the ideology into reality, we should start to teach our children at home, to teach the folks of our township, to teach the citizens of our nation. To begin with, teach ourselves - perhaps through reflections and interactions - reflect through our conscience, and interact with our kin members, and our friends and enemies too. We need more good quality communication these days.

 

We lack close interpersonal contacts and interactions. Communication through the screen is not enough. We need more face to face contacts - lack of time is not an excuse.

 

We need to review, revisit and reinterpret religious teachings, objectively. All religious thoughts are good and constructive. But many religious leaders have distorted the meanings in context. Many people misinterpet their holy books. Discriminating other peopleís, nation, race, language, ethnic groups etc is the greatest handicap to harmononization. We must learn to accept the strengths and weaknesses of other religions, tribes, countries etc. We need to develop comprehensive codes of respect observed by all countries and folks. When we successfully learn how to respect other peoplesí religions and cutlures, we have taken a very great stride in learning Confucianism.

 

Civilizations, old and new, do not belong to one person, nor a few, nor the whole community.

Civilizations belong to all human beings. When one civilization has trouble, the other civilizations will suffer. This is why many Americans (including their government) live in fear - fear of revenge. Where is the hometown of revenge? Some civilizations will die, some will grow. We need to study civilizations and learn to work together to remove the toxic elements of some (espeically the older) civilizations. This is easier to say than to do.