We need fresh lessons like Cameron Highlands tragedy to remind us to respect nature – K. T. Maran

Source: The Malaysian Insider, 16 November 2014

The Cameron Highlands incident had opened up the Pandora box that we are plundering the earth for our greed which can never ever be satisfied.

It is the Malaysian culture to let whatever happen before accident strikes and then the public and the government take notice and try to figure out the reasons for the incident and find solutions.

This is Malaysian institutional way of identifying, discovering and implementing solutions. This culture of the institution and the public must change, if not nature will teach it lessons in a very non-reversible process which will result in the death of the innocents and sufferings to the general public just to appease the few greedy invisible hand.

The  Malaysian government must realise we have to implement and monitor policies which are sustainable.

One of the main roots of our unsustainable society is the idea that human beings are somehow separate or independent from Nature and the rest of life. Its not so difficult to see how we have modelled our lifestyle after western culture based on this foundation.

The signs are everywhere: in the way we live, enclosing our homes from the outside world as we try to keep the dirt out; in the way we speak and relate to one another, with an emphasis on “me”, “I”, “you”, “mine”; in the way we traditionally conduct science, believing in an independent experimenter.

This view has enabled us to treat Nature as an inanimate object to do with whatever we please. We can blow up mountaintops, pollute entire oceans, destroy entire ecosystems, contaminate ground water, cause the extinction of millions of species of life all without consequence, or so we believe.

The truth is this idea that we are separate from the rest of life is at the core of both our broader, societal issues and our internal unease with trusting others.

Because we believe ourselves to be separate, we feel alone and disconnected in the universe. This feeling manifests in a feeling of anxiety and a desire to control as much of the world as possible to prevent an indifferent world from causing harm to us. Hence, you see countries spending trillions of dollars on military weaponry to exert force in an attempt to control the world.

You see corporations spending trillions to extract timber, fossil fuel, fertile soil, and water to facilitate the conversion of the natural world into a fictitious commodity, money.

All of this would seem crazy to a culture that lived according to the knowledge that all life is interconnected. Not only is all life made up of the guts of exploding stars but we are connected through mirror neurons hard-wired to feel the emotional distress (and joy) of another.

Whatever we do to this world, we invariably do to ourselves. The problem is that western culture and institutions are founded on a lie that we are separate from the universe and the rest of life.

This pillar explores and confirms what has long been held as truth by indigenous peoples and mystics through the ages – namely, that we are deeply connected not just to each other but all of life.

If we are not willing to learn from the indigenous people who are eternal, more furious accidents are awaiting to strike soon to teach us that earlier lessons were ignored and we need fresh lessons, to make sure we learn it now.