I N S I D E

“The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens” – Bahá’u’lláh

Newsletter of the Bahá’íInternational Community

January–March 2003Volume 14, Issue 4 Homegrown schools, bare-bones basic and staffed by indigenous teachers,

give children in the remote and underserved Ngabe-Bugle region virtuallytheir only chance for a primary education.

In Panama, volunteers provide muchneeded educational services

Panama, continued on page 12

Review: Minimalism: ABridge between ClassicalPhilosophy and the Bahá’íRevelation — WilliamHatcher offers newdirections in philosophy.

In Canada, abreakthough brings“Star Wars” technologyto remote hospitals.

In Europe,businesspeople bringspiritual perspectives toeconomic problems.

7

8

16

CHIRIQUI PROVINCE, Panama — At 5 a.m., dawn’s light spread like a crimson streakacross the dark sky and Victorino Rodriguez was already on his way. Like every Monday, he

was making the three-hour walk from his home in Soloy to the tiny village of Quebrada Venado,high in the lush green mountains of Western Panama, to the small school there.

The 36-year-old teacher hurried along the narrow trails, anxious to arrive by 8 a.m. forthe start of classes. With only some coffee for breakfast, he nevertheless wound energeticallythrough green rice fields, banana groves, and up past moss-covered rocks, thick red claycoating his worn shoes.

A dozen children had been standing lookout since 7:30. With their parents working inthe fields since dawn, the children were alone. As Mr. Rodriguez came around the last hill,a joyful shout went up and the students rushed out to greet their teacher. He named andembraced each one tenderly and then, putting his arms around them, walked the lastkilometer together to the village school.

One of ten primary schools operated by Panama’s Bahá’í community here in the Ngabe-Bugle region, the school in Quebrada Venado is bare-bones basic, just simple cinder blockconstruction with open frame windows, furnished with a few desks. Other Bahá’í-run schoolshere are even simpler, consisting of thatched palm or corrugated metal roofs on wooden poles.

Victorino Rodriguez, surrounded by students, examines a photograph of his class.

ATAt the UN, the linkbetween violence againstwomen and humanrights is examined.

4

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 20032

P E R S P E C T I V E

is published quarterly by theOffice of Public Information ofthe Bahá’í InternationalCommunity, an internationalnon-governmental organiza-tion which encompasses andrepresents the worldwidemembership of the Bahá’íFaith.

For more information on thestories in this newsletter, orany aspect of the Bahá’íInternational Community andits work, please contact:

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Subscription inquiriesshould be directed to theabove address. All materialis copyrighted by the Bahá’íInternational Communityand subject to all applicableinternational copyright laws.Stories from this newslettermay be republished by anyorganization provided thatthey are attributed asfollows: “Reprinted fromONE COUNTRY, thenewsletter of the Bahá’íInternational Community.”

© 2003 by The Bahá’íInternational Community

ISSN 1018-9300

Printed on recycled paper

When social scientists discuss the basicneeds for human existence, the list usu-

ally starts with material things: air, water, food,and shelter. These are things that no one cansurvive without, at least not for long.

But those who have thought seriously aboutwhat it means to be a human being rarely stopthere. The list of basic needs, it is widely ac-knowledged, includes a number of muchmore “intangible” items. Among them are love,friendship, esteem, and purpose.

Because we have material bodies, thehierarchy of these needs usually starts withthose things that sustain physical life. And,certainly, for the starving person, food be-comes the highest priority. For the home-less, a search for shelter dominates.

Yet, for those whose basic material needsare satisfied, as is the case with the greatmajority of people in the West, the quest tosatisfy the second set of intangible needs isa major preoccupation.

The search for love, esteem, companion-ship, and purpose is reflected in pursuits rang-ing from participation in sporting events towatching the cinema, from the reading of ro-mance novels to weekly worship services.

In times of turmoil, the relative value ofsome of these pursuits is sometimes calledinto question. Whether in the form of glo-bal calamity, such as war, pandemic, or ter-rorism, or in the form of personal trauma,such as divorce, economic loss, or ill health,tumult and disorder often force a reevalua-tion of priorities.

One of the curious features of the mod-ern mindset is that, in the search for satis-faction of intangible needs, many peoplestart with the assumption that their besthope for success lies with material means.

In the West, especially, if you ask peoplewhat will make them happy, they will quiteoften give a list of material possessions: anice home, a better car, a more exciting va-cation, a higher paying job. The underlyingassumption is that the possession of highervalue externals will somehow also lead todeeper love, more esteem from friends, anda greater sense of fulfillment.

The modern malady

Yet it takes little reflection to recognizethat more and better material goods do notautomatically translate into a more satisfy-ing life. Frequently, the reality is just theopposite. Opulence often breeds dissatisfac-tion. The rates of suicide, depression, andthe like in developed countries are just oneindicator of this fact.

This conundrum can be answered by un-derstanding that our intangible needs are, infact, spiritual needs — and realizing that suchneeds can only be satisfied by spiritual means.

What do we mean by spiritual means?It is important to understand that human

nature has two sides: the material side referredto above and a spiritual side. This notion iscommon to all of the world’s religions and isincreasingly supported by scientific researchinto the nature of consciousness.

The spiritual side of human nature —commonly referred to as the soul — is thatpart of our being that continually seeks toknow and to love, that is touched by aweand splendor, and that holds to that whichis eternal and good.

“It is the first among all created thingsto declare the excellence of its Creator, thefirst to recognize His glory, to cleave to Histruth, and to bow down in adoration beforeHim,” said Bahá’u’lláh.

Yet spiritual reality is intangible and can-not be directly observed. “Know, verily, thatthe soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gemwhose reality the most learned of men hathfailed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind,however acute, can ever hope to unravel,”said Bahá’u’lláh.

Yet we can percieve its existence by the signsit leaves and by the indirect observation of itseffects — much as the existence of subatomicparticles cannot be directly observed but aredivined by the traces they leave.

Among the traces of the spiritual side ofhuman nature are the willingness of people tosacrifice immediate self-interest in the pursuitof higher goals, whether for family, neighbor-hood, country, or planet; the feelings of tran-scendence that are felt by all men and womenat various moments of their lives; and the great

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 2003 3

power of human imagination and hope, whichare among the real means for human progressand advancement.

The fact of intangible human needs like-wise offers evidence of our spiritual nature.Take the quality of love. It cannot be detectedor directly observed. Yet the power of its ex-istence is manifestly clear to every human be-ing who has ever loved or been loved.

And the fact that the great majority ofpeople around the world identify themselveswith religious belief offers still more evi-dence. That the majority choose to followone of the great world religions, all of whichset high standards of morality, demanding acertain level of personal sacrifice, runscounter to what we know about materialis-tic self-interest.

This proof can be put another way:throughout history there have been sects andcults that have demanded very little of theirfollowers, or that have taught that heaven orparadise can be obtained through hedonismor devil worship or other essentially material-istic means. Yet none of these “religions” hasever gained a significant foothold in our col-lective consciousness. The soul is, indeed, thefirst to “recognize” its Creator.

Yet despite all of the evidence of a spiri-tual reality, our modern world is ruled by amaterialistic approach to life. People evalu-ate the course of their lives with a material-istic expectation of outcomes. Do I have alarger house than my neighbor? Is my cor-poration growing faster than the competi-tion? Will this little pill cure my illness?

Why not ask: is my family happier thanmy neighbor’s? Or, better yet, how can I makeour entire neighborhood happier?

Why not ask: is my corporation servingits customers well? Or, better yet, is my cor-poration contributing to the well-being ofthe world at large?

Why not ask: with what we now knowabout the body’s capacity to heal, might notexercise, diet, or meditation provide an al-ternative cure? Or, better yet, how can I con-tribute to the health of those around me,given our essential interdependence?

This is not to say that material meansare not important — or that they are notsometimes the most effective route to a goal.Sometimes, indeed, a particular pill or vac-cine is the best cure.

Yet in our modern world, the balance hasin many ways been given over almost whollyto the materialistic approach to life — andthat has had severe consequences.

On a personal level, this imbalance canbe seen in the seemingly endless pursuit of“false” forms of love, esteem, and transcen-dence in objects ranging from pornographyto gaudy clothing to mind-altering drugs.

On a social level, this imbalance mani-fests itself in approaches to commerce, edu-cation, medicine, and justice that stress im-mediate material results over long-termhuman satisfaction. Whether in the form ofa flashy marketing plan, a new quick-fix pill,or a contentious lawsuit, such approachesflow from a belief in material efficacy ratherthan spiritual insight.

And on a global level, this imbalance canbe seen most significantly in the failure ofpeoples and nations to recognize their es-sential interdependence and oneness. It is afailure that can be characterized as a “sur-vival of the fittest” approach, versus aworldview that emphasizes cooperation andconsultation — and which stresses unity ofthought and action above all else.

“That one indeed is a man who, today,dedicateth himself to the service of the en-tire human race,” said Bahá’u’lláh. “TheGreat Being saith: Blessed and happy is hethat ariseth to promote the best interests ofthe peoples and kindreds of the earth.”

On 11 March 2003, Bani Dugal Gujral was appointed Principal Representative of theBahá’í International Community to the United Nations. Ms. Dugal Gujral had beenserving as interim representative, since the resignation of Techeste Ahderom in 2001.Ms. Dugal Gujral came to the Bahá’í International Community in 1994, and hasserved as Director of the Community’s Office for the Advancement of Women. Anative of India, where she practiced law before coming to the United States, Ms.Dugal Gujral holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Law from Pace UniversitySchool of Law in New York.

In our modern

world, the balance

has in many ways

been given over

almost wholly to

the materialistic

approach to life —

and that has had

severe

consequences.

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 20034

P R O F I L E

HAMILTON, Ontario — Mehran Anvarifirst discovered his love for surgery

in high school while dissecting frogs andother small animals.

“I was pretty good in dissection class, andI felt this was something I really enjoyed,”said the 43-year-old Canadian physician. “Iremember we did dogfish, we did frogs, wedid rats.”

Dr. Anvari has come a long way fromcarving up specimens preserved in formal-dehyde. The founder and director of theCenter for Minimal Access Surgery (CMAS)at McMaster University here, he is amongthe world’s leading practitioners oflaparoscopic surgery.

“The layman’s term is ‘keyhole’ surgery,”said Dr. Anvari, describing a process wherethe surgeon operates through a small inci-sion via a long slender tube (usuallyequipped with miniature video camera) thatallows him to see and work inside the body.

The technique is important because such“minimally invasive” surgery causes lesstrauma to the patient, allowing faster heal-

ing and lowering the probability of post-operative infection.

Recently, Dr. Anvari broke new groundwhen he used a specially configuredlaparoscopic robot, which measured andthen precisely transmitted the movementsof his hands and fingers, to operate on apatient some 400 kilometers away, in NorthBay, Ontario.

Performed on 28 February 2003, it wasthe world’s first hospital-to-hospital opera-tion of this kind.

“It is a tremendously exciting thing hehas done,” said Dr. William Orovan, chairof the department of surgery at McMaster.“It has huge applications in a country likeCanada, which has a small population scat-tered over a wide area. It brings first-ratesurgical care to remote communities.”

A science fiction dream, the developmentof such “telerobotic” surgery has been longtalked about for use in outer space and at re-mote research outposts. And Dr. Anvari andothers believe it has great potential not onlyin Canada but also in the developing world.

A medical breakthrough brings ‘StarWars’ technology to remote hospitals

In Canada, in a

world’s first

clinical use,

surgeon Mehran

Anvari

successfully

performs an

operation at a

distance of 400

kilometers — a

potential

breakthrough for

underserved rural

areas and,

ultimately, the

developing world.

On 28 February 2003, Dr.Mehran Anvari, left, used aspecialized “robot,” whichguides instruments used inlaparoscopic surgery, toperform an historicoperation via “telerobotics”at a hospital operating roomsome 400 kilometersdistant.

Ph

oto

s co

urt

esy

St.

Jo

esp

h’s

Hea

lth

care

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 2003 5

Dr. Anvari, however, views his work asmuch more than simply developing a hightechnology platform for doing delicate op-erations at a distance.

In related endeavors to develop and pro-mote “telementoring” — in which he “looksover the shoulder” of another surgeon viavideo relay and guides him or her by voice— Dr. Anvari has demonstrated a strongdesire to serve the whole of humankind —an impulse that stems from his practice ofthe Bahá’í Faith.

Though founded just four years ago, CMAShas become a hub for training in minimallyinvasive surgical techniques. More than 500doctors have received training at CMAS — andat least 50 have been from outside Canada,coming from countries as far away as India,China, and Russia.

“The Bahá’í ideals have given me verymuch clarity about the fact that we live in aworld that is very connected, and I believeit is important to look not only at what youcan do to help yourself, but at what you cando to help others,” said Dr. Anvari.

Dr. Anvari spends considerable time —often without the prospect of remuneration— showing other surgeons how to do mini-mally invasive surgery, sometimes in personand sometimes via telementoring.

“It is the global outlook, given to me bythe Faith, that has stirred me to do this kindof work,” he said.

His activities as a Bahá’í are also respon-sible, at least in part, for his interest intelerobotics. Until last year, he served on aBahá’í committee in Canada that wascharged with spreading the Bahá’í teachings

to all parts of the country, something thatoften took him as far as the Arctic Circle.

“Because of my Bahá’í activities, I had achance to travel to many parts of Canada —and around the world — and I saw the needacross the country, and globally, for improvedsurgery and health care,” said Dr. Anvari.

“Ideas don’t develop in isolation,” Dr.Anvari added. “I suppose if I was not madeaware of those needs, if I did not aim to helppeople, I may not have pursued the wholeidea of looking at telerobotics.”

Born in Iran, Dr. Anvari was raised in afamily where both parents were involved inthe medical profession. “My mother is apharmacist and my father is a specialist inlaboratory medicine,” he said, adding thathe had always been interested in medicineand patient care. “But I found I enjoyedworking with my hands, and so I special-ized in surgery.”

Both parents are also Bahá’ís, and in themid-1970s they saw that Bahá’ís in Iran wereincreasingly becoming the targets of religiouspersecution. They sent Dr. Anvari and hisbrother to England for secondary school and,then, just before the Iranian revolution in1979, left Iran themselves.

Dr. Anvari went on to medical school inEngland, did his surgical residency inCanada at McMaster, obtained a PhD in Aus-tralia, and then returned to McMaster, wherehe is now a Professor of Surgery.

His work in telerobotics is not so mucha matter of inventing new equipment, butrather of creating an integrated system fromcurrent medical technologies.

For some time, for example, surgeons

Some 400 kilometers away,in North Bay, Ontario, Dr.Craig McKinley assists Dr.Anvari by guiding thelaparoscopic equipment andmonitoring the patient’sprogress.

“We live in a

world that is very

connected, and I

believe it is

important to look

not only at what

you can do to help

yourself, but at

what you can do

to help others.”

— Dr. Mehran Anvari

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 20036

have used tiny video cameras to guide theirinstruments in the body. Specialized robots,also, have been devised to give added preci-sion and stability to such work.

Dr. Anvari’s breakthrough came about bycombining advances in information technol-ogy with laparoscopic robotics, enablinghim to do delicate surgery at a distance.

“The new thing is the way we have con-figured the robots to use day-to-day telecom-munications, in a system where this can bedone as a regular clinical service,” said Dr.Anvari. “All I did was to think about a wayto put things together, things that exist inother health care settings.”

Specifically, Dr. Anvari used a “surgicalsystem” called ZEUS, developed by a com-pany in California, Computer Motion. TheZEUS robot was connected and supportedby Bell Canada’s Virtual Private NetworkService to the robotic ‘arms’ in North BayGeneral Hospital’s operating room.

Dr. Anvari’s hand, wrist, and fingermovements were translated from the ZEUSconsole, with a delay of no longer than 150milliseconds, to control the endoscopic cam-era and the surgical instruments in the ab-domen of the patient in North Bay.

At the patient’s side in North Bay, a localsurgeon, Craig McKinley, positioned therobotically controlled instruments and as-sisted in the surgery.

“With the challenge of attracting special-ized surgeons to Canada’s northern commu-nities, this technology allows us to providenecessary services close to home and fam-ily,” said Dr. McKinley.

The operation was widely reported. Ar-ticles about it were carried in the Toronto Star,the National Post, the Globe and Mail, and

the Toronto Sun. As well, TIME Canada, CBCRadio and TV, CTV, and Global have re-ported on Dr. Anvari’s research efforts.

A map of Canada explains the significanceof the story. With a land area of nearly 10 mil-lion square kilometers, Canada is the secondlargest country in the world. Some 85 percentof the population lives within 300 kilometersof the southern border, but about one-third ofthe population lives in rural areas.

The rural population is often widely scat-tered, making it difficult to attract and sup-port medical specialists, especially those withexperience in complex surgical techniques.

“The number of specialists is very lowin rural Canada,” said Lee Teperman, ad-ministrator of the Society of Rural Physi-cians of Canada. “In many cases, it meansyou must transport patients a long distance.”

Dr. Anvari said that while the machinesused in telerobotics currently cost up toUS$1 million, the price is likely to comedown to about US$250,000 soon — mak-ing it quite affordable for rural medicalcenters in Canada.

He believes further decreases in price andimprovements in telecommunications willmake telerobotics and telementoring impor-tant in the developing world.

“The robotic surgery attracts a lot of at-tention because it is new and very ‘StarWars’-ish,” said Dr. Anvari. “But a very im-portant and critical aspect of our work isfocused on establishing new centers in othercountries, in training other surgeons, andin providing mentoring and telementoring.”

Dr. Anvari said CMAS is currently ex-ploring setting up collaborative programswith medical centers in Haiti, Yemen, andUganda. “We have learned a number ofthings here that can help improve the qual-ity of health in many countries.”

Dr. Mehran Anvari, above,guides operatinginstruments, below, via aspecialized surgical robot.

“The new thing is

the way we have

configured the

robots to use

day-to-day tele–

communications,

in a system where

this can be done

as a regular

clinical service.”

—Dr. Mehran Anvari

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 2003 7

U N I T E D N A T I O N S

UNITED NATIONS — At a panel discus-sion on the problem of violence against

women, Radhika Coomaraswamy told of ayoung Nepalese girl who eloped with ayoung man — who then placed her in abrothel in India before disappearing.

The tale reflects the complex connectionbetween violence against women and theabuse of basic human rights around the world.

That connection was among the key pointsthat emerged at a panel discussion entitled“Violence against Women,” held on 4 March2003 during the 47th Commission on the Sta-tus of Women. Sponsored by the Bahá’í Inter-national Community and the UN Office of theHigh Commissioner for Human Rights(OHCHR), the panel was among dozens ofside events at the Commission.

The Commission this year addressed twomajor themes: 1) violence against womenand girls, and 2) women and the media, inrelation to their participation and access andto new technologies.

Delegates stressed that women be givenmore presence, voice, and visibility in themedia, and deplored the degrading imagesthey often portray. They also emphasizedthe urgent need to strengthen legislationon domestic violence, trafficking inwomen, and sexual exploitation, as wellas to educate government officials and setup government bodies to protect and pro-

mote women’s rights.Indeed, the 4 March panel discussion

reflected well the deliberations of the Com-mission, an arm of the UN Economic andSocial Council.

“The promotion and protection of allhuman rights is one of the best ways toeliminate violence against women,” saidMara Bustelo of the OHCHR, on 4 March.“It introduces the concept of legal obliga-tions and entitlements. Protection from vio-lence is not just something that would benice for women to have, it is their right andan obligation for the State.”

Violence against women is not alwayseasily assessed, panel members said, becauseperpetrators attempt to justify some prac-tices based on religious or cultural customs.Female genital cutting, honor crimes, andwidow rituals fall into this category, and of-ten women themselves participate in theperpetuation of such practices. In manycases, shame keeps women from reportingthese incidents.

Denial of property rights and adequatehousing threatens women in another way,said Ms. Bustelo, and is worsened by lack oflegal protection in many parts of the world.War and armed conflict also pose particularthreats to women’s safety and dignity.

UN addresses violence against women

Panel, continued on page 14

A panel discussion, onViolence against Women,and held at United Nationsheadquarters in New York,was sponsored by the Bahá’íInternational Communityand the UN Office of theHigh Commissioner forHuman Rights (OHCHR) on4 March 2003. The panelwas among dozens of sideevents held during theannual Commission on theStatus of Women.

“The promotion

and protection of

all human rights is

one of the best

ways to eliminate

violence against

women.”

— Mara Bustelo,

Office of the High

Commissioner for

Human Rights

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 20038

TURIN, Italy — Eighty percent of the auto-mobiles made in Italy are manufactured

in this bustling northern Piedmont city.Home of the Fiat Group, workers here buildFiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo cars, as well asIveco trucks.

Turin is also the home of the Interna-tional Training Centre (ITC), an arm of theUN’s International Labour Organization(ILO). The ITC seeks to “assemble, pack-age and deliver the best thinking, practice,and experience — at global level — con-cerning issues related to the world of work.”

Over the last few years, a major concern atthe Centre, as well as of workers and industri-alists in Turin — and, indeed, in Europe as awhole — has been how to “restructure” busi-nesses in a way that causes the least harm toowners, employees, and communities.

Restructuring often means laying offworkers in the search for greater efficiency.Global competition has put pressure oncompanies like Fiat to improve productiv-ity and profits. Late last year, for example,Fiat proposed laying off some 8,100 work-ers in just such a restructuring plan, a movethat was met with strikes and protests here.

In the search for answers, the ILO haschosen to collaborate with the EuropeanBahá’í Business Forum (EBBF), a privatevoluntary association that promotes, amongother things, the application of spiritualprinciples to economic problems.

Since 2000, the EBBF and the ILO have

B U S I N E S S

produced a joint paper and sponsored a se-ries of workshops, all on the topic of “so-cially responsible enterprise restructuring.”Many of the workshops have been held atthe ILO Centre in Turin, and many have fea-tured the participation of the EBBF’s Secre-tary-General, George Starcher.

According to Mr. Starcher, who is one ofthe principal authors of the joint paper, com-panies need not resort first to layoffs in hardtimes. “There are ways to restructure with-out reducing personnel, and, even if youeventually have to lay off people, there areways to do it that minimize the effect onpeople and the communities in which theywork and live,” said Mr. Starcher.

That insights into economic problemswould emerge from a faith-based group mayseem odd, but a number of secular organiza-tions have recently begun to work with theEBBF, in large part because of its distinctiveorientation. In addition to the ILO, the Euro-pean Commission and AIESEC, the world’slargest student-run non-governmental organi-zation, have participated in collaborative ef-forts with the EBBF.

“Whether you call it religious or spiri-tual or whatever, I think that ethical issuesare coming to the forefront in a whole rangeof different areas,” said Michael Henriques,Director of the Job Creation and EnterpriseDevelopment Department at the ILO. “It’san idea whose time has come.”

Others agree that business, industry, and

In Europe, businesspeople applyspiritual insights to economic problems

Participants at the 11thannual conference of theEuropean Bahá’í BusinessForum (EBBF), which washeld 22–24 September 2000in DePoort, the Netherlands.

An increasing

number of secular

organizations

have entered into

collaboration with

the European

Bahá’í Business

Forum (EBBF), a

faith-based, private

voluntary

association that

promotes ethical

values, personal

virtues, and moral

leadership in

business and

organizations of

social change.

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 2003 9

related organizations are increasingly recog-nizing the importance of ethics and values— a trend that has opened the door to orga-nizations like the EBBF.

The wake of scandal“This need is more pressing than ever,

in the wake of the Enron scandal, the Ar-gentinian economic collapse, stock marketdeflation, and the general divorce of busi-ness from ethics,” said Marcello Palazzi,head of the Progressio Foundation, a Dutch-based, non-profit group that focuses on stra-tegic public-private partnerships.

The EBBF “meets the need of businessleaders from different faiths to connect,learn, be inspired, and create joint initia-tives,” said Mr. Palazzi, who himself joinedthe EBBF in 1996. “[EBBF’s] professional-ism, integrity, good management, and net-working capacity have created a uniquecommunity of committed business leaders.”

Founded in 1990 by a group of Bahá’íbusinesspeople, the EBBF today has a mem-bership of more than 300 men and womenin some 50 countries. Registered as a non-profit organization and open to individualsfrom all religious backgrounds, the Forum’soverall mission is to promote ethical values,personal virtues, and moral leadership inbusiness and organizations of social change.

“Our whole mission,” said Mr. Starcher,“is one of trying to make some contributionto the prosperity of humankind throughpromoting values in business.”

Those values, in addition to business eth-ics and social responsibility, include “stew-ardship of the earth’s resources,” “partner-ship of women and men in all fields of en-deavor,” and “non-adversarial decision-mak-ing through consultation.” Although theseprinciples — which are all based on theBahá’í teachings — are not always consid-ered within the domain of businesses, EBBFmembers believe they are “fundamental toachieving a responsible business commu-nity,” said Mr. Starcher.

The joint effort with the ILO to developthe concept of “socially responsible enter-prise restructuring” (SRER) is a good ex-ample of how the EBBF seeks to show howspiritually based values can provide practi-cal solutions to economic problems.

The collaboration began in April 2000,with the publication of a 120-page joint ILO/EBBF working paper on the topic. Amongother things, it discusses a number of alterna-tives to layoffs. It suggests, for example, that

changes in overall strategy and/or ownershipmay be more fruitful than downsizing, andthat greater efficiency may be found throughbetter use of information technology, improvedpurchasing and logistics practices, and betterlabor-management cooperation.

The paper also argues, in termsbusinesspeople understand, for the impor-tance of treating employees as a valuable re-source. “[H]uman and social capital are be-coming all-important in the post-industrialeconomy,” states the paper. “Human capitalincludes intelligence, values, technicalknowledge, experience, creativity, networkof contacts, corporate memory, as well asprofessional skills and experience.”

The paper has been translated into sev-eral languages and has been the centerpieceof workshops on socially responsible enter-prise restructuring at the ILO training cen-ter in Turin and elsewhere.

In November 2001, nine members ofRussia’s Parliament were among the eighteenparticipants at a conference on SRER at theTurin Centre. Other participants included aneconomist working for the president of Russiaand representatives from offices involving so-cial and labor policy in that country.

More recently, training sessions based onthe joint paper have included a seminar forJapanese trade union leaders at the ILOTraining Centre, and a presentation to a tri-partite delegation from Macedonia.

“[The collaboration] has worked well inthis particular context,” said Mr. Henriques.“I certainly felt there was good synergy be-tween the Business Forum and ourselves.”

According to Mr. Starcher, since the term“Socially Responsible Enterprise Restructur-ing” first appeared in the joint paper, it hasincreasingly been adopted by other organi-zations. For example, the ILO received sup-port from the Directorate-General for Em-ployment and Social Affairs of the EuropeanCommission in the sponsorship and orga-nization of an international conference onSRER, held in Athens in April 2003.

A comfortable fit“When EBBF started, hardly anyone

was talking about spirituality in the work-place,” said Dr. Wendi Momen, chair ofthe EBBF. “Now it is commonplace; simi-larly with values and moral leadership. SoEBBF is a much more comfortable ‘fit’ nowin the business world.”

Another important collaboration has beenwith AIESEC (Association Internationale des

EBBF Secretary-GeneralGeorge Starcher addresses ajoint EBBF/AIESECConference in Italy inMarch 2000.

“This need is

more pressing

than ever, in the

wake of the Enron

scandal, the

Argentinian

economic

collapse, stock

market deflation,

and the general

divorce of

business from

ethics.”

— Marcello Palazzi,

Progressio

Foundation

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 200310

Etudiants en Sciences Economiques etCommerciales), which is composed of morethan 30,000 business and economics studentsin 800 universities and 85 countries.

The EBBF assisted in organizing AIESEC’slargest international event, the 53rd Interna-tional Congress in Lenk, Switzerland, held inAugust 2001. The EBBF has also worked withAIESEC in many countries throughout Europein administering conferences and training ses-sions for young entrepreneurs.

“It is a relationship based on sharing ourvalues and helping each other in achievingour mission,” said Susana Muhamad, anAIESEC alumna, who oversaw the relation-ship with the EBBF from 2001 to 2002, whenshe was director of AIESEC International.She added that EBBF’s “network of values-based leaders in the corporate sector” makesit an attractive collaborator.

Several EBBF members have played an ac-tive role in a series of meetings organized bythe European Commission to consult onpolicy for promoting corporate social respon-sibility (CSR) in Europe. The EBBF respondedwith a written memorandum to an initial draft“green paper” on CSR and was invited to par-ticipate in three meetings in Brussels presidedover by officials of the EC. In addition, EBBFmembers were among the more than 1,000people invited to participate in a two-day con-ference organized by the Belgian Presidencyof the European Union on CSR.

“[The EC] had a very positive point of viewon the EBBF,” said Mr. Starcher, “because wewere a network of businesspeople and not justan NGO with a bunch of ideas…”

Representation at high-level internationalconferences has also raised the profile of thegroup. Most recently, members sponsoredtwo seminars at the World Summit on Sus-

tainable Development in Johannesburg, inAugust and September 2002. An EBBF boothat the Summit also provided literature forparticipants, including a Zulu translation of“Emerging Values for a Global Economy,”an EBBF paper.

The EBBF’s latest annual conference washighlighted by the participation of such pres-tigious non-members as the speaker of theParliament of Namibia, who is also a vicepresident of the Interparliamentary Forum,which comprises parliamentarians fromsome 160 nations. Simon Zadek, Chief Ex-ecutive Officer of AccountAbility, a non-profit professional institute, offered the key-note address on “The Business Case for So-cial Responsibility.”

Another recent development was the cre-ation of a new chair at the University of Bari,Italy: the Chair for a New World Order, towhich EBBF member Giuseppe Robiati hasbeen appointed. The creation of the chair re-flects the efforts of Mr. Robiati and EBBF tointroduce its core values into the curriculumat this and several other universities in Italy.

Indeed, the willingness of the businessworld to engage in discussions of about val-ues is visible in the increasing participationof businesses and entrepreneurs in confer-ences such as those sponsored by the Spiritin Business Institute (SiB). The EBBF par-ticipated in SiB’s world conference in April2002, which attracted over 500 participants,and will be represented at the upcoming con-ference in June 2003, to be held in San Fran-cisco, California. The conferences are focusedon increasing discussion about improvingbusiness practices through ethical and spiri-tual means.

“As we are coming to understand, spiri-tual values in leadership are not a passing trendbut the integration of a new level of aware-ness that will enhance community in the work-place,” said Barbara Krumsiek, President andCEO of Calvert Group, quoted on the Website for the Spirit in Business Institute.

To catalyze that transformation, EBBF isbringing a new perspective that stresses per-sonal and ethical virtues in business dealings,which it hopes will invest a greater sense ofsocial responsibility in corporate actions.

“EBBF’s work,” said Mr. Palazzi, “is aboutthe values and principles which unite [people]from all religions and countries in their prac-tice of business. Good business, like good gov-ernance, rests on these values and principles.Without them, there is nothing.”

– By Alex McGee

The first annual conferenceof the EBBF’s Italian branch,held 11 May 2002 in Milan.

“Spiritual values

in leadership are

not a passing

trend but the

integration of a

new level of

awareness that

will enhance

community in the

workplace.”

— Barbara

Krumsiek, the

Calvert Group

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 2003 11

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia — Collaboratingin a United States initiative to improve

reading and writing in the Americas, NurUniversity has embarked on a major projectto train primary school teachers in Bolivia.

Nur, a Bahá’í-inspired institution, hasbegun assembling a team of educators to setup and run a pilot program for the trainingof some 700 primary school teachers.

The university is being funded in thework by a two-year grant from the US Agencyfor International Development (USAID).

Officials from the Agency said Nur wasawarded the contract because of its regionalcredibility, experience with training schoolteachers in rural areas, and innovative ap-proaches to education.

“One of the things Nur brought was theirexperience in distance education and theircommitment to supporting development inrural Bolivia,” said Barbara Knox-Seith, aPolicy Fellow in USAID’s Latin AmericaBureau. “They have also worked with teach-ers who don’t have much training.”

The program, Centers of Excellence inTeacher Training (CETT), was announced inApril 2001 by US President George Bush atthe Summit of the Americas.

It will operate not only in Bolivia but alsoin 10 other Latin American and Caribbeancountries, where counterpart institutionshave, like Nur, received contracts.

“The Achilles heel of the education re-form throughout Latin America has been thewhole issue of providing effective readinginstruction for children,” said Eloy Anello,president of Nur University and coordina-tor of the program in Bolivia.

“If children don’t learn to read effectivelyby the fourth grade, they tend to drop out,”Dr Anello said. “The best way to address thisis to improve the way we train teachers toteach reading.

“So our belief is that, ultimately, this isone of the most effective ways to eliminateilliteracy throughout the Americas,” saidDr. Anello.

The CETT program aims to train some15,000 teachers in Latin America and the

Nur University embarks major newteacher training program in Bolivia

Caribbean over the course of five years, sub-ject to the availability of funds.

The program has been divided into threeregions: the Caribbean, Central America,and the Andes.

Nur will participate in the Andean re-gional project, which encompasses the threenations of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Twoother universities in the region, UniversidadPeruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru andUniversidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Ec-uador, will coordinate the project in thosecountries.

“The idea behind this is to create an in-novative teacher training program that willimprove teacher ability in the area of read-ing instruction and, through that, to im-prove literacy rates,” said Dr. Knox-Seith ofUSAID.

Nur, which was founded by Bahá’ís, isnot only helping to develop the basic mate-rials but will also take a leading role in pub-lishing the materials and making them ac-cessible over the Internet, said Dr. Anello.

“The Bahá’í teachings emphasize theimportance of education in developing hu-man potential and promoting social trans-formation,” said Dr. Anello. “Because of this,Nur has committed itself to supporting theeducational reforms in Latin America — andit has concluded that one of the best waysto do this is through teacher training.”

E D U C A T I O N

“One of the things

Nur brought was

their experience in

distance

education and

their commitment

to supporting

development in

rural Bolivia.”

— Barbara Knox-

Seith, USAID, Latin

America Bureau

Nur University, in SantaCruz, Bolivia.

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 200312

Together, these schools serve more than300 students. More important, they offer thechildren in the far reaches of this remote re-gion virtually their only chance for an aca-demic education. With the region’s lowpopulation density and isolation — all ofthe villages served by the Bahá’í schools areaccessible only by foot or horse — the gov-ernment has not been able to maintain aschool system here.

“The children, because of the remote com-munities in which they live, which are up tosix hours walking distance from the nearesttown, would receive no education at all, wereit not for these schools,” said Rosemary Baily,secretary of the Foundation for Developmentand Culture (FUNDESCU), a Bahá’í-inspirednon-governmental organization that supportsthe schools. “So this effort really does make ahuge difference in the lives of the children.”

Most of the teachers, indigenous peoplethemselves, are not formally trained. Rather,

In Panama, volunteers provide muchneeded educational services

D E V E L O P M E N T

Panama, continued from page one they are among those who have more edu-cation than others in the Ngabe-Bugle com-munity, and so they feel obligated to passalong their learning.

“History testifies to the great material,cultural, and spiritual wealth that indigenouspeoples have enjoyed in the past, but for lackof education, they have not been able todevelop,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who himselfhas finished the 10th grade. “I have chosenthe path of service in order to help generatethe step-by-step process of developmentneeded by the community, especially by thechildren who are the future of the Ngabe-Bugle region in Panama.”

The schools began nearly 20 years ago assmall local initiatives of the Bahá’ís ofPanama, who sought to provide basic bilin-gual (Spanish and native Ngabere) pre-school and elementary education to theNgabe-Bugle people, who are sometimesknown as the Guaymi. The schools have de-veloped gradually, as the resources of the

Students of the Bahá’í schoolin the community of Naranjaplay a game outside theirsmall classroom building.The school is one of 10 suchschools, staffed by volunteerteachers, that serve some300 children in the remoteareas of the Ngabe-Bugleregion in Western Panama.

“The children,

because of the

remote

communities in

which they live,

would receive no

education at all,

were it not for

these schools.”

— Rosemary Baily,

secretary of the

Foundation for

Development and

Culture

Ph

oto

by

Dav

id S

imm

on

s

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 2003 13

community have grown.In the early 1990s, after a number of vol-

unteer teachers had been forced to look forwork elsewhere, a group of young Bahá’ísin the Ngabe-Bugle community came to-gether to talk about how to keep the schoolsgoing. They made a solemn pact to offerthemselves as teachers and to remain for aslong as they were needed, even without sal-ary, whatever the sacrifice.

“Our own families are poor, but how canwe leave these precious children withouteducation?” said Mr. Rodriguez, who hasnow been teaching for seven years.

The group, composed of about a dozenindividuals, initially worked without pay.More recently, FUNDESCU has been ableto raise enough money to provide theteachers — there are currently 13 — witha monthly stipend equivalent to aboutUS$50. The funds have come from theBahá’í sources, as well as from private foun-dations and contributors.

“I began my service as a volunteer,” saidAlexis Bejerano, who must travel each weekfrom his home some three hours by bus,three hours by boat, and then three hourson foot to reach the Bahá’í school of SanFelix Bocas del Toro, where he teachesfourth, fifth, and sixth graders.

“I am serving my people because of thelove and affection I feel for the children,”added Mr. Bejerano. “The Bahá’í Faith hasgiven me this light — that of sharing whatone has learned. I feel so satisfied and Igain so much every day that I am in con-tact with the children. I learn a lot just bysharing the limited knowledge gainedduring my own studies.”

Government officials have praised theproject for filling an important need. Indeed,the Ministry of Education recently beganfunding the salary for a 14th teacher.

On a visit to the Ngabe-Bugle region inOctober 2002, Professor Aguedo Acosta,Regional Director of the Department of Pri-vate Education in Chiriqui for the Ministryof Education, said: “You see me here todayfor a second time within the Ngabe-Buglehomeland, to visit you and to offer all themoral and legal support that the Bahá’íschools need.”

Parents and local leaders tell of theirhappiness with the opportunities providedby the schools.

“I cannot read or write, but with theseschools, my children will learn to read andwrite,” said Enrique Espinoza, head of the

village council in Quebrada Molejon, wherea Bahá’í school serves roughly 60 studentsin grades one through six.

Although the schools are run by theBahá’ís, the teachers and administrators donot seek to convert the students. Some ofthe villagers are Bahá’ís, some are Catholics,some are Evangelicals, and some follow thenative Mama Tata religion. In all, about halfthe students are Bahá’ís.

There is, however, a strong moral com-ponent to the program, taught at all of theschools. In addition to reading, writing,and mathematics, the curriculum includesa weekly class on “Virtues and Values.”

“They need more than just education inscience and math, but education of thespirit,” said Benita Palacios, who has beenserving as a teacher for nine years. “When Iwas school-aged, we females had few op-portunities to study because of the belief thatwomen should never go farther than theirown homes.”

Ms. Palacios, who teaches kindergarten inthe village of Boca de Remedios, said that theBahá’í teachings on the equality of women andmen have inspired her to go beyond this limi-tation. “My own education only went as far asninth grade, and it was with great difficultythat I was able to go even that far.”

Like the others, Ms. Palacios started outas a volunteer. “As a Bahá’í, I felt I had aresponsibility to my own community.”

Over the years the teachers have received train-ing from various Bahá’í organizations, facilitatedby FUNDESCU. Last summer, for example, the

Benita Palacios has beenserving as a teacher for nineyears. Like other Bahá’íteachers, she teaches onessentially a volunteer basis,receiving a marginal stipendof some US$50 a month.

“My own

education only

went as far as

ninth grade, and it

was with great

difficulty that I

was able to go

even that far. I felt

I had a

responsibility to

my own

community.”

— Benita Palacios,

teacher

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 200314

Mona Foundation, a United States-based, Bahá’í-inspired organization that strives to supportgrassroots educational initiatives around theworld, held an in-depth training workshop onthe fundamentals of educational philosophy andclassroom management.

For Mr. Rodriguez, the $50 monthly sti-pend barely covers the cost of rice and some-times a small package of beans or lentils forhimself, which he has learned to cook overan open fire after school each afternoon.That’s after he has provided for his wife andthree small children — a family he leavesbehind each week when he walks up intothe mountains.

The people of Quebrada Venado are cer-

“As the Beijing Platform for Action out-lines, violence must be assessed against thebackdrop of the historical, social, political,cultural, and economic inequality ofwomen,” said Jean Augustine, Secretary ofState for Multiculturalism and the Status ofWomen in Canada. “Violence againstwomen touches every aspect of life. It is asocial issue, an economic issue, a health is-sue, an awareness and education issue, a jus-tice and human rights issue.”

Ms. Coomaraswamy, the UN SpecialRapporteur on Violence against Women, fo-cused her remarks on the problem of traf-ficking in women and girls, which she saidhas increased in recent years as part of the“feminine side” of globalization.

As an example, she examined the caseof the Nepalese girl who was sold into pros-titution in India by her “husband.”

“She was subjected to an enormousamount of torture, both physical and men-tal, until she agreed to become a sex worker,”Ms. Coomaraswamy said. “After that she wastaken to Bombay where she worked inFalkland Road, a place known for such ac-tivity, until finally she was rescued by aNepalese NGO.” The girl, now in an ad-vanced stage of AIDS, is dying.

Cases like this illustrate the need for stronginternational conventions and strong nationallaws, said Ms. Coomaraswamy, coupled with“a sensitive police force which is not corrupt-ible, a sensitive judiciary that actuallyconvicts…and support services for victims.”

Agreeing that violence against womenis intricately entwined with human rights,

Panel, continued from page 7

tainly grateful. They treat Mr. Rodriguezwith obvious respect. As subsistence farm-ers, they have no money or food to offer, butthey take turns providing firewood forVictorino’s outdoor kitchen. They have builthim a small wood-framed shelter with cor-rugated metal panels on three sides, a packedmud floor, and a narrow wooden platformfor his bed.

“The Bahá’í Faith has been a light to ourpeople,” said one Quebrada Venado villager.“With this school, our children will be freedfrom the darkness of ignorance. These chil-dren are our future.”

— By Randie Gottlieb

UN Commission addresses violence against women

Michael Penn, an associate professor ofpsychology at Franklin and Marshall Uni-versity in Pennsylvania, USA, said part ofthe remedy is greater participation by men,along with a campaign of spiritual andmoral education grounded in “universalhuman values already endorsed” by theglobal community.

“The global campaign to elevate the sta-tus of women, to promote gender equality,and to eradicate gender-based violence ismost likely to be effective if it is fueled andupheld both by enforceable local and inter-national laws and by processes that addressthe inner terrain of human consciousness,human values, and human spiritual andmoral development,” said Dr. Penn, who hasrecently co-authored a book entitled Over-coming Violence against Women and Girls.

Dr. Penn, who is a Bahá’í, also offered hopefor humanity’s global moral improvement bycomparing its development to the life of anindividual, marked by different stages ofgrowth, suggesting that humanity be viewedas still immature, but not without potential.“When we understand an organism’s capaci-ties from a developmental perspective, we areable to nurture it with confidence,” he said.

The Commission on the Status of Women,established in 1946, prepares recommenda-tions and reports to the UN Economic andSocial Council on the promotion of women’srights, and advances the principle that menand women should have equal rights. Follow-ing the 1995 Fourth World Conference onWomen, the General Assembly mandated theCommission to follow up on implementationof the Platform of Action.

– By Veronica Shoffstall

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 2003 15

Review, continued from page 16

Review: Minimalism

logic and how it can be applied to philo-sophical analysis. At times, accordingly, Dr.Hatcher’s use of mathematical symbols canseem overwhelming to the casual reader.

Yet, aside from such explication, the bookis eminently readable and even dramaticallyilluminating for its clear-headed explorationof contemporary currents in philosophy.

For example, one key issue in modernthought, cutting across a wide range of dis-ciplines, from psychology to sociology toneurobiology, is the nature of subjectivity:how do you know what you know?

Philosophers throughout history havewrestled with this question. It stems from theobvious fact that our minds are locked in-side bodies and all of our perceptions arefiltered through the fives senses of sight,sound, smell, taste, and touch.

Descartes faced up to this dilemma whenhe skeptically asked how we know whetheranything exists at all. Perhaps we are alldreaming, he said. Or perhaps all that wesee and hear is fed to us by an evil demon.

He resolved those doubts in a conclusionthat is summed up in the famous quote: “Ithink, therefore I am.” In acknowledging thatthe mere fact of thinking proves an exist-ence of some sort, Descartes secured a foot-hold on a ladder of thought that, in hismind, gave certainty to an “objective” worldoutside himself and a “divine” world cen-tered around God.

More recently, Descartes’ formulation hasbeen battered by relativism, to the pointwhere some philosophers now questionwhether science itself can be objectively val-ued more than mysticism, intuition, or other“non-rational” belief systems.

Objectivity is a chimera, these philosopherssay, since everyone — scientists included — islimited by their own subjective viewpoint.

Dr. Hatcher suggests that this limitationcan be overcome by explicitly acknowledg-ing one’s viewpoint at the outset of any philo-sophical discussion — laying one’s cards onthe table, so to speak. He traces this idea backto Euclid, who deduced the mathematics ofgeometry from five basic axioms.

“The reader is free to reject Euclid’s axi-oms if he so desires, but if he accepts them,then he cannot deny any of Euclid’s furtheraffirmations,” Dr. Hatcher writes. “Euclid has

made his viewpoint totally explicit.”Applying that standard to philosophical

discourse today, Dr. Hatcher writes, is a keystep towards overcoming the split betweenthe scientific materialists and the post-mod-ern relativists on the issue of objectivity.

Another plank of the minimalist approachis that it does not close itself off to the possibil-ity of non-material causes and realities.

“The philosophy of minimalism is open tothe possibility of such phenomena as divinerevelation, in which man may be given knowl-edge that transcends any possible rational ba-sis that is currently known,” he writes.

Indeed, Dr. Hatcher, who is himself aBahá’í, said in an interview that much of hisinspiration for the development of his methodcame from studying the Bahá’í writings, whichuphold an highly rational view of God, reli-gion, and theology — and also uphold thescientific method as the primary path for un-derstanding physical reality.

He occasionally quotes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá inthe book, offering his insights as waypointsin the development of minimalism. Yet atthe same time Dr. Hatcher indicates that whilehis inspiration may have come from his Bahá’íbelief, his rigorous approach to applying re-lational logic to philosophical questions isoriginal.

The success of his method is revealed to-wards the end of this short book, which isonly 128 pages long, where he offers a logi-cal proof for the existence of God.

Although Dr. Hatcher has offered thisproof in previous books, in Minimalism hedevelops it fully. He essentially takes thereader by the hand and guides him/herthrough the sophisticated mathematical ex-pressions of symbolic logic that, accordingto Dr. Hatcher, offer a virtually bulletproofargument for a single, universal, and eter-nal First Cause — something that is verymuch like God the Creator as named in allof the world’s major religions.

That proof is too long to explain here,but suffice it to say that any reader with amodicum of reasoning power will find itcompelling — if not wholly convincing.

Over the years, Dr. Hatcher has presentedthis proof in a variety of forums. No one, hesaid, has yet successfully refuted it, certainlynot within the framework of modern logic.Assuming this holds, Dr. Hatcher — and hisphilosophy of minimalism — are quite likelyto have a lasting influence. They certainlyoffer a more inspiring direction than the twoother roads.

“The philosophy

of minimalism is

open to the

possibility of such

phenomena as

divine revelation,

in which man may

be given

knowledge that

transcends any

possible rational

basis that is

currently known.”

— Dr. William S.

Hatcher

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 200316

B O O K R E V I E W

Minimalism: A

Bridge between

Classical

Philosophy and

the Bahá’í

Revelation

By William S.

Hatcher

Juxta Publishing

Hong Kong

Review, continued on page 15

While the application of the modern sci-entific method has reaped great re-

wards in terms of technological progress, itsemployment in the realm of philosophy hasin many ways been a great disappointment.

At the risk of oversimplification, it canbe said that the great scientific discoveriesof the last hundred years or so have led phi-losophers down two divergent roads — andneither, it must be added, offers a very in-spiring direction for humanity.

Down one road have gone the scientificmaterialists. Prompted in part by the apparentsuccess of science at explaining physical real-ity (such as the nature of sub-atomic particlesor the evolution of the human species), thisgroup holds that there is nothing beyond thatwhich can be objectified. There is no transcen-dent realm, no God, nothing that we cannotsee, hear, touch, or experiment on.

Down the other road, so to speak, havegone the postmodern relativists. Inspired bymodern scientific theories of relativity, chaos,and indeterminacy, this group concludes thatnothing can be objectified. All is relative,whether culture, science, or values, and, inthe end, you can’t really know anything.

With the publication of Minimalism: ABridge between Classic Philosophy and theBahá’í Revelation, William S. Hatcher stepssquarely into the middle of the fray, present-ing a completely innovative philosophicalapproach to the kinds of questions faced byboth groups of modernists.

In a nutshell, Dr. Hatcher has taken mod-ern refinements in logic — specifically thecreation of relational logic, which forms thebasis for modern computing — and appliedthem in the realm of philosophy, in particu-lar to the kinds of metaphysical and ethicalquestions that have seemed so stubbornly toresist modern analysis.

The approach offers new insights into thegreat questions of classic philosophers, suchas whether there is a God, the nature of being,and the notion of good.

“[M]inimalism shows that there are gen-eral logical principles which are common toall intellectual endeavors, regardless of thedomain of investigation in question,” he writes.

He terms his method “minimalism” be-cause it “results from consistently makingthe most plausible and rational choice in thelight of current knowledge” but goes no far-ther than is necessary.

Indeed, the essence of minimalism is ra-tionality. As outlined by Dr. Hatcher, it stead-fastly hews to logic, utilizes scientific em-piricism where it is proven effective, andmakes an explicit iteration of viewpoint (inan effort to circumvent the limitations im-posed by human subjectivity).

At the same time, it makes no claim to pos-sessing the ultimate truth, acknowledging thatthere are limits to human knowledge.

The result, he writes, is a “proactive phi-losophy that yields genuine results,” a

“middle way” between the “gratuitous re-strictions of logical positivism” (and otherscientific materialists) and the “gratuitoussubjectivism of postmodernism.”

Much of the book is devoted to helpingthe reader understand the basics of relational

Computers, logic and a “middle way”