Tue, 30 Jun 2009

Creating an unbroken world: obituary for Jakob Streit

The much-translated Swiss writer of children’s books and books for young people, Jakob Streit, died in Switzerland on 15 May at the age of 98. In the following obituary by Dominik Rose, the publishers Freies Geistesleben and Urachhaus celebrate one of their most successful authors

STUTTGART (NNA) – Born on 23 September 1910 in Spiez on Lake Thun, Jakob Streit published more than thirty books for children and young people. The city of Bern honoured him with its literary prize in 1956 and many of his works have been translated into English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Polish, Czech and Slovenian.

One focus of his literary work was on animal stories, fairy tales, legends and the retelling of Biblical stories, books which enjoy great popularity among children and adolescent readers. “When I stopped being a teacher,” Jakob Streit once said, “I felt as if I was surrounded by children and young people who helped me as I was writing.”

Apart from his literary work, Jakob Streit worked as a teacher for many years and never ceased to be in demand as a speaker on education and anthroposophy.

In addition, this versatile artist worked, among other things, as an actor in the theatre and opera director (directing Gluck’s “Orpheus” in Chieming in 1989 for example). A keen nature lover, he passionately devoted himself to beekeeping.

With his books, Streit wanted to reintroduce his young readers - but also their parents telling the stories - to nature, awaken the artist in the child and contribute to a more profound understanding of nature and the human being (for example in “Das Bienenbuch” (The Book of Bees) and his popular novel in schools “Milon und der Löwe” (Milon and the Lion)).

“Children should be given a lot of unbroken world, they will get the broken one soon enough,” the teacher and children’s author once said. He saw children as “little plants which had to be protected from the frost”.

They should only gradually and cautiously be confronted with the evil in the world and stories and fairy tales could support that process. As a result, he created the childhood legends, books about gnomes and animals which were intended to introduce the reader – be it children or adults – to the wonders of nature.

Alongside the “Book of Bees”, the stories about gnomes “Tatatucks Reise zum Kristallberg“ (Tatatucks Journey to the Crystal Mountain”) and “Liputto”, as well as “Louis Braille”, a biographical novel about the inventor of braille who celebrates his two hundredth birthday this year, belong to his most successful works

The publishers Freies Geistesleben and Urachhaus, who published many of Jakob Streit’s books, have lost a versatile and inspiring author who with his poetic and empathetic stories had a particular sense for the feelings of his young readers.

Jakob Streit – 23 September 1910–15 May 2009

END/nna/cva

Item: 090630-02EN Date: 30 June 2009

Copyright 2009 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: www.nna-news.org/en/

Nicanor Perlas announces candidature for Philippine presidential election

By NNA correspondent Walter Siegfried Hahn

MANILA (NNA) - The leading Philippine activist Nicanor Perlas (59) has announced that he intends to stand as a candidate in next year’s presidential elections. The elections will take place in spring 2010 but no firm date has yet been set.

Speaking at the launch of his campaign on 17 June, Perlas said he was standing because he wanted to give Filipinos a real choice. He emphasised in a short address that he had been working actively for the country and its people for the last 40 years.

He said he had been particularly pleased that he had successfully managed to introduce elements of social threefolding into national and international institutions.

Social threefolding draws on ideas first introduced by the social thinker Rudolf Steiner which seek to separate out and redefine the relationship between politics, culture and economics and represent a revolutionary approach to addressing local and global problems.

If he is elected, Perlas said his focus would be on combating poverty in a country where 50 percent of the population still have to survive on less than one dollar a day.

Perlas launched his campaign at the Heroes Memorial in Quezon City, a place which is particularly evocative as it commemorates among other things the peaceful and non-violent People Power revolution which overthrew the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

Perlas first came to prominence in the early 1970s when he organised protests against the construction of the Bataan nuclear power plant (BNPP). He helped to uncover the massive bribery and fraud surrounding the purchase and construction of the BNPP and subsequently contributed to the mothballing of the plant when he was appointed technical consultant to an enquiry during the administration of President Corazon Aquino which found the plant to be defective.

He also played a key role in keeping the Philippines nuclear free, stopping the government from implementing their plan to build 12 nuclear power plants.

The environmental and social activist has so far rejected the public offices offered to him, including environment minister, but now considers the time to be ripe for a change. At the same time he said he would be willing to step aside if a “better qualified candidate” turned up.

Perlas added that he had decided to announce his decision to stand for the presidency at this time because of the attempt to change the 1986 constitution to keep President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in power, a process which reached a culmination at the beginning of June.

He said he saw this as an attempt to give “permanent totalitarian control over the country to the current administration under the cover of democracy”. He saw the current administration as worse than the Marcos regime.

“Marcos controlled and damaged the institutions of society. But Arroyo is increasingly taking control of our morality and thinking,” he wrote in a circular earlier this month. Following subjugation by the Spanish, Americans and Japanese, the country was now confronted by subjugation from its own.

Of his achievements, Perlas is cited by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, one of the country’s leading dailies, as being proudest of the “societal three-folding” framework he drafted, which was later adopted by the United Nations as a strategy in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

Perlas first used the framework in crafting the Philippine Agenda 21, a blueprint for sustainable development, during the term of President Fidel Ramos, the paper writes, and was presented and adopted during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in 1996.

Perlas was disappointed that while the framework is being implemented not only by the United Nations but also by advanced economies, the Arroyo administration had ignored it.

He said that while Presidents Ramos and Estrada attempted to integrate business and civil society in governance, Arroyo had not: “The government alone cannot do the job if the business sector and civil society are not involved,” the paper quotes him as saying.

Perlas is a pioneer of anthroposophy and biodynamic agriculture in the Philippines. He is also involved in many other fields, such as the training of Waldorf teachers, and is consulted by many organisations from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference to the OCCI Seminars management consultancy.

As part of his environmental record, he succeeded in having 32 particularly harmful pesticides banned, reducing the chronic pesticide poisoning of millions of farmers.

Furthermore, in the political field he played a key role in developing the detailed strategies that eventually succeeded in removing President Estrada from office in 2001 following allegations of corruption.

It is, however, an irony of fate that this opened the way to Estrada’s vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to succeed him – the same Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who is now attempting to cling to power.

Perlas has received many national and international honours, including the Right Livelihood Award – also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize - in 2003.

In 1994 the UN presented him with the Global 500 or Champions of the Earth Award. And in the Philippines he was honoured with the Outstanding Filipino Award, one of the country’s most important honours.

Nicanor Perlas has been preparing his candidacy for a considerable time. The Karangalan conferences since 2005 served to build a broader base of sympathisers and he has also used the PAGASA organisation to gather a group of responsible multipliers.

It was in these circles that he launched two articles in May about “winnability” and how an election might be won the “non-traditional way” by a candidate who is not necessarily a face well-known in the media in a country where previously a film actor like Estrada or the current boxing world champion Manny Pacquiao has much better prospects of political office because of their TV presence than a candidate who might be much better qualified.

But here, too, Perlas has attempted to take his fate in his own hands – since the start of the year he has been hosting his own TV talk show. Whether he can enhance his popularity in comparison to western heroes and sports celebrities through intelligent conversation will become evident over the coming weeks and months.

END/nna/wsh/cva

Links: www.nicanorperlas.com, www.truthforce.info, www.pagasa.net.ph

Item: 090630-01EN Date: 30 June 2009

Copyright 2009 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: www.nna-news.org/en/