Thu, 16 Dec 2010

Opening celebrations for Rudolf Steiner anniversary year

By NNA correspondents Edith Willer-Kurtz and Wolfgang G. Voegele

DORNACH (NNA) – The relevance of Rudolf Steiner’s thinking in the globalised world of the twenty-first century was the central theme of the large opening event at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, home of the General Anthroposophical Society, in anticipation of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s birth in February 2011. About 300 visitors attended presentations from representatives of projects and initiatives in the worldwide anthroposophical movement which have their sources in Rudolf Steiner’s work. The event in the first week of November could be summed up in one sentence from the presentation of Goetheanum executive council member Bodo von Plato: “Rudolf Steiner is only just starting to come into his own”.

The mainstream media which attended the conference commented positively on the willingness of the anthroposophical movement to engage in dialogue with the outside world. That successful entrepreneurs such as Götz Werner, the founder of the major “dm” pharmacy chain, and politicians like the member of the European Parliament, Gerald Häfner, were present on the platform at the Goetheanum showed that anthroposophical thinking was far from being locked away in an ivory tower. It was indisputable, German and Swiss newspapers wrote, that Rudolf Steiner was one of the most influential reformers of the twentieth century who inspires artists, entrepreneurs and scientists to the present day.

The international participants on the platform at the opening event explained why they were anthroposophists and what they owed to Steiner. Aban Bana from India spoke about the interest in and development of anthroposophical facilities on the subcontinent in the last fifteen years. Branches of the Anthroposophical Society, Waldorf schools, schools for curative education, Camphill villages, biodynamic farms, anthroposophical medicine and architecture as well as various training centres had been established.

Greater development potential through a spiritual view of the human being

Ute Cræmer, co-founder of the Monte Azul community association and the Alliance for Childhood in Brazil described her encounters in the Favelas of her country. She spoke about people in existential and mental need. “Every single soul wants to play an active role in the world and sees nothing but obstacles,” she emphasised. A key factor in her work was the fact that activities were individually designed in recognition of the spiritual core in each person. This understanding was the specific contribution of anthroposophy. Our counterpart sensed such an attitude and felt himself or herself accepted as a person. That created a space for development, she said.

In the subsequent debate the question was raised how anthroposophical work in a social context differed in its approach from conventional social work. The responses pointed to the spiritual image of the human being as the basis for such work, according to which everyone – including criminals – was capable of development. In addition there was the hope of reincarnation which gave confidence in the long term development of the individual, and also of groups.

Gerald Häfner, founder member of the German Greens/Alliance 90 party, noted that there was still some embarrassment among the general public in dealing with Steiner but that on the other hand an increasingly non-judgemental view of his work was beginning to show itself. As far as Steiner’s relevance was concerned, Häfner said: “It will still take us a very long time to catch up with him.” As a member of the European Parliament he reported about the beginnings of a transnational movement for greater citizen involvement.

Bodo von Plato, executive council member at the Goetheanum, agreed with the statement of the director of the Wolfsburg Art Museum, Markus Brüderlin, that today Steiner no longer belonged to the anthroposophists alone in any shape or form. On the other hand anthroposophy, like any ideal, also had its shadow sides, such as when some of its supporters displayed a tendency towards sectarian attitudes. Simply telling a one-dimensional success story was no longer enough. Steiner’ work would only come to life if the shadow sides were also mentioned.

And although people had completely changed since the time when Steiner was alive, and the world was confronted with quite different problems, including in terms of technology, Steiner was still ahead of our time. Bodo von Plato described Steiner with his ethical individualism as the “re-discoverer of the conscience”.

Anthroposophy as contrast to rigid, dogmatic thinking

Prof. Walter Kugler, director of the Rudolf Steiner Archive, said that for him the special feature of anthroposophy from the beginning had been that the committed individuals who had founded anthroposophical institutions had acted autonomously. Such behaviour had contrasted with the rigidity of the dogmatic Marxism of most of the activists of the student movement in the late 1960s. From an early stage he had been fascinated by Steiner’s saying that we should “only consider to be true what our own thinking forces us to see as true.”

After the opening event the participants at the conference then had the opportunity in the afternoon to inform themselves about individual areas of the anthroposophical movement in several round table discussions. There were exhibitions, guided tours, interviews and films with subjects ranging from education in a globalised world through salutogenesis in medicine and direct democracy to organic architecture.

In the round table on key issues in politics, for example, participants could hear Gerald Häfner talk about ecological and social tax reform and demand that human work should be taxed as little as possible, but energy commensurately more. Energy consumption should be more expensive because, among other things, it was finite. 

Cultural workers from India, Brazil and Egypt exchanged views about the capacity for peace and cultural matters. Anthroposophical institutions were open, with no restrictions, an important factor in India, for example, where there were ten different religions. Steiner’s thinking was praised as a “spiritual human impulse”. “When we work together we can create human values,” was the outcome of the discussion. Build trust and give space so that people can develop, was the advice of Favela worker Ute Cræmer, based on her own experience.

The “Generation international” round table of the Youth Section raised questions such as: What does it mean to be human in society and humanity today? What is the spirit. It was often assumed that people knew what the spirit was.

Another round table discussed the necessity of a change of paradigm in medicine. In order to transform the problems in health policy, a different awareness of the patient was required, something which could be furthered by making information available. Complementary medicine had to find political support. The head of the Medical Section, Michæla Glöckler, who had also opened the event, reminded listeners of the Eliant petition for Brussels which was intended to protect anthroposophic medicine and which had meantime collected almost one million signatures.

Things are moving in Waldorf education

At the education round table the discussion was about new trends in the Waldorf school movement. Christoph Doll, founder teacher at the Intercultural Waldorf School Mannheim, reported how the Waldorf model could be successfully realised in areas of social tension with the inclusion of migrant children. The question was then also discussed as to whether Waldorf schools – described by the media as the „poster organisation“ of the anthroposophical movement – tended to follow a general Waldorf standard or were increasingly following their own individual path. For the Pedagogical Section Christof Wiechert emphasised that out-of-data forms should not be confused with content. Henning Kullack-Ublick, board member of the German Waldorf School Association noted that there was a mood among the Waldorf schools that “things are on the move”.

The question of the extent to which anthroposophy has in the meantime become established at a higher education level was discussed by Konrad Schily, founder of the private Witten-Herdecke University and Prof. Marcelo da Veiga, rector of the Alanus University for Arts and Social Sciences. At their round table they debated the competitiveness of anthroposophical higher education institutions in the academic environment. On the basis of his experience as the rector of the Alanus University da Veiga called for universities to be places where ideas could compete. Waldorf education for example was discussed in comparison to other approaches and thus in a more general context. “If there is anything to Steiner, then he must not be kept in isolation,” da Veiga emphasised.

Finally, there was also information about the “Rudolf Steiner Express”, the special train which in the anniversary year will travel to the places where Steiner lived and worked. Prof. Karl-Dieter Bodack, the former rail manager who is responsible for the logistics of the trip, explained the timetable. From 24 to 28 February the birthday train would travel from Cologne via Stuttgart, Munich, Salzburg and Vienna to Kraljevec. “The passengers will find the exceptional interior of the train an excellent place to get into conversation with one another, make travel notes and jointly or individually ‘experience’ Steiner’s biography,” Bodack emphasised. Many events are planned for the stations along the route of Steiner’s childhood and youth, organiser Vera Koppehel said. However, in order for the train to depart, sufficient tickets must be sold. They can already be booked online.

END/nna/wil/vog/ung/cva

Link: www.rudolf-steiner-2011.com

Item: 101216-02EN Date: 16 December 2010

Copyright 2010 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

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

First professorship of biodynamic agriculture set to be axed

DARMSTADT/KASSEL (NNA) - The first professorship of biodynamic agriculture in Europe at the University of Kassel in Germany has come one step closer to being axed with the decision by the council of the faculty of organic agricultural sciences to abolish the department of biodynamic agriculture and reduce the position to the level of a research assistant.

There has been concern about the future of the post ever since the presidium, the governing body of the university, expressed its doubts earlier this year about the academic and financial viability of the department.

The post was established six years ago with funding from a number of sponsors, including the Software AG Foundation, the Zukunftsstiftung Landwirtschaft foundation of the GLS Treuhand and the organic food chain Alnatura. The sponsors offered to continue funding the post for a further period, an offer which was turned down by the university.

Last month the sponsors expressed their concern about the future of the professorship and warned of the “conventionalisation” of research in organic agriculture.

In a statement, the presidium said that the position was not to be continued as of the 2011 summer semester.

The university president, Prof. Rolf-Dieter Postlep, said: “The faculty tested in recent years whether it is possible to provide an academic basis for the subject of biodynamic agriculture and its ability to mesh with other disciplines. The opinion of the external assessors makes it clear that this would only be possible within very restricted limits in a university environment in the light of the academic standards applying there.“

The presidium did not therefore consider that it made sense to continue with the professorship, particularly if it required funding from the university, which would mean cuts in other areas, the statement said. That did not, however, mean that research into and teaching of biodynamic agriculture could not continue, but it was up to the faculty to find an appropriate home for the subject somewhere else.

This version of events is, however, disputed by the holder of the professorship, the Dutch academic Ton Baars who won the post in an internationally advertised open competition. He says that the department had undertaken successful research on topics such as the difference between ecological and conventional food quality, allergy prevention in children and the self-regulation of agricultural ecological systems.

Ecological farming associations and numerous companies in the organic food business had welcomed such research and described it as groundbreaking. As a result the department was raising the profile of the faculty and it was the reason why many students came to study there.

Prof. Baars also quoted the evaluation council which had come to the conclusion on the basis of three external assessments that “biodynamic research should have its place in the faculty.“

Baars told NNA the university was pursuing a dual strategy of on the one hand sending a signal externally that biodynamic agriculture was finished at the university as a separate discipline while at the same time internally telling students that they could continue to study the subject.

The result was the research assistant post, but precisely what that would consist of, what its status would be and where it would be located, perhaps even with an external body, was still very unclear, Prof Baars said. “The subject will no longer be possible to the extent that we did it here in the department and there will not be the same freedom either,” he commented. “There is no logic or foundation to the various proposals being suggested now,” he added.

It might, for example, have been possible to turn the chair into an honorary professorship with external funding, but the university was not interested in those kind of solutions because it wanted to end biodynamic agriculture as a separate subject.

There have been vociferous protests by students and former students at the closure of the department who fear that the faculty is abandoning its ecological foundations.

In their statement, the sponsors expressed their concern, “as representatives of civil society”, that words such as scholarship and excellence appeared to be used to denigrate positive research qualities such as impartiality and curiosity for new research methods, the endeavour for sustainability and practical relevance.

“From the perspective of the sponsors, some colleagues, many farmers and above all the students, Prof. Baars has created an important foundation for innovative and practice-related research work and excellent teaching,” the sponsors emphasised. All external assessments had been in agreement that biodynamic agriculture should have a place at a university.

But apparently massive pressure from some of the other professors in the faculty of organic agricultural sciences had stopped that, the sponsors said.

The final decision about the continuation of the department will be taken at the latest in February when the university presidium meets. But given its stated views and the recent decision of the faculty council, there seems little doubt as to what the outcome will be.

END/nna/cva

Item: 101216-01EN Date: 16 December 2010

Copyright 2010 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

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