What is global education about?
Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti,
Professor of Global Education
The letter below written by Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, professor of global education at the University of Oulu, exemplifies the urgency for education to enlarge possibilities for thinking and relating to each other in complex, uncertain, plural and deeply unequal societies.
Dear Mr. Obama, 44th President of the United States,
I would like to congratulate you on your election tonight. For the past few months I have acted and watched friends and family from (literally) all over the world and across generations campaign for you, grounded on a sharp recognition of our global interdependence. However, it was this recognition that I believe was lacking in your first speech as re-elected president tonight. I acknowledge the pressures you were under to focus on ‘the American people’, who you called ‘ your own’ and ‘your family’, after all, you are ‘their’ president. However, other people who have campaigned for you may have done so because they realize that for ‘our family’, which is much larger than America, dismemberments and forced artificial separations (be it in nationality, citizenship, religion, gender, race, sexuality, identity or ideology) have caused enough damage and trauma already. Therefore, in my professional capacity as an educator and in what you may call ‘wishful idealism’ or ‘blind optimism’, I urge you to change your speech a little to make it a bit more globally sensitive.
First, I noticed you nobly emphasized the need to reach out to the opposition (and I understand the urgency of that given the volatile polarization of the country), but (as paradoxical as this may seem), please extend your reach to the global sphere as well by prioritizing the poor and the vulnerable not only at home, but everywhere USA leadership has (historically and continuously) contributed to the impoverishment and oppression of ordinary people – let this be driven by an idea of justice based on complicity in harm, not on ethnocentric and depoliticized charity.
Second, please do not offend our intelligence with the slogan that ‘America is the greatest (and richest) country in the world’ as this can be interpreted as patronizing, arrogant and out of line, given USA’s world impact and record, and the shadow of local and global violence in the source of its wealth: I noticed that Native Americans were not meaningfully mentioned in your speech, please acknowledge the enormous sacrifices and wounds of indigenous people in the Americas and elsewhere – again, offer them justice, on their terms, not only ‘inclusion’, listen and let them teach you.
Third, please introduce the notion of ‘radical hope’ by daring to speak of the possibility and necessity of a much more ethical economy that does not rely on fossil fuels (national or foreign), rampant consumerism (and unrestrained waste production), profitable militarism, (subsidized) competition, the commodification of life, the financialization of the globe, the relentless destruction of the environment, the exploitative division of labor at home and abroad, siege consciousness, or the elimination of dissent.
Last, please choose a song for your next speech that does not invite parochialisms and dangerous forms of patriotism, but that fuels our internal drive to build bridges of solidarity, to reach out to others beyond geo-political borders, to expect and act towards a bright prospect for ALL children (and elderly people, and adults) EVERYWHERE (regardless of place of birth, faith, biological differences, inherited circumstances or life choices), a song that may remind us of the power and indispensability of plurality as an integral part of the collective future we share – together in one finite and fragile planet.
I, and the millions of people who were not born and who do not live (or aspire to live) in America, who have supported you in this campaign, understand that you are only human and that there is only so much you can do within the difficult constraints of your political and existencial context. So we wish you well and expect you to take the privilege and responsibility of your mandate with the recognition that, at this point of our inter-connected present, you are not just accountable to your country, as, with you, we ‘rise and fall together’ – all of us, not just America.
All the best, Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, Professor of Global Education
This article was published on January 30th: School Day of Non-violence and Peace in Global Education Magazine
