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The Constellation of Twinned NGOs-Schools:
A New Transdemocratic Horizon in the Global Citizenship Education proposed by UNESCO for the Post-2015
Sustainable Development Agenda
Ruano Javier is a PhD candidate, professor,
Federal university of Bahia (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil)
E-mail: javiercolladoruano@gmail.com
Galeffi Dante is a PhD, professor,
Federal university of Bahia (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil)
E-mail: dgaleffi@uol.com.br
Ponczek Roberto is a PhD, professor,
Federal university of Bahia (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil)
E-mail: ponczek@ufba.br
The purpose of this paper is to describe the most relevant features of the Global Citizenship Education (GCE) proposed by UNESCO for the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda. Thus, after having submitted an educational, political, and epistemological proposal in Rio+20 to achieve a sustainable development for eradication of poverty, our research will be focused in the construc-tion of new philosophical discussions about the complexity of global problems of humanity in the third millennium. They include poverty, sustainable development, climate change, water scarcity, economic globalization, governance, ethics, health etc. Based on Complex Theory and transdici-plinary methodology, we also propose a transnational and transcultural educational milestone with the intentionality to contextualize human condition in the cosmodernity paradigm, which re-quires looking into the future with a poly-logical perspective opened to universal interconnection and complexity of the world-society. Then, we propose the creation of a Constellation of Twinned
NGOs-Schools which develop altruistic educational projects of cooperation in all corners of the planet to build, ultimately, a new transdemocratic horizon in the Cyber-Space-Time.
Keywords: Transdiciplinarity, Cosmodernity, Global Citizenship Education, Earth-Homeland, Complex Epistemology.
The main subject of this paper is to reflect about the point of no return achieved by the human species in its historical evolution. Since the mid-twentieth century, and for the first time in known human history, the human being has the technological and nuclear potentiality to destroy everything that surrounds itself. In this line of events,
© Ruano Javier, 2014
© Galeffi Dante, 2014
© Ponczek Roberto, 2014
the emerging world-society of the twenty-first century need to create and build a meta point-of-view for favoring the meeting between different cultures and coexisting civilizations on the planet, in order to create possibilities for sustainability for all citizens. Therefore, we will focus the discussion on “Global Citizenship Education” (GCE) initiated by UNESCO, using a transdisciplinary methodology with the intentionality to think about the transnational and transcultural problem of safeguarding humanity from an intentional field centered. This field is a combination of a triple area of human condition: epistemological, political and educational. To this end, we will rely on the Complexity Theory to develop a multi-referential understanding of universal interdependence of life on planet Earth.
Thus, we intend to create vanishing points for the construction of new philosophi-cal discussions about the complexity of global problems of humanity in the third millennium: poverty, sustainable development, climate change, water scarcity, economic globalization, governance, ethics, health etc. In addition, we also propose a transdis-ciplinary, transnational and transcultural educational milestone with the intentional-ity of stimulating the development of a new tri-ethically sustainable human society, that is, a society which take care of environmental, social, and mental ethics simul-taneously. One possibility would appear from the concept “Constellation of Twinned NGO-Schools” [Collado, 2013a] to propose transhumanist projects of cooperation and development. This is an epistemological, political and educational proposal that requires looking into the future with a poly-logical perspective1 opened to what Nico-lescu (2014) refers to as cosmodern consciousness, which claims the replacement of the epistemological object by the relation, interaction and interconnection of natural phenomena, understanding the phenomena as a whole, that is, as an extensive cosmic matrix in which everything is in perpetual movement and structuring energetically, confirming that this unity of the world is not static, implying differentiation, diversity and contradiction. The cosmodern consciousness conceived by Nicolescu harmonizes, by one hand, with what Galeffi (2013) called planetary tri-ethical emergency, compris-ing current unsustainability of environmental, social and mental human life; and by the other hand, with the unity of the indi-vidual-society-species proposed by Morin [Morin, 2003b, 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2005].
WHAT IS GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION [GCE]?
In December 2013, UNESCO organized the First International UNESCO Forum with the title “Global Citizenship Education: Preparing learners for the challenge of the 21st Century”, in Bangkok, Thailand. The Forum, organized in support of the campaign launched by the Secretary of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, the “Global Education First Initiative” (GEFI), brought together people from different govern-ments, development partners in civil society, as well as researchers from the academy. The purpose was to clarify the actions of the emerging perspective in policy areas, research and educational practice. As a result of the debates and the technical discus-sions about GCE, UNESCO issued the document “Global Citizenship Education: An
1 The poly-logical perspective, according Galeffi (2001), includes the coexistence of multiple logics in human knowledge processing, bringing together different plans of formation of Real without the monological reduction to a single plan of Reality, as it happens in western modern rationalism.
Emerging Perspective”2, which elaborated upon common perspectives emerging from the consultation on the following questions:
1) Why global citizenship and global citizenship education now?
2) What is global citizenship education?
3) What needs to be done at the global level to support and promote global citi-zen-ship education?
These questions elicit common perspectives that, far from providing magic answers to the common future of the world-society, represent an open opportunity for a transnational and transcultural vision in a way that new generations can become “citizens of the world”. Citizens of the world who will have to learn to love, to value and to respect life itself in a multidimensional way. Therefore, the GCE encourages us to develop a cosmodern consciousness which understands dignity and human free-dom in its planetary and cosmic conjuncture. The appearing of humans beings on Earth is just another moment at the universe. We are eco-dependent beings with a dual identity: its own, which distinguishes us, and others of interdependence to the environment. An environment composed by all beings which live in, that can only build their existence, their autonomy, their creativity and their individual richness in ecological relationship.
A cosmodern consciousness as we deem it is intended to compliment the point 2.1.2 of the UNESCO document aforementioned:
In all cases, global citizenship does not entail a legal status. It refers more to a sense of belonging to the global community and common humanity, with its presumed members experiencing solidarity and collective identity among themselves and collective responsibility at the global level. Global citizenship can be seen as an ethos/metaphor rather than a formal membership. [UNESCO, 2013: p.3]
GCE aims to contribute to the clarification of global citizenship without losing sight of the different cultures of the planet, avoiding homogenization in any sense, especially when the concept of global citizenship is used for the profit of a minority. Considering life in its complexity as the focus for everyone in the construction of a sense of global citizenship that attend the principle of alterity, mutual respect, shared otherness by the principle of difference and not just identity, which contemplates dia-logically the implicit contradiction of the phenomena. Education must promote the development of feelings of belonging and the understanding of the living beings as a whole. People need to feel citizenship of the world in a cosmical perspective, that is, in a cyclical relationship between the conjectural whole and the human being/nature [Galeffi, 2013a].
The process of acquisition of human knowledge is a significant dialogic relation-ship between knowing and doing, mediated by consciousness of the individual. In this sense, the past and future are present in the spiritual and/or scientific research, being complementary inquiries of a common reality conformed by the undivided wholeness between consciousness and matter. Thus, it is wished that GCE seeks the convergence of external knowledge of the nature [ontological framework] with the inner knowl-edge of the indi-vidual-society-species [gnoseological framework], cultivating seeds of love with humanity through the reconciliation of past, present and future.
2 Document can be found in the following link: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/ 002241/224115E.pdf
It refers, therefore, to organizing knowledge in a transdisciplinary, transnational and transcultural perspective in order that we might glimmer the unity of our current planetary civilization. This would be characterized by an awareness of a global citizen-ship that offers infinite cultural diversity in a finite world. Metaphorically, humanity is a trans-organic unity in continuous evolutionary process, whereby its individuals can flourish with the same care required for the florescence of a child. Children represent the seed which symbolizes the beauty of uniqueness in its radical novelty, being the image of transdisciplinarity, because in it resides with all culturally different possibili-ties. We must build spiritual and scientific bridges interconnecting nations and people from all over the world, without giving special privileges to any cultural space or time that would judge or hierarchize the coexistence in the common habitat of mankind. Would it be a Utopia to dream with a flourishing consciousness that embodies the ethic of human unity/diversity as a multidimensional key to safeguard mankind of its own extinction as a species?
Following the points 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 of the document that addresses the goals of GCE, it seems to us that GCE could represent the opening of evoked metaphor:
2.2.1. Global citizenship education aims to empower learners to engage and assume active roles both locally and globally to face and resolve global challenges and ultimately to become proactive contributors to a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world.
2.2.2. Global citizenship education is transformative, giving learners the opportunity and competences to realize their rights and obligations to promote a better world and future. It draws upon learning from other transformative education processes including human rights education, education for sustainable development, education for international / inter-cultural understanding, and education for peace [UNESCO, 2013: p.3].
Thereby, in order to plant seeds of future generations, it is essential that GCE proposed by UNESCO promotes a new human consciousness-identity-difference in every child around the world, with an educational essence based on a pluralistic and poly-logical conception of acting ethically. We will inspire new transnational and transcultural horizons in a process of multidimensional construction of the current and future interdependent world-society. To achieve it, it is necessary to model a new transdisciplinary attitude whose epistemological horizons are opened to the ontological nature of love as dialogic of the human species. The seed of love represents, in this sense, the ecological phenomenon of a vital action toward achieving an ethical and unifying understanding among all of mankind. This reconsideration demands, effectively, training authentic wordlists. A term inspired by Argentine writer Ernesto Sabato in order to express the urgent need to rely on people who are alert to the most urgent and global problems. So, inspired by Ernesto Sabato, Edgar Morin, Emilio-Roger Ciurana and Raul Motta (2003) assert that planetary education must foster a worldology of everyday life.
In this way, GCE need to contemplate the human being and the universe from a new perspective emanating from the own conscience of the individual-society-spe-cies, where all the energy-matter are interconnected [Talbot, 2011]. That is, a new perspective of global justice whose epistemological, political and educational reforms suppose a new paradigm in the planetary tri-ethical emergency [Galeffi, 2013a] of the same human condition: the paradigm of the Cosmodernity [Nicolescu, 2014].
THE TRANSDISCIPLINARY METHODOLOGY: TOWARDS THE PARADIGM OF COSMODERNITY
At the dawn of the third millennium, the understanding of the human condition requires adequate and pertinent contextualization. The atomic particles that compose life on our planet, and that compose us, are born in the first seconds of the cosmos. Our carbon atoms were created in a sun before of current one and our molecules were formed on Earth [Morin, 2011]. The human species is a cosmo-bio-genetic entity coming from the same post Big-Bang galactic evolution whose becoming future is interconnected in the space-time. Thus, the co-evolution of human beings with the universe requires a new methodology outside of positivist thinking of the nineteenth and twentieth centu-ries, which reduces and separates the subject from the object.
That new methodology is necessarily overarching, holistic, poly-logic and transdi-mensional, understanding human beings as an integral part of an autopoietic cosmic totality. In this sense, the pillars of transdisciplinary methodology formulated by Nico-lescu (2010) represent a new multidimensional and multi-referential epistemo-logical approach. A transdisciplinary ecology which is cast in the indefinite and infinite adven-ture of complex and open knowledge:
1. The ontological axiom: There are, in Nature and society and in our knowledge of Nature and society, different levels of Reality of the Object and, correspondingly, dif-ferent levels of Reality of the Subject.
2. The logical axiom: The passage from one level of Reality to another is ensured by the logic of the included middle.
3. The complexity axiom: The structure of the totality of levels of Reality or per-ception is a complex structure: every level is what it is because all the levels exist at the same time [Nicolescu, 2010: p. 22].
The complex challenge of building a global citizenship is an issue that goes beyond the essence of mankind and, therefore, it requires a triple reform: epistemo-logical, political and educational. Reflect about the meaning of GCE in the globalized era of twenty-first century demands an approach of the global dynamics (economics, political, cultural, social, educational, etc.) with a holistic and transnational vision which propose creative alternatives for change. To make this “reading of the world”, it is necessary to start watching the complexity, multidimensionality and interdependence, understand-ing education as a process in continuous expansion, like the universe itself [Collado and Galeffi, 2012a].
But how could we create a global education program which respects the historic and cultural characteristics of each community without homogenization and without alienation? How do we prepare for democracy and for a critical and responsible global citizenship in schools which are not teaching how to make transnational and transcultural decisions? Will it be possible to develop a planetary awareness of common responsibility to achieve a current and future sustainable development? Will we learn to live together in the human unity/diversity to avoid the self-destruction during the third millennium?
Answering these questions concerning GCE involves a profound change in the struc-tural construct of thought and a new knowledge organization where Human Rights suppose an articulator meta-point of view of the human effort to become aware of the ethic sustainability of the world-society, which requires a complex, creative, transversal, polysemic, transcultural, and trans-political epistemology.
Therefore, it highlights the need to be aware of consciousness and unconsciousness [Lupasco, 1994] about the universal interdependence of the current world-society to develop a new consciousness-identity-difference of the “Earth-Homeland”, as Morin (2011) expressed in order to understand education as a global process of cultural re-construction. Then, education requires new multi-, pluri-, inter- and transdisciplinary academical studies which interpret the future horizons of humanity with all its complex-ity, aimed to transform the students-citizens into authentic wordlists. The world does not need anymore economists or politicians with fragmented views of knowledge, but rather people trained in these new approaches to inter-relate the knowledge compre-hensively.
In this way, as the school microcosm embodies the true reflection of social structures macrocosm, the future of humanity needs a triple reform -epistemological, political and educational- which faces up to the globalized techno-economics dynamics, and whose convergence suppose an authentic transformation. A triple reform that is, in itself, a noology.
It is, effectively, a global challenge that requires, as we see, a new common con-sciousness-identity-difference, in which transhumanist perspectives perceive poly-log-ically the different levels of Reality that comprise the world and the cosmos humanly known. At the same way that ontology structures the nature in different levels of Reality, humans have different strata, levels, and plans of gnoseological perception that struc-ture and concretize their historical complexity in their cosmological context. Therefore, the present problem of reflecting about the harmonization of the Earth-Homeland, as a pacific and transhistorical common horizon, implies a complex challenge to develop transdisciplinary knowledge to provide new transnational and transcultural dialogical conceptions capable of preventing future conflicts and achieving a sustainable develop-ment.
In words of Nicolescu:
The present instant is, strictly speaking, a non-time, an experience of relation between Subject and Object; thus, it contains potentially within itself the past and the future, the total flow of information and the total flow of consciousness, which cross the levels of reality. The present time is truly the origin of the future and the origin of the past. Different cultures, present and future, develop in the time of history, which is the time of change in the state of being of peoples and of nations. The transcultural concerns the time present in transhistory, a notion introduced by Mircea Eliade, which concerns the unthinkable and epiphany.
The transcultural is the necessary condition for the existence of culture. The com-plex plurality of cultures and the open unity of the transcultural coexist in the cosmod-ern vision. The transcultural is the spearhead of cosmodern culture. Different cultures are the different facets of the human being. [...] The multicultural allows the interpreta-tion of one culture by another culture, the intercultural permits the fertilization of one culture by another, and the transcultural ensures the translation of one culture into var-ious other cultures, by deciphering meaning that links them and simultaneously goes beyond them [Nicolescu, 2014, p. 14].
In this cosmodern vision of transcultural resides the complexity to build and mod-el human development through GCE proposed by UNESCO. A complexity that must start from the tri-identitary poly-logic that identifies the different levels of Reality
Tri-identity
Level of Reality 2 Superposition
Level of Reality 1
Cultural, Religious, Nationalist and Political Controversial
Figure 1. Levels of Reality representation. Resource: Nicolescu, 2002, p. 51
and the individual-society-species perception to bring a transformative reading of the world for the common future of humanity. For a better understanding of the tri-identitary poly-logic, we have to apply the logic of the included middle mathematically formalized by Stephane Lupasco. With this purpose, we introduce the triangle made by Nicolescu with three vertices; two of them are on the same level of reality, being antagonistic to each other in a cultural, religious, political and ideological framework.
As we can observe, epistemology derived from quantum advances brings the “T-state” as an alternative to the endogenous problems of nationalist character that impede us to achieve a planetary consciousness of responsibility with the current global scenario of poverty, violence and exclusion. The challenge of creating citizens of the world is a complex problem of thought with political and educational connotations. The T-state represents the phenomenon that connects the pair of mutually exclusive contradictories [A and non-A] of the immediately neighboring level, giving it coherence. It would be, in effect, to build a consciousness-identity based in the poly-logic phenomena of quantum superposition, global causality and non separability, whose future horizon suppose the genesis of a transdemocracy. A transdemocracy formed by transcultural and transpolitical symbiosis between the various civilizations that have been formed on the earthly homeland in last millennia and which converge in the same present space-time without any political-epistemological hierarchy.
TRANSDEMOCRACY: A NEW POLITICAL HORIZON FOR THE FUTURE?
Undoubtedly, one of the greatest challenges of the future GCE will be the process to lead humanity to new forms of cooperation and democratic social organization, which integrate cultural diversity as source of wealth, as well as an equitable and eco-logically sustainable relationship with the environment. Nowadays, there is a univer-sal consensus in that regard democracy as the only political alternative to the plurally developing societies that can ensure the inalienable right of every human being. But, what other form of government could be the alternative for a liberating policy of hu-man societies in our current state of ignorance, poverty, social indigence, symbolic submission and ontological interdiction? Is it necessary to reinvent democracy? Could we start to think of a transdemocracy?
With those questions, we seek to imagine what could be a transdemocratic political regime [Galeffi, 2013b], without losing the guiding principles of ideal and real democ-racy historically constituted. In its Greeks historical genesis, demokratia is kratia, the strength, the force of “demos”, “the people”. Here the sense of “people” is immediately connected to “power”. “Demos” is a derivative of dynamis, “power”. Therefore, the Greek demokratia could be translated provocatively as “power people”, characterized as form of governance based on the decision of a simples majority among those who are invested with power in a certain populated territory. The word “people”, then, is ambiguous in Greek culture, because it does not include respect for all human be-ings from any place or territory, but rather to powerful people of a determinate hu-man grouping. Then, in the Greek cultural horizon, democracy is a form of power of a dominant class determined, in part aristocratic and in part merchant and rich. A form of power that does not perform enlightenment and modern ideals of equality, liberty and fraternity.
The democracy of Greek origin was allowed to bring in its historical consumma-tion in the Athens of Pericles, because the assertion of Universal Human Rights is the present Christian aspiration for universal fraternity. The democratic aspiration for universal fraternity is unambiguously an obvious trace of Christianity in its aspiration of love to all the humanity. In this sense, fraternity would be a fundamental emotional appeal to build free, egalitarian and democratic societies whose end would be to con-duct themselves and others into the divine love [Galeffi, 2013b].
But, being all that is just an aspiration and a limit and an ideal horizon. How do we make democratic ideals make up the mainstay to build free, fraternal and egalitarian societies of individuals in the universal plan? How do we ensure that fraternity is per-formed by everyone in front of the Universal Human Rights? Is democracy in its cur-rent form the only alternative to the institution of equal global citizens despite their differences? Besides democracy, what other form of political regime could guaran-tee human rights founded in shared and co-responsible freedom, without the danger to repeat again other traditional forms of power [authoritarianism, totalitarianism, etc.]? What is the role of GCE in such future regard of mankind as a common species and with the same cosmic destiny?
All political regime denominated democratic has its sovereignty founded on the power of the people that sustains it. People who should rightfully be instructed to fully exercise its sovereignty. However, how do we reconcile within the existing democratic regimes in many countries of the world the state of poverty and glaring social inequal-ity between ontologically equal human beings? How is it possible that full democra-cies can admit inequality among human beings? Why do we not achieve the success in eradicating poverty and misery in many democratic societies? It is not achieved simply because our citizens did not undergo the change of freedom, equality and fra-ternity in themselves. Existing democratic regimes do not realize the overwhelming tasks on the horizon of civilized process -characterized by glaring human inequali-ties-, being necessary to meet transnational and transcultur-al forces to architect and build other guarantors alternatives of healer republics of human beings in all their existential moments, universally speaking.
Unless one wants to admit that ethical imperative of equality among human beings is merely rhetorical to serve as a ruse to hide the true intentions of a ruler minority,
it is required that we project new social constructs that guarantee the right of every human being for a free, equal and fraternal life. But the triad of the French Revolution that was fully embodied into democratic ideals of modern republics only remained in a utopian plan, because mankind, in its capitalist formulations, seems to flight for uni-versal democracy remains being a chimera and a fabulation just useful for keeping the involuntary submission of the ignorant masses of his own power. In fact, all currently existing democratic forms of government are configured on the political dimension of a global citizenship sustained by states of rights founded in the economic power concentrated in the hands of a minority, which itself could be called oligarchic or plu-tocratic power, even when this economic power is in the hands of large multinational corporations or in the hands of governments [G7, G8, G20...].
It is evident as we have not fully reached the state of complete democracy, which would bring humanity to fully exercise their universal rights founded on the ethos of fraternity between all human beings on the planet. It would appear, then, the transdemocracy in its full form: looking for the human aspiration to achieve the state of universal right thought a poly-logical rationality. A guarantor rationality of the right status to freedom and unpredictability of the transnational and transcultural migratory events that characterize the human being from his appearance on planet Earth. A migratory phenomenon that clause 1.2.3 refers in the aforementioned UNESCO document:
Increased transnational migration is making communities inevitably more hete-ro-geneous or “glocalized,” and the necessity of learning how to live together more acute. The expansion of democracy globally has led to an accompanying demand for civic and other rights at the national level by citizens. In addition, various social move-ments taking place in different parts of the world have demonstrated the collective power of citizen action. [UNESCO, 2013, p.2]
But, how do we achieve the full state of Universal Human Rights when there are still few who govern and the many who are governed? How do we empower global citizenship to become aware of their basic rights and human dignity? How is it possible that our young students know their footballer players numbers, but they do not know the articles of Universal Human Rights or of their national constitution? What is the true potential of GCE to transgress with the current state of global ignorance?
The whole humanity is facing a real leap of nature in a political order of the cur-rent globalized world. But it is a leap of nature that implies, effectively, a profound tri-ethical transformation of the individual-society-species: mental-spiritual, social-planetary and cosmic-environmental. A tri-ethical emergency that elapse from the accelerated techno-scientific and global telematics progress, and which requires a new kind of epistemologi-cal, political and educational self- eco-organization to create cosmodern consciousness in the current and future global citizenship. In this sense, our proposal of Constellations of Twinned NGOs-Schools has to be understood as a convergent phenomenon inside of the heterotopical3 framework created by the alter-mundialization movements of the World Social Forum, Rainbow Gathering, YoungOs, Global Citizens Movement, the ethical principles of Earth Charter declaration, etc.
3 In political sciences, heterotopia is a concept elaborated by philosopher Michel Foucault to describe the co-existence of different Utopias which function in non-hegemonic way at the same time and space.
THE CONSTELLATION OF TWINNED NGOs-SCHOOLS: AN UTOPIAN PROPOSAL FOR THE GCE PROPOSED BY UNESCO?
Citing the item 1.1.3 of the UNESCO document, “There is a clear opportunity to include reference to global citizenship education in the post-2015 development agen-da as part of the knowledge, skills and competencies that learners require in the twenty-first Century and beyond” [2013: p. 2], in our opinion, GCE not only have to be included in the post-2015 Development Agenda, but it has to be a phenomenon of the own human condition that transversely goes beyond to the future Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations. GCE can not be regarded as a concept or fashion expression between academia, civil society and governments, because that would result in the introduction of small alterations in the schools curricula, without contributing to the paradigm shift that the world-society of the third millennium is complaining about. A good example would be the present decade baptized by UNES-CO as “Education for Sustainable Development” [2005-2014]. If it is certain that his intention has mobilized millions of people around the world to walk in this direction, the unsuccessful became evident in the inability to determine and achieve common agreement on the part of government officials who participated in the Sustainable Development Conferences of the United Nations, known as Rio+20, in 2012.
In our worldview, GCE does not have to find solutions for the increasingly complex problems that arise in the current economical system of reference of the world-society during the third millennium. GCE should promote the change of the capitalist sys-tem of reference itself, introducing a poly-logical understanding that comprises the interlinks between the micro-local-simple and macro-global-complex phenomenon. Therefore, we have to observe GCE through creative stimulus arising from the current planetary and complex context, and which serve to restructure transversely the future of humanity as a common species. And this transnational and transcultural concep-tion of education implies a radical rupture with the political-economic and socioeducational structures of the past, because there is no doubt that technocratic education, still in vigor, is the consequence of alienating the social organization model that capitalism has imposed, after the Industrial Revolution, in order to reduce students to submissive consumers and passive citizens [Collado and Galeffi, 2012c].
What we pretend with the proposition of the Constellation of Twinned NGOs-Schools is to establish an alternative that can contribute in the creation of an awareness virtual network for global citizenship. A process that UNESCO highlights in sections 1.2.1. and 3.1.3. of aforementioned document:
1.2.1. Phenomenal advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have enabled people to connect and interact with others around the globe any-where, anytime. This has contributed to an intensified perception and reality of being inter-connected and living beyond local perimeters, albeit virtually.
3.1.3. There is a need to support youth-led initiatives. Partnerships with civil society are also needed. Utilization of new ICTs is critical. New approaches may meet with reservation and/or resistance. An emerging perspective on global citizenship educa-tion, however, maintains the need for stakeholders and actors to be open to different, but effective venues and solutions [UNESCO, 2013: pp. 2-5].
But, how could we create virtual spaces that can support youth leadership and can constitute effective solutions for the formulation of a truly transformative GCE of the
current economical, epistemological, political, educational, and human crisis? How could we formulate proposals that entail new transnational and transcultural symbio-ses within the diversity of the current planetary civilization? How could we develop a transhumanist attitude which allow us to understand the tri-identitary poly-logic of the different l evels of gnoseological Reality that constituting the individual-society-species?
Evidently, answering these questions represents an anthro-socio-political challenge that will be addressed from a new philosophical and geopolitical worldview that makes a special emphasis on the inseparable interdependence of local-global and global-local dimensions. A new worldview which understands that all dogma, political ideology and materialist theory (such as capitalism, Marxism, Nazism, Stalinism, etc.), devastated the twenty century because they were based in a linear structure of thinking founded in just one level of the Reality-derived from classical physics-, because they thought they were in possession of the whole, and, therefore, of absolute truth.
For this reason, our proposal of Constellation of Twinned NGOs-Schools, based in Complexity Theory, seeks to deepen in the advances of quantum physics, quantum cosmology and molecular biology to develop a cosmodern consciousness which al-lows identifying the plurality of cultural diversity as a source of wealth of the unique “nation-state” legitimate of human beings: the planet Earth.
To this end, we have to remember the birth of the United Nations in its historical context with the problem of safeguarding the world-society from a nuclear self-destruction. Since the second half of the twenty century, humanity began to enter into a new stage of civilization which demands of us the meta-cognitive effort to understand the difference of the other, learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be [Delors, 1999: p. 89-102]. Thereby, GCE proposed by UNESCO would have to envision the United Nations as the whole of a complex system: Earth-Homeland. A complex system composed by a web of interconnections between 193 member states4 (with Palestine and the Holy See as non-Member Observer State sta-tus): economic, cultural, political, religious, etc. Interdependent Member States that are interconnected by the seven principles of complexity defined by Morin (2011): systemic or organizational, hologramatic, retroactive circle, recursive circle, self-eco-organization (autonomy and dependency), dialogical, and the reintroduction of knowledge in all knowledge.
In this perception of Complexity Theory, the proposal Constellation of Twinned NGOs-Schools is based, by one side, in the reinterpretation of sister cities concept [Collado, 2013a]. A concept that aims to establish cooperation links, mainly in the economic and cultural relations, between two cities from different geographical areas, which often have similar characteristics (demographic, for example). Then, it concerns to extend the concept of sister cities to the educational field, creating new virtual networks among schools from all corners of the world. And by the other side, the proposal would also be based in the catalyst, philanthropic and humanistic character that nonprofits (whether NGOs, cultural associations, foundations, etc.) bring to the awareness process of the younger generations to endow them with criticality, sensitiv-ity, autonomy, leadership, and social entrepreneurship.
4 We have to mention that there are 243 countries, of which 193 are United Nations States Members and the rest are in situation of not recognized independency internationally or in a situation of dependence in relationship with other countries.
Imagine now the parts of our complex system, that is, the Member States of the United Nations, did the effort to submit a list of their national schools to a neutral supranational institution like UNESCO. A list or database that, a priori, would already be ready in most countries highly bureaucratized. Imagine that before such step, the subparts which compose these parts of our complex system, that is, the particles that we would call as “schools”, did the effort to submit a detailed description of its own defining characteristics (number of students, which languages are learned, public or private status, and so on), where it was also included information related to their cities, neighborhood and/or community in which their students-citizens live (as for example the geographical situation, demography, weather, etc.).
Now, imagine that at the local level nonprofits organizations are being created within the neighbors of each community, where there will be place for people of all ages, as well as formal education (primary, secondary, and tertiary), and non-formal (with schools of music, sport, dance, and so on). Imagine also these communal organizations form-ing small political parties to develop active citizen participation about local/regional/ national/global problems that interact with the seven principles of complexity previ-ously mentioned. Imagine each NGO-School has its own website to be consulted in the UNESCO common database, in order to facilitate the free interconnections between other NGOs-Schools. Would it be possible that own students explain festivities and tra-ditions of their peoples to other students while they are sill children? Could it help to understand better the cultural differences and real situations of each community, avoiding the “pollution” of the media controlled by the groups of economical power? Is it possible to imagine such process in a transdimensional level that goes beyond the macro-global and micro-local ambits at the same time?
Let's change now the microscopium to use the telescopium, and let's take an astronomical look to the world-society, as it was done by the old civilizations (ex: Chinese, Hindu, Incas, Pre-Colombian, and so on). Let's us observe the world-society as a galaxy composted of a set of planets, with their satellites; with comets and meteoroids; stars and interstellar matter; dark matter; gas clouds; and cosmic dust. All of them are ce-lestial bodies united by the same gravitational force, which we will call UNESCO in our complex system. Imagine also that local communities were solar systems, where schools are the stars and around them are turning planets of diverse nature as cultural organizations, political parties, religious associations, etc. Imagine, then, that GCE proposed by UNESCO group together the millions of starts (NGOs-Schools) in constellations (twin-ning), creating a large database in the Cyber-Space-Time (CST). Responsible constella-tions for performing projects of cooperation and development in the micro-situations of local-global emergency, with the goal to send a feedback in the emerging structures of macro-global problematic. In other words, the sum of political-educational actions at local-global level would finish modifying entropically the global-local tendencies of homogenization process derived from techno-economics structures of globalization. And like all processes governed by the second law of thermodynamics, the degradation of the homogeneity caused by globalization would lead a mestizo, hybrid and cosmopolitan world without nationalist frontiers.
There are not doubt it would be a real backbone program of heterogeneity and pluralism in full compliance with the item 3.2.2. of the aforementioned UNESCO document:
3.2.2. Global citizenship education must reflect the voices of diverse stakeholders
from different regions, sectors and populations. A network of stakeholders, who could meet for periodic discussions, can help continually renew interests and reconstruct the objectives of global citizenship education. A strong network and expertise must be made available at all levels - global, regional, national and community levels, via all means of communication and interaction. [UNESCO, 2013: p.5]
In essence, Constellation of Twinned NGOs-Schools would not only represent a tran-scultural and transnational CST, addressing global issues such as poverty eradica-tion, sustainable development or human brotherhood; but also transdisciplinary. This is because when it is about music, art, literature, philosophy and thought, cultural globalization does not tend to homogeneity, but the opposite: cultures from all the world fertilize themselves engendering planetary sons and daughters. In this sense, reflect about GCE supposes look to the transcendental unity of the individual-society-species (unitas multiplex), through the tree transdisciplinary axis proposed during the Second World Congress of Transdisciplinarity5: transdisciplinary attitude, transdisciplinary re-search and transdisciplinary action. That is, transdisciplinary curricula and research whose epistemological plurality introduce the transdisciplinary attitude to build a large human family - founded in the principles of justice and solidarity - and which derives ultimately in transdisciplinary action of human beings: proposing the articulation of a new training in relations with the world (eco-training), with other people (hetero-, and co-training), with himself/herself (auto-training), as being (onto-training), as well as formal and non-formal knowledge. In words of Nicolescu:
The Cyber-Space-Time is neither deterministic nor indeterministic. It is the space of human choice. To the extent that CST allows bringing into play the notion of levels of Reality and the logic of the included middle, it is potentially a transcultural, transna-tional, and transpolitical space. [2008a: p. 92]
For us, this would be the true “Treasure Within” by learning, that French political Jacques Delors reflects at the end of the twenty century: the creation of GCE through transnational, transcultural, transpolitical, transreligious, and transhumanist CST which engendering planetary sons and daughters [Collado, 2013d]. A CST which iden-tifies poly-logically the different levels of Reality that composing the individual-society-species tri-identity: as individual of a local and specific community, as citizen of a deter-minate society; belonging to a particular Nation/State, and as same cosmo-bio-genetic species in constant process of evolution. An identity opened to the infinite diversity of global citizenship. In other words, a transcultural and transnational tri-identity acting to achieve a peaceful and transdemocratic coexistence during the third millennium: building an authentic and revolutionary global citizen’s movement6.
5 The Second Congress of Transdisciplinarity took place between the 6th and 12th of September in the year 2005 in Vitoria, Esprnto Santo, Brazil. It was organized by various social institutions, where CETRANS and UNESCO are featured. The conference discusses the state of transdisciplinary research, seeking to assert the similarities and differences between the trans and interdisciplinarity.
6 200 active citizens from around the world met in Johannesburg to start «Building a Global Citizens Movement». This conference, co-organised by DEEEP/CONCORD in collaboration with CIVICUS (World Alliance for Citizens Participation) and GCAP (Global Call to Action against Poverty), was not a one-shot experience. All together we want to start building a Global Citizens Movement gathering grassroots movement, civil society organisations and activists from 6 continents. Participants issued the following questions and orientations document: http://movement. deeep.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/GlobalConference_Declaration.pdf
CONCLUSIONS
The main goal of Constellation of Twinned NGOs-Schools proposal was to create a new transdisciplinary, transcultural and transnational theoretical model which can contribute to open debate for the implementation of GCE in post-2015 Development Agenda:
2.2.11. The debate also relates, in part, to the question of how to promote, simultaneously, global solidarity and individual national competitiveness or how to bring together local and global identities and interests. In countries where identity is a sen-sitive issue and solidifying the national identity itself is a challenge, room for pro-moting a sense of citizenship at the global level could be limited, although this does not necessarily belie a lessened desire of the individual members of these societies to connect and interact globally. Similarly, citizens showing concerns about, and taking actions for, the communal benefits of the globe, could be believed to cause challenges to local/national authorities if their actions are perceived to be in conflict with local/ national interests. [UNESCO, 2013: p.4-5]
Obviously, reflect about the Constellation of Twinned NGOs-Schools proposal brings many questions. In this sense, the concept has to be understood as a con-sciousness raiser project under construction, opened to reinterpretations, comple-mentations, and considerations, because its goal is to humanize educational activities through new pedagogical compasses that comprise peaceful melodies of the twenty-first century and beyond. Harmonious melodies of social, individual and anthropolog-ical metamorphosis, which will be founded in the transhumanistic-polyphonic basis to achieve a new human stage: more altruistic and environmentally sustainable.
There are not doubts the world-society must develop new multidimensional synergies of glocal nature to achieve the future millennium goals performance of the post-2015 Development Agenda of the United Nations, because they are systemic, interconnected and interdependent targets: just like our own neural connections in our brains. Consequently, we must contextualize the goals through a cosmodern con-sciousness, based on the poly-logical tri-identity of the individual-society-species, to identify the world-society as an integrated whole, and not as the sum of their parts dissociated from each other. An epistemological, political, educational, and spiritual change, which transdisciplinary, transpolitical, transcultural and transreligious ap-proach is simultaneously based on plurality and unity of current's planetary setting emergency of knowledge society, which corresponds to the common-responsibility of everyone with everything. Therefore, humanity must promote new educational net-works of altruistic cooperation in the CST, symbolizing a symphonic orchestra that disseminator of world peace. The Internet is not just another variable of the famous Human Development Index, but it is an emerging element which allows people to restructure and reformulate the complexity of global problems presents in the dawn of the third millennium.
It is necessary, then, that GCE proposed by UNESCO creates right now a global education strategy in the CSP which acts as a transcultural and transnational tri-iden-titary pattern. Drawing a parallel with the past, GCE has to use CST with the same potentiality that Protestant community used the printer to restructure the sacral ideas in the sixteenth century, because the CST symbolizes an authentic transdemocratic universe to propose creative reflections that suppose effective solutions in this historic
conjuncture that Edgar Morin [2003a] called as “the stone age of planetary civilization”. Therefore, the concept of Constellation of Twinned NGOs-Schools will have to be interpreted as a prehistoric tool for the planetary civilization can begin to write in conjunction their transhistory during this new millennium. History is made by all of us, and for that reason we all have to write it together and without cultural hierarchies in space-time. Cyber-Space-Time represents, effectively, the propitious level of Real-ity to develop the cosmodern paradigm based in the acceptance, understanding and superposition of cultural diversity.
It means, in essence, the reconceptualization of schools in their social function as psychological builders of the future generations' citizens. For this, we would have to empower schools, saving them from academic drift and moving them into a global social reality, where 40,000 people die every day from cause stemming from extreme poverty. Therefore, our proposal of Constellation of Twinned NGOs-Schools has the intentionality to help and expand the open horizon of GCE proposed by UNESCO, with the aim to create and develop altruistic educational projects of cooperation in all the corners of the Earth-Homeland. How can we create universal values if the war is reduced to video-games? What is the sense to teach different and sparse concepts in schools if there are still people who are literally dying every second and who need the help of all of us?
Given the above, we must reflect and becoming aware of the responsibility to build, today and tomorrow's society. A world-society should be transnationally organized, in peaceful and non-violent ways, as a true symphony orchestra of interconnected galaxies-schools, because on them will depend the real political-educational praxis transformation of the world. Therefore, it is necessary to foresee the future to be ready when it arrives, because there are not doubts that quantum computers, Artificial Intel-ligence, nanotechnology, contact lens with internet access, the genetic mutation of DNA, and travels in space will radically change our habits in a short period of time: contextualizing mankind in the cosmodern paradigm . Maybe it could be a good idea to start changing the reference system comprising the idea that current world-society is not a gift from our parents, but a loan from our sons and daughters. And what will future generations think about their parents and grandparents if we do not act today and we do not do everything in our hands to improve and safeguard the world-society?
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