Date: November 6 (Fri), 2009 1:00-4:30 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: Free (reservation is required)
Language: Japanese/English (with simultaneous translation)
People all over the world are constantly tinkering with democracy to make it serve not just the majority but the whole of humanity, as our diversity increases while we discover more about the marginalized, the oppressed, the forgotten, the discounted, and those unable to voice their interests because either they do not yet exist (our future generations) or do not speak human language (other species). The state and the market, arguably the two most important inventions of our modern day, seem to have partially failed us; the state is becoming more distant from the people, not representing fully our collective capacity and accommodating our diverse nature and needs; and the market seems to represent only our competitive nature, rather than our collaborative nature. We realize that we may have relinquished too much of our power to the state and the market, and that we need to revitalize our capacity to act as voluntary associations of individuals and communities, as people, as civil society. In this context of global challenges, Asia is emerging both as problem and solution.
