Global greens blog: day 3

This is going to be a real challenge. It is 1.50 am, I have to be at conference in 6 and a half hours, and I have just been talking on the steps of the hostel for 100 minutes with travellers: 2 Israeli soldiers, 1 Austrian business person, and 1 Turkish photographer who had a photographic series covering cocaine. He had spent 2 days with FARC. We also discussed oil, addiction, paranoia, peace, war, love, hatred, rules, God, Allah, and Adonai. We touched on the question of whether it is possible to love our enemies, and more.

That after a fantastic Brazilian meal – the best value meal out I have had for many years, with a representative of the China Green Party, the leader and a v intelligent member of the Japanese Green Party. We covered Lao Tsu, Moh, the government of China, and Basho, the great Japanese poet. For the first time I heard this haiku:

Old pond.
frog jumps
plop.

in the original Japanese. It was very moving.

Before that I had been speaking to someone from Belarus, and someone else from Sweden, All I can remember from the plenary is that global warming is happening (not just a theory) in French Polynesia and Canada. This strained my chosen optimism to the limit.

I got my resolution on the Index of Human Rights (search this blog for it if you are new here) in on time, along with suggested amendments to the 21 Points.

Before that it was 2 hours on the world food crisis. I emerged from it with a brain that felt unable to process any more information.

Lunch was with members of the American Green Party, including the editor of Green Horizon magazine.

The morning began with a session devoted to Ingrid Betancourt, our sister taken hostage 4 years ago by FARC. It was very moving, and I still have to deal with my resentment that the media reports always mention that she was a candidate for the Presidency of Columbia, yet always manage to suppress the fact that she was the Green presidential candidate. I realise that it is a bit stupid to entertain these resentments in the shadow of Ingrid's existential suffering, but that is what we humans are like.

That was a bit of a whiz through you understand, because I need to sleep. I left the details out. Enough to say that it was a day rich in human experience.

Thanks for taking a look.