Globalisation for the Common Good

FOURTH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON

AN INTERFAITH PERSPECTIVE ON GLOBALISATION

Kericho, Kenya 2005

 

The 2005 conference on Globalisation for the Common Good will be held in the town of Kericho, 260km from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.  It is home to the largest Gurudwara (Sikh place of worship) in Africa, where the conference will be hosted. 

 

Why Kericho?

  1. For many centuries, Africa remained labelled, in a rather casual and inconsiderate way, the ‘Dark Continent’.  It suffered under the yoke of colonial subjugation and repeated economic exploitation.  Its wealth of raw material, including gold and diamonds, was plundered and its people endured the untold sufferings of the slave trade.   Africa was hastily carved up by the colonial nations in their scramble for a portion of the continent, and those regions that offered the most attractive climate and conditions were routinely granted to the aristocrats and those with wealth and power.  After gaining independence, Africa became steeped in terrible debt for which, despite ‘debt relief’ programmes from the West, it is still suffering the consequences.

 

The conference venue in Kericho therefore throws into stark relief many of the challenging issues we face concerning ‘Globalisation for the Common Good’.  It is surely time that humanity woke up to Africa’s enduring plight and found constructive ways to make amends and create real opportunities for regeneration and sustainable development.

 

  1. The small town of Kericho is home to Africa’s largest Gurudwara or Sikh place of worship.  It is a ‘living’ monument, lovingly dedicated to the memory of one of the greatest Sikh saints of the 20th century outside India, a saint who lived in Kenya for 57 years of his total 84 years of life (47 of those years were actually spent in Kericho).  The saint, fondly remembered as ‘Baba Puran Singh Ji of Kericho’, has immortalised the humble town of Kericho, changing for the better the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sikhs worldwide as well as uplifting the local community through many development initiatives within the town itself.  Baba Puran Singh Ji propagated faith with immense simplicity, across class, creed, denominations, gender and status, through utmost humility, compassion, selflessness and infinite love. He is the founder of the international charitable organisation, Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, which promotes the spirit and practice of selfless service (‘nishkam sewa’) in the name of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of the Sikh faith.

 

The spacious and monumental Gurudwara, which has become a stunning architectural landmark in the region,  envelopes Baba Puran Singh Ji’s modest family residence as well as workshop – the ‘Kericho Wagon Works’ – which is still operating 79 years on since it was founded in 1925. The site has been gazetted by the Government of Kenya as a place of spiritual significance. 

 

  1. Adjoining the gurudwara an infrastructure has been built for ‘The Nishkam Puran Technical Institute’ envisaged to impart technical skills, with a faith dimension, to indigenous local youth. The visionary initiative, which in time should become a model to be emulated, is a combination of benevolence and charity exercised by followers of one faith into doing positive good for people of different faiths who are marginalised and less privileged. The unique enterprise thus strives to build bridges between different faith communities across physical and hierarchical borders, across nations and nationalities and, with the respective government’s blessings, to serve at the grass roots level.  This development initiative can be seen as a practical example of the human spirit at work for Globalisation for the Common Good.

 

  1. Faith is expected to be the ‘global prime mover’ of the 21st century in the third millennium. Globalisation without the faith element’s humane traits is bound to result in exploitation.  To establish world peace and harmony, it is paramount that humanity eradicates poverty, through charitable acts and education, through exercising love for human beings, through actually practicing not theorising faith’s universal qualities of compassion, forgiveness, truthfulness, selflessness, humility and love.  The Babylonian proverb ‘work is worship’ cannot be true without work having a faith     dimension for its upkeep.  The human spirit, being indestructible, is the only everlasting human ‘constituent’ that can, in absolute terms, guarantee     sustainability.

     

  1. Finally, Kericho and the surrounding region can be considered as the emerald of Kenya; scenic and serene, it is a truly breath-taking, naturally carpeted ‘tea-country’ of tranquillity.  The appreciation and protection of nature and the environment is mandatory for humanity within the globalisation context.   Kericho is only an hour’s drive from the world’s largest fresh water lake – Lake Victoria Nyanza, and only some two hours drive from Masai Mara National Park, offering a chance to view Kenya’s extraordinary wildlife first hand.  Conference participants will therefore have the opportunity to experience the region’s spectacular natural beauty during their stay.  Nature according to the Sikh scripture is second to Godliness.