Facing continuing brutality despite all of its advances, civilization, forced into the now narrow space of the pre-Copernican closed world, needs all humans to embrace the arms of culture, science, philosophy and technology to open the world to a new renaissance, the space renaissance.

We do not like to comment on events the same day or too close to their occurrence — even when they are so horrendous — like the ones we have seen a few weeks ago in the attacks on the editors of Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket in Paris. But every day we have to record new merciless abominable murders. We, sincere humanists, are shaken, even personally, when death is caused intentionally by ideological madness, in France or anywhere. We are shocked by the massacre of 140 students at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, recently perpetrated by Taliban, and by the mass exterminations by Boko Haram in Nigeria and other senseless killing. In the same way we are morally devastated by Western military reactions, when they cause the death of civilians, women and children, and further jeopardize already badly hit economies, instead of bringing relief and aid to the honest citizens, eager to work and progress.

We opted therefore to leave anger and pain to subside a bit, before our say. In fact, should we allow anger and pain to dictate our agenda, we would do nothing but support the terror. Keeping a cool head and a calm and mature reasoning skill, we definitely pronounce, not to fight Islam, or to embark the Western countries in a fruitless “clash of civilizations.” We shall acknowledge the reality for what it is: the worsening conflicts and the global economic crisis, raging for almost seven years, are due to the growing fear that pervades all of the populations of the world. The people of the so-called advanced countries are seeing their privileges gradually decaying, due to lack of new industries. The emerging countries already glimpsed the limits of their hope for growth, due to the finite resources and energy of our mother planet. The people of the so-called Third World still do not even perceive this time as mature for their industrial development. Abortive revolutions and unfulfilled hopes are fertile ground for all terrorism.

Read the whole newsletter here: SRI Newsletter 03 February 2015