Most Compelling Vision

Once in a blue moon - actually far less frequently - I come across an idea that is so extraordinary that it stops me in my tracks. Raffi Cavoukian's vision, Child Honouring, is such an idea. It is startling, and eminently laden with possibilities.

After a lifetime of bringing joy and happiness to countless children as the world's foremost entertainer of the very young, "Raffi" has taken bold steps of addressing the parents and the rest of the world. His revolutionary message is simple: Honour - love, respect, care for - the world's children in order to heal our ailing human society and redress the imbalances of the planet at large.

If we truly loved children, would we poison the water, earth, and air with industrial and agrochemical pollutants? Would we allow 16,000 children to die from starvation and thirst every single day? Would we grow inferior food crops from self-terminating seeds that spell predictable catastrophe? Would we fill the air with deafening noise and the airwaves with toxic imagery and cynical verbiage? Would we bombard our children with noxious advertising? Would we allow transnational corporations to ransack any nation's resources for the profit of a rich power elite, therby draining the wealth that should freely be available for the health and well-being of all? Finally, would we bequeath to our children a planet that is teetering on the brink of the extinction of all higher life forms?

If we truly loved children, the answer to each of the preceeding questions would have to be a resounding No.

Making the child the pivot of social, economic, and political concern and action would, Raffi Cavoukian convincingly argues, 'turn this world around," because it would make the world's problems a personal matter. Thus far, adults' interest in achieving such a turn-about has been lukewarm at best and has barely borne in mind the present and future plight of our children.

I believe that the idea of Child Honouring is the most compelling rallying-point for the next phase of local and international initiatives to undo the present-day crisis now approaching catastrophic proportions.

Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D.

Indologist and author of over 40 books (January 2010)