1999 LLLI
Conference Sessions:
Keynote Address for the 16th La Leche League International Conference
Presented by Anwar Fazal
Chairman, World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action
From: NEW BEGINNINGS, Vol. 16 No. 5, September-October 1999, p. 162
As-salam-alai-kum, which
means peace be upon you. I like to begin with the word peace because
more than anything else it says it all about our work. Peace has three
dimensions:
- peace within ourselves
- peace with other people
- peace with the earth.
Today, the world is far from
this peace. Tensions and conflicts challenge us and painfully inflict
damage to us in many ways and in so many places.
Yet in so many places and
in so many ways, people are seeking peace. I once heard a delightful
song, a melody of warmth, of friendship, and of power. The song went,
"We are one and we are many, and we share the same dream."
That could be the song of
all of us. We are one but we are many, too. And we share the same dream.
What is that dream? It is
a simple one - to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding everywhere.
When I think of the joy and
power of breastfeeding, I think of a beautiful flower with five petals
- representing sound nutrition, life saving medicines, rational economics,
responsible ecology, and deep love.
The grim reality today is
that in so many ways and in so many places, humankind is engaged in
paths that are destructive, in paths that are unsustainable.
Nowhere has it been as starkly
cruel and more destructive in history than in the way breastfeeding
has been subverted and undermined in this century.
But now the people are fighting
back everywhere to reclaim their first right, their first food - breast
milk. They are fighting back the evil of subversion and killing of a
natural, God given special start in life.
Millions of mothers are discovering
and rediscovering the joy and power of breastfeeding. Thousands of hospitals
are dedicating themselves to being "baby-friendly" - the United
Nations stamp for hospitals that care for breastfeeding.
I'd like to share with you
three challenges that are central to this struggle for our first right
and first food.
The first is the challenge
of Vision. We have learnt that to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding,
we must engage in a vision that ensures the human right and responsibility
to food security, to good health, and to a safe environment.
Only with the larger holistic
vision can we overcome the curse of greed and violence, of materialism
and mass destruction. James Robertson once said this memorably. He said
that we must move from a "HE" society to a "SHE"
society. "HE" stood for "Hyper Exploitative" and
"SHE" for "Sane, Humanistic, and Ecological."
The second challenge is that
of Information. Information is power and those who promote greed and
violence have learnt to control and manipulate this in mega and diverse
ways. We must engage in the real democratization of information by building
on both community-based capabilities and the power of the new information
technologies.
The third challenge is that
of Networking. Today is the age of the networks that bring together
nomads, bureaucracies, and hierarchies into inclusive cumulative networks
that can flow and engage laterally and vertically, locally and globally.
Today public interest networks are making the most dramatic possibilities
for social transformation.
WABA, the World Alliance
for Breastfeeding Action, and La Leche League together symbolize such
"new age" organizations where the synergy, small and big,
local and global, special interest or broad-based can act together and
make things happen.
Let us -dedicate ourselves
this week to build our future by:
- promoting the joy and
power of breastfeeding
- promoting the culture
of peace
- building the solidarity
of family and community
- promoting the first right,
the first food - breast milk, a gift of nature, gift of power, a gift
of love, and a gift of God.
Let us also dedicate ourselves
to exposing those large corporations that continue to undermine breastfeeding
if not overtly, then covertly. By such unconscionable behavior, they subvert
one of the fundamentals of healthy and civilized society.
La Leche League and WABA
are forces for happiness. Let us work together to enlarge this happiness.
Remember the song, "We
are one, but we are many, and we share the same dream."
Working together we will
make that dream of protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding
come true for more and more people. Let the wisdom of the past continue
to be the gold standard for the future.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:29:32 UTC 2007.
