The Key to Dismantling Oppressive Global Systems
In this article, Nazarina Jamil, Maria Humphries-Kil, and Kahurangi Dey explore Paulo Freire’s call for responsibility for those who are marginalized and his Pedagogy of Hope to encourage action and inspiration around the dismantling of oppressive global systems. The authors further expand on this topic in “Infusing courageous love for universal dignity and environmental response-ability through management education and learning: Inspired By Freire’s dream,” found in Management Learning.
Paulo Freire invites focus on responsibility for those who are systemically marginalized by exploitative socio/political/economic systems. In this essay, we view the predominant global socio/political/economic system as one such system. We consider this system through a depiction of ‘Moloch’, a sacrifice-demanding tyrant to whom most of humanity must plead fealty. The image we provide depicts some of the ways those in the precarious security of Moloch’s realms deflect their attention from the cries of babies being sacrificed for the sustainability of His Realm. These babies may be our distant fellow humans, loved ones, future generations, and perhaps even ourselves.
We notice discomfort among our students when invited to talk about the dangers of exacerbating inequality and about our responsibility to work for change. They express feeling overwhelmed by the many crises before humanity. When bringing their attention to the emancipatory aspirations of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) they could engage with, their understanding and interest appears superficial. Their sense of privilege unrecognized generates a sense of entitlement.
In our essay, we focus particularly on the transformational aspirations of the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) now projected through the SDGs. These principles have their roots in the UN facilitated Global Compact – an explicit response to expression of growing activist and popular concerns about the state of the world. We note in our manuscript the broadening reach of the PRME as pertinent to our professional realms of influence as management educators. We invite a critical reflection on the extent to which these principles provide a source for commitment to radical change in our way of being human – or might be selectively adapted, harnessed, and assimilated as Moloch-serving responses to demands for universal justice.
Our essay had no room to provide a more elaborate section on critical systemic and self-reflection to bring home the immediacy of the dangers of growing inequality, exacerbating injustice, and the need to act. Such a reflection might have been guided by providing information about the declining value of management qualifications and illusions of job security as a ‘close to home’ example. The purpose of such critical reflection would be not only to dismantle a faith in the false promise of a secure future in Moloch’s realm, but to become more critically empathetic and activist, more morally response-able where functional decisions to preserve ‘the system’ may result in the marginalization or even death of those (in)directly affected – including our loved ones and even ourselves.
Freire’s Pedagogy of Hope, particularly Ana Maria’s interpretative notes (pp 205-240), reinvigorates our hope that the universal emancipation the Western world proclaims to aspire after, the principles the United Nations promotes, and the corporate world through the Global Compact gives increasing voice to, will bring a universally just world into being. Freire’s dream to pursue an untested feasibility motivated by a critical hope and love fueled by courage may be a beacon for inspiration and action that will dismantle Moloch and open the way for global emancipation we call universal justice.
