Send Them Peace

Moving beyond "cardboard cutouts" of how we view the world, is required to develop empathy. The 12 Presences of The Challenge aims at opening to this process.

Sit down with someone from another culture, and have a cup of tea. This avoids being, like our politicians whom we elect, "cultural psychopaths," looking microscopically at all issues within their own country, yet almost incapable of looking through a larger lens at the effect of their decisions on Our World: On issues affecting cultures with different languages, religions, dress, ecologies and views than our own.

Simon Anholt had begun looking at this a few years ago (around 2005) and thought up "The Nations Brand Index."

As an international advisor to leaders in various countries, he was exploring his observation that "A great image, sells."

But before thinking that such image comes at a price making it unaffordable for poor countries, read on.

This work eventually blossomed into The Good Country Index. To do well in this multifactorial ranking, a country needs to start behaving and finding ways to become "a Good Country," if these methods and programs are lacking.

"It's not about money, or strength: it's about attitude."

"Selling" a country may get you thinking about viewing from within, and finding well-known but marketable scenic views to sell to tourists. That's limiting one's approach to "cultural psychopathology," if one takes a broader view. A successful "sale" should emerge from a concentrated effort to make one's country as Good as possible for Our World. Limiting one's marketing to what works within one's borders just won't work anymore. Such islands will sink into the sea of isolationism, one after another.

When politicians take a decision, who is overseeing the process to see how the decision impacts on being a Good Country in our Global Community?

That should be you.

See how he presents this himself in the following TED Talk, well worth the time.