BLUE ORANGE MANIFESTO, October 18, 2001

MANIFESTO:
In the days after September 11, we New Yorkers united in commonhood: Strangers in the streets offered each other compassion.
The strange odor (of burnt plastic? cremated bodies?) which is still in the air here, is associated with a sense of horror and foreboding. We have experienced the horror, the fear, the loss, from up close. When we now see news pictures of Afghan villages and cities being bombed, we know the tremors, we know the piles of rubble, the smoke, the smell of death.
Let us extend our compassion to all people!
Otherwise how can we use the word compassion?
Love thy neighbor??? Or would that mean only your next door neighbor?
In the year 2002, the term "neighbor" ought to mean your "fellow human being"!

I beleive there is no "us" and "them". There is only "us". All of us - little humans.

As humans we are standing at a crossroads in History. There have never before been so many weapons with the power to totally annihilate the world, and they are in so many different parts of the world.
Communications have never traveled faster, and technological development and consumption rates as well as pollution and environmental destruction have never accelerated faster. At this crossroads, we must take the road of survival.
Let us "stand united" against the threat of global destruction and for global survival!
Many voices in different parts of the world, are now speaking of this moment as an opportunity for radical change that can lead to an ultimately more stable world. We do not have security now due to the threat of terrorist acts, and terrorists operate internationally, encouraged by a world based on nations and borders. In a global community, with global laws, we could go after criminals more effectively. We have to make agreements across the board of how we define "terrorist" and "terrorism".
We will need new common definitions, new thinking, a new sense of identity. Finally, compassion as a notion is not purely emotional. It can be seen as a conscious and mental effort.

In a time of crisis, many people reach for something to hold on to: values welearned and that bring us together as a community. Maybe this explains the enormous proliferation of American flags now around the city. Even though, in many places on the globe, the American flag symbolizes military superpower, bombs and devastation, I realize that to quite a few New Yorkers, the flag means cohabitating cultures and ethnicities.

It is time to ponder the meaning of the word "community", and search for a new way of being in the world. In a church in Holland a year ago I painted a sufi quote on the wall, in an arch over a lamentation scene (also my me. The inscribtion reads: "Be in the world like a stranger, a passer by." It is a position of humility rather than of pride, yet if you are a stranger everywhere, you also belong anywhere, temporarily. This is a paradox, something that is seemingly an incompatibility. What is mystery becomes very clear and simple on an ethical level: Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself.
Personally I see it as my role, to pray to the "gods" of others. Thus my Blue Orange Works become a prayer. God help us all!

All religions I know, share (at least on a theoretical level), the values of compassion, mercy, brotherhood (social responsibility) love and peace.
American people (up to 95%), according to a recent study, see themselves as religious.

"In the name of Allah, the merciful and the compassionate..." thus starts the Koran.

On a practical, political level, the logical conclusion of all the above spells out:
Stop the bombing, start negociating. Let's work for survival, united against the threat of global devastation. Let's take responsibility for and begin to take care of our earthly community and environment, to share our wealth, resources and territory.

Madeleine Hatz
New York, November 18, 2001.