GNH : the answer
4 October, 2008 – So Gross National Happiness made it to the UN General Assembly. The prime minister of the world’s youngest democracy, Lyonchhen Jigmi Thinley, offered a “Himalayan perspective” of global trends. Humanity, he said, strongly reflects an addiction to Gross Domestic Product today.
The message was that the unrelenting series of problems faced by humanity is our own doing. The escalating oil prices, financial crisis, climate change, emerging new diseases, terrorism, poverty can all be traced back to deteriorating values.
Human well-being and survival are threatened by a larger and deeper malaise. We are living beyond our means as we strive to earn more, to want more, and consume more. The reason, according to the Lyonchhen, was “man’s insatiable greed”.
The answer lies in Gross National Happiness and the higher human goal it represents.
We agree that the world needs such a reminder today, as feeble as Bhutan’s voice might be in the international fora. While we do not believe, for a moment, that the members of the world body walked out of the General Assembly hall as changed men and women, the values of GNH must continue to be presented as a constant reminder to the world.
And to Bhutan. All the trends that threaten the planet are becoming more visible every day in Bhutan, the land of GNH. Even as we try to measure our happiness,s there is a growing misery index with social problems, restless youth, corruption, and the same malaise that the prime minister blamed for deteriorating global trends.
We are wealthier than we have ever been, but we have never before seen such inequities. Economic development is benefiting a few big houses, not the general populace, and the policy of demonopolisation is not working. Our culture, particularly, is threatened by changing values.
Bhutan succeeded in the past because we made our own decisions. Those decisions are increasingly influenced by external forces, WTO being an example. GNH is taking a back seat as we emulate the world. In the words of a nun, who was seen squinting at her mobile screen trying to vote for a singer in the BT Star contest: “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
It is important that the Lyonchhen’s words at the General Assembly echo louder back home. GNH was the only audible philosophy during our election campaign and it is, today, the only real campaign promise that matters. If we get this one right everything else will work out.
“Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product”
Source: Kuenselonline