— Moses Maimonides

—Prophet Micah

—Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

—Kofi Annan

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.

—Nelson Mandela

The topic which I wish to address here is vast; all I can reasonably hope to do is paint a picture with very broad brushstrokes. The first section of this paper is an attempt to explain what Globalization for the Common Good is. In the second part, I will endeavor to explain how and why I came to believe in the merits of Globalization for the Common Good. In this part, I will shed light on my personal journey to Globalization for the Common Good. It has been an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual journey; it has involved wrestling with a diverse range of concepts, ideas concerning the relationship between economics, theology, and spirituality as well as concerns for human dignity and socio-economic justice.

I deeply and passionately believe that conflict and terrorism is mainly mobilized around the concept of justice. In many cases, challenging injustice is the first step towards eliminating conflict. To avoid violent conflict, concerted international action is needed to address systemic economic and socio-political injustice. The undeniable fact of life confronting us on this planet of ours is that there is gross and growing inequality amongst people, within nations and amongst different nations. Billions of people living in abject poverty, with no hope and no future, have become a source of “the development of terrorist cells.” Pragmatism and enlightened self-interest suggest that another way based on compassion and generosity is needed.

A vibrant and progressive democracy cannot be achieved in world in which individualism, selfishness, and Mammon worship prevails; a world in which most politicians are elected by and for big business; where parliaments serve the stock markets rather than the people; where environment is sacrificed to economic growth and the poor everywhere are rendered destitute in the name of structural adjustment.

No amount of military might, no amount of missiles containing depleted uranium, no amount of Agent Orange, no amount of smart and not-so-smart bombs will destroy terrorism, as long as this world is so unjust, so unequal, and so inhumane. History is on the side of this argument and it would be an affront to humanity to ignore this.

Today, the globalized world economy—despite many significant achievements during the last few decades, especially since the end of the Second World War, in areas such as science, technology, medicine, transportation and communication—is facing major catastrophic socio-economic, political, cultural, spiritual, and environmental crises.

We are surrounded by global problems of inequality, injustice, poverty, greed, marginalization, exclusion, intolerance, fear, depression, anxiety, mistrust, xenophobia, terrorism, sleaze, and corruption. These problems are affecting the overall fabric of societies in many parts of the world.

Moreover, the twentieth century was the bloodiest in human history, with holocausts, genocides, ethnic cleansings, two world wars, and hundreds of inter and intra-national wars. Furthermore, today, after decades of selfishness, greed, individualism, and emphasis on wealth creation without a care about how this wealth is being created, the world is entering a period of reflection, self-examination, and a spiritual revolution. Many people around the globe have come to an understanding that it is possible to create a better world if a critical mass of people with a sense of human decency and a belief in the ultimate goodness of humanity, rise and realize their power to transform the world. More and more people around the world are realizing that there are no short cuts to happiness. Material wealth is important, this should not be denied; however, physical wealth is only one ingredient for happiness. Realization of a complete sense of happiness, inner peace, and tranquility can only be achieved through acting more on virtues such as wisdom, justice, ethics, love, and humanity. This spiritual revolution needs architecture and dedicated architects.

In this study, I argue that the marketplace is not just an economic sphere, it is a region of the human spirit. Whilst considering the many economic questions and issues, we should also reflect on the divine dimension of life. Moreover, we should, in contrast to what is practiced today, be concerned with the world of the heart and spirit. Although self–interest is an important source of human motivation, driving the decisions we make in the marketplace every day, those decisions, nevertheless, have a moral, ethical, and spiritual content because each decision we make affects not only ourselves but others too. Today’s modern economists consider their discipline a science; thereby divorced from ethical details, the normative passions of right and wrong. They have turned their discipline into a moral-free zone.

In short, this study views the problem and challenge of globalization, partly from economic but primarily from ethical, spiritual, and theological points of view. How can we order the modern world so that we may all live well and all live in peace? In all, globalization will need to combine economic efficiency to meet human needs with social justice and environmental sustainability. The study, moreover, argues for the creation of an “ecumenical space” for dialogue amongst civilizations and the building of community for the common good by bringing economics, spirituality, and theology together.

As it has been noted and it is my intention to argue further, perhaps the most significant development in the material world for nearly two decades is the phenomenon of globalization. This is the accelerated integration of the global economy through finance and trade. As noted above, spectacular breakthroughs in science and technology, particularly information technology, have speeded up the process.

Even as it is an economic phenomenon, globalization is not limited to the arena of economics and economic institutions: its impact is felt on political and social institutions as well as on culture. No human institution is impervious to it. Even religion is challenged by it.

Globalization has brought prosperity and wealth to many nations and individuals. It has brought the blessings of science and technology to more and more people. It has shared knowledge and information on a scale which is beyond measure. At the same time, it has its dark and dangerous side.

The darkest manifestation of globalization is the persistence of poverty, unemployment, and social disintegration even as economies are being integrated in the global economy. It is the continuing destruction of the environment and the marginalization of women, even as more and more wealth is created at an unbelievable pace. Economic, social, and political injustice have accelerated in the wake of the frenzied transactions in global financial and trade markets. Below, I share some disturbing statistics with you:

All in all, around the world, inequality is increasing, while the world is further globalizing. Moreover, even in the wealthier countries in the West, the gap between rich and poor, the have and the have-nots, is growing wider by the day. In addition, the meltdown in the value of the stock market has left millions with no pension in their old age. Given the continuous existence of such levels of abject poverty everywhere, and our inability or unwillingness to overcome it, is a true sign of a globalization, of civilization in denial. In this respect, the wise words of Nelson Mandela ring true, “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity, it is an act of justice, it is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.”

We are caught in a strange world of contradiction: a world of progress and of poverty. The poor, marginalized and excluded, have been forgotten. However, even those who are well off financially, it seems, are unable to live well in human terms. In the materialistically saturated Western world, anxiety, depression, insecurity, and real desperation are the main causes of ill health and premature death. We were told that economic prosperity, with its share dividends and material comfort, would bring us happiness. What a delusion!

We need to wake up and begin to see the bigger picture. The only remedy, we are told by neo-classical ideologues and fundamentalists who have brought us all this misery to begin with, is to strive for more of the same mores: more economic growth, more production, more consumption, more cost-cutting, and more sacrifices to achieve them as they impose harsh human and ecological costs. Who are the people who think that all these sacrifices—personal, family, social, cultural and ecological—are necessary to meet their bottom line?

It is this bottom-line mentality, so damaging to human relationships and personal well-being, that has caused so much anger around the world. Today, everywhere you look, you see this anger and the forces of destruction at work: crime and the gun culture, alcohol and drug abuse, cheap sex and human trafficking, xenophobia and bombs—smart bombs and not-so-smart bombs, even human bombs.

Why are we doing all this to ourselves and others? What globalization! What shabby custodians of God’s gifts we have been! Is this the kind of world we want or would like to leave to our children? Is this a world which Sa’adi, the wise Persian poet, would have understood all those centuries ago? His words are inscribed at the entrance to the United Nations Secretariat in New York:

As it has been noted time and again by so many researchers round the world that globalization as it is today has not delivered what it said it would because it has turned itself into an economic-only phenomenon and nothing else. It is time to understand that global money-only capitalism becomes corrupt without democratic civic values and ethical restraints.

Looking at what is being recommended, we can note that nearly all of the proposals on the global economy concern the need to unleash the power of the market, liberalize trade, deregulate and privatize, which are all purely economic considerations. It is as though humanity and the environment are irrelevant except as servants of the overarching need to expand the global economy, as if that could satisfy all human needs and aspirations. Material wellbeing, economic growth, and wealth creation are important. But to create a world of true happiness, peace, and wellbeing, wealth must be created for a noble reason. Economics, commerce, and trade, without a true understanding of the aspirations of the people it is affecting, cannot bring justice to all. Social transformation can be achieved only when unselfish love, spirituality, and a rigorous pursuit of justice are embraced.

It is important to recall that, economics, from the time of Plato through to Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and others, was as deeply concerned with issues of social justice, ethics, and morality as with economic analysis itself. However, most students studying economics today learn that Adam Smith was the “father of modern economics” but do not know that he was also a moral philosopher. In 1759, sixteen years before his Wealth of Nations, he published The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which explored the self–interested nature of man and his ability to still make moral decisions based on factors other than selfishness. In the Wealth of Nations, Smith laid the early groundwork for economic analysis, but embedded it in a broader discussion of social justice and the role of government. Students today know only of Smith’s famous analogy of the “invisible hand” and refer to him (rather obliquely) in defense of free markets. They ignore his clear understanding that the pursuit of wealth should not take precedence over social and moral obligations and of how a “divine being” produces “the greatest quantity of happiness.”

In short, they are taught that the free market as a “way of life” appealed to Adam Smith. However, again, they are not told that Adam Smith distrusted the morality of the market as a morality for society at large. He neither envisioned nor prescribed a capitalist society, but rather a “capitalist economy within society, a society held together by communities of non-capitalist and non-market morality.” That morality, for Smith, included, among other things: mutual neighborly love, an obligation to practice justice, a norm of financial support for the government “in proportion to (one’s) revenue,” and a tendency in human nature to derive pleasure from the good fortune and happiness of other people.

Therefore, as history has shown time and again, it is futile to believe that one can beat terrorism through the use of brutal force alone. We must understand that it was brutal force which created the terrorism to begin with. In this regard, the wise words of Albert Einstein ring true, “The world cannot get out of its current state of crisis with the same thinking that got it there in the first place.”

Our ability to project justice onto the world requires love, the unconditional search for absolute truth, and the capacity to engage in an intimate dialogue with the natural universe within. Justice is all about empowerment. If you can empower yourself and others with justice, then, sustainability and good globalization will follow.

There is an urgent need about realizing unselfish love in our globalizing world. Love is a joyful and full-hearted affirmation of the wellbeing of others that can be expressed in the forms of tolerance and forbearance, forgiveness and reconciliation, compassion and care, and service to the neediest as well as to the nearest. When we extend ourselves to others in this way, we become happier and more content, for, paradoxically, in the giving of the self lies the unsought discovery of self. Moreover, given our desire to realize a globalization which is good for all, it should be noted that, social transformation can occur only when unselfish love, spiritual experience, and a rigorous pursuit of justice are linked.

The ethical and spiritual teachings of all religions and their striving for the common good can provide a clear and focused model of moral behavior in what has been termed “the market place.” The religious and business values and sentiments, such as human dignity, communal solidarity, humility, patience, service, compassion, reciprocity, social justice, equity, efficiency, growth, and profit should go together, hand-in-hand, leading to Globalization for the Common Good, where everyone is a winner. We should acknowledge that the marketplace is not just an economic sphere, but it is a region of the human spirit, compassion, and dignity.

The call for this dialogue is an appeal to the deep, instinctive understanding of the common good that all people share. It is an appeal to our essential humanity to deal with some of the most pressing concerns of peoples the world over. Religion has always been a major factor in the growth of human civilization. Business and wealth creation, when they are for a noble reason, are blessed and vital for human survival.

As it has been noted, because the yearning for justice is a natural substance running through humanity’s cells, by denying it we only pour more fuel on guilt’s fire. While love of justice can yield great harvests for individuals, communities, societies, and nature as a whole, this same passion can surface as hatred and violence when it is not given the freedom to permeate our lives and keep our inner longing alive.

Whether caught in material or spiritual poverty, those robbed of the right to justice, become justifiably angry and hateful. These emotions, in turn, inflame vengeful actions that perpetuate more violent reactions. This cycle of violence and misery, can be broken only with justice. This is the truth into which we must tune. This is the dream we must bring into being: this is Globalization for the Common Good.

Paul Ormerod, former director of economics at the Henley Centre for Forecasting, in his book The Death of Economics notes that, “Good economists know, from work carried out within their discipline, that the foundations of their subject are virtually non-existent …. Conventional economics offer prescriptions for the problems of inflation and unemployment, which are at best misleading and at worst dangerously wrong …. Despite its powerful influence on public life, its achievements are as limited as those of pre-Newtonian physics … it is to argue that conventional economics offers a very misleading view of how the world actually operates, and it needs to be replaced.”

An equally accomplished economist, Mark Lutz, in his book, Economics for the Common Good, observes that, “Modern economics is the science of self-interest, of how to best accommodate individual behavior by means of markets and the commodification of human relations …. In this economic worldview, the traditional human faculty of reason gets shortchanged and degraded to act as the servant of sensory desires. There is no room for logic of human values and rationally founded ethics. Human aspirations are watered down to skillful shopping behavior and channeled into a stale consumerism. One would think that there must be an alternative way to conceptualize the economy.”

Therefore, what is there to be done? Is there an alternative to this selfish, self-seeking, neo-liberal, economic, money-only globalization?

To this end, I recommend the practical vision and mission of Globalization for the Common Good. Globalization for the Common Good means the promotion of ethical, moral, and spiritual values—which are shared by all religions—in the areas of economics, commerce, trade, and international relations. It emphasizes personal and societal virtues. It calls for understanding and collaborative action on the part of civil society, private enterprise, the public sector, governments, and national and international institutions, to address major global issues. Globalization for the common good is predicated on a global economy of sharing and community, grounded in an economic value system whose aim is generosity and the promotion of a just distribution of the world’s goods, which are divine gifts.

Globalization for the Common Good is not about charity. It is not about collecting money. It is about justice. To know justice and to serve it is to feel the pain of, and to become one with the sufferer; it is to ask fundamental questions about the roots of injustice and to fight for their eradication. Today’s global problems are not economic or technological only. The solutions are not more economic growth, privatization or trade liberalization. What the world needs is a spiritual revolution where the “I, me” culture is replaced with a “we and us” culture. Globalization for the Common Good is that needed culture: the culture of solidarity and oneness with the poor, suppressed, marginalized and excluded. Globalization for the Common Good is for the practice of economics of compassion, economics of kindness, and economics of solidarity. These kinds of economics can only be practiced by people who are compassionate and kind. Globalization for the Common Good is the way to build a world that is just, free, and prosperous.

Globalization for the Common Good affirms that economics is, above all, concerned with human wellbeing and happiness in society and with care for the earth. This cannot be separated from moral and spiritual considerations. The idea of a value-free economics is spurious. It demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of what it means to be a human being.

We affirm our conviction that genuine interfaith dialogue and cooperation is a significant way of bringing the world together. It is indispensable to the creation of the harmonious global culture needed to build peace, justice, sustainability, and prosperity for all. The call for Globalization for the Common Good is an appeal to our essential humanity. It engages the most pressing concerns of peoples the world over.

Globalization for the Common Good, by addressing the crises that face us all, empowers us with humanity, spirituality, and love. It engages people of different races, cultures, and languages, from a wide variety of backgrounds, all committed to bringing about a world in which there is more solidarity and greater harmony. This spiritual ground for hope at this time of wanton destruction of our world, can help us to recall the ultimate purpose of life and of our journey in this world.

—Rumi

I was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1952. In 1971, after finishing high school, I came to England to further my education. In 1974 I married my English wife, Annie, and two years later we immigrated to Canada. I received my BA and MA in Economics from the University of Windsor in 1980 and 1982 respectively. We returned to England in 1982, and in 1986 I was awarded my PhD in Economics from the University of Birmingham.

From 1980 onwards, for the next twenty years, I taught economics in universities, enthusiastically demonstrating how economic theories provided answers to problems of all sorts. I got quite carried away by the beauty, the sophisticated elegance of complicated mathematical models and theories. But gradually I started to have an empty feeling. I began to suspect that neo-liberal economics was an emperor with no clothes. What good were elegant theories that were unable to explain all the poverty, exclusion, racism, corruption, injustice, and unhappiness that exist in the world?

I came to feel that my life as a lecturer was like a make-believe movie—sit and relax, in the end, models dreamt up by detached economists will sort out the world’s ills! My classrooms were becoming unreal places. I began to ask fundamental questions of myself. Why did I never talk to my students about compassion, dignity, comradeship, solidarity, happiness, spirituality, about the meaning of life? We never debated the biggest questions: who am I, where have I come from, where am I going to?

I told them to create wealth, but I did not tell them for what reason. I told them about scarcity and competition, but not about abundance and co-operation. I told them about free trade, but not about fair trade; I told them about GNP (Gross National Product) but not about GNH (Gross National Happiness). I told them about profit maximization and cost minimization, about the highest returns to the shareholders, but not about social consciousness, accountability to the community, sustainability, and respect for creation and the Creator. I did not tell them that without humanity, economics is a house of cards built on shifting sands. Where was the economic theory that reflected my students’ real lives? How could I carry on believing in such an unreal world? I could not go on asking them to believe unbelievable theories in the name of economics.

I wanted to run away from all the white elephants: the barren theories and models in my textbooks, the department of economics, and the MBA program, which created managers who couldn’t manage anything. I could not carry on defending the indefensible. How could I respect modern economics when it had no respect for other disciplines?

These conflicts caused me much frustration and alienation, leading to heartache and despair. I needed to rediscover myself and a real-life economics. After a proud twenty-year academic career, I resigned from my position as lecturer and, after a debilitating year of soul-searching, decided that I would become a student all over again. I would study theology and philosophy, disciplines nobody had taught me when I was a student of economics.

It was at this difficult time that I came to understand that I needed to bring spirituality, compassion, ethics and morality back into economics itself, to make this dismal science once again relevant to and concerned with the common good. It was now that I made the following discoveries:

Economics, from the time of Plato right through to Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, was as deeply concerned with issues of social justice, ethics, and morality as it was with economic analysis. Most economics students today learn that Adam Smith was the “father of modern economics” but not that he was also a moral philosopher. In 1759, sixteen years before his famous Wealth of Nations, he published The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which explored the self-interested nature of man and his ability nevertheless to make moral decisions based on factors other than selfishness. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith laid the early groundwork for economic analysis, but he embedded it in a broader discussion of social justice and the role of government. Students today know only of his analogy of the ‘invisible hand’ and refer to him as defending free markets. They ignore his insight that the pursuit of wealth should not take precedence over social and moral obligations, and his belief that a “divine Being” gives us “the greatest quantity of happiness.” They are taught that the free market as a “way of life” appealed to Adam Smith but not that he distrusted the morality of the market as a morality for society at large. He neither envisioned nor prescribed a capitalist society, but rather a "capitalist economy within society, a society held together by communities of non-capitalist and non-market morality.” That morality for Smith included neighborly love, an obligation to practice justice, a norm of financial support for the government “in proportion to [one’s] revenue,” and a tendency in human nature to derive pleasure from the good fortune and happiness of other people.

The leading figure in the establishment of the American Economic Association (AEA) in 1885 was the progressive economist Richard T. Ely. He sought to combine economic theory with Christian ethics, especially the command to love one’s neighbor (as did Adam Smith). He declared that the Church, the state and the individual must work together to fulfill the Kingdom of God on earth. Few economists or economics students today know much of this history: that, for example, twenty of the fifty founding members of the AEA were former or practicing ministers. Ely himself was a leading member, in the 1880s, of the Social Gospel Movement; he was better known to the American public in this capacity than as an economist. He believed that economics departments should be located in schools of theology because “Christianity is primarily concerned with this world, and it is the mission of Christianity to bring to pass here a kingdom of righteousness.” As a “religious subject,” economics should provide the base for “a never-ceasing attack on every wrong institution, until the earth becomes a new earth, and all its cities, cities of God.”

The focus of economics should be on the benefit and the bounty that the economy produces, on how to let this bounty increase, and how to share the benefits justly among the people for the common good, removing the evils that hinder this process.

Economic rationality in the shape of neo-liberal globalization is socially and politically suicidal. Justice and democracy are sacrificed on the altar of a mythical market as forces outside society rather than creations of it.

Every apparently economic choice is, in reality, a social choice. We can choose a society of basic rights—education, health, housing, child support, and a dignified pension—or greed, pandemic inequality, ecological vandalism, civic chaos, and social despair. Modern neo-liberal economics ignores the first and promotes the second path as the way to achieve economic efficiency and growth.

The moral crises of global economic injustice today are integrally spiritual: they signal something terribly amiss in the relationship between human beings and God.

Where the moral life and the mystery of God’s presence are held in one breath—because the moral life is the same as the mystical life—the moral agency may be found for establishing paths towards a more just, compassionate and sustainable way of living. “Moral agency” is the active love of creation (for oneself as well as for other people and for the non-human creation); it is the will to orient life around the ongoing wellbeing of communities and of the global community, prioritizing the needs of the most vulnerable; it is the will to create social structures and policies that ensure social justice and ecological sustainability.

In contrast to this sensibility, which weds spirituality and morality, stands modern economics’ persistent tendency to divorce the two, in particular to dissociate the intimate personal experience of a close relationship with God from public moral power.

It is the belief in collective responsibility and collective endeavor that allows individual freedom to flourish. This can only be realized when we commit ourselves to the common good and begin to serve it.

There are three justifications for the common good which are not commonly discussed in economics:

1. Human beings need human contact, or sociability. The quality of that interaction is important, quite apart from any material benefits it may bring.

2. Human beings are formed in the community—their education and training in virtue (their preferences) are elements of the common good.

3. A healthy love for the common good is a necessary component of a fully developed personality.

The marketplace is not just an economic sphere; it is a region of the human spirit. Profound economic questions are divine in nature; in contrast to what is assumed today, they should be concerned with the world of the heart and spirit. Although self-interest is an important source of human motivation, driving the decisions we make in the marketplace every day, those decisions nevertheless have a moral, ethical and spiritual content, because each decision we make affects not only ourselves but others too. We must combine the need for economic efficiency with the need for social justice and environmental sustainability.

The greatest achievement of modern globalization will eventually come to be seen as the opening up of possibilities to build a humane and spiritually enriched globalized world through the universalizing and globalizing of compassion. But for “others” to become “us,” for the world to become intimate with itself, we have to get to know each other better than we do now. Prejudices have to disappear. We have to see that the cultural, religious and ethnic differences reflect an ultimate creative principle. For this to happen, the great cultures and religions need to enter into genuine dialogue with each other.

Finally, today more than ever before, given the collapse of Communism and the increasing human and environmental cost of capitalism, there is a pressing need for alternative economic models. Activists are renewing Martin Buber’s search for what in 1943 he called “a genuine third alternative … leading beyond individualism and collectivism, for the life decision of future generations.” Crises for our species such as mass starvation, Aids, unrestrained violence, and the degradation of our biosphere—crises that transcend economic systems, political dogmas, and national boundaries—are bringing us face-to-face with questions about self-preservation and self-restraint, personal and communal responsibility, moral authority, and political power; questions that are at the very core of our religious traditions. If the idea of divine authority offends contemporary sensibilities, the environmental imperatives of creation may be seen to be as pressing as any divine commandments. The market value of the world’s great faiths is at an all-time high in the ongoing enterprise of human liberation. It is time to call for a theological economics which can bring us sustainability for the common good.

After concluding my theological studies, I wrote a number of books and articles on my newly discovered areas of interest and founded an annual international conference, An Interfaith Perspective on Globalization for the Common Good, to address the problems and challenges of globalization, not only from an economic perspective, but also from ethical, moral, spiritual, and theological points of view.

My first conference, Common Goals, Common Crises, Common Call, and Common Hope, was held in Oxford in 2002. I did not know what to expect, or how many would turn up, but I was convinced it was the right thing to do. We succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. We had sixty senior speakers and many other participants from different parts of the world. I felt humbled and honored. It was during this Oxford conference that I was pressed by many delegates to make it an annual event.

I enthusiastically took up the challenge, but decided that as we were concerned with globalization, the conference should be held in a different country each year, extending the opportunities for dialogue and of learning from each other. Moreover, each conference was to be in association with a local organization with aims similar to ours. So our first conference in Oxford gave birth to a global movement to promote and serve the common good.

The second conference, Ethics, Spirituality, and Religions: Transforming Globalization for the Common Good, was held in St Petersburg in 2003, co-convened with Dr Tatiana Roskoshnaya, director of the Institute for Ecological Security in St Petersburg. I had previously met Tatiana in London while attending a conference and she had shared with me her concern for what was taking place in Russia under the name of free-market privatization and deregulation. She invited us to hold the conference there, believing it could demonstrate that there are alternatives to the economics of individualism and greed. Once again, it was very successful, with forty-four senior speakers and many other international participants.

The third conference, Integrity, Spirituality, Ethics, and Accountability: Transforming Business, Corporate Social Responsibility and Globalization for the Common Good, was held in Dubai in 2004, again, with forty-four senior speakers and many other participants. We were truly grateful to the Iranian Business Council (IBC) in Dubai for organizing a wonderful event and running Globalization for the Common Good followed by an unforgettable Persian Gala Dinner and entertainment. The event was under the Patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, deputy ruler of Dubai and minster of finance. Six hundred invited guests—senior politicians and businessmen, foreign diplomats, academics, and religious and cultural leaders attended the event. Thanks to IBC and its visionary president Abbas Bolurfrushan, we were able to share our vision with some of the most senior global leaders.

The fourth conference, Africa and Globalization for the Common Good: The Quest for Justice and Peace, was held at the Nishkam Puran Institute (NPI) in Kericho, Kenya, in April 2005 under the esteemed patronage of the Hon Dr A. A. Moody Awori, MP, Kenyan vice-president and minister for home affairs. It was co-convened with Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh, known to all as Baba Ji, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at our first conference in Oxford.

The fifth conference, to be held at the Chaminade University of Honolulu in 2006 as part of a series of events celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the university, will be co-convened with a long-term friend of Globalization for the Common Good, Professor David Coleman.

Finally, the current wanton destruction of our world, has led to many campaigners struggling for a better world, often facing an uphill battle every day. In this final paragraph, I wish to quote a poem from Hafez, the 14th century Persian philosopher of love, a seeker of wisdom who became a poet of genius, a lover of truth who has transcended the ages. I think this poem will be a source of hope and inspiration to all of us.

Josef to his father in Canaan shall return, don't despair walk on;

And Jacob's hut will brighten with flowers, don't despair walk on.

Aching hearts heal in time, vanished hopes reappear,

The disparate mind will be pacified, don't despair walk on.

As the spring of life grows the newly green meadow,

Roses will crown the sweet nightingale's song, don't despair walk on.

If the world does not turn to your whims these few days,

Ccosmic cycles are preparing to change, don't despair walk on.

If desperation whispers you will never know God,

It's the talk of hidden games in the veil, don't despair walk on.

O heart, when the vast flood slashes life to its roots,

Captain Noah waits to steer you ashore, don't despair walk on.

If you trek as a pilgrim through sands to Kaabeh,

With thorns lodged deep in your soul shouting why, don't despair walk on.

Though oases hide dangers and your destiny's far,

There's no pathway that goes on forever, don't despair walk on.

My trials and enemies face me on their own,

But mystery always backs up my stand, don't despair walk on.

Hafez, weakened by poverty, alone in the dark,

This night is your pathway into the light, don't despair walk on.

*This paper is an edited version of the opening speech delivered at the International Symposium From Terrorism to Global Ethics: Religions & Peace, Moscow, June 7-8, 2005.

**Kamran Mofid was awarded a doctorate in economics from the University of Birmingham in 1986. Since 1980, he has taught university level economics, business studies, international business, and the political economy of the Middle East. In recent years he as developed short courses, seminars, and workshops on economics and theology, the economics of the common good, Muslim-Christian spirituality in the age of globalization, an inter-faith perspective on globalization, and spirituality in business. He takes an interdisciplinary approach to globalization, combing spirituality and inter-faith relations in managing global challenges. In 2002 he founded an annual international conference An Inter-faith Perspective on Globalization for the Common Good”. For more details please see: www.commongood.info