Sergio L. Zaragoza Dr. Peg Lamphier IGE 221 February 15, 2009 Response #11What is Coexistence?

Coexistence is a problem and a social revolution in the 21st century. I see many cars with bumper stickers advocating religious coexistence, songs entitles Why cant we be friends and such advocating social reform towards coexistence, and on more recently television commercials promoting coexistence between political parties in the United States. Kumar Rupesinghes paper, entitles What is Coexistence? summarizes how this idea of coexistence is the 21st century greatest challenges. He briefly goes over a general definition of coexistence and how Western culture has made advancements towards the goal of coexisting, living together to accept diversity. He goes over the way politics has used this idea of coexistence as a strategy in an order to run their government. The term peaceful coexistence is used as a means to bring about the existence of war in a literal sense and peace in an ideal sense, giving the Soviet Union as the primary example of the embodiment of this idea in which peaceful coexistence spurred on a revolution. Rupesinghe goes on to illustrate how the idea of coexistence has been expanded on an international level, concluding that coexistence between peoples has become vital in the next phase of evolution of civilizations. He goes into detail, taking the problem from a macroscopic level of international policy to a microscopic level communities and individuals, inferring that at the root of the problem coexistence is an issue of personal identity. He argues that the solution therefore not found in diplomatic resolutions but it is education of the future of this world; an

attempt to release the child from the confines of the ethnocentric straightjacket and to awaken him to the existence of other cultures, societies, and ways of life and thought. He concludes by stating that learning to live together a learnt behavior, therefore investing in the education of the future is a solid investment in ensuring a world safe for difference. In agreement with Rupesinghes conclusion that coexistence is the great challenge of the 21st century, my career field is a testament to the evolution of the global community and how we are going to have to learn to coexist to move civilization forward. In Thomas Friedmans book The World is Flat he goes over how technology has enabled us to be a global community in which, specifically, business is now conducted on an international level. Especially for engineers, companies are outsourcing everything now-a-days, from computer chips to aircraft part, and to enable international business a certain level of coexistence between governments, professionals, and lay people has been reached. Even now in college they are teaching us how this global economy is and will affecting the way we view the world in terms of engineering business ethics, standards, and protocol, even down to the system of units we use. I agree with Rupesinghe that education is the key to establishing the foundations of future chance in terms of coexistence, but there is still many other thing to work out on a global scale before that can be achieved because in many countries they dont have the same rights to education as we do in America, and even if they do, whos to stop the government from programming the minds of their youth to think what they want to think according to their political agenda (i.e. Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and China). Education may be the ideal way instituting coexistence, but as The World is Flat shows, its a researched fact that money is the driving force behind what has been entitled the new peaceful coexistence. Economics at the root of this new philosophy were different people help each other in an effort to conduct business and improve their

economy; and as Zinn would agree with me, the leaders of dominant world powers are fine with this because it benefits their pockets. Rupesinghe really puts the idea of coexistence in a modern view, touching upon the ways it relates to the times, but this idea is a transcendent one that will change with the times. As I see it, with the way technology is perpetuating a global community and with positive changes in the way coexistence is being achieved in the United States, especially with the inauguration of Americas first African American president, change in terms of coexistence are happening; some for the betterment of mankind, others still destroying mankind, and others in an effort to redefine the status quo and every level, from political to philosophical, all rooted in economics.