We only hear of conferences being held in other countries…
I presented on the progress we have made in the field of GNH and a person speaks up saying that as an outsider, they hear only of international conferences being held. He says that this gives people a notion that Bhutan is concentrating more on reaching the information on GNH to outsiders forgetting to disseminate these same information to our very own people. He cited the article published recently in Kuensel where the writer said that while we are organizing so many conferences outside, we have not held a single zomdue on GNH in our villages. I will not try to argue but simply put a clarification.
For every one international conference, we have 10 domestic workshops. But for reason unknown, Bhutanese show little interest. When there are workshops in Bhutan, they don’t hear about it, but they perk up their ears and become very attentive when they hear of international conferences being held. For the simple reason that the people all over the world have now realized what barren and uninhabitable earth will become if we go with the same pace and method of development, they now look at GNH as the solution and it is our responsibility to help them understand what GNH is and how it can really be the solution.
Bhutan has rich environment. Culture is intact. We still have family support during our needs. Because we have all these, we forget that we might lose them all if we don’t try to take measures of preserving them now. If we don’t track the progress of our society now, we will never know when it is going down. When all our natural resources are gone, when our family ties are broken, when we are rushing back and forth from work because we need more money, when we have more cars than people, we will be too late. I’m sure when Bhutan becomes a place like that Bhutanese will then realize that we do need something like GNH to measure progress. But will that bring back the happy, peaceful country Bhutan was?
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