Meeting the "other"
Author | : Rieki Crins |
Publisher | : Eburon Uitgeverij B.V. |
Total Pages | : 218 |
Release | : 2008 |
ISBN-10 | : 9789059722613 |
ISBN-13 | : 9059722612 |
Rating | : 4/5 (13 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: Bhutan is unique amongst the small group of nations in the Himalayas. It is peaceful and democratic. Above all, it emphasizes happiness that is not necessarily associated with possession of material goods. It protects the environment by eschewing mass tourism that could trample its fragile land. Bhutan is also known for creating the world's one and only Index of Happiness as a measure of wellbeing for its people, which it prefers over the more materialistic and widely used index of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In 1990, the Bhutanese government invited Western scientists to conduct research in one of Bhutan's most remote villages. Bhutan is a country where spirituality is everywhere, where the logic of the animist/Buddhist religion ordains that life is experienced entirely in the present and where human gender is conceived of as part and parcel of the cosmos. The people of Bhutan identify this experience explicitly as “sustainability.”