A rational, reasonable man just cannot wrap his mind around it: the World Economic Forum did not only invite and accommodate and give the floor to shamans from Brazil’s Indians, but it also held a coven with a high priestess!
In one of the panels there were a number of carefully selected participants from different continents, of varied skin colour and different sexes (or genders?) who kept talking for an hour about: humanity in crisis, climate change and climate emergency, (the levers of) system change; about the need to turn the tide of history and transform economies, about acupuncture points (this term will become widespread sooner than you think) that is places where pressure can be most effective, about political and social change, about unlocking human potential, about – yes! yes! – inclusive and sustainable world (these two words just must, must, MUST turn up in each and every speech); about overuse of nature and its resources, about the “journey fuelled by hope”, about embracing challenges and “accepting responsibility without having all the answers”; about women empowerment, about being resource-smart, nature-smart and climate-smart (whatever these term mean); about equity – yes! – and a better future for our children (in this otherwise increasingly childless world). I think you have got sick of these words and terms by now.
Really, everything that every speaker needed to do was to put all those cliché – hackneyed – unoriginal – timeworn – unimaginative – overused – trite – dull words and terms so typical of the newspeak of our time into a cup or bowl, shake it and throw the contents on the table. Just about any resultant arrangement – configuration – constellation of the said words and terms will produce a ready-made text of a speech full of (let us say it again, let it soak in!): climate change, systemic crisis, climate emergency, inclusiveness, hope and respect, a better world in a better future or a better future in a better world and so on, and so forth, long-windedly, more than one can stomach, to the point of queasiness. You will have heard hundreds of speeches and you will have read thousands of texts peppered with strings of such terms for years by now.
The end of this coven was graced by the presence of and sorcery performed by a genuine shamaness from Brazil – one Putany Yawanawá. She performed her mumbo jumbo wizardry, then noisily blew air in a few directions and went on to blow air (Amazon spirits?) into the heads of the honourable participants – Director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva, atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe, CEO of Ingka Group Jesper Brodin, Swiss billionaire André Hoffmann, President of the World Bank Group Ajay Banga, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum Gim Huay Neo – who all showed themselves to be more than happy and grateful for that act of accepting Mother Earth’s spirit (Watch from 1:02:20). One only wonders whether the participants “blessed” with the spirit have ever watched the 1973 American movie “The Exorcist”. Soon they might stand in need of one.
