The Long Happenstance of Iceland and Copenhagen
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/09
My first trip to Europe was in 2019 between late May and early June to Iceland for the General Assembly of Humanists International. The central goal was to meet with the international humanist community, who I had, recently, been introduced to and made a significantly positive impression. I was on the Board of Humanist Canada, involved with the Centre for Inquiry Canada, Secretary-General (previously treasurer and vice president, separately) of Young Humanists International, an Editor and Contributor to Humanist Voices, and many more initiatives. I was captivated by the warmth of the humanist community, especially in the adherence to a singular life perspective. Life is here; we have one: so, you best make good use of it, doing more good than bad.
Wherein, even though, we have many more years than other primates or most other mammals. Life is still finite. And in the vast expanse of cosmic time, even biosphere time, we’re nary a blink of time. A sort of froth on the surface of an ordinary rock with an ordinary satellite with an ordinary nuclear furnace in an ordinary galaxy among billions of its brethren. That’s, by this point, trite in humanist circles and some common culture contexts now. It wasn’t at one point. That’s a sign of progress. Yet, there we were, jolly ol’ Iceland was time to reflect, to meet, to grow, to see the common visions if not common targeted objectives of a community of the non-theist: atheists, agnostics, humanists, and the like.
I arrived home much better informed and acquainted with the humanist cause(s) and the formal humanist communities from every region in the world. Yet, I was an ordinary Canadian coming from an alcoholic home and a lower-income – relative to Canada – family. I still had some student debt and needed to have more income generation with involvement in the humanist community, as the humanist cause and youth activism does not come with pay, often. I chose to work in some local restaurants, in Fort Langley, which is a National Historic Site in the Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada. The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world, rather rapidly.
I remember one Jewish boss – I’ve had a large number of Jewish bosses and collaborators, thinking about it – asking as the pandemic started, “Is this going to be an issue?” I paused, recalled some information about the previous, recent and historic, pandemics faced by various civilizations and regions. I replied, “Oh, yeah.” I was right, especially when I didn’t want to be right.
Everyone was warned millions would die without vaccinations, masks of sufficient particulate filtration, social distancing, and the like. Not a ubiquitous ear from large swathes of humanity. There was plenty of valiant mobilization with one of the first opportunities in the world to act against a common microscopic enemy across boundaries. What happened? Millions died, and vulnerable populations. Those most vulnerable to the impacts of such a pandemic were killed in larger numbers than other populations. This seemed like another time as humanists to reflect.
In my experience, many humanist oriented individuals understand a sense of the passing time: temporality, temporal finitude, it becomes both ontological fact of being for them and existential moral epistemology; it’s both an acceptance of being, as such, in the former, and then the feeling of sentiments in relation to this being as a way of knowing in body and mind. In a sense, their sensibility or consciousness towards the universe comes as a simultaneous intellectual acceptance of a morally neutral cosmos and the sentiments of this reverberated in an embodied mind. The body becomes sounding board. We feel how we think. That’s a feeling on global pandemics or on personal issues needing solving.
I set a time limit to pay off the student debt of, and begin having some savings after, 2 years. This was accomplished. I was in 4 restaurants 7 days per week with janitorial work 2 nights per week by the end of it. All writing and activist work around that, day and night. This has been the pervasive work schedule as far back as I can remember. Then I decided to make a switch to another project in the horse industry with this accomplished. Within two weeks, I was out of this restaurant industry and then into the horse industry. Independent journalistic and activist work continued from this time.
With some more financial footing, and the Covid pandemic cooling down, I had some more flexibility with work, though still 7 days per week at an equestrian facility, and monies. I wanted to meet everyone in person, again, especially with more progress on the writing front, on newer independent projects, expanding, and then working on some interbelief activities too, and the co-foundation of some important and intriguing projects.
One was Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) by Dr. Leo Igwe as I was there at the start and began republishing articles, getting the website running and then the web administration for maintenance, and then incorporating his articles in experimental publications, e.g., African Freethinker. The targeted objective for AfAW for 2020-2030 is the elimination of witchcraft allegations, beliefs, and superstitions in Africa by the end of the decade.
The other was with a Muslim cosmologist and professor in Canada, Mir Faizal. We founded the Canadian Quantum Research Centre apart from Academia, or CQRC. Both Igwe and Faizal have been remarkable collaborators and self-starters in the work for advancement of humanistic causes. It has a reasonable start for citations, has a team of researchers, and has been going for several years now. I began other first of their kind humanist projects too. Then I wanted to connect with the global humanist community in person again.
The next General Assembly for Humanists International was special. In that, 2023 was a special year for the global humanist community with the inclusion of the first World Congress since 2014, 9 years. I was looking for a place to stay while in Copenhagen and ended up being a roommate with a Metis humanist colleague in his 70s, Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson. A prominent Metis doctoral counselling psychologist and humanist in Canada. It was August 1-7, 2023. The first people who I greeted upon arrival in Denmark were talented activist and intellectual Dr. Igwe and the gifted artist and aesthetic campaigner Victoria Gugenheim.
In my time there, I had some specific goals to reacquaint with everyone, as well as conduct some interviews. Also, I’m a person who enjoys the pleasures life has to offer too. I work fast and independently, though, and continue for extended periods. So, I can go to numerous establishments in one clip while going home to conduct interviews, write articles, or transcribe and edit written productions as necessary. All for the causes.
So, I took some time out to explore the city, the nightlife, the dance establishments, the art, and the global humanist community who joined us. It’s a striking city, even on an ethnic heritage level, where I have some Danish heritage on my father’s father’s side, my grandfather’s side. There’s a distinct impression of an older city than Township of Langley or Canadian society in general. European cities in general are, as a matter of historical fact, longer lived. I would meet with one group here, another there, and get on with the harder work of professional life too. There are an enormous number of demands on me 24/7. I don’t speak of them much. I am reminded of the conference of the Canadian Association of Journalists in a similar manner to the General Assembly of Humanists International, where the Canadian Association of Journalists provides great return on investment for the finances and membership. Humanists International does much the same.
This, in my experience with organizations, is not the norm. By the end of the conference, there were two keynote speakers. One was Remus Cernea who has done a tremendous amount for the humanist community in Romania and the other was Oleksandra Romantsova who has accomplished a lot through the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. The former in founding the Romanian humanist movement more or less, being a president of a political party, being a Member of Parliament in Romania, and, now, an accomplished war correspondent for Newsweek Romania, currently (in the lattermost). The latter seeing the need to document rights abuses in Ukraine and create a position for herself, amazingly, through sheer determination and hard work, and being the Executive Director of the Center for Civil Liberties winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, which was a first for Ukraine.
I conducted interviews with both of them and was pitched to join Remus in a trip to Ukraine to work on human rights work there. That’s a tantalizing prospect, especially as a person with a desire to test limits, and boundaries, explore new territory and culture – and with the equestrian project, at least nationally, coming more to a close. Heading home from Copenhagen, this closed off the reunion with humanists, opening a new chapter into journalistic work – planning for the first big transition to an indefinite period of work in a war zone, Ukrainian territory. Something I’d promised myself against, but something I needed.
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