HIDROSOLIDARITY

It’s Time for Hydrosolidarity

Budi Widianarko

When it comes to water human seems to suffer from some sort of “split-personality” syndrome. Although in most parts of the world, water has spiritually been regarded as a sacred substance, water pollution has still been escalating everywhere. The manifestation of this syndrome can be observed at population level down to individual level. It is not astonishing to find an individual who spiritually pay respect to water and, at the same time, he or she may deliberately contaminate water their wastes.

It is a common practice to use water for getting rid of impurities, purifying objects for ritual use as well as cleaning a person physically and spiritually. No other substance on earth bears a spiritual meaning as profound as water. For Christianity, water is prominent in initiation rituals. The pouring of clean and fresh water, symbolizing the spirit of God, signifying a new state of spiritual life. In this case, water blesses the human body and is understood as a preparation of an individual before having a spiritual union with God. The purifying quality and energy of water is also essential in Islam as Muslim ritually pure before approaching God in prayer. Water also has a distinctive role in Hinduism because of its spirituality cleansing powers as Hindus strive to accomplish physical and spiritual purity. For indigenous peoples, water is not just sacred, but it is very often even regarded as a form of life.

Sadly, in today’s world the spiritual respect toward water seems do not correspond whatsoever with the way human treat water in their physical life. Many reports show that today’s most pressing world water problems do not necessarily stem from absolute scarcity of the substance. Instead, they spring from the ever-increase quality degradation and distribution disparity of water which are mainly caused by human attitudes and activities. Pollution and claim over ownership of water is clearly an insult to the sacredness of this vital substance.
While the drive for commercialization of water is in its upswing, the prevalence of water pollution is also still rampant. The commercialization of water will potentially disturb people’s access to water, i.e. threatening human water security, whereas pollution will jeopardize the safety and health of human and other living being using the water. In worst cases the river has been referred to as sewer or even a murderer.

Clearly, without major shift in human orientation toward water the following upsetting conditions may reveal or even get worse: (i) approximately 1.1 billion people (17% world population) are without access to proper sources of water; (ii) about 2.4 billion (40%) have no access to improved sanitation sources resulting in 2.2 million people in developing countries, mostly children, die every year from diseases associated with lack of safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene; (iii) by 2025 at least 3.5 billion people or nearly 50% of the world’s population will face water scarcity; (iv) 29 of the world’s river basins with 300 million inhabitants will experience further scarcity; (v) the world’s main source of potable water (more than 90%) i.e. ground water is increasingly threatened with depletion and contamination; (vi) one fifth of the world’s freshwater fishes are either endangered or extinct due partly to pollution of water streams.

The current attitude of human toward water tends to deny the most important aspect of life, i.e. life coexistence. Quoting Rigoberta Menchu, a Peace Nobel Laureate from Guetemala: “Nothing is larger than life coexistence; and water is the core element of it - not only among human but also between human and other living beings in this planet”. If coexistence is the most important aspect of life, it is imperative to promote the value of solidarity. Hydrosolidarity is, thus, has a meaning far beyond the technical term of “water allocation” or “water distribution”. Hydrosolidarity holds spiritual and ethical values which denies full ownership of water – one of the earth’s common resources - by any living being or any human individual.

In other word, hydrosolidarity can be seen as a realization of the spirituality of water or hydrospirituality. Current practices by human in treating water pose a great challenge to hydrospirituality. When legal, economic and technical approaches in water management have proven to be failed, it is natural to assume that spiritual approach should ultimately provide a solid foundation for human-water interaction. Hopefully, with the still prevalent existence of respect toward the spiritual value of water among most of world’s societies there should be ample opportunities for hydrospirituality to take a lead in solving multitude water problems of today.
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Professor of Environmental Toxicology at Soegijapranata Catholic University & Board Member of AMRTA Institute for Water Literacy (widianarko@unika.ac.id)