> INTERDEPENDENCE DAY

In a world where global interdependence is not simply an aspiration of idealists, but a brute fact of the forces that bind us together— global warming, financial capital, AIDS, telecommunications, crime, migration, and terrorism—many people still think in narrow, insular terms.

Reality is global, but consciousness too often remains local — constrained by town and nation.

In the year 2000, a small group of scholars, civic and political leaders, and artists from a dozen nations met to design a program that might help raise consciousness around the realities and possibilities of interdependence. Their efforts were given impetus by the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and the group created a project that would:

> Make September 12, the day following the memorial of 9/11, an international celebration of interdependence “Interdependence Day”

> Draw up a “Declaration of Interdependence”, making clear that both liberty and security require cooperation among peoples and nations and can no longer be secured by sovereign nations working unilaterally;

> Develop a Civic Interdependence Curriculum that would make interdependence a central concept in Civics and Social Studies programs in middle and high schools in as many schools around the world as possible.

---

Hundreds of people celebrated Interdependence Day in New York City this year, and many more did so in a dozen other locations across the world. In New York we held a major symposium on September 11 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center, hosted by Benjamin Barber and Jacqueline Z. Davis, on "America in an Interdependent World Ten Years After 9/11." A distinguished group of participants, including the Asia Society's Rachel Cooper, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, journalist Laura Flanders, Emmy-winning director of Gasland Josh Fox, Capital Institute founder John Fullerton, renowned feminist author and Professor Carol Gilligan, former Maryland Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, German-American Institute director Jakob Koellhofer, New York Public Library Director Anthony W. Marx, Webby award founder Tiffany Shlain, Moroccan cultural leader Faouzi Skali, television host Tavis Smiley, former New York State Education Commissioner David M. Steiner, Demos President Miles Rapoport and professor and philosopher Cornel West addressed a packed crowd over the course of a day of plenary panels and keynotes. The day concluded with a performance by award-winning Irish musicians Moya Brennan and Cormac de Barra followed by a dinner at the New York Public Library Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, hosted by its director Khalil Gibran Muhammad, another of our keynote speakers.

On September 12, Interdependence Day was celebrated at 3LD Art & Technology Center, located close to Ground Zero, and hosted by 3LD Artistic Director Kevin Cunningham. During the day, world cafe discussions were moderated by Paul Nagle of ICSCS, James Early of the Smithsonian Institution, and Josh Fox. Live webcasts from local celebrations in Montreal, Canada and Memphis, TN were shown to the New York audience. At the formal evening signing of the Declaration of Interdependence, President of Bard College Leon Botstein keynoted, and Dina Hestad, a longtime Interdependence youth movement member spoke movingly about the terrorist attack on young people in Norway over the summer-an event that only strengthened her commitment to interdependence.

The 2011 Interdependence Prize was awarded to Jacqueline Z. Davis for her role as an arts curator, cultural administrator, civic leader and intrepid fighter for interdependence (the prize was designed by world-famous sculptor Sebastian, who was also present). Benjamin Barber presented filmmaker Tiffany Shlain with the inaugural Interdependence Film Award for an Emerging Filmmaker for her feature length film Connected (opening October 14th in New York). Shlain premiered a new globally-crowd sourced film The night ended with a concert of hip-hop and spoken word artists from the U.S. and UK, featuring Rev. Osagyefo Sekou and rapper Speech from the group Arrested Development.

Other celebrations around the world included a symposium at the House of Lords in London, a unique event organized by international steering committee members Lord Bhikhu Parekh and Eileen Woods, a university festival in Melbourne, Australia organized by steering committee member Pera Wells, and concerts and forums in Belgium, Germany, Nepal and Poland as well as Massachusetts, New York state, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.