By Carol Crenna
A Peaceful Revolution: Interview with Raffi Cavoukian
The popular children’s entertainer takes aim at adults
Although soft spoken and unassuming, Raffi Cavoukian calls himself a troubadour, a change-maker who has globally promoted his cause to the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Al Gore and at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. For his efforts, he has been awarded the Order of Canada, the United Nations’ Earth Achievement Award and two honourary degrees. Raffi is also a popular children’s entertainer, of course, and owns a successful independent record label, selling over 14 million albums worldwide. He has won Geminis, Junos and Grammy nominations, and was called “the most popular children’s entertainer in the western world” by The Washington Post. A true sign that he has penetrated popular culture – Raffi was even spoofed on The Simpsons. Vista spoke to the respected musician, author, public speaker, children’s champion and ecology advocate.
VISTA: Why have you shifted the focus of your career from children to adults?
Raffi: Although it was a privilege to write and perform music for children, it is adults who have the responsibility of making a viable future for this planet. I am gearing my efforts toward those in a position of influence – policy makers, educators and all who make a difference in people’s lives and in the shaping of minds. I feel that we are at a historic juncture in our species’ evolution and I must do what I can to help us get through what Peter Sange called “this dangerous passage.” Many children who grew up singing my songs such as Baby Beluga are now young adults with their own children – I affectionately call them Beluga Grads – and so have the power to create positive change.
VISTA: You’ve met some of the world’s greatest forces for positive change!
Raffi: I have had the opportunity to speak with the Dalai Lama twice in Dharamsala. He was so welcoming, and appreciative of the philosophy that I call child honouring. The Dalai Lama blessed this work by writing the forward to the book Child Honoring: How to Turn This World Around (an anthology co-edited by Raffi) and he also reads a portion of the covenant for this movement along with Jane Goodall on my new CD called Resisto Dancing: Songs of Compassionate Revolution. (The new docu-DVD Raffi Renaissance includes Raffi and the Dalai Lama in conversation.) Al Gore recently welcomed me like an old friend with a big bear hug before his Canadian guest lecture and then stayed to hear me sing Colt It at the event.
VISTA: You’re spreading a “compassionate revolution” to promote child honouring – a term that you coined. Why?
Raffi: “Compassionate revolution” means a completely nonviolent “turning” in which the youngest among us is at the heart. Every culture and faith has newborns whose brains and bodies grow in exactly the same way, which is a unifying principal. In joining this revolution, I ask people to take some deep reflection and then, if so moved, to embrace the “covenant” for honouring children – nine principles including respectful love, nonviolence, ethical commerce, honouring diversity, and conscious parenting. (The covenant and tips on how to do your part are free on Raffi’s website.)
VISTA: Could you discuss child honouring steps in a practical way for parents?
Raffi: Child honouring asks parents to respect their child’s personhood as their own. Kahill Gibran wrote in The Prophet, “Your children are not your children. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.” In that spirit, consider that your child is not an extension of yourself; it is a being with their own ideas and their own purpose for their time on this planet. Therefore you must hold them with respect. The covenant offers “action goals” which include nonviolence – no hitting and no emotional abuse. It is the respectful experience of the early years that makes a human being capable of making the right choices and becoming a productive citizen in adult life, and even a peacemaker in the world.
VISTA: What was your personal inspiration and motivation for developing this? Do you have children?
Raffi: I learned respect for children through the woman I was married to for 13 years who was a very compassionate kindergarten teacher. She opened my eyes to the world of children as legitimate beings in and of themselves. I knew nothing about children before this, and my career ended up being built around them. Early one Sunday morning I bolted upright in bed and the phrase “child honouring” came to me and I knew in that moment that this philosophy would be the rest of my life’s work. My two major themes are children and ecology —infants are most susceptible to planetary conditions, because their body systems aren’t developed, in addition to being the most vulnerable to cultural values. I don’t have children, and never felt the need to have my own. But I come by my profession honestly because my father was a musician and my mother was a storyteller.
VISTA: You’ve refused commercial endorsements and your company doesn’t market to children because you’re “an advocate for a child’s right to live free of exploitation.” How can we stop this when it bombards children every minute, from MacDonald’s signs to TV ads?
Raffi: We all have choices, and I’ve made choices in my career. But hockey players have those choices, too; they don’t have to sell junk food. Parents should understand that children don’t need television to do well and, in fact, it is not a friend to a young child. (The American Pediatric Association advises against television for children under two.) It is absolutely critical that we call for a ban on advertising and direct marketing to kids. Quebec and some Scandinavian countries have a television advertising ban to children in effect. Since it’s not ethical to allow the exploitation of this young innocent mind, I am calling to make the unethical illegal. I often speak to policy makers about this, and entice others to write to elected representatives and to companies producing the advertising stating that children deserve a commercial-free childhood. Though marketing companies work on ways to brand children almost from birth, my position is clear: our children are not for sale. We need to change the predatory corporate culture.
VISTA: Do you feel childcare has improved?
Raffi: The growth in our culture of caring, supportive males has improved it, though economic conditions force both parents to work outside the home. There is more understanding that the early years (to age five) are the formative experience for a lifetime’s behaviour, which has influenced our culture — the Dalai Lama promotes that human values begin before birth and talks about the “conscious pregnancy.” The United Nations has now created a convention on the rights of a child, and all but two countries have signed.
VISTA: On your DVD, David Suzuki sings Cool It, your song about “cooling” the planet, with you. What are your thoughts on the environment?
Raffi: He even dances with me to it! We need to be proactive, and anyone in business knows what that means – to head off trouble before it hits. One example of a proactive choice: I invite every business including your magazine to use eco-friendly paper. Consider switching from paper pulp bleached with chlorine, a highly polluting process, to hydrogen peroxide bleached paper which is benign, and also to use recycled paper. The State of Vermont has become chlorine bleach-free in its paper use.
VISTA: Do you have a healthy lifestyle?
Raffi: I am a lacto-ovo semi-vegetarian! I don’t eat meat, but I eat fish. In 1980, I was first introduced to the health issues surrounding food through yoga and in reading Diet for a Small Planet. Eating low on the food chain is good for our bodies and our planet. I eat organic local food as much as possible; there are several organic growers here on Mayne Island in BC.
VISTA: It must be an idyllic island lifestyle.
Raffi: The air is so clean here. It is the beauty of the island and its people who value the simple things that make life joyful.
VISTA: What vision do you have for your future?
Raffi: We live in a time where we have the opportunity to move society from a bottom line economics system to a triple bottom line commerce system that respects communities and ecosystems. And moving toward this child-friendly world excites me. I want to sing and speak this “compassionate revolution” into being.
Carol Crenna
Carol has been a lifestyles journalist for 20 years. She is also a certified nutritionalist. She has written for publications in New York, San Diego, Seattle, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver, including nine years as columnist for The Vancouver Sun. Carol would love to hear from you!
