Arend van Campen

Dec. 28, 2016 This is an excerpt from my upcoming book ‘Coltan, Congo’s Curse’ Pauline has a chance to address the US President and the United Nations Secretary General on solving global crises such as the one on conflict minerals in Africa. Pauline suddenly realised that a more senior and more powerful audience than today would be impossible and with a nodded encouragement of Erik, she cleared her throat and tried to simplify her answer because this would be one unique chance only. ‘Gentlemen,’ she started, ‘Systems theory or Systems Thinking is science. It is a rather recent, but not a new science of how we see, understand and experience our world. It emerged around the nineteen twenties based on the vision that the whole cannot be understood from the parts alone. We see this world, our earth or planet as a living system where everything on it, the people, the sky, the plants, the water, all, are interconnected and interdependent because only as a complete system it can