Constantijn de Grote/Constantine the Great

Bart Kok was born in 1959 on the isle of Curaçao in the Caribbean. He was the youngest son of three, his father was a headmaster of the local school for girls.

His youth mainly consisted of swimming and playing in the sun on the beach. Of course there were also shadows, like a heavy operation he had at the age of 1,5 and the experience of being discriminated for being white. When he was nine years old we went back to Holland on account of his oldest brother going to high school. In Holland discrimination worked the other way around: now he was the big mouthed boy with stories about ‘koenoekoe’ (the local name for bush) and ‘kabrieten’ (goats), the only world he knew. So he did what he was good at: he got good grades. And of course he listened to the Beatles. Inspired by the beautiful talent of his brother Tom, he taught himself to play the guitar, dreaming of composing and making hits. In the mean time – after some experience with publicity – he still wants to inspire the world with good vibrations, but he rather lives his live in a quiet sort of way, without all the pressure of the mass media. He attended Gymnasium at the Baarnsch Lyceum. There he first got his fascination with the origin of language. For instance, when someone called him ‘raar’ (strange) he would look it up to find the word derived from ancient Greek ‘raro’ meaning of course ‘ rare’ but also ‘valuable’, and then he would know that indeed he was rare. At the Baarnsch Lyceum also he developed a lasting allergy against pretence and fake.

In 1977 he went to college to study Political Science in Nijmegen. All his teachers tried to dissuade him from it, he was so talented in chemistry and languages but he was adamant: if you want to make this world a better place, you have to get right to the centre of power, he thought then. Soon it became clear to him that al those power games the people around him were playing never got us anywhere except in a mess with a lot of damage. Ever since he has been teaching people to use non-violent communication and synergy as better tools than manipulation and power struggle. For him togetherness is very important, especially the honest search to create and maintain true contact.

What gives him a warm feeling? In the angry sense of the word he can get really steaming hot about the fact that the life expectancy of every human being born in Sierra Leone is only 26 years. And he can get really mad about people only using other people. And of course he absolutely hates to compromise. And disrespect. Leaving people behind without taking care of them. And people who say there will always be war and hunger.
For instance he likes the title of the Jefferson Airplane album ‘Blows against the empire’. That makes him positively warm. Each human being who helps someone without expecting anything in return. Everywhere where people choose for love instead of fear. Where people dare to stand up for their opinions. To realize is his favourite verb both in the sense of becoming conscious of things as in the sense of getting things done. He is glad with every conflict that is seriously dealt with, every war that is embedded in love by the parties involved and dealt with in dialogue. He is glad he is alive!

He has got a strong believe in a non-religious sense. He has seen the effectiveness of the three laws of Shiva. He believes in respect for each individual living being and for life as a whole. He believes in love and forgiving. He has experienced that he can talk with God and that She listens. He believes in genuine contact between people. And, most profoundly, he knows that we are going to take each other seriously in loving contact and in that way we will build a world of harmony for all. ‘We only have to learn a few things, but that’s a piece of cake. You will see.’