Waging Peace
Added 16-03-03, revised 29-03-03, 13-04-03
I received this interesting email from SGR forum. It has been on my
mind, and subject of a recent talk at local Fabian Society meeting by
Graham Richard's, who is a professor of the history of psychology, how
come we have had time to protest against war, before it has started. Usually
it starts after a few days or weeks. The joke that the lesson from history
is that you can't learn anything from history, but in this case might be
the reverse of the situation of the first world war which was followed
by a state guilt and the pasivist movement. Following W.W.I 20% of the
population signed the peace pledge union's pledge - This time we are saying
no to war before it has started - a complete reversal.
Despite the special relationship with USA, it is as if the
UK establishment has given us permission to us to say no to war (I don't
need permission actually). Labour party branches and members may be disassociating
from there party leader if were to take our country to war. The more USA
becomes unpopular the more likely it is that other oil producing countries
will follow Iraq's move in 2000 to trade in Euro's instead of US $.
As a Labour town councillor I had thought that the Blair governement's
motive has been to be so extreem that everyone including the right say
no we want more nurses and socialist things. Unfortunately we don't seem
to have consequently got doctors trained up, etc. If it was a gamble that
Blair took to pull Bush back from the brink and go to the UN it failed, but
in doing so for the first time going to war, as you see below has been debated
in public, and support for it does not exist. I have a dream of the UK free
of the special realationship with US and more closely part of Europe peacfully
and politically, as it is already economically.
Andrew Lohmann
:-
Dr. Robert Muller, former assistant secretary general of the United
Nations, now Chancellor emeritus of the University of Peace in Costa
Rica was one of the people who witnessed the founding of the U.N. and
has worked in support of or inside the U.N. ever since. Recently he was
in San Francisco to be honored for his service to the world through the
U.N. and through his writings and teachings for peace. At age eighty,
Dr. Muller surprised, even stunned, many in the audience that day with
his most positive assessment of where the world stands now regarding war
and peace. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm so honored to be here," he said. "I'm so honored to be alive
at such a miraculous time in history. I'm so moved by what's going on
in our world today." Dr. Muller proceeded to say, "Never before in the
history of the world has there been a global, visible, public, viable,
open dialogue and conversation about the very legitimacy of war". The
whole world is in now having this critical and historic dialogue--listening
to all kinds of points of view and positions about going to war or not
going to war. In a huge global public conversation the world is asking-"Is
war legitimate? Is it illegitimate? Is there enough evidence to warrant
an attack? Is there not enough evidence to warrant an attack? What will
be the consequences? The costs? What will happen after a war? How will
this set off other conflicts? What might be peaceful alternatives? What
kind of negotiations are we not thinking of? What are the real intentions
for declaring war?" All of this, he noted, is taking place in the context
of the United Nations Security Council, the body that was established in
1949 for exactly this purpose. He pointed out that it has taken us more
than fifty years to realize that function, the real function of the U.N.
And at this moment in history-- the United Nations is at the center of
the stage. It is the place where these conversations are happening, and
it has become in these last months and weeks, the most powerful governing
body on earth, the most powerful container for the world's effort to wage
peace rather than war. Dr. Muller was almost in tears in recognition of the
fulfillment of this dream. "We are not at war," he kept saying. We, the
world community, are WAGING peace. It is difficult, hard work. It is constant
and we must not let up. It is working and it is an historic milestone of
immense proportions. It has never happened before-never in human history-and
it is happening now-every day every hour-waging peace through a global conversation.
He pointed out that the conversation questioning the validity of going to
war has gone on for hours, days, weeks, months and now more than a year,
and it may go on and on. "We're in peacetime," he kept saying. "Yes, troops
are being moved. Yes, warheads are being lined up. Yes, the aggressor is
angry and upset and spending a billion dollars a day preparing to attack.
But not one shot has been fired. Not one life has been lost. There is no
war. It's all a conversation." It is tense, it is tough, it is challenging,
AND we are in the most significant and potent global conversation and public
dialogue in the history of the world. This has not happened before on this
scale ever before-not before WWI or W.W.II, not before Vietnam or Korea,
this is new and it is a stunning new era of Global listening, speaking, and
responsibility. In the process, he pointed out, new alliances are being
formed. Russia and China on the same side of an issue is an unprecedented
outcome. France and Germany working together to wake up the world to a
new way of seeing the situation. The largest peace demonstrations in the
history of the world are taking place--and we are not at war! Most peace
demonstrations in recent history took place when a war was already waging,
sometimes for years, as in the case of Vietnam. "So this," he said, "is
a miracle. This is what "waging peace " looks like." No matter what happens,
history will record that this is a new era, and that the 21st century has
been initiated with the world in a global dialogue looking deeply, profoundly
and responsibly as a global community at the legitimacy of the actions
of a nation that is desperate to go to war. Through these global peace-waging
efforts, the leaders of that nation are being engaged in further dialogue,
forcing them to rethink, and allowing all nations to participate in the
serious and horrific decision to go to war or not. Dr. Muller also made
reference to a recent New York Times article that pointed out that up until
now there has been just one superpower-the United States, and that that
has created a kind of blindness in the vision of the U.S. But now, Dr.
Muller asserts, there are two superpowers: the United States and the merging,
surging voice of the people of the world. All around the world, people
are waging peace. To Robert Muller, one of the great advocates of the United
Nations, it is nothing short of a miracle and it is working. _______________________________________________
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