AUTHOR AND PROJECT DIRECTOR: Dr. Robert Muller
CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR AND PROJECT COORDINATOR: Barbara
Gaughen-Muller
COVER DESIGN: Jennifer Kubel
DESIGN AND LAYOUT: Wanda Dove and Carolyn Hawkins
Copyright © August, 1997
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WE MUSTSee the world with global eyes. |
WE MUST ACHIEVEOur own inner harmony |
Robert Muller and I are a Cosmic Couple, because we are demonstrating a cosmic consciousness, a spiritual psychology and we make it known to everyone we meet and in public lectures.
WE consciously develop our intuition and we use clear lines of communication:
between ourselves and God
between ourselves and our souls
between ourselves and each other
between ourselves and the people we love and know
between ourselves and the public
Thus our lives are bright and lightened as if the sun is always shining, lifting us from ourselves to the Universal Ideal, persevering, sharing, offering opportunity and enabling others and ourselves to be responsible for the evolution of this Earth through the enunciation of truth and love.
Within a few weeks of letting this be known we received the following testimonies:
First two citizens of the Earth. You run the command center for Planet Earth. -Zulma Barrios, Vice-President Gallup Corp
You bless each other, and together you bless us all. -Kay Gilley
You both are like radiant jewels of universal consciousness reflecting light and love to all living beings. -Lily
Barbara, you and Robert are a wonderful role model for the 21st Century World Citizens that I would hope we all become. Thank you for your commitment and your tireless work in making that hope a reality. -Kay Gilley
I am happy to be around the immense radiance which the two of you produce together. I experience JOYOUSNESS just being with the two of you. Two sweet "honey-pies-straight-from-Heaven" absolutely and totally GIVING hearts which you two, the Cosmic Couple display. -Gloria Crook
Your love is a manifestation of forces operating on the planet and is very sacred. -Avon Mattison, Pathways to Peace
I love you! Your work is outstanding. A genuine light in a previous darkness. -Lynn Durnell
We are blessed to have the "Cosmic Couple" working for humanity. I appreciate having a living example of two wonderful people in a sacred relationship. - Jeff Hunter
Dear Cosmic Couple, We need you two to protect this planet and humanity too. May God bless you with boundless energy and help you our leaders to be. We will follow you into eternity. Just let us know where you will be. -Lola Kristoff
Dear Cosmic Couple, Celebrate life, to be the happiest husband and wife. -Lola Kristoff
The primary cause of all disorders lies in the different state governments and in the tenacity of that power which pervades the whole of their systems. (Applicable to the nation-states of today.) -George Washington
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. -Franklin Roosevelt
There is one thing stronger than all the armies, powers and wealth in the world and this is an idea whose time has come. Today this idea is the absolute necessity to save the Earth. -Victor Hugo, updated by Robert Muller
The age of the leaders has come and gone. Every human must be his/her own leader now. You must remove your projection, and contain the spirit of our time in your own life and your own nature, because to go the old way and follow your leader is a form of psychological imprisonment. -Sir Laurens van der Post
There are no boundaries in the real Planet Earth. No United States, no Russia, no China, no Taiwan. Rivers flow unimpeded across the swaths of continents. The persistent tides - the pulse of the sea - do not discriminate; they push against all the varied shores on Earth.-Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Oceanographer
We are facing problems that transcend nations. When we talk about the greenhouse effect, we are talking about something that affects not just the United States or Brazil but the entire planet. -Isaac Asimov
Humankind's desire for peace can be realized only by the creation of a world government. -Albert Einstein
It will certainly not be easy to awaken in people a new sense of responsibility for the world, an ability to conduct themselves as if they were to live on this earth forever, and to be held answerable for its condition one day. -Václav Havel
Most humans still think that nature's law is the survival of the fittest. Today's nature's law is adaptation to the environment and survival of the Earth -Robert Muller
Images of truth, which you call ideas, rule the Karma of the world. While the masses of people decay in the fury of ignorance, thoughts of truth weave their heavenly nests, which for the true evolution are more imperative than the worship of entire nations. -source unknown
As the meditator begins to demonstrate soul quality in his daily life, he becomes a magnet for spiritual ideas. He attracts into his field of consciousness the outlines, and later the details of the hierarchical Plan. These impressions he need not seek out nor learn laboriously to ascertain. They drop into his mind and are impressed upon his brain when he sees and loves and serves by the Light of the Soul. -source unknown
The work you have to do is to take the knowledge which is yours and adjust its application to the world's need so that recognition of the truth may be rapid. In the heart of every human being lies hid the flower of the intuition. On that you can depend, and no eternal or cosmic fact clothed in a suitable form will fail to receive its need of recognition and understanding. -source unknown
We have a multitude of dreams, ideas, projects and plans for ourselves, our family, our community, our profession, our corporation, our nation, but we begin only to have major concerns and ideas for our beautiful, perishable Earth, our home, and for the long term fate of humanity.
Please, dear readers, especially young
people, think, dream and plan far ahead. -Robert Muller
For winning the Second World War
Winston Churchill said:Never,
Never, never
give up.
For winning a well-preserved, beautiful planet and the survival of the human race
We must say:Never
Never, never
give up- Robert Muller
THE SIXTH ONE HUNDRED IDEAS, (Ideas 501 to 600),
INTRODUCTION
WHEN IN THE COURSE OF HISTORY the threat of extinction confronts humankind, it is necessary for the people of The United States to declare their interdependence with the people of all nations and to embrace those principles and build those institutions which will enable humankind to survive and civilization to flourish.
Two centuries ago our forefathers brought forth a new nation: now we must join with others to bring forth a new world order. On this historic occasion it is proper that the American people should reaffirm those principles on which the United States of America was founded, acknowledge the new crises which confront them, accept the new obligations which history imposes upon them, and set forth the causes which impel them to affirm before all peoples their commitment to a Declaration of Interdependence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all human are created equal: that the inequalities and injustices which afflict so much of the human race are the product of history and society, not of God or nature, that people everywhere are entitled to the blessings of life and liberty, peace and security and the realization of their full potential: that they have an inescapable moral obligation to preserve those rights for posterity: and that to achieve these ends all the peoples and nations of the globe should acknowledge their interdependence and join together to dedicate their minds and their hearts to the solution of those problems which threaten their survival.
To establish a new world order of compassion, peace, justice and security, it is essential that humankind free itself from the limitations of national prejudice, and acknowledge that the forces that unite it are incomparably deeper than those that divide it - that all people are part of one global community, dependent on one body of resources, bound together by the ties of a common humanity and associated in a common adventure on the planet Earth.
Let us then join together to vindicate and realize this great truth that humankind is one, and as one will nobly save or irreparably lose the heritage of thousands of years of civilization. And let us set forth the principles which should animate and inspire us if our civilization is to survive.
WE AFFIRM that the resources of the globe are finite, not infinite, that they are the heritage of no one nation or generation, but of all peoples, nations and of posterity, and that our deepest obligation is to transmit to that posterity a planet richer in material bounty, in beauty and in delight than we found it. Narrow notions of national sovereignty must not be permitted to curtail that obligation.
WE AFFIRM that the exploitation of the poor by the rich, and the weak by the strong violates our common humanity and denies to large segments of society the blessings of life, liberty and happiness. We recognize a moral obligation to strive for a more prudent and more equitable sharing of the resources of the earth in order to ameliorate poverty, hunger and disease.
*This Declaration was promulgated on 24 October 1975, United Nations Day, by the Philadelphia World Affairs Council in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, in the presence of the UN Secretary General and all heads of the UN specialized agencies.
WE AFFIRM that the resources of nature are sufficient to nourish and sustain all the present inhabitants of the globe and that there is an obligation on every society to distribute those resources equitably, along with corollary obligation upon every society to assure that its population does not place upon Nature a burden heavier than it can bear.
WE AFFIRM our responsibility to help create conditions which will make for peace and security and to build more effective machinery for keeping peace among the nations. Because the insensate accumulation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons threatens the survival of humankind we call for the immediate reduction and eventual elimination of these weapons under international supervision. We deplore the reliance on force to settle disputes between nation states and between rival groups within such states.
WE AFFIRM that the oceans are the common property of humankind whose dependence on their incomparable resources of nourishment and strength will, in the next century become crucial for human survival, and that their exploitation should be so regulated as to serve the interests of the entire globe, and of future generations.
WE AFFIRM that pollution flows with the waters and flies with the winds, that it recognizes no boundary lines and penetrates all defenses, that it works irreparable damage alike to Nature and to humankind - threatening with extinction the life of the seas, the flora and the fauna of the earth, the health of the people in cities and the countryside alike - and that it can be adequately controlled only through international cooperation.
WE AFFIRM that the exploration and utilization of outer space is a matter equally important to all the nations of the globe and that no nation can be permitted to exploit or develop the potentialities of the planetary system exclusively for its own benefit.
WE AFFIRM that the economy of all nations is a seamless web, and that no one nation can any longer effectively maintain its processes of production and monetary systems without recognizing the necessity for collaborative regulation by international authorities.
WE AFFIRM that the civilized society, the institutions of science and the arts are never at war and call upon all nations to exempt these institutions from the claims of chauvinistic nationalism and to foster that great community of learning and creativity whose benign function it is to advance civilization and the health and happiness of humankind.
WE AFFIRM that a world without law is a world without order, and we call upon all nations to strengthen and to sustain the United Nations and its specialized agencies, and other institutions of world order, and to broaden the jurisdiction of the World Court, that these may preside over a reign of law that will not only end wars but end as well that mindless violence which terrorizes our society even in times of peace.
WE can no longer afford to make little plans, allow ourselves to be the captives of events and forces over which we have no control, consult our fears rather than our hopes. We call upon the American people, on the threshold of the third century of their national existence, to display once again that boldness, enterprise, magnanimity and vision which enabled the founders of our Republic to bring forth a new nation and inaugurate a new era in human history. The fate of humanity hangs in the balance. Throughout the globe, hearts and hopes wait upon us. We summon all humankind to untie to meet the great challenge.
- Henry Steele Commanger, 24 October 1975
I see humanity's transformation unfold along the following paths:
And God saw that all nations of the Earth, black and white, poor and rich, from North and South, from East and West, and of all creeds were sending their emissaries to a tall glass house on the shores of the River of the Rising Sun, on the Island of Manhattan, to study together, to think together and to care together for the world and all its people.
And God said: that is good.
And it was the first day of the New Age of the Earth.
And God saw that soldiers of peace were separating the combatants of quarreling nations, that differences were being resolved by negotiation and reason instead of arms, and that the leaders of nations were seeing each other, talking to each other and joining their hearts, minds, souls and strength for the benefit of all humanity.
And God said: that is good.
And it was the second day of the Planet of Peace.
And God saw that humans were loving the whole Creation, the stars and the sun, the day and the night, the air and the oceans, the earth and the waters, the fishes and the fowl, the flowers and the herbs, and all their human brethren and sisters.
And God said: That is good
And it was the third day of the Revered, Happy Planet.
And God saw that humans were suppressing hunger, disease, ignorance and suffering all over the globe, providing each human person with a decent, conscious and happy life, and reducing the greed, the power and the wealth of the few.
And God said: that is good.
And it was the fourth day of the Planet of Justice.
And God saw that humans were living in harmony with their planet and in peace with one another, wisely managing their resources, avoiding waste, curbing excesses, replacing hatred with love, greed with contentment, arrogance with humility, division with cooperation, and mistrust with understanding.
And God said: that is good.
And it was the fifth day of the Golden Planet.
And God saw that people were destroying their arms, bombs, missiles, warships and warplanes, dismantling their bases and disbanding their armies, keeping only policemen of peace to protect the good from the bad and the normal from the mad.
And God said: that is good
And it was the sixth day of the Planet of Reason.
And God saw humans restore God and the human person as the Alpha and Omega, reducing institutions, beliefs, politics, governments and all human entities to mere servants of God, of the Earth and of the people. And God saw them adopt as their supreme law: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these'
And God said: that is good.
And it was the seventh day of the Planet of God.
- Robert Muller
PART II, THE SEVENTH ONE HUNDRED IDEAS (Ideas 601 to 700),
INTRODUCTION
Statement to the US/Gorbachev Forum on the State of the World in San Francisco, September 1995
We must aim at the ideal of a non-violent, peaceful civilization in the 21st century and third millennium
In brief, we need urgently a comprehensive science, strategy and methodology of non-violent resolution of conflicts and peace and a political will at the highest level for a peaceful and non-violent civilization in the 21st century and third millennium. -Robert Muller
We are constantly astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamt and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of non-violence. -Mahatma Gandhi
1. Science, religion and art should not claim to hold the ultimate truth and denigrate each other. They are all three fundamental ways to find the truth of the human journey on this planet in the universe. A convergence of the three is beginning to take place and should be fostered.
2. The plan actively under way to create a United Religions in San Francisco, the birthplace of the United Nations, is to be strongly supported.
3. The decision by the State of the World Forum in San Francisco to take world ethics as its first and main item at its autumn meeting in the fall of this year should be supported.
4. It is suggested that thirty years after the holding of the first world biosphere conference by UNESCO in 1968, a second such conference should be held before the year 2000.
5. The United Nations General Assembly should decide that a world-wide celebration of the year 2000 should be held, preceded by an unprecedented stock-taking of our successes, failures, problems and next objectives and visions of our successful further evolution in the 21st century and third millennium.
6. A World Conference should be held on a new economics.
7. Not just business, but all professions should include planet-wide components.
8. Further "World Commissions" of Eminent Personalities should be created:
9. The first of January of each year should be proclaimed Planetary Consciousness Day.
10. In the footsteps of the creation of a Vice-Presidency for Global Affairs in the United States, each Government should create a Ministry of Planetary Affairs.
11. The word "planetics" should be given greater use, replacing in many instances the word "politics" (from the Greek polis, city).
12. A World Conference of long term evolutionary scientists and thinkers should be held to enlighten the way of our further evolution. A world association of such scientists should be created.
13. The United Nations and its agencies should strengthen their role and reporting on the implementation of planetary recommendations.
14. The United Nations and its agencies should transform their mere information activities into active public relations and communications reaching the grass-roots level of society. Consideration should be given to the creation of a UN Planetary Information and Public Relations Agency.
15. A World Conference should be held or a World Commission created on the role of the media and of advertisement.
16. The world media should give planetary news and views. Planet conscious media should be developed.
17. The International Radio for Peace of the University for Peace should become a Planetary Radio and a Planetary Television Station and a network should be created.
18. All media of the planet should be held as responsible educators and should use the framework for world media coverage derived from UN experience (published in the first 500 ideas).
19. A planet-conscious education should be developed and recommended by UNESCO's World Commission on Education in the 21st century.
20. Planetary Universities should be created. All universities and their departments should include planet-wide studies and concerns.
21. The University for Peace should become a university for heads of states and planetary leadership.
22. The world core curriculum derived from UN experience should be considered for all schools of the planet (published in the first 500 ideas).
23. A World Commission should be created on simple and more frugal, planet-conscious ways of living.
24. The United Nations and its agencies should use the potentialities of art and music to convey their messages and recommendations to the peoples of the world. UNESCO should actively advise the UN system on this matter.
25. The beneficial effects of a planetary consciousness on psychology, peace, happiness, and planet-conscious actions and activities of individuals should become an important world subject.
PART III, THE EIGHTH ONE HUNDRED IDEAS (Ideas 701 to 800),
INTRODUCTION
The concept of "intervention" usually has a bad connotation. We tend to think of Vietnam or Afghanistan, where a superpower applied brute force to try to impose what it believed was best for the people of another county, without letting those people decide for themselves what they really wanted.
Humanitarian intervention is something entirely different. It means to respond to urgent calls for help from people who suffer from gross injustice and are unable to protect themselves. A good example of such a peaceful outside intervention was the conduct of elections in Namibia under UN auspices, leading to an end of the long civil war and independence in 1990.
We are often led to believe that there are only two alternatives: taking sides and an active part in other people's conflicts by projecting military power around the world, or retreating into isolationism, ignoring what is happening around the world, at our own peril. US isolationism, after the Senate refused to join the League of Nations, has been blamed for Hitler's rise to power. Therefore, military interventions are portrayed as necessary from time to time.
This is a false choice. There is a far better third alternative: playing an active, but purely peaceful role around the world, helping people in need, at their own request. In the face of great injustice, the cruelest thing to do may be to do nothing.
In 1859, Henri Dunant, a businessman from Geneva, helped care for the wounded during the battle of Solferino in Northern Italy. He felt so much compassion for the victims of the war that five years later he founded the Red Cross. Since then, volunteers of the Red Cross and Red Crescent have saved countless lives all over the world.
Unfortunately, modern weapons and political leaders' folly have kept up the race with these brave volunteers, and brought wars of increasing devastation. Civilians have become the majority among the victims of war. Today, the time has come to go one step further and seek to help prevent wars before they even break out.
A decade ago, Robert Muller - a former Assistant Secretary General of the UN and now Chancellor of the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica - and his wife visited their daughter Solange, a child nutritionist, who was running a camp for 8,000 Salvadoran refugees in Honduras. The entire staff consisted of about fifty volunteers - doctors, nurses, teachers, carpenters and others - from many nationalities, all under the age of 30. Solange was in charge of protecting the refugees from the Honduran military, which was in collusion with the Salvadoran military that had driven those refugees out of their country. If the Honduran officers had faced a man, or even armed force, they would have flaunted their machismo and had their way. But facing an apparently defenseless yet undaunted young woman, they often gave up their persecution of refugees.
One evening, Robert Muller sat in a circle with these young volunteers and asked them what they wished most. "We want nothing for ourselves," they said, "But we wish we had some official recognition from the UN as a protection against arbitrary arrest and expulsion, and some more volunteers so we could care better for the refugees." This led him to develop a proposal for a Global Peace Service, in which young people from around the world could volunteer a year to help solve global problems of preventing war, caring for refugees, alleviating poverty, saving the environment, and protecting human rights. Ideally, they should be allowed this option in place of military service; several governments have already done so.
The UN Volunteer Service, which is not well publicized, receives each year over 60,000 applications from people willing to work without salary for various UN agencies such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Health Organization, the UN Environment Program, the UN Development program and others. But because of financial limitations, it can accept only about 2,000 per year.
Thousands more idealistic young people would enthusiastically volunteer their time to help solve some of the global problems we face. Giving them such an opportunity would have three advantages; It would promote friendships around the world and improve international understanding. It would increase the human resources available to the UN. And it would help solve many pressing global problems.
If young people from around the world can work together on joint projects, they begin friendships that last a lifetime and that can later help overcome misunderstandings and tensions among nations. They also get to know different cultures, and this can be an eye-opener. They can not only teach, but also learn. It is no coincidence, for example, that Alexander Yakovlev, one of Gorbachev's closest advisers and a key architect of perestroika was in the first group of Russian students who came to the US on an exchange program in 1956-1957, when he spent a year at Columbia University in New York.
A Global Peace Service could help the UN accomplish much more with its limited resources. The late Jan Tinbergen, co-recipient of the first Nobel Prize in Economics, estimated that about 70% of all decisions, measured by size of budget, are made at the level of individuals or households, 15% at the level of local governments, and 15% at the level of national governments. He estimated that about 3% would be needed at the global level, to deal with problems of peacekeeping, development and protection of the global environment that no nation can solve by itself. At present, the budget of the UN and all its affiliated organizations is only about 1/30 of 1% of the gross world product, or one hundredth of what Tinbergen estimated as needed.
About 20 years ago, John Platt pointed out that most people devote their time to solving problems that affect an individual or a family for a few days. Much fewer spend their time worrying about problems that affect a community, or a whole nation, for months or years. And only a minuscule portion of all people work on problems that affect all of humanity for a generation or two. That extreme imbalance needs a correction, and the Global Peace Service would offer a good opportunity to do so.
The volunteer work of these young people could help solve many problems, promoting peace, health, development, ecological balance and human rights. Many international and national voluntary organizations already do a great deal to address global problems, but if a Global Peace Service were established by the international community, these opportunities for volunteer work could enlist many more participants, receive better funding and greater publicity, and individuals who now often work in isolation could join forces in a mutually supportive network.
The following examples constitute only a very partial list of actions for peace that are currently being taken, but they suggest the kind of work members of a Global Peace Service could perform. For instance, one of the World Health Organization's greatest successes so far has been to eradicate smallpox, which used to kill millions each year. This entire campaign, which relied on many volunteer health workers who inoculated everyone in affected areas, cost only $80 million, or less than 5% of the price of a single stealth bomber. Funding was finally made available when physicians could show to the governments of the industrially advanced countries that they spent more each year vainly trying to keep smallpox away from their borders - because of the constant threat that infected travelers might reintroduce it - than it would cost to eradicate it completely around the globe, once and for all.
Similarly, many volunteers are needed to help reduce infant mortality. Paradoxically, doing so would also help slow population growth, because when parents have greater assurance that their children will survive to support them during old age, they tend to have fewer children. UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, is promoting oral rehydration, a simple method to treat children with diarrhea that could save an estimated four million lives each year, but it needs more personnel to spread this information. For $1.50, it is possible to immunize a child against the six major fatal childhood diseases, from which about three million children under age five die each year. This would cost only about $180 million to protect the 120 million children born each year throughout the world, in rich and poor countries alike, or a tiny fraction of the $1 trillion the world spends each year for military purposes.
Volunteers could also serve as monitors, who observe what is happening and publicize violations of accepted norms. Voluntary organizations such as Greenpeace do much to protect the global environment by exposing glaring abuses. Amnesty International helps advance human rights by exposing cases of people who are imprisoned solely for their beliefs, tortured, or murdered. A newly formed organization, Transparency International, helps fight corruption by exposing blatant cases, and by advising governments who seek to reduce corruption on the best ways to do so. This is a precondition for economic development. As long as it is easier to get rich by controlling the army and the police than by producing goods that people wish to buy, the most enterprising people plot military coups instead of invest in economic development.
Bringing abuses into the open helps eliminate them and makes the world a better place, in the same way as white blood cells in our body constantly search for disease germs and eliminate them before they multiply and spread. A Global Peace Service can play a similar role for the world, looking for ills and correcting them, wherever they may be found.
The organization Witness for Peace was able to prevent an invasion of Nicaragua with 3,000 unarmed foreign volunteers who stayed near the border, ready to report to the world what they saw if an invasion had come. Members of Peace Brigades International accompany labor leaders and other targets of violence in strife-torn countries to guarantee their safety. Cameras offer better protection than guns. Often, the mere presence of outside observers can discourage violence.
For example, when the Philippine army bombarded some villages on the island of Negros in pursuit of members of the New People's Army, the villagers, mostly women and children, fled to a nearby church. Members of a death squad threatened them all with death unless they left within three days. But they had nowhere else to go. David Hartsaugh of "Peace Workers International," who happened to be present, faxed church leaders around the world asking them to come to the scene. Within two days, 25 church leaders arrived, with a trail of journalists and TV reporters. Needless to say, the attack never came.
Mediation and conflict resolution provide additional techniques that volunteers can use to make an amazing difference in helping prevent war, especially if they are used early, before fighting breaks out; Terje Larsen, a Norwegian professor who studied the living conditions in Palestinian refugee camps, had friends both among Israelis and Palestinians. He was able to bring them together for talks, outside the glare of television cameras, which finally led to the peace agreement signed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat in Washington in September 1993.
Allen H. Kassoff, Livia B. Plaks and Larry Watts, from the Project on Ethnic Relations in Princeton, were able to bring together four Romanian government officials and four representatives of Romania's Hungarian minority for talks that produced a peaceful settlement to defuse growing ethnic tensions. In two meetings of three days each, the three mediators were able to help the two parties work out a mutually satisfactory agreement, which granted minorities the right to teach history and geography in their own language, in return for a promise not to seek secession. This may well have prevented another war like that in former Yugoslavia.
The few days it took to reach that agreement is a period more than 100 times shorter than the three years during which a UN peacekeeping force sought in vain to achieve a cease-fire in the Bosnian war, and the three mediators represented more than 10,000 times fewer people than the 38,000 UN troops stationed in Bosnia. This means that the cost of mediation was about one million times less than the cost of a military intervention, yet it was much more successful, saving many lives. This speaks strongly for early, non-military intervention, whenever possible. Waiting until conflicts erupt into war and then resorting to military force, instead of seeking to avoid or resolve them long before they lead to violence, is like driving a car with closed eyes, waiting until we hit an obstacle and then calling an ambulance, instead of looking ahead and avoiding dangers.
The International Peace Academy, a UN affiliated organization, now has the task of mediating conflicts before they erupt into war. But it has only 16 staff members, and only three of them are professional mediators. This is not nearly enough to deal with the roughly 100 ethnic conflicts currently brewing around the world. Many more people should be trained and employed in conflict resolution, which by listening patiently to all parties' grievances, can help them find win-win solutions that make everyone better off.
One way to help avoid war is by helping people resolve differences with ballots, not bullets. President Carter, who has helped observe elections in various countries, pointed out that in a civil war both sides usually deeply believe that the vast majority of the people support them. If they can be assured a fair election, they are often prepared to lay down their arms, expecting to win.
In January 1995, an International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) was founded in Stockholm, Sweden. It can help train volunteers who can guard against electoral fraud, help provide all parties fair access to the news media during the campaigns, and help get the results respected by both sides. This can help prevent or end civil wars. It may also help prevent international wars, since democracies are less likely to war with each other.
Nations with democratic traditions should invite international observers to their own elections, to set a positive example. Once election observes become routine, any government that refused to allow its elections to be monitored would raise the suspicion that it seeks to hide something.
Methods of non-violent struggle have been promoted by many small private institutes. They include the Albert Einstein Institute, founded by Gene Sharp in Cambridge, Massachusetts, International Alert in London, and many others. They publish books, teach seminars and give advice when invited, often free of charge. With shoe-string budgets, they have helped defuse numerous conflicts by bringing together members of both sides in an atmosphere of conciliation. This amply demonstrates the power of nonviolence. Members of a Global Peace Service would not engage in demonstrations themselves, but they could observe and report violations of human rights and international law, and teach nonviolence and conflict resolution to help people protect their rights without resorting to violence.
When we see the billions spent for weapons and the pittance available to work for peace and human well-being, it is easy to despair. But let us not forget that the people who fought for the abolition of slavery in the 19th century did not even have any foundations to apply to. They made personal sacrifices and took risks, while the slave traders and slave owners accumulated huge fortunes. Yet the anti-slavery movement prevailed in the end, because it had a just cause. For the same reason, we can confidently hope that the forces for peace will ultimately prevail over those who profit from war.
RECOMMENDED READINGS
Jegen, Sr. Mary Evelyn. 1994. Report on a Global Peace Service Consultation. St. Meinrad, IN: Abbey Press.
Muller, Robert, 1991. The Birth of a Global Civilization. Anacortes, WA: World Happiness and Cooperation.
Platt, John. 1969, "What We Must Do." Science 166: 1115-21
Tinbergen, Jan. 1987 Revitalizing the UN System. Booklet 13, Waging Peace Series, Santa Barbara, CA: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
Dietrich Fischer teaches at Pace University and is the author of Non-Military Aspects of Security: A Systems Approach (Dartmouth, 1993). He is board member of Global Demilitarization and Economists Allied for Arms Reduction. Correspondence: 114 Conover Road, Robbinsville, NJ 08691, USA. E-mail: 102464.1110@compuserve.com.
"This essay is reprinted from Peace Review, Vol. 8, No. 4, Dec. 1996, pp. 563-68, with permission from Carfax Publishing Limited, PO Box 25, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 3UE, UK."
May the Peace and the Blessings of the Holy
Ones pour forth over the
worlds - rest upon the United Nations, on the work and the
workers,
protecting, purifying, energizing and strengthening.
There is a Peace which passeth
understanding. It abides in the hearts of
those who live in the Eternal.
There is a Power that maketh all things
new.
It lives and moves in those who know the Self as One.
May the Rhythm of that Peace vibrate within
the United Nations and in
the heart of every worker.
May the Rhythm of that Creative Power
resound within the United
Nations, and in the lives of all who serve there - awakening,
transmuting
and giving birth to that which ought to be.
May the Chalice the United Nations is
building become a focal point for
the descent of spiritual force,
which filling it and overflowing to the world
draws toward itself all those whose work lies there.
May the consciousness of the United Nations
become ever more at-one,
the many lights One Light in the Light of the Self.
May the aspiration and the dedication of the
United Nations burn as a
clear flame in the service of Humanity
May the Love and the light and the Life of
the ONE LIFE pour through
the United Nations, cleansing it from all evil, and attracting all
good.
This invocation is read every Friday at noon on sacred Meditation Mount Ojai in California. May many more people on this planet pray for the first world organization in human history. It very much needs your prayers and love.
PART IV, THE NINTH ONE HUNDRED IDEAS
(Ideas 801 to 900) INTRODUCTION
• Hold the next UN conference on the Environment (Earth Summit) in the year 2002
• Establish a Global Data and Optimum Design Agency where all data on the environment would be accessible, using computers to monitor the planet and suggest optimum designs for human life and Earth preservation
• Establish a world agency of national parks and nature conservation sites
• Establish a world consumer agency
• Establish a world restoration agency
• Transform the military into peace police and environmental forces, and shift world military expenditures to environmental expenditures
• Amend economic standards and measurements to take into account the deterioration and consumption of the Earth's capital
• Hold the following world conferences over the next years:
- World conference of long-term environmental scientists- World conference on garbage
- World conference on advertising, marketing, and obsolescence
- World conference on simple, frugal living.
• Transform the UN Fund for Population Activities into a UN specialized agency on Population
• Create a Marshall Plan for improvement of the well-being of the poor countries
• Design a world plan in which the European Union takes care of the development of Africa; North America (US, Canada) takes care of Latin America; and Japan, Australia, New Zealand take care of the poor areas of Asia
• Use labor from the poor countries in manufacturing, health and geriatric services
• Initiate a UN study of errors made in transferring development models from the West to poor countries
• Hold an ILO-sponsored world conference on small and medium enterprises
• Establish an International Year of the Villages
• Design a world migration and settlements policy
• Use the year 2000 for an unprecedented review of where we stand in the world, where we want to go, and how to get there
• Develop more regional communities like the European Union and transform the UN into a true World Union
• Establish a Peoples Assembly at the UN as a second body to the General Assembly
• Establish a World Group of Eminent persons to deal with the way this planet should be properly governed
• Establish a UN Committee of all member governments to prepare the celebration of the Year 2000 and our entry into a better next century and millennium.
On 6 June 1987, World Environment Day, we were shown at the UN a wonderful film: "A Thousand Cranes", the moving story of the cooperation between American and Soviet environmentalists to save a rare breed of Siberian cranes. The film was sponsored by Lufthansa which displays the graphic of a crane on its planes, and which transported the eggs of the cranes between the two countries.
The film tells us that oriental children believe that if they make one thousand paper cranes, their life will be blessed with happiness. The picture is shown of a Japanese girl wounded at Hiroshima who made a little more than 900 cranes before her death. Her friends finished the thousand cranes and erected a monument to her.
The following morning when I woke up, a sad truth flashed through my mind: during the fortieth anniversary of the UN in 1985, American children sent me several boxes with a thousand paper cranes they had made, but I had not understood their true message.
"I lived under the illusion that I was working for peace."
They were not only a happy birthday gift to the UN but also a personal message to me, asking me to do my own thousand cranes for peace. Therefore, I seized a notebook and wrote on it: "One Thousand Cranes for Peace:, to record in it, every day, my actions for peace and a better world. After a month I discovered to my dismay that I had taken only 60 actions for peace, i.e. a mere average of 2 a day, while I lived under the illusion that I was working for peace all the time!
It is as if a peasant would sow into the fields only two seeds a day! It would take me a year and a half to reach one thousand cranes for peace! My only consolation was that some of my cranes had reached people who in turn released their own cranes for peace. Some of them even started a notebook, "One Thousand Cranes for Peace", writing to congresspeople, to newspapers or to other people - letter writing still being one of the oldest and most effective methods of networking - joining a local peace group or UN Association, promoting peace in their family, in their community, in their profession, through their religion or through many other means.
I sent one of my cranes to Lufthansa, suggesting that institutions and firms should also start their own One Thousand Cranes for Peace. Lufthansa could keep a record of its own, adding many more cranes to the one it released by sponsoring the remarkable film I saw. How wonderful it would be if all nations and all the innumerable organizations, institutions, firms, religions, communities, cities, villages, associations, professions, families and last but not least the 5.6 billion people of this planet would do at least one thousand cranes for peace during their life. It would change the course of history.
In July of that year I was able to reach a total of 97 cranes for peace. It is not so easy! A Donation to the University for Peace (Apartado 138, Ciudad, Colon, Costa Rica), however modest, could be one of your cranes for peace.*
Let us therefore try this new way shown to us by children, seize a notebook and start each our own One Thousand Cranes for Peace or 2000 ideas for a better world!
May peace, love and happiness bless you always.
Robert Muller
former UN Assistant Secretary-General
One-dollar-a-year Chancellor of the University for Peace
*Donations are US tax-exempt if sent via the Robert Muller School, 6005 Royaloak Drive, Arlington, Texas 76016, tax identification No. 75-1538044
PART V, THE TENTH ONE HUNDRED IDEAS (Ideas 901 to 1000)
INTRODUCTION
On February 21, 1997, many World Federalists and prominent people came to Mount Vernon to celebrate the 50th birthday of the World Federalist Association, founded by the United World Federalists, and the 265th birthday of George Washington, the father of the United States. Seeking a way to secure peace, justice, and human rights not only for the American people but for people of all nations, they proclaimed this declaration.
George Washington's vision and leadership played a key role in transforming the weak United States of the Articles of Confederation into the strong United States which resulted from the adoption of the federal Constitution. That great transformation of American political institutions suggests a strategy for restructuring and empowering the weak United Nations of today. A strong, effective, and democratic United Nations would be in the national interest of the United States and of every other nation.
The United Nations has been an important and constructive force since it was founded in 1945. However, until it becomes stronger, more representative and better funded, it cannot save humankind from the scourge of war and adequately promote human rights, social justice and protection of our global environment. To achieve those essential goals the existing United Nations Charter must be amended or replaced. The new Charter must give the organization the essential powers it lacks. It must also provide checks and balances to ensure that it does not abuse or exceed its delegated powers.
As we approach the task of strengthening the United Nations, we should reflect on the central events in the transformation of American political institutions two centuries ago: the drafting of the Constitution in four months and its ratification by the American people in less than a year. George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army in the War of Independence, played a crucial role by serving as a delegate from Virginia and as president of the Constitutional Convention.
Each state legislature could veto any amendment to the Articles of Confederation, making major changes in the Articles all but impossible. To get around those vetoes, the delegates drafted a replacement constitution which would come into effect when ratified by popularly elected conventions in at least nine of the thirteen states.
The Virginia delegation came to the Constitutional Convention with the brilliant Virginia Plan for major changes in national political institutions. The plan, whose chief architect was James Madison, urged the establishment of a national government with its own executive, legislature and judiciary. The national government would have dependable sources of revenue. Its legislature would be bicameral. The "First branch" would be elected by the people, and the voting power of each state would reflect its population or its financial contribution to the national government. The Virginia Plan sometimes went too far. For example, it provided for the use of force against recalcitrant states. However, George Mason, another Virginia delegate, insisting that national law should not be applied to states but should "directly operate on individuals," prevailed.
The Constitution granted some powers and withheld others. The Tenth Amendment, which was part of the Constitutional package, provided that: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." After intensive discussion and important changes, the Virginia Plan became the heart of the Constitution. After the delegates signed it, Washington from his Mount Vernon home worked hard for its ratification. Madison was a major figure in that endeavor.
For the United Nations to accomplish its declared objectives, it too must be restructured, empowered and democratized. But that is unlikely to happen while the decisions of its General Assembly are made by a one nation/one vote system of representation and the decisions of its Security Council are subject to the veto of any of its five permanent members. A change in "one nation/one vote" is unlikely unless the many nations with small populations and low incomes are given something in return, such as security against aggressors and assistance in developing their economies and improving their societies.
The great powers cannot be counted on to keep the peace, whether as part of the UN coalition or acting independently. The Charter requires UN members to come to the aid of nations which are attacked. But the presidents and prime ministers of the great powers insist that they alone will decide whether, when, how, how much and how long they will use force. They fear they will lose their jobs if they send their troops into battle in countries in which their citizens believe they have little or no political, economic or strategic interest. Because neither the United Nations nor the great powers can be counted on to keep the peace, there have been more than 125 wars since World War II, wars which have killed more people than were killed in that war. The UN intervened with force in only a very few of those wars. Meanwhile hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each year for armed forces and for increasingly deadly weapons. Those weapons are becoming more and more widespread.
An adequate UN Charter must: (1) establish an effective executive, a representative legislature and an independent judiciary; (2) provide for substantial and dependable funding; (3) give the judiciary the power of judicial review, including the power to declare "unconstitutional" UN laws which violate the Charter; (4) provide for an equitable system of representation; (5) provide for strict limitations on armament and armed forces; and (6) provide for the application of limited UN law to lawbreaking individuals. Governments which are not now democratic should be eligible for continued membership in the new United Nations, provided they ratify the proposed amendments to the existing Charter or ratify a new UN Charter within a reasonable time.
To secure these necessary changes in the United Nations system US political leaders - Democratic, Republican and Independent - should follow the good example of George Washington and his fellow Virginians. They should propose an American Plan for transforming the present United Nations into a world federation with the power, authority and funding to deal with those problems which, because they are global, require global solutions. They should propose an appropriate package of amendments to the present charter. If it is rejected, they should urge that a new charter be drafted by a group of experts or by an elected world constitutional convention. Ratification of that replacement Charter should require the support of a substantial majority of the world's people and its nations.
We believe that the American people will welcome and support a movement to restructure, democratize and empower the United Nations. They know that government is essential for law and order in our towns, cities, states, and in our nations. They can be persuaded that it is just as necessary at the global level. And there is good reason to believe that many nations, large and small, rich and poor, would give an American Plan the same consideration they gave to the Marshall Plan and other major American initiatives. We would not expect the world to endorse every part of that American Plan. Certainly George Washington and his fellow Virginians did not expect the Constitutional Convention to endorse all of their Virginia Plan. But the Virginia Plan had a tremendous impact. It provided the basic framework for the US Constitution. A bold American Plan for a United Nations World Federation would bring hope to people everywhere. It would truly honor George Washington, whose wisdom, conviction and character were essential to the founding of our country and our federal system.
Anyone wishing to endorse this Declaration should send their signature, printed name, address, telephone/fax, and affiliation (optional) to: World Federalist Association, Virginia Chapter, P.O. Box 1283, Falls Church, VA 22041-0283
The Vision:
To manage wisely the use and enjoyment of all natural resources that
are the collective inheritance of the world's peoples.
The Challenge:
The task for 5.6 billion people is to develop a different way of
thinking, living and consuming, new feelings and more sustainable
ways of seeing ourselves, nature and others around us.
The Situation in the World:
Pollution flows with the waters and flies with the winds and it knows
no boundaries. It works irreparable damage alike to Nature and to
Humankind - threatening life and the health of people throughout the
world.
Every minute:
52 acres of forests are destroyed
35,725 barrels of oil used in cars, airplanes
Every hour:
55 people are poisoned, 5 killed by
pesticides
60 new cases of cancer from thinning ozonosphere
Every day:
25,000 people die of water shortage,
contamination
60 tons of plastic packages are dumped into seas
Here's what we can do to reverse the damage
to our cherished mother Earth:
Our Agreement Governing the Activities of All People and Institutions
on Earth
Each and every institution and person on Earth can stop the damage to our environment in their daily lives at home, at work or at play.
Be still
Walk in nature
Be thankful
to our natural environment: food, water, sunshine, air
Remember that everything I do destroys or saves
Nature and the environment around us.
I will help reverse the damage to our natural environment and have agreed on the following:
Article I
1. The provisions of this Agreement relating to the environment shall
also apply to all nations, world's people, institutions, business and
governments.
2. For the purposes of this Agreement the environment shall include
all nature... land, air and seas.
Article 2
The following activities are agreed to:
I will reduce, reuse and recycle
I will buy less, buy only things I need
I will reduce energy use at home and at work
I will plant trees in my community
I will walk in nature, live a healthy life
I will live my life at a more natural pace
I will make environmentally sound decisions.
Signed ______________________________ Date
_____________________________
A man for whom I have unbounded admiration. His spirit lightens up the world and everyone who knows him. -Norman Cousins
A blessing to millions for peace. To meet him is a miracle. -Jill Jackson Miller, author of the song Let There Be Peace on Earth
My favorite man on the planet. -Gloria Crook, founder of the first
Robert Muller School in 1980
An emissary of God and advocate of humanity. -four children age 10 and 11 of the Robert Muller School
Epithets given to Robert Muller in
1996-1997
Another Franklin Roosevelt
The world's best letter writer
A mountain mover, without a Secretary, only with a typewriter
A divine motivator
The wise man of the UN
The conscience of the UN
A realistic optimist
The shaman of the UN
The Antichrist
The man through whom God speaks
The spokesman of Christ
The longest metamorphosis
The most unprogrammed man on Earth
A magic being
One of the Earth's great hopers
A true artist of life
The greatest man on Earth
The should-be Secretary General of the UN
A planetary treasure
The traveling strategist for a better world
A man whose joy, enthusiasm, curiosity for life and achievements for
humanity are deeply inspiring
A man whose writings serve as high messages for the nations and
people
The most amazing man on this planet
A man who can never be accused to think small
The world's philosopher
Purushottam Robert Muller
Great traveler for peace
The most incredible global thinker of our time
A storehouse of inspiration for others
One of humanity's greatest heroes
A man who should be cloned
A divine being
A unique man walking on Earth
A prolific generator of ideas
A man whose life, works and actions exemplify a saint
A man who is his own cheerleader
An indexer's nightmare
A Philadelphia Constitutional Assembly by himself
A unique mind with a constant questioning and extraordinary
imagination
A Leonardo da Vinci constantly observing the whole world and whole
humanity
A genius
The real Secretary General of the world
The first President of the World Peace Party
The greatest good seeds planter on Earth
A man who fell in love with the world
A key synthesizer
A living document, a whole series of documents with a touch of what
one can call genius
A being of total integration and integrity
A healthy, infectious, unbeatable optimist
The mustard seed of a new humanity
The coffee percolator of the world: he distills the coffee, lets it
settle and then serves it to inspire and stimulate people to action
for a peaceful, better world
An enthusiast about moving from the nation-state to one world and one
human family, full of vision, ideas and boundless energy
The faith-keeper of the United Nations
Future Saint Robert of the United Nations
A world candyman who makes the world taste good
A man of indomitable hope
An expansive man with a wide-based view of the world