INVITATION TO AN INFORMAL MEETING IN NEW YORK CITY
March 21st 2009, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
at EnlightenNext
243 W 30th St, New York, NY
from
A CENTRE FOR THE WORLD RELIGIONS
An NGO in Consultative Relationship with ECOSOC OF THE UNITED NATIONS
626 Riverside Drive, # 4-0, New York, NY 10031
phone: (212)-283-7569
Email: lburg@centreworldreligions.org
International Headquarters:
Saegestr. 37, D-79737 Herrischried, Germany
phone: (001-49) 2226-9046031, Fax: (001-49)2226-9046032,
Email: or Anke.Kreutzer@gmx.de
A SPIRITUAL AGENDA FOR WORLD PEACE
Short Version
SYNOPSIS
In 2003, General Secretary Kofi Annan spoke these memorable words of admonition:
"We have come to a fork in the road. This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the United Nations was founded... I believe the time is ripe for a hard look at fundamental issues, and at the structural changes that may be needed in order to strengthen (the United Nations). History is a harsh judge: it will not forgive us if we let this moment pass."
The original vision was a United Nations endowed with the mandate and authority to prevent war and to ensure decent living conditions worldwide. We should return to that vision.
More than ever, this vision calls for a "United Religions".
It requires
- that the family of the world religions overcome strife, hatred and violence through
comparative study of their sacred scriptures, the testimonies of a common, timeless spiritual essence, and through meditation in order to tap the same source of revelation that their preceptors derived their perfect wisdom from;
- that the United Nations be empowered through a representative and truly democratic Security Council system that functions in a decentralized, i.e. continent-wise, manner to ensure regional self-determination, effective and collective peace-making and thus acceptance as a powerful instrument of security;
- that an initiative for massive disarmament be launched worldwide until the nation states are no longer able to attack each-other and
- that the funds thus released be used to eradicate poverty through development to establish social justice and peace.
AN EMPOWERED UNITED NATIONS
Article 1 of the United Nations Charter defines its mandate:
To maintain international peace and security ... to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace ... to bring about by peaceful means settlement of international disputes ... to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
And yet, since 1945, 80 million people are estimated to have been victims of mass killings worldwide.
The world has never yet been free from wars, though wars rarely pay for the attacker:
Only one fifth of the wars waged between 1945 and 1997 ended in the victory of the attacker. More than two thirds of the interstate conflicts ended in the status quo ante - nothing gained but many lives lost.
REASONS FOR VIOLENT CONFLICT
Religious Zeal
In a great number of the violent conflicts and wars of the past sixty years, religion and quasi-religious ideologies have played a crucial role. All the major religions command non-violence, tolerance and love, yet even today, a third if not more of all wars are at least in part justified by religious zeal.
All religions teach the Golden Rule. All religions proclaim the struggle between good and evil on the soul's passage from darkness to light. Too often, though, this has been misunderstood as the struggle between "believers" and "non-believers" and blood has been shed in the name of God.
Every kind of cruelty has been justified by some holy verses ready at hand. As long as the approach to sacred scriptures is emotional and intellectual, based on inferences and speculation, the interpretations are thousand-fold. Codes of ethics, however well meant, will in themselves be of no consequence if pronounced by people lacking actual experience of revelation - the essential messages of Vedas, Bible, Qur'an and other holy books.
Solution:
A SAFE SPACE FOR DIALOGUE AND SILENT MEDITATION
Words can only convey what the reader is able to comprehend. The Supreme Being is perfect, almighty and beyond time and space, hence everything emerging from that Source reflects the same qualities (Psalm 19, 7: The law of the Lord is perfect). The perfect is valid for all mankind and in no need of change. No religion can claim sole representation of the Truth that speaks to all mankind. It can be ascertained in meditation because "God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." John 4:24
The social and cultural expressions of any given faith are outside the mystical realm; they involve material elements, which in turn belong to the earthly realm and are subject to change. Conceding this human element in religion will enable us to welcome religious diversity.
Conclusion:
Meditation infuses perfect guidance from inside. Unbiased study of sacred scriptures and the practice of meditation will transform our religions: They will spread love and overcome prejudice and hatred. Revelations that are received inside prevail in the most critical circumstances.
Politics: The Fear from Threat and the Lust for Power
Lust for power has its root in the human ego which all religions diagnose as a hindrance on the Path of Enlightenment that is for the meek or humble and helps overcome arrogance.
The seduction of power seems to be irresistible. Narrow self-interest can lead governments to pursue their own agendas in obvious conflict with the rightful interests of other nation states. Aggressive assertion of power will inflict fear and rebellion in those at the receiving end.
Solution:
The harsh lessons we are learning from the financial, economic and environmental crises as well as from wars and violent conflicts today urge us to embrace the Golden Rule among the peoples of the world: Our self-inflicted problems can only be solved if all nations recognize to what extent they depend on trustful cooperation with each other. This is the unique chance to understand a fundamental divine principle: The Divine is One and encompasses all; the universe is one, the ecosystem is one, humanity is one - everything is a part of the whole. We can only thrive together.
THE ONLY SOLUTIONS ARE GLOBAL SOLUTIONS
AN EMPOWERED UNITED NATIONS
It is time to revive the original vision: Franklin D. Roosevelt attached to the foundation of the United Nations a bold vision of a new era of peace:
... the end of a system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries and have always failed. We propose to substitute for all these, a universal organization in which all peace-loving nations will finally have a chance to join.
In Roosevelt's concept, the nation states give the full mandate to safeguard interstate peace and international security to the United Nations that will handle it collectively and therefore more wisely and disinterestedly than individual governments.
1) Such a solution requires the United Nations to be an empowered, representative and democratic organization in all its parts.
2) We therefore propose to decentralize the Security Council and to turn it into four Continental Security Councils, each with a mandate to maintain peace on its respective continent. There shall be no veto power, no distinction between permanent and non-permanent membership. Each member state shall send its representative(s).
3) The Continental Security Councils shall have the mandate
- to stop war and violence
- to bring about and coordinate disarmament
- to maintain peace
- to provide the means to overcome poverty and establish social justice through the fund flow from disarmament. This will eradicate one of the eternal seeds of upheaval: the suffering inflicted on human beings by denying them a dignified life free from want.
4) Collective CSC decisions must be binding on their member states to be effectively implemented.
5) Interior conflicts remain an interior affair. Only in such cases where a (religiously, ethnically or otherwise defined) group feels collectively threatened; where mass killings are committed or to be feared, assistance from the respective CSC may be sought. The CSC will involve all parties concerned in negotiating a peaceful solution.
Military action will serve the sole purpose of ending and checking outbreaks of violence. It may also involve disarmament of paramilitary groups (militia).
6) The CSCs will refrain from interfering in each others' jurisdiction so that intercontinental conflicts are completely ruled out.
7) The proposed security system depends on the reliability of mutual assistance in compliance with CSC decisions. In the same way as the respective CSC will be obliged to grant military assistance the member states will be obliged to supply troops and armament.
DISARMAMENT
Since the security of each member state will be multiplied by the collective military power of the community of states each can dispense with a considerable part of its own striking power.
According to the Grimmet Report 2005, arms procurement amounts to 20 - 30 % of an average military budget. With the decentralization of the Security Council system in place and inter-continental conflicts ruled out, what remains will be border or internal conflicts, which can be contained with conventional weapons. Franklin D. Roosevelt in his famous speech on the four freedoms as basic human rights had a radical vision about disarmament:
"The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor --anywhere in the world."
EFFECTIVE CONTROL OF ARMS PRODUCTION AND PROLIFERATION
Economic Selfishness reveals greed. Greed perpetuates itself. It will never lead to satisfaction or saturation but fuel the desire for more. Those dynamics have to be stopped. "Worship in the Spirit" will inspire a person to turn to means of income that are honest, constructive and beneficial for the society.
There is no hope for a successful global disarmament project without strict and effective control of the arms development, production and proliferation.
Such a global defence system will offer the basic framework for eliminating atomic warheads, biological, chemical and other weapons of mass destruction once and for all. Their systematic dispensation and a strict ban on any further research, development and production will be one of the major goals of this disarmament proposal.
PEACE AND SECURITY THROUGH DEVELOPMENT
A WORLD DIVIDED INTO RICH AND POOR
The UN Charter obliges the member states "to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom".
This obligation has been confirmed by all 191 member states in the Millennium Declaration of 2000 and in the "Millennium Development Goals" pledge to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Yet, nine years after the Declaration and six years from that deadline
40 % OF MANKIND ARE POOR.
This earth yields enough food for all and the human family itself is to blame for each of its members that die of hunger.
The most obvious and greatest waste of all, we suggest, lies in the excessive military spending worldwide, especially in the ongoing race for new weapons - those of mass destruction and conventional ones alike. It seems we have not learnt from what President Eisenhower said in 1953:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed... This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. "
Solution:
Though the Golden Rule is firmly rooted in all faith traditions it remains mere theory as long as the impulse to care for one another does not come from inside. Spirituality infuses love for all, and that love will lead to caring and sharing.
We suggest the Charter goal and the Millennium pledge be realized as follows:
Military Expenditure:
According to chapter 8 of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)'s 2007 Year Book world military expenditure in 2006 is estimated to have reached
$1204 billion!
This amount represents a 3.5 per cent increase in real terms since 2005 and a 37 per cent increase over the 10-year period since 1997; the USA, responsible for about 80 per cent of the increase in 2005, is the principal determinant of the current world trend, and its military expenditure now accounts for almost half of the world total; the 15 countries with the highest spending account for 83 per cent of the total.
According to research of the Earth Institute and the Millennium Project, an average
70 dollars per capita per year are needed for about ten years to help the extremely poor rise to the lowest step of the social ladder from which they can reach the next higher levels on their own.
$ 70, 00 per capita per year, for a period of at least ten years will be needed to eradicate extreme poverty.
1,1 billion extremely poor worldwide will hence need $ 77 billion per year.
Extreme poverty will be a matter of the past if from a worldwide military budget of about $ 1.2 trillion less than 7 % are saved!
If such a tiny fraction of global military spending is enough to save one sixth of mankind from desperate living conditions and an early death we may well consider the other 1.4 billion as well who by definition live in "moderate poverty".
Together, these two groups amount to 2.5 billion or 40 % of humanity.
They will need $ 175 billion per annum, which amounts to
14.5 % savings from worldwide military expenditure.
Conclusion:
14.5 % savings from worldwide military spending on the basis of enhanced security for each UN member state through a decentralized, democratic UN Security Council system can free mankind from the scourge of poverty.
It may be added that such an initiative would bring with it a wave of joy, confidence, generosity and creativity unprecedented in human history.
In the present FINANCIAL CRISIS, it should be added, the governments of the industrial countries, rather than incurring staggering amounts of debts, might consider solving their own problems and helping their own poor by diverting funds from military spending to economic stimulus packages: The damage of waste may be indemnified by at least decreasing the global waste of amassing weapons of destruction.
FAIR MARKET ACCESS AND FREE TRADE
The principle of justice versus charity is important because the freedom from want is a basic human right. The next steps will depend on fair trading conditions for all: Independent of the proposed "swords into ploughshares" project, the poorest countries would be much relieved if rich nations were to discard protectionism, thus granting the poor fair access to the world market and a share in foreign exchange. In high-income countries, the average tariff rate on agriculture is almost double that for manufactures.
Every cow in Europe gets $2 a day in subsidies. This is more money than half the world's population get to live on each day.
A free market, restricted only by standards of quality both of working conditions and products (cf. the demands of the fair trade movement) is the prerequisite for just economic opportunity. Therefore, the governments especially of the rich nations are asked to ensure that consumer goods from foreign countries may be imported at fair market prices in a free exchange.
FAIR TRADE CONDITIONS REFLECT THE PRINCIPLES OF RESPECT AND ACCEPTANCE AND ARE INDISPENSABLE
IN A RELATIONSHIP OF SHARE AND CARING.
