World Citizen Blog: May 2011

(Doonesbury's strip yesterday pictured Ms Trudeau asking Gary in the first box "You marching in the parade tomorrow?" "I guess so," he replied. Then in the next cut, he added, "It’s a bit demoralizing. Memorial Day is for remembering, but no one wants to be reminded we’re still at war." )

Starting from World War II, while the number of dead has been totaled,[1] the number of veterans from the world's wars remains unknown. But as national wars continue uninhibited for lack of world laws to stop them, it is obviously growing. Moreover, with nuclear arms "on the table" for nine states, humanity's survival itself is in grave doubt.

I, for one, would gladly enlist my fellow veterans worldwide, we who did the killing on the "fields of glory," in a global police force mandated by a framework of world constitutional law-not the United Nations Charter-representing all citizens of the world.(See http://www.worldservice.org/sowg.html)

After all, as Trudeau suggests, if Memorial Day has any real meaning, the unanswered question of "Why war?" and its geodialectical corollary, "How peace?" must be equally honored and, indeed, practiced. Or, as the editorialists, mourning families and politicians of all levels like to profess, simplistically, "They will have died in vain.” (Like my own elder brother, Bud").

Some relevant items re our world community from the New York Times: 5/29/11: Thomas Friedman: "..the Egyptian revolution is not over. It has left the dramatic street phase and is now in the seemingly boring but utterly vital phase of deciding who gets to write the rules for the new Egypt."

Tkmur Kuran, professor of political science, Duke: "The preconditions for democracy are lacking in the Arab world partly because Hosni Mabarak and other Arab dictators spent the last half-century emasculating the news media, suppressing intellectual inquiry, restricting artistic expression, banning political parties, and co-opting regional ethnic and religious organizations to silence dissenting voices."

Then Anthony Shadid's "Can Turkey Unify the Arabs?" "Even amidst the din of the upheaval in the Arab world, that new sense of belonging represents a more pacific and perhaps more powerful undertow pulling in direction that call into question more parochial notions.."

"None of the borders of Turkey are natural," said Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, "Almost all of them are artificial. Of course we have to respect them as nation-states, but at the same time we have to understand that there are natural continuities."

"It's been almost 100 years that we've been separated by superficial borders, superficial cultures and religious borders, and now with the lifting of visas to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, we're lifting national boundaries," said Yusuf Yerkel, a young academic on Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's staff.

"Across the region, the Arab revolution has inspired a rethinking of identity, even as older notions of self hang like a specter over the revolts' success. In its most pristine, the revolution feels transnational, as demands for justice, freedom and dignity are expressed in a technology-driven globalism." Young people don't buy into this idea of a clash, and they don't buy into this idea of fixed identity. They know how to negociate these so-called polar opposites, and they’re looking for something new."

Still not a word about war's elimination via global government buttressed by fundamental human rights.

Then in the mail was Ted Turner's United Nations Foundation "Spring 2011" newsletter. President Timothy E. Wirth letter announces that "we are working with the UN and our partners to address the world's toughest challenges with 21^st-century solutions." And what are the "world’s toughest challenges"? Well, "to promote democracy, protect human rights and deliver humanitarian aid using new and creative approaches."

"To accomplish these goals," he writes, "we need a strong U.S.-UN partnership." (As Eleanor Roosevelt herself, the US delegate to the UN, told this writer, 63 years ago, the UN is only a "bunch of nation-states and has no power in itself to do anything except talk").

Further down the page, he mentions "the programs underway to help women and children lead healthy lives, to combat climate and to empower the next generation of global leaders." No mention of war being eliminated via world law and government or the nuclear danger but on the contrary, "that the UN is making our world a better place for every one of us.." and "that a strong UN is critical.." (75 wars, big and small, have been fought since 1945 when the UN was formed. See http://www.worldservice.org/posipapr.html; "Position Paper, The United Nations vs.World Government").

However, happily, on p. 7, we read of a "Program Inspires Future Leaders" called UNA-USA Global Classrooms." "On Feb. 5, more that 700 students from 41 New York-area schools had the unique opportunity to debate and propose solutions to pressing international issues at the Global Classrooms." Sharon Shambourger of Life Sciences Secondary School in Manhattan, a model UN advisor for seven years "has attended more than a dozen Global Classrooms conferences and "watched students mature from rather school/neighborhood-oriented, to truly global citizens." (WSA will send them application forms for the World Passport).

I attended a historic "Meeting of the Elders" on May 8-9 at the Menla Mountain Retreat & Conference Center in the Catskills, NY. The notice announcing the reunion proposed that "The Elders will reflect upon how, through their ancient wisdom, they can help bring about a deeper understanding of the original instructions that constitute the key to preserving this sacred balance. Numerous indigenous cultures of the Western hemisphere have kept alive a prophecy that foretold how native peoples will come together and reunite as one, known as the prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor. In the South, Center and North, many native peoples share its foretelling about balance and harmony, and about how intellect and spirituality should come together as one. Our Elders tell us that we will unite and get our strength back like many arrows that will not be broken. They remember the history to keep the fire alive. We have to come together to be one, to have complete understanding."

From Columbia came the Kogui, the Wiwa and the Arhuaco; from North America, the Hopis, Algonquin, Havasupai, Tewa of the Colorado River Tribes, Southern Ute, Navajo, Shoshone, members of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, Havassupai, Tewa, and Bear Clan Mothers.

At the close of the meeting on Sunday evening, after humbly requesting permission of the Mames to address the Elders, I was permitted as a "World Citizen" and "indigenous to planet Earth" to do so. I was deeply honored.[2]

[1] 160,000,000 war dead in the 20^th century: Wikipedia

[2] When 16 year’s old, at Kennebec summer camp in Maine, I became “blood brother” of a Passamaquady (Abenaki nation) chief at a traditional camp fire. Ceremony.