"As nations are torn apart and restructured, as instabilities and threats of war erupt, we shall be called upon to invent wholly new political forms or 'containers' to bring a semblance of order to the world -- a world in which the nation-state has become, for many purposes, a dangerous anachronism."
When I placed my hand on the Gideon Bible in the US Embassy in Paris May 25, 1948 and took the Oath of Renunciation of US nationality, I became a legitimate "occupier" of planet Earth!
The words I then recited were simple but prophetic reaching back thousands of years to the ancient Greeks, Stoics and Raja Rishis of South India:
"I hereby swear that I desire to make a formal renunciation of my American nationality, and pursuant thereto hereby absolutely and entirely renounce my nationality to the United States and all rights and privileges thereunto and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to the United States of America."
When I dropped my hand, I had legally freed myself from the 19th century Age of Nationalism...and war itself...at least in this lifetime.
But it wasn't enough. Though I was in my own stateless "space," the national myth no longer binding me, I was still a full-bodied member of the human race and eager to fulfill that sacred and challenging destiny wherever it would lead me.
That same day, therefore I issued a press statement, carried by AP, Reuters, INS and other wire services, that "I should like to consider myself a citizen of the world."
In short, I had "verticalized" myself to the global level. Who, indeed, could deny me that sovereign right? Moreover, I became a "world citizenship government-in-microcosm." "Every man possesses the right of self-government. Individuals exercise it by their single will." (Thomas Jefferson, 1776) "My country is the world." (Tom Paine, 1776)
No longer "in" a nation, when I walked out of the US Embassy "territory," and onto the Champs Elysee, I started my personal "occupying" of "world territory"!
I was happy and felt free as a bird in full flight!
But the French government immediately roared: "Out! Or our national gendarmes will put you 'inside.' Permanently!"
Out, but where? Out to sea? Up in a balloon? The moon? Que faire?
As my final date for departure arrived, I was surprisingly if contradictorily "saved" by the United Nations which "verticalized" in the middle of Paris: Place de Trocadero, the Palais de Chaillot where its General Assembly was to hold its session. In brief, France had ceded a tiny piece of alleged French territory to the UN...for three months! The absurd charade was on! With pack on back, on the morning of September 11th, I "left" France taking the Metro to Place Trocadero and, "entering" the UN's "international territory," claimed to be its "first citizen."
In short, I "occupied" it as a human being!
A New Age for citizenship was born! We had a "proper home!" Seven thousands journalists were in Paris awaiting the opening sessions. I became the "story" of the day...and even that year.
That first sojourn on the UN "territory," however, lasted only 7 days. French gendarmes in collusion with the UN’s Secretary-General staff, "invaded" the territory, bundled me and my tent into a police car (familiar?) and transported me "back" to France. Illegally! (Or perhaps "allegally"). But 7 days were enough. The issue was joined: world citizenship inclusivity versus national exclusivity.
I became world famous.
But if I, still "stateless," could claim to be and function as a world citizen on world territory, why not everybody else? Indeed, as I wrote in my last blog, we, humanity, are already THERE! Rather, HERE!
The letters started trickling in, but soon became a torrent. Three years after WWII with Europe still in ruins and Hiroshima fresh in everyone's minds, the "cold war" starting between the USA and the USSR, the refugee world proliferating, many recognized world citizenship as the "way out" of the war game entirely. And it is! Even the UN proclaimed it on its final day in Paris.
On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly unanimously voted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a "common standard of achievement for all people and all nations."
As legitimate members of the world's "people," we World Citizens eagerly grabbed it and ran.
Over 750,000 fellow humans joined me by registering at the International Registry of World Citizens I founded on January 1, 1949. "World territory" was filling up!
Then on July 10, 1949, a giant leap forward occurred and is the real lief motif of this blog: The city of Cahors in Southern France passed a resolution signed by the mayor declaring it a "world city." Thus began the "Mundialization" movement which has since spread to over 900 cities throughout the world. (See, www.worldservice.org/mund.html).
From that day when Cahors "mundialized," every citizen in a "mundialized" city "verticalized" to world territory!
Lastly, on September 4, 1953, from the City Hall of Ellsworth, Maine, after numerous jail visits thanks to my stateless status, on the advice of top civic rights lawyers, and with the mandate of the UDHR, based on our claimed global sovereignty, I declared the World Government of World Citizens. ("The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government." Art. 21[3], UDHR).[1]
Fast forward to 1986. On August 22, 1986, I filed with the DC Municipal Office my "world citizen" candidacy for mayor of the capitol of the United States!
Mayors, I thought then and now, (2011), legally responsible for their citizens welfare and safety, are the veritable key to a world of order and wellbeing, NOT the now totally dysfunctional nation-state system. Luis Kutner, the passionate advocate of World Habeas Corpus[2], wrote that,
"The time-clock of World-Man is now ever-set at one half-hour from annihilation. Man, who has achieved the ever-expanding greatness of physical science, of ultimate outer space Satellite control, of intercontinental missiles, can annihilate total World-Man in minutes...Since total man is a unified being, with an international dimension, a basic unifying principle is necessary to unify the freedom and liberty of man."
My candidacy for mayor was formally accepted by the DC government despite the fact that in 1977 I had been classified an "excludable alien" by the US Immigration Department and succeeding courts clear up to the Supreme. (See www.worldservice.org/petition.html).
My platform in brief was "World peace through world law" claiming that Washington, like Moscow, was targeted by nuclear bombs and could only be protected by the world government.
I received 585 votes.
My rationale was simple: Most people lived in cities throughout the world. That's why we're called "citizens." Cities are real; nations are fictions. Cities have become the prime targets since WWII. Think Hiroshima, Nagasaki, London, Coventry, Tokyo, Berlin, Jerusalem, etc. Cities are now targeted...everywhere. That's where we, or most of us, live. Nations don't "die." They have no blood, no heart, no being. They are man-made creations usurping part of the planet's territory. But cities "die," or are destroyed in national wars.
You can't live "in" a nation. Because a nation is a passive fiction of pure imagination whereas a city is dynamic with ancient codes of communal living based upon the "one and the many" social philosophy. One could even describe national citizenship given today's instant communication and space research as not only oxymoronic and transient but mortal. After all, World War II was the first war where cities gained the deadly status of "targets" on war's "front lines."
I know. From the pilot's seat of a B-17, at age 23 I bombed some of them myself. (The victims, incidentally, were civilians, man, women, children, not Nazi soldiers.)
And that brings me to mayors of cities, God bless 'em...elected by the citizens...responsible to the citizens...no matter where on the planet.
On November 2, 1985, for instance, the World Conference of Black Mayors[3] passed a Resolution stating in part that "...it is unconscionable that spending of the arms race consumes more of the world's resources, while human needs go unmet; and...the increasing militarization of the world and the threat of an arms race in space is unacceptable...and the cost of the arms race has endangered the economic and social resources from domestic needs such as housing, jobs, public transportation, health care, human welfare, and education..."
Talk about 99% vis-a-vis 1%!
And on Saturday, June 18, 2011, the United States Conference of Mayors gathered in Washington and passed a resolution calling for the "speedy end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
All mayors talk the same human language: water supplies, traffic problems, street and electrical maintenance, recycling waste, local administration and on and on. Today over 900 cities throughout the world have "mundialized," that is, declared themselves "worldly" like Cahors. Makes perfect sense. When you can fly around the globe in two days and the Space Station does it in 1 and 1/2 hours, We, humanity, "left" the nation-state system over 200 years ago when the horse was the fastest way to get around. Are we crazy to continue the war game when, as the good and wise mayors are now complaining, it is killing our cities (not to mention our world) with us in them?
The message is clear:
MAYORS OF THE WORLD ARE ALREADY UNITED! AND HAVE BEEN CLAIMING IT!
In brief, they are ALREADY de facto World Citizens.
Read what the City Council of Burlington, VT claimed on June 20, 1992 after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in my last blog: "Occupy...Earth?"
Brave, relevant and inspiring words, but what is missing? Like all good resolutions, it is static, not dynamic. Nothing happens. Where's the "beef?" How do the good citizens of Burlington or Shanghai or Berlin or Rio de Janeiro "declare their citizenship responsibilities BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF OUR CITY, STATE AND NATION? " And to what should they declare it to? The UN? Sorry, neither cities nor citizens allowed. (I found that out personally). Only nation-states...eternally talking. There's got to be something "out there" to ACCEPT that global responsibilities.
Here then is the simple yet revolutionary answer: Citizenship and government are corollaries! There was no recognition formerly of the overall world government to sanction the citizens' good will pledge... "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government..." provides art. 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The authors of the UDHR unfortunately didn't use the present tense. They assigned peacemaking as a "shall be..." not as "is."
But to the mayors of all the cities of the world, and to their citizens gathering today in town squares and parks, the World Government of World Citizens NOW IS! How do I know? Because, following the sanction of the UDHR declared by the entire body of nations in the UN, I myself declared it on September 4, 1953 from the City Hall of Ellsworth, Maine! (See www.worldservice.org/ells.html).
If the mayors of our cities recognize their avowed responsibilities to represent their citizens' wellbeing, given the "global village" they actually live in this century, they must REGISTER THEIR GLOBAL ALLEGIANCE TO THE ONLY DECLARED AND OPERATING WORLD GOVERNMENT EXTANT.
Moreover the over 900 cities already declared "global" are thereby inhabited by literally millions of already declared "world citizens" as have the citizens of Burlington, Vermont.
The wait is over. Our human future is at stake. We are at that historic juncture where it is all or none in terms of survival. THE BOMB is ticking away! It is pointed at US the real "occupiers" of world territory. The species itself is in danger of annihilation...and by its own hand. The "shift" in consciousness is taking place NOW.
Citizens of the World, we are already the human occupiers of planet Earth!
Claim it before it is too late!
Only then can we passengers communicate to one and all via the internet and all the myriad technical marvels finally eradicating space and time between humans the "operating manual" for Spaceship Earth.
And that's known as "Syntegration."
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[1] See www.worldservice.org/ells.html
[2] Oceana Publications, Inc., 1962
[3] Founded by Johnny Ford, Mayor of Tuskegee in 1972
