Unite and Prosper!

75th Anniversaries of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the World Citizenship Movement: Time to Unite and Prosper!

By David Gallup

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the World Citizenship Movement (WCM).

As a response to the devastation of World War II, the drafters of the UDHR sought to ensure that human rights would be protected by the rule of law. The Declaration provides a statement of our civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights.

The WCM links our universal rights to our identity as citizens of the world. Former WWII bomber pilot Garry Davis gave up his US citizenship in favor of world citizenship, launching the World Citizenship Movement in 1948 to promote peace and human unity.

The UDHR and the WCM offer a framework of universal rights and universal identity to achieve the peaceful and governed world envisioned in 1948 by both the drafters of the UDHR and World Citizen Garry Davis.

Although we have enumerated our rights over the past 75 years, we have not yet fully implemented them. To paraphrase Rousseau from The Social Contract, humans are born free, but everywhere we are in chains. We have empowered a governing system — the nation-state — that because it is partial, can never fully affirm our rights and duties. The nation-state system where states maintain absolute sovereignty enslaves us to corporate interests and national security at the expense of human needs and world security.

As we celebrate how far humanity has come in the past seventy-five years, and simultaneously recognize the many existential challenges we currently face -- war, climate destruction, injustice – let’s consider what kind of world we want for humanity in 2098, seventy-five years from now on the cusp of the 22nd Century.

Over the next 75 years, we must build a human rights institutional architecture that affirms our universal rights. That framework must be built on the global rule of law, world law that applies to everyone, everywhere. We must recognize the importance of seeing ourselves as world citizens and must legalize this status.

To achieve the peaceful and just world that the drafters of the UDHR and the advocates of the World Citizenship Movement envisioned, we must build the law, citizenship and governing structures at the world level that will help humans live together peacefully with each other and sustainably with the earth based on the principles of universal rights and universal citizenship.

How do we arrive at 2098, 75 years from now, having built a peaceful, just, sustainable, and united world?

• The UDHR must become a universal bill of human rights incorporated into a world constitution legally binding on everyone, everywhere. This would ensure that all governments, ranging from local town councils and nation-states to the world federal government would place rights above self-interest and the force of law above the law of force.

• World citizenship must become a recognized legal status for everyone, everywhere. This would mean that no one would be stateless anymore. Everyone would be able to exercise all rights no matter where they are or where they go throughout the world.

• We, humanity, must create a World Parliament to participate in governing the world as one united planet. This would put the rights of individuals above the power of states.

• A World Court of Universal Rights must be established where individuals and groups could seek redress when local judicial systems fail them. A global judicial system with subsidiary regional courts would provide venues for people to resolve conflicts peacefully.

• To secure our peacebuilding efforts, we must outlaw war and weapons manufacturing. We must use resources sustainably for peaceful means. Because war and its preparation are the biggest wasters of resources, we need to develop peace and indigenous-based economies that will protect the Earth and ensure humanity’s survival.

Ultimately, we must fulfill human needs, affirm rights, resolve conflict, and protect the environment. We must build an ethical identity and governing system that allows us to accomplish these human and planetary requirements and manage our human and environmental interactions equitably and peacefully.

In 1948, the UDHR and the World Citizenship Movement provided a vision of a united world as an alternative to absolute national sovereignty that perpetuates war and continues to fracture humanity. The UDHR and world citizenship together provide the ethical framework we need to have a thriving Earth community in 2098.

By fully implementing the Declaration of Human Rights and world citizenship, in 75 years from now, we will have transcended the “Divide and Conquer” approach in favor of a “Unite and Prosper” paradigm.

David Gallup is President of World Service Authority, Convenor of the World Court of Human Rights Coalition, and a Board Member of Citizens for Global Solutions Education Fund.

From National Secrecy to World Security: Friendship Sets Us Free

 By David Gallup

Classified documents, top secret files, spy balloons, clandestine surveillance. What kind of world are we living in where we hide information about and from each other, spying to get the upper hand? Why do leaders and legislators feel compelled to keep government secrets from the public?

In the current political system of independent, sovereign states, national governments seek to exact a competitive edge over perceived rivals by hiding information, spying, and governing secretively. Day-to-day governance becomes a zero-sum game. Governmental success comes at the expense of human interdependence, turning our fellow humans into foes rather than friends.

What are the costs of keeping secrets?

Nation-state secrets and spying come with economic, environmental, political, and social costs.

Nearly all countries have their own spies, covert agencies, and departments of “defense,” costing billions of dollars to conduct “intelligence” operations and keep secrets. Furthermore, national governments feel compelled to spend countless billions on embassies, consulates, border walls, and border guards for “national security.” Consider the two trillion dollars total that national governments spend on preparing for and waging wars every year.

Weapons manufacturers, military contractors, government officials, and wealthy shareholders reap the profit from producing and selling tools of deceit and destruction. Meanwhile, a billion people are starving, and millions must flee their homes to survive. Moreover, war preparation and clandestine operations are some of the most devastating despoilers of the environment.

To outmaneuver each other, national governments steadfastly control resources and data, refusing to share information with anyone they consider an outsider. Keeping secrets hampers leaders from governing effectively, causing them to focus on their nation instead of humanity’s survival.

State secrets for “national security” and “public order” allow governments to act extra-judicially and to violate human rights with impunity. Hiding information leads to public mistrust in government. When secrets take precedence over transparency, governing decisions are made without analysis, oversight, or consent. The public is precluded from participating in decision making and mistrust of government grows.

Secrets and the rhetoric of divisiveness – the “us versus them” approach – also take a psychological toll. Overzealous national pride turns our neighbors into enemies and ignites a mindset of fear, distrust, jealousy, and anger. We are constantly looking behind our backs, rather than looking forward.

What are the benefits of humans sharing information instead of privileging secrets?

Human and natural resources would be better spent on environmental, scientific, and technological advancements than on secrets, spying, and information suppression.

Governments, as representatives of the world’s people, could focus on information sharing and unifying humanity. Humans could work together to overcome the divisions that hold us back, rather than maintain nearly 200 separate national departments of defense, and science research, environmental, and intelligence agencies all seeking similar data and advancements. Access to more data would enhance governmental decision-making and lead to quicker scientific, health, and technological progress.

By encouraging the open exchange of information, we would be better equipped to improve understanding among diverse cultures and governing styles, to interact more peaceably and to share resources more equitably. With transparency and accountability as top priorities, we could build a framework of world security.

Resources and funds, historically tied to the military-industrial complex, could be used to feed, house, and educate people. Human and planetary health could take precedence over conflict among people and contamination of the Earth. Global collaboration is far preferable to war or cloak-and-dagger diplomacy.

How can we govern with compassion rather than deception?

Sharing ideas, solutions, technologies, and data would help humanity deal with global problems that can only be handled at the global level – problems that national governments cannot resolve on their own with hushed voices behind closed doors. Eight billion minds are better than one.

People united under one citizenship would see each other as friends with common goals that they implement together.  Democratic world federation and world citizenship would provide a holistic framework for uniting our political governing structures and for uniting us as humans. World citizenship and government could liberate us from the shackles of a divided world.

Above all, governments could act like friends do.

Friends are free because they do not compel, restrain, or confine each other. Friends do not keep secrets to feel special or better. Friends share their concerns. Friends are willing to consider others’ perspectives. Friends have empathy and love for one another. 

The words “friend” and “free” come from the same Proto-Indo-European root which can mean both to love and to be free.

Friendship, in place of secrecy, would free us to achieve a peaceful, just, sustainable, and united world.

 

David Gallup is a human rights attorney, President of the World Service Authority, Convenor of the World Court of Human Rights Coalition, and a Board Member of Citizens for Global Solutions Education Fund.

Human and Environmental Rights Come with Mutual Responsibilities

By David Gallup

If we want a world where our human and environmental rights are elevated, we must place as much importance on our responsibilities to humanity and the planet as we put on our rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) sets forth the fundamental rights belonging to every individual in the world. The UDHR celebrated its 74^th anniversary on December 10, 2022.

This year also marks the 50^th anniversary of the Declarationon the Human Environment and the 5^th anniversary of the Declaration of Ethical Principles of Climate Change. These declarations call for the preservation, enhancement, and equitable use of the environment for present and future generations.

The UN Conference of Parties that occurs every year, the most recent being COP27 in Egypt last month, develops additional accords to enforce environmental rights, such as the Loss and Damage Fund intended to assist people in places most negatively affected by climate disasters.

Distressingly, humanity has yet to fulfill the duties that arise from these global meetings of national governments and from these rights declarations. Celebrating these declarations and international agreements builds an understanding of human and environmental rights. Rights awareness is the first step. The next step is to implement the goals of the declarations, especially for people living in the most vulnerable situations.

Refugees, the stateless, the indigenous, the economically disadvantaged, and those facing war, discrimination, and oppression suffer the most from deleterious human impacts on the environment. Close to 100 million internally/externally displaced and stateless persons in the world – one out of every 80 persons – have had to flee their homes to seek safe places to live. As environmental destruction worsens, climate refugees will multiply this number exponentially.

Civil society has been present during the development of human and environmental rights declarations, but individual humans do not yet have a vote in world affairs. As national citizens, individuals can vote on local issues, but we have limited or no say in how governments and corporations around the world treat the oceans, the forests, the land, the atmosphere, and other species.

In the nation-state system, governments and their leaders can violate human and environmental rights with impunity, because individual accountability for global violations does not yet exist in human and environmental rights law spheres at the world level.

But there are legal and societal measures that we can implement to realize the promise of human and environmental rights declarations.

Global institutions of world law, such as a universal rights court and a people’s world parliament, are tools that can help realign humanity’s priorities to be in sync with the needs of the Earth.

Attempts to address environmental rights judicially are in process. For example, ecocide – severe, widespread, or long-term damage to the environment – is under consideration as a crime within the jurisdiction of the existing International Criminal Court and a future International Court for the Environment. An environmental rights court would adjudicate ecocide, but not the human rights violations of people living in affected areas.  A global judicial system that adjudicates violations of both human and environmental rights, a World Court of Human and Environmental Rights, would provide a holistic solution.

World law institutions are one component to realizing universal rights. The other component is empowering individual action by recognizing our legal status as world citizens. With the right to vote directly in world referenda or through world parliamentarians on issues that affect the entire world, we would increase our individual engagement and our personal responsibility.

Seeing the Earth as one, world citizens understand how our actions affect our fellow humans and the environment. Together, we can develop strategies for sustainable living based not just on human needs, but also on the needs of the Earth.

Human rights and environmental rights are intertwined. Without a safe and sustainable environment, our rights become meaningless. Without just and peaceful interactions among humans, the Earth becomes a victim of human violence, for war is one of the worst destroyers of nature.

As the brain and conscience for the planet, we world citizens have the duty to use our intelligence and empathy to harmonize the needs of humanity with the needs of the Earth.

David Gallup is a human rights attorney, President of the World Service Authority, Convenor of the World Court of Human Rights Coalition, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Citizens for Global Solutions Education Fund.

The DAO and the Dao – Finding a Path to Govern the World

 By David Gallup

The most important issue facing the world today is the lack of a globally coordinated political system to deal with the simultaneous and compounding threats of nuclear war, injustice, global health, and climate destruction.

The 200 or so separate nation-states cannot adequately handle global problems that transcend national borders. People lose faith in government when global problems affect them locally. Due to government inaction, more and more people face vulnerable situations such as displacement by war and climate destruction. Too much power in central authorities of national governments, without world governmental structures, has led to the loss of their legitimacy.

What kind of holistic and ethical governing system can realign government to distribute the power of discussion, decision-making, and voting among the people of the world?

We can find a path toward a governed world through a federation of decentralized public-run organizations such as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Decentralized autonomous organizations guided by the Dao – a universal interconnectedness – can serve as the ethical system we need to unite and govern humanity.

First, let’s consider the usefulness and power of DAOs

A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is a human-created organization that functions without a central authority controlling the decision-making process. Members or “citizens” of a DAO vote according to mutually-agreed-upon rules using secure digital procedures. Their vote is stored on a permanent ledger or record (blockchain). Members oftentimes receive rewards for their work on behalf of the entire group and for interacting peacefully. Rewards can come in the form of cryptocurrencies and investment in or partial ownership of an application, digital property, or real-world objective for establishing the DAO. Decentralized autonomous organizations provide incentives for members to increase their participation and constructive activism in achieving the purposes of the organizations.

DAOs have the potential to prevent manipulation of data, control by one interested party or lobbyist, and interference by government authorities and bad actors. DAOs have the potential to democratize how humans interact online, empower groups of individuals to achieve their goals more efficiently, and support the distribution of the benefits to the whole group. DAOs can provide interactions that are transparent, trustworthy, rights-affirming, and equitable.

How could DAOs assist us in governing the world?

Decentralized autonomous organizations already provide secure and democratized structures for groups of people united in a common goal or financial project. According to Forbes Magazine, there are more than 4,000 DAOs, and this number is accelerating. “CityDAO” is an example of a DAO created to democratize control over real estate. The DAO provides ownership and governance of a parcel of land. Another DAO “LexDAO” seeks to democratize law, making access to justice more efficient and inclusive. Section 1.2 of their LexDAO constitution states, “…If legal services were easier to use, verify, and enforce, we could live in a fairer world.”

The democratization factor makes DAOs an important consideration in finding a path to govern the world. DAOs can provide governing structures for people to interact with each other, without the constant need for a central authority. Then, if necessary for effective achievement of larger goals, they can vote to create or fund a central entity to conduct certain tasks for them. DAOs can help to ensure that government is based on consent, decision-making through voting by all participants in the DAO.

DAOs may be the future of global direct democracy. Decentralized autonomous organizations established for governing can provide a tool for people to discuss issues important to their communities. Each community can establish their own DAO running on solar and other sustainable power. Online, community members can discuss various proposals and then vote on them, ultimately deciding which proposals to support politically and financially. DAOs can provide a digital venue where the public decides how to resolve issues from local to global. DAOs can distribute governing power by involving the public directly in decision-making, without having to rely upon representatives in parliaments to enact their political will. DAOs can ensure that people can vote fairly, accessibly, and securely on issues that matter to them. 

DAOs fulfill the principle of subsidiarity in government: government governs best that governs most locally. DAOs can allow us to “Vote Globally, Act Locally” – we can all vote on global issues that affect not only our local community, but also the entire world. Once we have voted on the best proposals, we can implement the outcomes in our local communities.

A network of interconnected community DAOS can deal with global issues like climate destruction. As a metaverse governing system, this world federation of DAOs can then develop the centralized implementation organizations (CIOs) in the physical world that will implement the decisions of the DAOs. The centralized organizations can conduct the offline work, such as shifting economies from fossil fuels to sustainable energy and dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

A linked network of community governance DAOs could be the virtual structure that we need to vote globally alongside or in place of a world parliament. Such a structure would be far less expensive to implement than the nation-states system’s current attempt to run the world, relying upon endless growth, resource depletion, national militaries, highly paid diplomats, and border controls that further aggravate the disorder and hostility among 200 separate countries.

We can maximize our technologies and resources to organize and operate our world more effectively and democratically. Even intractable issues such as equitable income and resource distribution can be implemented with token-sharing in the DAO infrastructure. Blockchain technology and DAOs can be tools to help us, while not replacing offline human interaction.

Should we be wary about using DAOs in governing?

As with any new technology or process, the public may have concerns about how DAOs could lead to unethical or unsustainable decision-making. More likely, though, wealthy individuals, corporations, and powerful national governments will be concerned about how DAOs will disrupt the institutions that maintain the status quo and the current seats of power.

Legacy government institutions will raise concerns such as: Could a DAO be used to commit bad acts? Is there a danger of DAOs putting too much decision-making power in the hands of the public who may not be well-enough informed? Who will oversee DAOs? These are legitimate concerns. And they are the same concerns that the public has about the agglomeration of power in the hands of national and corporate heads.

Unlike many national governments and corporations, DAOs have the potential to reestablish power among the people to whom government is supposed to be accountable and for whom government should exist to serve. We must ensure that governance DAOs are equitable and inclusive, providing access to everyone no matter their economic, social, or political status. Oversight of governance DAOs can be conducted by centralized adjudication organizations, such as a system of interconnected World Courts of Human and Environmental Rights.

When determining what kind of organization will help us to begin to govern our world, we should consider how our interactions with each other affect humanity and the Earth as a whole. Governance DAOs can be the organizational process that empowers the individual, and humanity, to participate and collaborate peacefully in governing the world.

What other principles for peaceful human interaction should we consider?

How does the DAO relate to the Dao?

In Chinese philosophy, the Dao is defined as the path, the natural interaction of everything in the universe, and the mathematical and scientific order of things.

Because we share the same living space with each other and other earthly beings, when we fail to govern the world, we ignore how our inaction affects our rights, our livelihood, and our future existence. In an ungoverned world, we waste time with impotent attempts to deal with global catastrophes.

We can learn from the principles of the Dao how to engage in holistic thinking that can help us to govern the world, and that can help us to comprehend how we are all interconnected as world citizens.

We need to find a path to a sustainable, peaceful, and just world.  Through governance DAOs, we may find the Dao or path to bring just and peaceful order to how humans interact with each other and the planet.  Governance DAOs can be a social tool for citizens of the world to reclaim our economic and political power. DAOs can provide a new way for humans to collaborate -- global public organizing beyond the control of nations and corporations.

Decentralized world government in the form of federated DAOs is an alternative to the nation-state system. Decentralization, in the case of DAOs, is actually democratization. With government in the hands of the people, DAOs offer verticalization of power, so that people on the bottom can go straight to the top, and then horizontalization of power so that everyone relocates to the same equitable plane. DAOs can provide a governing system that is unified and distributed, as well as just, sustainable, and ethical.

Governance through DAOs, guided by the Dao, can help us fulfill the needs and affirm the rights of the people and the planet.

Garry’s Two Gurus: Viewing the World Holistically

By David Gallup

As we enter the new year, let’s reflect on how we can strive for personal and world peace. In his own quest for personal and world peace, Garry Davis, founder of the World Citizen Government, sought advice from two gurus who helped him to navigate his role as a private individual and as a world citizen. Viewing the world holistically was what helped Garry maintain a balance between his personal life and his public activism.

In 1948, Garry became world famous after giving up his US citizenship, camping on the steps of the United Nations in Paris, and protesting the war system with thought-leaders like Albert Camus. Garry spoke to vast crowds of war-weary Europeans about creating a better world with “we, the people” in charge.

The public’s desire for peace weighed heavy on Garry’s conscience. It was not always clear to him what path he should take as a world citizen. Having realized that the world was already one when he gave up his national citizenship, he turned to Eastern and Hindu philosophy to learn the philosophical underpinnings of viewing the world in a holistic way.

A few years later, in the 1950s, Garry would meet two gurus (wisdom givers or spiritual guides), one who would help him to handle the difficulty of fame and the other who would encourage him to continue his peace activism.

Both of Garry’s gurus were experts in the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta or non-dualism, which is the primary and oldest among the schools of Indian philosophy. This holistic philosophy involves a journey to understand the source of everything and the self, as well as the relationship between the two. It posits that the core of our own being is the self in all beings. Objects, plants, animals, people, etc. may appear separate, but we are actually connected through an awareness of the oneness of everything.

Garry’s gurus taught him to look at a problem, an issue, or concern, as a consequence of the entire system in which the problem arises. By viewing the world holistically, he could see all of the intricacies of a problem -- the give and take, the polar opposites. He would then, his gurus explained, be able to transcend the problem and resolve it.

Garry’s first Guru was Harry Jakobsen in whose machine shop in New Jersey Garry worked for several months in 1952.

Garry and Harry would have long talks about holistic thinking and the state of the world. Garry was frustrated about the Korean War – frustrated that all his work to bring people together was no match for the national war machine. Garry asked Harry what he should do. Harry said, “Garry, you must continue to take action. If you see a problem in the world, you must take action to change it. If you change yourself, the world will follow. In other words, be the change you want to see in the world.”

Garry’s second Guru was Dr. Natarajan, also known as Nataraja Guru.

Garry voyaged to India to expand his learning of holistic thinking. Garry needed a break from constantly being in the spotlight, but he felt guilty for taking a break from his actions toward world peace. Garry asked Nataraja Guru about the guilt that he felt. Nataraja said to Garry, “Don’t worry, Garry. Let go. Put your mind at ease. Relax. Do nothing. The world and the universe will go on even if you are doing nothing.” This was a big solace to Garry who needed a break from the constant barrage of the press and years in the public eye.

So, Garry had two Gurus – one who told him to take action and one who told him to do nothing. They told him what they knew he needed to hear at that moment in his life. In the end, his concern for the world and humanity pulled Garry back into a life of action, continuing his role as World Citizen #1. His memoir My Country is the World and the documentary The World Is My Country recount further his experiences with the gurus.

Like his gurus before him, Garry would spend the rest of his life sharing his world citizenship wisdom. In countless speeches, conferences, seminars, newspaper and magazine articles, radio and television shows, podcasts, and his ten books, Garry advocated an ethical framework for governing our world. This holistic framework, he explained, could help us build a peaceful, just and sustainable world.

In the new year, let us seek to find repose within our minds along with the courage to build the world that Garry envisioned – a world in which humanity is united under the banner of world citizenship and world law.

The Right to Peace: 73rd Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

By David Gallup

December 10, 2021 marks the 73^rd anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This year also marks the 5th anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Right to Peace (DRP). As we celebrate the anniversaries of these two Declarations, let’s consider their interconnectedness and how world government, world law, and world citizenship are key to their implementation. 

Linking Human Rights and Peace in the Declarations

The UDHR and the DRP share the same ultimate goal: achieving world peace based on universal respect for human rights.

The interconnectedness between the Declarations becomes noticeable in the shared terms “peace” and “human rights,” which repeat multiple times in each document. Peace affirms human rights, and human rights affirm peace.

The UDHR refers to “peace” three times. The most significant occurrence appears in the Preamble: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

The DRP further affirms the indivisible link between rights and peace. Article 1 states, “Everyone has the right to enjoy peace such that all human rights are promoted and protected and development is fully realized.”

Education of our rights and of a culture of peace, according to both Declarations, is the principal way to raise awareness of these goals. To move beyond awareness into implementation, peace and human rights must be engaged by government at all levels from local to global.

Implementing Human Rights and Peace: Primary Function of Government

Achieving peace and human rights must be the primary function of government. We must implement the UDHR and the DRP at the world level as well as lower levels because local and national governments alone do not have the capacity and oftentimes the willingness to fulfill this role.

The limitations of local and national governments hamper the achievement of peace. For example, within the nation-state system of exclusive sovereignty, our rights and duties begin and end at the border, allowing lawlessness and violence to reign beyond borders. In a global governmental system, our rights and duties apply to everyone, everywhere, placing accountability on each individual in society for upholding the rule of law.

We can learn from the effective aspects of national governmental institutions, such as parliaments and courts, which provide legislative processes and adjudication of disputes that allow for peaceful decision-making at the national level. By globalizing these legal processes, we can achieve peaceful decision-making beyond the nation-state – at the more impactful world level.

A world federal government, in its focus on the global rule of law, offers a system to transition from a society guided by war, to a society guided by peaceful realization of our rights and duties.

Implementing Human Rights and Peace: Law and Citizenship

If we define and implement peace by what it is – the presence of law – rather than by what it is not – the absence of war – then world peace becomes achievable. World peace is achievable through world law and world citizenship.

The UDHR provides a set of guiding principles to form the basis of an evolving world law. The UDHR provides a springboard for creating the participatory institutions and regenerative processes at the global level to help us to live together peacefully with each other and sustainably with the Earth.

To fulfill our right to peace as the DRP intends, we must move beyond the confines of our local identities that divide us. By seeing ourselves as world citizens, with universal rights and duties to each other and to the planet, we begin to govern our world with a unified voice -- a world governed by us, the people of the world. With a world citizen mindset, we better understand that peace depends upon respect for rights and respect for rights depends upon peaceful interactions at all levels of human society.

As we celebrate the anniversaries of the UDHR and the DRP, let’s consider how we may implement the Declarations’ principles and framework for human rights and peace in our own lives, in our communities, and in the world.

 

David Gallup is a human rights attorney, President of the World Service Authority, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Citizens for Global Solutions Education Fund.

The Thief and the Guru: A 2021 New Year’s Tale

 

By David Gallup

Garry Davis, the founder of the World Citizenship Movement, had two gurus who helped him understand what it means to be a world citizen. I was in my mid-20s when I started working with Garry at the World Service Authority. Garry, who was in his 70s, became my guru and shared his lifetime of worldly wisdom.

Garry once said to me, “One guru is worth a hundred thieves.”

I said, “What do you mean? Why would you compare a guru to a thief?”

He repeated, “One guru is worth a hundred thieves.” Garry continued, “One person of heart is worth a hundred people of head. One thief is worth a hundred people of heart. And, one guru is worth a hundred thieves.”

My eyes were wide, and I had a confused look on my face. Garry told the following tale:

“One person of heart – that is a person of action, someone who acts from emotion – is worth a hundred people of head because a person of head is stuck in their thoughts. The person of head may have great thoughts, but unless they are willing to act on those thoughts, nothing will change.

Now the problem with the person of heart is that they may not have thought through their actions, so their actions will have little impact. This is what brings us to the thief.

One thief is worth a hundred people of heart because the thief, if they are a successful thief, will have taken painstaking efforts to plan their theft. Because they are a thief, they are willing to go through with it even though they might get caught.  So the thief has put the head and the heart together.

But the thief is in the perceptual world, bound by space and time. The thief is in the here and now – the material, relative world. The thief is selfish.

Now, this brings us to the guru. Why is one guru worth a hundred thieves? Because the guru puts the head and the heart together in an ethical framework for understanding the world around them.

The guru is in the conceptual world, the world of values. The guru is a teacher. The guru gives to others and is for others. The guru is selfless. The guru is free and has no Karma to deal with. The guru has found the truth and is one with truth. The guru sees the world as one and views everything holistically.

One guru is worth a hundred thieves because the guru not only thinks about the morality and helpfulness of their actions before they take them, but they also act selflessly to help those around them.”

Why is “The Thief and the Guru” an important New Year’s tale? Given the extraordinarily challenging year that humanity endured in 2020, it is a reminder for us to think and act like a guru as we begin a new year. It is a reminder to let our thoughts and emotions work together to create purposeful action.

Acting like a guru in this way is challenging because of the values that the nation-state system has instilled in us. We have been taught to think exclusively about and encouraged to love our individual nations as if national citizenship is the pinnacle of our identity. The guru teaches us the ethical power of world citizenship, guiding our hearts and minds toward world unity.

Voice, one of humanity’s most powerful tools, literally and metaphorically connects our hearts and heads. Through our voice, we can share our thoughts and feelings about what kind of world we want. Through our voice we can advance world citizenship to help us to achieve world peace. May we each be inspired to think, feel and speak like the guru in 2021.

_________________________________________________

Read my upcoming blog in February to learn about Garry’s experience with two gurus.