Added 16-03-03, revised 12/08/09, 14/09/09
I received this interesting email from SGR forum. It has been
on my mind, and subject of a recent talk at local Fabian Society
meeting by Graham Richard's, who is a professor of the history of
psychology, how come we have had time to protest against war, before
it has started. Usually it starts after a few days or weeks. The joke
that the lesson from history is that you can't learn anything from
history, but in this case might be the reverse of the situation of
the first world war which was followed by a state guilt and the
positivist movement. Following W.W.1 20% of the population signed
the peace pledge union's pledge - This time we are saying no to war
before it has started - a complete reversal.
Despite the
special relationship with USA, it is as if the UK establishment has
given us permission to us to say no to war (I don't need permission
actually). Labour party branches and members may be disassociating
from there party leader if were to take our country to war. The more
USA becomes unpopular the more likely it is that other oil producing
countries will follow Iraq's move in 2000 to trade in Euro's instead
of US $.
As a Labour town councillor I had thought that the
Blair government's motive has been to be so extreme that everyone
including the right say no we want more nurses and socialist things.
Unfortunately we don't seem to have consequently got doctors trained
up, etc. If it was a gamble that Blair took to pull Bush back from
the brink and go to the UN it failed, but in doing so for the first
time going to war, as you see below has been debated in public, and
support for it does not exist. I have a dream of the UK free of the
special relationship with US and more closely part of Europe
peacefully and politically, as it is already economically.
Andrew
Lohmann
:-
Dr. Robert Muller, former assistant secretary
general of the United Nations, now Chancellor emeritus of the
University of Peace in Costa Rica was one of the people who witnessed
the founding of the U.N. and has worked in support of or inside the
U.N. ever since. Recently he was in San Francisco to be honored for
his service to the world through the U.N. and through his writings
and teachings for peace. At age eighty, Dr. Muller surprised, even
stunned, many in the audience that day with his most positive
assessment of where the world stands now regarding war and peace.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm
so honoured to be here," he said. "I'm so honoured to be
alive at such a miraculous time in history. I'm so moved by what's
going on in our world today." Dr. Muller proceeded to say,
"Never before in the history of the world has there been a
global, visible, public, viable, open dialogue and conversation about
the very legitimacy of war". The whole world is in now having
this critical and historic dialogue--listening to all kinds of points
of view and positions about going to war or not going to war. In a
huge global public conversation the world is asking-"Is war
legitimate? Is it illegitimate? Is there enough evidence to warrant
an attack? Is there not enough evidence to warrant an attack? What
will be the consequences? The costs? What will happen after a war?
How will this set off other conflicts? What might be peaceful
alternatives? What kind of negotiations are we not thinking of? What
are the real intentions for declaring war?" All of this, he
noted, is taking place in the context of the United Nations Security
Council, the body that was established in 1949 for exactly this
purpose. He pointed out that it has taken us more than fifty years to
realize that function, the real function of the U.N. And at this
moment in history-- the United Nations is at the centre of the stage.
It is the place where these conversations are happening, and it has
become in these last months and weeks, the most powerful governing
body on earth, the most powerful container for the world's effort to
wage peace rather than war. Dr. Muller was almost in tears in
recognition of the fulfilment of this dream. "We are not at
war," he kept saying. We, the world community, are WAGING peace.
It is difficult, hard work. It is constant and we must not let up. It
is working and it is an historic milestone of immense proportions. It
has never happened before-never in human history-and it is happening
now-every day every hour-waging peace through a global conversation.
He pointed out that the conversation questioning the validity of
going to war has gone on for hours, days, weeks, months and now more
than a year, and it may go on and on. "We're in peacetime,"
he kept saying. "Yes, troops are being moved. Yes, warheads are
being lined up. Yes, the aggressor is angry and upset and spending a
billion dollars a day preparing to attack. But not one shot has been
fired. Not one life has been lost. There is no war. It's all a
conversation." It is tense, it is tough, it is challenging, AND
we are in the most significant and potent global conversation and
public dialogue in the history of the world. This has not happened
before on this scale ever before-not before WWI or W.W.II, not before
Vietnam or Korea, this is new and it is a stunning new era of Global
listening, speaking, and responsibility. In the process, he pointed
out, new alliances are being formed. Russia and China on the same
side of an issue is an unprecedented outcome. France and Germany
working together to wake up the world to a new way of seeing the
situation. The largest peace demonstrations in the history of the
world are taking place--and we are not at war! Most peace
demonstrations in recent history took place when a war was already
waging, sometimes for years, as in the case of Vietnam. "So
this," he said, "is a miracle. This is what "waging
peace " looks like." No matter what happens, history will
record that this is a new era, and that the 21st century has been
initiated with the world in a global dialogue looking deeply,
profoundly and responsibly as a global community at the legitimacy of
the actions of a nation that is desperate to go to war. Through these
global peace-waging efforts, the leaders of that nation are being
engaged in further dialogue, forcing them to rethink, and allowing
all nations to participate in the serious and horrific decision to go
to war or not. Dr. Muller also made reference to a recent New York
Times article that pointed out that up until now there has been just
one superpower-the United States, and that that has created a kind of
blindness in the vision of the U.S. But now, Dr. Muller asserts,
there are two superpowers: the United States and the merging, surging
voice of the people of the world. All around the world, people are
waging peace. To Robert Muller, one of the great advocates of the
United Nations, it is nothing short of a miracle and it is working.
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