News reports sound surprised by the mass murder in
Paris. American’s were surprised on 9-11. It continues to surprise me that they are surprised. This is what a global war on terrorism looks
like. And it’s only going to get worse
unless we stop waging war, which is in itself a form of terrorism. A war where the world is a battle field with
no front lines, no borders, and no rules.
War by definition is lawlessness. And every war spawns terror for anyone caught
in the middle. Even for the soldiers who
volunteer or were drafted, war is hell and thoroughly terrifying.
Being on the receiving end of a suicide bomber and stealth
bomber there is no difference except cost.
They both kill innocent people. There is no justice in that. A Pope
once offered the solution in four words “no
justice, no peace”. Last month on the 20th
anniversary of the Million Man March you heard a 3 word prediction, “justice or
else!” In June the report from the Commission
on Global Security, Justice and Governance stated the obvious in just two
words. “ Just Peace”. The summary of
their detailed report makes the self-evident case that without justice (the
protection of human rights) there will be no security!
On December 10th the world should be celebrating the 67th
anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It’s a list of 51 specific inalienable human
rights in 30 “Articles”.
There is no way to prove this assertion, but I believe it’s true. If in creating the United Nations 70 years
ago, the victors of World War II would have made this an enforceable global ‘bill
of rights’, superior to the rights of nation states (the national sovereign
system of unenforceable international law we have today), there would be no
terrorism. No genocide. Far fewer deaths from poverty, hunger, disease
(which still kill more people than war and genocide combined). The world we live in today wouldn’t be perfect.
But we wouldn’t now be increasingly forced to choose between our freedoms and our
security.
Those who created the UDHR after the terrors of World War II
(genocide, atomic bombs and millions of death by war) essentially acknowledged
our global interdependence. But today
we cling to the illusion that we are independent. A global state of anarchy that allows nation
states to do as they please, especially if they have nuclear weapons, regardless
of the consequences on other people in other nations or in other religions.
Our great but troubled nation is based on this illusionary
concept of ‘independence’. In reality it
is just a word that exists only on paper in this increasingly interdependent
and troubled world. Even worse, it is a
mental illusion that goes beyond our national and state governments. It is embedded in each government agency. After 9-ll our nation attempted to reconcile
the consequences of the separation between the CIA and the FBI in terms of
cooperation in identifying in advance, those who might be plotting harm against
us. Our government then consolidated 18
formerly independent agencies into one.
The Department of Homeland Security.
But, then kept it separate from DOD, which remains separate from EPA ,
and every other federal agency
responsible for various aspects of our national security.
It gets worse. Our
minds are addicted to the illusion of separateness. We have a mind/body/spirit separation then
spend time and effort to seeking and practicing various techniques to resolve
this separateness. We also separate ourselves from one another by
skin color, religion, nationality, sexual preferences, culture, political
parties, and tax loop holes. And we
wonder why things aren’t working?. We
have a growing obesity epidemic, distrust of police and politicians, and a ‘dysfunctional
government’ that is now our nation’s second greatest national security threat. You read that correctly. Our nation’s top national security experts,
put our government’s “dysfunction”, in second place behind, Russia, China,
North Korea and Climate Change. They
saw jihadists as a greater threat.
Soon after I first started working on world hunger issues in
the late 1970s. I read President Carter’s
“Presidential Commission on World Hunger”.
In the summary of that report it concluded ‘if we don’t end hunger soon we
will increasingly see disease, war, revolution, refugees…’
Scientists now believe AIDS originated in the Congo in the
1930s and 40s when the eating of bush
meat spread the virus to the human population where there was no immunity. Then wars and prostitution pushed the virus up
the Kinshasa highway where it was seen as a ‘hunger’ related problem. According to genetic tracing the virus first
appeared in the US in the mid 70s when it was brought in unknowingly by a Haitian
airline steward.
A few years later HIV/AIDS started killing gay men in SF
where I was living with my wife. We had
our first child in San Francisco General Hospital…and a few months later
received a letter requesting we come in
for an blood test. Would it be twisting
a word too much to say we were ‘terrorized’? Long before the US attacks on 9-11 I had been
studying terrorism. I was shocked by the
lack of agreement on a definition. There
were over 200, many contradicting each another.
But after witnessing my first child coming into this world I understood
for the first time what true joy was, and true terror. I would have done ANYTHING to keep her safe
and healthy. And, I assure you. There is
no greater terror in the world than experience of a parent thinking about the
loss of their own child. Yet today, like
every day, approximately 17,000 children under the age of 5 die from easily
preventable malnutrition and infections.
And it’s not news!
I believe it’s not reported because of our illusion of separateness. This blinds us to the actual connections between
the suffering of those parents and a growing list of lethal and expensive
consequences that show up in our own lives.
From the export of US jobs to
lower wage nations, to the import of infectious diseases by immigrants or Americans
on vacations or business trips abroad.
From the terrorism we see on TV to the excessive birth rates that fuel
population growth.
I believe the global enforcement of the UDHR back then would
have profoundly reduced most of these problems and threats today. And those
that were not preventable, we would be that much better able to react to or
recover from today.
And that is why I believe, December 10th is the
most important day of the year. Unfortunately,
it will continue to be ‘just a day’ like any other. Until ‘we the people’ of the world demand
that our inalienable rights be put superior to the currently uncontested rights
of nation states (and corporations) to do whatever they want, whenever they
want, to whomever they want.
For those unpersuaded by this logic. Consider this.
The exponential growth of technology is putting unprecedented power in
the hands of almost anyone with a small bank account or a grudge. All of
it is duel use technology. Capable of doing
amazing good, or catastrophic harm. Our linear
minds can’t quite grasp the significance of this reality. And, worse yet, our ‘independent’ governments
are seem increasingly incapable of changing in response. If we
allow war to continue as a solution to resolving issues instead of ‘justice’ determined
by democratically elected law making body and a global supreme court, our
species may not recover. Albert Einstein
who supported this change in human behavior was once asked what World War III
would be fought with. He said he didn’t
know. But he was quite certain, “World
War IV would be fought with sticks and stones.”
No justice. No
security. No civilization. No humans.