Waging Peace

[Guest guest]

Hi Everybody,

Jim and I got this in our inbox today. Neat, huh?

 

Waging Peace through Dialogue

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 was there at the gathering and I myself

was stunned by his remarks. What he said turned my head around and

offered me a new way to see what is going on in the world. My

synopsis of his remarks is below: "I'm so honored to be here," he

said. "I'm so honored to be alive at such a miraculous time in

history. I'm so moved by what's going on in our world today. ( I was

shocked. I thought -- Where has he been? What has he been reading?

Has he seen the newspapers? Is he senile? Has he lost it? What is he

talking about?)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 center 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 fulfillment

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

WWII, 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.