Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street

The Day of the Citizens of the World

The passage at midnight between 20 March and 21 March marks the central moment of the Day of the Citizens of the World. It is the start of the Spring Solstice and is celebrated in countries influenced by Persian culture such as Iran, Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics as Navruz (Nawroz), the start of the New Year. It is a period of renewal, of new beginnings, and a time of recognition that we are all citizens of the world bound together in a common destiny.

The Spring Solstice as the Day of the Citizens of the World marks a profound regard for cycles. Every cycle has a beginning, a middle, and an end; and nearly every cycle is followed by another. It was this sensitivity to cycles of change that served as the basis for the Chinese philosophy embodied in the I Ching – the Book of Changes. In the Richard Wilhelm translation, the text for the hexagram Fu advises “This is the moment, but it is not brought about by force…the moment is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason, the transformation of the old becomes easy…Therefore, it is not necessary to hasten anything artificially. Everything comes of itself at the appointed time. This is the meaning of heaven and earth…The return of health after illness, the return of understanding after an estrangement: everything must be treated tenderly and with care at the beginning, so that it may lead to a flowering.”

The Spring Solstice is an intrinsically meaningful cosmic-terrestrial event and at the same time serves as a powerful symbol for the deepest processes of transformation in the individual and collective human psyche. Wisdom consists in knowing one’s place in any given cycle and what kind of action (or restraint from action) is appropriate for that phase. What is constructive at one time may be destructive at another.

Thus, the passage from an international system based on States to a world society based on the vision of world citizenship is a transition which flows naturally, without violence and without a destruction of the old. World Citizenship is based on a broad awareness of the ways the planet Earth is inter-related — what happens in one part of the world or to one group of people has an impact on all others.

The Spring Solstice — Day of the Citizens of the World — is placed under the sign of Hermes Trismegistus (the thrice-great Hermes) who is said to have lived in Egypt at the time of Moses. As a priest and an older man, Hermes would naturally have taught Moses about the Light in which we live, move and have our being. Hermes was also thought to have been the teacher of Orpheus, who passed on the teaching concerning the order of the world to Pythagoras and Plato. Thus, there is, in the tradition of the Alchemists, the symbol of Aurea Catena — the Golden Chain — an unbroken series of wise persons — women and men— from Hermes Trimegistus to the present, a chain which also symbolizes the links between heaven and earth.

This Aurea Catena chain is depicted in a 1488 mosaic of the Sienna Cathedral, Italy, where we see two figures, one from the East and one from the West coming to receive instruction from Hermes. Knowledge and Wisdom flowing toward both the East and the West is a key symbol of world citizenship. Thus the Day of the Citizens of the World is placed under the sign of the thrice-great Hermes.

The current financial-economic crisis has brought the realization to many that we are all associated in one world. The decisions of a few can have an impact on the many. If this is true for the negative impact of financial decisions, it is also true for positive actions. Thus the Day of the Citizens of the World can be a day for greater awareness of the need for cooperation and mutual action. The Day calls for individual commitment and responsibility.
Rene Wadlow, Representative to the UN, Geneva, Association of World Citizens

The United Nations as One Mind

Those who observe world events may perceive something higher than human logic at work

Dag Hammarshjold has written that the United Nations was “the beginning of an organic process through which the diversity of peoples and their governments are struggling to find common ground upon which they can live together in the one world which has been thrust upon us before we were ready.”

Basically, the function of the UN is to create consensus (being of one mind) on crucial world issues. Such consensus-building is slow, and it is done by repeating endlessly in resolutions of the General Assembly and other UN bodies, year after year, the same idea until it becomes common place. Slowly national governments align their policies upon this common core as non-governmental organizations and the media take up the issue — sometimes a little ahead of governments and sometimes only later.

Since 1945, there have been six issues which have moved from the stage of the ideas of a few to become common policy, the one mind of the UN. This is about one idea per decade, although often the idea was presented early, and it took more than one decade to build consensus. I see the six issues on which one mind was formed as follows:

1) Direct colonialism should end. From the idea of a few in 1945 until the mid-1960s, the idea grew that colonial administration had ended its usefulness as a form of government. The end of direct colonialism owes much to the UN system, though, of course, inequality and domination, the signs of colonial status, have not been overcome.

2) Apartheid was a bad structure for South Africa and for other countries tempted by similar structures of racial division. This idea was the theme of many resolutions and speeches. Slowly, the image of a multi-racial and multi-cultural society took hold, encouraged by enlightened leadership at the national level in South Africa.

3) There are basic human rights, and these should be respected. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948 — the ‘Magna Carta’ for all humanity. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Preamble to the UN Charter are the two inspirational texts out of the millions of words written in UN documents that are likely to last as guides for the future.

4) Closely related to the idea of human rights but needing a special effort at consensus building is the idea that women are equal to men and should be so treated. Although the idea is obvious, both the UN and national governments have found it difficult to put into place.

5) The ecological balance of the world is in danger and needs remedial action. The ecological efforts of the UN began in 1971 and are enshrined in the Covenant with Nature — a text of equal importance to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, although not as well known. Current efforts to limit global warming are growing out of this basic ecological awareness.

6) There should be a Palestinian state. From the 1947 partition plan to today, this idea has been repeated. There is a broad consensus, but such a state has not been created. Without the constant discussion in the UN, the Israel-Palestine tensions would have become a bilateral issue of interest to few other states, as the issue of Kashmir, created at the same time, has faded from the UN stage to become an India-Pakistan issue.

Now there is a seventh idea developing, increasingly articulated but not yet manifested as consensus. The idea is that there is a relationship between security, development, and human rights. “It is clear that security cannot be enjoyed without development, that development cannot be enjoyed without security, and neither can be enjoyed without respect for human rights” as stated by the former Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Many of us as NGO representatives to the UN have tried to push other ideas within the UN system, especially disarmament and improved techniques of conflict resolution, without success. Today, the UN has little impact on issues of armed violence, but no other organization does either. Thus we have a world with a good deal of violence and tension areas where even greater violence may break out. Violence-reduction is probably the chief task facing the current Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. However, there is little common ground on what can be done to reduce violence and settle conflicts peacefully. We must not underestimate the time and difficulty that it takes to build consensus within the UN, but I believe that violence-reduction (sometimes called peace) is the next “big idea”, the eighth, whose time has come to the UN.

Kuan Yin : She who harkens to the cries of the world, Rene Wadlow*
Wise in using skilful means
In every corner of the world
She manifests her countless forms
Twilight and Dawn (René Wadlow)

The alternation of night and day is a cosmic process of which humans have been long aware and which has led to dualistic thinking: day and night, light and dark, right and wrong, pure and impure. However, during this alternation of night and day, there are two periods of transition — twilight as the day fades and night comes on, and dawn as night is replaced by the rays of the coming sun. During these periods of transition, shapes are less clear. Twilight may also resemble dawn, and it is not clear from the color of the sky if the day is fading or growing.

So too, in the study of international society and world politics, it is not always clear if we are moving toward greater night or clearer day. For our efforts to be most effective, we need to have some understanding of where we are in the cosmic process, if it is time to get more fuel for our lamps because night is coming on or if we can start putting away our lamps because day will soon be here. In this period with strong shadows and unclear shapes, we must be particularly careful in our evaluations of events and currents.

Around the world today, numerous communities face an immediate future of intense violence and social upheaval. The Congo, East Timor, Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Tibet are examples amongst many others. In zones of chronic tensions, politics characteristically lurch back and forth from hope to despair to hope to despair. Peace talks, road maps and new elections descend into the daily hell of missiles, armoured vehicles and suicide-martyrs — and the new maps are drawn again.

We see among the shadows a world of base calculations, of power plays, of special interests working for national advantage and overlooking global responsibilities. In the confusion of today’s economic situation when only short-term profit and consumption mattered, we see jobs lost, homes lost, medical and educational facilities cut back or closed. Through financial misdoings, avarice and corruption, we are compromising our future and that of our children. We see a world where we have reached critical limits on pollution, on fossil-fuel extraction, on endangered species, on climate change.

To meet these challenges, often the result of limited visions and short-term political calculations, we need a strong, values-based United Nations, and we need ethical and future-oriented Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

The United Nations has taken unprecedented steps to focus the world’s urgent attention on the need to protect nature and to encourage ecologically-sound development. The UN has held major environmental conferences such as those of Stockholm (1972), Rio (1992), Johannesburg (2002) and the climate conference planned for Copenhagen in December 2009.

NGOs have responded to these challenges. They work year round to reverse the deterioration of nature’s plant life, water quality, forest cover, mountain ecosystems and marine resources. They combat atmospheric pollution, desertification and chemical hazards.

NGOs are active in defending and promoting human rights, in assisting refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants, in running medical, educational and vocational-training institutions, in overcoming patriarchal obstacles to women’s empowerment, in healing children, and in giving youth a voice in determining the future. NGOs are helping people redefine themselves from victims into partners for a new world society.

Where social welfare is lacking, where social justice is lacking, there you will find NGOs ready to take a lead, to take responsibility, to take action.

There is a need for NGO leadership and cooperation, for adequate funding and the sharing of information as to new needs and new opportunities. With such leadership and cooperation, we will not mistake the dawn for the twilight.

Rene Wadlow, Representative to the UN, Geneva,

Association of World Citizens
20/07/2009