The Global Round Table for Peace Initiative
Dr Michael Ellis

The Centre for Change in the Third Millennium - is supporting a decade of open forum and ongoing dialogue on key issues affecting the future of human kind. The aim of The Centre for Change is to involve community and business highlighting healing, education and social integration in order to create a more sustainable and peaceful world.

We are calling for the establishment of a Round table for Peace leading to the establishment of a Department for Peace in Government devoted to new ways of thinking, developing a culture of Healing in Society, and facilitating  nonviolent solutions to domestic and international conflict

Humankind has reached a state of development in which old modes of thinking and behaving threaten to destroy our planet

The old modes of thinking and behaving or the   old paradigm is being forced on us to an even greater extent by the neo-conservative Orwellian, economic rationalist regime of Western Society. This gradual intrusive process is by its very nature  eroding creativity and freedom of expression of art and culture. 

Our health system worldwide is in crisis.  This crisis is exacerbated by the costs and profits generated by the pharmaceutical industry.  It is no wonder that the health system is in crisis when the whole essence of health care is based on the use of allopathic drugs.  The pharmaceutical industry exists and feeds on illness.  Without illness it cannot grow.  It cannot create new drugs to band-aid the illness.  Despite remarkable achievements in some aspects of orthodox medicine, the world's leading conventional institutions are responsible for an enormous  death toll across the globe.

Nutritional  and stress factors play an important role in the causes of these three killer diseases1.

 Over the past three decades there has been a virtual explosion in information in the medical and scientific literature relating nutrition , lifestyle and depression  to disease.2

This  is why we see so many patients with their immune systems compromised by stress and depression and pharmaceutical treatment. Stress and depression in one in three people in Australia are surely signs that in terms of community, support and caring we are losing out. People are competing for survival and work rather than creating friendships and developing mature relationships and families.

Unless governance becomes more participatory and people have a real say at what they want in terms of their dreams and how they can express themselves in terms of real values and positive attitudes, our society will become like those dictatorships in Africa run by cruel bureaucratic elite and watched over by a very wealthy minority.

We need to get back to the concept of true education and true healing if we wish to see a society which will flourish in every way including economically.

We have to realize that the kind of life that we currently live is not conducive to happiness, health and wellness when we are surrounded by a world full of conflict and wars. We are in a global crisis in terms of population, health and environmental degradation. Half of the Nobel Prize winners of the world at the Rio Summit in 1992 stated that we had only a short period of time for our planet to be either severely mutilated or for us to create a sustainable community and environment.

We live in a disenfranchised world and communities with massive health problems Within this society there is tremendous emphasis on wealth and consumerism where the emphasis is on economics which is  utterly unconcerned about the wellbeing of the individual . Economics  is only concerned about the rationale for  the accumulation of wealth no matter what the consequences for the people or environment.

When people feel uncared for the result is illness. Economic rationalism is an expression of how we are losing our sense of community and connection with all of life. In general there has to be a massive change in consciousness if we are to survive. Consciousness is also the key word when it comes to taking responsibility for healing one self and healing the planet.

It is an indictment on the ruling hegemony of the world, politicians and presidents, governments and CEOs of large organizations that they allow and even condone conflict within their own politicking as well as between rivals and have no knowledge of the significance of the  social determinants of well being and health. 3

It seems that the military industrial complex, the multiplying wars, the pollution of our rivers and seas and skies, the inhumanity of man against man and global inequity and poverty are having tremendous deleterious effects on the state of  the world creating an eroded planet and a dis-eased Humanity.

If we do not address the basic social and environment and nutritional determinants of health we are only going to further inflame our present global crisis to the extent of creating an increasing spiraling of global disease and stress.

Of course the stress, anxiety and depression can manifest itself in the way nations respond to each other and the way they are not able to manage conflict resolution or look at things in a calm long term view.

The minds of people who are leaders in the Global community should be able to see things wisely and with compassion, However it seems that  they are experiencing mental processes which can only create dissonance and poor decision making.

It is therefore time that we begin to bring healing into the context of society on a global and political level if we are to create a more sustainable and happy humanity.

It is for this reason that The Centre For Change   proposes the establishment of a Round tables For Peace leading to the establishment of a Department for Peace in Governments devoted to new ways of thinking, developing a culture of Healing in Society, and facilitating  nonviolent solutions to domestic and international conflict We need to  creating a better  sustainable world  through reappraisal of what it means to be a human being in harmony with the environment.

References

1 Australia. Health targets and implementation (Health for All) Committee. Health for all Australians: Introducing the Report of the Health Targets and implementation (Health for All) Committee. Canberra: AGPS, 1988; 2-4.

Brighthope I E “The role of nutritional medicine in general practice.” Aust Fam Phys 1990;19(3)

2.The health of an individual in society is tied up and inextricably related to, lifestyle change, reduction of stress and the fundamental conditions for resources and health including peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable eco-system, sustainable resources, social justice and equity.  (International Conference of Health Promotion, Ottawa 1986).

3. Sir Michael Marmot is Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health and Director of the International Centre for Health and Society at University College London, as well as Adjunct Professor of Health and Social Behaviour at the Harvard School of Public Health Sir Michael Marmot   has said that even in the most affluent countries people who are less well off have substantially shorter life expectancies than the rich. Professor Marmot for the World Health Organization defined ten social determinants of health for the World Health Organisation. The details are given below. What is significant from these determinants is that stress harms health and people become vulnerable to a wide range of major conditions including, cardiovascular disease, infections and diabetes. It has also been shown that social exclusion creates illness and morbidity. The message is that when people feel loved and are in jobs that they relate to and feel happy with and are in communities that are supporting they are likely to live longer and fulfilling lives. Whereas exclusion within communities and work and unemployment and lack of social support creates a wide range of diseases that we see nowadays in our society including depression, cancer, cardiovascular disease and premature death.

 The Ten Social Determinants of Health  are:

1. Social and economic circumstances strongly effect health throughout life.

2. Stress harms health.

3. The effects of early development in the neo-natal period and infancy last a lifetime.

4. Social exclusion creates suffering and morbidity.

5. Stress in the workplace increases the risk of disease

6. Job security increases health, well-being and job satisfaction. Unemployment is deleterious to health.

7. Social support, friendship, good social relations and strong supportive networks improve health at home, work and in the community.

8. Addiction to drugs and alcohol is influenced by social determinants.

9. Nutrition is a key determinant of health.

10. Transport through the use of walking and exercise in a sustainable environment enhances health.

“Love alone is capable of uniting living beings is such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.  Understanding, co-operation and love are the keys to human survival.”
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

‘We cannot solve the problems of the world with mechanisms, but only by changing the hearts and minds of men and speaking courageously’.
-Albert Einstein

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DR MICHAEL ELLIS MBBS MRCP DCH MACNEM NPAA BA (Hons) Dip Grad (Nutr Med)
Dr Michael Ellis is an English trained Doctor with over 20 years of General Practice experience both in the UK and in Australia. He has higher qualifications in general medicine and Paediatrics. He has a special interest in mind/ body medicine and in optimising the physical, mental and emotional health of the individual.

As well as his medical qualifications, Dr Ellis also has an Honours Degree in Literature, Arts, Philosophy and Social Psychology. He also has Naturopathic qualifications.

He is Founder of The Centre For Change www.centreforchange.org and Co Founder of The Medical Renaissance Movement www.medicalrenaissance.org.  He is Chief Editor, Co Publisher and Creative vision behind The New Paradigm Journal www.newparadigmjournal.com