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Presentation |
A VETERAN‘S STATEMENT (i):
Review
 In
1964 our experimental school, located on the island of Fyn
in the middle of Denmark, went into Peace Research, thereby
introducing first time in a systematic and organized way to
our country this new scientific approach to the old problem
of peace. We ran a three week international Summer School On
Peace Research with the help of the pioneers from Lancaster,
UK, Paul Smoker, David Fabri and others, continuing the same
annually ten times in the following years. Peace Research
made an enduring impression and became our main conviction
and leading concern for now over 40 years. Participation in
IPRA‘s biennial conferences was a natural thing
(International Peace Research Association). As true
scientists, the IPRA enthusiasts wanted to explore all kinds
of peace, local and global, mini and maxi, its origin and
development, theory and practice, history and future, etc.,
specializing into 20 different groups or commissions. Our
own specialization took another line, concentrating on the
simple idea of One World needing World Government (WG).
Which was too utopian to fit any of their 20 groups.
Therefore, as soon
as Philip Isely appeared with his WCPA (World Constitution
and Parliament Association), he became our hero and leader
for the WG approach during many years, beginning by the
great meetings in Wolfach (Germany) and Interlaken
(Switzerland) 1968.
Later came Charles Mercieca, an organizational genius from
Malta, founding his IAEWP (International Association of
Educators for World Peace) in Oslo, Norway, 1970. This
proved to be a fertile mechanism for cooperation, working
still today, surprisingly widespread with officers in all
the continents and corners of the world.
The last
organization, appealing to our serious involvement, was
POLITICAL WORLD UNION, a Dutch movement founded by the
Jesuit Father Professor Creyghton, The Hague, in 1968. His
new idea was the importance of urgency, as opposed to WCPA‘s
heavy approach and concern for details and abstract
perfection, unpalatable to practical politicians, and to
IPRA‘s endless discussions about everything, leading nowhere
for centuries. He calls for EMERGENCY WORLD GOVERNMENT,
(EWG), fitting his description of our present situation: “We
are living on a ticking time bomb, and no one knows for what
hour the mechanism has been set. Each day of survival is a
day of luck, and everybody knows that luck does not hold
forever.” He argues the necessity of bypassing national
governments who have proved their incapacity to create world
order, setting up first the League of Nations that led to a
new war, still worse, rather quickly, and then the slightly
improved United Nations, a discussion club for 200
governments. The EWG should be realized through a series of
well-defined steps, beginning with the collection of a few
hundred of the world‘s most distinguished religious and
ethical leaders, to function as an Emergency World Council.
This EWC would have the task to select some outstanding
individuals to form “The Nine”, having to become a
Provisional WG or a Potential WG, at the point when the EWC
decides that the time is ripe for them to start functioning
as EWG. Now it depends on the quality of the selected and
their wise behaviour and their success if they can win the
confidence of world population, enough to stop future wars.
Their first and most essential task would be to have
themselves replaced, as soon as possible, by a definitive
WG, constituted according to the rules of irreproachable
democratic procedure. Unfortunately Father Creighton died
already in 1975, before his big EWC had time to really start
functioning, and soon after him his main assisting lawyer. A
few years later the others got tired, stopped activities i
Holland, and transferred their valuable archives to Hesbjerg
in Denmark. The undersigned, without any manpower to
continue the work, having guaranteed only a certain
hibernation period to the project, undertook, in order to
evaluate the situation, to visit all the EWCouncillors in
India, but was generally disappointed by their reactions.
KNOTTENBELT. Finally, we happened to meet the last of
our series of first-class peace researchers, who also
happened to be the most relevant to the Lucknow project of
Enforceable World Law: Mr. Martin Knottenbelt, a veteran
soldier (major) of WWii, fighting with distinction the
Japanese i Burma. After the war, a closer historical study
converted him into a Japan fan, making a similar
anti-militarist conversion as the Japanese, giving up their
aggressive militarism in the famous Article 9 of their new
constitution.
Knottenbelt considers this A-9 a potential World Law, being
“provided with the mantle of virtually total international
acquiescence at the time of its origin”. A-9 says: THE RIGHT
OF BELLIGERENCE OF THE STATE WILL NOT BE RECOGNIZED.
Therefore:
“The A9-syllogism challenges the criminal ongoing arms
race.” And: “By formally renouncing the traditional
sovereign right of belligerency, Article 9 in their
Constitution stakes on behalf of the sovereign people of
Japan unanswerable claim to access, as of right, to
Enforceable World Law.” Mr. Knottenbelt became the most
outstanding peace researcher in our series of “East-West
Seminars on World Integration, World Unification,
World Government” 1988 – 1995, participating three or four
times. He died in 2004.
A VETERAN‘S STATEMENT (ii): Prospect.
In the 20th century, all remarkable progress towards World
Government had to be achieved by way of profound shocks to
humanity ((and not by rational argument)):
WWi producing The League of Nations;
WWii producing United Nations. For a simple-minded person
like the undersigned, it is easy to conclude the necessity
of a similar shock, call it
WWiii, a nuclear war, of course, in order to achieve a real
WG. Without such a shock, presupposing normal development of
history, WG remains utopian.
Unless somebody does something about it (about the normal
development).
Unless I do something about it.
UNLESS YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. |
