Jose’s draft of the first topic (Centralization vs Decentralization) of the project is below in italics.
All readers and contributors to this blog should feel free to make suggestions to this draft of the first point on the list. However a new post has been created which will begin discussing the next topic in the project (Transparency, Openness and Accountability in Coalitions and Networks).
This topic and draft will remain open to revision until we send in the entire project on June 1st to the ‘Anti War Movement’.
For more information regarding the contributions that were made to the topic of ‘Centralization/Decentralizaion’ see my first post on this project: a blog peace project.
‘Strategies for Peace: Locations Theory’
“Regional groups dedicated to the control of peace and against any movement that will mean an infringement of the people’s rights as these have been defined by the chart of the UN. Altogether gathered in a supra-regional assembly where each and every component will have exactly the same rights and obligations in accordance with what will be agreed upon after the separate conclusions from the various proponents will have been read, discussed and eventually incorporated in a definitive wording in the final conclusions.”
15 responses so far ↓
Richard // May 6, 2007 at 4:13 pm |
Did you know about “Crystal Mark” awarded by the Plain English Campaign ?
This ‘Project’ needs to be “clarity approved” by the Plain English Campaign.
1loneranger // May 6, 2007 at 10:12 pm |
Richard-
I hadn’t heard about this ’software’ or whatever it is. I’ve looked at the ‘Crystal Mark’ website. I’m sure we could clean things up ourselves, but if you think this is a good idea I don’t see why we couldn’t run it through. However, I’m not willing to pay anything for something like that.
Richard // May 6, 2007 at 11:54 pm |
I think the verbiage can be cleaned up, yes – it sounds ‘imported’ to me.
Richard // May 6, 2007 at 11:59 pm |
May I recommend a reading (or re-reading) of Orwell’s 1946 Essay “Politics and the English Language”.
After reading that, you will fully understand the point I am trying to make.
Jose // May 7, 2007 at 5:26 am |
As I said in my comment, and 1loneranger has confirmed in the second paragraph of his post, this is only a proposal. Changes in it or different ones are invited to be made here. Some one had to start it.
I expect constructive discussions will eventually get us to the desired conclusion.
1loneranger // May 7, 2007 at 7:01 pm |
‘imported’, nice Richard.
I’ve always preferred ‘imports’ over domestics meself.
until I moved to Canada that is. Now, I go domestic whenever possible.
Jose // May 8, 2007 at 4:32 am |
I don’t know why but it seems to me this is delaying as we are not going to the point. If the ideas are clear then I don’t know why the “verbiage” cannot be changed to adapt it to the day-to-day language, much that it might have to take into account American, Australian and other types of English spoken and written.
Or perhaps are there any other ideas around?
I regret we are losing a precious time.
1loneranger // May 8, 2007 at 1:22 pm |
Sent from Anticant:
‘STRATEGIES FOR PEACE’
When I contemplated writing a book with this title – and got a publisher’s commission for it! – in the early 1990s, I was already worried about the trend of global politics. I of course did not foresee the events of the next fifteen or so years, and much of my thinking then is now outmoded. So I have to recast my thoughts today.
Having grown up during World War Two and lived through the succeeding half-century and more, it is clear to me that the ‘new world order’ envisaged by those who – with the best of intentions – set up the United Nations and its associated international economic and financial agencies has not worked well, and is now overdue for drastic revision. The nub of the problem, it seems to me, is the persistent adherence to the unit of the ‘sovereign’ state, which is obsolete in today’s global world and an unfailing source of conflicts and wars. Furthermore, the advent onto the world stage of ‘stateless’ terrorist groups which aspire to challenge sovereign countries has made the obsolescence of sovereignty even more glaringly obvious. So I still think that my subtitle, ‘Beyond Sovereignty’, was appropriate.
The dilemma, of course, is what to replace independent sovereignty with? Internationalist aspirations for world government would seem to point inevitably to some form of global tyranny, exercised by an elitist few over the world’s populations, whereas our preferred way forward should be to enhance the autonomy and personal freedom of first and foremost individuals and then of small, localised units and communities. World Federalism is a noble aim – but when we look at how federalism has proved powerless against aggressive nationalism and tribal hatreds, as in the former Yugoslavia, or in Darfur, it is clear that noble aspirations are no match for ingrained hostility towards ones’ neighbours.
So the root of the problem is, I am convinced, to reduce the current levels of hatred and active violence in the world.
Do we need yet another new organisation – even a scrupulously decentralised one – to achieve this? Looking at the complex history of socialistic and near-anarchistic endeavours over the past two centuries makes me doubt it. I believe that the answer must come from individuals – not even loosely-grouped organizations. The trouble with originally democratic ‘soviet-style’ councils is that they start off with the noblest of motives and aspirations to universal brotherhood, but invariably get hijacked by power-seeking individuals and cliques. This has happened repeatedly, as Hannah Arendt points out, from the American and French Revolutions onwards, through the abortive efforts of the 1848 revolutionaries, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the revolutions in Germany and Austria after World War One, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. And remember how the internationalist peace movement of the 1950s and 1960s was infiltrated by Stalinist communism to the extent that the very words “democracy” and “peace” emitted a stench of hypocrisy during those decades.
So my conclusion is that what we need to do – and possibly all we need to do – is to start off a world movement of revulsion against the prevailing levels of hatred and violence by asking people all over the world who are appalled by what is going on to sign a simple statement deprecating hatred between groups for whatever reason – religious, ethnic, national etc. deploring violence as a means of pursuing political ends, and pledging themselves to work for peace and harmony in whatever ways they are able to.
In this way, we might begin to bestir the huge majority of benign, peaceable folk around the world to take a stand against the malign, twisted individuals and groups who are causing so much misery and destruction.
It’s time for the peaceloving global dog to cut off its toxic tail. We, after all, are the vast majority of humanity and our fate is in our own hands.
Richard // May 8, 2007 at 5:06 pm |
I believe this is only possible through the United Nations.
The US junta are determimed to control it – so we must be as determined, and more, to preserve and renew it.
earthpal // May 8, 2007 at 10:37 pm |
I love that essay Anticant and I’d be fully in support of it.
I’d also suggest though (and I’m sorry if anything similar has already been said somewhere within these pages but I really haven’t managed to keep up with the posts) that perhaps we could enhance and sustain such a globally signed denouncement of hatred, in turn promoting a culture of peace, by getting through to our youngsters via the education route.
If we can make it so that our children know no different from a culture of peace. If we can teach and encourage every individual child to seek the peace within themselves then the rest will naturally evolve.
M
earthpal // May 8, 2007 at 10:38 pm |
Ignore the random M. That snook in there.
Jose // May 9, 2007 at 5:05 am |
I find what Anticant says worth of his talent, indeed. Violence should never be a resource to achieve pacific ambitions and hatred ought at all times to be discarded. It has been proved both of them only have caused destruction to all involved, and the worldwide action he advocates is what would the objective of this “Strategies for Peace” movement.
One other objective, in my opinion, should be avoidance of personalisation, that is team work is much more important here than the use of particular names that in the past were the way that revolutions – most of them bloody ones – used to achieve their objectives. Killings among fellow humans will never be solid foundations for a good “cause”.
As Anticant so rightly says we are the majority of humanity and our fate is in our hands.
Let’s never get those hands soaked in blood.
On the other hand the question of education posed by Earthpal should also be one of the main objectives of this pacific movement because it is not a temporal problem what we must address, we must make the solution permanent.
anticant // May 9, 2007 at 11:42 am |
Earthpal, I agree that education is essential. It has to inculcate, first of all, the self-awareness and the self-respect of the growing individual. It is obvious that if one does not have some insightful knowledge of and respect for oneself, one will not respect others.
My original plan for the “Strategies for Peace” book was to begin with the need we each have to make peace with ourselves, and the means of doing so; next, personal peacemaking with our loved ones and friends; moving on to peacemaking with those we don’t know personally but are involved with in social, economic, and political transactions; then peacemaking between groups, and finally peacemaking between governments and other globally powerful units.
I said in my synopsis: “To function effectively, democracy must limit the exercise of power to units which are small enough for office-holders to be called effectively to account…Peaceful prosperity is what most people all over the world ardently desire. This will only be attained if the exercise of power is subjected to the accountability of individuals for their public and official actions, as well as for their personal and private ones…In the 21st century, men and women, young and old, of whatever race, creed, or nation, must take charge of their own individual private lives as a first requirement for taking charge of social and political public life. To do so, they require educational systems which encourage and promote worldwide self-respect and good will towards others. Such systems may have varied cultural or religiosu traditions.”
The book will never be written now, but maybe we can spread some of these ideas more effectively through the internet. I was interested to see that Senator Mike Gravel – the sanest US presidential candidate, who needs an electoral miracle to win – states his faith in the democratic potential of the internet in an interview with ‘Truthdig’. [link on my arena].
earthpal // May 10, 2007 at 6:37 pm |
Anticant, I so agree with everything you’ve said there.
Jose, good point about teamwork rather than individual names. Most social movements have had charismatic leaders behind them but the popularity and the controversy that comes to surround the leader so often becomes a burdensome and divisive piece of baggage within the movement.
Individual charismatic types tend to let themselves become overpowered by their ego and the desire to make a name for themselves.
It has to remain equal and inclusive.
earthpal // May 10, 2007 at 6:39 pm |
Anticant, I would have loved to have read that-book-that-will-never-be-written.