Written contribution / Contribution écrite
by / par

Jakob von UEXKULL
Founder and Chairman The Right Livelihood Awards (Stockholm / London)

The ideas and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of UNESCO/Les idées et les opinions exprimées dans cet ouvrage sont celles de l'auteur et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les vues de l'UNESCO

'Sometimes, even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct
seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw
people's souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of
brotherly love,that the great idea does not die.'

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 'The Brothers Karamazov'

True peace demands justice, truth and love.When it rules, it heals , brings hope and wholeness.True peace is not passive.It demands acts of love, transforms us and brings us into harmony with the eternal.

It is very appropriate for this Forum to be held in the capital of the Russian Federation, for Russia today perhaps more than any other country illustrates the gap between peace and true peace.Never has a country with such a potential for destructive violence ( over 20000 nuclear warheads) peacefully given up so much and received so little.In return for removing the threat of a nuclear holocaust from the world, many Russians today feel that their country has been humiliated, robbed and colonized.Large parts of the national endowment of this wealthy country have been sold at ridiculous prices, if not stolen outright.Today the poor are being asked to buy back what rightly belongs to them.The estimated total sum illegally transferred abroad is larger than the foreign debt.As Kotz & Weir point out in 'Revolution from Above: the Demise of the Soviet System'(New York 1997) the Soviet economy, despite its many inefficiencies, did not collapse but was dismantled by the Soviet elite in pursuit of their own personal enrichment.

Of course this situation cannot be rectified by armed conflict.But I doubt if other armies -- whose members had not been paid for months -- would accept this so readily.I am well aware of the many problems in the Russian Army. As you may know, a few years ago the 'Alternative Nobel Prize'(The Right Livelihood Award) which I established , was awarded to the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia for their struggle to protect soldiers against mistreatment .Precisely because I am aware of these problems do I want to express my gratitude to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for the maturity and peacefulness with which they have reacted to all the reversals, hardships and provocations they have suffered in recent years.

We have an obligation to them -- and to all of us -- to act.For peace without justice, truth, hope and trust cannot last .In a finite world filled with arms of mass destruction peace cannot co-exist with an ideology of global greed.At present we have no global dialogue, but the attempt by a privileged minority to impose on everyone else a worldwide economic model, the consequences of which increasingly resemble sophisticated theft and a war of the rich against the poor.As the Millenium approaches, perhaps it is time again to throw the money-lenders out of our temples --and remind ourselves that you cannot eat money.Hopefully, Russia with ist rich spiritual tradition can take the intiative in showing the world that the crucial question is not how much solidarity, natural diversity and culture our economy can afford.It is, on the contrary, what economic system our humanity, civilisation and environment can afford.The present economic 'war on costs' has become a war on society, culture and nature -- in which there can only be losers.Their cost-benefit-analysis has become an economics of genocide, in which the lives of the global poor are valued at a fraction of those of the rich.

Those responsible for this silent war against all our higher human values claim that there is no alternative.There is, they say, only one economic system which works , namely the global rule of general-purpose money without limits or borders.There is no acceptance of diversity -- only the intolerant preaching of the 'winners' that the world must be ruled by the mass psychoses of the capital markets.Nothing must be done unless it is more profitable than the (unproductive) speculations of casino capitalism.

This is a recipe for disaster.We should not forget that the capitalist crisis of the 1930s was finally 'solved' only by war.Positive alternatives are not easy to build or even visualize today . But we must persevere -- for the present world order has no future.If we project its growth scenarios -- of consumption, resource use, waste and pollution -- even a few decades into the future, it becomes clear that we are being led up a blind alley.

Some of the most prominent representatives of the present order agree and understand this.Among the most powerful and constructive critiques of this system are the books by David Korten, a former Harvard Business School professor and Ford Foundation executive.His first was entitled 'When Corporations Rule The World'(1996), the latest (1999) is 'The Post-Corporate World: The End of Capitalism'.Among those enthusiastically endorsing it on the back cover you will find the Swiss founder and president of the Davos World Economic Forum -- the most prominent annual meeting-place of the global capitalist elite!Asked why he hasn't invited David Korten to speak at Davos, Mr.Schwab reportedly replied:'The world is not ready for that yet.'Equally revealing was the answer I received when I asked the IMF Director-General Michel Camdessus a few years ago, whether he was not worried that the 'structural adjustment' programmes he was imposing on many countries would cause so much suffering that people could simply not stand it -- which is why the Russian 'shock therapy' had to be 'modified' in 1992-95.He replied that he agreed with me: if governments did not do more to promote equity, protect the environment and culture (i.e. do the things his 'programmes' make impossible!), then we will indeed face 'a great disorder'.'But fortuneately',he concluded,'that is not my problem as an economist'....

Today there is in our world an unprecedented number of ethical individuals with shared values and a world-centric awareness and an understanding of the underlying biological and spiritual unity .We therefore have an unprecedented opportunity to bring about a cultural global mindshift and build a positive future, a culture of true peace based on sharing, worldwide lifestyles of modest sufficiency , respect for the integrity of all life and the rights of future generations.But this obviously requires human and national identities, priorities, values and culture diametrically opposite to that now being propagated -- namely those that reward, honour and appeal to our highest and not our lowest yearnings.

How do we get there?By global dialogues free of ideological 'neo-liberal' taboos -- but also by starting from the bottom up, restoring local trust, supporting everywhere the right of local initiatives to protect themselves from the attacks and monopolistic demands of the ideological globalists .Local jobs for local and regional markets -- good, sustainable livelihoods -- can be created at a fraction of the cost of jobs for the global market.Local and regional monies can revive economies paralysed by the scarcity of or lack of trust in national or foreign currencies.

Today many of those who 10 to 15 years ago believed in nuclear deterrence wonder how they could ever have believed in such madness : a readiness to destroy life on earth in order to defeat a political system which no longer exists...We now need another mindshift of similar magnitude to fulfil the hopes and aspirations with which this decade began.We may of course
fail.As the German philosopher of hope, Ernst Bloch, wrote,the great moment in history may encounter too small a human race.

But do we really want future generations to remember us as criminal monsters?For that is what is at stake today.As the 1992 declaration signed by most living Nobel laureates concluded, either we abandon our culture of greed and make peace with our planet or it will be 'irretrievably mutilated'.Today we do not lack solutions, only the will to implement them.

The ideologues of global greed tell us that their globalization is unstoppable.In reality, it is their 'last hurrah', a final attempt to escape natural ecological limits by 'growing' at the expense of other nations and future generations.It was not easy (writes David Korten) to create a global economic order which has produced 400 dollar billionaires while billions live in misery and 12 million children die every year of preventable diseases.It required dedicated efforts by politicians, economists and lawyers in the pay of the rich.It will require an equally dedicated effort by civil society, by all uf us, to create a fair, sustainable and secure world order -- a culture of true peace.