WORLD SERVICE AUTHORITY
Founded in 1954 to implement sovereign human rights
8th World District WORLD OFFICE ADMINISTRATION
4-14-5 Numabukuro Suite 205-Continental Bldg. WORLD GOVERNMENT OF
Nakano-ku 1012 14th Street, NW WORLD CITIZENS
Tokyo 165, Japan Washington, D.C. 20005 Garry Davis
Tel: (03) 3319-5170 Tel: (202) 638-2662 Founder
Fax: (03) 3319-5127 Fax: (202) 638-0638 World Coordinator E-Mail: worldcitizen@compuserve.com Internet: HTTP://www.worldgovernment.org
President
David Gallup
(To the Washington Post)
OPEN LETTER TO
January 6 , 2003
Richard Falk
Board Chair
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
PMB 121
1187 coast Village Road, Suite 2
Santa Barbara, CA 93198-2794
Dear Richard,
Thank you for your solicitation letter dated December, 2002 under the letterhead of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and signed by you (facsimile) as "Board Chair." I was impressed by the eminent names of your directors and advisory board, many of whom I know personally –Robert Muller, Gene La Roque, Benjamin Ferenz, Johann Kaltung, Joseph Rotblat, Helen Caldicott, Francis Boyle, Adam Curle, Selma Brackman and, of course, David Kreiger.
The first paragraph of your letter claims that you are "writing to ask for (my) help."
That surely is a coincidence because I was about to write a letter asking for your help.
So first I scanned the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation web site to learn more about this business of "waging peace," the website's title, a subject which has intrigued and indeed engaged me ever since my stint as a WWII B-17 bomber pilot.
I was surprised to find nothing about world parliament, world law, world government or indeed any mention of the anarchic state between alleged sovereign nation-states which breeds war as cogently identified by Emery Reves' 1945 Anatomy of Peace. I do find under the rubrique "Taking Action" that you "believe that 'waging peace' is a concept…essential to ending the cycle of violence and building a culture of peace."yet nowhere did I find mention of how you propose for us humans to end "the cycle of violence, etc."
Then I recalled your article "On the Creation of a Global Peoples Assembly: Legitimacy and the Power of Popular Sovereignty" coauthored with Andrew Strauss in which you write that "The enduring claim of states that each has a sovereign right to act autonomously regardless of the antisocial consequences, would be ideologically undermined by the existence of a Global Peoples Assembly." I heartily concured with this proposal. And yet I found no mention in the site of a "Peoples World Assembly." In the same article, however, you wrote that "To the extent citizen-elected representatives from different countries and civilizations convene formally in a climate of civility to advance mutual interests (such as world peace, I suppose) and discuss differences, peaceful resolutions of conflicts would become institutionalized." This sounds almost like an advocacy for world government, Richard.
But how then can I help you, Richard? By making a financial contribution to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation as you request? Well, I would have a problem with that. In short, it's quite apparent that my contribution would not go to promoting world law and government or establishing a world parliament to outlaw war that you yourself endorse since there is no mention of these artifacts of world peace either in your letter or in the NAPF website
Now for my problem, Richard, and how I need your help. You are aware that I am a declared and registered World Citizen since 1948. Literally hundreds of thousands of your fellow humans have also claimed the status of world citizenship which is their sovereign right. Together, we form a new social contract. As we ourselves are global at birth, it has a legitimate global
character. Your own acknowledgment of "global civil society," as a dominant theme throughout the above-mentioned article even corresponds to article 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government" which is one of the very mandates we ourselves claim.
We are the "World Government of World Citizens." Like it or not, it is an accomplished historic political fact. As Emery Reves succinctly put it in Anatomy of Peace: "There is no first step to world government; world government is the first step."
You recognize my dilemma here, Richard. Knowing me to be a Citizen of an officially-declared and functioning world government, you still ask for my help to support a mere foundation–which has not only no real program to "make peace" but, to my mind, obfuscates the primordial issue of war and peace.
In India there is a saying: "One man of heart is worth a hundred men of head; one thief is worth a hundred men of heart; and one sage is worth a hundred thieves." There's a profound lesson hidden in this scale of values.
Now how can you help me, Richard?. First, declare (at last) publicly your own world citizenship. Second, register it with the World Government of World Citizens. Third, identify yourself with the appropriate World Government documents: World Citizen Card, World Birth Certificate, World Passport, World ID Card. Fourth, publicize, particularly among your intellectual milieu including all your and my friends in the NAPF, your new active global affiliation. Fifth, help evolve the Peoples World Assembly or World Citizen Parliament by declaring yourself a candidate for world public office. (We have been evolving the world citizen voting constituency since 1953). Fifth, contribute ample funds to the World Service Authority, our global "city hall."
In short, "walk the global talk," Richard.
Individually identified by this global and sovereign status, we are already making peace with each other! The rest follows naturally and institutionally. Anything less, given the immediacy of war, is quite inadequate to the historic mission of real "waging peace."
With cordial regards,
Yours in one world,
Garry Davis
Enclosures
Washington, D.C. 20005
Acct. #01 004 -131