Chris Wells

Faced with the recent events in Tibet, the Humanist Regionals and all humanists of Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and North America condemn the bloody violence and repression by the regime of the People’s Republic of China against the demonstrators in Lhasa and in many other Tibetan cities.

These events are comparable to the violent repression of the Buddhist Monks and an unarmed population by  the Burmese government, with killings, arbitrary detentions and a blackout of all forms of internal and international communication.

At the same time, we denounce US policy and the arms dealers close to President Bush for promoting secessionism and destabilization between peoples worldwide to benefit special interests. Such is the case in Kosovo and Serbia and Palestine and Israel, where deeply rooted sentiments of national identity are exploited, and in Bolivia with the inciting of economic divisions.

In this difficult moment, the voices that open the future will not be those of politicians interested in division and confrontation.

It is of fundamental importance to defend the historical roots of all peoples, to recognize the right to practice one’s own beliefs and religious and cultural customs.  But above all, we need to give a new solution, forging a  new path that is valid for all humanity.

The secession of a nation or a region can have meaning if the norms, actions, and intentions do not go towards isolation or regress back to “old ways.”  Rather, they must go towards the humanization of relations between peoples, real recognition of diversity, and a true integration of the cultures, nations and regions who wish to represent the vanguard in the formation of a Universal Human Nation.

A truly new process can only be initiated through the path of nonviolence. This is only possible if a culture is projected towards the future, with a human look free of racial discrimination, a look that seeks equal opportunities between men and women, without castes or social classes,  a look that is capable of putting a long-term process ahead of immediate political interests.

As humanists we ask governments and leaders of opposing factions to sit down and listen to the different needs and proposals and to go beyond centralist and nationalist visions, seeking a different solution through a “humanist” vision.

We need new ways to interpret and comprehend the complexity of current social phenomena; we need the patience of history to open this dialogue that is so important and so urgent for all of humanity.  To this effect, we as humanists, through our Regional Spokespeople or as an international delegation from different regions (Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia), offer to assist by acting as cultural mediators between the Chinese government and the Tibetan leaders.

Without this dialogue and constructive perspective, the international relationships between China, USA, Russia, and Europe with their petty interests could produce an irreversible clash.

This is not about the Olympics. At stake here is the possibility of giving a coherent response for all of humanity.  We stand here humbly and with hope, together with all those who are building a new non-violent humanity.

Chris Wells

Spokesperson for New Humanism in North America

Giorgio Schultze

Spokesperson for New Humanism in Europe 

Tomás Hirsch

Spokesperson for New Humanism in Latin America

Sudhir Gandotra

Spokesperson for New Humanism in Asia-Pacific

Living Sign of Non-Violence, Bowling Green, New York City

Comments by Chris Wells

A little over five years ago millions of people around the world came out to protest the impending invasion of Iraq, expressing our outrage at what we knew would be a human disaster. Our protests were ignored and now the majority has come around to seeing things more or less this way. We were right, and not because of the cost — although that’s obscene given the desperate needs of people — but because it’s wrong to attack innocent people, and because violence doesn’t resolve anything. It only leads to more violence.

Five years later, the death and destruction continue and now a majority of Americans want this madness to end. Yet it continues, revealing clearly that we don’t live in a real democracy. In a real democracy, the people decide. This is not a war waged by the people of the United States, although a lot of people supported it. It’s certainly not a war that is in the best interests of the people of the United States. It hasn’t made us safer, quite the opposite. It has made our country a pariah in the world and has enriched Halliburton executives  –  sticking the rest of us with the bill. This invasion has been waged by a very small  minority with a virtual monopoly on economic and political power, and the collaboration of the mass media; a very small minority who wage war to defend and promote their interests. It’s radically immoral, in fact it’s monstrous, but that’s the situation.

Many years ago Gandhi said: “What is obtained with violence can only be maintained with violence.” This insight has great relevance today because physical violence is not only a tool for advancing the interests of the powerful; it’s also the end result of a whole structure of economic, racial, cultural, religious and generational violence that poisons daily existence all over the world. It is violence when children die of starvation while there is enough for everyone. It is violence when peoples’ land is stolen or made uninhabitable by pollution. It is violence when the pubic airwaves — owned by the people — are crammed with dehumanizing messages pushing every product and every lie imaginable, while the people remain uninformed about the most urgent questions affecting our future, our security.

 How can we overcome the violence? It’s not just a theoretical question, it’s a vital question because the probability of catastrophic nuclear war is growing every day. The need to change the course of history is urgent and this affects us all, rich and poor, left and right, Muslim and Christian and Jew. How can we overcome the violence? 

Maybe first by recognizing our true power and possibilities and helping others to do the same. Because those who want peace far outnumber the violent ones but they don’t express it. In the Czech Republic, where the US wants to build a military radar base as part of a new missile system and a plan to put weapons in space, 70% of the Czech people oppose it but the government goes ahead. If even 10% of those would act on their opposition things would change very quickly. But they don’t — so far…

This leads us to ask questions about our own activism, and our own beliefs. How can we become more effective? How can we adapt our militancy to the new times?  How can we gain more depth and conviction? How can we overcome our fears? Because even small fears can stop us, the fear of looking foolish or being misunderstood. The fear of failure… And how can we reach others on a massive scale? Because real change,  the change we want, will only be possible when a critical mass of the population become conscious of their possibilities and begin to exercise them. The system can’t withstand this because the system is only sustained by the cooperation of the majority.

Tonight we build a new sign of nonviolence, leaving behind our old friend the peace sign and launching an aspiration toward the future, a future that will only be possible when nonviolence becomes rooted in the human spirit so deeply that it informs every aspect of our existence. Because ending the war is important but it is not enough. If we could wave a magic wand and end all hostilities tomorrow it would be a great blessing but, leaving everything else in place, it would not be nearly enough.

 In 2005, Silo, the founder of our movement said: At some moments in history an outcry arises, a heartrending call from individuals and from entire nations. Then, from the Profound a signal arrives. May this signal be translated with kindness in these times, may it be translated in order to overcome pain and suffering—for behind this signal are blowing the winds of great change.

The sign of nonviolence expresses our conviction that nonviolence is the only exit from the growing crisis. A crisis that history and the absurdities of the system are generating; a crisis that will reach us all. It also expresses our profound aspiration for a new world, a just world, a world where everyone has the same chance in life, a human world. And as we build this sign together, we call for a deep change in our hearts, in our minds  – and of course in our actions.

Thank you very much.

Chris Wells is the spokesperson for New Humanism in North America

• Please join these organizations and individuals listed below in signing the open letter to Prime Minister Tusk. To add your name, go to the Campaign for Peace and Democracy’s website at  www.cpdweb.org or directly to the statement at http://www.cpdweb.org/statements/1009/stmt.html
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• Prime Minister Donald Tusk

The Republic of Poland

 

Dear Prime Minister Tusk,

 

        We are writing you as individuals and organizations based in the United States committed to human rights and peaceful relations among nations. We have been dismayed by the attempts of both the Polish and Czech governments to negotiate deals with the Bush administration to establish military bases in your countries despite the fact that these bases are opposed by a majority of your own people. The U.S. bases threaten to restart a Cold War between the United States and Russia. They have nothing to do with genuine defense and much to do with an aggressive U.S. military policy.

 

        The proposed bases — ten interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic — combine to produce a dangerous military escalation. The U.S. government claims that the anti-missile system is aimed against Iran, but there is no credible evidence that a missile threat from Iran today exists. As far as Poland is concerned, in January of this year your own Foreign Affairs Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said publicly, “This is an American, not a Polish project. We feel no threat from Iran.”

 

        The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released in December 2007 undermined any remaining credibility for the claim of a proximate Iranian nuclear threat by stating that Iran had discontinued its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. And far from protecting against such a threat in the future, the anti-missile system and other nuclear escalations will only create even stronger inducements for Iran to seek nuclear weapons.

 

        A radar station in the Czech Republic and ten missile interceptors in Poland don’t constitute an immediate challenge to Russia’s nuclear deterrent, with its thousands of warheads. But there is a clear long-range threat that these U.S. bases will be upgraded. Official U.S. documents bear this out. National Security Presidential Directive 23, signed by President Bush on Dec. 6, 2002, stated that the United States would begin to set up missile defenses in 2004 “as a starting point for fielding improved and expanded missile defenses later.” This presidential directive was preceded in January 2002 by a memorandum from Donald Rumsfeld, at the time Secretary of Defense, directing the Missile Defense Agency to develop defense systems by using whatever technology is “available,” even if the capabilities produced are limited relative to what the system must ultimately be able to do.

 

       Washington’s scheme has already produced an ominous response from Russia, which has threatened to direct its missiles toward Poland and the Czech Republic if the U.S. proceeds with the system. Moscow has also threatened to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and to suspend participation in a treaty limiting the deployment of conventional forces in Europe.

 

        No nation — including the U.S., Russia, and Iran — has the moral right to possess nuclear weapons, which by their nature are weapons of vast and indiscriminate mass destruction. The U.S. and other nuclear powers can best reduce the danger of nuclear warfare by taking major steps toward both nuclear and conventional disarmament and refraining from waging or threatening “preventive” war — not by expanding the nuclear threat. Such steps by the existing nuclear powers would create a political climate that would powerfully discourage new countries from developing their own nuclear weapons.

 

        The only objection your government seems to be raising to the US missile system is that Washington is not offering enough in the way of military modernization for Poland. But the provocative bases are wrong on principle, and we would all be simultaneously safer and more prosperous if both Washington and Warsaw invested in social needs rather than new weaponry.

 

The democratic movements of 1989 are dishonored by the attempt to integrate the countries of central Europe into the network of more than 700 U.S. military bases around the world. We stand with today’s popular movements in Poland and the Czech Republic that are refusing to cave in to the pressure from the Bush Administration to accept this dangerous anti-missile system. And we welcome their support for our work for a new democratic, just and peaceful U.S. foreign policy.

 

SIGNED BY: 

Organizations:

Individuals:

Anthony Arnove, Stanley Aronowitz, Phyllis Bennis, Norman Birnbaum, Eileen Boris, Laura Boylan, Jeremy Brecher, Vinie Burrows, Leslie Cagan, Noam Chomsky, Joshua Cohen, Margaret W. Crane, Gail Daneker, Marie Dennis, Ariel Dorfman, Carolyn Eisenberg, Gertrude Ezorsky, Richard Falk, Cathey E. Falvo, MD, MPH, Samuel Farber, John Feffer, Barry Finger, Robert Gabrielsky, Bruce K. Gagnon, Akbar Ganji, John Gorman, Thomas Harrison, Nader Hashemi, Judith Hempfling, Michael Hirsch, Adam Hochschild, Doug Ireland, Padraic Kennedy, Joanne Landy, Jesse Lemisch, John Leonard, Sue Leonard, Staughton Lynd, Nelson Lichtenstein, Marvin and Betty Mandell, David McReynolds, Kevin Martin, Timothy Mitchell, David Oakford, David Ost, Mary O’Brien, MD, Rosemarie Pace, Christopher Phelps, Katha Pollitt, Danny Postel, Leonard Rodberg, Jennifer Scarlott, Jason Schulman, Stephen R. Shalom, Alice Slater, Meredith Tax, Lois Weiner, Naomi Weisstein, Chris Wells, Cheryl Wertz, Reginald Wilson, Julia Wrigley, and Howard Zinn

 

*The letter was circulated to individuals and groups in the U.S. However, Adam J. Chmielewski, Professor, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland received the text and wished to add his name.

We vigorously condemn the bloody military incursion by the Colombian Government into Ecuadorian territory.

The process of transformation in Latin America is passing through a critical moment.  Today more than ever it is necessary to accelerate the projects of political, economic and cultural union.

We need peace for economic transformation, recovery of our natural resources and the political rights of our peoples.

We need Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua to strengthen and consolidate their processes of change.  Humanists of America and the world will continue offering our firm support.

In the same way, we value other Governments of the region with a progressive orientation, and we hope that they go deeper in this orientation in new constitutional processes, with broad participation of the peoples.

We have no need for belligerent language or bellicose adventures.

The President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, by closely associating himself with President Bush has no idea how to bring peace to his own country and wants to export his logic of war to the region.  The armed incursion by Uribe and the slaughter carried out on Ecuadorian territory is unacceptable and there must be sanctions by the International Community.

But this conflict that the US government is trying to generate in our region will not be resolved with threats of war, or with army mobilisations.  The Bush Era is almost at an end and it is very probable that intelligence and good sense will also return to North America.  In the meantime, we need unity, peace and patience, and a strengthening of the non-violent action of the region’s social, political and cultural organisations.

Today, when Latin American integration is wanting to advance, carried on the processes like the ones led by Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa and Daniel Ortega, it is necessary that FARC abandons its position of armed insurgency, frees the hostages and starts on a path of pacification and support to the process of Latin American integration.

In the face of the threat generated, the revolutionary decision of President Evo Morales to include the rejection of war as a form of conflict resolution in the new Constitution carries more relevance than ever.  It is the moment for this decision to be followed by all the countries of the region.

As social movements of the continent, we cannot make a mistake in this key moment in the present situation.  The path against violence exercised by the economic and political institutions of the system is not the path of war and is not the path of violence.  Our action, in all cases, must be to give priority to human life, and the health and education of the population.  There is no other priority.  Our action is the unity of the Latin American social movement to reduce the power of capital and strengthen the decision and participation of the peoples.

Tomas Hirsch

Latin American Spokesperson for Humanism 

Giorgio Schultze

European Spokesperson for Humanism 

Chris Wells

North American Spokesperson for New Humanism