ICSW

by Senator Douglas Roche, O.C.

The great issues of our time – war, poverty, intolerance, environmental degradation – remain in spite of surging wealth and technological advancement. These issues are all linked, yet they are often treated separately by individuals and groups working on their own either within or without the political system. To effectively engage these issues, there needs to be an infusion of values-based principles into public policy that would establish and reinforce a common ground for all humanity: one that would emphasize the core values of respect for life, freedom, justice and equity.

A great threat to the agenda for peace is the production of weapons of all kinds – from handguns to nuclear.

Their costs are reflected in the total influence militarism has in all facets of our life – political, economic, and of course, moral. Our priorities, our physical and intellectual resources, as well as our welfare are all involved. So is the structure of our very society, both domestic and international.

How can the issue of disarmament together with development be conceptualized? How can concerned citizens and non-governmental organizations approach these issues and hold their governments accountable to the majority of public opinion who want meaningful progress toward disarmament and equitable global standards?

To address these paramount issues of our time with these searching questions brings us face to face with the hardest question of all: Does 21st century humanity have the vision, the courage, the strength, the perseverance to use its vast resources to develop a common ground for all humanity rather than building the very instruments that can obliterate humanity itself? To that question we must give a resounding “yes”.

Where funds are desperately needed

Nevertheless, hundreds of billions of dollars are continually being spent on arms and militarization when great portions of humanity are economically discriminated against and deprived of their basic human rights and requirements. Yet worthy peace initiatives and programs for human development are starved for lack of funds. These priorities must be challenged.

Consider:

1,300,000,000 people worldwide do not have access to safe water.

2,600,000,000 people worldwide do not have access to adequate sanitation.

11,000,000 children under the age of 5 die each year from easily preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria and measles.

Across the world nearly one billion people, two thirds of them women, are unable to read a book or so much as write their names. This total includes more than 130 million primary school-aged children who are growing up without access to basic education.

Despite the purported goal of universal primary education, OXFAM states that, if current trends of declining development assistance continue, an estimated 75 million children will be out of school in the year 2015.

Where funds are hastily spent

These facts are not indicative of some tragic twist of fate, but are the result of the choices our governments have made, and the priorities our societies pursue. It is not the resources to invest in human development that are lacking, but the political will.

For example:

The world’s nuclear arsenals have thus far cost over $8 trillion and counting. The US alone has spent $5.5 trillion on its nuclear weapons and American taxpayers expend about $100 million a day in order to maintain them.

Despite the end of the Cold War, the world still spends $781 billion a year on armaments. Contrast this preparation for war with the $1.3 billion it spends on maintaining United Nations programs for peace. For every dollar that all governments spend on military activities, less than a quarter-of-a-cent is spent on UN peacekeeping.

By 1998, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries had international debts of $214 billion, an enormous sum for them, but equal to only 4.5 months of western military spending.

What would be the impact of diverting even a fraction of global military expenditures towards uplifting the living conditions of humanity?

The United Nations Development Program estimates that an additional investment of $60 billion – the estimated price of the National Missile Defence System the current US Administration seeks to construct – over the next decade would be sufficient to provide basic education to the near one billion people who do not have such access. Sixty billion dollars over the next six years could provide water and sanitation to the two billion people who have neither.

Militarism and poverty are not simply the inevitable consequences of greed and aggression, but are symptoms of a world disorder caused by putting the parts before the whole.

Because of massive transformations in technology, communication and transportation, humanity can now see itself, its unity and disunity, as no generation before could do. Humanity must also see not only its coexistence but also its commonality and the need for cooperation with one another.

Moving beyond global markets to a global ethic

Beyond all else, one great fact must stand out – the whole of the Earth is greater than the parts. Global security is of a higher order than national security, which today has become security at the expense of others.

The diverse challenges to human security carry a powerful message.

Globalization must bring a new understanding of the world as a single community.

Globalization must mean more than creating bigger markets.

Globalization must use the sweeping power of technology to raise all of humanity to higher levels of civilization under a common global ethic.

A “global ethic” does not mean a global ideology or a single unified religion, and it certainly does not mean the domination of one religion or ideology at the expense of others. It is, rather, a fundamental consensus on binding values, irrevocable standards, and personal attitudes. This ethic is the expression of a vision of peoples living peacefully together, of peoples sharing responsibility for the care of the planet.

A globalized world of peace and justice can only be achieved by fostering this global ethic. This is an ethic that is not disloyal to community or country, rather, it lifts up the consciousness of one’s surroundings to a new recognition, never possible in the pre-technological age of globalization, of the interdependence of nations and systems making up the whole.

Sadly, this common ethic remains elusive in public policy.

Let us remember the contrasts between military expenditure and human development when we think of globalization and building a common ethic for peace and justice. Elimination of the instruments of violence, beating swords into ploughshares, making the transition from a culture of war, maintained and advanced by the huge war machine human industry has built up over many centuries, would be the greatest legacy we could ever leave to future generations. This must be our resolve.

Society accepts the maintenance, indeed the reliance, of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction because we accept violence. These weapons are the reflection of society’s willingness to commit violence. It is violence when great sections of humanity are economically discriminated against and even robbed of their right to basic human needs. It is violence when we sell arms to governments to intimidate, if not wage war against, their neighbours and even their own people.

Violence is so endemic in our culture that it has become routine. It is the ultimate violence to threaten to use nuclear weapons against other human beings — against people we do not even know and to place in jeopardy not only their own survival as a people but the natural structure upon which all civilization rests.

Governments must rid themselves of the idea that peace and security can be bought only with weaponry. We need to foster and promote the transition from a culture of war, violence, and discrimination to a culture, an ethic, of non-violence, dialogue, and tolerance. It will have to be based on collective efforts from a variety of partners inside and outside of government. It will depend upon the ability to raise people’s awareness of the fundamental human security needs and rights affecting the daily lives of millions.

This is the thinking that a “global ethic” must represent. The term expresses the holistic nature of the comprehension required to address the world’s pressing needs and the multidimensional nature of peace and justice.

This involves much more than the development of a few specialists. There must be millions of contacts, mutual exchanges and understanding between individuals the world over. This would develop an awareness of other peoples and foster a sense of common interests and values.
Changing old attitudes, overtaken by the realities that inequalities in living standards and opportunity have grown “from inequitable to inhuman,” is what a global ethic ought to be about. Taking steps to change what can and must be changed is the key to effective social action.
A transformation of human consciousness, as great as the transformative power of globalization itself, must occur.

Douglas Roche, O.C. is a Canadian Senator and former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament at the United Nations. He is International Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative, a global campaign by a network of non-governmental organizations encouraging and educating leaders of the Nuclear Weapons States to commit themselves to immediate practical steps to reduce nuclear dangers and commence negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Contact:
Tel: (613) 943-9559
Email: roched@sen.parl.gc.ca