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Presentation |
THE HUMAN RIGHT
TO PEACE
In any civilized
society, the rule of law must prevail, and the only
acceptable use of physical force is in the service of law.
The rule of law
must prevail in the World community (our “Global Village” as
designated by Canadian social philosopher Marshall McLuhan).
Here, as elsewhere, the police forces can be correctly
designated as “peace forces”. Individuals in these forces
are “officers of the peace”.
In such a society war, which is by definition an act of
violence, must be condemned as a crime, and outlawed.
Tragically, this
has not yet happened in our Global Village. With the
ultimate means of violence now at hand - nuclear and other
weapons of mass destruction, this results in the utmost and
constant jeopardy for mankind. Unless war is now outlawed,
the life of humanity will be (as described by Thomas Hobbes
in his work Leviathan) “mean, nasty, brutish and
short”. It is even questionable whether there will be any
future that could be described as “human”.
President John F.
Kennedy, addressing the United Nations General Assembly
shortly before his own assassination, more than 40 years
ago, stated bluntly, “Mankind must put an end to war, or war
will put an end to mankind”.
It is evident
that our Planet, and all humanity, are now in a state of
extreme jeopardy and utmost anarchy. Nations which lay claim
to civilization rely on military force to enforce their
will, and thus create the very situation they claim to guard
against. As always, violence breeds more violence. The use
of the utmost violence, above all nuclear weapons, will
create the ultimate catastrophe, and the peace of a
universal graveyard.
Humanity must
revolt against such an outcome, and reject it. Collectively
the human race must insist on a world in one Peace (and
Piece), a global society ruled by law. War, the ultimate
crime, must now be banned. The United Nations will
constitute the hub of our Global Village, and our society’s
peace forces, through the U.N., will fulfill their proper
and only acceptable function of serving the global human
community and keeping the peace world-wide. In this way
humanity can steadily build and uphold a truly civilized
world society. Failing this, there is no future for Earth’s
children.
This dream was
superbly foreseen and expressed by the 19th Century British
poet Alfred Tennyson:
“For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw a Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly
bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a
ghastly dew
From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue…
Till the war drum throbbed no longer
And the battle flags were furled
In the
Parliament of Man, the Federation of the world.”
(From the poem Locksley Hall, published in 1842) |
