Humankind has reached a state of development in which old modes of thinking and behaving threaten to destroy our planet. We can either view our present situation as one which can be repaired through cosmetic surgery, with arms agreements and so on, or we can see it as a turning point in history and an opportunity and challenge to create a better world through reappraisal of what it means to be a human being in harmony with the environment.

Global Citizens for Peace rejects the idea that the human being is inherently evil, destructive and untrustworthy and believes the time has come to get the heart, head and hand working together to create new ways of thinking, being, communicating and acting. To speak from the heart means to end the domination of cerebral manipulative thinking.

Thirty two thousand nuclear weapons with a destructive force equivalent to several thousand megatons of conventional explosives are still deployed. The risk of nuclear war by accident may have increased and new threats include war between newly declared - weapon states and the construction by terrorist groups by crude but effective devices. It is not enough to remove nuclear weapons. We must remove the ideas, the obsolete thinking, that created them in the first place, and replace them with new attitudes based on respect, co-operation and understanding. As a UNICEF declaration puts it, "If wars are started in the minds of men, then peace must be reconstructed in the minds of men".

We are treating our planet in the same way as we treat ourselves, with no kind of respect. Every day we hear of some new ecological disaster. Climate change is one of the greatest environmental, social and economic threats facing the planet.

The warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level. The tropical rain forests and huge tracts of woodland are either being chopped down or destroyed by acid rain with disastrous effects on the health of the planet . Arable lands and the genetic diversity of plants and animals are disappearing at an alarming rate equivalent to a sixth phase extinction of the biosphere

Global Citizens for Peace believes that it is our thinking that has got us into such a mess and proposes developing a new paradigm - a new vision of reality which will bring about a profound change in our thoughts, perceptions and values.

Aims and Activities

Description

Global Citizens for Peace is an association of committed individuals of good will who seek new ways of thinking, being, relating, communicating and acting, embracing all levels of living and working together, in the home and the workplace and in national and international politics, that will eliminate the threat or us of violence as an instrument of policy in international relations and the exploitations of the environment for short-term gains.

The mission of the organization of Global Citizens for Peace is to move this realization from the margins of our political dialogue to its rightful, central place within our national and international understanding. The humanitarian impulse to foster brotherhood and justice is not just a utopian ideal; it is an issue critical to world security and wellbeing.

Our aim is also to initiate the formation of a Commission for Peace and Non Violence in Australia. Domestically, the Commission for Peace and Non Violence will develop policies and allocate resources to effectively reduce the levels of domestic and gang violence, child abuse, and various other forms of societal discord. Internationally, the Department will advise Parliament on the most sophisticated ideas and techniques regarding peace-creation among nations.

Method

Global Citizens for Peace will re-appraise what it means to be a human being in positive terms, such as the state of being creative, whole, alive and self-sufficient. It also aims to examine such primary needs as the need for food, clean water, primary health care and shelter. In a world so dangerous, Global Citizens for Peace believes that the only way to be is open, constructive, peace-loving and responsible and rejects the idea that the human being is inherently evil, destructive and untrustworthy.

Global Citizens for Peace will study and promote a genuinely holistic approach to social, economic, political, health and ecological problems.

Global Citizens for Peace will study the nature of life and consciousness and their relationships to each other.

Global Citizens for Peace will investigate and look to solutions for a new human agenda, including the humanization of educational systems, the fair distribution of medical resources throughout the world, the abolition of poverty, the safeguarding of personal freedoms, the creation of an open, caring society, the East and West, North and South, and the creation of the conditions necessary for a sustainable peace and health for all in the third millennium, including the establishment of a steady-state eco-relationship with planetary resources, the protection of species diversity and populations, the removal of all toxin, waste and radiation hazards from the environment that threatens the health of the planet, and the abolition of all nuclear weapons.

Global Citizens for Peace will not commit itself to any political or religious ideology. It will be open to all suggestions from whatever quarter, consistent with its aims. People of all political persuasions will be welcomed into Global Citizens for Peace's deliberation.

Global Citizens for Peace will serve as a catalyst group or "think tank" for all other sympathetic groups.

Global Citizens for Peace will encourage an openness of dialogue irrespective of class, race, politics or philosophy.

Global Citizens for Peace will offer a resource center (and later, local resource centers) where it will share relevant skills, information about new thinking and about the activities and opportunities offered by other groups concerned with the peace and health of the world.

"I am interested in your concept. You seem to be seeking a combination of Niels Bohr's 'openness' between individuals and between nations, with Einstein's conviction that 'we cannot solve the problems of the world with mechanisms, but only by changing the hearts and minds of men and speaking courageously'. Their concern was with life as a whole, an earth, as expressed in the concept 'Gaia', and especially with the attitudes of homo sapiens towards the planet."
- Sir Mark Oliphant, distinguished statesman and physicist who worked with Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge.(deceased)

"Love alone is capable of uniting living beings is such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. Understanding, co-operation and love are the keys to human survival."
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

'We cannot solve the problems of the world with mechanisms, but only by changing the hearts and minds of men and speaking courageously'.
- Albert Einstein

The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole - the science explaining the whole creation and man's place in it.
- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

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