Waging Peace

Dr. Robert Muller, former assistant secretary general of the United
Nations, now president of the University of Peace in Costa Rica was
one of the co-founders of the U.N. In San Francisco recently there was
an event to honor his service to the world through the U.N. and
through his writings and teachings for peace. At age eighty,
Dr. Muller surprised, even stunned, many in the audience that day with
his most positive assessment of where the world stands now vis a vis
peace. A brief synopsis of his message follows, as reported by one of
the participants at the event, Lynne Twist.

"I'm so honored to be here," he said.  "I'm so honored to be alive at
such a miraculous time in history. I'm so moved by what's going on in
our world today." (Lynne: I was shocked. I thought -- Where has he
been?  What has he been reading? Is he senile? Has he lost it? What is
he talking about?) Dr. Muller proceeded to say that never before in
the history of the world has there been a global, visible, public,
viable, open dialogue and conversation about the very legitimacy of
war. The whole world is in now having conversations, listening to all
kinds of points of view and positions about going to war. Is it
legitimate? Is it illegitimate? Is there enough evidence to warrant an
attack? Is there not enough evidence to warrant an attack? What will
be the consequences?  The costs? What will happen after a war? How
will this set off other conflicts? What might be peaceful
alternatives? What kind of negotiations are we not thinking of?

And all of this, he noted, is taking place in the context of the
United Nations, the body that was established in 1949 for exactly this
purpose.  He pointed out that it has taken us more than fifty years to
realize that function, the real function of the U.N.; at this moment
in history the United Nations is at the center of the stage. It is the
place where these conversations are happening, and it has become in
these last months and weeks, the most powerful governing body on
earth, the most powerful container for the world's effort to wage
peace rather than war. Dr.  Muller was almost in tears in recognition
of the fulfillment of this dream.

"We are not at war," he kept saying. He pointed out that the talk of
war has gone on for hours, days, weeks, months and now more than a
year, and it may go on for years, these conversations and dialogues
about war -- in peacetime. We're in peacetime, he kept saying. Yes,
troops are being moved.  Yes, warheads are being lined up. Yes, this
country is angry and upset and spending a billion dollars a day
preparing to attack. But not one shot has been fired. Not one life has
been lost. There is no war. It's all a conversation now.

In the process, he pointed out, new alliances are being formed. Russia
and China on the same side of an issue is an unprecedented outcome.
France and Germany working together to wake up the world to a new way
of seeing is amazing. The largest peace demonstrations in the history
of the world are taking place--and we are not at war! Most peace
demonstrations in recent history took place when a war was already
waging, sometimes for years, as in the case of Vietnam.

So this, he said, is a miracle. This is what waging peace looks like.

No matter what happens, history will record that this is a new era,
and that the 21st century has been initiated with the world in a
global dialogue looking deeply, profoundly and responsibly as a global
community at the legitimacy of the actions of a nation that is
desperate to go to war.

Through these global peace-waging efforts, the leaders of that nation
are being engaged in further dialogue, forcing them to rethink, and
allowing all nations to participate in the serious and horrific
decision to go to war or not.

Dr. Muller also made reference to a recent New York Times article that
pointed out that up until now there has been just one superpower, the
United States, and that that has created a kind of blindness in the
vision of the U.S. But now, Dr. Muller asserts, there are two
superpowers: the United States and the merging, surging voice of the
people of the world.

All around the world, people are waging peace. To Robert Muller, one
of the founders of the United Nations, it is nothing short of a
miracle.