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The time has come for citizens to get
involved without delay in both local and global governance in order to be able
to tackle the irreversible processes that have today become a serious threat
for the standards of living of the planet Earth.
It’s been years since the UNESCO, the
Club of Rome, the United States National Academy of Sciences and the UN panel
of scientists first requested and then urged to monitor the prejudicial effects
on environment -soil, sea and air- produced by “greenhouse” gasses emissions and
resulting from the burning of fossil fuels, especially those used for
industrial, transport and cooling activities.
To ensure that these urgent calls would
not be ignored and that the appropriate measures would be implemented, it was
essential for democratic multilateralism to swiftly and efficiently operate and,
therefore, to provide United Nations with all personnel, defence and financial
resources that were needed to allow an efficient and urgent response.
Neoliberalism not only ignored the many
requests from the scientific and academic communities, it also put the common
fate of mankind in the hands of just a few countries (G6, G7, G8, G20
plutocratic groups), who submissively obeyed their master’s voice and took
decisions based on short term financial interests, without taking into account
the obvious deterioration signs such as the climate change and the melting of polar
ice caps.
In the autumn of year 2015, and owing
largely to President Obama, Paris Agreements on Climate Change were signed and
UN approved the 2030 Agenda, which contained the Sustainable Development Goals
for “Transforming our World”.
The period for hope did not last very
long: President Donald Trump sidelined United Nations, as his predecessors of
the Republican Party had done in the past, and he then proclaimed that the
Sustainable Development Goals and the objectives regarding climate change would
not be implemented.
And silence prevailed. Silence from
the European Union which was still seen by many countries as the main reference
with regards to universal values that should prevail.
Silence also from big global
consortia, the most faithful guardians of communication and information media.
And silence -the most baffling
silence- from the academic, scientific, artistic and literary communities...
that is, from intellectuals.
All were absent-minded, all looked
elsewhere, instead of caring about future generations just behind us, instead
of letting Mr. Trump know that no outrage would be committed against humanity
without being punished.
The American President asked for more
money for defence, and all countries remained silent and submissive, and
immediately said they would increase their investment in military expenditure
and weapons. Apparently more than 4
billion dollars per day were not enough to ensure territorial defence... although
thousands of people were dying every day from hunger and extreme poverty, most
of them boys and girls ranging from one to five years old.
The time has now come to take notice
of what is happening and raise our voice, now that for the first time in
history we, the peoples, can freely express ourselves.
We should bear in mind Stephane
Hessel’s words urging us to become angry and commit ourselves, and José Luis
Sampedro’s advise to young people when he told them they should “change
direction and embark on a new ship”.
It is today urgent to establish a new
concept of security, so that these big amounts of money are no longer
invested exclusively in armies and weapons for territorial defence, but also in
efficient prevention and response systems allowing us, for example, to deal
with fires that have -in America itself- reduced to ashes thousands of acres
without any essential step being taken during one whole year to protect the
forests and with no available ground and air technology for an efficient response.
The same applies to other natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes,
tsunamis... In a word, we have prepared ourselves and have gathered thousands
of soldiers in barracks in order for them to tackle military conflicts, but not
to deal with natural disasters, in order for them to be ready to protect the
property of land, but not the well-being of people living there.
Once again, if the opportunity was
given to United Nations to act as it should, all human beings, equal in
dignity, would have access to the five social priorities set by UN System:
food, drinking water, high quality health services, environmental protection
and education.
I must insist: a new concept of
security is needed to be able to tackle global threats. Faced with problems
that have an impact on humanity as a whole, all citizens of the world should
react. We must indeed admit that, in
terms of quantity, most countries are irrelevant. Compared to India or China,
each with more than 1 billion inhabitants, most nations of the world have no
weight, if an objective analysis is made. But they might be extremely
influential in terms of quality, if they show with their actions, their
projects, their vision of the future, etc. that they have the ability to
correct current worldwide trends and to enter the new era full of hope.
The time has come to hear the voice
of “We, the peoples”, especially the voice of women and young people who have
taken on today responsibilities they were not allowed to assume up to now.
Because I’m deeply concerned about
the silence of some of our leaders and the statements of others (such as those
made by the heads of IT corporations), I’ve come to believe that the time has
come to promote without any further delay big worldwide demonstrations from
the “peoples”, as citizens were referred to so prematurely and so wisely in
the Charter of the United Nations in 1945, citizens who are today our only
hope.
