A Letter to UNSG on Peace and the Illegality of War

Posted on 27th June 2015 in Peace, Peace Pedagogy, Practice, Theory
by h. Gibrain

Dear Mr Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon

I write to you as a brother in humanity and to implore you to exploit your privileged position as Secretary General of the United Nations to promote and extend the principles and practices of peace as a formal discipline for civil societies at large – beyond the normal scope of the traditional means and mechanisms of the United Nations. During this time of intensifying global conflict and violence there is an equally pressing need for a more coherent and broader reaching education in conflict transformation, the prevention of armed international conflict and the illegality of war. To satisfy those needs there needs to be a corresponding transformation in some of structures, principles and practices of those entities which serves as stewards and enforcers of peace – the United Nations being the preeminent body established towards that end.

When the function of a body and its collective organs do not properly carry out their function it is time to evaluate the structural flaws that lead to that dysfunctionality. While there are numerous reforms to consider regarding potential structural changes of the UN and its organizations, I wish to offer the following change and addition to the United Nations which I believe would have a profound impact on global political affairs and the level of violence perpetrated around the world by governments for purposes beyond that of self defense.

The basis for this change comes, in fact, from the very name of the United Nations. Nations are, essentially, ethnic communities and the United Nations is in fact not a collective of nations but a collective of states. Thus, the very name itself suggests that their should be a representation of nations at the United Nations – a collective of organizations made up of the world’s ethnic communities and civil societies that can express and exercise their will and intentions through a voice at the United Nations. Some of the impediments to the United Nations carrying out its mandate may be countered by these voices.

Perhaps the first international treaty to incorporate an extensive consensus on the fact that war was not the answer to international conflict was the Kellogg-Briand Pact – essentially outlawing war as recourse to settle international disputes. It was this very principle from which the United Nations eventually emerged – as espoused in Article I of the UN Charter. These principles have been violated by parties to these contracts. That those parties who are the perpetrators of great violence have a voice at the United Nations and the nations who are affected in the gravest of ways have no voice at the United Nations needs to change.

The United Nations, and particularly the role of the Secretary General, can play a crucial role in the promotion of the principles and practices of peace by advocating for, and exercising the full extent of its authority, the implementation of new structures at the UN which will give a voice to the nations of the world – the respective civil societies of the United Nations. Representation – having a voice at the UN, however, is not enough. These voices must be educated in the principles and practices of peace. The United Nations can expand its role as an educational vehicle to inform nations of what I will characterize, for the sake of brevity, as a brutal history necessitating the formulation of what is, essentially, international law. Additionally, the principles and practices of conflict transformation which transcend the traditional role to the United Nations as peace keeper and peace maker can be incorporated into the practices of UN and be disseminated through an expanded UN education system.

The creation of representation for true nations, “member nations” at the United Nations, along with the respective expanded role of education in Peace Studies is one of the many steps that can be taken to further promote international peace and support the main goal of the United Nations to uphold what, essentially, so many states have agreed upon but themselves do not adhere to: war as a means to settle international disputes is illegal. The United Nations is the entity which should create this body so that it stands on an equal footing with the member states and, therefore, has its legitimacy as a true representation of the will of the nations of Earth.

You, Mr. Secretary General, hold the highest political office representing the international collective of human life on Earth and have the power and authority to promote and support the implementation of these additions which will have a profound effect on transforming the increasing level of violence throughout the world into something moving the geopolitical landscape towards a more just and equitable enforcement of the principles of peace based on the illegality of war.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing your reflections and interest in such a reformation.

 

In Solidarity,

…

 

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United Nations General Assembly Declares Decade of Reconciliation

Posted on 16th February 2015 in Peace, Self Determination
by h. Gibrain

Under the directorate of the United Nations Secretary General, the UN’s General Assembly has been instructed to exercise its full legal authority under international law by instituting a number of programs and reforms to the structural organization and function of the UN – as a whole and for each of its specific organs.

 

This action, according to a spokesperson for the office of the Secretary General, has largely come in response to a symbolic lawsuit presented to the International Criminal Court suing the General Assembly, the International Court of Justice and the Security Council on the basis that, though it is commonly perceived that those organs have no legal authority and are, essentially, a whole lesser than the sum of its parts in that the member states are responsible for the net result of the respective UN organ, the UN Charter does, in fact, grant legal authority tantamount to statehood to each of these organs and therefore those UN bodies can be tried under international law as states for failing to carry out there respective mandates.

 

Accordingly, while it is argued that, for example, the Security Council is only as effective as the veto of its member states and, historically, this veto has been used by the permanent members to block any initiative, legal action, or principle on the grounds that it doesn’t fit in with the narrative of their hegemonic future, it is the absolute responsibility of both the Secretary General and the General Assembly to take actions to hold the member states accountable that fail to live up the their legal obligations.

 

To counter a potential “legal” battle between the ICC and the ICJ the UNGA has begun to take steps to exercise the full might of its authority. However, they have expressed the intention to cast a positive light on these initiatives; rather than take legal action against states, they are taken proactive steps to support relations among states and between states and their respective civil societies. The biggest initiative release to the public thus far is the United Nations Decade of Global Reconciliation. “Well, let’s face it, the globe is a wreck and the only thing that is going to change it is a long process of global reconciliation,” states C. James Ernstrum, a spokesperson for the office of the General Assembly.

 

The main idea between the UNDOGR comes from the acknowledgment that the UN, itself, and international law is largely formulated by the victors of war – empires. This structure and formulation entirely leaves out indigenous perspectives. IN recognition of the fact that the western model has proven to be both destructive and increasingly violent, the UNDOGR is attempting to incorporate the reconciliation and mediation processes of indigenous cultures who survived and thrived for thousands of years in relative peace without all of the incredibly powerful destructive forces preeminent in the last century and a half.

 

“The indigenous peoples relationship is to the land and the narrative is one of survival as a part of the infinite web of life. The western mentality is based on possession and domination which, as we are all witnessing, has incredibly destructive power and natural processes can’t compensate for this without the help of human beings repairing the damage they’ve done to the environment – to the extinction of species, to the natural patterns in the weather cycles and perhaps most importantly, to the realization that we are in fact all tied together through water, blood and the great spirit that keeps our hearts beating as one,” spiritual leader of the Wasichu Thunder Clan notes in the UNDOGR’s publication soon to be released to the public and the member states of the UN. He continues, ““This is to be a global effort incorporating member states, civil societies and indigenous cultures and, the indigenous peoples of this planet will have the role similar to the UNGA for this initiative – not the member states, who have proven that they do not represent the will of the people nor can they unite on any particular initiatives for the benefit of the global civil society that stand counter to their respective hegemonic goals.”

 

“The first actions should be a symbolic giving back of stolen lands to the indigenous people,” said former UN Undersecretary General Robert Mueller. Obama would have to symbolically return the lands of the US to the indigenous – with the understanding, of course, that the Native Americans would let the descendents of immigrants and colonialists to remain since they are now, too, indigenous to this land. Netanyahu, or his successor, will give the land back to the Palestinians. Australia would give the Island Continent back to the Aborigines, and so one. The process, you can imagine, would continue until all stolen lands were given back to their original owners and, the underlying mission and intention, is to highlight the fact that we are one species living on one planet and we will, necessarily for our survival, need to live beyond the nation state: trans-nationally; acting with the intention to promote our own welfare in that our welfare is directly related to the welfare of all species and the organic systems upon which they rely and we must work to protect the children of all species.

 

“Beyond that there will need to be fortuitous gestures of reparations to the enslaved, dispossessed and murdered victims of empires and colonialism. This would entail reparations to the ancestors of slaves in the US and all around the world. Compensation to victims of war, refugees and internally displaced persons and so on,” adds Mueller. Again, the underlying intention is to illustrate that the “initial insult” can be traced back to some point in our common history through this series of reparations since each group will likely at some point in their history committed some injustice against another.

 

When we’re all done acknowledging the injustices we’ve perpetrated, apologizing, paying each other back and reconciling our pasts we will achieve a state of equality necessary for us to move towards our common destiny in cooperation and not in competition through the injustices perpetrated by states against nature and civil societies for profit and domination. Somewhere in our common history our narratives became dominated by a proclivity towards an unjust hierarchical system yet we have now reached a time where civil societies have become organized to counter the injustices of their respective states. We’re taking it to the next level through this initiative to weave together a global civil society who all share the same aspirations for peace, equality and a unity based on our common humanity and destiny.” Mueller concludes.

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… by peaceful means, …

Posted on 28th January 2015 in Nonviolence Resistance, Peace, Reflections, Self Determination, Theory
by H. Gibrain

“To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;” – Article 1.1 UN Charter

 

Signatories to the UN Charter are bound by international law to settle disputes peacefully and only resort to force when all other avenues for dialogue, diplomacy, negotiations and other means to settle disputes have been exhausted. The language of the UN charter is, in and of itself, profound in its implications yet fails miserably to live up to its own standard; needless to say this is a function of the member states and not the organization itself – yet the organization lacks the means to hold its members accountable for breeches of this fundamental.

 

One of the major flaws of the structure of the United Nations is that it is in fact not a united nations at all – it is a group of states – and does not have any body that represents nations of peoples. If the settling of disputes were left to nations, be they ethnic groups or imagined groups, I think the world would be in a much better state than it is now – where our collective fate is determined by a global corporate mafia that call themselves governments.

 

For starters, most normal members of civil society know how to party in the tradition sense as opposed to the sense implicit in the phrase “political party.” People would settle their disputes through drinking – which could lead to sex, sleep, vomiting, brawling and brotherly love; a far cry from settling disputes with bunker busters, tear gas, white phosphorous, hellfire missiles and the be-all-that-ends-all: nuclear war.

 

Sports are a very physical way to incorporate competition with cooperation with some minor injuries and the occasional fatality though nothing like that of war. The Olympics are a perfect example of settling disputes by peaceful means; may the best person/team win based on their dedication, discipline and an intelligent strategy.

 

The arts are also a wonderful means by which people can explore their differences. The display and performance arts are a great playground for our commonalities as well as our differences: theater, dance music, painting, sculpture, and so on are a great way of exploring differences in culture which offer an opportunity for appreciation rather than disdain.

 

The culinary arts, too, should not be underestimated as a means by which nations can settle disputes. Exploring flavors – what could be better.

 

If music is the universal language of humans then numbers are the universal language of nature. Why are there so many languages and only one set of numbers (except for the Romans)? We all speak the same numbers and live on the same planet with the same paragon of flora and fauna. Why do we not learn to play peacefully with numbers to explore the vast realms of organic organization. This would keep us busy for a long while – as it has.

 

We don’t see too many natural scientists and mathematicians calling for war, going into battle, or bludgeoning each other in the streets. Similarly, short of a battle of the bands, musicians tend to be a peaceful lot not smashing in each others skulls and taking fingers as trophies. Chefs, dangerous as they may seem, are clearly out for the betterment of society providing blood and soul sustenance. Similarly, athletes are all about the competition and victory but most sporting events tend to end with fewer deaths than wars.

 

The world needs to be run by an organized civil society transcending the idea and reality that nation states have been able to muster in terms of creating a peaceful planet devoid of blood lusting greedy murderous corporate fascist war mongers: megalomaniacal psychopaths. When the United Nations becomes a forum for the united nations of peoples from the respective civil societies of what are now nation states perhaps the prospects for human peace will be realized. I’m sure our plant and animal sisters and brothers are longing for the day when they are no longer subject to our collective insanity.

 

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Scientists Finally Unable to Disprove Slow Bang Theory

Posted on 18th January 2015 in MSMBS, Science, Theory

by H. Gibrain

In recent years, a team of French and Swiss natural philosophers – led by Gray Schwartz (no pun intended) – have been able to disprove the existence of the beginning of time; however, this has recently changed! In early January, a group of six teams of scientists conducted simultaneous experiments in different locations on earth and in space to to show that any one particular matter/anti-matter (matter’s inseparable bed buddy) pair were linked together by an energy field that extends across the entire space-time continuum. The existence of this all permeating field disproves, or more precisely, eliminates the need for verifying the existence of the Higg’s boson since it adjusts the energy field tensor in a way that compensates for its extra missing momentum. This astounding result conclusively shows that they are unable to disprove the Slow Bang Theory (SBT) which, up until this time, was basically discounted by the scientific community. Much like Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, the implications of Slow Bang were at first considered absurd and for this very reason SBT was ignored for the better part of a century.

 

Ironically, it was also Einstein who defined insanity as “repeating something and expecting different results.” It was Gray Schwartz who revisited SBT as an undergraduate studying at Berlin Technishe Universitat and revived an interest in it.

 

“Well, I was contemplating the nature of the Higg’s particle when I thought, if theory hasn’t been proven empirically at this point we’re either too stupid to invent a device that can measure it – which I don’t think is the case – or the theory is wrong and the better part of the physics community is insane – looking in the same place over and over for something that just doesn’t exist. I mean, so few people understand this stuff to begin with that those of us who, say, make it up that hill are following the route set by very few explorers – which is to say we are followers and not leaders and have lost the courage to make up something new since there space, at the summit, is, essentially, isotropic.”

 

Since that time, Schwartz’s team have essentially been working in the closet trying to come up with an approach that eliminate the need for the Higg’s particle yet retain the basic features of Quantum Statistical Relativistic Fluid Dynamics and the Big Bang Theory which accurately predict all of the basic features of the universe that we are able to perceive.

 

Their approach is contained in these three Lemmas

 

  1. There is no why?
  2. Probability exists in redundant simultaneous states of zero probability and infinite probability (otherwise know as the “zero probability/infinite probability duality” or “zero equals infinity parity”)
  3. Matter and Anti-matter are held together by Slow Light which permeates the known and unknown universe (commonly referred to as the Multiverse).

 

The first of these three Lemmas is the equivalent and corollary to Einsteins first postulate in the Special Theory of Relativity which states that there is no aether, that light is the same in all inertial frames. As there is no preferential direction for light to travel, there is no reason for light to travel. It is just something that happens: “ignota originem ad infinitum” as the saying goes. It is a principle violation of causality which is the limitation to natural scientific progress – the assumption that things happen for a reason or that they must even if it can not presently be determined. The current working theory is that if we can determine causality at this time, we are to assume there is a cause and there is no reason “and we’ll see what we get,” as Schwartz put it. “Like gravity,” Schwartz adds, “we have books on gravity too big for even Atlas to carry in a book bag that describe how things behave in the presence of a gravitational field yet no one understands why gravity is what it is. Well, we’ve given up trying to understand why some things are the way the are, like gravity and Slow Bang, and make the general assumption, as a result of the principle of slow light, that the entire universe is just on infinitesimally small point covering the entirety of time-space and everything else, that is, the inner workings, including you and me and ants and bosons and quarks and atoms, are nothing more than part of an energy exchange of the internal dynamics of a one-body system and, in fact, we’re kinda like the glue that holds the whole thing together. Or, another way of looking at it is that the whole thing is the glue which holds the glue together.”

 

The second postulate is an extension of the first and is, in its essence, corollary to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the correspondence principle with a little bit of Murphy’s law. While hard to put words to the actual mean of the second lemma of Slow Bang, it can be thought of by the following crime thought experiment:

 

Consider a party that you’ve invited your closest friends to. Each of these friends brings their trusted partner (trusted to them but not necessarily to you). Late into the evening you notice that one of your possessions has been absconded and you are wondering who might be responsible this inconsiderate act. You realize that it can’t be your trusted friends so you eliminate them from the probability pool of those who could have committed this infraction. This of course, increases the probability that it was their trusted partners – the most obvious choice since your close friends wouldn’t steal from you. However, you realize that the very fact that those who are most likely to commit the crime couldn’t commit the crime because they know that they would be more suspect than your trusted friends so they wouldn’t do it. Which immediately points the finger back at your trusted friends. The least likely to commit the crime is the most likely to commit the crime which then makes them the least likely. Schwartz describes this as “mobious probability” or “double suicide.”

 

To deal with Lemma III we must define slow light. “Slow light is the extreme fringe of probability beyond the boundaries of matter,” according to Professor Schwartz. “It is like the empty space of an atom, or the space between the earth and the sun, or that slight pause in between beats of a heart, or a rest in music. It is where matter emerges from anti-matter and anti-matter consumes matter. It is the nascent property of the multiverse “ignota originem ad infinitum. What is important to keep in mind when thinking about slow light, is that it is a unifying energy between everything in the universe. This idea is, in fact, illustrated by the nature of the photon and, as we say “orchestrated by the spiriton” which is the term we came up with to deal with both the lack of causality yet a clear and present presence in time-space. The spiriton is what I call the “god particle”. It is the anti-why things happen. It is the very consciousness of matter itself and is the unifying property of all things in the multiverse which is to say, quite literally, we are all one body.”

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The United Nations: We won’t be fooled again!

Posted on 3rd January 2015 in Peace, Peace Pedagogy, Practice, Reflections, Self Determination

Perhaps the first seminal work on large scale brainwashing of a peoples was “A Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” by Paolo Freire: an essay published in or around 1970 in which he articulates the notion that when the language of a peoples, of a nation, is the language of the oppressor, the peoples themselves are sort of caught in an intractable relationship between oppressor and oppressed until they come to realize that their language is a sort of prison guard to their perpetual slavery and if they can change the way they speak, they can change the way they think and can therefor change the way the act and, ultimately change the nature of their circumstance: their oppression.

 

A recent example of this, it has been argued, is the Occupy Wall Street movement – which, for its potentially dubious origins, lack of organization and overall ineffectiveness did exemplify the potential power of a semi-organic movement coalescing, organizing and beginning to define itself. It was, in a sense, a parthenogenic disturbance: an unfertilized embryo destined to spontaneously abort with no potential of becoming viable. In any case, perhaps a better and more appropriate terminology to express the intent and sentiment of the occupiers would have been to call the movement “inhabit wall street” or “cohabitate wall street” indicating something more in line with what was being sought – equality and justice. This one word switcheroo is a total game changer and has profound implications, speaking volumes to the very fundaments and intentions of the collective and definitely redirecting the strategy. It includes all stakeholders as having a valid claim in a shared space and demands dialog, listening and, as Freire called it, a dialogical conscientiazation. It is, in essence, the knowledge that is gained and shared through learning about others’ capacities and interpretations of reality; it is learning empathy.

 

Similarly, the entire world has been duped into accepting the United Nations as a collective of states organized to contract and execute international norms regarding war and peace: international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and others. That in and of itself is a seemingly noble cause save the fact that the United Nations is a collection of states and nations are collections of peoples of a common culture: an ethnic community (with a slightly political bent – a meaning the term has evolved to include). States haven’t been around that long historically. Before that it was empires, dynasties, monarchies and the like: colonialists at heart and in practice. The idea that states should represent the will, desire, expectation and needs of a nation is also a noble prospect yet, historically, this is not the case. To expect a United Nations of united states to carry out the will of a united nations of peoples is seemingly absurd. Perhaps this is why the United Nations is fundamentally dysfunctional. The representatives at the UN are not necessarily representing the will of the nations of peoples whom their respective governments send to deliver the message of the nation; that is, the message of the nation at the United Nations is the message of the state and even in the glorious western democracies the likelihood the will of the nation and the will of the state coincide is slim.

 

Let’s call it what it is or, better yet, create what it should be. A true United Nations of united nations of peoples coming together and doing what the states are unable or unwilling to do because they are inept or have dubious intentions. Those among us who have traveled to other lands and met other peoples – physically or astrally – understand that the common ground for our humanity is vast yet the establishment of the foundations for equality and peace are outside of the purview of many of the member states of the United Nations and, as a functional organism, the United Nations is incapable of carrying out its mandate because it is structurally compromised – as its name indicates.

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A Bullet too Soon…

Posted on 2nd January 2015 in Poetry, Reflections
by H. Gibrain

If you had lived just one more year
you would have seen
babies born to Palestinian mothers and Israeli fathers
nuclear disarmament and the dissolution of parliament
a cure for the megalomaniacal

if your last breath was over the cusp
of the critical demarcation
you’d have seen
cops and robbers making love
former enemies reconciled
building a nation for our indigenous future

if your lungs were shorn of wind
and your heart the pulsing ocean
when you set sail over the horizon
on your last voyage to the red desert
you would have known that we made it
to the promised land

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