COMMENTS TO THE 4TH SUMMIT OF NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES
ROME, ITALY 27-30 NOVEMBER 2003
ON THE SUBJECT OF ETHICS AND POLITICS
By Jody Williams, Nobel laureate for PeaceCampaign Ambassador, International Campaign to Ban Landmines
I have listened with interest to the various speakers this morning and want to use my time to comment on some of the ideas I heard expressed this morning.
In his opening remarks Mr. Gorbachev spoke of the hope for a different world so many of us felt at the end of the Cold War. I remember very vividly the feelings that so many of us had at that time: Hope that war and militarization would no longer define our future. Hope that the end of the Cold War would mean the end of the arms race and that money previously used for weapons would be used instead for a “peace dividend.” Hope that democracy would continue spreading around the world and that in the post-Cold War world a new type of leadership would emerge to use the peace dividend to help confront the problems facing all of us on the increasingly small planet. However that new world was not to be.
As Mr. Gorbachev noted some chose to see the end of the Cold War as a means to claim victory in a new unipolar world. And as we were contemplating peace dividends and a world full of new possibilities, the same people who are again in power in Washington were developing different plans – plans to take advantage of the unipolar world to assure the total dominance of that world by the United States. They were contemplating a new empire in “A New American Century.” And the attempts at the construction of that new empire have helped to get us to the place where we find ourselves in today’s world.
In today’s world I believe we are in a delicate balance between terror and hope. Almost every speaker this morning talked about the terror of September 11. And any civilized individual condemns that act and any act of terror against innocent civilians – whether carried out by the individual terrorist or by a state. While as one speaker noted, the nation state has the right of self-defense, we must ask ourselves at what point does some line get crossed when actions carried out under the guise of “self defense” are used to mask state terror?
Which touches upon the question we are addressing in this session: ethics and politics. As a citizen of the United States of America, I feel particularly compelled to ask the question: Is it ethical politics to take a nation to war based on lies to your own people – and in the face of the opposition of most of the people of the world. Is it ethical politics for the country that was one of the leaders in the creation of the United Nations – the world body dedicated to the preservation of peace – to attempt to consign the UN to the “dust bin of history” if the nations that form that body refuse in their overwhelming majority to endorse the unilateral policies of one nation determined to go to war? The US asserted that if the UN did not support its push for war it would be confirming its own irrelevance. I would contend that the UN, in fact, demonstrated the possibility of its future relevance by refusing to rubber stamp one nation’s desire for war at any cost. Wrapped in its own lies and brazen in the face of global opposition, the US invaded Iraq and in so doing, I believe, has made us all less safe.
Which brings me back to the balance of hope and terror. His Holiness the Dalai Lama talked this morning about his belief that despite the terrible state in which we find the world today, he senses a palpable feeling in people of a hope and possibility for change. I, too, choose to believe in that hope. I believe that our work in the landmine campaign is part of that hope.
When the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and myself received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, the Nobel Committee said it was recognizing us for having taken a “utopian dream” of a world free of landmines and turned it into “virtual reality” through the Mine Ban Treaty. While I accept much of that sentiment, I reject the concept of peace as a utopian dream. In my view after decades of working for peace, there is nothing “utopian” about it. Building peace is hard work – every day. And there are many ways to contribute to the building of peace – just look at the work of the various individuals and organizations here today who have been recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize. Their work exemplifies the many roads one can take to contribute to building peace.
Building peace is hard work. It is often the work of solitary courage. Let us take the example of Nelson Mandela. Or Aung San Suu Kyi – who cannot be with us here because she remains under house arrest after being attacked this past May by the Burmese military dictatorship. She has spent many of the past years under house arrest because she stands with her people, fighting for democracy, fighting for the right to govern her country – a right her party earned at the ballot box well over a decade ago. There is nothing utopian about her fight.
The Nobel Committee also chose to recognize the Landmine Campaign because they said that the model we had created – of an active civil society, in open partnership with governments, agencies of the United Nations, and the International Committee of the Red Cross working together to address issues of immediate concern to the global community – could serve as a new model for addressing issues of peace and disarmament. That new model has helped reinforce the belief that there are alternatives.
In the current tension between terror and hope is also a struggle between how we as a global community define security. Will it continue to be security defined in terms of bigger weapons and more militarization or will it be security defined in terms of international law and human security. Out of the model born of the Ottawa Process that resulted in the Mine Ban Treaty came a network of “middle powers” – countries that seek to define national security in terms of human security. Governments who believe that we will all be more secure if we address the basic needs of the majority of the planet.
If the majority of the people on this planet have their basic needs met – clean water, housing, basic education, basic medical care and a dignified means of providing for their families they will share a stake in the future of our planet. When a small minority has access to the majority of goods, services and resources of the planet, those who have nothing, have nothing to loose in giving up their lives on a suicide mission. All the weapons in the world will not save us from people willing to fly airplanes into buildings to take the lives of thousands and sow the seeds of terror. We must sow seeds of hope by providing for the basic needs of people in every corner of the globe.
I believe that much of the hope for our future lies in the actions of people like you and me – the civil society component of that new model of change. I believe that each of us has both the right and the responsibility to take action to create the world in which we want to live – for future generations but also for ourselves. I believe in democracy. But I do not believe that democracy means casting your vote and then letting the government act “in your name” until you vote again.
I believe in active citizenship. I believe that each and every one of us must wake up every day and decide how we are going to act to contribute to the creation of a different world. As my sister laureate Betty Williams likes to say, “Emotion without action is irrelevant.” If you do not work to change the things that you do not like, in my view in addition to abdicating your own power, you cede your right to complain. Your words must be mirrored by your actions. I challenge all of us, in the delicate balance between terror and hope, throw the weight of our actions behind hope for a better world. Take action to create the world you in which want to live – for yourselves and for future generations.
Thank you.
