MANIFESTO FOR A WORLD WITHOUT WARS

WARS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PRESENT IN HISTORY

BUT TODAY THE NUCLEAR THREAT PUTS HUMANITY AT THE EDGE OF AN ABYSS

In the history of humanity wars have always been present, but the forms they took and the types of suffering they imposed on the populations varied markedly. The first conflicts were sometimes solved in combats between chiefs of clans or tribes, minimizing in this way the number of deaths. At other times the victims in the battle fields were mercenaries of armies to whom kings and noblemen paid the "soldada" for their services. Today, the battle fronts extend to the civilian populations that become their direct and involuntary scenarios in which an army attacks a destitute and defenceless population and by virtue of such an attack their dead become the political weapon of those who "direct" the conflict from another scenario in which they declare war or sign agreements of peace or surrender.

The advances experienced by the human species in its long process in all fields have also happened in the development of the military industry. The step from cutting and impact weapons to gunpowder based ones supposed a remarkable increment in their destructive effects. But the largest leap took place with the appearance of nuclear weapons with which the destructive capacity reached unknown and monstrous proportions. In this way, technological advances applied to the military field produced progressively more devastating conflicts. On the other hand, there is agreement in affirming that the human species has evolved and it has advanced in the last centuries, being today more "civilized". From the point of view of wars both things are in evident contradiction, because in the last centuries, and mainly in the XX century, the brutality, the destruction and the barbarism exercised by those "civilized" people speak otherwise, of a process of increases in conflicts and aggressions more characteristic of a self-destructing madness.

The scientific-technological restrictions happening at the beginning of the nuclear weapons production left them in the hands of a minority that exercised their power by virtue of this monopoly. Conceived to be used basically on the civilian population, their great destructive power was joined by another decisive factor: the enormous dread that took hold of the populations by just considering the possibility of them being used. Science and technology have continued their remarkable advance and as a consequence the number of countries that today are members of the nuclear club is increasing. If we continue in this direction, in just a few years many others hope to also have access to this progressively less select club. In turn, advances in research multiply the destructive capacity of the old bombs ten to a thousand fold, at the same time that their weight is vastly decreased, being able today to carry a nuclear bomb in a small briefcase.

In such dynamics, what future awaits us? A world where a great majority of countries have nuclear weapons? Where technology allows every time smaller nuclear weapons, accessible to fanatics, terrorists or pressure groups wishing to destabilise certain areas? How will all that be regulated?

The USA continues today, against the terms of the Non Proliferation Treaty, to develop tactical nuclear weapons and working on the design of small capability nuclear bombs to be used in a controlled way. Behind it follow Russia, the United Kingdom, China, France and the other countries belonging to this sinister club. The revision of the USA’s nuclear doctrine introduces a novel change: if during the cold war atomic weaponry was always considered the last resort in the event of a military confrontation (the famous deterrence), now it states that nuclear bombs can be used in regional conflicts. For example, the emphasis on the destruction of supposed underground enemy fortresses: The existence of these fortresses or bunkers is being leaked by the US secret services to the press to "prepare" public opinion. Meanwhile, the American war industry, intimately linked to their government, has already begun the production of small tactical nuclear bombs, supposedly capable of destroying those bunkers.

Today the nuclear threat is at its most serious moment in human history.

THE IMMORALITY OF THE VIOLENT AND THE MORAL FORCE OF NON-VIOLENCE

There are those interested in taking possession of the goods and the lives of other peoples in order to defend their own interests. This is carried out by force and by producing armed conflicts. To justify them all kinds of arguments are presented such as: the defence of western civilization, the fight against terrorism, humanitarian aid, the defence of democracy, peacekeeping forces, etc., reaffirming the use of violence as a natural behaviour consubstantial with the human being, where the idea of "natural" contains what cannot be transformed by intentions, a permanent quality, present for as long as man exists. Some have gone further yet, presenting violence as "a necessary evil".

The human construction has been built thanks to the work, the creativity, the interchange and the solidarity of many generations. But in certain situations individuals, groups or peoples have acted violently causing disasters and destruction. However, there are always conditions previous to any flare-up of violence where one can and should act to divert the enormous negative forces being set in motion. Non-violence is the opposite of weak, soft or cowardly attitudes and it does not exclude the right to self-defence. The non-violent attitude is a possible choice and today we say a necessary one, through which individuals, a group or a people, show their moral force and ethical stature to their contemporaries and to those who follow them in history.

We understand violence as a “mistaken response", a behavioural error, rather than as the expression of the intrinsic wickedness of humankind. Unless we bestow such a pathological feature, of mental alteration, to every being born in this planet, it will be necessary to accept that wars are not mechanical, uncontrollable and natural events, like a hurricane or an earthquake. They respond to interests, to people's and concrete groups’ intentions. A war is thought about, planned and decided on by a few people who are sick with cruelty, ambition, power and greed. They do not measure the consequences of their actions and they commit the population to becoming involved in their plans with arguments and justifications that are essentially immoral and therefore invalid. Death, madness, despair, mutilation, illness, the consequences of destruction, of hunger, of solitude... these are the costs of such immorality.

BENEFITS FOR THE WORLD POPULATION OF THE REORIENTATION OF WAR BUDGETS

The threat of confrontations and the explosion of local wars continue to grow; other forces have been activated now in a multi-centric way taking the form of nationalisms, ethnic and religious strife… Some wish to regionalise conflicts leading towards a clash of civilizations. These situations prevent different peoples to develop in a framework of peace, of interchange, and fraternity. The negative influence of wars in the economy of countries with lesser resources, when their military expenditure diverts from the national budgets what should be dedicated to education, health, science and culture, contrasts with the benefits received by rich countries that increase their exports in weapons and military technology.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that hunger in the world could be defeated just by 10 percent of what is spent in weapons and research with destructive ends. It is difficult not to think about what could be achieved by dedicating 50 or 100 percent of those resources to favour life, not death; to help overcome physical pain and mental suffering, instead of generating them.

We live in a world in which it is no longer coherent to affirm: "Those are other people’s problems, here we have no conflicts". There is no longer a safe place where conflict cannot manifest. With the current globalisation, what happens in a place ricochets immediately to other points: the fall of the stock exchanges, the increased prices of raw materials, crisis arising in chain reaction in the economies of countries and in whole regions, the adjustment programmes that transform the way of life of hundred of millions of people in a very short time leading to social unrest and massive migratory phenomena.

HUMAN HISTORY IS THE EXPRESSION OF ITS REBELLION AGAINST THE GIVEN

Most of people are convinced that wars are unavoidable. When faced with the idea of a "world without wars", they easily use arguments such as "eliminating wars is impossible, they have always existed and they will always exist". There are also other positions that suppose naively that wars will end one day, perhaps magically, and whatever we do is irrelevant; they trust in that, still without doing anything, one day we will find out from the media that "peace is here to stay”. These positions make it possible for those who are in favour of these types of conflicts, even if they are only a small percentage of the population, to make the great majority feel impotent before them.

Both positions set us back, because they immobilise us. The end of wars is not something that will happen inevitably: we say that “we can eliminate wars", which is not the same as affirming that “they will be eliminated". Everything will depend on what human groups do. After centuries of violence it is difficult to imagine that wars will stop. However, before international strategies and policies develop, the image of a "planet without wars" must arise first as an intimate desire and a commitment in each one of us of working towards it. This is the key point, the starting point of the whole question. Yes, most human beings do not want wars, but at the same time we do not believe that eliminating them is possible, therefore the first thing we have to change is our own minds: our beliefs about this supposedly unalterable reality. To change that belief that “it is not possible", or at least to question it, will be a revolutionary step towards completely overturning this situation we live as something seemingly impossible to modify.

What is human history but the history of surpassing limits? Could we today obtain nature’s resources, cure illnesses and advance in the knowledge of our body, sail and know the ocean’s depths, communicate instantly from one end of the planet to the other, fly and explore the Universe, if from the very beginning of the human phenomenon the rebellion had not existed in front of "the natural", in front of "the given?"

This is the meaning of History: a constant effort to overcome pain and personal and social suffering, to reach happiness, freedom, the joy of living. An uninterrupted struggle through millennia to transform the natural environment into a place suitable for human life, and the social environment into a worthy place for a development without limits.

WAR IS THE LAST CURSE OF HUMAN PREHISTORY

We have the responsibility and the moral need to decide whether we want to continue living and in what conditions we want to do so; whether we want to go on in the direction of a system every time more violent, more filled with conflicts, with more disasters befalling both humans and nature, or to attempt to change direction. It is our privilege to act now; for us, for the generations to come and for those that preceded us. To do our part and to reach the highest goal: to eradicate violence as a way of relating, to transform ourselves and to transform the world into the habitat of a new humanity, and to achieve this in our life time.

We want to solve the problem of wars. We think that this will be possible if there is a firm intention that grows generating spaces of organisation and of participation. As more and more people integrate this point of view, new ideas, actions, projects and totally new strategies will arise. New roads, today unimaginable, will open up. It is better to run the risk of not reaching the goal rather than not taking any step in this direction.

Stopping wars is not a new idea: countless people have worked throughout history in different moments, in different regions, with ideals of peace, of non-violence, of solidarity, of non-discrimination, of tolerance and the integration of diversity. Many are doing so now, but we see that it is not enough. A powerful joint action is necessary, capable of sweeping away the conceptions, prejudices, groups and organisations that seek to make us remain in human prehistory where might is right, in an atmosphere dominated by prejudice, discrimination, brutality and nihilism.

In order to advance in the direction of a world without wars it is necessary to eliminate nuclear weapons, the deadliest devices created by humans and whose single existence constitutes an attack against the human being and the future generations.

RECONCILIATION BETWEEN PEOPLES IS THE ROAD THAT OPENS UP THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY

Wars are the expression of the worst in human beings.

The rulers that drag their people into conflicts generally do so by fostering in the population mistrust, hatred and a desire for revenge towards the enemy, often created artificially. Internally they work increasing control, triggering fear and people's basest feelings.

Far from solving the initial difficulties, entering into the dynamics of war as a form of solving differences will demonstrably increase the conflicts exponentially, generating social traumas that will last decades, in some cases centuries. We are witnessing historical conflicts naively considered to be resolved, now reappearing with unusual strength as if time had stopped the course of history.

We may only advance in the integration of peoples and cultures if we work in the direction of true reconciliation rather than with useless declamations.

Reconciliation does not mean forgetting what happened, neither does it mean forgiving.

Reconciliation means, above all, wanting to build a new future together with other peoples. This means overcoming identities, beliefs and values that distance us from others.

We will have to understand that the dynamics of eliminating one another is not right. We will have to learn how to live among all the peoples; that no peoples are our friends or enemies. There are no races superior to others. No culture is more respectable than another.

We have to understand that there are human behaviours that bring peoples together and behaviours that distance them. Answers in solidarity and mean or perverse answers.

Reconciling means to repair twice the harm done to others where mistakes were made.

We will have to understand that the path is active non-violence applied to social change. That is: starting a proportional disarmament, nuclear as a first step, withdrawal of invading troops, reduction of the military budget and transfer of resources towards solving problems such as poverty in the world and to bring back examples of dialogue, giving up war as a way of resolving conflicts.

A WORLD WITHOUT WARS IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN NATION

We want peace; we want to live in a truly and definitively human world.

We want to live the day when wars cease and people are bursting with happiness. This is our aspiration, we believe it is possible. We have faith in ourselves and in other human beings.

We declare our love for life, that all life is sacred. That each child, each youngster and each old person, each man and each woman, no matter the colour of their skin, their religion or their nationality, are entitled to build their life without fearing a death decided by others.

We proclaim that the human being is the highest value and non-violence is the most worthy attitude. We invite others to define their position in relation to these fundamental issues.

Today the nuclear threat puts humanity at the edge of the abyss. The first step toward a world without wars is total nuclear disarmament in all the countries of the world. Let us set ourselves, pacifists and the non-violent alike, in this just and urgent cause, the most necessary for the human species.

We affirm that the most valuable task today is: to rescue humanity from violence for which we invite all to participate in this worthy cause, preparing the path towards the universal human nation.