| The present economic system is demonstrably failing to provide for
people, failing to measure the pressures on people and the planet, failing
to lift the burden of debt on nations and individuals, failing to nurture
cultural diversity, failing to protect people from an increasingly unwieldy
and uncontrolled financial system--and failing to exercise the world leadership
they claim. [...] This failure to provide for people is unforgivable. But
the solutions are in the hands--not just of the G7 leaders--but of us all,
if we work together to dismantle the old economic mythology and move from
learned helplessness to actively create a new global order. Power structures
can be changed. We recognize the skills, insights, ways of knowing, forms
of communication and resistance, and profound friendships and relations
amongst people everywhere working for a better world.
Fundamental reform has never been so urgent. The policies of the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization
are having devastating consequences on our lives. Those in the South are
increasingly marginalized and insecure; Canadians are reeling from cutbacks
and job loss; workers in G7 countries are scrambling for diminishing work.
And indigenous people, people of colour, and women bear the weight of the
financial gains of the few. It is time to put the G7 "rich men's club"
back into the hands of the people of the world. |
Communique
to G7 Leaders From The People's Summit
Halifax, Nova Scotia, June 16, 1995 |
The adoption of the proposals [in the Glenview Declaration] by the
G7 leadership at this Summit will help us all to:
* preserve the health of humanity and the
ecology of the Global Commons for future generations;
* improve the economic climate, monetary
and fiscal stability and curb speculation;
* foster the increasing participation of
civil society in the collective decisions affecting us;
* re-establish personal and political sovereignty
over the increasing servitude of debt. |
|
conclusion of The
Glenview Declaration and Proposals
to the G7 Economic Summit, Halifax, June 1995 |
| Civil, ethnic and religious strife, nuclear armament, armed conflicts,
alien and colonial domination, foreign occupation, international economic
imbalance, coercive economic measures, poverty, organized crime, and terrorism
in all its forms are destructive to sustainable human settlement development
and should therefore be renounced by all States. We believe that attaining
these goals will promote a world more stable and free from injustice and
conflict. |
| From Habitat II Agenda from a Peace Perspective |
| "More and more people who are bypassed by new world orders are crafting
their own strategies for survival and development, and in the process are
spinning their own transnational web to embrace and connect people across
the world. Upon dreams of a global civilisation that represents human diversity
and values people individually, a global civil society is beginning to
take shape -- mostly off camera. It is the only force we see that can break
the global gridlock. The great question of our age is whether people, acting
with the spirit energy and urgency that our collective crisis requires,
can develop a democratic global consciousness rooted in authentic local
communities." |
| from Global Dreams by Richard Barnet and John
Cavanagh |
| Are there constraints to working in partnership with senior governments
and the other partner sectors? Yes there are constraints!
When our partners jealously guard, their resources, their financial
capacity, their intellectual property, their political position,
and control of their captive personnel, we have great difficulty in being
partners. Remember most of us are volunteers.
We claim sustainable human settlements:
-
in which adequate housing is an automatic right;
-
in which honesty is more important than political image;
-
in which the global commons is regarded as the heritage of all humanity;
-
in which profit means an increase in the quality of life, not a surplus
of money;
We claim a global society:
-
in which security is a state of mind and heart rather than an inventory
of guns, munitions, and landmines, and the preparedness to use them;
-
in which the world financial system is transformed from accumulation of
surplus money and investment in currency speculation and tax havens, to
the distribution of plenty and investment in human and social capital.
We claim partnerships;
-
which value co-operation more highly than competition;
-
in which an attitude of accepting responsibility commands more respect
than an attitude of merely demanding rights;
-
in which it is normal for the principles of sustainable human settlements
to triumph over inflated egos, misunderstanding and ignorance.
We dream of a world in which our partners share our dreams, our sense of
urgency to make them come true, and will work with us to ensure that they
do.
Please remember, we are the constituency.............. |
| The
Campaign for the Earth Foundation |
Martin Luther King said that "A nation that continues, year after year,
to spend more money on weapons of
destruction than on programs of social uplift approaches spiritual
death." And I don't know how else to explain the point we've reached, where
the world's strongest nation is preparing to drop bombs on desperate, starving
people half a world a way in order to assert its will. Meanwhile, at home,
children starve because money that could have been used to buy them food
was spent instead on Aegis destroyers capable of destroying a continent.
2000 years ago in the Middle Eastern desert, one man asked "Who among you
if a child was starving and cried out for bread would give him a stone?"
Only the spiritually dead. |
| Resisting Spiritual Death by Sean Donahue, New
Hampshire Peace Action |
|