The Eternal Plan of Love and Light
&
the Work of the United Nations

Thursday, May 18, 2000, 3-6:00 p.m.

What Challenges Does the UN Face as It Seeks to Fulfill Its Objectives and Goals?
How Can We Help the UN Meet These Challenges?

By Dr. Wally N'Dow, Convener, State of the World Forum 2000

Thank you very much. Thank you all. It's always a pleasure to be invited by friends-many friends that I see in this room, to participate in conversations that really matter.

When Ida and I discussed this idea and as I prepared for some remarks, a few thoughts suggested themselves. One that, truly struck me, on this point in the journey of our human family, is that something new and big and exciting, and full of vitality and potential is struggling to be born. And the second thought that came to me, as recently as this morning at breakfast, was that this drama, the Lord's drama as it unfolds, is being mediated by a sense of human solidarity, not competition and contest. For example, witness the diversity that this room represents; that each one of us, in our different traditions and backgrounds, rooted as we are in those traditions and backgrounds, is acting like the big baobaba tree, that those of you who know my [African] continent, my part of the world, will understand immediately. Rootedness in one's culture but opening up to the world in terms of the branches, doesn't cancel out the possibility of communicating truth, but is mediated primarily by a concept of cooperation and seeking that substance that binds our human society together. So this really, in a nutshell, is the central part of my remarks today.

I am here representing not only the UN-because I'm still a staff member of the United Nations, on special leave and engaging with the State of the World Forum-I'm also with a colleague who has her own spiritual journey and organization, Mrs. Audrey Kitagawa from Hawaii. Mrs. Kitagawa is here to help me coordinate the State of the World Conference that will take place in New York in September. You will see material from her organization being displayed on the literature table. I am here to announce the good message and the good news that civil society, including spiritual civil society, is being asked and expected to come to that rendezvous of ideas and civilization to which reference has been made. And that this group and groups like it all over the world today are being engaged in new and original ways to put at the foundation of that cosmic effort, the spiritual dimension.

What does that imply? It implies for me that we have to follow the fortunes of the work of the UN and its agencies and its major conferences; follow the global Action Plans with tremendous attention and vigilance; follow their promise; be advocates for them, number one.

Number two, it is very important that we be able to supply a new vocabulary to the UN processes; a new language; a spiritual language; a language that can be transnational-to allow people to understand, to advocate, to lend their prestige to the work of this great instrument of humanity.

Thirdly, it is important that we see this work as one of the main pathways for civilizational change. Without it the 21st Century will not be workable. We live in times of great complexity, great competition and great contest-a new harshness is being born, a new disruption-a new great disruption. But are we equal to the challenge? Will we provide the great work that is called for? I find elements of that being advanced today. The UN has organized major conversations around things that deal with the fundamentals of a sustainable human future: population, environment, education, human rights, human settlements-how we live, where we live in the 21st Century; how we negotiate our way into a better future.

These are very basic constructs for the human security, which we have to redefine today. It's no longer adequate, in my view, that the UN itself lend any credence to a concept of human security or security that has to do with territory and armies and moving armies across boundaries and the defense of national territory and national interests. The UN has to evolve, with the help of groups like us, a new language. Human security in the sense of its meaning sustainable peace, basic food, the refusal to accept injustice as an operating principle for our human family, negation of power, sometimes magnitudes of power-inordinate amounts of it-as mediator in relations between nations and within nations, between people and within groups. The United Nations has to create this new landscape in which all of its efforts will proceed in the 21st Century. Human security from the point of view of justice, refusal of exclusion, jobs, livelihoods, protection of children and vulnerable groups. That is the spiritual message. And I daresay, it may well be most of the message that the UN needs today. But the UN cannot do it all on its own.

What can we do to help this great work to which I have referred?

First of all I believe each and every one of us should begin to conceive him/herself to be a pilgrim of the United Nations. To make progress in the sense that you all understand the progress of the pilgrim. It's critical that this vitality and the vividness that the spiritual dimension can bring to this new journey must be central to our understanding of who we are. We can continue the very important work on human rights, the work of the United Nations on poverty. Poverty deepens the pain of the world. Poverty deepens the pain of mankind. We should urge, we should demonstrate, we should litigate, we should legislate that the United Nations continue to focus importantly on this scourge of the human family. And I think that's the spiritual message.

We should continue to seek justice-peace with justice. Peace is not only the absence of war and conflict; it is fundamental justice. We have a great opportunity and a great gift in peace and conflict resolution. These are important areas that need our attention.

But there's one other important area. It has to do with how do we help the world community regain historical consciousness, a reformed historical consciousness that is predicated on a humane force! That must be first of all personal; it must be ethical-not ideological. And, it must be mediated by covenants not contracts; it must be mediated by communities-not states and governments. It basically has to support the contending paradigm, which is that the world is on a sacred journey and the world is not a business opportunity. I believe that these are some of the basic fundamentals that groups such as ours' and others, acting in diverse opportunities and diverse places in the world can bring to this rendezvous. It may even, if we work it right, if we work at it well, if we're equal to the challenge, transform itself into the beginnings of a strategic spirituality for the United Nations and for our human family. It could become a charter for spiritual civil society.

I suggest, as has been mentioned, that using the information at our disposal through the internet and elsewhere-there's an abundance of information-that there may just be the possibility of creating a global observatory on the UN, mediated lightly by the spiritual message. See what the UN is doing and always find how can we bring to bear on this and put at that effort a foundation of spirituality. There are ways it can be worked out certainly if we reach out and work transnationally.

I think what I'm trying to say is that the "I win, you lose" paradigm which has operated in the United Nations-this paradigm has to transform itself into cooperation. It has to transform itself into a belief that unless we all participate spiritually or participate in the divine, the process will not work. That's why we haven't made any progress, in real terms, since 50 years, and thirdly, that the meaning of justice, the meaning of truth as opposed to facts, which is basically the operating paradigm-facts and power relations-this paradigm no longer works. Our world is too complex, we're living cheek by jowl. I cannot honker down any more with my [own] nation and my people: the problems of Asia are theirs, the problems of Africa are those of Asia, etc.. That world-view of " I win, we win-you lose" will no longer work. This is an opportune moment, therefore, an opportune moment for all of us, in my view, to see this journey as a sacred journey. And to recognize the moment, the millennial moment, and exploit that moment-and put ourselves solidly at the foundation of a better UN for the 21st century.

I'm just delighted that from time to time we get together and say to ourselves "What next can we do?"

Thank you.