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<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma size=2><SPAN class=504141416-19032003><FONT
face="Times New Roman" color=#0000ff size=3>Just received from a
colleague. Interesting.</FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
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class=504141416-19032003></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma size=2><SPAN class=504141416-19032003><FONT
face="Times New Roman" color=#0000ff size=3>wojtek</FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma size=2><SPAN
class=504141416-19032003> </SPAN>-----Original
Message-----<BR></DIV></FONT>
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<BR><BR>> ----- Original Message ----- Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 8:00 AM
Subject:<BR>> Fw: Message from a Chancellor emeritus<BR><BR>Dr. Robert
Muller, former assistant secretary general of the United Nations, now
Chancellor emeritus of the University of Peace in Costa Rica was
one of the people who witnessed the founding of the U.N.
and has worked in support of or inside the U.N. ever
since. Recently he was in San Francisco to be honored for
his service to the world through the U.N. and through his writings
and teachings for peace. At age eighty, Dr. Muller surprised,
even stunned, many in the audience that day with his most
positive assessment of where the world stands now regarding
war and peace. I was there at the gathering and I myself was
stunned by his remarks. What he said turned my head around
and offered me a new way to see what is going on in the world.
My synopsis of his remarks is below:<BR><BR>'I'm so honored to be here,'
he said. 'I'm so honored to be alive at such a miraculous time
in history. I'm so moved by what's going on in our
world today.' (I was shocked. I thought -- Where has he
been? What has he been reading? Has he seen the
newspapers? Is he senile? Has he lost it? What is
he talking about?)<BR><BR>Dr. Muller proceeded to say, 'Never before in the
history of the world has there been a global, visible, public,
viable, open dialogue and conversation about the very
legitimacy of war.' The whole world is in now having
this critical and historic dialogue--listening to all kinds of
points of view and positions about going to war or not going to
war. In a huge global public conversation the world is asking
-- 'Is war legitimate? Is it illegitimate? Is there
enough evidence to warrant an attack? Is there not enough
evidence to warrant an attack? What will be the consequences?
The costs? What will happen after a war? How will
this set off other conflicts? What might be peaceful
alternatives? What kind of negotiations are we not thinking
of? What are the real intentions for declaring war?'<BR><BR>All of this,
he noted, is taking place in the context of the United
Nations Security Council, the body that was established in 1949
for exactly this purpose. He pointed out that it has
taken us more than fifty years to realize that function, the
real function of the U.N. And at this moment in history -- the
United Nations is at the center of the stage. It is the place where
these conversations are happening, and it has become in
these last months and weeks, the most powerful governing body
on earth, the most powerful container for the world's effort to wage
peace rather than war. Dr. Muller was almost in tears in
recognition of the fulfillment of this dream. 'We are not at
war,' he kept saying. We, the world community, are WAGING peace.
It is difficult, hard work. It is constant and we must not
let up. It is working and it is an historic milestone of immense
proportions. It has never happened before -- never in human history
-- and it is happening now, every day, every hour, waging peace through a
global conversation.<BR><BR>He pointed out that the conversation questioning
the validity of going to war has gone on for hours,
days, weeks, months and now more than a year, and it may go on and
on. 'We're in peacetime,' he kept saying. 'Yes, troops are being
moved. Yes, warheads are being lined up. Yes, the aggressor
is angry and upset and spending a billion dollars a day preparing to
attack. But not one shot has been fired. Not one life has
been lost. There is no war. It's all a
conversation.' It is tense, it is tough, it is challenging, AND
we are in the most significant and potent global conversation and
public dialogue in the history of the world. This has not happened
before on this scale ever before -- not before WWI or WWII, not
before Vietnam or Korea, this is new and it is a stunning new era of
Global listening, speaking, and responsibility. In the process, he
pointed out, new alliances are being formed. Russia and China on
the same side of an issue is an unprecedented outcome. France and
Germany working together to wake up the world to a new way of seeing
the situation.<BR><BR>The largest peace demonstrations in the history of
the world are taking place--and we are not at war! Most peace
demonstrations in recent history took place when a war was already
waging, sometimes for years, as in the case of Vietnam. 'So this,'
he said, 'is a miracle. This is what 'waging peace' looks
like.' No matter what happens, history will record that this is a
new era, and that the 21st century has been initiated with the world
in a global dialogue looking deeply, profoundly and responsibly as a
global community at the legitimacy of the actions of a nation that
is desperate to go to war. Through these global peace-waging
efforts, the leaders of that nation are being engaged in further
dialogue forcing them to rethink, and allowing all nations to
participate in the serious and horrific decision to go to war or
not.<BR><BR>Dr. Muller also made reference to a recent New York Times
article that pointed out that up until now there has been just one
superpower--the United States, and that that has created a kind of
blindness in the vision of the U.S. But now, Dr. Muller asserts,
there are two superpowers: the United States and the merging, urging
voice of the people of the world. All around the world, people are
waging peace. To Robert Muller, one of the great advocates of the
United Nations, it is nothing short of a Miracle and it is
working.<BR></DIV>
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<P align=center><A
href="http://www.thinkexist.com/English/default5001HP.htm"> </A><I><A
href="http://www.thinkexist.com/English/default5001HP.htm"><FONT
face=Arial color=#0000ff size=4>A person, who no matter how desperate
the situation, gives others hope, is a true leader
<BR></FONT></A></I><FONT face=Arial color=#e08131 font-size="10pt"><B><A
style="TEXT-DECORATION: none"
href="http://www.thinkexist.com/English/Author/x/Author_2596_1.htm"><FONT
color=#e08131>Daisaku Ikeda</FONT></A><FONT color=#e08131>.<SPAN
lang=es> </SPAN></FONT></B><FONT color=#e08131>Japanese peace activist,
president of Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai International,
b.1928</FONT></P>
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