www.bhavanaustralia.org VASUDHAIVA KUTUMBAKAM ‘The whole world is but one family’ June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12 Towards a New Era of Value Creation - Daisaku Ikeda e are living in an era marked by an absence of values, in which no measure of worth W other than the monetary is recognized. Discussions of poverty and income disparity, for example, are cast solely in terms of monetary values, making them needlessly sterile and soulless. Growing income disparities are an undeniable fact, and legal and systemic measures to create and maintain a social safety net are of course essential. However, these respond only to the symptoms, when more fundamental, curative measures are required. To ensure the genuine and lasting effectiveness of our response, a spiritual undergirding—a fundamental reevaluation of our priorities—is necessary. We need to develop the awareness that the standard of values that judges human worth solely on the basis of economic capacity represents the effective absence of values. We need to ask ourselves why there is such pervasive pessimism and nihilism in advanced industrial societies. When science and technology are divorced from the question of value, they are subject to no real control and potentially pose a deadly peril to human society. number of important international meetings scheduled, If this tendency is left unchecked, the consequences including the Review Conference of the Parties to the for humanity could be truly dire. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons The nightmare unleashed through the development of (NPT) in May. nuclear weapons technologies demonstrates all too U.S. President Barack Obama has signaled a potentially clearly the immensity of the danger. fundamental transformation in the status of nuclear We need to replace this nihilism and pessimism with weapons. In his speech in Prague, the Czech Republic, a new sense of value that will open the door to a new in April 2009, he provided an important new impetus era; religion can be a source of energy to achieve to long-deadlocked efforts for nuclear disarmament this. There is a need for the kind of religion that is by calling for a world without nuclear weapons. compatible with and embraces the insights of science, Nuclear weapons embody the deepest negative but can serve to guide and restrain those technologies impulses of the human heart. The work of abolishing which, if misused, have the potential to wreak them is laden with profound difficulties, and it is devastation on humankind. unrealistic to expect rapid or simple progress. It is A key function of religion is to help people replant vital to maintain an approach that is both flexible and their feet firmly in the here and now, enabling an out- persistent. of-control civilization to realize its needed course The time has come for the nuclear-weapon states to correction. The here and now is the foundation and develop a shared vision of a world without nuclear pivot of all aspects of human activity. If we lose sight weapons and to break free from the spell of deterrence. of this and base ourselves in a virtual world, we end up A new kind of thinking is needed, one based on the slaves of the very technologies that we ourselves working together to reduce threats and creating ever- created. expanding circles of physical and psychological security until these embrace the entire world. Toward A World Without Nuclear The nuclear-weapon states should evince their Weapons resolve to move beyond deterrence by undertaking The year 2010 will be critical in terms of finding a the following three commitments at the 2010 NPT path toward the resolution of global issues, with a Review Conference and working to fully implement them by 2015. of these populations is provided. Three concrete areas where measures should be taken concern employment, 1. To reach a legally binding agreement to extend children and the empowerment of women. negative security assurances—the undertaking not to use nuclear weapons against any of the non- Human dignity is gravely threatened when individuals nuclear-weapon states fulfilling their obligations are unemployed or work under inhumane or degrading under the NPT. conditions, or if lack of job security makes it impossible to plan for the future. The G20 should 2. To initiate negotiation on a treaty codifying the take responsibility to be the driving force for global promise not to use nuclear weapons against each employment recovery. One means to achieve this other. would be the establishment of a task force dedicated 3. Where nuclear-weapon-free zones have yet to be to promoting decent work and the Global Jobs Pact established, and as a bridging measure toward under the G20 umbrella. their establishment, to take steps to declare them It is children who are forced to pay the highest price nuclear non-use regions. when their societies face a crisis. There are concerns In addition to expanding the frameworks defining the over the increasing numbers of children who are legal obligation not to use nuclear weapons in this denied access to adequate nutrition and health care or way, it is also necessary to further clarify the norm that are forced to quit school in order to work. UNICEF nuclear weapons are indeed weapons that must never has advocated child-friendly schools and the building be used. To achieve this, the threat or use of nuclear of classrooms that can withstand earthquakes and weapons should be included among the war crimes storms. Schools should function as a refuge to protect falling under the jurisdiction of the International children from various threats—as strongholds of Criminal Court (ICC). The establishment of this norm human security—and become a venue for fostering will clear the way toward the abolition of nuclear children as protagonists of a new culture of peace. weapons—the fervent desire of people the world over. Finally, girls’ education has a crucial impact on all In addition, we need to create a system, based on the aspects of human development. Empowering a girl United Nations Charter, for the General Assembly and through education will lead to a brighter future for the Security Council to work together for the complete herself, her family and her children, eventually elimination of nuclear weapons. permeating society as a whole with the light of hope. Article 26 of the UN Charter states that the Security We need to establish an internationally administered Council has responsibility for formulating plans fund dedicated to realizing a better future for women, for regulating armaments in order to promote the in which a portion of developing countries’ debts is maintenance of international peace and security, forgiven and the equivalent amount allocated to girls’ minimizing the diversion of the world’s human and education. economic resources for armaments. However, to date In all these efforts, the key is the power of dialogue the Security Council has failed to fulfill this role. It and engagement to awaken that which is best in each is time that new efforts be made to fully implement individual. Just as there is no easy path to learning, Article 26 so that the Security Council fulfills its there is no easy path to the realization of good. We disarmament obligations, strengthening impetus must root ourselves firmly in reality, deliberately toward nuclear abolition and the demilitarization of taking on difficult challenges, ceaselessly training our planet. and forging ourselves in the “smelting furnace” of None of these proposals will be easy to implement, but spiritual struggle and earnest engagement with others. all of them build on existing institutional foundations. There is always a way, a path to the peak of even They are by no means unreachable goals. The NPT the most towering and forbidding mountain. What is Review Conference should initiate movement toward most strongly required of us is the imagination that these goals, and such efforts should culminate in a can appreciate the present crises as an opportunity to nuclear abolition summit in 2015—held in Hiroshima fundamentally transform the direction of history. and Nagasaki—which would effectively signal the end of the era of nuclear weapons. Source: Summary of Annual Peace Proposal 2010 Human Security submitted by UN by Daisaku Ikeda The impact of the current economic crisis on the more vulnerable members of society has been particularly severe. There are growing concerns that new humanitarian crises may arise in different parts of the world unless targeted assistance addressing the needs June 2010 Vol. 7 No. 12 Editorial Page Publisher & General Editor: Board of Directors of Gambhir Watts [email protected] Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia Editorial Committee: J Rao Palagummi Office Bearers: Parveen Dahiya President Gambhir Watts [email protected] Surendralal Mehta Chairman Emeritus Designing Team: President, Bhavan Worldwide Utkarsh Doshi J Rao Palagummi Company Secretary Sridhar Kumar Kondepudi Advertising: [email protected] Other Directors: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia Abbas Raza Alvi, Suite 100 / 515 Kent Street, Catherine Knox, Sydney NSW 2000 Sridhar Kumar Kondepudi, * The views of contributors to Bhavan Moksha Watts, Australia are not necessarily the views of Bhavan Australia or the Editor. Homi Navroji Dastur, Executive Secretary and Director General *Bhavan Australia reserves the right to edit any contributed articles and Jagannathan Veeraraghavan, Executive Director, Delhi letters submitted for publication. Mathoor Krishnamurti, Executive Director, Bangaluru Copyright: all advertisements and Palladam Narayana Sathanagopal, Joint Director, Mumbai original editorial material appearing remain the property of Bhavan Australia and may not be reproduced Patron: Her Excellency Mrs Sujatha Singh except with the written consent of High Commissioner of India in Australia the owner of the copyright. Bhavan Australia: - ISSN 1449 – 3551 Honorary Life Patron: His Excellency M Ganapathi, Currently High Commissioner of India in Mauritius (Founder Member/Director of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia) Cover: Women Power.