Notes from the Field- Ethics in Action for Sustainable and Integral Development: Peace

Casina Pio IV, Vatican City- February 2-3, 2017: The second meeting of Ethics in Action (EIA) was dedicated to peace. Today, peace is being suffocated by “piecemeal” violence, threatened by wars in different countries and continents, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the rise of terrorism by non-state and so-called state actors (some claiming religious motives), the abuses suffered by migrants and victims of human trafficking, and the devastation of the environment. Peace is not the mere absence of war—it encompasses the conditions that allow for all people to unfold their dignity in the context of the common good. Convinced that the teachings of St. John XXIII and Pope Francis on peace have a strong relevance for the world today, for leaders of nations as well as for individuals, EIA reflected on needed actions and policies, both globally and locally, to advance this holistic notion of peace.

Ethics in Action (EIA) convened for the first time, establishing its goal of advancing “sustainable and integral human development through an effective collaboration among world religions for the purpose of articulating universal values and ethical imperatives and indicating how such values and ethics might be applied in practice to address pressing global challenges.” This partnership, co-hosted by the Chancellor of the Pontifical Academies, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Religions for Peace, and the University of Notre Dame was founded by the Blue Chip Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, Christina Lee Brown and Jacqueline Corbelli.

Jennifer Gross is of the strong opinion that we all must participate in an Act of Imagination where hope outweighs fear. She says: “We must reduce hatred and pursue mercy, respect, and compassion. Compassion is the only way to get through the events that are going to continue to unfold due to mass migration. The fall of social trust is rising due to migration. We need to focus on hospitality which is the recognition of dignity in every human being. Our moral imagination must be exercised and strengthened. There needs to be a spiritual revolution and an end to indifference, and we must protect Creation in all forms and strengthen the international law of peace. We must confront the duality of human nature through ethics and moral education.”

As a result of this meeting of EIA, Blue Chip, along with the Gross Family Foundation, committed to fund a project with VII Association on Peace. A book and a documentary will be created that explore the past century’s attempts at peace in Bosnia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, Vietnam, Chechnya, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and South Africa. The documentary will challenge the conventionally held wisdom that peace is an outcome worth seeking at all costs and explore how to create a better peace that benefits the people who have to live with the consequences and the range of different outcomes created when women are a part of the peace process, when peace is imposed or comes from within, and why lasting peace is so hard to achieve.

200 million people died in the 20th century though war, genocide, and political repression. 13.3% of world GDP or $1,876 PPP per annum, per person is spent on violence. To further break it down, that figure is $5 per person, per day, every day of the year. According to the most recent World Bank estimates, 10.7% of the worlds’ population is living on less than $2 per day. This disparity is at the heart of both the EIA meeting and the proposed documentary.

Following is an excerpt from the official statement released by Ethics in Action after the Peace meeting:

…For the world’s religions, peace goes beyond the mere absence of war. These traditions increasingly share a vision of “positive peace” rooted in the dignity of each and the unity of all, grounded in each religion’s experience of the transcendent. This vision of positive peace is built on four essential pillars, stated explicitly Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth, 1963) but also acknowledged by the other religions in their own terms as reflecting the deepest desires of the human spirit—truth, justice, charity, and liberty. So understood, positive peace calls for the unfolding of human dignity in a way that is linked directly to honoring rights and executing reciprocal responsibilities. This is also directly related to our common obligation to seek the good of the other and avoid evil by advancing shared well-being, which includes living in harmony with nature…

There are many proximate causes of war. Some wars are rooted in fear, desperation, perceived threats, and real deprivations and injustices. A particular problem today is the risk of conflict exacerbated by extreme poverty and inequality, persistent marginalization and social exclusion, and the alarming pace of environmental degradation. In this light, climate change can be seen as a silent war on the planet, and the Paris Climate Agreement as a treaty of peace. Other wars have more ignoble underpinnings—motivated by a quest for profits, land, resources, glory, revenge, revenue, or geopolitical advantage. Whatever the underlying causes, wars violate human dignity and rend the fabric of the common good. They provide fertile ground for demagogues to spread fear and hate. Wars represent the failure of politics and are typically based on lies rather than the truth. It must also be acknowledged that this is a particularly perilous time for peace, with tensions brewing all across the globe. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock now stands at 2½ minutes to midnight, signaling the greatest risk of apocalypse since 1953…

There are numerous examples of profound, world-changing interventions by religious leaders in nudging political leaders to pursue peace. Pacem in Terris played a historic role following the Cuban Missile Crisis to help the United States and Soviet Union find a path towards arms control, notably the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968. The 1989 Taif Agreement ended the Lebanon Civil War, disarmed militias, and created political power sharing among the various national communities. The Vatican has also played a pivotal role in ending conflict between Argentina and Chile, Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the civil war in the Central African Republic. Most recently, the Catholic Church played a direct and enormously fruitful role in bringing the conflicting parties in Colombia to the negotiating table and reaching a peace agreement, ending the longest-running military conflict on the planet…

The challenge facing Ethics in Action is to find practical steps so that the unique wisdom, beauty, and shared moral convictions of the world’s great religious traditions can help guide the world back from the brink and reality of war—and toward a vision of positive peace rooted in the unbreakable link between unfolding human dignity and advancing shared well-being.

Ethics in Action is therefore resolved to do whatever it can to help the world’s religious leaders promote peace. We aim to mobilize the scientific, academic, and international community to spread the message that religion should not be instrumentalized and manipulated in the name of political agendas. Rather, the religious leaders are committed to reducing the fear in their communities, combating the lies that accompany the drumbeats of war, and actively promoting the virtues of positive peace and the institutions in their communities that embody and enact these virtues. This must include tackling the spread of hatred and violence via the internet and social media.

In this regard, we specifically propose the following measures, both in terms of advocacy and our own engagement:

Advocacy

• Request the UN Secretary General to put the issue of religion and peace on the UN Security Council agenda during 2017 in support of global peace and sustainable development.

• Recommend the creation of an Inter-Religious Contact Group for the UN Secretary-General and UN Security Council.

• Devise and implement a media-savvy, cross-cultural, inclusive strategy to change the narrative about Islam in the United States and Europe, and minority communities in Islamic-majority countries.

• Push for the establishment of a fund to reduce military spending and divert resources to finance sustainable development (the “Isaiah Fund” or the “Pope Paul VI Fund”).

• Push for a world free of nuclear weapons (following the call of many religious leaders, including Pope Paul VI’s plea for multilateral disarmament at the United Nations in 1965 and Pope Francis’ moral condemnation of nuclear weapons in his 2017 World Day of Peace Message).

• Push for full implementation of the Paris Agreement, and raise awareness of the links between climate change and conflict.

Engagement

• Produce a joint public statement by religious leaders, that represents a collective call to action for reawakening morality and ethics to underpin the promotion of positive peace.

• Widely promote the virtue of non-violent conflict resolution.

• Ensure wide participation by religious leaders and communities in the worldwide climate march on April 29.

• Organize an Ethics in Action/Religions for Peace campaign for healing and reconciliation in Syria.

• Develop and disseminate through religious networks an Ethics in Action education curriculum to promote the culture of peace.

• Work with foundations to support grassroots inter-religious initiatives in conflict-ridden multi-religious communities.

• Reach out to leaders of nuclear disarmament groups to offer the support of religious leaders and communities.

• Use and deepen the channels of communications of peace, in the pulpits, the congregations, and through social media.

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, as advisor to the UN Secretary General, will urge him to put the issue of religion and peace on the UN Security Council agenda during 2017 in support of global peace and sustainable development. He will also ask the SG to recommend the creation of an Inter-Religious Contact Group for the UN Secretary-General and UN Security Council.

If you would like to take action, here’s what we recommend:

• Widely promote the virtue of non-violent conflict resolution.

• Work with foundations to support grassroots inter-religious initiatives in conflict-ridden multi-religious communities.

• Use and deepen the channels of communications of peace, in the pulpits, the congregations, and through social media.