World Peace

These symptoms are not new: but we are becoming acutely aware of them because the human population of spaceship Earth has grown to such an extent that we are increasingly jammed together with less "breathing space" than we need. Given the quarrelsome and competitive tendencies in human nature, over-crowding is not compatible with peace or prosperity, either material or spiritual. If human consumption of the earth's material resources is to continue unchecked, competition for increasingly scarce resources will multiply occasions for strife, and this still beautiful Earth will be converted into an ugly rubbish tip within a very few generations.

Therefore, as the more thoughtful among the intelligent young people who tend to lead the protests see, if not always clearly, we must take a long-term view of developments while we still hope to have a reasonably "long term" left to us in which to repent (i.e. think again) and reform ourselves. What we most need to change is our individual greedy self-centredness. If too many of us persist in acting out the injunction to "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die", there is no posibility of avoiding the imposition by Nature of a catastrophic solution to our self-created dilemma by drastic reduction of the world's human population: and it will undoubtedly be extremely unpleasant for those who may be alive at the time, no matter what means Nature has to employ to re-assert its dominance over its most arrogant offspring.

Individuals may be "schooled" in groups: but they become "educated" (i.e. "led out") only one at a time. Schooling may be undertaken by professional teachers or instructors: education takes place informally. Education reflects the culture prevailing in the home and it is moulded by the customs and values generally accepted in the neighbourhood or place of work. These are therefore matters for personal and "local" action.

But education is also influenced by the ideas and ideals disseminated or portrayed all over the world by TV, radio, cinema, theatre, and literature — most of which are dominated by some form of "escapism". "Eat, drink, and be merry" is the slogan. "Tomorrow we die" receives little attention.

This climate of false compassion has pervaded both the world's media and the international organisations which have been set up to lull the people into a false sense of security in the care of "big brother". It has spawned the spurious doctrine of "human rights" as a sort of substitute for global religion — conveniently overlooking the fact that by promoting human selfishness, it merely increases human wrongs. The consequences of such sentimentality are beginning to make themselves known, notably in the problem of migration.

Human discontent and misery offers rich pickings for all sorts of unscrupulous people. The current state of the world is uniquely helpful to the development of a new industry — that of herding human cattle. As one green pasture is laid waste by "over-grazing", modern transportation makes it easy to switch to another soft, and as yet relatively prosperous, target country.

A more insidious form of invasion is the erosion of traditional values and customs by the adoption of fads and fancies disseminated by international media and promoted by international agencies. Worse still are attempts at "standardisation" by centralised bureaucratic totalitarian governments.

All these must be resisted if a sense of "belonging" to anywhere is to be maintained. To "belong" is to be long enough in one place or community to have become identified with its language, customs, culture, continuity and welfare. I cannot imagine that whatever future humanity may still have will be enhanced by depriving people of cultural roots in the soil upon which they were born. A sense of continuity is essential to the preservation of the delicate cultural life of the local neighbourhood as well as that of the collective national psyche. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the interests of the long-term residents in any community take precedence over those of rootless migrants, tourists, and remote bureaucrats.

This will meet resistance from muddle-headed "libertarians" and "human rights" activists who imagine themselves to be free as long as they are anonymous. But they should reflect that the only human right worth anything is the right to work, and if necessary fight, to promote and defend whatever one values most highly. For most people, that includes family, friends, and country of birth or adoption. People who feel ashamed of what they do, or who have other reasons to hide their activities under a cloak of anonimity, are unlikely to benefit any community in which they may endeavour to seek shelter.

So please ask yourself: Do I really want to go on living? If you answer in the affirmative, you are relying upon hope, a spiritual quality that makes you continue to strive to improve the quality of life for yourself and your family, friends and neighbours, even — perhaps particularly — when the outlook is bleak. The alternative to hope is despair, and I am not aware of any occasion on which despair helped anybody.

I am reminded of the story of the two mice who fell into a bowl of cream and couldn't get out. One mouse quickly abandoned the struggle, and drowned. The other mouse paddled round and round, trying at intervals to clamber out; but his efforts only seemed to make matters worse as the steep sides of the bowl were increasingly lubricated by the cream he splashed on to them. But he paddled and paddled, round and round — and a miracle happened. The cream turned to butter, and the butter accumulated into an island on which the mouse was able at last to rest from his labours and, when he had regained sufficient strength, provided him with a platform from which to leap out of the bowl.

People have also spoken of "a triumph of hope over experience": and such a triumph is what I believe we must aim at. I have no doubt that ultimate triumph is possible, even certain, if we humans can all agree that there is one, and only one, ultimate Ruler of the Earth and that each human individual is a local agent of that one Ruler (God), by whatever name He, She or It may be known. Miracles arise from the union of the individual will with the Will of God.

Are you too, dear brother or sister in The One God, not reluctant to think that when you are no longer on the electoral roll, nothing matters any more? Do you not care what sort of life will be forced upon your children and your children's children once the comforts to which you have become accustomed are no longer available? Are you quite certain that your body accounts for your entire personality? Do you have an uneasy feeling that the real "you" may not after all be consigned to oblivion, but may reincarnate one day into another earthly body, through which you will again be schooled and educated and have to face up to the consequences of what your fore-parents (including yourself) will have done to your home?

Having thought about it, are you not ready to accept personal responsibility for your own lifestyle and can you not think of things you could do to reduce your own wasteful consumption, resist invasion and oppression where you live, and by your example influence others to do likewise?

Would you not find it preferable, instead of tamely paying taxes extorted from you by rapacious and wasteful politicians, to decide for yourself how you will use any resources surplus to your immediate requirements for the betterment of living conditions in your own neighbourhood in co-operation with your neighbours?

You may also have to resist policy proposals and directives which you know to be detrimental to your local environment. Pressures to conform to bureaucratically defined "norms" have been increasing exponentially with trends to ever-more-centralised (and therefore more remote and irrelevant) government. If you are fortunate enough to have some form of local democracy, please use it to ensure as far as you can that you are represented in local councils by honest people of independent mind whom you can trust to exercise their discretion in what they perceive to be the interests of the local people and not in the hope of gaining wider influence within a national political party.

The national political party is merely a device whereby a group of political activists numbering only a few thousands contrives to enable its leaders to exercise power over the entire population of a nation. It should therefore be obvious that the continued existence of national political parties is a recipe for division and conflict, especially when national government seeks to restrict personal and local liberty by legislation and regulation of the minutiae of daily life.

This suggests a clear and simple political strategy. Make sure you vote in every local election, but vote only for candidates who do not represent any national political party. If there are insufficient independent candidates, persuade one or more of your acquaintances to stand — or stand yourself.

In national elections, vote only for independent candidates. If there are no independents, either make it clear on your ballot paper that you support none of the candidates — or refuse to vote at all.

Unless and until the power of the national political party is broken, true democracy will never be possible.

If there is as yet in your locality no recognised means of exercising local political power, you may have to be courageous enough to take the first steps in establishing some such means.

Whatever your circumstances, I wish you God-speed in your endeavours.