Citizens united by Reason and political innovation for True Peace
in the face of the irresponsibility of the world's political and economic leaders, whose reign by Ignorance and Division is leading us straight towards total war
OUR AMBITION
Tackling the root causes of war before it's too late to stop the world going up in flames
Any peace offered by this World is vain because it is not a True Peace
Our political, economic and media leaders ignore or refuse to understand what it means to seek and establish True Peace
For centuries, the world's leaders have been convinced of the truth of the adage ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’. War-mongers invade the media with their Manichean promises of protection from the danger posed by the Other, patriotic sacrifice, necessary suffering and glorious death. The only beneficiaries of this fateful rhetoric, which cultivates rivalries and the worst vices, are always the same: opportunistic politicians and the arms, energy, chemical and financial industries.
Waging war on war has never brought Peace, only the precarious silence of the domination of a victor over a vanquished, creating the breeding ground for future resentments and wars. History teaches us that any “peace of the victors” obtained by force of arms, whatever the justifications, is sooner or later called into question by force itself.
Those who live by the sword will always perish by the sword.
The modern world order was founded on war in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will not be able to escape this immutable law of perishing too, first and foremost through the inevitable disunity of the ‘victors’ in yesterday's wars, powers seeking perpetual domination. The return of war to Europe between yesterday's “victors” reminds us of this truth.
This world order will perish because of the weakness of the legitimacy and original morality of its standards established by force, in the image of the borders drawn and imposed by the sole will of a few individuals, without much consideration of the real assent of the populations concerned and without much reflection on the future consequences of cultures that see themselves separated or, on the contrary, forced to cohabit.
This world order will perish with its powerless international institutions that are supposed to preserve peace, led by the UN, discredited by governance that serves the interests of the powerful over the weak, and by ‘international law’ that is shamelessly and relentlessly trampled underfoot by the same powerful for their own interests of wealth grabbing and domination.
This world order, which is not based on the principles of balance and harmony, but on the principles of division and the domination of Man by Man, will perish because it is incapable of a narrative that inspires all peoples, giving them collectively and in equal measure the means for their emancipation and fulfilment.Today's political and economic ‘elites’, devoid of altruistic imagination and too busy preserving their social positions, are incapable of thinking alone about a World of true Justice and Peace in the face of the immense challenges of the 21st century, because unless they have the courage to renounce themselves, they cannot radically call into question the modern institutions that have shaped them and elevated them to the powers they occupy, and whose foundations are based on conflict and ignorance.
They are only able to offer one thing in the ocean of confusion, dissension and misinformation that they feed: the chaos of the war of all against all, with economic war, social war and war altogether.
The effort of transcendence without help is too high for them.
Citizens who want peace and true justice therefore have a responsibility to act and to shake up these elites so that humanity does not have to live in a World that will very soon become Hell on Earth, where war will be the rule everywhere, as much out of convenience as out of inevitability.
But to triumph over this peril and allow this hope, we must first understand the causes of the limitations of this World so that we can imagine another capable of engendering True Peace.
Our oligocratic world is incapable of proposing anything other than war, destruction and collapse, because its foundations are Division, Predation and Willful Ignorance.
The social, political, institutional, economic, climatic, environmental, energy, health, food, cultural, ethnic, religious and international crises are all the consequences of one and the same cause, that of an imbalance in the consideration of all the components and stakeholders of our environments.
The weak and the small are denigrated and invisible. The opinion of the strongest and the facade of the ‘majority’ is imposed on everyone.
Our modern oligocratic societies (‘oligos’, the few who possess the ‘kratos’, the sovereign power to write and vote on laws) have been built on the balance of power, competition and division. They have done so not out of a taste for the law of the jungle or a deliberate desire for vice, but because these archaic means are the very intrinsic roots of the oligocratic paradigm.
A tree cannot bear fruit different from that which it is supposed to bear, unless it changes its nature completely.
The desire for domination and monopolisation inherent in this paradigm scorns the diversity and complexity of life in ecosystems, not out of natural antipathy but because the effort to gain in-depth Knowledge is too costly in the short term, and is therefore considered to be of little interest in the effort to conquer. Such an attitude of simplification, which considers above all its own egotistical preconceptions and certainties, makes Knowledge for all only partial, one-sided, divisive and ultimately false.
With habit, this disregard for Knowledge ends up engendering voluntary Ignorance, the first cause of voluntary Servitude, which leads to the fragmentation of Society, authoritarianism and wars.
This wilful Ignorance diverts attention from the essential, makes people irresponsible through denial, and looks for scapegoats in the imbalances it creates.
Yet control of Knowledge, of Information, is the only real stake in the destiny of Humanity, and also the only real political, economic and social power.
The powerful are only powerful because they retain and control Information. The smaller the number of those who control it, the more stratagems they will have to use to retain that control and therefore fight, or rather make others fight in their place.
The greater their numbers, the more titanic the task of subjugation becomes, the more the desire for domination, with its means of warfare for lack of sufficient resources, is replaced by the desire for cooperation and understanding.
Political philosophy and historical experience teach us two fundamental things.
Firstly, that all social relations and all beliefs are simply a question of the circulation of Knowledge (where does it go from and to whom?).
Secondly, that institutions make individuals rather than individuals making institutions.
Why is this? Because institutions determine the way Knowledge circulates. And it is this circulation (and irrigation) that determines the interactions between individuals, their relationships with others and with their environment, and ultimately the way in which they approach their lives within the vision of the World that is offered to them.
A constitution does more than simply lay down broad institutional rules. It makes Man in his own image. It silently says a great deal about the temperament of the People and the individuals to whom it applies, through the consideration it shows them and the political, civic and social involvement it allows them.
In this way, it is possible to decipher whether a constitution makes its People live in Ignorance or Knowledge, Fear or Love, Violence or Compassion, Vice or Virtue, Cowardice or Courage, Individualism or Mutual Aid, Consumerism or Sobriety, Scarcity or Abundance, Sadness or Joy, War or Peace....
By extension, it reveals the relationship of these individuals to otherness, to their environment, to education, to work, to money, to spirituality, to religion, to Justice, to morality, to health and even to death.
No True Peace can emerge from our current institutions, which organise and perpetuate Ignorance and rivalry between individuals and peoples.
To this end, it is necessary to develop our societies with new institutions that allow for a holistic consideration of all its components, providing new ways of thinking about our community, cleaning up our social interactions and revitalising our Knowledge of all our Neighbours.
An initiative by innovators of Democracy in the service of True Peace
True and lasting peace can only be built by those who have the least interest in war, i.e. those who suffer it, the citizens.
To make this possible, they need new institutions that they can appropriate to generate Citizen Information in the service of the free self-determination of Peoples.
It is often said that truth is the first casualty of war, less often that Ignorance is at the root of all war. Misunderstanding, coupled with the slightest frustration, leads to anger and conflict. Conversely, even in frustration, we rarely wage war on what we understand and know by heart, because we always end up respecting it... to the point of loving it and making it part of us.
Ignorance is therefore the breeding ground for fear, division, hatred, dissimulation, manipulation and domination. It is the best weapon of all those who wish to consolidate their powers and perpetuate the institutions that keep them there.
As long as understanding the visible and invisible causes of power relations and conflicts remains the sole prerogative of political and economic leaders subject to particular interests (political parties, companies, lobbies), armed war will continue to be the natural extension of economic war and power struggles between oligarchic factions, to the detriment of the Peoples who fight, kill and die for them.
Only transparent and total Knowledge, which is appropriated and shared by all citizens, i.e. Media Information of all, by all and for all, is the prerequisite for any Genuine Peace, as the only real counter-power of the Peoples in the face of all the warmongers.
Information must therefore undergo a revolution to save humanity from self-destruction.
There is an alternative to oligocratic media information ordered by a few individuals, at the head of public bodies or private companies, who defend their own particular wishes and interests above any general interest.
This path is that of Citizen Information, where there exists, alongside all the political, economic and media powers, a Citizen Information Service, as a real counter-power, ordered directly by and for the citizens themselves, as the foundation of an Information Democracy without which any true Democracy can neither be founded nor endure.
It is the ambition of a greater plurality of subjectivities and exhaustiveness of data, enabling a broader understanding of the complexities of the World and a more developed critical spirit among citizens. It is also the means by which citizens can regain confidence in the world of journalism and politics, training each other in transparency and virtue.
This citizen-initiated Information Democracy, where every citizen can claim to be an Information Sponsor, naturally generates active and vigilant citizens, insatiable of cooperation to enrich themselves with Knowledge, transforming them into enlightened, tolerant, virtuous and empathetic individuals, in the service of social peace and the general interest.
The absence of this true Democracy of Information allows suspicion and mistrust to triumph unabated, as well as the deception and manipulation of the Peoples in their general interest, in order to demagogically push them, by relying on a falsified sovereignty of the Peoples, to embrace apathy, coercion and war, in the exclusive service of the few particular interests of the World's elites.
But Citizen Information is not enough on its own. It is only a means, a first step, towards true Peace.
True Peace is always twofold, defined by attention to the Other, enabling an intention with the Other. Thought is made to become Will, and Will to become Action.
No one is motivated to resign themselves solely to better understanding the World without having the capacity for personal and collective action on the World.
If Citizen Information is not to be irretrievably doomed to discourage, weary and frustrate the large number of people who want to appropriate it, leaving it only to opportunistic minds, it must be able to transcend into a will capable of materialising in free Citizen Self-Determination.
The leaders of nations, whether elected or not, have always been reluctant to ask their peoples for their opinions.
The very idea of self-determination is hostile to them, except insofar as it can be linked to the embellished narrative of a distant founding past that legitimises their rule. It is, however, in the interest of all political leaders who sincerely wish to work for the general interest and the peaceful coexistence of their constituents.
Citizen self-determination, the ultimate political freedom, is the only bulwark against the megalomaniac and violent excesses of their own governments, and against communal dissension taken to the extreme.
Citizen Information and Citizen Self-Determination are thus the two inextricable sources of true Peace and true Freedom.
There is no other...
Citizen Information and Citizen Self-Determination are the only fundamental philosophical and constitutional principles at the root of True Peace
Citizen Information
The oligocratic merchandising of Information and all its associated attention-grabbing, mind-scattering and knowledge compartmentalisation are Ignorance's best tools for fuelling the impotent passivity and apathy that lead to every man for himself, division and conflict, ensuring that Injustice always triumphs.
The modern way of structuring information can only serve particular interests, primarily those of the most powerful.
It has no vocation to serve the general interest, which is of no use to it.
A fundamentally different, democratic constitutionalisation of the circulation and irrigation of Information, which ensures that Knowledge of all, by all and for all, is accessible and above all appropriable both individually and collectively, naturally prioritises the general interest over particular interests in a quest for balance and creates a multidimensional virtuous circle, since individuals have a personal interest in civic activism and concerted action in a quest for Unity.
This structuring of Citizen Information, an apostle of transparency, unveiling and revelation, transforms individuals into authentic, virtuous players in the community, eager to know and understand the Other and no longer passive, superficial, masked, ignorant and closed.
Without Citizen Information, no true Democracy can be founded or endure...
Citizen self-determination
The infantilization of the people and the permanent obstruction of a true political expression of the citizens are the best methods of the elites to leave the multitudes in Ignorance and Fear.
Like pyromaniac firefighters, they create insecurity and irresponsibility so that we applaud them for offering us more coercion and stigmatising scapegoats.
This socialisation of losses (dislocation of society) and privatisation of profits (reinforcement of structures of domination) goes on perpetually because there is no constitutional safeguard, no fire extinguisher, carrying a threat of reinitialisation, which forces all individuals, elites and citizens alike, to be responsible, vigilant, shameless, virtuous and to cherish the general interest and respect the social contract, for fear that their social positions, sometimes the result of a lifetime's efforts, will be delegitimised and disappear.
The cyclical relegitimisation of the constitution of a State by referendum is the safeguard that allows social breathing space on the capacity to appease frictions and frustrations, an individual and collective introspection of all in the desire to renew their adherence to the social pact.
Without Citizen Self-Determination, as with any forced and coerced union, violence will end up becoming the core of interactions in Society, until it finally disintegrates....
Our 4 proposals for True Peace through Citizen Information and Citizen Self-Determination
Proposal No. 1
A Citizens' Convention for Genuine Peace in Europe
Governments and the UN are incapable of conceiving of a genuine World of Peace and innovative conflict resolution processes that are not conditioned by power relationships, being subject to vested interests and countless pressures to which they are accountable. Citizens do not have this problem.
Proposal No. 2
Citizen Information Councils
in every European country
In the face of mistrust, disinformation, demagoguery and the fragmentation of society, citizens must be able to question their ignorance and contribute to concerted observations in order to resolve the challenges of the century as enlightened and committed players. Only citizens who control information can achieve this objective.
Proposal no. 3
A common audiovisual channel for Europe's citizens
Faced with the rise of nationalism, antagonism and disenchantment with Europe on the part of its citizens, Europe's peoples must get to know each other better in order to build a shared culture and common perspectives, instead of persevering in ignorance of each other, with competition as their only real relationship.
Proposal No. 4
An international right to "Decennial Referendums" on Self-Determination
Revolts and civil wars are only the result of peoples not having the right to decide whether or not they are satisfied with the social contract. Governments will always be the least capable of implementing and guaranteeing the self-determination of their own peoples, because every State by its very nature gives priority to its own preservation over the general interests of its members.
Proposal No. 1
A Citizens' Convention for
True Peace in Europe
No government will ever be able to put the general interests of humanity and even of their own people before the interests of their supporters, financiers and voters. Only those who have no power, who are nothing, free from any pressure to preserve their social position, can do so...
Ordinary citizens are capable of coming up with balanced solutions for Peace and Justice that are often far bolder than their power-driven elites could ever hope to be.
War and peace are too serious to be left solely in the hands of a few individuals, who are rarely disinterested.
What is needed is a new and innovative international institution that gives all the citizens of Europe the opportunity to think and work for real peace.
A convention of 700 volunteer citizens from every country on the continent of Europe should be a source of inspiration for building peace-building processes between States and within States, between all components of society.
Proposal no. 2
Citizen Information Councils in each of the European countries
The way in which Information functions generates either War or Peace.
Information today can only lead to one thing.... War
Media information as it is developed, manufactured, disseminated and assimilated today leads to only one outcome, which is the war of all against all. The modern structuring of information is based on commodification, competition, division and stigmatisation at the hands of a few individuals who protect their interests above any common good, while perfidiously proclaiming the mantra ‘pluralism and independence of the media’.
But who is really independent? And who are the millions who are merely their dependents?
The independence of information, pure and perfect, will never exist. We are all interdependent, influenced in one way or another by ideas, interests and individuals. The only question is: to whom, and whether or not this contributes to the general interest?
Our media and social networks cultivate ignorance through advertising hype, diversion through entertainment, dispersion through the obesity of random, low-quality content, compartmentalisation through information bubbles, concealment (whether voluntary or not) through selective information and lies through the falsification of content, with or without the help of generative artificial intelligence, but feign astonishment in the face of civic abstention, distrust of elites and the irremediable delegitimisation of all our institutions.
How much television airtime should be given over to in-depth, pluralist, exhaustive, honest and wise coverage of the major issues of the century (climate, energy, education, health, social life, justice, international risks, the balance of economic power, the causes and realities of migration, the influence of lobbies, transparency in public life and so on)?
1%, 3%, 5% of this time?
How many citizens and even elected politicians can be fully aware, involved and willing to dare to go beyond their certainties, their routines and a status quo that hopes nothing will change?
Only individuals who are active on their own initiative in the individual and collective appropriation of Information, enlightened and enlightening by and for their neighbours, become true citizens capable of recognising, defending and pursuing the general interest.
To take full ownership of information is to have power over events. Not to do so is to become the victim of events created by the will of a few others.
At a time when misinformation and non-information lead to fear, dissension, demagoguery and violence, citizens must have a say in the information they receive so that they are no longer victims of the ignorance that benefits the corrupt and war-mongers.
As long as citizens are kept in the dark about the complexity of the issues at stake, the balance of power and the political, economic and military interests that finance, produce and sustain conflicts, peace will remain nothing more than an illusion in the service of mortifying vested interests against the general interest.
Proposal No. 3
A common citizens' audiovisual channel in Europe for media and cultural pacification
Europe must rediscover its ideal of fraternity by encouraging its peoples to truly understand each other in their cultural diversity in order to build a common destiny, instead of allowing ignorance of one another to fuel antagonism and nationalism.
The European Union is making the same mistakes as the Holy Roman Empire, which it replaced and whose fate it will share, for the same reasons, if it continues to distance itself from its citizens and fails to create in them a strong sense of political belonging with common perspectives.
Proposal No. 4
Cyclically relegitimised citizen self-determination for political accountability and peaceful social cohesion
Civil war is simply the result of disrespect for the desire of members of the same social contract to live together or not. Any couple, like any community, can only happily endure thanks to shared trust and the freedom to break away. Constrained unions are far more often unhappy than happy. States, pursuing their own preservation before the happiness of their members, are a source of constraint and a brake on true Peace.
Political leaders, more often opportunists of dissension than conciliators of union, have no accountability for the irremediable social consequences engendered by the atomisation of the Society to which they contribute.
The threat of decennial self-determination calls for responsibility on the part of all, leaders and citizens alike.
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Citizens for True Peace in Europe needs all the goodwill we can muster to bring our goals for true peace to life !