July/August 2004

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

A Declaration of Interdependence

Excerpted version of a longer -statement published by the Shalom Center, www.shalomctr.org, 6711 Lincoln Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19119, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Executive Director.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for the peoples of the earth to declare our interdependence with each other and with all the life-forms of the planet, and our independence from efforts by the most powerful and most reckless among the national governments to create a new and global Empire; Then a decent respect to the opinions of Humanity requires that we declare the causes that impel us to rise beyond the present Powers of the earth and to embody our planetary community in new social, political, and economic forms.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all human beings are born with equal dignity and worth, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; to the sharing of community; to a rhythm of work and rest that frees time for family, neighborhood, citizenly service, and the spirit; to a life-sustaining share of the earth's abundance; to peace among all peoples; and to a responsible relationship amidst the whole web of life upon this planet.

That governments, corporations, and other institutions are founded to secure these rights and uphold these responsibilities, deriving their just powers from the consent of those they govern and whose lives they shape.

That whenever any government, corporation, or other institution becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right, the duty, of the people to alter it and to establish new institutions, laying their foundations on such principles and organizing their powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety, freedom, peace, and happiness.

Experience teaches us that so long as the public channels of discussion and election are free and open, it is both wise and prudent to use these means to alter the institutions that control our lives.

But experience also shows us that when these avenues of change are closed, controlled by entrenched corporations and the wealthy few, then the nonviolent use of strikes and purchasing campaigns, sit-ins and teach-ins, massive rallies and spiritual vigils, becomes necessary to secure the rights and meet the responsibilities of the people.

The present government of the United States has violated our rights, broken our laws, thwarted our hopes, and blocked many of the paths to change.

To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:

The present government of the United States has blocked the common will of all our planet's peoples to heal the earth from the scorching effect of carbon dioxide and similar emissions.

It has broken its own laws and its sacred obligations by violating the United Nations Charter, undertaking an aggressive war against Iraq

It provided spurious legitimacy for this war by lying to its own citizens and to the world about the dangers posed by the nation it wished to conquer; It then failed to provide even a minimum of justice and order to the conquered people, securing access to its oil resources while permitting looting of its schools, hospitals, and cultural treasures;

It resorted to the use of torture upon prisoners it took in the pursuit of that war; And it is threatening similar aggressive wars against other nations. It has quartered its troops in every corner of the world and is even planning to militarize the space around the planet;

It has shattered freedom of the press by erecting walls of secrecy around the public business of the government;

It has handed over to the extremely wealthy and great corporations huge tax breaks that provide them with even greater wealth & power, thereby transforming unprecedented surpluses into immense, unrecoverable debts and deficits to burden future generations.

It has supported great corporations in plundering the forests of the American and other continents, and opened remaining wild lands to savage exploitation for short term corporate profit.

We therefore, committed to the -welfare of the peoples of the earth and the planet as a living body, appealing to the Source of Justice, Peace, and Life as the sacred grounding for our work and our commitment, do -

Call for the peoples of the United States and of the world to use their powers to legislate and demonstrate, to purchase and not purchase, to pay and not pay taxes, in such ways as to require responsible behavior from the United States and other governments and corporations toward workers, customers, stockholders, neighbors, society at large, and the earth as a whole;

Call for the nations of the earth to join in binding treaties to protect our planet's web of life; to protect all peoples from weapons of mass destruction, from war crimes and genocide and international terrorism and from the scourge of war itself; to secure the freedom and equality of all women and men and of all religious and ethnic communities; and to carry out the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

And for the support of this Declaration, we:

Call for the people of the United States to transform its government, choosing new officials who in word and practice uphold the vision of this Declaration;

Call upon the peoples of the world to refrain from purchasing the products of those global corporations most destructive to their workers and the earth and most resistant to public accountability, and to create instead a network of grass-roots enterprises;

Call upon the peoples of the earth to rise in nonviolent resistance against any effort to undertake aggressive war;

Relying on the arc of justice and democracy toward which the whole world bends, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our futures, and our sacred honor.

Previous Article    Next Article