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Paris, France October 25-27, 2003 |
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CONTENTS
Those who were unable to come but sent messages of support Peoples' Congress
Registry of World Citizens
World Citizens
Other mundialist organizations : World Federalist Movement
World Community Fund Against Hunger
Mundialized towns :
Registry of World Citizens (hereinafter, RWC) President Daniel Durand, who is also Secretary-General of the Peoples' Congress ad interim, opens the Session with a word of thanks for those who were able to come. He outlines the succession of events since the late Renée Marchand entrusted Henri Cainaud with initiating a process to revive the Peoples' Congress (hereinafter, PC), as well as the process itself which led the RWC to create a Committee to Support the PC and ultimately to convene this Plenary Session. This Session results from two previous meetings—the Dabo Study Days of September 2002 and the March 2003 meeting of the Committee to Support the PC in Dijon, notwithstanding the role of the Mundialist Strategy Debate of May 3, 2003. These three meetings were strict RWC business but a copy of the Official Account was forwarded each time onto all PC Delegates so that they could remain informed of our work. During the Dijon Study Days of March 15-16, 2003, the mission of the Committee to Support the PC was to ponder whether it was possible to revive the PC after the untimely passing of Renée Marchand. Three Delegates were present—Rolf Haegler who could not be with us today, Henri Cainaud, and Roger Winterhalter. Another goal of the Dijon meeting was to put forward proposals as to how the PC works. 2.2. The United Nations' « nay » to a World Parliament As the closing act of the Dijon meeting, a letter signed by several Delegates was sent to Kofi A. Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations (hereinafter, UN), asking that it be taken advantage of the international outcry caused by the United States' war plans in Iraq to start a debate on the creation of a democratically-elected Second Chamber at the UN. A reply in the English language came from the UN's Public Inquiries Unit, which read, « While we appreciate [the RWC's] views on world government, [we] must tell you that the UN does not advocate such policies. » This sends us back in time—back to 1948, when a letter sent by then UN General Assembly President Dr. Herbert Evatt (Australia) to Garry Davis and Robert Sarrazac read, « The UN was not created to make peace but to maintain it once the Member States have organized it. » These few words prompted the two World Citizen leaders to create the « International Registry of World Citizens » a few weeks later. This new negative feedback from the UN shows how much this organization appears to be a prisoner of its own Charter, which prevents it from entering in any debate on a democratic representation of citizens at the expense of the power of nations alone. It is that goal, however, among many others, that leads the action of World Citizens and is at the core of the PC itself. 2.3. The participation folder Upon presentation of the standard invitation card with the participant's name and number written on it, the participant receives a personalized folder in French which can also include documents in English or Esperanto. This folder includes :
2.4. The participants introduce themselves Each of the participants gives a brief outline of his or her mundialist activities. Then Daniel Durand reads aloud the messages sent by those who could not make it to the Session (see Annex 3) and tells us about those of us who say they are sorry not to have been able to come. Some of them, especially in Africa, have basically been denied entry visas by the French authorities.
2.5. Introduction by Henri Cainaud (on behalf of the Committee to Support the PC) I wish to thank Daniel Durand and Liliane Metz Krencker for all the work they have done. I thank you all too for coming, which proves if need be that the PC is an institution you do care about. As you know, the PC incarnates an idea that is not so young—actually eighty years old, in that as early as 1924 two Americans proposed a parliament for the world and quickly gained support throughout Europe. In 1963 the Brussels Congress gave birth to the Committee for the Creation of a Peoples' Congress and the First Election took place six years later. This Election saw the resounding appointment to a first Delegate's post of Dr. Josué de Castro (Brazil), Chairman of the Council of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, who garnered as much as 58% of all votes and was sworn in during a historic ceremony at La Mutualité, the famous Parisian meeting hall. Afterward, for some thirty years, our late friends Guy and Renée Marchand literally carried all the weight of the PC on their shoulders, whilst prominent international jurists such as Rolf Haegler and the late Tsuruji Kotani and Paul de la Pradelle brought some valuable support to the Congress. Then the first Delegates passed away, as did the Marchands in 1993 and 2002 respectively, and the PC ended up considerably weakened. Today, however, world politics have evolved in such a manner that the PC has become all too relevant to remain silent any longer, now that the people of the world have spoken out very loudly against the war in Iraq and made a failure of the Cancún, Mexico meeting of the World Trade Organization. Even the United States has paid its long overdue contributions to the UN and returned this year to UNESCO after eighteen years of absence. At the UN itself, Kofi Annan himself has repeatedly spoken out in favor of a Second Chamber elected by the peoples. In the meantime, all major citizen movements such as ATTAC have come to demand a representation of citizens at the UN. Clearly, the PC must endeavor to « internationalize » its action, to which neither the Chinese nor the Russians are a party to date—save Russian-born Delegate Georges KRASSOVSKY who lives in Paris. Even the United States, a country that is often said to be isolationist, offers a lot more hope than we think, for a great many Americans do support the UN. A recent article in the Australian review Nexus, translations of which are available here in France, recalls that former U. S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller—obviously from the famous clan of tycoons—supported the UN all the way while in power ; besides, the land on which the UN's Headquarters stand in New York City was initially Rockefeller property. On the other hand, maybe there are too many French citizens among the Delegates, which makes for yet another reason why we should create a new, different balance on cultural and geographical grounds within the PC. What's more, new Delegates from, say, China and India would surely be able to insulate some badly needed fresh, new ideas into the PC. The late Guy Marchand once asked what could be the practical form of a global citizen representation : could it be a chamber of NGOs, a House of Economists, or an assembly composed of national parliamentarians entrusted with global powers ? Personally, Guy thought it would be better to have a chamber that is democratically elected. There are many such projects in existence, he said, and we all have to insist that a UN Member State sometime demand that such a project be officially debated within the UN. What way should we go from there ? That is what we will have to reflect on during these three days. 2.6. Opening Address by Marc Garcet, Session Chairperson I wish to salute all those present here, including those friends of mine I recognize. It is not easy for me to be chairing this session, for I am never comfortable in this role—yet I will do it anyway. The PC is today « dormant ». Within its boundaries there is the « leadership » and all the others. When Guy and Renée Marchand died the movement basically was orphaned. All Delegates have ideas of their own ; they form circles ; and the heart of the PC beats all alone Rue Victor Duruy in Paris. It is certainly not easy to restart anything in circumstances like these, but we definitely have to do it. I am very glad Daniel Durand has put himself in line with this strategy. Our position is strong enough for us to undertake efforts to rebuild something along with other comrades. Together, we must rebuild ideas, strategies and new forms of solidarity. I, for one, carry the concept of international solidarity in my backpack. My background lies in international civil service, including in the organization so named. When I was young I also declared myself a conscientious objector. My personal commitment has always been « spade and mattock »-like, to create rather than to state. I prefer work with everyday people to work with VIPs, for the latter are only puppets in the hands of public opinion. I have always preferred the basis and I always will ; some say, « We must demand ... »—I prefer to say, « We must build ». I have given a lot of thought to the situation of the PC. Between 1965 and 1983, the PC convened three or four times a year, and in those days the Delegates had a genuine physical reality. They issued statements we all remember ; alas, when we look back to those days, the PC is in such a poor condition that we feel we are all but living in another world. A number of our friends are gone and the world—not that « other world », our world—has become a different place. The nation-state has never been more embattled in history. All it has ever done is generate wars and that is why it must be destroyed. We must look at Earth as one single entity. Unfortunately, the name this concept carries, globalization (in French, « mondialisation »), which applies first and foremost to places and institutions, has « migrated » because of the altermondialistes (people wishing to create a different world). Today, it has become loaded with a very different meaning. Concepts and values have changed dramatically. What we thought was the achievement of our work, all those changes that have taken place in the world, have been confiscated by the financial world. Today, the world speaks in a very different parlance. How can we find our marks again in this context ? We must redefine a framework, and to that aim we must return to the PC Statute. That is what we will devote today's work to, bearing in mind that we must make the PC as constructive as possible in its newly-initiated works and as « here to last » as possible. Let's not forget that the World Solidarity Fund Against Hunger (hereinafter, the World Fund) and the Institute of Mundialist Studies (hereinafter, the IMS), both of them creations of the PC, are still alive and well today. This proves that the spirit of the PC lives on. The creation of a Committee to Support the PC further enlarges the original concept. This was an excellent idea and we can go even further than that ; may thus everyone feel free to bring new ideas to the meeting agenda.  3. INSTITUTIONS LINKED TO WORLD CITIZENSHIP
By Daniel Durand, President Created in 1949, the RWC is a worldwide citizen registration service, historically charged with establishing the voting lists that have been used during PC elections. Before Daniel Durand became President, the post was held successively by Jeanne Haslé (who was also one of the first two people elected to the PC), Roger Wellhoff, and Jean Prédine. When he took over in 1998 Daniel had to immediately constitute a new team—the arrival of Liliane Metz-Krencker, now the RWC’s Secretary-General, having been a determining factor. The RWC federates all registrations performed by the Registration Centers and Correspondents worldwide. Any Center or Correspondent is allowed to register anyone living anywhere in the world. Here is a list of countries where the RWC has a Center or Correspondents to date : Algeria : 2 Correspondents Australia : 1 Correspondent (maybe a Center soon) Belgium : Dutch-speaking : 1 Correspondent (our French-speaking Correspondent has resigned) Burkina Faso : 1 Correspondent (maybe a Center soon) Brazil : 1 Correspondent Burundi : 1 Correspondant, though not very active Cameroon : 2 Correspondents, including Peter M’Bunta who was abducted by police and is today « missing » Canada : 1 Center Congo (Republic of) : 1 Correspondent Congo (Dem. Rep. of) : 2 Centers, one in Kalonge (South Kivu), a mundialized chefferie, and the other in Kinshasa, though not very active due to the civil war Czech Republic : 1 Correspondent, temporarily inactive France : 1 Center, very active Gabon : 1 Correspondent Germany : 2 Correspondents Ghana : 1 Correspondent India : 2 Correspondents Italy : 1 Correspondent Ivory Coast : 1 Correspondent, who was living in Bouake before the civil war ; he too has gone « missing » since Japan : 1 Center, very active Lithuania : 1 Correspondent Luxembourg : 1 Correspondent Netherlands : see Belgium, Flemish-speaking Poland : 1 Correspondent, now inactive Russia : 1 Correspondent Senegal : 1 Correspondent, trying to revive the Center Spain : 1 Correspondent, now inactive Sweden : 1 Correspondent Switzerland : 1 German-speaking Correspondent and 1 Center in French-speaking Romandie Togo : 1 Correspondent United States : 1 Center, now inactive plus the Esperanto Center. A Registry Correspondent is a person working alone with the RWC under a contract. A Registration Center is a group of people organized as an association and officially sanctioned by the RWC. When Daniel Durand became President in 1998 there were 13 Centers and Correspondents—there are 39 of them today. Contacts have been made to replace some outgoing Correspondents (Spain, Poland, Ivory Coast) ; create a Center where there has only been a Correspondent so far (Australia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal) ; reactivate some Centers that have become all but inactive (UK & Kinshasa) ; and recruit new Correspondents (Syria, Tunisia and other countries). The situation is constantly evolving and the list of Centers and Correspondents is permanently updated on the Internet at www.recim.org. How many registered World Citizens are there today ? Jean-Marc Zan asks. Daniel Durand says there are 180,000 of us in the world, maybe more, although this figure is based solely on the number of World Citizen Cards printed, not all of them having been issued to date (we have 20,000 blank ones in store). In a word, this figure is only so reliable. The main problem is with people who move without leaving a forwarding address—as many as 3,000 in France alone, says Registration Center Secretary-General Joël Luguern. Daniel Durand adds that whereas we use computers in this day and age, a number of paper-based addresses were lost in the bomb attack against the French Registration Center’s headquarters of 1981. There are 14,000 of us with a known address, including 7,000 to 8,000 registered by the French Center. Michel Forestier points out that former RWC President Jean Prédine has some statistics of his own which lead him to think that there are all in all 80,000 registered and living World Citizens. What is the RWC’s legal status ? Giorgio Silfer asks. Daniel Durand replies the RWC is legally an association registered under France’s Loi 1901 (1901 Association Act). Some Centers, however, such as that of Romandie, have no legal standing, each country having a set of laws of his own on associations. As for the RWC, it takes three people to form a Center. Does the RWC have any official languages ? Giorgio Silfer again asks. Daniel Durand replies that the Mundialist Summa clearly states that a future World Constituent Assembly shall be tasked to decide, inasmuch as the official languages of world institutions such as the RWC are at stake. That is why the RWC only has working languages—on the other hand, another PC family member, the World Fund, has symbolically adopted esperanto as its official language. Joël Luguern points out that the French Center used to have up to 30 Regional Centers. For now, taking into account the closure of the Local Center of Isère and the opening of the « Greater East » Center in Mulhouse under the auspices of Roger Winterhalter, the French Center has 10 to 15 Local Centers. The French Center also had for a long time a number of Thematic Commissions, the most famous of them being the Hunger and Development Commission which transformed in 1982 into the World Fund. All the others have ceased to exist.
On the other hand, one is very much alive today, which was created during the 2003 Board Meeting—the Commission of Mundializations. There are 963 mundialized places in 14 countries.
Jean-Claude Loewinski recalls that Robert Sarrazac created the concept of mundialization. A full list is available on the Internet at http://www.recim.org. Henri Cainaud further recalls that in 1972, as Mayor of Orval, a French town in the Department of Cher, he had mundialized his vicinity and by so doing revived a process which had stopped as fast as it had begun back in 1949. Roger Winterhalter, a prominent practitioner of mundializations, recalls that as Mayor of Lutterbach, a French town in the Alsatian Department of Upper Rhine, he always described himself in his official speeches as a « World Citizen ». As such, he tried for 24 years to insulate World Citizenship into a mostly conservative Alsace, with a peak when he declared Lutterbach a « World Citizen Town », just before he was elected to the PC. Unfortunately, the new Mayor of Lutterbach appears to be insensitive to the concept of mundialization—hopefully temporarily. We still have the example of Saint-Nolff, in Brittany’s Department of Morbihan, whose Mayor, Joël Labbé, is another practictioner of mundializations. He says he is ready to support any new initiative to mundialize new places and institutions by relaying them into the press. On June 3, 2002, Roger visited the town of Gjilan, Kosovo, with which Lutterbach had established an official partnership even before the 1999 NATO military campaign and which has declared itself a « World Citizen Town » too. Roger could see that in Gjilan, NGOs and institutions are becoming mundialized too, Kosovo having been as a whole a UN « protectorate » for the last five years. As a former local elected official, Roger can say that a great many local elected officials only care about reelection, one result being that only a few of them are ready to engage in mundialism, especially in mundializations. Daniel Durand quotes the example of Kalonge, Democratic Republic of Congo. This chefferie became mundialized further to a petition signed by 7,000 of the 50,000 inhabitants. In this war-torn country, mundialization so opened the minds that it eventually appeared as a means of replacing the decaying state, no less. The Mundialized Town’s Statute clearly reflects the everyday concerns of the inhabitants of Kalonge in fields such as health, education, infrastructures and so many more. These words were heard in a speech : « We are victims of a phenomenon that is way above us. We do not want to remain victims. » According to Claude Tellier, Registration Centers do not produce a lot of potential voters for the PC through World Citizen registrations, the main source of global voters being mundialization. Indeed, all those living in a mundialized vicinity automatically become members of the PC’s voting body. Claude Tellier himself has produced a collection of 200 old-time postcards from the mundialized towns and cities of France, which is part of an exhibition along with a history of mundializations and other documents of great historical interest for us. Claude says this exhibition is in its own right a « tool of propaganda ». Marc Garcet adds that NGOs too should join the drive of mundializations. Claude Tellier agrees, all the more so since in those NGOs that meet our political and « philosophical » goals, political changes do not occur as they do in towns and cities. Unlike people tend to think, mundialization is by no means an act of leftist militancy but something festive by nature. Roger Winterhalter confirms this, adding that when the town of Dario, Nicaragua, became mundialized, the conservative local government became more involved in political and social debate than ever before—the French Ambassador himself could not believe his eyes ! The World Fund’s secretariat receives membership applications from entire NGOs, which is impossible inasmuch as World Fund membership is legally individual. Yet this proves if need be that people are enthusiastic about mundialism as we incarnate it. Realities like this led to the drafting of the Charter for a World Solidarity Institution, signed by 30 citizen NGOs in 10 countries to date. The drafting and dissemination of this charter were inspired by no other than the Charter of Mundializations.
3.3. The World Community Fund Against Hunger Address by Claude Tellier, former Administrator First off, please be honest : how many of you, World Citizens of France, feel capable of fully explaining what the World Fund is ? [Not many people raise their hands.] I’m not surprised ! I, for one, joined the World Fund as soon as 1988 ; then I joined the Board and I was recruited for Deputy Secretary-General. I was in charge not of « project supervision, » but promoting the World Fund with the media, in a word propaganda. I’m an easy talker, so I organize meetings in order to spread the « good word » of the World Fund ; I explain people that since 1982, there has been an organization doing down-to-earth mundialism under the auspices of the PC, which is of course the World Fund. Remember when I asked how many of you could explain about the World Fund ? Well, not many of you raised their hands, and I shall now tell you why. The relationship between a registered World Citizen and the World Fund is anything but what it should be, which is due to the fact that for twenty years, there have been only so many articles about the World Fund in Citoyens du Monde, the French Registration Center’s bulletin, and we do not get the support we deserve as a PC agency. Remember how the World Fund was created. Bernard Muet, Renée Marchand, and Daniel who is here today were running the RWC’s Hunger and Development Commission. They thought theory was fine but action was even better. They decided to create a system to help less-favored populations improve their nutritional income. After all, food is the first of human rights, the one without which nothing else is possible. That is how the World Fund came to life in 1982. The World Fund is a citizens’ organization, though not only « World » citizens. Since 1982, it has specialized in the financing of projects. It does not impose any projects but finances some which come from local initiatives. We are talking populations which have projects for producing enough food for themselves either by self-consumption of their own products or by generating new income to buy the nutritional complements they need. We intervene by financing such projects, helping groups which already have the know-how and some money of their own, but no technical means to realize their plans. In a word, what they need to get started is money ; when they have, say, €500 to start with, where are they going to find the remainder of their needs ? Will large state organizations or banks agree to finance them ? What a laugh ! That is when the World Fund, a citizens’ organization, steps in. A typical project financed by the World Fund is something like €4,500. Those we help do have €500 to start with and they come to us for the €4,000 they need. It has to be an established NGO, as well as a collective and democratic one, working in farming, growing fruits or vegetables or fish, crafting, running a nutritional center, in a word, everything that deals with food. If their products are meant for the local market, these products do contribute to improve the nutritional level of neighboring villages and areas ; we are thus not talking products aimed at exportation. The Board, which studies the requests for financing the World Fund receives, is composed only of volunteers who study the requests in their own homes. The Board meets three to four times a year to control the work already done, making decisions and distributing the work to be done. [CENSORED] Many of the requests we receive are unfounded. The Board does study them and requests a huge amount of additional information—social, economic, technical, concerning management and responsibility, and so on. Part of the financing comes as a subvention, then the rest comes as a loan. Everything is negotiated, including the settlement timetable for the loan. When the negotiation is finalized, the commitments made by the local NGO and the World Fund are enshrined in a Contract for Solidarity. Resources Where does the World Fund find its money ? First, its members—overall 1,500, 250 in Europe (only 200 in France) and the rest in Africa—send an annual fee. Besides, being financed by the World Fund requires becoming a member first, which is what a « community fund » such as this is all about ; then you start sending your annual fees, and after two yearly payments you can start requesting financing. Second, we do receive donations. Third, when our loans are settled we use the money to finance other projects. The amount of the fee is freely decided, by each member according to his or her means ; yet we do ask that everyone pay at least the amount they use to buy one day’s food. As a result, everyone does not pay the same amount but everyone does make an effort in paying their fee. Come to think of it, knowing that 300 to 350 people register as World Citizens each year, it would be better still if only one out of three could also join the World Fund and pay if only a basic fee. Project control and partnerships If we had to control each project at a distance by ourselves, how difficult that would be ! Therefore, both through personal contacts and random encounters on the ground, we managed overtime to obtain the support of local NGOs. Those NGOs have the human and material means to find out how feasible it would be to finance a project, including training, support at a distance and execution control. Those NGOs are a party to the Contract for Solidarity in each project, which means their commitment to the project is as genuine as that of the World Fund and the NGO asking for help. Since the World Fund started to rely on such local contacts the failure rate has dropped close to zero. Budget The World Fund’s budget is as high as €20,000 a year ; for 21 years, the World Fund has relied on nothing more to help people. The World Fund is a very small organization, even though it does belong to some greater alliances, either national such as CRID (The Research and Information Center on Development) and Coordination SUD (Solidarity, Emergency & Development) or European such as CONCORD ; it is the way we work that people find interesting. Our administrative fees do not exceed 15%, which is enshrined in our Statute—some years it is only 14% if not less. Anyway, what matters is to do what we are doing : we are World Citizens, are we not ? That is why all our contracts duly specify that the World Fund is « a world law institution under the authority of the Peoples’ Congress ». Where the projects come from When we started out, some World Citizens who were on a journey found about this or that project and came to think the World Fund should support them. They let the World Fund know about these projects and that was our real start. Also, the World Fund appears in several national and international directories in the field of international solidarity—which is how some people get to contact us. But with time, our partner NGOs, most of which encompass some tens of local groups in huge areas, have become our most important suppliers of projects. Some are also relayed by Esperanto-speaking groups. Field of competence The World Fund specializes in making people self-sufficient nutritionally speaking, and as such, it works first and foremost for sustainable development. It does not intervene in fields such as health, education and culture which other NGOs are already in charge of. We seek to eradicate the most basic dependency, that which conditions all other aspects of development—nutritional dependency. By so doing, we can see that a lot more is done beyond our primary goal ; after all, a child who eats sufficiently will obviously do better in school and will be less vulnerable to ailment. Managing our funds Clearly, we cannot technically receive individual fees from small vicinities. The way money transfers work do not enable us by any means to do so. That is why villagers send grouped fees, most of the time through those local NGOs that support us. As of today, 5 NGOs work under a deal with the World Fund, in a partnership which goes so far as to include a line that is reserved for us in their organizational accountancy. That is how those NGOs receive our fees and loan settlements, which also enables them to avoid countless money transfers from one country to another. Then the World Fund’s European account—with a bank that offers solidarity saving schemes and ethical credit—brings on the remainder. When the World Fund gets federal Our objective is to federate all major world regions where the World Fund is present. The European Region already has an organization and an elected representative of its own. The African Region is currently organizing itself in this direction too. Well, I think this has been time well spent, telling you about the World Fund. I should like to say this in conclusion : all of you, World Citizens, who want to be actively involved, help us, otherwise we cannot carry on ! I wish you had seen us when we went to Saint-Ouen (in the French Department of Seine-Saint-Denis) for an associative Forum. When we told people about the World Fund, they found everything we said clear ! Better still—after we finished they told us, « The World Fund is our organization ». Projects or Programs ? Answering a question from Bhuppy Kishore, Claude Tellier explains that the projects financed by the World Fund are not « programs », as the Indian Delegate just put it, but projects that are distinct from each other and created by small villager groups. Sometimes, young people who come to the West to study return home and see how low the nutritional level is ; then they decide to take action. They confer with the local senior people, and then they elaborate a project which they refer to the World Fund. There cannot be any more citizen-oriented or local way to help. Daniel Durand adds that the World Fund does not seek to impose projects on people but to get involved in their own projects. In Africa, for instance, agriculture is not the same in different areas. Therefore, and having in mind that the World Fund does not wish to change people’s ways, it has had to adapt to these ways. Dignity Brigitte Carraz confirms that the World Fund is not « fashionable » nor seeks to be so. Its action goes with the preservation of dignity. Europe, Africa & South America Gilles Baudat mentions the « House of the Unemployed » of Nanterre, in the French Department of Hauts-de-Seine, partially financed by the World Fund. Bernard J. Henry, a World Fund member and a Hauts-de-Seine resident, confirms that the House has since expanded into a large local association. The House is a real success for the World Fund, which is really a « world » fund whose action is not solely aimed at developing countries. Claude Tellier further explains that the World Fund rejects all requests from projects that do not deal exclusively with food and nutrition. Whereas many requests have come from French-speaking Africa lately, the World Fund has extensively worked with Native Latin Americans in the past. Yet the team lacks people who are proficient in English, Spanish and Portuguese ... The World Fund has a Web site of its own at www.globidar.org, developed by Daniel Durand and John de la Cruz.
3.4. The Institute of Mundialist Studies By Marc Garcet, President I shall now introduce the IMS which I chair. If we are to know what we are working on, we must know each other in the first place, so after the introductions that have just been made of the PC and the World Fund I shall introduce the IMS which is also a PC creation. The traditional mundialist diagram which you can see here on the wall shows very clearly that all its branches make up a network. Even though the general idea of the PC is theoretical with a strong abstract connotation, its ultimate purpose remains the structuring of the mundialist universe. The PC is the answer to a deep desire expressed by mundialists, anti-militarists and pacifists. Mundialists need to build and to act out of solidarity, which is why it comes as no surprise that the PC created something like the World Fund. We need to solidify this approach of ours through that perception and particular analysis we have developed with time. That is what the IMS was created for. The initial project was to set up a pilot university in the field of political and human sciences, an ambitious objective that led to the creation of the IMS in 1977. One of our first tasks was to establish a distinction within our work between mundialist « propaganda » and the study of mundialism, a distinction that was crucial to the establishment of a real definition of the concept of a mundialist approach to society. We also had to make ourselves different from others. Was our approach political, economic, sociological or philosophical ? In fact, it is all of this at the same time, and that is why we can truly say that our approach is interdisciplinary, and inasmuch as it constitutes a new social dimension in itself, I think we can even say that our approach is global. We start at the basis to go to the top, then back, a concept that is now accepted by all, even in schools. Those are principles—now what about the facts ? We must create the interdisciplinary frameworks which will enable us to answer to the needs of our target audience whose approach is interdisciplinary too. During each session, for one general subject, we develop the political, economic, sociological and philosophical approach, and so on. Equally, a session’s work is always to transfer our approach from the basis to the top and back. Our objective is first and foremost educational, for we wish to insulate in everyone the mundialist reasoning which we want to transmit to the public for both personal and professional use. One example of our target audience are people involved in educational or social life, whether professional or volunteer. When we are working on sustainable development, for instance, one of the people involved in the session is a female educator working in a children’s house. What relation, you may ask, can there be between a children’s house and sustainable development ? The relation is in the path we are walking along with the educator in order to link her daily practice to the contribution she may bring to sustainable development. Any educational behavior may bring on new forms of analysis. It is the IMS’s role to keep this process alive and going. Our own behavior, the basic education we received as children, our family experience have taught us to move in common spheres. They have taught us social behaviors dictated by tradition. So, as citizens of our own town or city and borough, we are citizens at that level ; then a little bit higher, we become citizens of a nation, and as such, our task is to understand what we have to do to suggest decisions that can have an impact onto the basis. But when it comes to World Citizenship, we have no family or educational background, for in both contexts we have no elements of learning. We do not have any « instinctive » behaviors translating a natural relationship with the place we live, a relationship we can call « ecological ». It is that « social ecology » which is very much in existence at the local level, less so at the national level and not at all at the global level that we intend to create during our sessions every summer. These ideas come from Jacques Mühletahler (the late Swiss PC Delegate). He said we must train teachers and professors in the field of human rights so that they can in turn transfer this concept onto their students. Andrée Gaymard-Rollet (the PC Delegate who is also a retired teacher) said when the IMS started out that we should train teachers and professors so that they could forward the concept of a mundialist approach to a world where « globalization » was not yet a reality. Our target audience is composed of persons from the social, educational and other related fields ; we work with these people because they have the ability to transfer out the analysis we do with them, which constitutes a method. Everyone brings on their own concept ; whatever the subject, we use that basis-to-top-and-back approach of ours, which creates an encounter that can be the result of one IMS lesson. Historically speaking, the IMS long held its sessions at La Lambertie castle, which was the family home of the Marchands in southwest France. We held our first session in 1978. Eventually, a heavy load of trouble led the IMS to move away from La Lambertie, most notably to Lyons, then to Saint-Lactencin, a village in central France, which was anything but easy. The IMS is a very heavy organization in that a session requires two years of preparatory work with a secretariat that must be all but permanent, a phone line that is open 24 hours a day, an extended network of contacts and a lot more still. We used to have all this when Guy and Renée Marchand were there, and when they passed away the technical means disappeared. We lacked assistance, and lecturers couldn’t possibly deliver good lectures in places that were not appropriate. The public ceased to renew itself, which means we were constantly teaching our lessons to the same people, which was of no interest to us. Today, the IMS lives on in Belgium, near Liège. We have transformed the French Loi 1901 NGO into a Belgian-law asbl—a nonprofit organization—and transferred all original structures from one country to another and to a structure that was already existing, one we felt the IMS could work with. Over the last six years, the IMS has worked on two subjects. We thought it would be interesting to spread each one of them onto three years. The first was mutation and creation, and the second was sustainable and human development. We worked on these subjects in sessions that lasted four days a week. Then again, our target audience was a « professional » one, which did not that mean anyone not from this target audience was rejected ; all I mean is that these sessions were part of the continued training offered to some professional categories, and therefore made to meet these people’s needs. Over seven days we had 200 to 300 students. During the first and second days we discussed educational construction and held a forum for synthesis, always dealing with sustainable and human development at the individual and collective level. The third day was devoted to the subject of artificial intelligence and human development. With that last proposal we entered a process that had become more or less normalized. That is what the IMS has done to this day. I would like to specify that the IMS’s faculty members come from our contacts with universities in the Liège area and with people on the ground. These people enable us to have a multicultural approach that is particularly adapted to the practical needs of our comrades in Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa, whether living there or as refugees in Europe. There used to be a lot of people coming to visit us from Algeria, but the Schengen Accords have made it more and more frequent for them to be denied an entry visa by the Belgian Consulate in Algiers. Yet this should never deter us from our that multicultural approach of ours, which we must continue to develop as much as we can ; I have in mind by saying that our Indian comrade Bhuppy Kishore, who could be of great help by transferring out the Indian vision and Asian culture of his native region. [Daniel Durand asks a question about the IMS’s « memory ».] It is real and well-conserved. Each session leaves a trace which comes as a publication, whose primary concern is to preserve the entirety of interventions. These books can be 250 to 350 pages long and all sessions are announced in advance on the IMS’s Web site. We shall also task ourselves to develop video recording for our sessions in order to draw attention to the Web site where everyone will be able to view them. [Michel Forestier adds that the IMS’s photo library is well-filled, too.] [Peter Davidse requests that, besides the search for a mundialist kind of methodology, more be said about activism strictly speaking. In particular, he would like to know how a field supposed to be neutral as science is can lend itself to some specific research on the creation of a world government.] The dimension of the law always takes its place in our works, whatever the subject—I mean an understanding that the legal phenomenon too can be treated through our basis-to-top-and-back approach, bearing in mind that a legal phenomenon can be either local or larger than that. Take the example of refugees, who are numerous in our Western nations. There was an Albanian who had crossed Italy clandestinely, with no legal status whatsoever, and who ended up in Belgium. He went to knock on someone’s door and this person referred him to us in the end. In this case, a starting point for analysis can be the suffering of this Albanian, for whoever comes to his aid will be able to trace his physical and mental itinerary. Why did he flee Albania ? What risks did he run to come to Belgium, for instance to avoid the police in Italy ? In a case like this, the purpose is to understand the limbo he had to go through. From there we get to the situation in the Balkans today, and from there it gets even more global, which means more mundialist. Our Albanian has behind him the entire history of his region, and that enables us to understand that for us, the essential is the human aspect ; when dealing with an undocumented and/or homeless alien, we get to address other issues of related interest, such as violence and others. The involvement of human problems in larger problems is very high. You may add to this that, in a world that becomes more like a village everyday, nation-states are no longer protected like they might have been. Hence the need to have a global human representation that is able to deal with these problems at the human level with all the understanding they require. [Peter Davidse asks whether the IMS has links with the « globalist » school of thought, which is represented among World Federalists. He mentions Alexandre Marc, one of the school’s founding members, who participated in several sessions at La Lambertie.] Indeed, he came several times at La Lambertie, and that is because the IMS allows for several approaches to be represented at the same time instead of having only one present at a time. [Geneviève Charpentier asks whether the IMS has a working language, and why it takes three years to deal with one subject.] The IMS’s working language is traditionally French. Why three years ? For instance, when it comes to sustainable development, that interdisciplinary approach of ours means we could only be too general doing it in only one year. That is why it takes up to three years. Equally, if we wish to transfer a methodology of approach on the human plan, we must have a restricted framework that enables us to perform an analysis that is appropriate, that of the human experience. Since we are talking a « target subject », working on it does have to include limits. With one session per year, we have three sessions on one subject, always in the last week of August. [Professor Chris Hamer asks whether the IMS intends to acquire a permanent structure, as is the case with the Association to Unite the Democracies of Washington, D. C. which offers an internship program.] Would this be appropriate in view of our means ? In view of the IMS’s structure, I do not see how we could ever become something permanent. The IMS is, however, working in cooperation with a distance-learning development institute with a view to creating training structures that will allow us to offer IMS educational modules as classical distance-learning courses. This session could come as 10 to 15 lessons on one subject, both by regular mail and using the Internet and always with that basis-to-top-and-back approach of ours. This is very much in line with the orientation taken by the European Union to promote equal opportunities, with an ultimate view to « letting people in ». In so doing, we wish to create a European citizenship that includes universal values. This implies some particular civil and institutional behaviors—for example, concerning our Albanian, fighting discrimination. When it comes to developing such practices in professional life, it is even more difficult, and still this is what we intend to stick with. This idea of « citizenship in life », fighting discrimination everyday, is easy to accept in principle but much harder to implement. In our businesses, we work everyday with Blacks, Arabs, Jews and Christians, and we were never trained to accept them if we do not know about their respective cultures. Today, cultural plurality has become an element of everyday life, and still equality remains difficult to reach. How can we do it ? That is what leads us to think our distance-learning plans come as a good idea. Roger Winterhalter says he thinks we are heading for a society that is multicultural or not at all. For him, as an Alsatian, his first duty is to welcome others, and that is why he feels he has no right to demand that foreigners adapt to his own culture, for, if he does, they may feel rejected. He and he alone must understand foreigners have to adapt to his culture, which is encouraging and must be used and turned into a popular concept. That is why exporting mundialism to the public, as is done with the World Fund, must be closely linked with reflecting thereon. Welcoming foreigners is an everyday issue and the PC will have to find ways to make this fact known to the public. 3.4. The Mundialist Information and Press Agency (AMIP) By Henri Cainaud Another PC creation is AMIP, the Mundialist Information and Press Agency which used to let politicians know about mundialist viewpoints. From 1980 to 1990 AMIP issued 130 dispatches, 20 of which remain very much in line with current affairs today. AMIP used to issue its dispatches in French, English and Esperanto. It has been dormant since 1990 and should definitely be brought back to life. 4. OTHER MUNDIALIST ORGANIZATIONS CILAME - Social Forums - ATTAC - The World Federalist Movement - Friends of the Monde diplomatique - The Esperantian City - The Charles-Léopold Mayer Foundation 4.1. CILAME (International Liaison Committee for a World Authority on Environment) By Michel Forestier First off, I should like to specify that the adjective « international » was not our first choice but had to be used in order for our acronym to be pronounceable, which the adjective « world » would not have made for. Environment has been a traditional concern among World Citizens. Guy Marchand had actively supported the programs NEPTUNO for the sea (1955), ETHERUNO for the air (1956), and TERRUNO for earth (1960), none of which proved successful in the end. In 1971 a famous leaflet was issued, which was entitled Pollution, and in 1989, further to the Hague Meeting in the Netherlands out of which had come a declaration for a world authority on environment, Guy Marchand and Jerry Bourgeois acted on this declaration by creating CILAME. The organization was purposely made a Swiss-based one with its headquarters in Geneva, even though everything has always been done in France. The Hague Appeal, inspired by Guy Marchand, had been endorsed by then Prime Ministers Michel Rocard of France and Ruud Lubbers of the Netherlands and signed by 43 countries—though neither Britain nor the United States. WFM recently recalled that the Appeal was still in force ; but how can anyone force a country to sign it ? CILAME’s action has been mainly to form a legal commission, which was done under the auspices of prominent French lawyer Louis-Edmond Pettiti and jurist Florence de Galzain. Then a pamphlet was produced to summarize the general idea of CILAME. Our objective is to create a set of organizations which will provide for an adequate form of planetary environment management. It would take only a few tens of people who could be working in a network as is fashionable today. This set of organizations could be part of an already existing larger structure. We think this set of organizations should include one that is general, one which would serve as an observatory and could conduct audits, one tasked with performing studies, one that would be law-making, one charged with law enforcement—including especially a World Court of Environment—and finally, one charged with financing. To date, CILAME has some fifty members and is rather dormant. In order to revive interest we are considering creating a new pamphlet and distributing it in meetings concerning environment, for instance meetings of the French Green Party. We too need a methodology, at the common level of the PC, the World Fund and CILAME. We anticipate a CILAME meeting will be taking place over one week next summer, whose purposes will be explained in a forthcoming guide. 4. 2. ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens) By Roger Winterhalter Basing its action on the « Tobin tax » developed by the late American economist James Tobin, ATTAC advocates a 0.1% tax on all financial transactions performed in the world, whose result would be very significant to help the less well-off. Overtime, ATTAC has expanded its action further, but, in aiming at taxing capitalism like it does, isn’t ATTAC legitimizing it altogether, which is not exactly in line with its original spirit ? Anyway, ATTAC questions the market economy and advocates economy with solidarity, and in so doing it champions humanity. It also reminds us that hope often comes from the south, as happened in 2002 when the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre, Brazil, reminded us all how important the notion of participatory budget can be. 4.3. Friends of the Monde diplomatique By Roger Winterhalter The Friends of the Monde diplomatique, an association created to support that famous French monthly newspaper, goes against what is fashionable, working on societal issues through conferences and debates. Yet their action very much confines itself to criticism with no alternative suggestions. The Monde diplomatique does offer alternatives in its articles, though. 4.4. The Charles-Léopold Mayer Foundation By Mathieu Calame
Thank you for having me. First off, I should like to remind you that a foundation is not a social movement but an institution whose primary goal is to carry out the wills of its founder and give out money accordingly. For instance, one does not become a member of a foundation and we do not organize Larzac-like mass protests. The Foundation has adopted new orientations lately. Over the last ten years, the Foundation has mainly financed projects in the field of development ; it has realized overtime, however, that many small projects will never make for global change. The problem is political and its solution lies in global governance. After ten years the Foundation invited its partners to come together and put forward proposals in fields such as agriculture, construction, peace, cultural coexistence, research governance and the fight against exclusion. These subjects came out of those actions we had previously financed, and our new goal was to determine how we could carry it further. Our approach was not born of a great, global vision. We were sometimes told, « You’re not doing anything for health, or about the place of women in society ». But we were determined, convinced that « Everything must help to build a collective framework ». That is how the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and Harmonious World was born. Once formed, the Alliance extended itself to other partners. That is how it organized in 2001 a meeting in Lille which was a preliminary act for the creation of a World Assembly of Citizens ; we wanted to call it « Etats Généraux of the Planet », but we found that name too specifically related to French history. The method for « recruiting » representatives was based first and foremost on membership. In some countries, such as the People’s Republic of China, this could have been dangerous ; unfortunately, this resulted in distortions as to how culturally representative the Assembly was, and this generated in us a desire to « dig deeper ». As a result, the Assembly became a panel of the diversity of people rather than the product of determined action, which led us to look beyond the sole democratic countries. Then the question was : how do we act from there ? Our ambition was to promote global governance in the face of an ever-growing American political expansionism. The Foundation is convinced that we should work on three prominent subjects, which are linked together :
Since 1945 the relevance of these subjects have never been in much doubt. After the Second World War Western progressive values imposed themselves to the world, but, as attractive as they may have looked initially, they came with time to provide the basis for some « questionable » adventures, as happened this year in Iraq. We cannot allow such a situation to continue. We consider that these three pillars are linked : when you have personal ethics, you can develop the governance that creates the conditions needed for sustainable development. This enables us to envision our relations with everything that is not human on earth as well as with other humans, and our personal condition in the end. For the ten years to come, the Foundation wishes to finance and support all kinds of actions in the world, regionally through the Alliance, vocationally—which we call vocational « colleges »—and thematically, on subjects like distributive economy and water. In so doing we intend to constitute not one Alliance but several Alliances, which will not necessarily come as an institution but as a work that will take place on all three levels. We are thus talking here a « super-alliance ». Speaking of alliances, we think here of groups forming on precise subjects and whose task is to put forward proposals. These groups are more or less related to the altermondialiste movement, some that are very much « against » something and some who do put forward alternative suggestions. Our approach also includes information management. We have to control and select information, especially on the Internet, and once this is done we must make it transmittable and provide appropriate equipment to those who want to issue proposals in turn—modeling this, shocking as it may sound, on the way Al Qaeda functions. Yet the Foundation Council has not yet validated all of these new, general orientations, which means there is nothing more I can say to you now. One last thing : the Foundation had given up financing local projects, and now we wish to intervene globally but also locally again. This is done through our support for small groups, working for instance on distributive credit and economic treatment of water. The projects we support are small « prototypes ». The Foundation wishes to contribute to the creation of another world, which is why it has contacted others. The Lille meeting represented a considerable effort and people from all over the world were indeed present. Our common values allowed us to truly respect each other in our diversity. As for our support for small project, it proceeds from both reflection and experimentation. These are that which people create in a region, a continent or at the global level to come together and show that « politics is everybody’s business ». In Porto Alegre, elected officials went to the World Social Forum with no prior request from the organizers. These forums are meeting points where people come together to reflect ; they bet on getting richer through diversity and finding common points among themselves. All these movements do exist. One may wish to bring amendments to this, and these amendments are ours to find. Anyway, one common denominator among all these groups is that they are passionate about humanity. Can we develop any links with them at all ? We could tell them we are ready to work in the respect of each other’s difference, but together on common subjects and in an interdisciplinary approach lying in all different regions of the world. We have to reflect on networking and on how we could build equal partnerships. Political organizations as they exist are now outdated, and along with these other groups we must build a soft but serious structure. 4.6. The World Federalist Movement By Peter Davidse and Bernard Henry The fundamental difference between World Citizens and World Federalists : Whereas World Citizens wish to make people aware that they are World Citizens in the first place, with an ultimate view to creating a world authority that is federal or confederate, World Federalist vow first and foremost to create a world government through the UN which will make everyone understand, though only once created, that they are World Citizens. The two approaches have similar goals but are opposite as to the methods they intend to use. Some find WFM’s approach too « practical », however. If Deputy Delegate Rolf Haegler is not with us today, it is because he is a WFM member and WFM is holding a meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, for World UN Day. Peter Davidse reminds the audience that WFM was instrumental in creating the International Criminal Court, especially through the efforts of Executive Director William Pace. According to Peter, WFM has 7,000 members in North America and 5,000 in Japan. There are also members in India, a lot less in Africa and some in Latin America ; whereas several national movements exist in Western Europe, WFM’s opening to Eastern Europe ended up as a failure. Is there any difference between world federalism and the UN Charter ? « Isn’t the UN a federation of states ? » Bernard J. Henry replies that even though the UN Charter does include elements of federalism, it does not provide the UN with the legal means to have its decisions implemented on the ground, especially those of the Security Council that can be viewed as the government of the World organization. All UN decisions are political by nature and optional in the facts, while a federal government in one given nation can make the law and have it enforced. Besides, reinforcing the power of the UN by stressing the federalist elements of its Charter has been one of WFM’s purposes since it was created. 4. 7. The Esperantian City By Giorgio Silfer, Member of the Delegation Mr. Chairman, Honorable Delegates, Honorable World Citizens, on behalf of Esperanta Civito/The Esperantian City, I hereby present the greetings of our Senate. We created the City as a subject of international law in order to represent the differences of the Esperanto-speaking community throughout the world. We have three schools of thought within that community :
In 1922, one of the most famous champions of world federalism, Edmond Privat, suggested that the League of Nations adopt Esperanto, not only in order to save translation fees but because he thought Esperanto could be a means to establish education to peace in the hearts of children. Indeed, pacifism has always been one of the pillars of Esperanto culture and we naturally have this within the Esperantian City. The Esperantian City has a federal structure based on endorsement of the membership pact. All those who endorse the pact can request to become Esperantian citizens. We view the Esperantian City as a step toward World Citizenship, and that is why the City cannot be described as neutral. One of our schools of thought is indeed neutral, but the City has made choices of its own and its stands by these choices. By contrast, SAT represents only a part of existing Esperanto ideas ; in the City, our Senate has three groups from three political parties with their own platforms, even if we obviously all agree on the essential. [Bhuppy Kishore asks what concept of world government the Esperantian City advocates. Does the City think a world government should be a body with executive powers or a purely juridical entity ?] As I said before, we have several schools of thought within the Esperantian City, and among them the City has not yet decided which one will be leading. Yet we definitely are federalists. In any event, the Esperantian City does have political purposes of its own, and our Delegation is here to learn as much as possible about World Citizens, for they already have such a large experience of these mundialist politics I am talking. Esperantian City Senator Perla Martinelli specifies that the political works of the Esperantian City find their inspiration both in those of Mahatma Gandhi and Edmond Privat, who was a personal friend of the Mahatma’s, and of course in mundialism as a whole. Roger Winterhalter says he would like for us to maintain close ties to the Esperantian City. He also asks what is meant by « Esperantian identity », in other words, what can be the relation with regional languages. Giorgio Silfer replies that there are two extremes within the Esperantian City—one for which esperanto is a world language and a good national language is a dead national language (that was SAT’s position when the organization started out) and the other for which the Esperantian City is a means of protection for languages as an attribute of identity. That is why the members of the Esperantian City are not just Esperanto speakers but true Esperantians. We are a people in our own right, in that we wish « to remember the good things we have done together and keep alive our will to do more ». As a minority, we think we are naturally more sensitive to this notion than all other peoples. By chance, whereas the Esperanto diaspora declared the Constitution of the Esperantian City on June 2, 2001, on July 20 that year the Constitution of Gypsia, the non-territorial nation of the Roma community, was adopted. Besides, the Esperantian City has signed the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights. 5. « A BRAND NEW START » Address by Marc GARCET We must save as much debate time as possible. Here, we all are mundialists with different sensibilities, and together we have a unique opportunity to put the PC back on track as we all wish to. The PC is a legislative body, which was designed as an example. The role played by a great many national NGOs in this process shows all too well that not everything here is any longer the work of the PC as initially imagined, but also that of those NGOs that are with us. During this meeting, we have been able to talk to one another without aggressiveness—something quite new among mundialists in session. The Committee to Support the PC is an addition to the PC itself ; it represents a forum for the PC and allows us to recognize one another in our diversity, whilst coming together in the forum in the end. Within this context we will prepare inventories, and of course do our best in working together. To do so we have to make the Committee an official body, set up a subsequent agenda and find out what NGO known to us does what exactly. The PC is a long-term objective which we will have to reach through democratic channels. It is an alternative to globalization as currently proposed to the people of the world. 5. 1. The PC's Assembly is Born We must now decide whether we agree to create this assembly or « forum »—whatever its name to be—which will be added to the PC. Inasmuch as all those present are concerned, the President decides that the vote shall be open to everyone. Final vote results : For 17 After the results are read aloud Daniel Durand says : « Now take a look at your watches. It's 3.10 P. M., this is October 26, 2003, and the PC has just made a brand new start. » A statement that is duly applauded, as is such a historic moment for all of us ! Who will be eligible to join the Assembly? Marc Garcet recalls that, now that the PC has an assembly of its own, we must define just who will be able to join that, especially concerning NGOs. Daniel Durand says the lack of response of several NGOs which were invited to the meeting but did not care to reply only makes this task more complicated for us—one striking example being those NGOs that make up the Permanent Mundialist Committee. Therefore, the safest way to proceed would be to invite in those NGOs that have provided voters' lists during previous PC Elections, as well as those comprising the Committee for a Democratic World Government (CDWG) on whose model Daniel suggested in his conference at La-Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland last summer that all Esperanto-speaking organizations create an alliance of mundialist NGOs of their own. Marc Garcet thinks we should work first and foremost with those NGOs represented in this very session already, as well as with those invited whose representatives did not show up—we can always widen our horizons later. Represented here are the RWC, the French Registration Center, the World Fund, the IMS, the CILAME, the Esperantian City and the World Federalist Movement. Joël Luguern further suggests that what he calls the « partnership », instead of « assembly » or « forum », should be tasked to decide who can come in, which applies also to mundialized places. Henri Cainaud firmly believes, for one, that instead of using so many different names, we should find one that would be firm and definitive for the assembly/forum/partnership ... Giorgio Silfer says the—say, new body—should also be open to individual work, using « all modern electronic means » available and including also all mundialized institutions. For Roger Winterhalter, the priority remains to find the new body a name ! Several entries are made : International Partnership for the PC Union for the PC Commission for the PC Parliament of the PC Final vote results : Consultative Assembly of the PC 16 Henceforth, the full name shall be Consultative Assembly of the PC (hereinafter, CAPC). How the CAPC should function Daniel Durand now asks a question that is crucial to the near future of the CAPC : Who will be a part of it ? What will be its internal modus operandi ? Some Internal Regulations will have to rule on that. One thing is for sure anyway : We must establish an efficient mechanism for « filtering »—accepting or refusing whomever we deem appropriate, one of our primary goals obviously being to avoid external infiltration, e. g. by cults. But we also have partners on whose honest nature we can fully rely, starting with those NGOs that have provided voters in past PC Elections (the French National Federation of Free Thinkers, whose meeting room we are using, is one of them). There are also those NGOs that have signed on the Charter for a World Solidarity Institution—overall, 30 NGOs in 15 countries. As for our financial resources, we also have these groups' membership fees, even from those poorer ones in developing nations. Jean-Marc Zan points out that individual citizens should be fully taken into account too. Daniel Durand replies that we have every possibility to establish a forum within the CAPC in which individual citizens will be heard. Roger Winterhalter wishes to reach out to those NGOs we don't yet know about. We must, says Roger, list all those we already know and send them a copy of the session account ; as for the others, we can always involve them later into the CAPC upon prior proposal and after an official vote. For instance, we could establish as a rule that every new applicant should be proposed by two existing members and then sign on the Charter for a World Solidarity Institution upon arrival. We should also reflect on how much we will charge for membership, taking into account that lack of financial resources shall never be a reason for rejection or dismissal. We should also set an agenda for regular meetings—one that will have to be by all means realistic. Henri Cainaud believes the February 7, 2004 meeting should be restricted to those present here, whereas others can be brought in at a later time upon proposal. Regional Assemblies Daniel Durand says that, ideally, meetings like this should be organized everywhere in the world as Regional Assemblies of the CAPC. Roger Winterhalter finds this proposal excellent and very much in line with our intentions. For instance, we could set up one Regional Assembly or two in Central Europe which would make for an opportunity for us to promote our World Citizen ideals, make people come together and put our reflection and experiments in common. This could be done with some help from the Foundation ; it would also mean finding out whether this would be feasible at all, a mission that would fall onto the RWC's Regional Correspondents who could also propose some meeting topics of their own (for instance, distributive economy, solidarity, World Citizen values). That would lay the groundwork for a future meeting which only one or two of us would have to attend as an act of support from us all. Henri Cainaud thinks this is a good idea, all the more so since Regional Assemblies would enable the debates' conclusions to make their way up to us in the end, thus working as « laboratories » for the ideas carried by the PC. Partner NGOs Gilles Baudat asks where our partner NGOs stand to date. Daniel Durand replies that most of them have their headquarters and members in Africa, only three or four being European. Roger Winterhalter thinks we ought to draw a list of those invited here and tell each guest to please let us know about those NGOs he or she would like to add to the CAPC. Daniel thinks first and foremost of those which have been represented throughout this Plenary Session ; those comprising the Permanent Mundialist Committee ; and those that have been involved in previous PC ballots. But, he also says, a number of political parties and trade unions in the United States may be interested in joining in our work. Esperanto speakers should also be required to form their own alliance of mundialist organizations—modeled after the Permanent Mundialist Committee or the CDWG. Roger Winterhalter thinks the session account should serve as an appeal issued to all NGOs wishing to join in to make themselves known to us. Daniel Durand fears that too many ideas coming out of our debates may result in too much paperwork and hence less enthusiasm in the end. He also contemplates creating a « Court of Good Behavior » which would be used to ensure everyone behaves properly within the CAPC. In that same spirit, Roger Winterhalter thinks that whenever gridlock may come to jam the CAPC's works, that Council of Wisemen we envision to create may be entrusted with the power to make a final decision. Once again, Jean-Marc Zan emphasizes that individual World Citizens do have a role to play in the CAPC, which should never become an « NGO's Congress » coming to supplement the PC. Daniel Durand says once again that he agrees and Roger Winterhalter says he is all the more supportive of individual involvement since, as Bernard J. Henry reminded us all this morning, a World Citizen does not become a member of the RWC simply by registering, which means he or she may come with time to feel left behind. Gilles Baudat too thinks that each and every World Citizen must be able to express himself or herself within the CAPC. Anyhow, says Daniel Durand, we are bound to decide sometime who will be allowed to speak and vote for whom within the CAPC. The next CAPC meeting The CAPC will be convening for the second time on Saturday, February 7, 2004 and the Constituent Assembly of the CAPC will be on the agenda. The PC's Secretariat will be issuing the « marching orders » and all those NGOs involved to some extent in this Plenary Session will be invited to attend. 5.2. Internal Elections As requested by Bhuppy Kishore, all votes occurring within this Plenary Session shall be validated by February 7, 2004 by a vote in writing issued by each and every one of those Delegates who are not here today. Roger Winterhalter now calls on all Delegates present here to elect, as the PC's Internal Regulations provide : A Cabinet with a President, Vice President, and Financial Delegate A Secretary-General, and possibly a Deputy Secretary-General After a series of exchanges between the participants, the Delegates are called to proceed. Vote results : Unanimously Elected Executive Committee Members Henri Cainaud Cabinet Members President Roger Winterhalter Secretary General Jean-Marc Zan In accordance with President Winterhalter's personal wishes, Bernard J. Henry shall be in charge of communications and English-language translations as Deputy Secretary-General of the PC. 6. MISCELLANEOUS 6.1. Toward a World Congress of STATELESS PEOPLES By Giorgio SILFER, speaking on behalf of the Delegation of the Esperantian City. I hereby suggest that we organize in La-Chaux-de-Fonds, the City's capital, a PC meeting on stateless peoples (not stateless people—we are talking those peoples that do not have a state of their own, e. g. the Kurds). The Esperantian City would mainly serve as a host and participant whilst the PC would retain the entire initiative. Our purpose would be to prove that we can do without the UN, for we intend to promote throughout this meeting—provided that it takes place—the principle of an alternative to the UN. Now that the PC has a functioning Executive Committee at last, I request that a formal vote be taken on this proposal to invite the PC to Switzerland, along with a clear mandate conferred onto the PC which will be able to verify a project previously prepared by the Esperantian City. I think, however, that it will take up to the year 2006 to turn this invitation into action ; what I seek here is a vote of principle for this meeting which could last, say, from three days to a week. Now the vote is called. Result : The proposal receives a unanimous agreement minus two abstentions. 6.2. Financing the PC As for the way things have been since the passing of Renée Marchand, according to a letter of her own dated April 30, 1999, it appears we will have to reexamine everything—whether we still have a bank account or several, how much is left on this or these, and whether we have, by chance, accounts with other NGOs. Daniel Durand commits himself to clarifying things and then reporting to Financial Delegate Josiane Troumps. 6.3. A new address for the PC Legally speaking, the PC is an informal organization. It does not have any legally-established headquarters or mailing address. Hence, ever since the PC was created it has used someone else's address for its Secretariat, that of the French Registration Center which has been the workplace of the PC's Secretaries-General to date. Inasmuch as the PC has a new Secretary-General in the person of Jean-Marc Zan, we ought to make his own home address the PC's new address, so that he can receive any mail addressed to the PC in due course. 6.4. Voters and Delegates When the PC was created during the Brussels Congress of 1963, the process that was being envisioned was a progressive, rapid and ever-growing one. Progressive it was, for as many as ten Elections have taken place to this day ; rapid it was only for some time, for the Elections became more and more distant in time as years went by ; ever-growing it never was, for we were supposed to call an election with a first voting body of 10,000, then 100,000, and even more afterward—this never happened ! As a result, forty years on, some elected Delegates, who were elected for life, are still here after thirty-four years of service, which is way too long a tenure. We need new blood for the PC, which starts by electing new, younger people and setting a term limit. To this aim, we should consider renewing the PC by thirds every three years and instate a non-renewable nine-year tenure. This proposal is unanimously adopted by those Delegates present here. During the Dijon Study Days the Committee to Support the PC suggested that we should work with the voters we know, period, i. e. those registered as World Citizens, those from other mundialist NGOs and those living in mundialized places, whether represented within the CAPC or not. We could call this voting body to vote by thirds to elect thirteen new Delegates at a time. 6.7 The PC's relations with the UN and UNESCO Bernard J. Henry reads aloud the letter addressed by the Committee to Support the PC to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the closing act of the Dijon Study Days. This letter dealt with a Second Chamber elected by the peoples of the world, and the UN's reply was that it « does not advocate such policies, » which are not part of the UN Charter anyway. Roger Winterhalter thinks the UN's reply compels us to make a choice : Should we leave it there or send a reply of our own ? We could reply, for instance, that we acknowledge receipt of this letter, even though we find it disappointing, and after a reminder of the history of the foundation of the RWC and the PC, we could tell the World Organization that nothing has changed as far as we are concerned and that we are now reorganizing both organizations. « The choice is yours », we could conclude as did Tsuruji Kotani and Paul de la Pradelle in their own time, « Are you willing to take the risk of a global people's counter-power developing outside the UN ? » The Plenary Session of the
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