United for peace
The world is dangerously approaching a new global confrontation. The international order is in ruins. The great powers have long undermined the contract-based rules by purposeful interpretation, ignoring the principles of peaceful coexistence and ruthless military aggression. The result is chaos, hypocrisy and arbitrariness in international relations. There is no innocence in the dispute over where we have come in the last quarter century. People agree on one thing: we all want peace. However, not all of us are working for him. We therefore consider it essential to halt the spiraling militarism, violence and hatred, to subscribe to the traditions of humanism, peace and non-violence and to call on all people of good will to jointly adopt and promote measures that will lead to a culture of peace, cooperation and security for all.
We consider it a huge mistake for the international community to deviate from the principles of the Paris Charter for a New Europe adopted at the November 1990 summit. In it, all European states, but also the Soviet Union, the United States and Canada, agreed that security is indivisible and that it is not possible to strengthen the security of one at the expense of the other. That is why we consider the creation of exclusive military blocs that step up armaments and confrontation to be obsolete and dangerous. It is high time to return to the ideals that ended the ideological rivalry between the two superpowers. It is high time to call on the responsible representatives of parties, states and international organizations: seek a new world order that meets the needs and experiences of the present, guarantees equal security for all and commits all nations to work together to strengthen global peace, cooperation and justice. It is your duty to the peaceful people!
Shortly after World War II, in an atmosphere of euphoria over the end of the six-year agony of mankind, Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russel and Thomas Mann warned the international community that the UN Charter would prove to be a tragic illusion if we did not take stronger steps to organize peace if we war only by contractual agreements between sovereign states. Unfortunately, even this time the world leaders have failed to propose anything better than repeating an experiment whose absolute or desperate vanity has been proven so many times. Sovereignty in international relations leaves the rival powers to arbitrariness, as a result of which international law applies only to small and weak states that undermine the interests of the hegemon. These rules stand in the way of a higher principle governing international relations.
We want to take the peace movement to the next level. We do not want to be just defenders of peace, but its creators. Based on the 1999 UN Declaration on a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence, we do not want to limit ourselves to desperate protests against the war at a time when the fire has spread. We want to focus on creating a culture of peace and non-violence as a prerequisite for the peaceful coexistence of all people on Earth.
THEREFORE WE PROCEED:
- to replace faith in power and the worship of power with a culture of peace
- to replace the mentality of hostility with understanding, tolerance and solidarity
- to replace authoritarian rule with the democratic participation of all people
- to replace secrecy and propaganda policies with a free and comprehensive flow of information
- to replace the pressure to increase armaments with disarmament
- that human abuse is replaced by the development of their human rights
- that a ruthless profit-based economy be replaced by social justice and respect for the needs of all people according to the principle of equality
- that the plundering of nature is replaced by the philosophy of sustainable living.
THAT’S WHY WE CALL ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL TO CHANGE OUR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL PRIORITIES IN THIS SPIRIT:
- We call on the political leaders to design, support and promote the creation of a new security architecture, which will include states hitherto described as hostile.
- We call on the relevant ministries to rigorously apply the principles of the UN Declaration on a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence in practice, to introduce a culture of peace and non-violence into the curriculum, to support policies based on these principles.
- We call on voters to support only those politicians who subscribe to the peace principles set out in this document, commit themselves to respecting them and will enforce them in practice.
- We call on representatives of churches, NGOs, cultural, scientific and social figures to actively promote peaceful solutions to become envoys of peace and the liberation of the human spirit from inclinations to violence, and to encourage them to defend minority views of empathy, belonging and rationality in a majority atmosphere. hatred, fear and passion.
It must be said openly that there are politicians, journalists and activists who cultivate hatred, prejudice and phobias in society, sometimes going beyond chauvinism, that we have public officials who are always willing and ready to defend the war, support armaments and prioritize confrontation. We consider it important to distance yourself from such people. More weapons means less trust, more soldiers means less cooperation. We do not want to see our countries as states through which military convoys move and establish military bases, but as states in which peace initiatives are born and culture, science and education flourish. We want Central Europe to be a bridge of friendship, not the frontier of confrontation, to form itself as a dove of peace, not as a poodle of power, to create a just world order in which the great powers do not behave like gangsters and small states as their prostitutes. We want people to come together, not divide.
War is the loss of everyone. It is a failure of human reason, it is an inability to understand the other, it is a barbaric resignation to a civilized solution to the dispute. Peace is not the defeat of the other, peace is the victory of all. Surrender without removing the causes of the conflict is not a peace, just a temporary truce that accumulates all the unresolved wrongs until a new war breaks out. We want to overcome the vicious circle of violence and lay the foundations for lasting peace. We are not naive not to see conflicts and disputes, but we believe that their solution should be sought at the negotiating table and not on the battlefield. Without a new security architecture that eliminates inequalities in international relations, there will be neither functional security nor sustainable peace. At the beginning of such a process is not the negotiations of technical experts, but the strong will of peaceful people. It is therefore important that spiritually and morally independent personalities unite their influence and forces in defending brotherhood among nations, in promoting a culture of peace, and in rejecting war as the most heinous of all crimes.
LIST OF SIGNATORIES
Alexander Ač, environmentalist, researcher at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (SK)
Anton Baláž, writer and publicist (SK)
Jozef Banáš, writer (SK)
Marián Bančej, writer (SK)
Rudolf Belan, publisher (SK)
Viera Benková, writer (Bački Petrovac, Serbia)
Vladimír Blaho, theatre and music critic (SK)
Václav Cílek, geologist, climatologist and philosopher (CZ)
Ján Čarnogurský, lawyer, former Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic (SK)
Milan Daniel, journalist (CZ)
Milan Dubček, diplomat, son of Alexander Dubček(SK)
Vladimír Farkaš, biochemist (SK)
Etela Farkašová, philosopher and writer (SK)
Milan Ftáčnik, university professor, former Minister of Education (SK)
František Gahér, philosopher, former Rector of the Comenius University (SK)
Ivan Gašparovič, former President of the Slovak Republic (SK)
Radovan Geist, political scientist (SK)
Vladimír Godár, music composer (SK)
Jozef Habánik, Rector of the Trenčín University of Alexander Dubček (SK)
Alexander Halvoník, literary critic and writer (SK)
Pavol Hammel, singer (SK)
Martin Hekrdla, journalist (CZ)
Jozef Heriban, writer and screenwriter (SK)
Ivan Hoffman, journalist, songwriter, protagonist of the Velvet Revolution (CZ)
Marek Hrubec, philosopher and social scientist (CZ)
Anton Hykisch, writer (SK)
Eduard Chmelár, historian, Rector of the Media Academy (SK)
Juraj Jakubisko, film director (SK)
Peter Jaroš, writer (SK)
Jan Kavan, former Chair of the UN General Assembly and former Foreign Affairs Minister(CZ)
Norbert Kelecsényi, sculptor (SK)
Eva Kollárová, Director of the Institute of Russian-Slovak Cultural Studies of the Pedagogical Faculty of the Catholic University (SK)
Michal Kováč, former President of the Slovak Republic (SK)
Mária Kráľovičová, actress (SK)
Oskar Krejčí, political scientist, Vice-Rector of the Academy of International and Public Relations (CZ)
Rudolf Kropil, President of the Slovak Rectors´ Conference, Rector of the Technical University in Zvolen (SK)
Adriana Kučerová, opera singer (SK)
Peter Lipa, singer and composer (SK)
Jozef Lysý, political scientist (SK)
Albert Marenčin, writer and screenwriter (SK)
Jozef Migaš, diplomat, former Speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic (SK)
František Novosád, philosopher (SK)
Karol Polák, sports commentator (SK)
Michal Polák, economist and philosopher (SK)
Miro Procházka, film director (SK)
Lenka Procházková, writer, signatory of Charter 77 (CZ)
Miroslav Prokeš, environmentalist (CZ)
Milan Rašla, Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts (SK)
Gabriela Rothmayerová, writer and publicist (SK)
Silvia Ruppeldtová, translator and publicist (SK)
Ladislav Sabo, sculptor (SK)
Tatiana Sedová, philosopher (SK)
Brigita Schmögnerová, economist, former Minister of Finance (SK)
Rudolf Schuster, former President of the Slovak Republic (SK)
Vladimír Skalský, President of the World Association of Slovaks Living Abroad (CZ)
Karel Srp, Chair of the Jazz Section and former political prisoner (CZ)
Ján Stena, sociologist (SK)
František Škvrnda, security expert (SK)
Ivan Štampach, theologian and publicist (CZ)
Ilona Švihlíková, economist (CZ)
Braňo Tichý, civil activist (SK)
Viktor Timura, historian and writer (SK)
Božidara Turzonovová, actress (SK)
Petr Uhl, journalist, signatory of Charter 77 (CZ)
Terézia Ursínyová, musicologist (SK)
Ondrej Zimka, painter (SK)
Ondrej Zimka III., sculptor (SK)
Milka Zimková, actress and writer (SK)
Milina Zimková, painter (SK)
Petr Žantovský, university professor, media analyst (CZ)