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HUMAN UNION FACTSHEET CONTENTS 1. What is a Human Union? 2. How will a Human Union start? 3. Why support it? 4. Why the UN hasn’t done the job. 5. Some objections to starting a Human Union shown to be incorrect. 6. What you can do to support the Human Union 1. What is the Human Union idea: Human Union is the name for a new political project designed to take us beyond the existing system of nation states and reduce global poverty, war and injustice. It means an organically growing international association of states which observe common values, e.g. democracy, human rights and environmental protection. It need not observe these values in absolutely the same manner in every member state but there must be an effective commitment to them. The commitment to some minimum set of common political standards distinguishes the concept of a Human Union from the United Nations which does not require any common political standards or values of its members. To visualise this think of the European Union but for humans rather than just Europeans, and recall how the EU started gradually with far fewer members and far fewer common standards and values than today. A Human Union will start slowly and gradually evolve as it adds on new members and agreed standards. It can begin from as few as one Country (or the EU) issuing a Human Union Declaration; a declaration that it is willing to start negotiating minimal common terms with any other country that wishes to join it in a Human Union. Key points of Human Union definition: • Common standards • Optional membership • Organic development • Starts with a Human Union Declaration 2. How will a Human Union start? There is no way of knowing with certainty how it will start. The most likely beginning will be gradually as with the EU. That is why we are proposing a Human Union Declaration as a way to start the ball rolling rather than offering a highly detailed plan. 3. Why support starting a Human Union • Our human identity is more important than our national or religious identity. The next step in human history is to start building human political justice and commence a move away from the age of nationalism: As long as we believe that we share a common humanity and that the only acceptable form of political justice is one that does not discriminate between human beings we will need to develop a “human” political system; one which does not discriminate against people based on their national citizenship. To guarantee basic human dignity to all humans does not require a world government but does require some attempt to develop a political consciousness and community that goes beyond national borders. That is what the Human Union will be. If we continue to treat justice as something to be achieved within national borders we will never see an end to issues such as people attempting to flee their Country only to be told by their fellow human beings that they may not enter as they do not hold the correct national citizenship. Building a Human Union is not an idealistic addition to a satisfactory world but a necessary next step in a world where improvement is not only possible but necessary if we are to respect human dignity. • The current crisis of the world; both environment and economic, and many other problems can only be solved through a genuinely trans human political system: Many say economic issues (as in world poverty) or environmental issues are more important than building a human political community. Yet the lack of a human political community is the very thing that is making concerted action on these issues impossible. The process of building a Human Union will also be the process of developing a political community that will enable us to deal with these issues as humans rather than competing national tribes. • Demonstration and incentive effect: One of the greatest achievements of the European Union has been its incentive on reform in other countries. With the incentive of EU membership available reform leaders in non EU member countries have been able to agitate for basic democratic and human rights reforms on the grounds that “these will get us into the EU”. This incentive effect in Eastern Europe has been colossal. Why not make it possible for reform leaders in any country in the world to be able to say: Achieve this level and we can join the Human Union; we can be welcomed into the human political community. At the moment they can only say: Achieve this level and we may be treated well by other countries if it suits their national interest. Let us start to build a political system which can welcome our fellow humans in building a community rather than dividing us by focusing on competing national interests. • Achievable compared to either sudden change or no change: Building a Human Union incrementally may seem too slow. Why not call for all the nations of the world to form a Human Union now? History shows that attempts at instant reform involving all countries have required so many compromises to ensure participation that they do not work. As long as there is such a low probability of forming an effective organisation in a once off grand gesture it makes sense to try the gradual path. The EU has achieved much by a gradual approach. A hundred years of seeking instant transformation will only realise a hundred years of no progress. • Avoid the next war and stop the ongoing civil war of humanity: The system of sovereign nation states is guaranteed to produce warfare as it offers no way to achieve security other than to be ready to go to war against other nation states. That is why the endless military successes and supremacy of the US and British have never bought them security. Victory in each war only means they must prepare for the next. Only the building of a human political community can reduce the likelihood of war. The EU has now reached a point where the probability of war amongst its long term members, including historical adversaries, is extremely low. It will be the same with the Human Union. Just as it will offer an incentive to political progress by offering a community to join, starting to build it is the only effective method of starting to reduce the incidence of warfare. If you oppose warfare you need to encourage the government of your country to make a Human Union Declaration. Every war is really a civil war of humanity. It is time to stop the human civil war by starting to build a political system that respects humans; a Human Union. 4. Why the UN cannot perform this task and a new organisation (which can run in parallel with the UN) is needed: • The UN is based on national sovereignty: There are no requirements for UN member to change internal policies to conform to human rights standards. The worse dictatorship and the most benign social democracy can equally be members in good standing; for instance Burma and Sweden. The constitutive principles of the UN guarantee that, by its basic principle and very structure, it cannot promote common standards. An organisation like the Human Union requires common standards of its members as a condition of membership. For instance Poland had to make progress to democracy to join the EU. The UN is not designed to take us forward from the age of nationalism but to embody its values. • Reform of the UN is too difficult (the sudden and comprehensive change argument): A Human Union can achieve its goals because it can build up to them steadily, adding on members and agreed standards as it progresses. The UN is based on the idea that all countries should be members. The Human Union can build up towards global democracy by, for instance, only accepting members who are democracies and steadily taking the world in that direction. The UN’s unrestricted membership means it appears a hypocritical organisation which does not support democracy. . If the UN were to require its members to be democracies it would have to expel many countries. To reform the UN would require dismantling its very nature. The Human Union will steadily work its way there (as the EU has) to eventually include most of the world as members who respect human rights and democracy. 5. Some Objections to the Human Union shown to be incorrect • People will never love each other: Forming a Human Union does not require people to love each other. Australians accept they are members of the same political community even though they do not love each other. In fact many Australians have hatred and contempt for each other and some Australians are murderers who kill their fellow Australians. But this has not stopped the Australian political community working. It will not stop a Human Union working either. The Australian political community works because most of us believe we all share an Australian identity. A Human Union will work when people acknowledge we all share a common human identity. • People will not want to abandon their separate identity Joining the Human Union will no more require the French to abandon their French identity than joining the European Union did. Joining the Human Union will no more require Victorians to lose their Victorian identity than joining the Australian Federation did. Joining the Human Union does not mean abandoning other social identities, it means acknowledging your human identity as well. At the moment our human identity is the one identity which has no political expression in our world of national, religious, ethnic and tribal political systems. • It’s a great idea but not now, wait until the world is ready in the future: This is what was said to people who wanted to abolish slavery, support equal rights for women and homosexuals, and oppose racism. Every attempt throughout history to extend fairness to our fellow human beings has been met with “wait until the world is ready”. The right time to acknowledge the equal dignity of our fellow human beings is now. The world is ready for us to start now. • Justice begins at home It may, but it does not end there. Justice which stops at national borders is not human justice. As long as there are borders to justice, there will not be justice but a world where humans are told “we don’t care about you because you were born in the wrong place”. Such a world is not a world of basic political justice but injustice. Justice in one country is not justice. • The EU is a terrible failure anyhow: It is true that the EU has developed many bureaucratic and cumbersome features. But remember that in the fifty years prior to the EU, countries who are now long term members, such as Britain, France and Germany, managed two world wars, causing the violent deaths of more than a million human beings and economic displacement and suffering to millions. They also produced at least one major attempt at genocide. Compared to what went before it the EU is the greatest achievement in the history of human politics. Centuries of warfare and conflict have stopped. Just because something is not perfect does not mean it is not preferable to the available alternative. The Human Union can learn from mistakes made in developing the EU. In any event, the comparison is not between the Human Union and a perfect world. The comparison is between the Human Union and today’s world where thousands of people are still at risk of violent death in warfare, where millions still risk death by starvation, where millions still are denied basic human rights and where obesity is the major health problem in some wealthy countries while it is malnutrition in others. It is always possible to point out the imperfections in reform proposal, but it is always a mistake to go from that to assuming the choice is between the reform and perfection. • The whole idea is impossible This is what is said to every new idea. The mere fact that something has not happened yet does not mean it cannot happen. • Justice requires the world to be divided into competing states Justice may well require the acknowledgement of people’s different national, ethnic, and religious identities. But it does not require giving them priority over our human identity. • Everything is fine now; we don’t need it: The problems of warfare, poverty and environmental degradation that wrack many parts of the world now hardly seem fine. History shows that every attempt to make progress in such areas will at some point be undermined by national religious or ethnic competition. The many crises of the world today often appear as minor issues to people living in a comfortable developed country. The problems of our fellow humans do not directly impinge on our comfort. But their suffering will eventually affect us. Take the problems of illegal immigration into developed countries. It can be solved by building endless barriers against our fellow humans until they mount a direct attack, or it can be solved by steadily developing something like the Human Union within which there would be freedom of movement. 6. What you can do to support the building of a Human Union: The very first step is for some Country somewhere to make a Human Union Declaration, a Declaration that it is willing to negotiate with others to form a Human Union. You can help by encouraging your government to do this. |
Human Union Movement: Human Union Defined |
| Bringing an end to the civil war of humanity ... Putting human identity before national or religious identity |