Public Letter from Benjamin von Mendelssohn
Dear friends, colleagues, family members, acquaintances all over the world!
I am writing this letter to my whole personal address book because it is of the utmost concern to me. IT IS A PERSONAL AND A PUBLIC LETTER.
Nevertheless I deeply feel that we have a choice of the role we play in this process and we are at a very decisive point in this. The last week I spent in the Peace Village San Jose de Apartado in the Northwest of Colombia.
Surrounded by jungle, banana mono-cultures, para-military, police, military, guerrilla I was nevertheless embedded in a very heartful, courageous and determined - all around extraordinary - group of people. I was part of an International Peace Meeting around the 10-year-anniversary of the Peace Community San Jose. 10 years ago the people of San Jose took a very radical decision: Inspired and supported by Padre Javier Giraldo they proclaimed not to accept any violence or arms among themselves and in their village. They declared their neutrality in a country where the cruel reality of civil war over the past 50 years did not allow any neutrality. Clearly this decision endangered their lives. Convinced of the ethical rightness of this step they persisted in their decision nevertheless. Since then 168 men, women and children from this community have been massacred. Additionally this community constantly has to face defamation from all sides which again puts them into more severe danger.
As this is only one spot of human suffering among millions around the globe I will not go into full detail even though some of the personal stories - as much of despair as of hope - and stunning personal courage are very worthwhile taking to the heart. For half of the people reading this it might be very important to do so.
For that half that is part of the global minority who is well-fed and lives under so called safe conditions like me. It is through hearing the stories that the anonymous pain from the tv-news gets a face and haunts you in your safe world. It is the moment when we can not ignore any longer that we are part of one humanity. Our luxury is part of the very system that takes it severe blood toll in most other parts of the world.
Whoever wants to read their full story please do so at www.cdpsanjose.org. I only wanted to point out some rough data and want to go on connecting this inhumane situation through my stirred heart to a positive global vision and its realization. Sometimes the work simply is to stay faithful and joyful nevertheless. Sincere joy in full awareness of this global catastrophe is very radical peace work. And I trust: Where ever the compassion of the heart can be mended together with a realistic concept for this planet we are one step further on our way to a new human kind. A humanity with a global heart and natural commitment to take care of this earth, all its inhabitants and its natural resources.
We have to know though that the situation of San Jose is only a spotlight within a globalized system of violence and alienation.
We have to understand how much we are part of this system in our everyday life. Who can honestly say that he or she lives a non-violent life when we look at our thoughts, at our food, at our mobility, at our means of communication, at our way of earning money?
To face this in a healthy manner we have to be (or become) able to envision an alternative. A realistic alternative which is as globalized, as complex and as strategically thought-through as the current globalization of violence.
As many times over the last years I was travelling through Colombia together with Sabine Lichtenfels (www.sabine-Lichtenfels.de). And as on many occasions before I could see the power of Grace speaking and acting through her. In the end the mechanisms of fear, mistrust and aggression are the same all over the world and they can only be softened up and - by and by - substituted through recognition, trust and truth. Only thereafter deep reconciliation can take place. In many places I also witnessed how urgently the female voice is needed today in the political arena. Even if men speak the same words (which is very good) it is women that need to be heard much more. Women through which ALL human life comes to this earth.
Women who feel the very same pain when they lose their husband or child all over the world.
And again I say this voice must come together with a global strategy as described in the many writings of Tamera, the Peace Research Center in Portugal I am working with, and its founders Dieter Duhm and Sabine Lichtenfels. Please read "The society of war and its transformation" at http://www.dieter-duhm.de/english/html/0202.htm Of course after such a moving journey I think deeply about the next steps.
Some steps already gain clarity. Together with our cooperation partners, the Peace Research Village Association wants to realize the concept of the Global Campus. After this concept has been born on the Summer University in Tamera 2006 initiated by the Peace Research Village Association together with Srinivasan Soundara Rajan from The Barefoot College/India, Sami Awad from the Holy Land Trust/Bethlehem and Jurgen Kleinwachter from Sunvention/Germany and Co-workers of Tamera it has constantly be refined. Now we will have a first series of seminars outside of Tamera in October/November 2008 in San José, Colombia. We will invite some of our close cooperation partners:
Sepp Holzer for a Permaculture Project
Patch Adams for Medicine
Sabine Lichtenfels for Inner Peacework
Jurgen Kleinwachter for Solar Technology
Sami Awad for Non-violent Resistance A pre-course will take place September-November 2007 in the form of a second Grace Pilgrimage through the Middle East. Students from the different Campi from Colombia, Palestine, India and Portugal will participate. Please view www.tamera.org
Gaining global consciousness and solidifying it through a thorough education is crucial now.
Publicity through well-known teachers as above is real protection. Additionally we must not forget that mere INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE SAVES LIVES IN MANY AREAS OF THE WORLD as it does in San Jose. Now I want to conclude with a note on what I see as my task in all this.
As Pia Gyger says so sharply:
"Let us not deceive ourselves. As long as we do not make the same geistig and financial effort for learning peace as we make for learning war, peace will remain an illusion." I am coming from a very old money and art family as some of you know. And it is money that needs to flow into a new direction. Money is not the problem but it transports the problem, as it transports our need to possess and in many cases even our urge to profit regardless of the sometimes far-away-and-easy-to-ignore-effects on others.
I WANT TO MAKE CLEAR THAT I DO NOT MEAN THIS AS A MORAL APPEAL. MUCH MORE AS AN INVITATION TO UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM AND THINK OF WAYS TO CHANGE IT.
For the last few years I have been doing something like fundraising for causes and initiatives I believe in. But "fundraising" I feel and think is not the right path any longer.
In my level of fundraising it was always like small particles of a huge system asking other particles of the same system to share a little to lessen the terrible effects of the mutual system. Peace initiatives begging the society they want to change to help a little. I admit I am tired of this and I do not believe in this any more.
What I want to invest my energy into is building up a circle of people who have some significant financial means and think together about a realistic plan for a positive global transition.
Of course I bring along an idea and some experience but I do not want to try to sell this idea. I look for people who see the necessity to act and/or understand the logic of the plan.
(The plan is open for improvement of course but even more for committed people to act it out!!!)
As a start for this I put all the money I have available into a Foundation (Possibly “Mendelssohn Foundation for the implementation of Peace Research Villages“) which solely serves this purpose. This makes clear that none of the money donated is for private intentions.
This foundation will closely co-operate with the Foundation that Sabine Lichtenfels is in the process of founding but concentrate more on the implementation of concrete models.
Once again the plan in short:
As there are too many fires around the globe to extinguish them one by one we need a different method. Every dynamic non-linear system - as our world is one - has tipping points which - if they change - change all the parameters of the system.
Such a tipping point could be a fully (FULLY!!) non-violent living system. A global model of a World Peace Village. This would be a very futuristic model with very new technological systems, ecological systems and most of all very new social systems based on transparency, trust and truth. Like an acupuncture needle this model could (and very likely would) have an effect onto the whole world. The project would need very radical researchers in all its areas. For technology it would need to move into areas of thinking that have been largely forbidden and even punished over the last centuries. For ecology it would need to reconnect with creation in a fully respectful and sensual way which also has been forbidden and even punished over the last centuries. And for sociology it would need to tackle the very core of human structure which has been dishevelled and obscured over the past centuries.
It would unite specialists from all over the world - not in order to melt together all cultures and religions into one soup - but to take the best from all and put it onto a universally human base.
Coming back to my task in it: It would use the financial power of a small group of people to develop and install a first prototype of this anywhere in the world.
Just imagine for a second how much in our lives would shift if we would know that this is possible.
About the theoretical background of these thoughts you can best read in Dieter Duhm “Future without War” and Sabine Lichtenfels “Pilgrimage for a Future without War”. Both books are available at Amazon from May on.
Thank you for reading all the way to this point.
As this is the most mixed group I ever addressed I hope that it will inspire some for further thoughts and even move some into further actions.
For the people who have no idea what I am talking about please consider this a healthcare measure for myself.
The whole world is in rapid transformation. Evolution will move on - with or without human kind. Sometimes this feels healthy to consider.
Nevertheless I deeply feel that we have a choice of the role we play in this process and we are at a very decisive point in this. The last week I spent in the Peace Village San Jose de Apartado in the Northwest of Colombia.
Surrounded by jungle, banana mono-cultures, para-military, police, military, guerrilla I was nevertheless embedded in a very heartful, courageous and determined - all around extraordinary - group of people. I was part of an International Peace Meeting around the 10-year-anniversary of the Peace Community San Jose. 10 years ago the people of San Jose took a very radical decision: Inspired and supported by Padre Javier Giraldo they proclaimed not to accept any violence or arms among themselves and in their village. They declared their neutrality in a country where the cruel reality of civil war over the past 50 years did not allow any neutrality. Clearly this decision endangered their lives. Convinced of the ethical rightness of this step they persisted in their decision nevertheless. Since then 168 men, women and children from this community have been massacred. Additionally this community constantly has to face defamation from all sides which again puts them into more severe danger.
As this is only one spot of human suffering among millions around the globe I will not go into full detail even though some of the personal stories - as much of despair as of hope - and stunning personal courage are very worthwhile taking to the heart. For half of the people reading this it might be very important to do so.
For that half that is part of the global minority who is well-fed and lives under so called safe conditions like me. It is through hearing the stories that the anonymous pain from the tv-news gets a face and haunts you in your safe world. It is the moment when we can not ignore any longer that we are part of one humanity. Our luxury is part of the very system that takes it severe blood toll in most other parts of the world.
Whoever wants to read their full story please do so at www.cdpsanjose.org. I only wanted to point out some rough data and want to go on connecting this inhumane situation through my stirred heart to a positive global vision and its realization. Sometimes the work simply is to stay faithful and joyful nevertheless. Sincere joy in full awareness of this global catastrophe is very radical peace work. And I trust: Where ever the compassion of the heart can be mended together with a realistic concept for this planet we are one step further on our way to a new human kind. A humanity with a global heart and natural commitment to take care of this earth, all its inhabitants and its natural resources.
We have to know though that the situation of San Jose is only a spotlight within a globalized system of violence and alienation.
We have to understand how much we are part of this system in our everyday life. Who can honestly say that he or she lives a non-violent life when we look at our thoughts, at our food, at our mobility, at our means of communication, at our way of earning money?
To face this in a healthy manner we have to be (or become) able to envision an alternative. A realistic alternative which is as globalized, as complex and as strategically thought-through as the current globalization of violence.
As many times over the last years I was travelling through Colombia together with Sabine Lichtenfels (www.sabine-Lichtenfels.de). And as on many occasions before I could see the power of Grace speaking and acting through her. In the end the mechanisms of fear, mistrust and aggression are the same all over the world and they can only be softened up and - by and by - substituted through recognition, trust and truth. Only thereafter deep reconciliation can take place. In many places I also witnessed how urgently the female voice is needed today in the political arena. Even if men speak the same words (which is very good) it is women that need to be heard much more. Women through which ALL human life comes to this earth.
Women who feel the very same pain when they lose their husband or child all over the world.
And again I say this voice must come together with a global strategy as described in the many writings of Tamera, the Peace Research Center in Portugal I am working with, and its founders Dieter Duhm and Sabine Lichtenfels. Please read "The society of war and its transformation" at http://www.dieter-duhm.de/english/html/0202.htm Of course after such a moving journey I think deeply about the next steps.
Some steps already gain clarity. Together with our cooperation partners, the Peace Research Village Association wants to realize the concept of the Global Campus. After this concept has been born on the Summer University in Tamera 2006 initiated by the Peace Research Village Association together with Srinivasan Soundara Rajan from The Barefoot College/India, Sami Awad from the Holy Land Trust/Bethlehem and Jurgen Kleinwachter from Sunvention/Germany and Co-workers of Tamera it has constantly be refined. Now we will have a first series of seminars outside of Tamera in October/November 2008 in San José, Colombia. We will invite some of our close cooperation partners:
Sepp Holzer for a Permaculture Project
Patch Adams for Medicine
Sabine Lichtenfels for Inner Peacework
Jurgen Kleinwachter for Solar Technology
Sami Awad for Non-violent Resistance A pre-course will take place September-November 2007 in the form of a second Grace Pilgrimage through the Middle East. Students from the different Campi from Colombia, Palestine, India and Portugal will participate. Please view www.tamera.org
Gaining global consciousness and solidifying it through a thorough education is crucial now.
Publicity through well-known teachers as above is real protection. Additionally we must not forget that mere INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE SAVES LIVES IN MANY AREAS OF THE WORLD as it does in San Jose. Now I want to conclude with a note on what I see as my task in all this.
As Pia Gyger says so sharply:
"Let us not deceive ourselves. As long as we do not make the same geistig and financial effort for learning peace as we make for learning war, peace will remain an illusion." I am coming from a very old money and art family as some of you know. And it is money that needs to flow into a new direction. Money is not the problem but it transports the problem, as it transports our need to possess and in many cases even our urge to profit regardless of the sometimes far-away-and-easy-to-ignore-effects on others.
I WANT TO MAKE CLEAR THAT I DO NOT MEAN THIS AS A MORAL APPEAL. MUCH MORE AS AN INVITATION TO UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM AND THINK OF WAYS TO CHANGE IT.
For the last few years I have been doing something like fundraising for causes and initiatives I believe in. But "fundraising" I feel and think is not the right path any longer.
In my level of fundraising it was always like small particles of a huge system asking other particles of the same system to share a little to lessen the terrible effects of the mutual system. Peace initiatives begging the society they want to change to help a little. I admit I am tired of this and I do not believe in this any more.
What I want to invest my energy into is building up a circle of people who have some significant financial means and think together about a realistic plan for a positive global transition.
Of course I bring along an idea and some experience but I do not want to try to sell this idea. I look for people who see the necessity to act and/or understand the logic of the plan.
(The plan is open for improvement of course but even more for committed people to act it out!!!)
As a start for this I put all the money I have available into a Foundation (Possibly “Mendelssohn Foundation for the implementation of Peace Research Villages“) which solely serves this purpose. This makes clear that none of the money donated is for private intentions.
This foundation will closely co-operate with the Foundation that Sabine Lichtenfels is in the process of founding but concentrate more on the implementation of concrete models.
Once again the plan in short:
As there are too many fires around the globe to extinguish them one by one we need a different method. Every dynamic non-linear system - as our world is one - has tipping points which - if they change - change all the parameters of the system.
Such a tipping point could be a fully (FULLY!!) non-violent living system. A global model of a World Peace Village. This would be a very futuristic model with very new technological systems, ecological systems and most of all very new social systems based on transparency, trust and truth. Like an acupuncture needle this model could (and very likely would) have an effect onto the whole world. The project would need very radical researchers in all its areas. For technology it would need to move into areas of thinking that have been largely forbidden and even punished over the last centuries. For ecology it would need to reconnect with creation in a fully respectful and sensual way which also has been forbidden and even punished over the last centuries. And for sociology it would need to tackle the very core of human structure which has been dishevelled and obscured over the past centuries.
It would unite specialists from all over the world - not in order to melt together all cultures and religions into one soup - but to take the best from all and put it onto a universally human base.
Coming back to my task in it: It would use the financial power of a small group of people to develop and install a first prototype of this anywhere in the world.
Just imagine for a second how much in our lives would shift if we would know that this is possible.
About the theoretical background of these thoughts you can best read in Dieter Duhm “Future without War” and Sabine Lichtenfels “Pilgrimage for a Future without War”. Both books are available at Amazon from May on.
Thank you for reading all the way to this point.
As this is the most mixed group I ever addressed I hope that it will inspire some for further thoughts and even move some into further actions.
For the people who have no idea what I am talking about please consider this a healthcare measure for myself.
In the name of global transformation - Viva la Revolution Benjamin von Mendelssohn