かつてないほど母なる地球の崩壊が加速しています。
人間の争いが、大規模な戦争を誘発し、人間の生活が地球
環境を壊し、美しい惑星である地球は その輝きを失いつつあります。
未来の主役である青少年達の瞳も、輝きを、失いつつあります。
今や、地球的規模での問題解決に取り組むことは急務の課題で
ありますが、各国政府はその山積する諸問題の解決を国連に依存し、
国益に適わなければ国連に背を向けています。
アナン事務総長に「国連は死んだ！」と嘆息せしめるほど、
国連の組織までもが崩壊する危機に陥っています。
わたくしたちは、これまで多くの市民 ＮＧＯ ＮＰＯと協働し、
美しい地球、麗しい社会、子供達に夢を取り戻すために活動して参りました。
この活動の実績を共有し、「市民国連」として、グローバルな視野から
共同の活動方針を打ち出し、地球市民の一人、あるはグループとして、
この問題の解決に向けて積極的に取り組んで行くことを、ここに宣言するものであります。
平成17年11月３日（文化の日）
第1回市民国連創出フォーラム一同
Our Mother Nature is aching from ever-growing damages at
an accelerated pace. Frictions among peoples are threatening
recurrence of major conflicts.
Human excessive and arrogant lifestyles are causing unstoppable destruction
upon our precious environment. Thus, once-beautiful planet Earth is rapidly
losing its glitter and glory. So are the eyes of our young generation, the future's hope.
To tackle these and many other issues of global magnitude has become
the most pressing challenge of our time. Many governments, however,
either tend to shift their responsibility to the United Nations or,
if UN policies are not conducive to national interests, they simply turn
their back to the world institution.
As for the UN, it is no secret that its 60-year-old systems are undergoing
serious crises of disintegration or malfunction. So much so that Mr. Kofi Annan,
UN Secretary General, lately lamented in public, saying "the UN is dead!”
With a view to restoring the creation's magnificence and grace to the Earth,
to our human community, and children in particular, we, representatives
of
diverse NGOs and NPOs, have been engaged in various volunteer activities.
Today, on behalf of civil societies and individuals of the willing, attending the
first assembly of the Citizens' UN Initiative, we declare the official
launch of
the initiative.
We therefore call upon civil societies and individuals the world over
to join this initiative and to render their contributions in devising
common action plans.
November 3rd 2005 (Culture Day in Japan)
Participants of the First Forum of the Global Citizens' Initiative
Humankind is a part of global life.
Humankind is allowed by the universe and the globe to live, and is an entity sustainable only in the equilibrium of the global ecosystem.
In other words, humankind cannot live without the blessings of global life.
The lives of human beings allowed to exist are precious, not because these lives are perfect, but because human beings can embrace the idea of perfectibility.
Human lives are precious because there are no limits to the fineness of human sensitivities. We are capable of responding to the good, the true, and the beautiful. We have the capacity to love and to respond to love.
The entities most wondrous, most precious and most distinguished in the universe are the life of the universe itself, and the lives of human beings as microcosms.
In the world, there is no value that surpasses the dignity of life. Therefore, the values of life have priority over those of everything else. Other values are valid as far as they are related to life.
Valuing the dignity of life less than other things inevitably leads to repressing humanity.
Humankind is capable of realizing a world in which peace and cultures enjoy symphonic prosperity, beyond races and nationalities, if humans can break through the cultural and social limitations and recognize virtues inherent in every human life.
Reverence for life is more than solicitude or sensitivity for life. It is a sense of the whole, a capacity for inspired response, and a respect for the intricate universe of individual life. It is the supreme awareness of awareness itself.
We, holding reverence for life as the prime point, pledge to cooperate with people and make our utmost efforts to realize human ideals and build a global civilization of tolerance and symbiosis.
Love is to give of oneself to others. It is accompanied by unconscious self-sacrifice
more often than not. Such is the basic prototype of love. One good example
can be found in motherly love for children.
To love is to respect others and understand them, and nurture mutual compassion, and value oneself properly. Indeed, love is a powerful force for the unity of human beings. It is the very basis for human reconciliation without exception. It is the thread of guidance.
Love is also the essential nature of society, of every community. By recognizing differences, human beings know each other as unique and irreplaceable entities. And by developing altruism dormant in oneself, one actualizes the truth nature of humanity—the nature that respects others as well as oneself.
Our joy of life results from fulfilling a nobler and more ardent sense of obligation of our own, that is, to love, and thus becoming a person helpful to others. In order to do so, one must play one’s own part faithfully.
We enlarge the circle of mutual trust, and make efforts to create a new bond of human love.
Human brotherhood and sisterhood should be the central of every individual’s ideas. By accepting the fundamental principle that all the human beings are brothers and sisters, human beings can have a world for humanity, a world of awareness and conscience, and a world of order for love.
The world of humanity, with different ethnical individualities, cultures, customs and histories, can be likened to a many-stranded texture with color and depth.
The heritage of every ethnic group is the treasure of humankind. Through cultural exchanges, humanity as a whole is given unique richness, and perceives human unity. When each individual is awakened to universal brotherhood and sisterhood, this consciousness of the unity of human beings tied by the wondrous thread of life makes possible reverence for life that has produced the diversity of ethnic cultures.
We believe that accepting diversity is the path to the solution of every other problem, and that the idea of harmony is the very pivot on which the times turn for the better.
We, awakened to the nature of life all the humanity has in common, strive to remove mental walls for the happiness of human society and for the harmony of humans with other humans, with nature, and with the universe.
T
The present combined pollution of the earth is said to threaten the survival of human beings. In fact, the critical lines of the ecosystem have been broken through in many areas by the industrial wastes that contemporary civilization emit in the process of mass production, and by the wholesale invasion of the chemicals of thousands of kinds that are unceasingly produced.
The main four of the biological systems that sustain human life are arable land, livestock, forests and oceans, but these have been arguably overdeveloped. The problems confronting humanity as a whole are not only of political, economic and diplomatic nature, but of universal nature. They range from nations and industries to military scales to each individual’s consumptive life to relations with the universe. All of these are deeply interrelated.
Exploited both by the poor majority of people who need to consume the resources for survival and by the rich minority who consume them for insatiable greed, the earth is ceaselessly deteriorating.
Now is high time to become aware of the responsibility of the present generation of humanity for the entire future life, to vanquish greed and immediately take action to change the current course for the better.
By utilizing innovative technology, we aim at wholesome, harmonious and sustainable development, toward the creation of a global system of symbiosis.
The last resources humanity can rely upon are supreme capabilities inherent in the lives of human beings. The only way out of the blind alley in which the present world finds itself is to utilize these intrinsic capabilities.
The role of education for this purpose is of immeasurable importance. It is said that every project begins with education. That is because education helps one understand the meaning and objectives of life, and because it is the beacon of wisdom that helps one find the right way of living. There can be no better course than this in advancing from the present to the future.
Good education helps one move out beyond the narrow confines of the ego and follow the mainstream of humanity with sympathy and joy and join in human activities with compassion and fraternity.
Human capabilities to feel, to learn and think, to dream, to love and to act are invariably educed by educators who are full of humanity and inspiring passion. The roles of educators who plant seeds of great hope in the hearts of youth and inspire them are more important today than any other time in the past.
We devote our utmost powers to promoting and facilitating education as pure resources in order to build a better future of humankind.
The happiness and wealth that humankind enjoys must be wholesome and ethical in terms of ecology. In the present world, emphasis has been placed on economic values and on the rights and interests of corporations and nations, while the limited resources of the earth have been increasingly exploited for their own purposes. As a natural consequence, social and international harmony has been destroyed while industrial and international conflicts have been incessantly repeated.
And now, the world is in the midst of moral degeneration, trapped in the spiral of multiple and serious crises of economy, with no prospect of seeing the exit yet.
As the fellow members of human society, we must begin to replace contradictory relations with harmonious relations; conflicting relations with coexisting relations; mutually exclusive and negating relations with inclusive and complementary relations; and emotional conflicts with sentiments of mutual respect. And under any circumstances, we are committed to the cause of world peace, embracing humankind’s eternal wish for a world without warfare.
We create new, better causes in all the phases of causal relationships and interactions, and thereby transform bad causal relationships toward better consequences, which is to say, toward truly desirable, harmonious integration. We have the courage and responsibility to act, accumulating such consequences one by one.
Building a better future is the most important and difficult task among all the human endeavors for creation. It is the most important because it is a task of vital importance—a matter of life or death to humanity.
We project the condition and tendency of the present set of global problems on a vision of the future, and thereby make clear the points at issue, with a view to reversing that condition and tendency and solving the problematical points as soon as possible. Needless to say, ultimately we must create a global system of symbiosis.
No better future would be possible to humankind unless an innovative frontier science and high technology shape the future along a clear and unclouded vision.
Our most urgent task is to bring together creative inventors, scientists, philosophers and artists into an organic whole, into global intelligence, so that we can realize global governance under a system that enables humankind to enjoy such excellent wisdom and technology.
We exert our greatest possible efforts to support talented inventors and able researchers including scientists and technologists, uphold their intellectual property rights, recognize their capabilities as resources all humanity can share, and help to build up a system of human interests that can be used justly and equally on a global scale.
Now is the time to redefine, from futuristic conception and a universal viewpoint, what humanity should truly be in conducting life for the earth and the future humankind.
We conceive of beauty, interest and goodness as the three basics of values. The value of beauty that gives inspiration and joy to humanity; the value of interest that means economic richness in symbiosis; and the value of goodness that renders the values of beauty and interest useful for the happiness of people through love and wisdom. By putting together these three basics of values through the symbiotic network of global citizens, we follow the wisdom of humanity and simulate an alternative, hopeful globe.
For this purpose, we call responsible global citizens together and seek to create new human relations based on the concepts of dignity, justice, freedom and solidarity.
We hold mutual trust as our first principle based on of mutual respect and the spirit of reciprocity, and constantly exchange information and knowledge, and spread our ties of mission in order to create values for all humanity.
We judge whether a human’s act is just by how much it proves to help the earth and humanity.
Global citizenship is the cradle of global consciousness. Only when each and every one of global citizens seeks to take a great leap forward, with an awareness of new conditions imposed on humanity, and with a stronger sense of responsibility and an awareness of his or her duty does he or she become the driving force for changing the course of society.
We cooperate with each other in integrating various communities and organizations into a network of global citizens, which we support. And we, in the fields of culture, society and economics, deal on our own initiative with problems of creation, production, consumption, safety, social security, education, and life. Thus we do not neglect our responsibilities in groups and communities we belong to in each field, and we unsparingly play our parts as global citizens.
We act together in accordance with our conscience and convictions, because nothing is so potent as individuals who help the conscience of groups to revive, and because convictions are potent when they are shared. Only when the two concepts of responsibility and solidarity are combined together does the extremely difficult coexistence of freedom of development with safety becomes feasible.
In order to fulfill these commitments of ours mutually with as many persons and organizations as possible, we constitute the solidarity of group dynamics through the network of global citizens.
A human being is at once the source of every problem confronting humanity and the basis of every hope.
The goal and destiny peculiar to humans lie not outside but inside each individual. Ignorance, fear, greed and spiritual hunger exist in the mind of an individual.
In the past, dissatisfaction became an impelling force, which could be a great factor for development and success in economics, but it has not necessarily proved conducive to the happiness of humanity. Amplified prejudice, discrimination, repression, suppression and violence have divided people among the nations, the races, the religions, and the tribes. The cases of the unhappiness of humanity are too numerous to mention. However, the revolutionizing power that enables humanity to overcome unhappiness lies in the supreme capability immanent in the life of each individual.
This great human potential can be activated by the will to serve others and contribute something to the happiness of all humanity.
The law of the universe comprehends the great life-generating power, and indicates the way for humanity to follow, suggesting that there is the road to a truly desirable revolution.
As the sun rises and gives off light, we as global citizens, declare that we ignite the flame of love in the hearts of people, and open a new horizon of hope for humanity.
The Earth, you are a life born of the Sun.
We, global citizens, are children born of you.
Nurtured in the vessel of treasures shining with
the seven shades of your color, we live
as members of the Universe.
We, global citizens, have
ears to listen to the pulse of the Gaea,
hearts to feel your beautiful nature, and
arts that well up from the source of love.
As mindful global citizens, with arts as the soul
of human history, we establish the bond of all lives,
a bond that evokes universal sympathy.
We ardently aspire to create a new way
that nurtures global life with loving care.
―Sonnet by Hiroshi Isshiki
地球(Earth)よ
あなたは太陽から生れた命
われら地球市民はあなたから生れた子
あなたの七彩に輝く宝器にはぐくまれて
万物の一員としてわれら生きる
われら地球市民は
ガイアの鼓動を聴く耳(Ear)がある
その美質を感じとる心(Heart)がある
愛の源泉より出づる芸術( Art)がある
われらは心ある地球市民として
人類史の魂たる技芸を活かし
万物の共感を呼ぶ 生命の紐帯を結ぶのだ
われらは熱願する
生あるものを慈しむ 新しき道を創出することを
すべての存在は、「相対的」に密接に繋がっています。
地球と自然と人間との濃密にして巧みな関連の上に成り立っています。
市民国連のシンボルは、この世界の“関連の網の目”に組み込まれて
いる姿を人類同胞の連帯の輪によって現したものです。
また地球的問題群を解決するために、人類に果たせられた責任と使命を
自覚したグローバルマインドを持った人々を象徴しています。
人類の異なる民族のもつ独自性・文化・風習・歴史のさまざまな糸を織り
合わせた、多彩で厚みのある織物は、生命共同体の調和の美しさが織り成しています。
人類の社会の幸福のために「調和の思想」こそが、時代転換の基軸であり、
目覚めた良心ある地球市民による各種の協同体と組織の相互交流の、
市民のネットワークをシンボルは暗示しています。
人々のために、人々とともに、人々を愛し、信頼の輪を広げ、
新しい人類愛の絆をつくっていく「市民国連」をシンボルしたものです。
一色 宏