Let me first express my gratitude for this opportunity to participate in this Seminar on "Peace for All Ages" organized by the Institute for Development Education. I am especially grateful to my long-time friend, Dr. Ram Singh, the Director of this institute. I came especially because I wanted to pay tribute to the memory of the distinguished founder of this institute Dr. Chandran Devanesen, a great son of India, and a dear friend of mine since 1954.
I have just come back from the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver, Canada, where the issue of peace was at the centre of the Agenda. I want to share with you first some of the insights that emerged in our discussions at Vancouver.
First, we must make a distinction between the immediate need to rescue the world from nuclear catastrophe, and the long term need to build a world without arms. The people of the Two-Thirds World are not very keen, as yet, on the long term issues of disarmament and peace for understandable reasons. For us justice is a higher priority than peace, though we recognize the two to be inseparable. We would develop slogans like "Peace without justice will still be hell for the oppressed". For example, the Blacks of South Africa or Namibia would not want to have peace in the world, if such a peace would leave the South African white majority domination intact. We of the Two-Third World have had to disrupt the imperial peace of colonial regimes, in order to emancipate ourselves from the yoke of the foreigner. This is an important difference between the peace concern of many people in Western Europe and America, and the peace concern of people in the oppressed Two-Third of the World. For them peace means not having nuclear missiles stationed on their soil, or closing down the armaments factories, leaving the present west European-American hegemony over the world intact. For some in East European countries, the motivation for peace and disarmament may be that if they reduce the burden of military expenditure they can invest more in consumer goods and improve their standards of living. For us however, until the demand for justice and peace is integrated, our interest in the issue of peace will be limited. We should change our very vocabulary and speak of a Justice and Peace Movement rather than a Peace Movement.
This does not mean, however, that we of the Two-third world can be indifferent to the need to avoid a nuclear catastrophe in the immediate future. No nuclear war can be held within limits. But even a limited nuclear war, on which some seem to be intent now, will not leave the Two-Third World unaffected. Most likely such a war, God forbid, will be fought in some place in the Two-Third World - not in European and American soil. Besides, even a limited nuclear war will have wind-carried fall-out, radiation and often hazards for all parts of the world. Whether the nuclear war breaks out in the Middle East, in Central America or in Southern Africa, the rest of the world will not be free from its effects. Besides, it is clear that the alleged purpose of a limited nuclear war is to frighten the world into submission to superior technological might. We want to be freed from hegemonism and oppression, whether national or international. We do not want to sell our freedom and submit to domination and exploitation.
So while on the long-term questions of peace and disarmament: We of the two-third world will have to concentrate on an integration between the call for justice and the need for peace, in order to have a single movement for justice and peace. We cannot afford the luxury of saying that the immediate problem of avoiding a nuclear catastrophe is of exclusive interest to the two parts of the other one-third world. Avoiding nuclear catastrophe is a central issue of immediate concern to all human beings. And we of the two-Third World must not make the mistake of regarding that as a purely western problem.
The second insight that emerged at Vancouver was about the moral basis of nuclear deterrence. The Pope and the Roman Catholic Church authorities in general, but by no means universally, hold the view that under present conditions peace by mutual terrifying, or Nuclear Deterrence can be justified, though we must move on to disarmament. This view of Pope John Paul II, for whom, like for the Reagan Administration in the U.S.A., a Soviet nuclear power backed military aggression seems an immediate threat, and the proper response is to terrify the Soviet by the threat of either a pre-emptive first strike or massive retaliation. So Deterrence can be justified so long as the Soviet threat exists. This kind of moral reasoning is based on the Roman Catholic Church's long—standing "Just War" theory.
The W.C.C.'s point of view is different. The W.C.C. Agrees with the U.N. that the use of nuclear weapons would be a crime against humanity. It then goes on to argue that if the use of nuclear weapons is a crime, the intention to use them should also be condemned. Now Nuclear Deterrence works only when the opposite believes that this side may use nuclear weapons, that it has an intention to use nuclear weapons under certain conditions. Since such intention is seen to be morally unacceptable, many Christians all over the world believe; the theory of nuclear deterrence, based on the credible intention to use nuclear weapons, should also be condemned. Such condemnation may not be politically realistic. But there are times when Christians and others should appeal to the moral conscience of humanity, in order that humanity may be galvanized into action for eliminating the crime of using or intending to use nuclear weapons. Once the enormity of the crime is recognized, there will be an incentive to put out an extra effort to make that crime not pay.
The general trend of thought at Vancouver was to lead the way to a delegitimisation as nuclear weapons by international treaty, as has been done in the case of bacteriological and chemical weapons. Such delegitimising action would have consequences for all nuclear and potentially nuclear nations USSR, UAS, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, and certainly the Federal Republic of Germany which has fully developed that potential.
A third insight that has emerged at Vancouver was about the indivisibility of security. Every nation has a legitimate right to ensure its security against outside aggression, but the security of one nation can never be at the expense of making another nation insecure. No nation can seek its security by pursuing military superiority for this would lead to an arms race which endangers the security of all.
We discussed the term Common Security as a replacement of the outmoded concept of national security: my own inclination is to reject the term common security: for it could in some cases mean the common security of just two nations, say the USA and the USSR, who by a mutual pact can ensure their security as two nations while endangering that of others. The other possible terms are international security and global security. Two-third World people were not eagerly wedded to any of these concepts. They said however any concept of global security should include the concept of people's security in each nation. Global security cannot be achieved by a pact between dictatorial regimes which make dissenters within their own nations insecure. Global security has to be built on the basis of a New World Economic Order which ensures justice among nations as well as between nations.
But how will we develop an alternate security system, which can control and punish aggressor nations. In the present world, such a global security system must have more power at its disposal than the mightiest of the Superpowers, who will control such a global security system and who will finance it. The simple answer is the community of all nations must control the global security system and it should be financed by taxation of nations and by voluntary contributions. But the lion's share of the burden will fall on USA, USSR, Japan, and Western Europe. The role of the Non-Aligned movement is to press for these industrially advanced countries as well as other nations, substantially reducing their military weapons and personnel and contributing directly to a democratically controlled global security system which does not infringe on people‘s rights.
This in turn requires a tremendous effort, with rich imagination and strong political will. Here is the point at which the Nonaligned Movement can lead in the work for peace. The nuclear nations generally follow the Prime Minister of Britain who uses the nonexistence of an alternate security system as justification for continuing to depend on deterrence and the arms race. It seems clear that the political decision-making process in many nations is heavily influenced by the interests of those who profit from the arms race, the arms trade, and the 140 local wars that have broken out since the Second World War ended. It is for the nonaligned Movement to devise, project, and use pressure to get the implementation of a democratically controlled global security system, without which there can be arms reduction but no general and complete disarmament.
Let me thus come to the conclusion of my paper. The approach to Peace for All Ages, for us in the Two-Third World has to be clearly and comprehensively laid out for the short term and for the long term.
For the long term it has to be a three-pronged approach:
a. Gradually building up an alternate Global Security System which depends not on the will of individual nations, but on the collective will of the global community of nations.
b. The determined transition to effective structures of a more just society, both nationally and internationally, a new world order, with justice in matters of culture, information, science and technology, and in all other realms of socioeconomic life.
c. The mutually negotiated, decisive, verifiable steps beginning with a cessation of manufacture of all nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and going into substantial reductions in arms, personnel and budget.
The leadership of the nonaligned movement is particularly important in this line of development. It has been our experience that people from the Two-Thirds world of the Non-Aligned Movement have developed a perception which combines these three elements.
I must make one or two cautionary words about the tremendous forces opposed to the disarmament effort. The most important single group is composed of arms manufacturers and arms traders. They have enormous funds at their disposal for systematic mis~information of the masses, and the media, heavily dependent on them.for their own survival, cannot dare to give an accurate picture of the role of arms makers and arms traders in fostering wars and war-hysteria.
The second cautionary word I want to say is about the tremendous will power of a small goup of right wing-advisers in the U.S. President's staff, who believe that by developing LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) beam technology, placing anti-sat, sets with laser beams in space. There is the danger that these laser beams which have to be powered by the explosion of nuclear devices in space, can have disastrous consequences for the world as a whole. We will go into a very complex of automated electronic defuse, which we may ourselves be unable to control later on. We must stop this development.
There is a tremendous reluctance to on the part of western economies to make the transition from the present military production oriented economy to a civilian production of consumption oriented economy. The convention of the economy is both painful and costly in the short term. Factories have to be closed down, people have to be thrown out of jobs, contracts have to be settled by heavy payment of compensation. But this short term pain is necessary for the long term welfare of the American economy. It has maintained superiority in the world not by its military might, but by its capacity for technological innovation and adaptation. America has largely lost that capacity of innovation by the severe brain-drain from civilian to military research. Also in the Soviet Economy the best scientific technological talent is now deployed for nonproductive military purposes, and the success of socialism depends to a large extent on being able to redeploy this military research personnel to civilian research.
Finally, I want to say a word about the relation between Disarmament and Development which has often been raised by the non~aligned movement. The world spent about 500 billion US dollars last year on Def Expenditure. This is about 60% of the World GNP of about, 8500 billion. The talk so far has been about taking this SOS billion gradually away from defence budgets and using it for development especially in the poorer sectors of society. Unfortunately this is neither going to happen, nor is it going to solve the problem. I do not have the time to go into the detailed reasons for that affirmation. But I want to say this: The question is not one of using part of the $500 billion to remedy the problems of poverty and injustice in the world. The issue is how much of this $590 billion military expenditure is used to buttress the system which unequally distributes the remaining 8009 billion. The focus should be on the way the 8000 billion is distributed rather than on taking a part of the $500 billion to solve the problems of poverty. This is a big task, but the human spirit, given vision, will and the grace of God, has the resources for facing this task.
Nuclear weapons, like colonialism, has one positive point I am grateful to God for colonialism in one respect. It was colonialism and modern Western imperialism that laid the foundations for the one world of tomorrow. Similarly we can be grateful to God tor nuclear weapons in this one respect, that they have made a Third World war inconceivable. This situation can be used by the Human Spirit, with the help of God, to build a world without arms something which we did not regard necessary or feasible before 1945, before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or we can commit global suicide.
The challenge before the Human Spirit is enormous. But the power of that spirit is much greater than the power of all the 60 or 70 thousand nuclear warheads we have today. The human spirit must overcome war and injustice. We shall overcome by the Grace of God. Thank you for listening.