We publish here the words of Antonio Carvallo‘s speech at the 6th International Congress against Military Bases and War, which took place this June 23 and was organized by the International Network against Global Military Bases, founded in 2018.
I am thankful to the organisers of the 6th Congress for the kind invitation to give a view point on behalf of the Global South. As South American I have a sufficient perception of the relation of a vasal state in this case Chile and the Hegemon USA. I left Chile in February 1973 a few months before the violent military coup that brought down the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, and established a military dictatorship under General Pinochet which lasted 17 years, killed, imprisoned and forced into exile thousands of Chileans scarring the minds and lives of millions.
I want therefore to convey solidarity with your cause, expressed in the International Congress against Military Bases and War. One of the organisations inspired by Universalist Humanism “World Without Wars and without Violence” since 2010 carries a World March every four years with similar purposes, of denunciation of wars and violence.
Pressenza International News Agency www.pressenza.com run by volunteers, publishes daily in 8 languages, dedicated to news on peace and nonviolence
I had joined in 1968 the initial groups of Silo’s studies, current of thought known today as Universalist Humanism. In May 4th 1969, in the Andes mountains, Silo spoke publicly in front of about two hundred people coming from Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru… who gathered there because the military dictatorship in power in that country prohibited him to speak in cities. In spite of the remoteness of the site Punta de Vacas, 3000mts above sea level, in the middle of the snow we were surrounded by mounted soldiers on horseback with machine guns. Silo spoke about the Healing of Suffering.
That twenty-minute speech contained the seeds of what in the following years was to become a comprehensive body of Doctrine and practice inspiring an international movement spread over all continents.
Silo spoke of the mantle of suffering covering the earth. Distinguished between a type of suffering that derives from the body as for example disease or hunger and of another suffering that is strictly from the mind. Fear of sickness, fear of poverty, fear of death fear of loneliness… All the suffering of the mind derives from desire and reveal the internal violence the violence that exist in one’s mind in one’s conscience. The more violent a person the more gross are that person desires.
…The violence in the person moved by desire does not remain just as disease in his conscience but it projects over the rest of people, acts over the world of the other people…and then distinguishes between physical violence, economic violence, racial violence, religious violence, gender violence, psychological violence etc.
Explains that there are not false exits to escape violence, drugs and alcohol are not solutions…
We can only end with violence in ourselves and others by internal faith by internal meditation.
It is necessary to learn to love, to learn to laugh…
It is a beautiful poetic and profound description of the real human condition and the ways to overcome it. It shows the inescapable necessity of overcoming violence within ourselves at the same time that we struggle to make society more just and fairer. www.silo.net
That was the time of guerrilla liberation movements, Cuba wanted to export the revolution and Che Guevara was assassinated in Bolivia.
The hegemon resisted and pre-empted violently any New Cuba’s in Africa, Asia or the Americas.
The young generation was in turmoil and leaning to violence.
In 1968 youth revolts took place in Paris that ended with the resignation of president Charles De Gaulle.
Woodstock legendary music festival was held the next year attracting nearly half a million youth, near NY.
Mexico City, Tlatelolco violent repression of students, manifestations in Mexico-city nearly 400 youth killed and over thousand wounded by government troops. The Mexican Movement 1968.
1969, over half a million American troops stationed in Vietnam…the war against communism in South East Asia, civilian genocides, the cold war active.
1966-76 Cultural revolution China under Mao. No one knows the number of victims of that massive social revisionist purge.
A global change of culture took place in the world with the irruption of the post war generation
Silo, 31 at the time, taught never respond with violence to violence. You injure yourself while your enemy becomes stronger.
“Do not oppose a great force, recede until it weakens and then advance with resolution” …
Ukraine a catalyst for change within a sick world order
Indeed, a polarization has taken place in recent months and years towards looking for alternatives to the American Hegemonic influence in the world.
There is growing violence both political but also physical, social, verbal, psychological. Narratives about the simplest issues in societies are charged with hatred and aggression. The monopolies of information become more extreme while the multimedia channels expand more than ever before.
People are confused, and frustrated. Politicians both in Europe and America sound more aggressive and extreme in their approaches. The nuclear threats are heard daily from different quarters
The cost of war is growing and affecting everyone (food inflation 17% UK) while supply trade chains get altered as result of multiple sanctions in all directions.
Confiscation of assets, fall of banks.
Credibility in the established legality diminishes by the day. Long arm jurisdiction exercised by the hegemon and allies in NATO by applying illegal sanctions without UN approval is resting credibility to the role of UN and the secretariat that keeps silent in the face of violations.
In the meantime, the BRICS association is growing steadily incorporating today the majority of countries with largest populations and nuclear capabilities. The strategic alliance between Russia and China becomes closer. The large majority of the world population is not aligned with the hegemonic alliance of the white west that reaches less than 14% of the world population, and within themselves they have differences
We humanists define the moment as a civilizational crisis. All values and institutions crumble down because people walk away from them. Nation states, democracies, reserve currencies, banking system, political parties, churches, the judiciary, the law, the symbols of the state. Western civilization is in a deep crisis.
The way forward
A planetary civilization starts to configure for the first time in human history.
The values that must inspire this new civilization must be the total rejection of violence in all its forms, compassion and solidarity. Treating others as we like to be treated.
Politically a new world order needs designing, multilateral, where re-defined and deepened human rights are recognised and applied to every human being.
Money cannot be a deity and be accumulated. It is a means of exchange and never be placed again above the human being. Nor the state, power, religion or any other superstructure.
Science must be at the service of life, progress and wellbeing.
The creators of wealth in all fields are us the humans. Not the banks, stock exchanges, speculators. Talent and creativity are human qualities. The arts are human manifestations.
Spirituality is the highest human condition and it must be nurtured and developed in every human being to be in consonance with the universe, all creation.
There is no contradiction between the worldly and the eternal
These are values we believe, must enlighten, guide and inspire a universal human nation
Decline of the hegemon
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with it disappeared too the main enemy of USA and the world turned unipolar. In a unipolar world becomes harder for the hegemonic power to justify wars with ideological arguments or security arguments since a real ideological or security enemy does not exist anymore. That moment marks the beginning of the American decline as hegemonic state. The arms race start losing relevance. To coerce other states becomes harder in terms of security since the “real” danger is gone. Then USA needs to fabricate enemies such as “terrorism” or the radicalization of factions of Islam such as Sunnis and Shiites; or “democracy”, “Western lifestyle” or supposed “weapons of mass destruction chemical or biological.”
The real enemies of other time become ethereal, ambiguous and every time more difficult to justify or believe for the great majority of states who do not join these pseudo causes, as the commercial wars with China. Why, and under what ethics do you need to contain another country for becoming more prosperous and influential?
Internationally China as well as Russia and India support multilateralism and are the engine of BRICS organisation. They look for a new world order of common security, international finances, true respect for human rights for all, solidarity among nations and no doubt reform of UN to guarantee a new order in international relations.
Within this context of “new reality” which develops at fast pace in today’s world, it is obvious that the hegemonic power of USA is diluting.
Populations globally continue growing and we have surpassed 8 billion today, distributed as follows:
If we consider that, due to advancement of communications, real time information, the advancements in world trade and technological progress in general, education and development of all populations is levelling up…we are in the presence already of a Universal Human Nation for the first time in human history.
70 years ago, the world population was 2.5 billion. Now we are 8 billion and in 70 years from now that mean before the end of the century, we are going to be 15 billion plus. By, then the human nation will be so mixed in races, cultures, ages, genders, languages, territories that differences will have diluted so much that the only significant aspect will be what we have in common that is our humanity. It is difficult to imagine a hegemonic power subordinating the rest of humanity.
Those human beings will have similar qualifications and intentions, similar needs and aspirations and probably a similar experience of their spiritual dimension. The cult of money will have disappeared and societies will be organised to provide for the necessities of all. There will be new challenges and hurdles to cross in that advanced process of growing adaptation, amongst these the preservation and re generation of the environment, and perhaps the first star colonies to care for.
I just leave you with the following reflection: When the Roman Empire fell due to its corruption and nepotism, and the fact that the subordinated nations stop paying tribute…the roman soldiers in the borders of the empire, just packed essential items to travel light, abandoned their weapons, left the garrisons and returned to sunny Italy.