The April 2 issue of The Economist ends up its lead article, Why Ukraine must win: A decisive victory could transform the security of Europe, with a short but powerful section titled “Lift up your eyes”. It addresses Western European capitals on the need to redouble Western military help for Ukraine, and it ends with the following summary: “It would be terrible if what stood between a bad peace and a good one was a failure of imagination in the capitals of Europe.”
I would reframe that as:
It would be terrible if what stood between the chance for real peace for all of us and the current situation where human life and all life has no value, is a failure of moral imagination on the part of all of us.
It is not as though what needs to happen is not clear. In our hearts, most of us know that political agreements, much as the world still depends on them, are of dubious moral motivation and are not genuinely governed by concern for human life. We also know that we all need something to believe in, something to trust and work for. And despite the obvious fact of our proneness to self-interested and short-sighted thinking, there is growing evidence worldwide that humanity is about much more than that. People of all convictions are coming forth and organizing around humanitarian efforts and a growing determination to slow down the climate crisis through concrete measures.[1] And, as The Atlantic recently noted[2], we are learning that trading with autocratic regimes not only does not promote democracy but strengthens autocracy, and even economic interest needs to be tempered with some moral frame of reference, as I discussed in my recent essay Springtime Renewal or Moral Paralysis.
This past weekend saw the revelation of unthinkable atrocities committed by the Russian occupiers in the suburbs of Kiev. Yet, so deep is the paralysis of governments that beyond words of condemnation and statements committing to further sanctions on Russian oil and gas and to the investigation of war crimes, there is no tangibly different response from the world yet.
How, then, are we going to transition from a world that has relied for most of its history on the violent use of force to a world that upholds justice, peace, and the protection of life?
The maturity of human consciousness is reflected in the processes it develops and the entities it creates. While many organizations worldwide are recognizing the evolutionary shift toward the consciousness of the oneness of humanity that is rapidly emerging, and the sense of global citizenship in support of democracy and justice which has fueled the massive support of Ukraine by ordinary people worldwide, now is the time to take the next step and create the processes and entities that reflect, support, and protect this evolution.
The universal spiritual principles of unity and justice, which are at the core of the evolution of human civilization, must be upheld with muscle, not just in words. As I wrote in my previous essay, A Lesser Peace, and a Greater Peace, we cannot grow into a genuine worldwide lasting peace without a massive socio-historical transition through a period in which the world learns to defend justice, unity, and life on earth.
What urgently needs to happen now was proposed in the Polish Parliament and discussed by a fellow Medium writer – the creation of a humanitarian intervention force, which has the power and the mandate to protect vulnerable people and is not primarily U.S.-or-NATO-driven but supported by non-aligned countries as well as the West.[3] Such a force can move away from politics-as-usual and corporate media biases, and reflect the support of 60% of the world’s population, as reported by the Global Commons G20 Survey published in 2021, for global governance that bridges the current ecological, social, and spiritual divides. For that to happen, we need a movement with vision – we need to lift up our eyes to the horizon of what we all want and need, and act on it.
The time for a movement is now, while people in Ukraine are paying a tall price for the paralysis of Western imagination and its partial support of Ukraine’s resistance.
A movement to create an Earth Defense Force that stands by its principles with stamina and determination can be spearheaded by many different organizations, such as The World Parliament of Religions, The Earth Federation movement, The Shift Network, and the hundreds of other global organizations dedicated to the emergence of regenerative planetary governance. Now is the time to move from discussion forums and symposia on the topic into massive global action.
What organizations do you support that you see as standing for life? How is your organization connected to other principle-based humanitarian and planetary organizations?
You see, there are thousands of such organizations worldwide. And even though many of them are represented in the nongovernmental part of the United Nations, they are not united into a single force.
That is where each of us can step up. We can reach out to every organization we support and ask what their plan for urgent united action in response to the crisis in the world is. Our individual initiatives can become a wave sweeping through the planet, with each humanitarian organization being steered by its membership toward building a common platform of action with every other organization, so that this wave of collective will has the power to demand from governments the creation of a Defense Force that stands for life, humanity, and justice.
The knowledge and expertise needed for such a massive shift in the life of our planet already exists. It is a matter of will and choice.
For all of us to begin to heal from the horror of human life and all life having no value, we must summon our collective will to turn the tide of despair and claim the nobility and power that are inherent within us.
So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.
The process of awakening to and claiming our nobility and power in interdependent and consultative action is explored in depth in my recent book, Global Unitive Healing: Integral Skills for Personal and Collective Transformation.
Elena Mustakova, author of Global Unitive Healing, brings a psychological, social, and historical evolutionary lens and points to spiritual principles and conscious practical steps that can transform collective despair into a path forward.
[1] See the New York Times summary of recent climate change action at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/25/climate/world-climate-pledges-cop26.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20220403&instance_id=57499&nl=the-morning®i_id=129992567&segment_id=87387&te=1&user_id=90587a94f4cbafdd1af7b1699d1d27de
[2] See https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/autocracy-could-destroy-democracy-russia-ukraine/629363/
[3] See https://andrewmtanner.medium.com/a-neutral-view-on-ukraines-future-679789f0c0cd
