Come, and together, let us change our world! Change - and what is needed to produce it

You know it, you see it, you feel it! Too many people are not happy with the world as it is today. Eighty to ninety percent of the Earth’s population is living in sub-human conditions. What is the point of having so much so-called development, when practically the whole world is unhappy with the situation? What kind of development is that? Development for who? Unless, of-course, we all agree that the minuscule minority of two to five percent that controls everything is the way it is supposed to be, with a few rulers and the rest of the world as "their happy-slaves". This is not an acceptable situation, don’t you agree?

The recent events that started in Tunisia, flared up in Egypt, and that have spread to a large part of North Africa and the Middle East - with shadows cast across China and even over the USA, shows clearly that the world’s peoples not only needs, but also wants, changes.

What kind of changes are we talking about?

For example, after Egypt’s Mubarak, if the military is going to rule and manipulate the next ruler, what is the purpose of all the struggles that people went through? If Libya is going to be in the hands of new dictators who will be subserviently friendly to the West, what is the point of all the efforts of the people and their aspirations?

No, we are talking of a comprehensive change!

For the first time in human history we have a world that is closely inter-connected, thanks to the Internet and education, we are in a situation of talking of a "Global Revolution".
For such fundamental change to take place, let us try to understand the conditions and requirements for that change to take place. What do we need for that change to take place in reality? Let us list these aspects:

First of all we need people who can think differently, with a new plan of life. These people need to be together and work out a platform of action. A platform that will have its contextual environment, where people can breathe democratically and without any fears.

This platform will need to have certain characteristics, such as:

To be open to all people without any discrimination;

To leave violence out of its methodology, under any conditions whatsoever. Violence cannot be a way out of any situation under any circumstance;

This platform needs to be transparent and not become a personal fiefdom of any person, group, family, industry, religion, country, region, race-caste, language, etc.
The platform has to have an ideology that maintains the human being as the highest value. That is, everything in the new society needs to hold the human being in a central place and not place other things or notions first;

The platform needs to see the development of a new and responsible guidance, which may not necessarily lie with those who first developed the platform itself but rather with its proponents. This sensitive directive needs to be without the ego-isms, without that automatic hunger for power - rather there would be the aim of make "politics" as a higher form of selfless-social-work, not a career in a spiked system;

The platform needs to base itself on priorities of providing the highest quality of Education, Health Care, Employment, Housing to all, etc., so that the ninety percent of today’s ousted people can begin to lead a dignified life without pre-conditions;

The platform needs to spread the news of the need for that shift in the thinking-feeling-beingness of everyone in our world, starting with us first comers and those taking the responsibility, for our proposed sensible and sensitive guidance in such a way that we can jump from a Paradigm of War to a Paradigm of Peace;

The platform has to move people's emotive identification with Borders, Flags, Names of Nation (with its corresponding ‘rival of those next door’), Language, Religion, Region, Color, etc., to that of, "the human being as the highest value".

The platform has to be such that any honest, simple-living common person, from anywhere in the world, can join in with complete ease, without preconditions, without fear, without the need of an introduction or favor-seeking reflection, thus evoking affection and friendship instead of fear and enmity among peoples.

This platform needs to have an environment in which to develop and give opportunity for all people to develop into better human beings.

This platform will need to connect with people directly, as an honest and straightforward call to the hearts of all peoples, involving them in the work as equals, as participants, and not as mechanical followers.

So let’s do it, together, and discuss everything entailed. It’s just a case of getting on with it. It’s the moment. Actually, people are crying out for it, even if it is a silent cry of a majority.

As the Humanist Party of India, part of the Humanist Party International with almost thirty years experience in promoting, implementing and developing such a platform, we don’t have to start reinventing the wheel. A lot of work has already been done.

We can start based on what is already laid down.

This platform has a name - the Universal Humanist Manifesto - and is a clear ideology, a methodology and is in more than 100 countries of the world. This platform is sufficiently ready for the world to take it forward and localize its contents for immediate application.

The initial group need not declare itself as some "permanent leadership" holding the banner of the platform but rather seeks to reach out to you who are interested for its further development into the next stage, here and now.

This platform is timely because this is the first time in human history that the whole planet is so interestingly connected in a way linking people together which brings us all to a condition to produce this Global Social-Political-Cultural Revolution that infers a different mind set.

This platform is based on Universal Humanism and does not belong to any religion, region, language, minority or majority, country, race or caste, and is for each human being, enabling a life of guaranteed dignity.

Besides its worldly and social intent, this platform inheres a practice that helps us discover the human in us as we dive within themselves in works for-the-other to reach that profound experience of the deeper meaning of life and the human being, that changes everything.

Enough is enough. The human being has gone astray for too long into directions dominated by violence that has been proven wrong time and again. Many great souls have tried to remind us of the need of peace as the basis of the way forward.

What we see in the events across North Africa and in the Middle East is a demonstration of the power of non-violence and truth and we need to realize this power and find its connections within ourselves and our situations.

Universal Humanism, which some might call the Humanist Movement (www.humanistmovement.net), has been in development in the decades since the 1950s.

Starting from a remote place in Argentina, in South America, this ‘ambit of change’ has spread to all the continents, to over 150 countries, and all based on voluntary (meaning unpaid in cash or kind) actions of people who came forward to take this task in hand at its various stages. Despite being banned by violent regimes in different locations, the passion of its members took it forward and by today the Humanist Movement has developed various organizations to enable people to express themselves in the field of the choice for their activities, these are:

• Humanist Party - for socio-political expressions;

• The Community for Human Development - for cultural and social expressions and studies;

• Convergence of Cultures - For inter-cultural expressions and resolutions;

• World Without Wars & Without Violence - for peace work activities and to highlight the paradigm shift from one of war to one of Peace, expressly dealing with conflicts;

• World Center for Humanist Studies - for research into topics regarding the human being and human life and direction.

Apart from the above, this newly charged environment also counts on the birth of a new secular spirituality that helps the new human being to express itself spiritually, surpassing the limits of any particular religion, based on the ethos of Silo's Message.
With this important journey of over half a century, we have reached the stage where the Change can actually happen.

The world has the means, the technology, the resources and everything that is needed for this change to be made now. There is absolutely no need for anyone to be in poverty, to be illiterate, to be a beggar, to die due to lack of food, medicine, malnutrition or a roof. We do not need any more research to remove these ills that the vast majority of the human race faces today everywhere across the globe.

All we need is that human intention to work to provide dignity to all and the needed change can be made and seen. The whole process of change can be initiated without any delay. The Humanist Manifesto to form platforms of change has been prepared and is available for you to take forward.

Come, and together, let us change our world, fulfilling our dreams kept pending for such a long time. The time is Now, Today. Let us do it together and Change everything.

We can be reached at : www.humanistparty.org, and info@humanistparty.org, or 0-93124-65666

Article by:
sudhir gandotra