The first Caux Forum for Human Security brought together some 300 peace-makers from 52 countries.

Human Security is, in the words of Thomas Greminger, Head of Political Affairs Division IV Human Security, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘an innovative field, where work is needed at the grass-roots, with civil society organizations and with governments’. Caux, he observed, ‘brings together people from all these sectors, people with a distinct inner motivation. I hope we will see a growth in this aspect of Caux’s work.’ His department collaborates with Initiatives of Change in civil society initiatives towards peace in Burundi, for example, and provided financial assistance to this first CFHS.

The conference was interactive, led by panels involving 25 politicians, academics, grass-roots activists and representatives of civil society, who focused on the ‘root causes of human insecurity’ in six vital areas: social and economic conditions; armed conflicts; wounded memories; environmental factors; good governance and the rule of law; religious and cultural differences. Each panel was followed by dialogue and questions from the participants.

But it was also for ordinary citizens to engage. ‘The computer, the internet, the cell phone have made this the age of the citizen,’ observed Rajmohan Gandhi, former member of the Indian Senate and author of a biography of his grandfather, the Mahatma. ‘My vision is that in this age, innocence and decency will have power, the weak will gather strength, individuals will reinforce one another and influence governments and together we will say to tyrants and to ourselves that cruelty, oppression and indifference shall not prevail.’

The crisis facing the environment is one area where everyone has a part to play. Geoffrey Lean, an award-winning pioneer of environmental journalism, reminded the conference that the scientific consensus is that ‘within seven years we must be firmly on track’ with de-carbonizing if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change ‘and this means universal agreement. We can achieve that if we accept that every person on the planet is entitled to the same size of carbon footprint.’

‘What is required is a revolution as profound as the end of feudalism, a change to a world of complete equals sharing the resources of the planet,’ said Clare Short MP, former UK Secretary of State for International Development (see article opposite).

In a video message to the conference, Prince El Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan outlined the water crisis facing the countries dependent on the Nile Basin which ‘will need the equivalent of five Nile rivers’ as populations rise. Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, pointed out that ‘conflict in the Sahel is caused, in large part, by land degradation... Yet land degradation is reversible, and our research shows that this can be achieved for less than US$500 per hectare.’

‘We expect conflict in the coming years as we struggle with climate change, migration and other pressures,’ said Paul van Tongeren, Secretary-General of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict. He spoke of the urgent need to build an ‘infrastructure for peace-building’ comparable to the ministries of defence and armed forces training. Joseph Montville, former US State Department officer who defined the concept of ‘track two’ peace-making, distinguished between deal-making (which may bring a cease-fire) and peace-making which ‘requires acknowledgment of wrong doing, contrition and compensation in some cases. And, ideally, forgiveness.’

The conference heard several case-studies of effective peace-making from Burundi, Northern Ireland, New Caledonia, Sierra Leone and Kenya. Always there is the need to heal the ‘wounded memory’ of past trauma. Australian broadcaster Mark Bin Bakar, who was Aboriginal of the Year in 2007, spoke of his people’s painful memories of ‘having their children ripped away from them and taken to white institutions’. He presented a copy of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s official apology to the ‘stolen generations’ saying it was ‘a big step towards respect and healing’.

Such a humble approach might go a long way to defusing the conditions which give rise to terrorism. As Harriet Fulbright, President, J William and Harriet Fulbright Center in the USA, observed, ‘the phrase “war on terror” is a terrible misuse of language. Terrorism is caused by repeated humiliation.’ What was needed instead, she argued, was good governance with ‘a genuine concern for the dignity and needs of citizens’.

Cobus de Swardt, Managing Director of the anti-corruption organization Transparency International, was up-beat, arguing that we are ‘the first human generation with the possibilities – political, social and technological – to co-create a world where all live without socially-created insecurity.’ Key to this would be overcoming corruption, particularly in extractive industries, as 60% of the world’s poorest people live in resource-rich countries. Transparency International is asking companies to publish what they pay governments, and asking governments to make public what they receive from companies. ‘If that were to happen,’ he said, ‘50% of corruption would end.’

Clearly the problems of human security are complex and interlinked, but not insoluble. As Scilla Elworthy, Chair of Peace Direct in the UK, observed: ‘Often this kind of gathering can be a talkshop, going nowhere. But the way it is shaping up, it’s going to lead to more concrete ways of making sure that human security becomes understood by governments, and that concrete actions are taken by governments in the human security area.’

The Forum was initiated by Mohamed Sahnoun, formerly a Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Summing up at the end, Sahnoun said: ‘We can never hope for more than relative security, but my passion is to save endangered populations from the extreme insecurity of war, famine, drought and disaster. That is the challenge: the world was created free. We are free to interact – and to do that we need love. Either we keep the seeds of love buried within us, or we have the courage to bring them out.’

Clare Short, MP: ‘The beauty of the scary job ahead’

In a world threatened by climate change, justice for the world’s poor is not just an issue of morality, but one of survival, said British politician Clare Short. With environmental stresses threatening ever greater instability, and the ‘great heaving sore of the Middle East’, the future looked grim unless the international community responded with more generosity and equity. ‘There has got to be a new energy coming from the bottom up to demand a more just order, because it is the only way for us to survive with any kind of decency,’ she told the conference. Short was Britain’s Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to 2003, taking up her portfolio in the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the release of Nelson Mandela, when ‘the whole international system seemed reformable’. ‘There was a kind of active dream across the world, a new energy in the international system both to create social and economic justice and to resolve conflict.’ Since September 11 and the war on terrorism, she said, the world has been going backwards. ‘The future looks very bleak unless we get a new mood. We have the capacity, knowledge, technology, communications, to make the world more just and equitable. We could have a settlement in the Middle East, make progress on poverty, generate the spirit of international cooperation to deal with global warming. I can’t understand why we don’t get on with it.’ Short traces her passion for the politics of social justice to her upbringing in Birmingham, as the child of Irish Catholics. Her father was a head teacher in a poor part of Birmingham, where he was sometimes called out when the family of one of his pupils was evicted by the landlord. Since 1983 she has been MP for the area where she grew up, Ladywood, Birmingham. ‘The Western discourse on terrorism has got to stop being so dishonest and hypocritical,’ Short told the conference. ‘It’s easy for Westerners to concentrate on conflicts in other parts of the world, but we have to ask ourselves what is the cause of Western aggression. There is something deeply unhealthy with the OECD model: greed and consumerism don’t make people happy.’ It made no sense to talk of increasing aid budgets, while engaging in war in other parts of the developing world. ‘There’s enormous beauty in the scary job ahead,’ Short told the final meeting of the conference. ‘We either control and dominate, or we find a wiser, more generous response, and share fairly.’ She called for a declaration to mobilize a worldwide movement, and added the hope that in years to come, ‘people will say that the Caux Declaration was a new beginning’.

Report by Mike Lowe, Australia & John Bond, UK