"Who are my people?"

I wish to focus on one particular speech on the opening night of the Caux Forum on Human Security which caused me to ponder and reflect on my role in creating world peace. This speech was written and delivered by Rajmohan Gandhi; author, journalist, and professor, who has been associated with Initiatives of Change since 1956. He has kindly allowed me to reproduce his speech on my blog for those who weren't able to be at Caux this summer.

"Let me first speak of why we are in Caux.

We are in Caux because Caux is where, over years and decades and by God's blessings, hearts have been touched, consciences brought to life, hands extended to enemies or to people in need, and minds challenged.

But Caux would not be Caux if it were not in Switzerland. Without the Swiss people, the Swiss authorities and the Swiss landscape there would be no Caux. It is the Swiss people's sense of their role and their open hearts that have created Caux and kept Caux going. May I therefore salute the Swiss landscape, the Swiss authorities, and the Swiss people, as everyone here would want to?

The experts who will speak during the first Caux Forum for Human Security, and the moderators who will moderate the discussions, are people who know what they will be talking about. They are seasoned people deeply involved in different aspects of human security. Their lives, their hearts and their minds have been engaged with human security. The rest of us are I think lucky to be able to listen to them and interact with them.

But please look carefully at the questions they are going to have to answer. Why is trust important? What are the underlying causes of armed conflict? How do socio-economic, environmental, religious or cultural factors add to insecurity?

These are basic questions. You might call them simple or rudimentary questions. There is nothing so fascinating as posing elementary questions to seasoned experts. It obliges experts to simplify their logic and their language. This will be welcomed by the rest of us. And I rather suspect that they, the experts, will welcome this chance to express what they really belive, to spell out key lessons from their experience.

The other fascinating thing about the coming days is that we will have not speeches or debates but a conversation. What a relief! Debaters and public speakers seek to influence not their fellow debaters but their audience. In a conversation we seek to understand and influence our fellow conversers, and we are ready to be influenced ourselves by them and by our own reflection on what we have listened to.

To have a conversation, in Caux, in Switzerland, on human security, and to have it now, in July 2008 -- not many things can be more interesting.

After the Second World War all of Europe came to Caux. Relationships were built and restored, and a European community was created. Nowadays we move naturally across this community forgetting that what happened was quite astonishing and unlikely. During the coming days representatives from many continents will meet one another and form relationships that God willing will help in emergence of a global community.

When Mohandas Gandhi decided he would aim to liberate and transform India he was a member of a so-called high-caste group from the majority Hindu community of India confronting a European power that held India under its seemingly permanent grip.

But Gandhi made up his mind that the so-called low-castes and untouchables of India, the Muslims and Christians and Sikhs and Buddhist and Jews and Parsis of India, were also his people. Many others followed him and India became more than a geographical space- it became a community.

And although he fought British rule with a steely resolve, he made up his mind that the British too were his people, and indeed the British people gave Gandhi their friendship and respect.

I believe that during the coming conversation we will do well to ask ourselves another question not listed on the agenda but very much implied: Who are my people? Who are my people, and who are not my people?

Finally, a thought regarding this juncture of time. The computer, the internet, and the cell phone have made our age the age of the citizen. Powerful governments, oppressive governments, powerful or oppressive castes, interests, majority groups, tribes, and clans are now weaker in their equation with the ordinary citizen.

How citizens can reinforce one another across boundaries and oceans, and how we the citizens can free ourselves from what binds or burdens us or checks our creativity, so that we can influence governments- to ask these questions is another reason why we are here.

Let me end with a prayer in the shape of a vision.

"In this age of the citizen, innocence will have power, decency will have power, the weak will gather strength, individuals will take simple actions and reinforce one another and influce governments, and together, God willing, we will say to tyrant individuals or tyrannical governments, to coercive groups and to ourselves: cruelty, oppression and indifference shall not prevail."

It is of course quite mad to utter a vision of this kind. Some will say it is mad even to utter such a prayer. However, the victims of great suffering may not object."
- Rajmohan Gandhi, 18 July 2008, Caux


The question of "who are my people" is a rather important one. You, the reader, should spend time really thinking and analyzing this question, for once you start identifying one group of
people as your people, the other group(s) by default are not your people.

I have spent years asking the same question and I have come to the conclusion that I am a global citizen and that all the citizens of the world are my people. I will do everything in my power to
help create a peaceful and safe world, secure from hatred, greed and anger.