On February 4, 1999, Former Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Oscar Arias spoke at the University of North Texas.  He addressed the audience with the message the peace can ultimately only be achieved through "human security" rather than through military security.
 
 

Speech by Dr. Oscar Arias
University of North Texas
February 4, 1999
Embracing a New Program for Peace

It gives me great pleasure to be here at the University of North Texas as the community prepares to undertake for the first time a program in Peace Studies. I thank professors Steven Poe, Gloria Cox, and John Booth for graciously inviting me to speak on this occasion. It is indeed an honor to exchange ideas with such a distinguished audience of students, educators, and community members.

As the University of North Texas embraces a new program for peace, it joins with a long tradition of courageous thinking and sound moral judgment For Peace Studies in the United States has long prepared students to grapple with the most crucial ethical issues of the day. Through the age of civil rights and Vietnam, through the years when colonialism was defeated but dictators remained, through the time of ideological standoffs and nuclear deterrence, a commitment to peace could define one's entire outlook on the world.

While the scholarly work of many departments was mired militaristic logic and CIA support operations, the field of peace studies remained clearly apart. While so many intellectuals were complicit in maintaining unjust and undemocratic regimes throughout the world, those committed to peace took seriously the admonition of French writer Albert Camus, who tells us that "in a world of victims and executioners it is the job of thinking people ... not to be on the side of the executioners." A focus on peace allows students to develop a healthy skepticism towards the accepted truths of the day, truths which too often serve to obscure the hard realities of poverty and oppression. This move to critical thinking influences the whole college, and gives students a new basis for understanding the history of the twentieth century.

The current generation of students should not stomach the cynical justifications offered in the history books, but instead must ask hard questions about the cold war: How-could a frantic race to build bombs be a means of securing world peace? How were "our" dictators (Pinochet, Suharto, and Somoza) any better than "theirs" (Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot)? And if the half-century of distrust and conflict that justified an insane arms buildup has ended, then why is U.S. military spending, in real terms, at the same level now as it was in 1980, at the height of tensions with the Soviet Union?

The rise of peace studies within the academy over the past fifty years has mirrored larger changes in our society. U.S. corporations have expanded and, with the assistance of the State Department, have opened markets around the world. Technological advances have made it possible to interact with foreign peoples on a daily basis, expanding the bounds of our knowledge. Southern countries have engaged a process of development, and seen widely varying outcomes. But in this context, the actions of the United States often have not been guided by a humanistic concern for the well-being of others, nor for their right

to self-determination, but too regularly have reflected a calculating self-interest. Early on, Martin Luther King issued a profound warning. He reminded us of the words of President John F. Kennedy, who said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." And then Martin Luther King commented that, I quote: "Increasingly, by choice or by accident,...our nation has taken ... the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." End of quote.

Today, as we enter the new world economy of "globalization," I believe that we face the very same moral and economic challenge. Now, 1.5 trillion dollars race around the globe every day, and yet are largely unaccountable to any accepted form of public oversight. This frantic quest for quick riches has created a hollow, speculative economy, unattached to human labor and unaccountable to human need. Investments are not made over the long term, designed to help small businesses get started and help people improve the infrastructure of their communities. Instead, bankers pit foreign currencies against one another, investing for days or even just a few hours. They create immense profits for the most privileged, but leave a devastating trail of destabilization and misery in their wake.

Recently, we have seen that the global economic order is subject to panic and rapid fluctuation. As wealthy financiers lose money in crumbling East-Asian economies, in Indonesia, or in Brazil, pundits and bank officials have begun to speak of a "crisis." But even now, only months after traumatic devaluations have begun, there seems to be a consensus that this downturn was only a small setback in neoliberalism's march of progress, that only minor changes will be required to fix a well-functioning system, and that stockholders can go on leading their prosperous and secure lives.

But I tell you tonight that there is a much deeper crisis underlying the financial panic, one which this consensus of experts overlooks. I say that it is an economic crisis when nearly a billion and a half people have no access to clean water, and a billion live in miserably substandard housing. I say that it is a leadership crisis when we allow wealth to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, so that the world's three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the poorest forty-eight countries. I say it is a spiritual crisis when -- as Gandhi said -- many people are so poor that they can only see God in the form of bread, and when other individuals seem only to have faith in a capricious God whose "invisible hand" guides the free market. I say it is a moral crisis when 40,000 children die each day from malnutrition and disease. And I say it is a democratic crisis when 1.3 billion live on incomes of less than one dollar a day, and in their unrelenting poverty are totally excluded from public decision-making.

We know that in times of crisis many falter; they think only in terms of the individual and fail to accept their human obligations. But this cowardice is a choice. It is our choice, and we have another option. Instead of permitting the dominant values of selfishness, military build-up, and a love of money to prevail; we can choose to reclaim our most noble aspirations. This means affirming some of the ethical maxims that gave rise to great and virtuous communities, but that have been too quickly overlooked in recent times: that all people have a right to work for a living wage. We all have a responsibility to think sustainably, to live in harmony with the natural environment. And that all people, not only those born in the most privileged families and neighborhoods, should have equal opportunity to access educational, cultural, and financial resources.

At that same time that we look back to these established principles, we must seek to broaden the scope of our moral concern more than ever before. In recent years, as the world has emerged from the painful experiences of colonialism, genocide, and superpower tensions, the nascent structures of an international humanism have appeared. The challenge of your generation is to embrace this global citizenship -- to think about security, democracy, and justice on a world-wide scale.

The first step toward global thinking requires that we adopt a definition of peace that goes beyond the short-sighted demands of national security. To this end, the United Nations Human Development Program stresses the need for us instead to think of peace in terms of human security. This distinction bears frequent repetition. Human security is not just a concern with weapons--it is a concern with human life and dignity. This idea was eloquently expressed by the martyred Salvadoran Archbishop, Oscar Romero. He told his people that, "the only peace that God wants is a peace based in justice." Indeed, how can we say that there is peace when thousands are made to work in sweatshops? How can we say that there is peace when the United States builds more prisons and fewer schools? How can we say that there is peace when millions go hungry?

British dramatist George Bernard Shaw, another important moral thinker, phrased his lesson in human security as a warning. In 1905, he stated that "Security, the chief pretense of civilization, cannot exist where the worst of dangers, the danger of poverty, hangs over everyone's head." With the intense poverty that we witness today, Shaw's statement takes on a terrible prophetic force. Indeed, in the age of globalization, those who peaceful changes in our economy, politics, and morality impossible will make inevitable the future conflicts arising from the unacceptable inequalities that I described earlier.

The second step in global thinking is to expand our understanding of democracy. Too often, democracy is discussed only in its most formal and proceduralistic form. People are satisfied that democracy has a place in the constitution of the state, but make no room for democracy in the constitution of their own soul. They do not let it affect their daily interactions, their personal relationships, or their professional ambitions.

For this reason, some of our greatest leaders have called for profound change. Dorothy Day called it "a revolution of the heart," and Martin Luther King called it "a revolution in values." But a democratic revolution is not merely sentimental and individualistic. Yes, it demands changes in the way we live and the way we understand ourselves, but it also promises to change the structures that govern our society. For, at its core, democracy is a radical philosophy of civic participation. It is the faith that through public dialogue and inclusive deliberation, ordinary individuals can build ever-better systems for living together. Democracy rests on the need for regular citizens, not only the most wealthy and powerful, to be able to influence meaningfully the political and economic institutions that affect their lives. It does not wait for benevolent experts to determine the course of our social development, but rather demands that all people fashion themselves as agents of change.

As you begin to renew your faith in democracy, each of you must reconsider the privileges you enjoy as citizens in a wealthy country and as beneficiaries of this fine college. And you must embrace the responsibility that comes with this privilege. In this democracy there is no room for guilt, but only for compassion: the point is not to feel guilty about the gifts you have received, but to feel always committed to the struggle to guarantee that all people may live such dignified lives. There is no place for resignation, but only determination: though world problems may seem overwhelming, you must be determined to make your mark against poverty and inequality. And there is no stopping at simple charity, but instead we must expand our solidarity: our concern for the health and well-being of others must spread through lands near and far.

While we must reclaim the original values that inspired the Enlightenment revolutions in France and the United States, we must also go beyond the comfortable limits of traditional civics and grapple with the international challenges of the day. We have already seen that the United States, while claiming to protect democracy in the developing world, has too often protected only a narrow, nationalistic self-interest. We can no longer afford to think in terms of a simple nationalism. In the global era true democrats must also be humanists. For when you believe that people controlling their own lives is a truly sound basis for this nation, you begin to recognize the inherent dignity and worth of people in other lands as well -- people struggling to exercise their right of self-determination and to forge their own models for development.

Indeed, this leads us to a third crucial component of global thinking, and that is reformulating our views of economic justice. We must remember that true democracy is not merely the distribution of political power, but also the distribution of economic power. Sadly, in this age of huge corporate mergers and billionaire elites, this fact is too often overlooked. It is overlooked by many policy makers and business people who quietly solidify a global economic order based on cynicism and individual profit. But for many poor and working people throughout the world, it is an obvious fact. These people know the tragic reality of poverty and sweatshop labor. For them, democracy is still an empty promise.

On his recent trip to Mexico, Pope John Paul II addressed this situation, and spoke out against a capitalist system so far removed from religious and democratic values. He argued that "the human race is facing forms of slavery which are new and more subtle than those of the past... and for far too many people, freedom remains a word without meaning."

Perhaps what makes the economic exploitation and hardship of today more insidious is the fact that it exists alongside tremendous wealth and abundance. Americans spend eight billion dollars a year on cosmetics -- two billion more than it would cost to provide basic education for everyone in the world if these funds were redirected. Europeans spend eleven billion dollars a year purchasing ice cream, yet we know that only nine billion dollars a year would be adequate to assure water and sanitation for all people.

The stark levels of inequality and the intense concentration of wealth that we witness now would have offended the common sense of the generations who have come before us in this century of development and progress. These millions hoped that technological advances would free us from dehumanizing work, and not make us ever more enslaved. They hoped that international contact could help us to celebrate the rich diversity of the planet, and not force upon us a monotonous consumer culture. They hoped that prosperity would benefit all people, and not create an ever-growing gap between the haves and the have-nots.

To change these unacceptable trends, our society must begin viewing global systems from the perspective of society's most downtrodden populations: the culturally subjugated and the economically dispossessed. In our democratic faith we must reject condescending or trickle-down solutions to world problems, and instead highlight movements that allow ignored and depreciated populations to become political actors. We must allow communities to decide which forms of development are appropriate for their lives, and which forms of materialism they need not support. And we must see to it that, these communities, and not a wealthy and elite few, are empowered to enact economic plans.

I have told you that a renewed focus on human security, thorough-going democracy, and economic justice will be the basis for a profound shift in our ethical thinking. To say that a fundamental change in values is necessary, however, is not to avoid concrete policy proposals. Rather, by putting our values up front, we are able to turn to the problems of the day with new vitality and insight. Indeed, to do differently would be suspect. Mahatma Gandhi told us a half century ago that "politics without principles" and "commerce without morality" are among the seven social sins -- sins to be avoided most of all by business and community leaders. Truly, we must allow our public policy to grow out of our ethical conviction.

A main focus of my work has been challenging a world military-industrial complex removed from democratic controls and humanitarian standards. Without a doubt, military spending represents the single most significant perversion of worldwide priorities known today. The $780 billion dollars spent on weapons and soldiers in 1997 constitutes a global tragedy.

In India and Pakistan, in Indonesia and sub-Saharan Africa, in the former Yugoslavia and many other nations, bloated military budgets have led to profound deprivation and human suffering. Unfortunately, half of the world's governments dedicate more resources to defense than to health programs. Such distortions in national budgets contribute to poverty and retard human development. War, and the preparation for war, is one of the greatest obstacles to human progress, fostering a vicious cycle of arms buildups, violence, and poverty.

The United States, which spends two hundred and eighty billion dollars on its military, stands as an extreme example of moral irresponsibility. By maintaining a massive military-industrial complex, it already sends the wrong signal to other countries whose national budgets desperately need to be directed toward human needs. But what is more, President Clinton is now advocating the largest increase in defense spending since the Reagan era -- a proposed addition of $110 billion over the next six years. The sad fact is that this focus on military build-up will only serve to sustain flawed security reasoning and outdated spending priorities.

Although the Clinton Administration has insisted that domestic needs will still be accommodated within the budget, these assurances mask dramatic flaws in the moral and political emphasis of U.S. policy. While military officials are given virtually anything they request, approximately one in every five children in this privileged country grows up in poverty, and over 40 million U.S. citizens lack any health insurance. It is sadly evident that the American people are not reaping the dividends of a new peace-time era.

The impact of military spending worldwide is even more dramatic, and the progress that could be realized if military spending were redirected is tremendous. If we channeled just $40 billion each year away from armies and into anti-poverty programs, in ten years all of the world's population would enjoy basic social services -- education, health care and nutrition, potable water, and sanitation. Another $40 billion each year over ten years would provide each person on this planet with an income level above the poverty line for their country. Shockingly, this life-giving $80 billion in annual funds would represent only ten percent of world defense expenditures. With the new money that Clinton intends to invest in costly defense initiatives alone, the U.S. could champion an immediate international effort at redirection. Truly, increased military spending represents a missed opportunity for momentous human advancement.

Too many officials think in terms of cold war strategy when trying to address the defense challenges of this era. Those who believe that an increased defense budget is an effective response to contemporary security challenges ignore the fact that the U.S. and its allies already spend more than twice as much as all of their conceivable adversaries combined. Yet this focus on the production and distribution of weapons has only made for a more dangerous and highly-armed world. Moreover, in their outdated quest for unilateral supremacy, defense hawks fail to appreciate that today's conflicts are of fundamentally multinational concern, and that solutions must be internationally-based if they are to be effective.

International terrorism and nuclear proliferation, in particular, are not problems that can be solved simply by a show of American military strength. World leaders must stop viewing militaristic investment as a measure of national well-being. And they must embrace multilateral efforts which recognize the complex and politicized nature of contemporary security questions.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government has failed to provide this type of leadership for the international community. Many times, Congress has refused to participate in initiatives to establish a cooperative framework for global security. Even while preaching the necessity of controlling weapons of mass destruction, these lawmakers have refused to ratify major agreements on chemical and biological weapons, on the use of landmines, on nuclear testing, and on international courts which could hold war criminals responsible for their actions.

Perhaps most significantly the United States, which is currently responsible for 43 percent of all weapons exports, has been unwilling to strengthen humanitarian restraints on these transfers. The sale of arms is big business. As a whole, military spending in industrialized nations is down from its peak of ten years ago. But weapons contractors in these countries have continued to produce billions of dollars worth of armaments, and in fact have increased their weapons sales abroad. Their new clients are the impoverished countries of the developing world, places where the majority of conflicts now take place. Indeed, in the past four years, 85 percent of U.S. arms sales have gone to non-democratic governments in the developing world.

At the end of 1997, weapons manufactured in the United States were being used in thirty nine of the world's forty-two ethnic and territorial conflicts. It is unconscionable for a country that believes in democracy and justice to continue allowing arms merchants to reap profits stained in blood. But ironically, vast amounts of taxpayer money goes to support this immoral trade. In 1995 the arms industry received seven point six billion dollars in federal subsidies this amounts to a huge welfare payment to wealthy profiteers.

Again and again, we see that this unchecked proliferation of armaments serves to bolster the power of militaries, impede the process of democratization, destroy economic advances, perpetuate ethnic and territorial conflicts, and create situations in which even the most basic human rights are at risk. Ultimately, even U.S. citizens are endangered by the irresponsibility of these weapons sales. Some are the victims of terrorist networks that have benefited from past U.S. covert military aid, such as that led by Osama bin Laden. Others are among the soldiers sent into combat against enemies carrying American weapons, as was the case in Panama, Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti.

In pursuing true solutions to contemporary defense concerns, and in creating policies that will allow us to focus on human security, we urgently need to work together as an international community to limit the availability and spread of deadly weaponry. For this reason, I have called together my fellow Nobel Peace Laureates to advocate an International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers. This Code of Conduct is a comprehensive, international effort to regulate and monitor arms sales. It would prevent undemocratic governments from building sophisticated arsenals. Governments which systematically abuse internationally-recognized human rights, through practices such as torture or arbitrary executions, would not receive military training. Countries which commit genocide would not be able to buy munitions. Governments engaged in armed aggression against other countries or peoples could not buy missiles. States that support terrorism would be prevented from acquiring weapons. In addition, all countries would be required to report their arms purchases to the United Nations.

The International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers builds on local efforts to regulate sales, such as the measures adopted by the European Union last year. Recently, a U.S. Code of Conduct was held up by the back-room dealings of arms merchants. Nevertheless, promising Code legislation is set to be reintroduced before Congress in the coming session. Although polls show that the American people overwhelmingly support this legislation, we can not expect all of your lawmakers, many of whom have received large campaign donations from arms contractors, to stand up to the weapons industry on their own. Congress will not respond to the moral demands of the Code unless those here tonight, and many others like you, generate the kind of popular pressure that forces immediate action.

My friends:

In our age, the Cold War has ended. Its oversimplified dichotomies are now obsolete appeals to a totalizing ideology (be it called 'Democracy" or "Communism') should never again serve to justify dictatorship or oppression. What is more, the new global era offers unique potentials for human unity. Thinking globally, we are able to draw from the best of the world's ethical and religious insights -- to emerge with a thorough-going defense of the importance of human rights, the sacredness of the Earth's ecosystems, and the dignity of meaningful work. A new program. for peace recognizes the opportunity that this globalization brings; it draws strength and inspiration from the ethical victories of the day. For while the last decade had witnessed distressing levels of poverty, militarism, and consumption, it has also provided us with some exemplary scenes of human integrity -- we have seen women rally for their rights in Beijing; we have seen a new era of peace come to Central America; and we have seen Nelson Mandela lead the South African people away from the horror of apartheid, and toward the noble path of reconciliation. Rather than allowing globalization to be defined by rampant speculation and persistent inequality, humanists demand that these victories, and the moral victories yet to come, must characterize our current era.

Programs like peace studies have proven themselves to be invaluable tools in educating people about the challenges we face. Students of peace are able to familiarize themselves with an important array of facts and issues. They learn how to think critically about social problems, and how to strategize effectively for social change. But what is more, teachers provoke students to re-examine their own lives, to embrace the project of personal transformation, and to emerge as more compassionate human beings. Indeed, academic classes and analytical texts will never be enough. For in the end, a commitment to equality and justice must be a daily, existential endeavor. True peace will be destined only when its pursuit becomes an integral part of our lives and our identities, a key component of how we understand who we are.

The Peace Studies program in North Texas must embrace a mission that goes beyond a single department or a single university. It must insist that we must make ourselves into the kind of people who will give meaning to the beautiful ideal of peace. A program in peace studies must be always immersed in the real human task of living with decency and compassion. Its message to students is that, yes, you must study, but you must also struggle. We struggle so that our children may view the history books of our age, with all the talk of the century's "great wars," with suspicion and horror. So that they will know that true greatness is not in waging war, but in overcoming it. And so that they may write new books, books of peace, for their children.

You will recall that at the beginning of the speech I quoted Martin Luther King, who warned us that the path we are on would only lead to racism, materialism, and militarism. I want to tell you, however, that King did not believe the situation was hopeless. He told us that, with courage and determination, we could change course. "Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable," he said. "We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action."

I tell you tonight that human advances do not come when we wait to see if others will act. Human security will not be guaranteed if we always hope that someone else will step forward. Instead, progress begins when each of us starts to think globally, and when each of us starts to live a new program for peace. The struggle can only begin with a personal commitment from each of us. But it will not end there. The whispered resolve of the individual becomes the roar of collective action. Its righteous sound reverberates in the structures and institutions of a new society. Its voice is steady and its message is clear: we can act with compassion; we can be more humane; we can live in peace.