How the 2048 movement is helping “me” and “we” to work together.
Kirk Boyd | March 2010 issue
Photo: istockphoto.com/arissanjay
2048 is a plan to prevent future wars, eliminate poverty and create the conditions necessary for a sustainable existence on our planet. These ends can be achieved through a written agreement to live together that is enforceable in the courts of all countries.
This movement began with the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a set of fundamental human rights for all people, which was adopted unanimously in 1948 by all countries in the UN. This movement can be completed by the year 2048, the 100th anniversary of the Universal Declaration. The way to accomplish this is first, by educating all people, including students, in all countries about the human rights they all share; and second, by drafting a document, an international bill of rights, that embodies humanity’s agreement to live together and that is enforceable in the courts of all countries. This document is called an International Convention on Human Rights because a convention is a treaty that can be agreed to by all countries.
These two steps, to educate people in all countries while working together to draft an international convention, are complementary and interrelated. They are good news. The worn-out story that war and poverty are just the way things are so we should keep spending trillions of dollars perpetuating them is giving way to a new story, a new narrative that says peace and prosperity are attainable if we have a plan and we are willing to challenge those who keep propagating the same old myths.
2048 dispels myths. One of the most pernicious myths is that peace and prosperity are hopelessly complicated and unattainable. This is untrue. Peace and prosperity can be attained through the realization of five basic fundamental freedoms, for all people, everywhere in the world. They are: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, freedom for the environment and freedom from fear. Of course, other rights are needed too, but these five fundamental freedoms establish a framework within which other rights can flourish. If our international community remembers these Five Freedoms, and if they become a regular part of our daily lives, then collectively we will carry the core of 2048 in our minds and it will become our way of life.
Please look at your hand for a moment. Hold it up, palm facing you. We all have five fingers, but the first we call a thumb. It looks different. It stands out. And it is strong. It represents freedom of speech, the idea that stands out, that stands up to dishonesty and corruption. Next, look at your index finger. We point with this one. It gives us direction. It represents freedom of religion. Each of us is free to choose our own direction, with or without God, and for those who decide that God is their guide, then they are free to have their own relationship with God without the state telling them what that relationship must be. Interference by the state pollutes the relationship with God.
Third is the middle finger, the longest of all. It represents freedom from want, the long road of existence and the certainty that there will be food, water, education and health care for every one of us no matter where we may be on that road. Next, for many of us, is the marriage ring finger, either the right or the left hand, and for all of us, a finger with a direct link to our nervous system. It represents freedom for the environment. Life. We all have a direct link to the Earth and the ecosystem of which we are a part. When the life of the Earth is spoiled, our lives are spoiled. Finally, there is our “little finger,” shorter and smaller than the rest. It represents freedom from fear. It’s the “finale” of our hand, our reward. All the others lead to this one.
As you take a look at your hand and recount the Five Freedoms, remember that you didn’t ask for that hand, you were born with it. So, too, you do not have to ask for the Five Freedoms, you were born with them. They are five freedoms for all!
Four of these Five Freedoms originated with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. He stated the following, in his State of the Union address to the U.S. Congress in January 1941: “We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms: The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want—everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear—everywhere in the world.”
The beauty of these Four Freedoms is that they are an outline of an agreement for humanity. They are a social formula. When we, the people of our international community, have created a social order whereby all people enjoy the first three freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom from want—then we will have created a society that allows us to share in the fourth freedom, freedom from fear. This formula was not just born out of a desire to end World War II, but, as President Roosevelt said, “to end the beginning of all wars.” This quote and the Four Freedoms are a guiding light for 2048.
Roosevelt saw the Four Freedoms as achievable within a generation. Commenting on his speech, he said, “It is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.” Perhaps he was overly optimistic about the speed at which the Four Freedoms could be achieved everywhere in the world, but steady, immediate action is the message; we can’t put these rights off forever.
The Four Freedoms are the essence of a good life for all. They ensure the following: We can think freely, say and write what we want and peacefully organize to protest; we can have a relationship with a god of our choosing, without interference by the state; we can live in security, knowing that education and health care will always be available regardless of circumstance; and finally we can live in peace, without fear of rampant crime and continuing war. In short, the Four Freedoms are the core of our social contract—our agreement about how we will live together.
President Roosevelt’s recitation of the phrase “everywhere in the world” at the end of each freedom is key. In effect, the Four Freedoms were a New Deal for the world. Roosevelt had long been a champion of the common man in America. Through the New Deal, Roosevelt took the hard edges off capitalism. He made sure that working people were not left destitute while wealth and power were consolidated into the hands of a few. With the Four Freedoms, he was expanding his gaze to all men and women, in all nations, to ensure that destitution did not befall anyone, for in destitution he saw the seeds of war.
While the Four Freedoms ensure dignity and cover most of our social contract among ourselves and our government, we need a fifth freedom to preserve our planet, including the ecosystem that provides joy and beauty, and also sustains us: freedom for the environment. Just as our human DNA is 98.5 percent the same for all people in all countries, so too our well-being is intertwined with our physical environment.
Equally important, as we have learned from global warming, the health of our environment affects us all, everywhere, and therefore, as with the first Four Freedoms, freedom for the environment must also apply “everywhere in the world.” The demise of our planet’s ecosystem teaches us the folly of only working on local environmental issues while dramatic degradation takes place worldwide.
Furthermore, it’s time to discard the myth that we must be willing to sacrifice the environment for the sake of economic competition.
What is needed is uniform, international regulation of the type that an international convention would provide. Without an international approach, there will always be pressures for some countries to sacrifice the environment to gain market advantage. Capitalism works well, but it tends to create a race to the bottom when it comes to environmental protection.
Creating a fifth freedom for the environment is harmonious with the other four freedoms. Often, destruction of the environment results from the actions of impoverished people who are struggling to survive, whether by cutting down their local forest to an extent that it does not grow back, for example, or overfishing until fish stocks do not come back. The lack of the first three freedoms, particularly freedom from want, can thus lead to the destruction of the environment. As we reach an agreement regarding the first four freedoms, we provide well-being for all; the result, then, is that the need to sacrifice the environment to survive is reduced. In this way, the Five Freedoms are intertwined and the success of each bolsters the others.
Given the strength and well-being each of us will gain from five universal freedoms, it is time to dispel another myth—that there is not enough to go around. We pay dearly for the myth that we can’t afford to have health care and education for all, and the myth that environmental protection is too costly. These myths are untrue. For example, studies have conclusively shown that not only will global warming cause serious suffering and diminishment of our daily lives, but it will cost us more to pick up the pieces after hurricanes, droughts and flooding than it will cost to avoid these calamities. Similarly, while education may cost more initially, it creates good jobs to construct schools and results in highly productive workers. So in addition to generating fulfilling lives, implementing 2048 would deliver financial savings.
Americans, on the whole, like people in all other countries, are fundamentally good and generous souls with whom you can sit and talk at the kitchen table. Many do not know that their government gives less than one-fifth of one percent to foreign aid and is at the bottom for giving among developed countries. They probably also don’t know that the U.S. spends more on its military than all other countries combined. Part of the role of 2048 is to help spread awareness. When people know the truth, they support reallocation of resources as part of the agreement to live together, in keeping with their self-interest and morals.
Awareness can be created with a small percentage of people. Just as it will only take 1 percent of the GNP for the realization of education and health care for all, so too it will only take 1 percent of humanity to share the news of 2048. Word of mouth, spurred by our innate desire to live in peace and security instead of war and want, will spread the word. This 1 percent of humanity already exists within the arts and media, our non-profit and for-profit businesses, our places of worship, our universities and even our governments; now the Internet and 2048 are bringing all these communities together.
Knowledge of the Five Freedoms is essential to achieve this 1 percent “tipping point” for the success of 2048. Students and the public generally need to be able to recall the Five Freedoms just as easily as they can count the five fingers on their hands. As they learn their rights, they come to expect them, both from one another and from their governments. What they expect today, they will demand tomorrow. The Five Freedoms are deeply held cultural values that lead to lasting results.
The 2048 Project is an affiliation of educational institutions, human rights centers, non-governmental organizations, businesses and foundations collaborating to educate students and the public about the evolution of human rights and to provide a process to draft an international framework for enforceable human rights that can be in place by the year 2048, the 100th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This is an edited excerpt from 2048: Humanity’s Agreement to Live Together by Kirk Boyd, published by Berrett-Koehler.
