Silo, Sucre Hall, 25 June 2008

Notes on Silo's Conversation with the Chilean Park Commissions and World Without Wars

Sucre Hall, 25 June 2008

(Based on notes by Andres K and Ana L'Homme, not reviewed by Silo)


The Commissions

In the Message we are trying to speed up procedures, meaning that among other things, we want to speed up the minimal procedures that have to do with the Message. To speed up a rudimentary organization that is the Commission. The Commission is where the people meet, wherever a community of the Message appears; we need it for the internal functioning of this human group. The Commission is a little nucleus of people who coordinate. At the same time their function is also to connect with other similar commissions that are farther away. Commissions that are close together will always find out about each other, but those that are thousands of miles apart don't have the same resonance. Certainly communications have improved today, but a neighbor isn't the same as someone in Tokyo; with the Commissions there's a more intense close communication. It's like mental contents – it's not the same when things are separated, divided up like in a fly's eye, as it is when things are connected. When contents are integrated everything works; if not, everything is dislocated.

So this thing of the commissions is interesting – this thing of speeding up procedures in the sense of having the commissions be active in each place in relation to their immediate people and in their relationship with other commissions. To speed up these procedures is going to be good for us. We are also very interested in having certain places where these commissions or these human groups can touch bottom, and accelerate their development. I'm referring to those places where people are meeting in little halls, family homes or more or less fixed points, and finally to the Parks. Those are spatial references, not just psychological references, where everything dances a lot. We are talking about places, where things are rooted in another way, and speeding up the functional procedures of the commissions is of great interest.

Worldwide March

We are in a moment when it seems very opportune to have all of this move outward, and go beyond it's own work to reach broader communities, broader groups. We are talking about the Worldwide March for Peace and Nonviolence, which fits like a ring on our finger – but we have to build the finger well.

So we have these Commissions with their immediate environment, and their relationship with other commissions, and the issue of creating places where people can work. Whatever can be done there, the quicker the better, because that will facilitate our ability to expand these ideas, expand registers, expand feelings, expand points of view in an activity that is rightly very much related to us. Completely related.

Let's take a look at this issue of peace and nonviolence. It has several layers like an onion, as Marcos pointed out when he sent a letter saying isn't it the case that nonviolence can be explained in other fields? Because it may seem that nonviolence just means that you have to avoid wars - no, no, there are forms of violence in every field. The more explicit the better, the field of nonviolence is enormous. This letter is interesting, highlighting the idea that not everything should remain eclipsed by the anti-war thing. The anti-war sentiment is one characteristic, and the anti-war attitude is not necessarily nonviolent. You can't standardize it, it's not the same.

Very interesting, and it fits very well with our issues, it's the basis of the thing. Now nonviolence is beginning to be in fashion, you can see in periodicals that some popular gossip writers are beginning to talk about nonviolence, pacifism… fine.

Comment: In Paris, in the Hall of Peace, the theme of nonviolence wasn't present – now it is, everyone is talking about peace and nonviolence. As if it were a slogan.

Silo: That's the way it is, we are synchronized with the "talk of the town" [most popular current themes]… even the gossip writers agree, we are resonating on the same wavelength. Look how interesting, it's going to turn into something that's socially valid. In short, in a globalized world, this theme is beginning to appear everywhere and it's very interesting. Phenomena are being accepted, are being socialized at great distances, they are being synchronized among themselves and installed in society.

Today there are numerous phenomena that are globally accepted. For example, the protection of animals, even when there are no laws, you can't put a dog or a horse in the street and hit it, because the protection of animals has become socially accepted, it is valid and socially respected. Protection of the environment is accepted, the ecological thing that doesn't just stop with four "greens" in Germany. No, no, you have to see how protection of the environment and ecology have become installed in society, and how they teach children about it from a very young age.

There are many things that have become accepted in society, and quickly. The ecological consciousness was installed very quickly, it's extraordinary, now nonviolence is becoming installed, pacifism, they're beginning to have global social relevance.

Of course we are the ones who have a lot to say about this matter, we are the only ones who can set a worldwide mobilization in motion. Don't believe what they say… "well, the pacifist organizations"… they don't exist, they are rubber stamps, they are four friends. "Hundreds of organizations" … if it were true it would be something else. They are going to begin to adhere, they won't add anything or detract anything, but they will have publicity, they are accepted and will be noticed. The "pacifist organizations," and one person will come out with a little flag… the reality is something else.

The issue is how to mobilize this, give it direction. This campaign can make it possible to give direction to and mobilize a bunch of things, things that are permeable in the social environment. There's an enormous degree of permeability. The times are favorable, not like 20 years ago, or 10 or 5. This is something that has been installing itself very fast, it's notable. To engage different small forces, but many, multiplicative, engage them, we just have to look at them, in time and space.

A march that moves in a space. If it's a worldwide march it will be a march that moves globally, if we give it a beginning, a middle, and an end, beginning at one place, ending at another, and going through various points. Then it's something to talk about, about the beginning of the activities, the places and some other points, and one of those points, on different continents and hopefully in many countries there can exist these places that have to do with the Commissions and that can attract people and can make it available to the people, especially if the march passes through there. Something visible, physical, obvious, like the Parks.

So now those loose elements, considered simply as things of one point and another and another, now they get strung together and interconnected, by planetarizaton, by a phenomenon of a worldwide march. And so where it is going to pass through includes, among other places, the Parks.

The Worldwide March for Peace and Nonviolence, and not "against" but "in favor of"… We have to understand this position that there is. The dialectical vision of the world and the current planetarized vision of the world – which are two different things. [The latter] is more intentional, more engaged, more directed, in terms of objectives to be achieved, that keep advancing, but not in dialectical terms. Today the truth isn't revealed through argument - that is something that belongs to our ancestors. Argument engenders truth, said Saint Thomas, and the rationalists of the 19th century accepted it, but it's from the 13th century. That's not the way it is, that you can get there by arguing, now wills converge in the same direction.

Creating Consciousness

We don't speak of nonviolence as a form of confrontation although confrontations can be incidentally produced. For Peace and Nonviolence. We need to clarify many things about peace, about nonviolence, its methodology, its form of action. It seems that one of the issues would be to clarify about these points. We are inside a phenomenon of clarification that we can direct very simply, creating consciousness. These are the phenomena of creating consciousness - personal, interpersonal, social - creating consciousness. What is consciousness, nothing, it's the brain that has things inside it… it's different to create consciousness, it's what predisposes the images in one direction or another. It's what ends up moving human intentions, it's from the consciousness that certain images come, that move and make people do things. So it's a very interesting phenomenon, and one to be careful with. Human intentions that go in the same direction.

We don't have to worry about clashing, because those who are in another epoch and move with another image, they are the ones who are going to clash. As soon as this begins to move, the contra will appear, they will get into confrontation, not us. All very well, they will do their part, God writes straight with crooked lines.

A Worldwide March for Peace and Non Violence, 3 months, 90 days, 120 countries to be touched, a whole lot of kilometers… And why are we talking about this? Because we see that this is very homogeneous with the Message, with our action in the environment, with our form of expression…

So, there's an institution called World Without Wars, 14 years of WWW. They have been saying things, doing things, and they got no attention -yet, they did things… It's been 14 years. At some point they proposed the year 2000 Without Wars along the same lines of this new idea. How many years has it been active in different ways?

Rafa: It had a very intense activity when it was first created, and up until 1998 the amount of activities was very impressive. Even though it later went down in number of activities, it stayed active in many places. It focused on education, and about 2 years ago it was reactivated with Silo's spot. In the last 2 years there are people in about 20 countries.

Silo: World Without Wars, it's excellent. Why shouldn't the Message adhere to this proposal? This is a very interesting activity to do in a set amount of time. This will start on October 2nd, 2009 and end at the beginning of January 2010. We said that in 2010 we would do something, but things were not solved. It seemed far off, but now the beginning of 2010 isn't far away. A year and a half for this strong little thing. It's going to require organization, a certain potency… But if this takes space socially, we will see a large affluence of people. If this gets installed socially it will be easy for people to become enthusiastic, because this is the time. So, they will accompany, they will participate, they will do anything because it fits with the times. If you said this 20 or 40 years ago you would have not been with the times. People have not changed that much. Their neurons are more or less the same today as they were 3 million years ago. Historic change is now very strong, so, what has changed is the historic moment, not the people. And we'll have to see how they act… We have to give them reference. Then, all those loose little pieces of ice will become magnetized like particles in a magnetic field, they line up like they do in a magnetic field (because) they get reference.

This thing of the Worldwide March is very good, Rafa. And, who is going to organize the Worldwide March? The "thousands of organizations"? It's clear they cannot do it. It's much better for us (to do it) than for others, because we come from the idea that is now being put on the floor - the idea of planetarization, seeing things in worldwide terms and not locally, even when we do them in a particular place (we have to start somewhere). There was always an almost missionary idea of reaching other places. So, now these phenomena that are worldwide coincide very well with us. Planetarization and us.

And logically, we'll get the nationalisms against us, the chauvinisms are going to be the contra, and discrimination of all types. The contra of the small, the fragmented, and the "can't be done."

The Media and Diffusion

We don't know how the press is going to behave. The media are very important because you communicate in seconds, in fractions of a second they communicate with millions of human beings even though they are at a great distance geographically. The media are very important, we will see what they do. This will happen with them or without them, even if they are against it… but we'll have to see how they behave, so to make an effort to reach the media is worth the trouble. But it could well be that they will try to silence it, so no one knows about it – that's been their tendency with us. They are afraid of these phenomena of propagation. So the effort to reach the press. Some may encourage it and others may try to stop it, like 'dissent in the enemy ranks', that's their problem.

Diffusion, reaching the media, the mass media of diffusion, will be very important, in this epoch it's not about word of mouth. When the populations were small the mouth worked. The big reaction against the official church, for example, begins not through diffusion media, it begins in a village when a kind of "manifesto" is nailed up, and then a few people come and look at it, and half of them can't read and others begin to explain… Now another phenomenon has been installed and in three months you have large areas around this little point and this town that submit to Luther's thesis, in three months. Today it could happen in a second.

Today populations are much larger, they are very difficult to connect without the diffusion media, rumor is not going to be enough, word of mouth is not going to be enough, not even the print media. Through the print media there can be contributions, something like that, certain basic things, but it's the electronic thing that allows you to connect with people instantaneously. Gutenberg is something of the past. It's another principle that connects people, not the press.

Which is also a paradoxical system because people can now communicate with millions and despite the distances, and yet you can see that people can't communicate with their neighbor, they are absolutely out of communication, they need the electronic medium… this brings us to another conversation, it's wonderful what happens there.

But the moment is arriving when the electronic diffusion media are the most important for our things. It's another classic form of communication … than books, paper, leaflets… that's not for something dispersed, spread out. We who are trying to move an important phenomenon among millions of persons and at great distances that they are traveling… that they are traveling not even in a balloon, it isn't 90 days in a balloon…

Comment: There could be a stretch in a balloon…

Silo: and we'll have to see how we visualize that, there will be photos, and filming and the thing of the balloon will come out… it will be seen a lot…

It's very interesting, all this, so it looks like it's very good for the Message, for its basic proposal, for its projection. Peace and nonviolence is very appropriate, it's a good proposal that is appropriate, it's about mobilization. It's already more than an idea that moves, it's an idea that gets into people, it's people who move, not just ideas. An idea that gets accepted in the social environment and moves people from the environment. It has its appeal.

The Parks

For the Message it fits like a ring on our finger, many things have had to coincide to produce a moment in which all this works, many things have had to come about. If you review everything that has happened, you'll see how little things have been coming together in the same direction. It's very interesting… And the Parks, since we have been talking about this, are more notable phenomena, it's clearer that they can do something important in this march. So there's the march that passes through the countries it passes through, and they have perfect diffusion… but [it's interesting] that they have reference to the Parks, inside, that the Parks are light houses. And parks and light houses do not try to get boats to dock at the light houses, they are for giving reference on the journey.

Light houses of humanity, yes, we still need them at certain points, like Alexandria, where it would have come in very handy with this phenomenon. Something very cultural, it would have been very interesting to have a Park there in Alexandria. We will have to see what can be done there to support the worldwide march. The multicultural phenomenon works with us too, it's clearly multicultural, we have to bring in this multicultural element in areas where historically people are culturally mistreated, like in the middle east… How can we not go there to the middle east!

What are the Israeli pacifists going to do, they are just a few, but very active, as they have demonstrated… What are the Palestinian pacifists or whatever they call themselves, what are they going to do, are they going to say this is out of theme? Or are they going to adhere? These groups are very significant and a little voice that is raised in those places has a lot of meaning. They might not be great multitudes, but they can be a few who are very coherent with this matter.

So these points, there are others… And there's the other coordinate, which is time. How things go in the world. Things that aren't present today can complicate things a lot. In one year more we may be facing a scenario that is quite different from today's... the invaders of Iraq may leave Iraq and enter and install themselves in some other way… It may be that the people who direct a worldwide system will begin to be those who have always been submerged - there may be a black president in the US. There could be important changes in may things, we may find ourselves with a completely different scenario. This is going to accelerate a lot.

We have one year to begin to prepare things. So we shouldn't be surprised if these changes come about, let's get them to go in our favor, many of these things can be made favorable. Where we can push, it will be convenient for us.

We may find important changes in the scenario as it is today in the world, and we are not going to keep changing our tactics and all that as things keep changing. We have to set a point of interest, a certain procedure, and a movement of people in certain spaces and in a certain time. When it begins, when it ends, the places it goes through.

Rafa: The march begins on October 2 (Gandhi's birthday) 2009 in Wellington, New Zealand, in the square facing the Parliament, where there is a statue of Gandhi walking (installed a couple of months ago).

Silo: Not everything about nonviolence can be reduced to Gandhi, but he is a meaningful figure, interesting. It's good to begin there.

Comments: NZ has a ministry of disarmament, it's taken an active role in the de-nuclearization of that zone. They worked against French nuclear testing and did not allow American military bases in their territory.

Rafa: there are some well-founded hopes that it will be the president of New Zealand who inaugurates the Worldwide March. The idea is to march with a core team and go to different countries via plane, and then by train to different cities where there are activities and marches, and arrive January 2, 2010 at PdV. We even have a time: noon in Penitentes, since the branches that come from Chile and Argentina will meet in Penitentes and will go walking (downhill) the 7 km to PdV.

Silo: very interesting, but we have to make the march pass through the Parks. Hopefully the Brazilians will have their Park… the whole march won't pass through there, but one of the branches will begin there, at that point of concentration. The march will have different times, will arrive at a city - for example in the Czech republic it will spend a long time, unlike what will happen with people who concentrate there [?]. It's not going to happen simultaneously, the work is to prepare it simultaneously, but the march will stay at different places for different lengths of time.

Calendar and Route

Rafa: To have an approximate idea, the Asian part that ends in Moscow, beginning in New Zealand, China, India, Japan etc., will take a month. Fifteen days for the European part – Moscow, Spain… Fifteen days Morocco, Dakar… and then a month for America, entering through North America. The idea is to pass through Red Bluff, and there's also the issue of the border between the US and Mexico, so we want to do a whole thing in Tijuana.

Silo: a number of problems and stories show up, all in favor, but they show up.

Rafa: from there the march will take the shortcut that goes by the Pacific and into Bolivia and then back to the Pacific through Arica to Santiago.
Many images are being proposed, an air raid in little airplanes in the south… even a southern branch that will go to Antarctica.

Silo: well, in Tierra del Fuego there are a great many friends, who move and will be able to join the march. There are people who can give a good push to the thing in Patagonia. There's a Park in Neuquen… the march won't pass through there but it is a branch that could then connect with the march. The same will happen with Brazil, which is such an important place. But they will join the march at some point from Brazil, which is a good proposal because if the march had to pass through every point, forget it.

Rafa: since there will be a core team of some 30-40 people, one of them can go to the those branches.

Silo: Are there people for this team? Have they committed themselves already from the beginning?

Rafa: We haven't opened up the enrollment lists yet… and also there's the central aspect which is money… and time. Whoever wants to do the march, pays their own way and that's that. But we are going to try to find sponsors and if we can't find any we'll do it anyway. At least 20 for sure who will do the whole march… and there will be many more. Another consideration is the thing of the physical conditions, health, because a march is a big effort, even if we've done parts of it by train, bus or plane.

Each point requires many details of organization that need to be looked into, the people in each place will have to do that… There are promotional teams in each place that define the local details. The central team looks at the global picture, which goes along with the main interest. For example in Santiago they want to organize the biggest festival on Dec. 30 with international artists and singers, like the festival that couldn't be done in Chile during the dictatorship and Amnesty did it in Mendoza.

One thing is the theory of an initiative, and the other is to carry out the initiative. A lot of images arise.


Silo reads the definitions (in Complete Works Vol. 2, the Dictionary of New Humanism) of nonviolence, active nonviolence, pacifism, and anti-war.

They are different things, although they coincide at certain times.

The proposal of the March cannot be reduced to Gandhi. But it is interesting. Gandhi promoted an anti-colonial nonviolent movement… Forms of nonviolent struggle installed in different parts of the World. Nonviolence tries to minimize violence. To see things in perspective, if you see it in process, you keep moving forward/gaining territory. You are not going to have complete success, but you are going to create awareness, bring about a change in attitudes. You have to see it in perspective. You have to know how to differentiate anecdotes from processes. Currently there are only anecdotes. In each country they are going to say things and do things… For example when they pass through the Czech Republic, there will be a big to-do about the anti-missile shield.

How better to highlight what we've been talking about for 40 years!

There are those who say: "Global warming is the most important issue." The other stuff doesn't exist. That a bomb might fall on you, that doesn't exist!

To consider global warming as one of the issues, that's fine. But for it to be The Issue, that's an embarrassment. They've deified nature. It's the secondary, the anecdotal. The warmongers were in favor of the war. They said it was the only thing that would guarantee a New Order. They said that in revolution some replace others, and that doesn't guarantee change. The warmongers began with an aesthetic movement, futurism. That whole aesthetic movement ended in fascism and communism. Both are warmongering, but they didn't propose it that way.

Today there are still people who say things like: "Thanks to war we have progress" or "war brings technological advance," "it's the struggle for life." That's something from the end of the 18th century.

Five or six thousand years ago, the Assyrians didn't just raze a village, they made a pyramid of the heads they cut off as a warning. That was 5000 years ago. There's an apology for war.

If after signing on to and supporting the march, organizations and people say the opposite, that's their problem. People believe what they see on TV. When we came out with the spot on disarmament, some were already saying that that wasn't the issue, because they didn't see it on TV. Three days after the spot came out, came the nuclear threat in Korea…

We have to move quickly, there isn't much time. I'm going to have this same conversation in La Reja Park and with other park commissions.

To make people aware is a whole thing in itself. To create consciousness is an objective in itself. To predispose people to [new] habits, images, another way of life. To create consciousness is a very important objective.

How can that be achieved? We will see. With all certainty, better than doing nothing! To clarify people as they become aware.

This march can create a lot of awareness.

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