Report by Prof. Ernesto Kahan MD MPH. Tel Aviv University, Israel

President - Israel Physicians for Peace and Preservation of the Environment & Former Vice President of IPPNW (Organization awarded Nobel Peace Prize 1985)

Vice President - IFLAC (Intl Forum for Literature and Culture of Peace)

Executive Co-President - UHE Hispano American Writers Union

Hon. President of AIELC - Israeli Association of Writers. Spanish Branch

ekahan@post.tau.ac.il

 

Report to the Organizing Committee of the Second World Forum of Spiritual Culture 

Dear Dignitaries and friends in your degrees and qualifications,

 

Last May 25th, 2014, I contacted Sanctity Pope Francis, in opportunity of his historical visit to Jerusalem, and in the name of the Israeli and Italian Affiliates of IPPNW, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1985 Peace Prized Nobel organization, I expressed our warm gratitude for his Peace and Dialogue attitudes since his election to the Peter's Site, and because of this visit, for Peace and interethnic and interreligious dialogue for peace between Israel and Palestine. I also expresses to his Excellency our thank for the support given by the Holy Site Delegation to the recent II Diplomatic International Conference on Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons (Nayarit, Mexico, February 2014).

Pope Francis recently said on Saturday, September 13 that the conflicts around the globe today were effectively a "piecemeal" Third World War, my position on the subject is well known. In an interview for the Newspaper EPIKAIRA (Extra Time) of New Smyrna of Athens, about "Which is the status of harmony and peace today on our planet?" My answer was: Our current society is at a transcendental crossroads. On one hand, the use of natural resources is very efficient, but on the other, that same use is endangering the continuity of life on our planet. On one hand, new technology and systems of intensive production permit us to obtain an elevation in the quality of life for all humanity, but on the other, new conflicts are threatening the use of weapons of mass destruction, mainly atomic, and with it the potential destruction of our civilization and life on Earth. On one hand, the massive development of the media is carrying all the social-economic-political-cultural events to the television screens and Internet of private computers of the inhabitants of all corners of the world, but on the other, financial or governmental interests are manipulating these same media, deforming the news, creating nonexistent realities and “brain-washing” the audience. On one hand, human rights have gained the power of international law, and democracy is the most accepted form of government, but on the other, individuals are in danger of losing their dignity completely by being transformed into “cogs in a machine” by the economic corporations and the dominant governments. On one hand, the fall of the absolutist states has provided people of different countries with the opportunity to dissent, but on the other, the new techniques of propaganda via communication are transforming them into manipulated “flocks of sheep”. On one hand, science penetrates into the “secrets” of life and the universe, but on the other, the pseudo sciences, superstition, fraud and fundamentalist and irrational thought have acquired economic and political power, and promote fanaticism and intolerance. Terrorist movements that are claiming the arrival of the “end of times” use the same extremist fanaticism as religion in order to be justified and to create panic. In other words, there is no harmony and no peace and mankind is playing with mass destructive weapons that can destroy completely the life in our planet.

This tragic situation demands an urgent care at every social level. The World Forum of Spiritual Culture, due to its enormous worldwide dimension and capability, has a decisive contribution towards such an interethnic and interreligious Peace Dialogue and Mutual Trust under a moral, ethical, and educative culture

Thank you, dear dignitaries of this great Forum, for your attention

Yours sincerely,