Global Peace Zone

by John Kimmey

Hawaii is the tallest mountain range on earth. 90% of its landmass is under water. The land above the surface of the ocean is the most remote habitable place on earth. The indigenous inhabitants have a gift for those of us in search of global peace. It is called by them the spirit of Aloha. And it is alive and well still, even amidst our modern chaos.

The Aloha spirit is the ideal model for global peace. Modern Hawaii is the place of intercultural collaboration. The bridge of East and West. What do all the inhabitants have in common, whether they are Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, Philipino, Korean, Vietnamese, Samoan, British, American, Indian, Canadian, etc., etc.? They have all adopted the original spirit of the native inhabitants. They practice the aloha spirit. And well they should, for it is the only appropriate spirit for diverse, interdependent people sharing the most remote rock on earth.

Aloha spirit says that having a good time is a basic social tendency which, when practiced, creates peace. When you practice enjoying yourself my enjoyment is enhanced. This truth has been arrived at from experience. Those times in ancient history when leaders ruled with intimidation and terror the rock became hell on earth, and no other earth to run off and hide on. In other words there was no alternative to hell. Hell was normal. The cultural memory of those days has cultivated the flip side of hell. It is called Paradise.

You may say that this is just idealistic speculation. Modern Hawaii has its problems, just like everyplace. But that’s not my point. Here is a microcosm of the entire world coexisting successfully with both itself and the rest of the world. Their common issue of discussion when I was there five months after September 11 was their opposition to being photographed speeding in their cars and then sited by mail. The Big Brother thing wasn’t working on these folks. The majority were vocally opposing the concept of surveillance of the public. A rather healthy view, indeed.

A global peace zone, conceptually, requires more than a definition of what it isn’t. Such a revolutionary concept requires an entirely new paradigm. It’s not reactionary but visionary. It is our collective dream of the world we never got in this life. It is that hidden part of our natures which has learned to back down from the hard, cold, ugly ‘reality’ of today. It is the wish we never dared to wish. It is paradise, unrealized. Such opportunities don’t come along often. The very idea of world peace was never even a concept before the advent of the League of Nations in the late ’30’s. And we have inherited our parents’ misinterpretation as the modern political disaster we are sharing now. Global Peace, by its very name, cannot be legislated and enforced. It must be chosen. And It must be shared equitably.

So the idea of a particular zone where we generate peace is in itself an oxymoron. Peace must be for all. But not all are ready. Places like Taos and Santa Fe appear to be ready. And what these two communities share in common is that they are both non-industrial, retail driven economies. They are also flanked by two facilities designed to provide the military-industrial complex with ever newer technologies to execute war. That makes us an island. Our situation is far worse than Hawaii in that our surrounding ocean is actively engaged in our annihilation. But like Hawaii, we share many of the same sharks, lurking just offshore.

I believe in vision. I have taken part in its manifestation. I know that the more people who share a vision the sooner it manifests. I also know we have never needed one more than now. And we must start somewhere. Let’s begin by identifying what a new paradigm must replace.

Perhaps we should begin with fear. When we practice fear we generate mistrust, aggression, offensiveness, pride, and intolerance. We isolate ourselves from others out of a sense of safety. We create a fantasy from our need to cope, and that fantasy becomes our personal sanctuary from the real world. In order to maintain the fantasy we found our personal perspective on a complex system of denial. This paints everything tolerable. What we have constructed for ourselves is a living hell. And we call it, “I’m OK, You’re OK.”

The next most replaceable aspect of modern life might be jealousy. We have been manipulated by a system that, by its very nature, promotes jealously. Our most basic economic premise is scarcity. We punish those without ‘enough’ money while we reward those with ‘more than enough’. This promotes wishful thinking, which moves us to work ever harder, never-fully reaching the fulfillment of our wish. We have achieved the dubious distinction of becoming the world’s consumers. And, in fact, are consuming the world at the expense of it. Our assumed needs already exceed the world’s carrying capacity. One dollar earned in interest in the bank means someone must starve.

I believe sexual repression is right up there as unnecessary baggage in a global peace zone. Have you noticed how every religion achieves, among it adherents some degree of sexual repression and therefore guilt? It’s woven into the entire fabric of our lives. If you care to demonstrate to yourself just how deep it goes, go ahead and exercise your sexual fantasy and observe the devastating consequences. The loneliness we all feel these days is because of alienation. We have learned to maintain this alienation through construction of elaborate rationalizations. We have some attitude about the opposite sex that limits our ability to achieve relationship. We have created personal character traits that discourage others from finding us attractive. We have taught ourselves to blame others for this. We are the loneliest people on earth.

What if we eliminate the need for fantasy completely? What kind of a world would we have created? Certainly one with a lot less videos! We have become second-hand fantasy addicts. Most of us would rather watch someone have sex in two dimensions than to do it in three. When Mother Teresa visited the United States she called us the loneliest people on earth.

I believe by elimination of the above three most prevalent tendencies in our present way of life; fear, jealousy and repression we will achieve a state of being which could easily be described as peaceful. And a world without fear, jealousy, and repression could begin to come close to a true state of aloha. It sounds like fun to me. And perhaps we should take our lead from our children, who, when left to their own devices always seem to opt for fun. If we cannot accept the gift of life by fully celebrating it, then we are denying it, therefore are not fully alive.