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AWC
World NewsReturn
to AWC 2005 Conference Summary
Return
to AWC 2005 Conference Speeches
The German
AWC Branch A Presentation
Paper presented by the
German branch of the Association of World Citizens, August 2005
Ladies and gentlemen, my dear
friends!
It is a great honour and at the
same time a real pleasure for me to have the chance of giving
you an outline of the German branch of AWC. I will give my short
report following three chapters, the first being How it all started,
the second What is has become of and the third Where it will
go to.
When speaking about my first
chapter "How it all started", I will have to make some
rather personal remarks. In other words, I will have to speak
about my wife Ingrid and myself. When we made our first steps
towards the Association of World Citizens more than two years
ago, we brought with us an experience of 20 years' work for the
German peace movement. During the last few of these 20 years
we both got the strong feeling that it would simply be necessary
to combine efforts internationally in order to reach any efficiency
on the side of the different peace movements and peace activities.
In this context I would like to mention a kind of episode in
the development of Ingrid's and my own thoughts and inclinations.
In the early 90s we designed what we then called a virtual "peace
state", which was thought to give people at least a symbolic
place for a new identification as citizens. Sadly enough, the
echo to our plan was practically not there. As I see it now those
ideas were already unconscious steps towards world citizenship.
Those steps were followed by a period of time when we were looking
around, picking up ideas and organisations and when we were comparing
them. Along this course it was an overwhelming experience for
Ingrid and myself to find our innermost convictions, namely pacifism
or at least an anti-war policy- and the idea of world citizenship
combined in one concept, that is to say in the concept of the
Association of World Citizens. Subsequently an open and friendly
correspondence started with Douglas Mattern early in 2003. By
August 10, 2003 Douglas had us installed as directors of the
new German branch, which was a project more than an established
body by that time.
My second chapter "What
it has become of" will sound less personal and more formal
in two respects. Let's look at the first of them. Together with
a number of friends we soon had the impression that a proper
legal framework within the landscape of German institutions and
necessities would be useful. So we discussed statutes and in
June 2004 we founded a German "Verein" which is a society
registered with a local court. Three months later we finally
reached the full status of a registered "Verein". One
of the advantages of being a "Verein" is the fact that
donations to our society are tax deductible. Each world citizen
in Germany who is registered through AWC normally becomes a member
of our "Verein", which is called "AWC Deutschland".
This is the basic structure of the organization of our branch.
The meetings of the "Verein", the newsletters and personal
contacts have created nearness, familiarity and determination.
An interesting and lively further development of the basic structure
of the "Verein" (society) already exists in the federal
state of Sachsen-Anhalt in the Eastern part of Germany. There
elder world citizens, registered through San Francisco already
in former times, and new members form a section or sub-division
within the legal frame of our branch. The second more formal
aspect in this chapter is our website. After discussing the question
whether it would be a good idea to establish a branch website
alongside the San Francisco based website, we decided to have
a site. On one hand we did so for almost the same reasons for
which we had founded the "Verein": to create nearness
and familiarity. Needless to say that for those users who
prefer the German language- there are German translations of
San Francisco papers and texts on the branch website, most important
of them a translation of the Human Manifesto. On the other hand
we were convinced that a website would be an indispensable means
of making our ideas known to a broader public. In this field
I would like to report a tiny little detail which we are rather
proud of. When you go to the German chapter of the online encyclopaedia
Wikipedia and look there for the entry of the German equivalent
of "world citizen" or "cosmopolitan" you
will find among other things three web-links. The first of them
is the one to our branch website.
My third chapter "Where
it will go to" will mainly look at one of the projects being
discussed and developed in our branch. Of course, let me say
this before, we will try and enlarge the number of world citizens
registered through our branch, of course we will try and deepen
the already existing contacts among our members, and of course
we will try and do good public relations work. But the project
I am going to talk about will show you a certain specific trait
of our branch. According to the statutes of our society we want
to give the idea of world citizenship a kind of scientific support
by furthering scientific research in the field of world citizenship
and cosmopolitanism. As we don't have the money yet to sponsor
scientific work to a remarkable extent, we have started on our
own. We have given the project I am talking about the title:
Limited Loyalty. What do we want to say by this? The project
is an invitation to bring together ideas and convictions already
made public by movements like the "Not in our names"-movement,
by organizations helping conscientious objectors, by the war-tax
movement and others. In our opinion they all focus on the underlying
idea of a sovereignty of every person and on the right of every
person to comment on and to define her or his sovereignty. The
awareness of such a type of sovereignty correlates, as we assume,
with the limitation of a person's loyalty to a nation-state or
any other political body. The extent to which a person's loyalty
is limited is set by the person's conscience. To put it plainly:
Limited loyalty could be a synonym for an ethically based right
of every person to denying programs and actions of states violating
the person's fundamental convictions. To make this right an effective
one it should be made operational possibly in the way of a declaration
made by large numbers of people. The declaration could be shaped
according to the standards and problems of a country. We are
not sure whether such an operational instrument will change politics
for example in the field of warfare and war business in the near
future. But it could be a means of developing self-confident
citizens who are free to define their own identities in a changing
world.
I thank you for your kind attention.
Klaus Schittich
AWC German branch
Public Relations Manager
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AWC World News Return to AWC 2005 Conference Speeches Paper presented by the German branch of the Association of World Citizens, August 2005 Ladies and gentlemen, my dear friends! It is a great honour and at the same time a real pleasure for me to have the chance of giving you an outline of the German branch of AWC. I will give my short report following three chapters, the first being How it all started, the second What is has become of and the third Where it will go to. When speaking about my first chapter "How it all started", I will have to make some rather personal remarks. In other words, I will have to speak about my wife Ingrid and myself. When we made our first steps towards the Association of World Citizens more than two years ago, we brought with us an experience of 20 years' work for the German peace movement. During the last few of these 20 years we both got the strong feeling that it would simply be necessary to combine efforts internationally in order to reach any efficiency on the side of the different peace movements and peace activities. In this context I would like to mention a kind of episode in the development of Ingrid's and my own thoughts and inclinations. In the early 90s we designed what we then called a virtual "peace state", which was thought to give people at least a symbolic place for a new identification as citizens. Sadly enough, the echo to our plan was practically not there. As I see it now those ideas were already unconscious steps towards world citizenship. Those steps were followed by a period of time when we were looking around, picking up ideas and organisations and when we were comparing them. Along this course it was an overwhelming experience for Ingrid and myself to find our innermost convictions, namely pacifism or at least an anti-war policy- and the idea of world citizenship combined in one concept, that is to say in the concept of the Association of World Citizens. Subsequently an open and friendly correspondence started with Douglas Mattern early in 2003. By August 10, 2003 Douglas had us installed as directors of the new German branch, which was a project more than an established body by that time. My second chapter "What it has become of" will sound less personal and more formal in two respects. Let's look at the first of them. Together with a number of friends we soon had the impression that a proper legal framework within the landscape of German institutions and necessities would be useful. So we discussed statutes and in June 2004 we founded a German "Verein" which is a society registered with a local court. Three months later we finally reached the full status of a registered "Verein". One of the advantages of being a "Verein" is the fact that donations to our society are tax deductible. Each world citizen in Germany who is registered through AWC normally becomes a member of our "Verein", which is called "AWC Deutschland". This is the basic structure of the organization of our branch. The meetings of the "Verein", the newsletters and personal contacts have created nearness, familiarity and determination. An interesting and lively further development of the basic structure of the "Verein" (society) already exists in the federal state of Sachsen-Anhalt in the Eastern part of Germany. There elder world citizens, registered through San Francisco already in former times, and new members form a section or sub-division within the legal frame of our branch. The second more formal aspect in this chapter is our website. After discussing the question whether it would be a good idea to establish a branch website alongside the San Francisco based website, we decided to have a site. On one hand we did so for almost the same reasons for which we had founded the "Verein": to create nearness and familiarity. Needless to say that for those users who prefer the German language- there are German translations of San Francisco papers and texts on the branch website, most important of them a translation of the Human Manifesto. On the other hand we were convinced that a website would be an indispensable means of making our ideas known to a broader public. In this field I would like to report a tiny little detail which we are rather proud of. When you go to the German chapter of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia and look there for the entry of the German equivalent of "world citizen" or "cosmopolitan" you will find among other things three web-links. The first of them is the one to our branch website. My third chapter "Where it will go to" will mainly look at one of the projects being discussed and developed in our branch. Of course, let me say this before, we will try and enlarge the number of world citizens registered through our branch, of course we will try and deepen the already existing contacts among our members, and of course we will try and do good public relations work. But the project I am going to talk about will show you a certain specific trait of our branch. According to the statutes of our society we want to give the idea of world citizenship a kind of scientific support by furthering scientific research in the field of world citizenship and cosmopolitanism. As we don't have the money yet to sponsor scientific work to a remarkable extent, we have started on our own. We have given the project I am talking about the title: Limited Loyalty. What do we want to say by this? The project is an invitation to bring together ideas and convictions already made public by movements like the "Not in our names"-movement, by organizations helping conscientious objectors, by the war-tax movement and others. In our opinion they all focus on the underlying idea of a sovereignty of every person and on the right of every person to comment on and to define her or his sovereignty. The awareness of such a type of sovereignty correlates, as we assume, with the limitation of a person's loyalty to a nation-state or any other political body. The extent to which a person's loyalty is limited is set by the person's conscience. To put it plainly: Limited loyalty could be a synonym for an ethically based right of every person to denying programs and actions of states violating the person's fundamental convictions. To make this right an effective one it should be made operational possibly in the way of a declaration made by large numbers of people. The declaration could be shaped according to the standards and problems of a country. We are not sure whether such an operational instrument will change politics for example in the field of warfare and war business in the near future. But it could be a means of developing self-confident citizens who are free to define their own identities in a changing world. I thank you for your kind attention. Klaus Schittich Return to AWC 2005 Conference Speeches Home Page | AWC Goals | AWC Branches | Archives Resolution 2010 | Human Manifesto | AWC History United Nations | AWC Staff | Join Online Today | Worldometers Contact Us |