• by Federico Mayor Zaragoza
• Monday, June 06, 2011
• Inter Press Service

The time has come to take a stand, to say calmly and firmly that humanity cannot continue to subject itself to the interminable throes of a system that has resulted in the current grave and multi-faceted (social, financial, food, environmental, political, democratic, ethical) crisis, writes Federico Mayor Zaragoza, ex director-general of UNESCO, president of the Culture of Peace Foundation and president of IPS.

The author writes in this article that modern information technology now allows for remote participation and thus the transition from an economy of speculation and war to an economy of sustainable global development. Today with the mobile phone or the Internet it is possible to change the stubbornly reality; to mobilise millions of people who can finally unite their voices and desires; and carry out an uprising peacefully yet firmly, which the keepers of inertia and privilege and of the ways of the past, didn't let us even imagine.

Those who chanted "less government and more market" while assuring the world that the market will regulate itself and that tax shelters will be eliminated, must publicly rectify the grave errors that have occurred. The plutocratic cliques that were given power by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and have demonstrated their complete ineffectiveness must be replaced. This civil society's moment, for bringing about the great transition from force to words, to meetings, reconciliation, from being subjects to being citizens.

(*) Federico Mayor Zaragoza, ex director-general of UNESCO, president of the Culture of Peace Foundation and president of IPS. This column is an excerpt from his most recent essay "The Crime of Silence" (Editorial Comanegra).

// NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND, AND THE UNITED STATES //

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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