There has been a lack-lustre response to the September Conference so last week the Convenor pulled the plug on the whole caboodle…which leaves me with oodles of free time over the next few weeks. My intention had been to have a press conference on Monday 11th September 2006…five years on from 9-11...which would unveil something completely different to the War on Terror…currently the only game in town. My hope had been to emerge from the Radical Consultation with a 21-point plan for the 21st century. But now some other route needs to be found.
Here is the three-pronged strategy of a Real Nations Charter and a Real Communities Charter based on six Human Scale Principles:
(1) Relationships based on mutuality;
(2) Communities based on love and personal responsibility;
(3) Local food/local work/local exchange/local energy based on creativity;
(4) Identification with place based on oneness with nature;
(5) Local decision making based on consensus;
(6) Living with uncertainty based on spirituality.
Real Communities Charter: Every community has the right to its own governing council with powers:
(1) to ensure that local governance is responsive to local needs;
(2) to ensure representation on bodies providing local household services;
(3) to maintain law and order and be represented on bodies responsible over wider areas;
(4) to maintain and oversee educational services to ensure adequate provision and prevent outside interference;
(5) to maintain and oversee trading of goods and services and prevent public trading without permission;
(6) to license currencies and local mints, manage its own banking and credit arrangements and regulate local exchange;
(7) to provide broadcasting channels and prevent trespassing by outside interests into private households and public places;
(8) to use technology to ennoble the human spirit and enhance human well-being.
Real Nations Charter: Every nation has the right to join with other nations in a League of Real Nations with powers:
(1) to defend the integrity of members against states and federations of states;
(2) to support the autonomy of ethnic groups and bioregions;
(3) to empower rural and urban village communities to become self-reliant;
(4) to refuse to join military, political or economic alliances;
(5) to promote human scale principles;
(6) to promote the concept of dual nationality;
(7) to promote the concept of dual internationality.
At the conference I had planned to seek support for the Charter 2015 Project to revisit Magna Carta…so that the Real Communities Charter would be derived from the relevant clauses of Magna Carta. At the start of the year I also had ambitions to establish an Edward Goldsmith Institute for Human Scale Ecology at the conference which would take on the diplomatic task of spreading Human Scale Principles around the world. A sensible next step on the Real Nations Charter agenda would be an academic conference on Cantonisation.
