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1. Einstein on Peace; Nathan, O. & Heinz, N. (Simon & Shuster, 1960)
Another cause, also centering in Paris, aroused Einstein's interest at about the same period. In June, 1948, during a stay in Paris, Garry Davis, a young American, voluntarily forswore his American citizenship as a gesture of protest against the drift toward war. In September, after the French refused to extend his residence permit, he attracted international attention by setting up living quarters in a tent on the grounds of the Palais de Chaillot, which had been declared international territory because the United Nations General Assembly was meeting there. Davis was taken under the wing of a former colonel from the French underground, Robert Sarrazac-Soulage, whose activities in France were similar to those of Henry Usborne in England. As the epitome of the "little man" rebelling against the fruitless ceremonial of international politics Davis became a symbol of the struggle for world peace. In November, he and Sarrazac-Soulage created an incident by speaking from the gallery of the United Nations Assembly in favor of the Peoples' World Convention. To a subsequent mass meeting held in Paris, under the auspices of this "Garry Davis Council of Solidarity," Einstein sent this message, dated November 28, 1948.
"I am eager to express to the young war veteran Davis my recognition of the sacrifice he has made for the well-being of humanity, in voluntarily giving up his citizenship-rights. He has made out of himself a Ņdisplaced personÓ in order to fight for the natural rights of those who are the mute evidence of the low moral level of our time. The worst kind of slavery which burdens the people of our time is the militarization of the people, but this militarization results from the fear of new mass-destruction in threatening world war. The well-intentioned effort to master this situation by the creation of the United Nations had shown itself to be regrettably insufficient. A supra-national institution must have enough powers and independence if it shall be able to solve the problems of international security. Neither can one nor has one the right to leave the taking of such a decisive step entirely to the initiative of the governments.
(Telegram of Greeting from Albert Einstein to the Salle Pleyel Meeting, Paris, December 3, 1948) (Pages 503/504)
2. Albert Camus; Olivier Todd, (Knopf)
Camus was more comfortable in defending an American former war pilot, Garry Davis, who tore up his U.S. passport and took refuge in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, temporary headquarters of the United Nations, where he claimed to be a "world citizen". In September, 1948, Davis launched a movement, Citizens of the World, which the French press made much of. A support group of French intellectuals was formed, led by Camus, Andrˇ Breton, Vercors, Raymond Queneau, Jean Paulhan, the philosopher Emmanuel Mounier, the advocate for the homeless Abbˇ Pierre, as well as the African-American expatriate writer Richard Wright. By contrast, Jean-Paul Sartre refused to participate, as he was weary of utopian worldviews and evangelism, and Francois Mauriac was skeptical as well. When Davis tried to give a speech at the United Nations, he was arrested, and Camus and Breton went to the UN Secretary general's office to ask that he be released. Camus was recognized by the officials, although Breton was not, and both were told, "You seem as if anybody at all could come here and make speeches..." (Page 248)
3. World Citizenship and Government; Derek Heater, (St. Martin's Press, 1996)
In the meantime, an American, Garry Davis, had taken up with great energy the notion that individuals should declare themselves to be world citizens. He gave practical expression to this notion in two forms in 1947. One was the creation of a World Citizens' Registry. Individuals have been able to have their names entered on to a register and be issued with as confirmatory identity card. This has provided documentary support for anyone who felt committed to the principles of the registry's declaration. These include the recognition that: "Only a world authority deriving its powers directly from the people of the world can give the necessary priority to (the world's) common needs and interests and provide that effective defense and organization." Within five months nearly a quarter of a million people from over seventy countries had registered by the end of the year, 800,000. The organization still exists and is called the International Registry of World Citizens (IRWC).
Registering as a world citizen was not necessarily meant to be merely a symbolic act. Davis certainly had a very practical objective in mind when he dramatically renounced his American citizenship and declared himself to be world citizen. As he later wrote: "I would bring about world government, I reasoned, precisely as all other governments had been brought into being simply by declaring myself an actual citizen of that government and behaving like one." The requirement that the status of world citizen should entail the possibility of citizenly action was indeed the point of Davis' second initiative. This was the World Citizen's Pact. The basic principle lay in the final rallying sentence: "In place of Pacts between Governments, we offer this Pact between Men!" It was an overt response to the danger of the world inherent in the early development of the Cold War. The Pact incorporated the appeal for a Peoples' Constituent Assembly and the potential of demanding acts of civil disobedience. (Pages 171/172)
4. Utopia or Oblivion; Buckminster Fuller, (The Overlook Press)
I'll give you one more picture to vivify what is happening to us. This picture is of the now visibly developing new "world man." We had him in the news a few years ago, a man who talked about being a "world citizen," you may remember, an American in Paris. Society not only laughed at him as a dopey renegade, but now, unexpectedly to all, everybody is beginning to experience more and more travel. World citizenry is coming about by itself. (Pages 110/111)
5. The Revolution of the Mind, The Life of Andre Breton; Mark Polizzotti, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Instead, he deepened his involvement with another group, the Citizen of the World Movement, and with a young American fighter pilot named Garry Davis. Horrified by what he had seen during the war, and even more by the bellicose climate he'd found on his return to the United States. Davis had gone to France earlier that year and publicly destroyed his American passport in protest. He had also disrupted several meeting of the recently founded United Nations with requests for "world citizenship." His sit-ins were at first treated as minor faits divers, by autumn a number of intellectuals had begun to take notice.
On November 20, Breton and Albert Camus proclaimed their support of Davis in concurrent newspaper articles. Breton's, for Combat, castigated the postwar situation in general and the United Nations in particular, "...the prototype of those humdrum, evil-producing organizations that Kafka's prophetic works already set before us." As in other desperate moments of history, he wrote, "It was currently necessary, and sufficient for one man to stand up in order to put everything in question and force the world to see itself for what it is. That man exists; his name is Garry Davis." (Page 558)
6. Beyond Dispute, The Invention of Team Syntegrity; Stafford Beer, (John Wiley & Sons, 1994)
I worked sporadically on these ideas for the next 10 years, undertaking a few experiments with people and many more with "paper machines." But it was not until I started working with Garry Davis and the notion of world government that the political drive to do something returned. World government: we required 'potentially revolutionary forces in society' indeed. Davis is the World War 2 bomber pilot who renounced American citizenship very publicly in 1945, and has ever since worked tirelessly toward his ideal of One World.
No man is an island, maybe. But Garry Davis is not only his own man but also his own Infoset! The rest of us would need a procedural protocol, but it had to be non-hieratic. In short, we needed a perfect democracy. (pages 11/12)
7. I'll Always Have Paris; Art Buchwald, (Fawcett Columbine, 1996)
A worldwide event took place at the Hotel des Etats-Unis in 1948. One of the roomers there was Garry Davis, the son of Meyer Davis, the society bandleader. Garry was an idealist and wanted to start a world government, to replace all the faulty ones in existence. To dramatize this, he decided to become the first World Citizen by giving up his American passport in front of the Palais de Chaillot where the U.N. was meeting. After World War II the American passport was the most cherished document on earth. Anyone who would give one up was regarded as crazy. The plans for the surrender were formulated in the bar of the Hotel des Etats.Unis. We weighed the pros and cons of Garry's act. If he did it, we warned him, the French would arrest him for not having proof he existed. Garry said that was exactly what he had in mind. He wanted to prove how ridiculous any sort of identification papers really were.
Since there wasn't much going on that day, we encouraged him to do it.
The news traveled fast and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt called Garry and tried to discourage him from following through on his plan. She pointed out that it would look bad for the United States if someone tore up his passport at a UN meeting. But Garry had made his mind up, and the next morning he went down to the Palais de Chaillot and tore it to pieces. The police arrested him for not having proper identification.
A star was born. Every paper headlined the story. It was wonderful theater. Clad in his leather bomber jacket, Garry became a hero and an instant celebrity. For fifteen minutes, people were transfixed by the idea of world citizenship. They didn't like it enough to give up their own passportsŃbut they celebrated the courage of Davis turning his in.
We were the beneficiaries of Garry's noble deed. The Hotel des Etats-Unis was suddenly besieged by foreign correspondents and newsreel cameraman. I volunteered assessments on Garry to anyone who offered to buy me a drink.
I spoke with authority. "Yes, Garry always marched to a different drummer, even though he never owned a drum. He is a visionaryŃa man who would slide out on the wing of a plane to see how much ice was on it. Garry told us in this very bar how sick and tired of wars and rumors of war he was. He feels that his lack of a passport will bring the major powers to their senses again."
Or I said, "I always thought of Garry as Jesus Christ without a tourist visa. Someday, when there is only one world and the capital of it is Montparnasse, people will visit this hotel as if it were a shrine and light a candle at the pissoir out in front.
Garry Davis gave us an exciting time during our student days in Paris., and he shall alwsays be remembered by those who were witness to his grand gesture. His vision of world government was slightly premature, but some of it is actually happening. Look at the European Union, and other alliances that are not only financial but political succeses. Europeans are no longer required to carry passports to visit one another., I pray that someday the Hotel des Etas-Unis will be renamed the Garry Davis Ritz.(Pages 29/30/34)
8. 1949 Britannica Book of the Year; Encyclop¾dia Britannica, Inc. "French Literature"
The bid for peace through a world government which was made famous by the former U.S. aviator Garry Davis also rallied an imposing list of writers, among whom were Andrˇ Gide, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Andrˇ Breton, Emmanuel Mounier, Vercors, Jean Paulhan, Raymond QueneauŠto mention only the better known. (Page 319)
9. Searchlight on Peace Plans; Edith Wynner and Georgia Lloyd, (E.P. Dutton & Co., 1949)
"I interrupt in the name of the people not represented here. Though my words may go unheeded, one common need for world law and order can no longer be disregarded."
"We, the people, want the peace which only a world government can give. The sovereign states you represent divide us and lead us the abyss of total war. I call upon you no longer to deceive us by this illusion of political authority."
"I call upon you to convene forthwith a World Constituent Assembly to raise the standard around which all men can gather, the standard of true peace, of one government for One World."
"And if you fail us in this...stand aside, for a Peoples' World Assembly will arise from our own ranks to create such a government."
"We can be served by nothing less."
From: Declaration of Garry Davis to the United Nations General Assembly, December, 1948 (Page 82)
10. Autobiography of an Absolutist; Nataraja Guru, Gurukula Publishing House, 1989
The name of Garry Davis had at that time become a household word. He leapt into fame by the single dramatic act of renouncing his American citizenship and pitching his small tent on international ground near the United Nations Headguarters in Paris, calling himself a World Citizen. The story of his later adventures for over a decade have been interestingly related by him in a book called The World is My Country, which reveals also how my meeting with this strange and intrepid spirit took place characteristically in the Atlantic when we were both in the open sea, free from national frontiers, sailing in the same ship, the S.S. America, going to New York. Just before the forty-thousand tonner raised anchor, strange cries were heard from the docks from a group of Garry Davis fans who had followd him to the French coastal town. From my cabin I could hear clearly what they cried: "Davis, Davis!" and were agitated about finding him, trying to enter the ship at the last moment.....On hearing the shouts outside and the anchor ready to be raised, I strolled out of my cabin to look around and breathe some fresh air. There was a red-haired man of under thirty at whom many were pointing their fingers, sitting and typing in the smoking-room. All seemed to keep aloof from him as if from a strange animal. They only whispered sotte voce "Garry Davis." The man himself looked confused, lonely and tired to his wit's end. With my knowledge of his Chapter in Paris for World Citizenship which I knew of in detail through friends who worked for the movement and who were also known to me, I got a transparent view of his mental state.
World unity was a subject dear to me and I had my full sympathies for this daring man who stood facing all the relativist internationalists of the world and finding it too much just at the time as I thought on watching him from a distance. I decided to accost him, which I did. I had my own answer for the problem before which he seemed to recoil just then. The dialectical or bi-lateral approach, rather than a mechanistically conceived unilateral one, would cut the knot, I thought. I felt a maximum synpathy for Garry Davis and, although it was not usual with me to go out of my way to preach to anyone who did not seek my advise directly, I decided to make an exception in this case.
I went near him and spoke to him. At first he seemed surprised and seemed to disadopt me, but soon our relation became one of mutual willingness to listen. Soon interest was evinced in what I said. He seemed eager to know more of the new approach to the problem. A friendship was soon established which has now lasted more than fifteen years. It has grown since to be of an absolutist bi-polar understanding likely to last a lifetime. (Pages 346/7)
Garry Davis visited me for a day and stayed the night in the unfinished bedroom with his first wife Audrey. They were planning to leave by air for Haiti in a few days. We had absorbing tete-a-tetes far into the night where we first discovered the possibilities for a new political science called "Geo-dialectics" which was to be based on a dialectical approach to world problems. Outlines to this we then elaborated while together in India about five years later after long joint consultations on a full Memorandum of World Government containing "talking points" on the main principles for a world government. (page 349)
11. Love and Blessings; Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati, Narayana Gurukula, 2000
(Letter to Troy Davis, February 6, 1998)
Since 1947 I was hearing about our dear World Citizen, Garry Davis, from my dear guru who happened to be a soul friend and guru of Garry Davis also. In the intriguing years of Nataraja Guru to give his full support to the aspirations of Garry Davis, I was also a witness of the guru's enthusiasm for the evolving of a World Government of World Citizens.
When Garry came to Fernhill for the first time, Nataraja Guru advised him to see India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Garry promptly called on Nehru and gave him a World Passport. When Nehru told Garry how difficult it was for him to unite the twenty-four linguistic divisions of India, Garry told Nehru that we were not trying to unite the world because the world was already one. What we do is only to advertise the de facto oneness of the world.
When I heard this from Nataraja Guru and afterwards read the same in Garry's book, I was delighted and inspired to throw my lot in with Garry's mission to evolve a global consciousness of One World Fraternaity and also of One World Government (which sounded only probable at the time......As aWorld Citizen, as your father put it rightly, the world is my country and my home. (Pages 722/3)
12. Occasions de bonheur, Alain Stankˇ, Les Editions International, Alain Stank, 1993
Paris, 1948. La premiere Assemblˇe gˇnˇrale des Nations unies se tient au Palais de Chaillot. Les yeux du monde entier ne sont pas tournˇs ver les dˇlˇguˇs, mais plutot vers Garry Gavis. Ancier pilote de l'aviation amˇricaine, il a installˇ une petite tente sur le terrain dˇclarˇ international pour la durˇe de la rˇunion historique.
Davis eest venu a cet endroit espˇrant ˇveiller les consciences sur l'absurditˇ des guerres et des frontieres et l'espoir de dˇmarrer un mouvement mondialiste appelˇ citoyens du monde.
Les dˇlˇguˇs internationaux feignent d'ignorer le trouble-fete mais autour de Davis un gigantesque mouvement de sympathie s'organise. Albert Camus, Andrˇ Breton, Francois Mauriac, Andrˇ Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Einstein, le Dr. Albert Schweitzer, l'abbˇ Pierre en font partie. Assistera-t-on a l'abolition des frontieres, a l'unitˇ mondiale, a une paix durable? J'ai 12 ans. Mon pere, qui partage les idˇes de Davis, m'amene applaudir au Palais de Chaillot. La foule est en dˇlire. C'est un moment historique. La police francaise arrete Davis et veut le renvoyer chez lui...seulement il y a un dˇfaut: il n'a plus de chez-lui, il a renoncee a sa nationalitˇ. Son chez-lui, c'est...le monde entier.
Trente ans passerent. J'ˇtais au Salon de livre de Montrˇal. Je bavardais paisiblement devant mon kiosque lorsque je vis ariver un grand homme blond, a la silhouette fragile et au visage radieux. Elˇgant et dˇsinvolte, il avait un charme unique, fait de naturel, et le sourire innocent d'un adolescent qui vous pousse a tout abandonner pour ne vous occuper que de lui. Il me salua poliment, en francais, marmonna son nom, me serra la main et dans le meme ˇlan me rendit un livre. J'ai tout de suite cru qil s'agissait d'un auteur ou d'un ˇditeur dˇsireux de traiter affaires. Comme je n'avais pas bien compris le nom de visiteur et que je ne voulais pas le lui faire rˇpˇter, je me suis mis aussitot a examiner le titre du livre, puis...le nom de 'auteur. Je lus: Garry Davis.
-Garry Davis! Lui dis-je, ˇtonnˇ. Je connais bien! Serait-ce LE fameux Garry Davis? Etes-vous son ˇditeur?
-Oui, c'est LE Garry Davis, LE citoyen du monde...mais je ne suis pas son ˇditeur. Je suis Garry Davis!
Il n'y pas de hasard dans la vie, parait-il. Depuis ce jour, nous nous revoyons rˇgulierement. J'ai produit sur lui plusieurs documents pour la tˇlˇvision et ˇcrit de nombreux articles qui ont ˇtˇ diffusˇs dans plusieurs pays. Il existe entre nous une merveilleuse complicitˇ. Garry m'ˇcrit et me tˇlˇphone souvent de tous les coins du monde ou ses fonctions l'amenent. Consciencieux, dˇvouˇ, visionnaire, c'est un homme pour que j'ai la plus grande admiration.J'aime sa persˇvˇrance, qu'aucune dˇception (et il en a eu!), aucun dˇboire n'a rˇussi a altˇrer jusqu'ici. J'aime aussi sa confiance en l'humanitˇ et son sens de l'humour, qui l'a souvent sauvˇ. Peut-etre est-ce parce que dans son jeune temps il ˇtait comˇdien et a dˇja jouˇ avec Harpo Marx et Ray Bolger. Il m'arrive souvent de l'appeler Monsieur le Prˇsident (Prˇsident du monde, cela va de soi). Garry me gratifie alors d'un Monsieur la Vice-prˇsident. Et on arrose le tout d'un grand eclat de rire quand ce n'est pas d'un bon verre de vin. Nos conversations sont toujours un mˇlange d'actualitˇ et d'ˇternitˇ. C'est une merveille. J'admire sa modestie, son intelligence, sa facultˇ d'ˇcoute et d'enthusiasme et la qualitee de son argumentation.
13. Le Jours S'En Vont Je Demeure Ń Pierre Bergˇ
Je ne savais pas, ce matin-la, alors que je dˇambulais avec Guy Marchand, que j'allais faire une rencontre qui, d'une certaine maniere, changerait ma vie. Il s'agissait de Garry Davis, cet aviateur amˇricain qui, apres avoir bombardˇ quelques villes francaises, dˇcida de crˇer la Mouvement des citoyen du monde. Lorsque nous le rencontrames, il 's'installait une tente de camping place du Trocadˇro, devant le Palais de Chaillot, qui ˇtait alors le siege de l'ONU.
On peut a peine imaginer ce que fut ce mouvement, l'enthusiasme qu'il souleva, les espoirs qu'il fit naitre. On sortait de la guerre et, pour la premiere fois, un vent de rˇvolte se levait. Contre la guerre, bien sur, mais aussi contre ceux qui, depuis la confˇrence de Yalta, partageaient le monde a leur guise. Le mˇrite de Garry Davis fut d'avoir compris que l'utopie pouvait mobiliser les volontees, qu'elle seule balisait le futur, comme le compas indique le cap. D'avoir compris que sans utopie il n'y a plus de reve, mais des calculs ou le pragmatisme le dispute au renoncement. J'avais dix-huit ans et mes pˇrˇgrinations chez les anarchistes m'avaient appris a me mˇfier des pouvoirs. Je n'ai pas changˇ. Comment tout cela s'organisa-t-il? Toujours est-il qu'en quelques semaines des meetings monstres furent tenus dans toute la France; a Paris, au Vel d'Hiv, vingt mille personnes furent pretes a bruler leurs papiers d'identitˇ et a se dˇclarer citoyen du monde. A la tribune, on pouvait voir cote a cote Sartre st Breton, Queneau et Beavoir. D'autres, beaucoup d'autres.
Je publiai un journal, La patrie mondial, qui, faute d'argent, ne connut que deuz numˇros. Il fut dˇcidˇ d'envahir l'Onu, d'y distribuer des tracts. Le roles furent rˇpartie, Tout fut organisˇ. Garry Davis, au premier rang du balcon, se leva. Interrompit le reprˇsentant de l'URSS qui parlait, lut une dˇclaration pendant que nous jetions tracts et journeaux. La police intervint, chacun s'enfuit. Trois furent arretˇs: Albert Camus, Jean-Francois Armorin et moi. On nous enferra dans une cellule et au petit matin on nous libˇra. Nous allames boire un cafˇ a la Brasserie du Coq et nous nous sˇparames.
J'ai gardˇ de cette nuit un souvenir vif. A cause de Camus, bien sur, mais aussi parce que nous nous ˇtions confrontˇs a la rˇalitˇ. Ainsi, on pouvait interrompre une sˇance de l'Onu? s'y faire entendre? empecher le reprˇsentant de l'URSS de s'exprimer?
Comme toujours les choses commercerent a s'enliser. Les drapeaux mis en buerre, Garry Davis n'avait pu fˇdˇrer autour de sa personne ceux qu'il espˇrait. La politique reprit sa route. C'ˇtait la IVe Rˇpublique et son cortege de chausse-trappes, de trahisons. Le temps ou gaullistes et communistes pouvaient marcher du meme pas.
Guy Marchand est demeurˇ mondialiste jusqu'a la fin. Mort il y a peu. Il fut filele a sa jeunesse, c'est-a-dire a lui-meme. Il m'arrive de revoir Garry Davis. Lui non plus n'a pas renoncˇ. Il continue a militer. Privˇ de passeport, il voyage malgrˇ tout, avec des moyens de fortune, de ruus de Sious, Il continue a defendre ses convictions, Son regard bleu, moins naif qu'il ne parait, me rappelle cette ˇpoque ou Francois Mauriac, qui s'ˇtait tenu a l'ˇcart, nous interpella et nous accusa de croire qu'il suffissait de mettre du sel sur la quene d'une colombe pour l'attraper.
Et si c'ˇtait vrai?
14. A Beautiful Mind, Sylvia Nasar, Simon & Shuster, 2001
Ideas of world government, and the related concept of world citizenshjip., were at their heyday during (John) Nash's Princeton graduate-school days and permeated the 1950 science fiction that Nash devoured as a student and afterward. Founded after the collapse of the League of Nations in the 1950s, the one-world movement exploded into the national consciousness within a few years of the end of World War II. Princeton was a center of that movememt, largely because of the presence of physicists and mathematicians- notably Albert Einstein and John von Neumann - who acted as midwives to the nuclear age. One of Nash's contemporaries in graduate school, John Kemeny, a brilliant young logician, the assistant to Einstein and later the president of Dartmouth College -was a leader of the World Federalists.
However, the one-worlder whoc fired Nash's imagination was a loner like himself, the Abbie Hoffman of the one-world movement. In 1948, Garry Davis, a leather-jacketed World Was II bomber pilot, Broadway actor, and son of society band leader Meyer Davis, had walked into the American embassy in Paris, turned in his U.S. passport, and renounced his American citizenship. He then tried to get the United Nations to declare him "the first citizen of the world." Davis "sick and tired of war and rumors of war," wished to start a world government. "Every paper headllined the story," the columnist Art Buckwald recalled in his Paris memoir. Albert Einstein, eighteen members of the British Parliament, and a slew of French intellectials, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, has come out in support of Davis.
Nash intended to follow in Davis's footsteps. In the overwrought, hyper-patriotic atmosphere of the America he was leaving behind, Nash was choosing the "path of most resistance," and one that captured his radical sense of alienation. Such "extreme contrariness" aimed at cultural norms had long been the landmark of a developing schizophrenic consciousness, In ancestor-worshipping Japan the target may be the family, in Catholic Spain the Churh, Motivated as much by antagonism to his former existence as by an urge for self-expression, Nash particularly desired to supercede the old laws that had governed his existence, and , quite literally, to substitute his own laws, and to escape, once and for all, from the jurisdication under which he has one lived,.
While the motivation may have been highly abstract, the plan itself was strangely concrete, To effect his makeover, he wished to trade his American passport for some more universal identity card, one that declared him to be a citizens of the world.
15. The Dimensions of Global Citizenship, Political Identity Beyond the Nation-State, Dr. Darren J. O'Byre, Frank Cass & Co., Ltd, London, 2003
Garry Davis, the founder of this organization,* is adamant that citizenship today must be pragmatic. For Davis, to be a citizen of anything other than the world itself is a meaningless assertion, because to claim citizenship empowers one to act in a direct relationship with that which impacts upon his or her security and well-being. In the post-war-1945 era, that unit is not the nation-state but the world itself. Davis adopts a position akin to certain forms of social constructionism when he stresses the importance of identifying and claiming one's status as a citizen of the world. Thus Davis's form of global citizenship is a type of performative citizenship: by identifying and claiming our citizenship status, and this by recognizing our relationshp to the world., we are making the statement true.....Davis's commitment to global performative citizenship suggests nothing less. (p. 19)
^The World Government of World Citizens
The World Government of World Citizens... is an organizaion which has responded directly to this pragmatic turn, and which reflects the current philosophy of global consciousness. The organization understands and prioritizes the immediate relationship between individual and globe, and seeks to move the agenda not in the direction of a reformed world federation, but back to the individual both as sovereign and as citizen of the world. It is not just about recognition of, or even identification with, the world and/or its peoples. It is about individual understanding the dynamic and direct relationship they have with the globe as a site of action, and being able to locate themselves firmly within this relationship as a matter of course. (p 18)
16. Richard Wright, The Life and Times, Hazel Rowley, Henry Holt &Co. 2001
"Can the people believein the efforts of the US for democracy and freedom when it is well known that the US does not support her own democractic institutions?" Wright asked in Time magazine. In an article about the "Garry Davis affair," his photograph was featured along with that of Albert Einstein and Andrˇ Gide.
The twenty-six-year-old American Garry DavisŃwhom Time described as a "carrot-topped, pleasant, shrewd and slightly corny Air Force veteranŃhad made international news by going to the Americnan embassy in Paris, handing in his American pasport, and declaring himself a "world citizen." Gide, Camus, Sartre and de Beauvoir spoke out in support of his gesture. Einstein commended the young American's break with "the old and outlived tradition" of nationalism. Time described Richard Wright as "another Davisite."
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