The World Is Getting Better

When I met His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar last year at the European Parliament, I knew I was on the brink of a life-changing experience and at the beginning a life-long and challenging friendship.

Look at all of us here !! So many of us So so many of us !! So many friends!! Isn’t it fantastic !! Yes, all of us are here today to celebrate and to give thanks.

In giving thanks we are expressing not our separateness but our oneness on this special day

To say thanks; for opening our hearts, for touching our humanity, for empowering us to seek what is Divine inside us. To say thanks for the Silence - for our Faith in all humanity - for the Love we share for the Services given and for the Peace that is brought.

As a child I was nurtured by the human values of the East - in Sri Lanka, and later I was influenced by one of the great organising and managerial civilisations of the West - in Britain.

Guruji says and I quote “ Life is heading towards perfection.” Rabbi Soetendorp said yesterday “ I is a Force that is unstoppable. I believe that. Why? Because in my own life, in these troubled times, this force has used me as a bridge between East and West, in today’s multicultural world.

It happened when I became the first non-white person to be elected to represent the Conservative party in the British Parliament in the last century. Seven years later it happened again when I was elected to represent 7 million British people in the European Parliament, which legislates for 450 million people. But I never lost my identity as an Asian, and I am proud to be Sri Lankan

Things are getting better in the world - of that I am sure. But there is a darker side to humankind. Guruji calls these “The six Distortions: they are anger, lust, greed, jealousy, arrogance and delusion.” Humankind has been prone to seek out what divides us, ---- rather than to seek out what unites us.

A distortion of our own Human Values has sparked every conflict. Race against race, colour against colour, caste against caste, tribe against tribe. Religion has divided Moslem from Jew, - Christian from Hindu and from Buddhist. Even within particular religions there are divisions – Catholic and Protestant, Shiite and Sunni and so on. The problem has not been religion itself - the problem is the so-called leaders who exploit divisions for their own ends.

Leaders who come to power by exploiting divisions are not leaders - they have betrayed human values. But we have to understand these people - move among them - befriend them - care for them - help them to change. For we are all an instrument for change - look at recent history!!

In Northern Ireland, Protestants and Catholics, killed and maimed, bombed and terrorized each other for 300 years. Today the guns are silent and the hearts are mending. But this was not achieved by politicians or priests - it was done by ordinary mothers.

Are we getting better? Yes we are. The United States of America was founded on the basis that all men are created equal, yet a century later it saw millions killed in the bloodiest civil war in history. The war was about slavery, and as recently as the late 1960s the USA had race riots. Yet today a black woman is the distinguished and widely honoured US Secretary of State.

The same thing happened in South Africa.

Are we getting wiser? Yes we are. Are we getting saner? Yes we are.

In the late 1980s humankind started to dismantle a nuclear arsenal that was capable of turning our planet into dust. Are we getting to know how to love one another? Yes we are. Only 60 years ago, millions of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Then no one cared. No one came to their rescue. Today in Europe it is a crime even to deny that the Holocaust happened.

60 years ago in Europe alone, over 30 million Germans, French British and Italians
slaughtered each other. Today their descendents sit with me, together, in the European Parliament, where we debate, talk, laugh, joke and vote together. How is that possible?

Are we at long last as Humankind beginning to seek out what unites us, rather than what divides us? Are we learning to turn yesterday’s bitter enemies into today's best friends?

Vasudaiva Kudumbhakam

Guruji has taught us that the challenge of our generation is to instill respect for human values - - compassion, - - friendliness, - - - co-operation, peace of mind, - - - joy… and a smile that is not fragile! Never have human values been more important than today, where a clash of civilizations in the Middle East could even lead to nuclear war. The glorification of terrorism, by radicalized leaders dividing people and exploiting differences will not prevail. We have to show leaders how to love their own people, how to care for them, to set them free, to give them opportunities for happiness and not to use them to hate and divide.

We are not living in isolated compartments – we are one world - one family. Though we have advanced technologically, we have not advanced as fast spiritually. In the world of politics in which I live, all the laws we pass should be founded upon human values.

Today we live in a global market full of images. There are the internet search-engines, chat-rooms, blogs, newscasts, television, radio, text and emailing cell-phones with instant photography. All this has shrunk the world. What happens with the tsunami in Sri Lanka, the floods in New Orleans, the terrorists in London or New York becomes local; impacting in my village, in my reality, in my home and among my neighbours and friends.

Sri Sri reminds us to care for others and share whatever we have with those less fortunate than ourselves. We may think that by receiving this information alone, we become involved. Yes we do, but only for a moment. We become deeply concerned in a detached way about the victims of the earthquake as they freeze in Pakistan. Then our attention is distracted to something else. But do we know who our immediate neighbour is and whether the old lady next door has enough heat or food?

As an individual I can make only a limited contribution, but as a politician I can harness the resources of the developed world to help the people of the developing world. I am coordinator of the European Parliament’s Development Committee, with responsibility for an annual budget of more than 12 BILLION dollars, and for parliamentary supervision of the European Investment Bank, whose resources are more than twice the size of the World Bank.

I am very much aware that the people of the developing world do not want handouts. They want dignity. They want help in money, education and advice so that they can build a sustainable economy for their country and a decent standard of living for themselves and their families. It is wrong for the developed world to pour money into overseas aid, whilst at the same time preventing people from trading on equal terms and maximising their resources.

The United Nations has a vital role to play in this world. Our fathers who created the Organisation in 1945 told us in the Preamble to the Charter why they had done so. They gave us a noble set of objectives, and I do not think we have wholly failed to live up to them, for in my many contacts around the world I detect a growing willingness to put those principles into practice in every Continent. But there is still a long way to go.

The world needs the United Nations, but the United Nations must change or it will die. It is not enough to call for better administration - the UN needs to be inspired, and the new Secretary-General who takes over from Kofi Annan this year needs to be inspired.

They need to be inspired - Guruji - by the wisdom which you have given us, and which has brought millions of people to this place. You have set us an example. You have shown us the way. Let us go forward together from this great Assembly, in peace, in justice, and in friendship.


 

2. Respect the human rights of those affected by their activities consistent with the host government's international obligations and commitments;

3. Encourage local capacity-building through close co-operation with the local community, including business interests, as well as developing the enterprise's activities in domestic and foreign markets, consistent with the need for sound commercial practice;

4. Encourage human capital formation, in particular by creating employment opportunities and facilitating training opportunities for employees;

5. Refrain from seeking or accepting exemptions not contemplated in the statutory or regulatory framework related to environmental, health, safety, labour, taxation, financial incentives, or other issues;

6. Support and uphold good corporate governance principles and develop and apply good corporate governance practices;

7. Develop and apply effective self-regulatory practices and management systems that foster a relationship of confidence and mutual trust between enterprises and the societies in which they operate;

8. Promote employee awareness of, and compliance with, company policies through effective dissemination of these policies, including training programmes; refraining from discriminatory or disciplinary action against employees who make bona fide reports to management or, as appropriate, to the competent public authorities, on practices that contravene the law, the Guidelines or the enterprise's own policies;

9. Encourage, where practicable, business partners, including suppliers and sub-contractors, to apply principles of corporate conduct compatible with the Guidelines;

10. Abstain from any improper involvement in local political activities;

I now call for all companies and shareholders of companies which fall into the category of Trans National Corporation to set up Ethical Investment Committees similar to the Audit Committee and Remuneration Committee which now exist in such companies; These Committees should report to the board of directors, the shareholders and those directly affected by the activities of the TNC on the implementation of the OECD Guidelines for Multinationals in the developing countries

When developed countries have privatised their national assets and utilities they have required investors in Western countries to also invest in Offset projects in those countries where "Offset" is the umbrella term for a broad range of industrial and commercial "compensatory" practices required of outside suppliers or investors as a condition of purchase in either government-to-government sales or commercial sales under public agency procurement programs.

I also now call for such Ethical Investment Committees to be tasked to identify Enterprise Development projects as Offset projects through which these companies can invest in each country where they operate, in conjunction with NGOs and other civil society actors, so that these projects are tied to local social, industrial and service capacity building, which will lead to poverty eradication and foster food security, clean water and sanitation, education, health and gender equality.
This is a win win situation for all.

I would further recommend that TNCs adopt transparency rules requiring directors to report information about their investment activity and their environmental, social and employment impact in each country where they do business, based on the well-developed concept of "disclosure.”

I would call for international accounting standards to be expanded along the lines of the Global Reporting Initiative which promotes "triple bottom line" accounting and corporate annual reports: (i.e., economic, social and environmental accounting);

I would encourage each TNC to commit as a minimum investment at least 0.7% of their gross turnover or up to 5% of their net profit (which ever is the smaller) into new investments as Offset projects each year, stressing that such Offset investments should have a high component of social, educational or environmental capacity building and should be undertaken jointly or severally with local SME's and business groups.

I now propose that a European Forum of Enterprises for Sustainable Development be instituted, holding two meetings per year rotating in locations corresponding to the Presidency in the Council of the European Union;

I further propose that this European Forum of Enterprises for Sustainable Development be attended by the chairmen of Ethical Investment Committees of TNCs together with Members of the European Parliament and Members of the Select Committees of the National Parliaments involved with trade, development and cooperation policies, and all those directly affected by the activities of TNCs;

And I call upon all to recognise that this Forum will constitute the cornerstone of a new and incremental approach to development and co-operation - augmenting and supporting existing mechanisms and institutions, to satisfy a crucial need for more and better managed sustainable development assistance.