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Press 
Letters to the Press Genoa Burning
A Letter sent to newspapers and magazines Madam, Sir,
22 July 2001
on the occasion of the G8 Summit, July 2001
While Genoa and the World burns (and people die), the modern Neros play their fiddle. The G-8, instead of talking
about systemic changes to the global political system, instead of thinking of ways to introduce a global constitutional democracy, of creating a World Parliament to finally give a voice to the citizens of the entire world, is in
the band-aids business. No vision here like President Kennedy who might have said: "Within 10 years, we will create a World Democracy, a constitutional Republic of the World, with a representative World Congress, to bring
the benefits of fundamental American principles to all the people of the world, and fulfil the universal vision of the Founding Fathers". No inspiring words like President Harry Truman who actually said: "It will be just
as easy for nations to get along in a republic of the world as it is for us to get along in the republic of the United States." (U. of Kansas, 28 June 1945) No calling for a constitutionally defined world citizenship to
answer the yearnings of millions of ordinary people who are looking for a "supra-national democratic process of some kind" (Financial Times, 21-07-2001 p. 26) because they know that decisions that matter are not taken at the
national level anymore, and are frustrated that they have no grasp on international decision-making through standard democratic practices. The mere start of a process to create a Global Democracy would rechannel the energies of
millions towards a positive goal, and create a forum for the management of globalization's challenges. We do not need one more fig-leaf elitist process to "manage" or "advise" globalization like the
UN High-Level Advisory Committee on Finance and Development or the State of the World Forum call for. We need a straightforward World Parliament with balanced rules so that neither rich nor poor countries dominate. This is
both practical and fair. Everything else is a band-aids. Both the Right and the Left don't get it, because calls for global free trade (the right) or for global taxes (e.g. the Tobin tax, from the left) without global
representation are fundamentally unsound and undemocratic. We can create a Global Parliament within 10 years, and as soon as the process starts, the world will look back and say: "This is so obvious, why did we not start
before?" Yours truly Troy Davis,
President/CEO, World Citizen Foundation
Secretary, Campaign for World Democracy.
www.worldcitizen.org
211 East 43rd Street, Suite 904,
New York City 10017, U.S.A.
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