Our New Project: Swords Into Plowshares
Etched into a prominent wall across from the United Nations building in New York City are the following words from the Hebrew prophet Isaiah: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” This wondrous vision has, for millennia, been expressed through countless heartfelt prayers from people around the world.
As the Torah teaches, violence has plagued humanity since Cain’s slaying of his brother Abel and it continues to do so today as a result of the many armed conflicts that plague and destroy the lives of so many infinitely precious people around the globe, and which brutalize the earth itself.
This can be a time of turning if we so choose. We can, as the Psalmist exhorts us, “turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.” What is lacking is a focused, practical way forward. How can we achieve this fundamental turning from the brutal wickedness of wars and evolve
into a peaceful human family of nations that together achieves the yearned-for vision given voice through the words of Isaiah so long ago?
This proposal is offered as a way forward. The basic idea is that nations would be recruited, through the UN, to participate in a global peacebuilding effort in which each participating nation would reduce its military spending initially by one percent and place those funds into a Swords into Plowshares Fund administered by the UN.
The Swords into Plowshares Fund could, for example, be devoted to the development of water resource systems in places of constant drought; programs of reforestation and new plantings of trees to provide carbon sinks to help abate climate change and address the many problems that continue to leave so many of our fellow human beings languishing in lands that have productive potential but that lack the financial resources to fulfill that potential. This proposal responds to the vision of Isaiah. It urges and provides practical ways to turn our swords into plowshares, our military economies into peacebuilding economies.
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Gravées dans un mur en face du bâtiment des Nations Unies à New York sont les paroles suivantes du prophète hébreu Isaïe : « De leurs épées ils forgeront des socs de charrue, de leurs lances des serpes. » Cette vision merveilleuse a, depuis des millénaires, été exprimée par d’innombrables prières sincères de gens à travers le monde entier.
Comme l’enseigne la Torah, la violence a affligé l’humanité depuis le meurtre du frère Abel par Caïn et elle continue de le faire aujourd’hui à cause de nombreux conflits armés qui empoisonnent et détruisent la vie de tant de personnes infiniment précieuse s à travers le monde. Ces conflits brutalisent la terre elle-même.
Cela peut être un moment de retournement, si nous le choisissons. Nous pouvons, comme nous l’exhorte le Psalmiste, « Éloigne-toi du mal, et fais-le bien. » Ce qui manque, c’est une démarche pratique. Comment pouvons-nous parvenir à ce détour fondamental de la méchanceté brutale des guerres et évoluer dans une famille humaine pacifique entre les nations qui, ensemble, réalisent la vision tant attendue et inspirée à travers les paroles d’Isaïe de jadis ?
Cette proposition nous offre un chemin à suivre. L’idée fondamentale est que les nations seraient recrutées, par l’intermédiaire de l’ONU, pour participer à un effort collectif de paix mondiale dans lequel chaque nation participante réduirait ses dépenses militaires d’un pour cent et placer cette somme exacte dans un fonds administré par l’ONU.
Le fonds pourrait, par exemple, être consacré au développement des systèmes de ressources en eau dans les lieux de sécheresse ; aux programmes de reboisement et de nouvelles plantations d’arbres pour fournir des puits de carbone pour aider à réduire le changement climatique ; à lutter contre les nombreux autres problèmes qui laissent tant de nos frères et sœurs humains languir dans des terres qui ont du potentiel mais qui manquent de ressources financières pour réaliser ce potentiel. Cette proposition répond à la vision d’Isaïe. Il invite et fournit des moyens pratiques de transformer nos épées en socs, nos économies militaires en économies de paix.
Among the UNESCO Swords Into Plowshares program vision, we will address paying for the human cost of war. Of course, the terrible cost of human loss of life is beyond repair and yet the provision of support and services to civilians and combatants who have been disabled in war is something that we will be able to provide.
Consider the following factsheet from Quincy Institute about the cost of militarism in the United States: https://quincyinst.org/2023/04/17/by-the-numbers-what-militarism-costs-america/?mc_cid=ab7ff51417&mc_eid=7a12df38d2
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights sits at the heart of Swords into Ploughshares:
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-righsts.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages. The UDHR is widely recognized as having inspired, and paved the way for, the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties, applied today on a permanent basis at global and regional levels (all containing references to it in their preambles).
Update: To gain advice and recommendations during these early stages, our Swords Into Plowshares team has connected with a range of different lawmakers and peace and security experts, including:
– Dr. Andrew Bacevich, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft & Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University. We recommend this recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
– Bill Hartung, Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
– Lisa Rockower, State Director of Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) Office
– Ken Butigan, Professor of Practice in the Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies program at DePaul
– Michael Nagler, Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC, Berkeley
We recommend reading the following:
– Quincy Institute’s commentary on a recent report showing that global military spending has increased for the 8th year in a row, totaling 2.23 trillion USD in 2022: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/04/24/sipri-report-global-military-spending-increases-for-eighth-year-in-a-row/
