UP-WINGERS

by F. M. ESFANDIARY

  —If you are studying languages you are wasting your time. Not contributing to the planetary movement. National languages are inoperative in our converging world. French German Spanish Arabic Hebrew Swahili Urdu—all these are dying languages. All national languages are on their way out. We are moving toward a Universal Language.

  Today English and Chinese approximate universality. English has distinct advantages. It is the language of international relations—modern technology—world trade. It is spoken on all continents and is relatively easy to learn. In the next three or four decades English will serve as the universal language—Unilang.

  (This Unilang itself is transitional. For a glimpse of future computer language listen to the astronauts: all go on csm ... eva next ... 90 seconds to lpd ... over ...) It's now Go on Unilang.

  —Common markets—regional blocs—international agencies—transnational corporations—all these are movements away from nationalism and fragmentation. They are steps in the right direction. They help expand communication—dialogue—trade—interinvolvement. On all continents there are now strong movements toward regional cooperation. These multinational ventures need support.

  Above all get behind the United Nations and its subsidiary agencies. For centuries people have been dreaming of a world government. Now that at last we have the beginning of one what are you doing about it? If you are doing nothing you have no moral right to complain about its shortcomings. Did you expect this world body to start off full-grown and blemishless?

  The United Nations is your world government. It is your own government—not simply your country's. You must become personally involved in it. The U.N. charter begins We the Peoples of the United Nations ... The Peoples—not the governments.

  Your national government is after its own petty national interests. That is why the United Nations has had difficulties. For you the Up-Winger your government is the United Nations. You must deal directly with your world government helping universalize it.

  —Modern technology is the Up-Winger's greatest ally. Without it the planetary movement wouldn't have a chance. Global telecommunication and transportation is unifying the people of our planet as no force has in the past.

  In December 1970 seven men were sentenced to death in the Soviet Union and six others doomed in Spain. World public opinion rallied to their defense and saved them from execution. There could have been no world public pressure without universal communication.

  On April 30, 1970 the president of the United States announced his country's invasion of Cambodia. Within hours all hell broke loose. Mass demonstrations—strikes—rallies—protests—shootings—riots. They spread like wildfire across the country then across the planet—London Stockholm Tel-Aviv New Delhi Tokyo Melbourne ... In the United States over four hundred colleges closed down. Several hundred thousand people converged on Washington. The New York Times reported that the stock market “came close to a full collapse not on the news that the war might end, but that it might lead to major escalation.” The outrage continued to grow and boom and explode ... Exactly eight days later on May 8 the president was forced to go on television to announce the sudden decision to end the invasion.

  As far as I know never in our entire history had the people of the world ever rallied as universally and successfully to put an end to an injustice. This world pressure would not have been possible without global communication.

  Universal Communication is our unsung instrument for Peace.

  UniCom works for the people far more than for governments. UniCom has suddenly exposed governments to public view, rendering them highly vulnerable to national and international public opinion.

  UniCom is providing a powerful platform for dissent. It is coordinating and unifying dissent—linking up the people of the planet. I repeat, it is not an accident that movements now spread quickly from one profession or group to another from one city to another from one country and continent to another.

  UniCom is inherently beyond the control of governments and groups. If a government controls the press and other mass media the world still comes tumbling through by way of foreign publications—foreign radio—films—television—tourists. UniCom cannot be censored or shut off.

  As UniCom grows more powerful the people grow more powerful. As UniCom grows more universal people grow more universal.

  The weaker mass communication within a country the weaker the people the stronger the government.

  The stronger mass communication within a country the stronger the people the more vulnerable the government.

  In technologically advanced countries like the United States individuals who appear regularly on national television wield more influence than government leaders.

  We are now farther away from Orwell's 1984 than ever in the past. To sink into a 1984 world of Big Brother authoritarianism entails dismantling our entire global communication and transportation systems. This is no longer possible. Modern teletechnology is our greatest safeguard against bleak Orwellian projections.

  These are some of the new realities of universal communication which elude Right-wingers and Left-wingers still bogged down in oldworld attitudes to technology.

  Up-Wingers regard UniCom as their strongest ally.

  —Join the planetary convergence—Travel.

  Travel means communication—direct person to person communication. Use modern transportation systems to move around the planet and be the medium through whom different cultures link up and communicate through whom barriers are brought down dialogue circulated inter-involvement generated...

  “People are very good for each other,” writes Richard Farson the psychologist. “We need intimate relationships of long or short duration, to remind us of our membership in the human race, to help us be less afraid of one another, to permit us to laugh and cry with one another."

  Travel enables us to do all this. It enables us the peoples of this planet to shake hands with one another to touch and to feel and to experience firsthand the humanness of one another.

  To travel is to be involved in the planetary movement. Anyone who travels is automatically an activist. Anyone who travels.

  To travel is to infiltrate to influence to participate in domestic affairs of communities to pose alternatives to local conditions. Even passive tourists by simply moving around infiltrate. The village child sees them going through and thinks “I want to be like that woman. I want to be like that man.” You have planted the seeds of unrest. This infiltration is partly nonverbal. The very presence of strangers acts as a catalyst for consciousness-raising—a human link with the world outside—a world of new possibilities and potentials.

  Millions of tourists pouring into a country year after year themselves become a movement for change. Tourists have already started upheavals all over the planet. This is why reactionary regimes try to discourage tourism in their countries.

  Do not boycott countries whose governments you oppose. Those are precisely the lands to frequent. In boycotting a country you boycott and isolate its people weaken the channels of global communication strengthen the government and perpetuate the status quo.

  —The greatest movements today are outside politics. Progressive changes take place in spite of governments. The planetary movement is for the most part beyond the scope of national governments.

  Political leaders as a rule are driven by personal ambition—too involved in problems of day-to-day housekeeping—too boxed-in to traditional Right-wing and Left-wing philosophies—too vulnerable to the whims of the conservative masses to initiate or actuate far-ranging goals.

  Politics is no longer the most effective way to change the world. Governments are developing into managerial agencies which run the everyday affairs of cities and nations. As I explained earlier computers can now manage these affairs of state more efficiently. In time computers will replace governments.

  This tradition of relying on the government to do things—like a Papa—is old-world.

  Don't waste your
anger on lackluster leaders. Use your energies more constructively. “No use trying, the government controls everything.” This is a cop-out.

  Gone are the days when the government controlled everything. In today's open fluid world the government is only one of many forces influencing events. Global communication for example is a far more powerful force generating its own pace and momentum, radicalizing and diversifying all our institutions—values—life styles.

  Many of the greatest upheavals today take place outside government; the biological upheaval—the women's liberation—the sexual liberation—the environmental movement—the consumer uprising—the information explosion—the planetary convergence...

  No government can any longer reverse or even impede the cumulative impact of these and other peoples’ movements. Today the individual is more powerful than ever. The individual has communication facilities—mobility—information—knowledge—awareness. These are powerful tools.

  Organize your own Up-Wing movements. Help start Cell Banks—Mobilias—People Centers—Instant Communities. Start a movement for a three-day work week or a six-month work year. Rent helicopters to swoop down on faraway communities and bring medicine information. Help mount a crash movement to attain immortality...

  Rally public support. Remember that world public opinion is daily growing into a powerful force. That governments are increasingly vulnerable to public pressure. That movements today can spread faster and deeper than ever. “Pressure from the people alone shapes world history” wrote Chou En-Lai. This has never been more true than today.

  —The planetary movement is totally committed to life. There is no cause no goal no ideal worth dying for. Nothing is worth your life. If any movement jeopardizes your life—forget it. Try another way. If people exhort you to violence get away from them. They are part of the old masochistic death-oriented world. The Up-Winger is totally nonviolent, totally committed to life. To the Up-Winger Life itself is the greatest Revolution.

  * * *

  PART 3

  * * *

  evolutionary breakthroughs

  (cosmic upheaval)

  The cosmic upheaval is an entirely new event on Planet Earth. A new dimension in human existence.

  Today we are witnessing the very beginning of an upheaval that is altering our basic human situation. This cosmic dimension supersedes all our past aspirations, all our past philosophies struggles revolutions.

  There has never been anything like this on our planet or probably in this whole solar system.

  The cosmic upheaval is not simply a historic event. This is a major evolutionary perturbation.

  Historically we have already made impressive progress. As I attempted to show in Optimism One, in modern communities we have more freedom more equality more individuality more communication more integration more love more fluidity more control over the impositions of nature more humanness than ever in our past.

  Psychologically socially economically politically we have made monumental progress through the ages. We are moving up and up from the abyss.

  This descendant of fish, this child of recent monkeys has done well for itself.

  But great as these advances are the basic human situation itself has changed very little. Our advances have been historic not evolutionary.

  The human condition remains inherently tragic.

  * * * *

  To free humanity from this tragic plight and rise to a higher evolution we need a new kind of upheaval—a cosmic upheaval.

  We can no longer settle for traditional revolutions which seek to improve our social economic political conditions. That is no longer enough.

  Revolutions and revolutionaries are now too modest. We want more. Much more.

  We are now far more visionary far more demanding far more transcendent.

  Progress itself is no longer enough. It took us ages to even accept the idea of progress. Now we must adjust to the idea of cosmic changes.

  We must begin to adjust to the idea of making basic changes in the human condition. For instance redoing the human body—going to other worlds—living extraterrestrially—experiencing a different nature—searching for other beings in the universe...

  We must begin to comprehend that living in other worlds and living eternally are no longer metaphysical or theological concepts. People are now actually traveling to other worlds people are now actually striving for physical immortality.

  When we speak of hearing voices from other worlds we no longer mean the voice of a god—but of astronauts.

  When we speak of people leaving this earth we no longer mean that they have died—but that they have gone to other planets.

  We are moving into whole new dimensions of Time and Space.

  We must therefore begin to embrace the idea that from here on our goals are not only social economic political. That at last the time has come for humanity to tackle more primary problems strive for more transcendent goals.

  We must make every man and woman on this planet aware that we are now at the beginning of a monumental upheaval against the twin limitations of Time and Space—that it is only by joining and sustaining this upheaval that we will at last free ourselves from our human tragedy.

  We must make everyone aware that Time and Space are the most basic determinants of all life impinging on all aspects of life—from birth to death. They are the root causes of the deepest human suffering: unfreedom—robotization—inequalities—competitiveness—violence—loneliness—identity crisis—alienation...

  Parent-child conflicts—gender inequalities—social injustices—economic imbalances—political repressions—these are not the primary determinants of human suffering. They are contributory causes themselves created by the twin pressures of Time and Space. This is a truism which all too often eludes us.

  How do the limitations of Time and Space (Biology and Environment) account for our plight?

  * * *

  beyond freedom

  Let us begin with freedom. What does freedom mean to you?

  The psychologically oriented will emphasize emotional or inner freedom. The doctrinaire socialist or capitalist sees freedom in an exclusively economic context. The political determinist regards freedom as a political condition. A sophisticated generalist is aware of all these aspects of freedom—psychological economic political.

  What does repression mean to you?

  Here again the psycho-social economic political determinants are invariably stressed.

  We are all so totally focused on social economic political conditions that we never pause to consider freedom and repression in a more basic human context.

  We are like the shipboard passenger vehemently demanding a better cabin or the freedom to stroll on the first-class deck—on a sinking ship.

  The ship of your life—your very existence—is slowly sinking. No psychological economic or political freedom can save you from drowning. It is time you paused to consider this.

  What good social freedoms when life itself is based on unfreedom?

  How free am I if I cannot choose my own body my own brain my own gender the color of my skin my biological rhythms? How free am I trapped in a predetermined biological straitjacket in whose selection I have had absolutely nothing to say?

  I do not like my body. I am unattractive clumsy sickly. What can I do about this body of mine? I am trapped.

  I do not like my mind. I am slow unimaginative unperceptive. How can I free my self of this mind?

  I do not like my personality. I am disposed to depression paranoia intolerance. I wish I were different. How can I free myself?

  I am growing old. My hair is turning gray my eyes are losing their luster my mind and memory are fading. I don't like what is happening to me. I don't like myself any more—this aging self of mine. I am a burden to myself. How can I now recapture my earlier vitality? How can I slow down Time?

  What good then social economic political freedoms if I cannot enjoy the more primary freedom to free my self from
the prison cell of this unwanted body personality brain? How free if I cannot decide if I cannot even know when I will die? What does freedom mean to a terminal patient? In one blow death strikes down all freedoms. Death is Zero freedom.

  Then too how free am I within a Space-cell which determines and limits my every move: gravity—air—water—seasons—night and day—the sun? What good freedom to move all over the planet if a mere twelve-foot fall can kill me? What good freedom to sail the open seas if a pint of water in my lungs can drown me?

  I am an accident—a biological accident trapped in a very small speck in Time and Space. I am a momentary flash of consciousness. Suddenly I am. Then just as suddenly I am not.

  All my attempts at psychological economic political self-determination are child's play. They will not bring me real freedom. They will not set me free.

  * * *

  beyond the human robot

  Alarmists contend that mass technology and mass society are robotizing the modern individual. They speak of the programmed individual depersonalized mechanical.

  In Optimism One I explained that modern technology is actually helping us grow less machine-like less programmed less manipulated.

  Yet notwithstanding our social gains all people, modern and primitive alike, are intrinsically programmed. The animal-human organism itself is structurally a robot. A rigid robot manipulated by its predetermined biology and environment.

  What is more robot-like than having at regular intervals to inhale and exhale, to eat drink urinate evacuate sleep? All these mechanical functions are programmed into me. I have nothing to say about them. They are beyond my control.

  If I stopped breathing for only a few minutes—a few quick nothing minutes—that's it. If I don't eat or drink or sleep at regular intervals my body begins to flounder, my mind begins to go fuzzy. Last night in the middle of a deep merciful sleep I suddenly jumped up robot-like and rushed to the bathroom. There I was in the middle of sleep half-conscious half-alive holding my thing.