Former Attorney-General, Dr Fenton Ramsahoye SC, last month exhorted Rotarians in Guyana to train their minds to understand the importance of peace and its relationship to world understanding. He urged them to understand also that the education of all women on earth is part of mankind's salvation.
Speaking at the annual World Understanding and Peace Day Dinner hosted by the Rotary Club of Georgetown last month at Le Meridien Pegasus, Dr Ramsahoye said, "Rotarians will need to acknowledge that the services they render to the world communities will relieve suffering but they will also need to train their minds to understand the importance of peace and its relationship to world understanding."
He said that they do and will continue to contribute to this by the furtherance of education among the world's peoples.
He added that they "will be able, if they wish to, to return to the basic tenets of Christianity and the work of the early Christians after Constantine in the fourth century declared that Christianity was to be the religion of the Roman Empire."
Dr Ramsahoye in explaining the role women have to play in civilisation's salvation, cited various achievements of Constantine which he said includes the spreading of education; and that a characteristic feature of ancient Christian education was that it was directed to all men and women without regard to class distinction.
The "six millennia of war, conflict, strife and intermittent peace has been the responsibility of men who have dominated those years of our history. Women have had no substantial part in fateful decisions."
He described the ruling class as those people who use their power to impose their will and for whom there is never a shortage of reason or justification for death or destruction. "Part of the great difficulties in achieving peace and understanding in the world can, with a measure of certainty, be attributed to the absence of educated women as decision makers within the ruling classes."
And he said that as education spreads to them all over the world so will the world change. "As education is denied them so will the world encounter persistent difficulties... If they have influence in the decision making process which lead to peace and therefore to world understanding" the world as we know it is likely to undergo fundamental change.
He noted that people of service must understand that time is not on their side as it would at their peril if they fail to achieve universal education. "The character and stability of women in a state of crisis has been remarkable throughout human history and while men must continue to press for their own education they ought not to forget that male domination has created for women, disadvantages which it is not in the interest of any nation to continue."
He argued that money donated for the purpose of funding equal education is money that would be well-spent as if it were spent for health care and housing. "In the field of equal education the benefits are likely to be astonishing in terms of the limitation which education can bring to conflict and strife."
Dealing with the origins of conflict and strife, Dr Ramsahoye pointed out that it was of relatively recent origin of about six thousands years ago. He also noted that since peace was broken it has always remained so despite the intermittent times of calm. He noted too that while external wars have been bred by greed and the intense desire of people to be bullies, the lack of understanding within the national communities is equally likely to undermine peace within it. "We know that the development of religion which mankind has accepted as a symbol of faith has, itself, been the cause of war and strife external and internal, and the cause of world understanding has been imperiled by this as it has been by social, economic and political pursuits to which mankind is committed. Militarism has advanced side by side with the development of modern development."
He noted too that the prospect of world understanding and peace has receded because of man's own actions and less because of the forces of nature like earthquakes, volcanoes, typhoons, drought, pestilence, disease or climate change. "The slaughter of twenty million people in revolutionary Russia and the destruction of six million Jews in Nazi Germany occurred in the modern era. Thereafter and in particular after World War II the world had hoped that there would be a time of peace and understanding. That was not to be."
Dr Ramsahoye observed that there are hostilities in every part of the globe whether it is in the form of modern warfare or the spread of terrorism. "Prevention of hostilities," he argued, "has not been achieved and the world must turn to damage limitation. There is never a shortage of fuel to fan the flames of death and destruction."
He said it is the world's people who are the innocent victims of the strife and hostility fomented by the ruling class who not only are capable of imposing their will but order people into war, promote wars between nations, lead others to engage in internal hostilities and sell people into servitude. They control, Dr Ramsahoye said, the mechanism of defence which they can convert into an aggressive war machine as well as control the power of taxation and determine how national resources are to be distributed.
Dr Ramsahoye recalled the words of a US Chief Justice who said that the power to expend national monies is the power to relieve poverty or to allow it to increase its hold by distribution methods that are ineffectual to bring relief. He said these matters are fundamental in modern life and they sow the seeds of resistance which itself has the potential to create death and destruction.
He said too that because war and terror would continue so long as the combatants have not achieved their objective, it is necessary to devise a mechanism that will limit the damage. However, because damage limitation is often expressed in terms of the cost of security, the cost of those measures undermines national economies and creates impediments to world efforts to relieve poverty, which it must be remembered is often at the heart of resistance.
Dr Ramsahoye pointed out that a Tarzan and Jane democracy, which allows swings from peace to war and war to peace, "will serve mankind no purpose".
"Peace and understanding need a framework of which is guarded by the rule of law. But the rule of law will not prevent people from imposing upon themselves an uneducated, incompetent and corrupt ruling class."
He noted that democracy 'itself ensures that such a choice of rulers is possible but the rule of law where it exists can in some measure put the actions of the ruling class under control. In this way, he asserted "some form of justice may be secured".
Freedom develops with justice, he said and it allows debate and discussion. "A sense of justice is the basis of understanding nationally and internationally. State terror and rule of Law do not mix. A ruling class will endeavour to crush internal resistance which is subversive of the rule of law."
"Where the rule of law fails, anarchy prevails. A decline in the rule of law tends to be irreversible. The rule of law has to be improved for it to survive. As it goes into decline, anarchy is the inevitable consequence. People in every country need to reflect continuously on the state of the rule of law."
Dr Ramsahoye notes that at the heart of the rule of law is an efficient legal system with competent and independent judicial institutions, a competent honourable legal profession and competent and independent law enforcement services. "Corruption in a legal system causes it to self-destruct. Leaders who live in a society regulated by the rule of law can preserve internal peace. Leaders who can preserve internal peace are likely to be able to preserve peace between nations. Peace is the foundation of freedom and human understanding among people. The rule of law is the guardian of peace."
He stressed that the prospects for peace and world understanding have declined because the minds of men and women have not been continuously prepared for peace and security. "The idea that power comes from the barrel of a gun will be the undoing of mankind. Rotarians are among those whose dedication to service and to peace has contributed vastly and will continue to contribute to understanding among the peoples of the world."
He said that way forward would not be easy but that no good cause is easily lost and recalls his alma mater's motto - Ad astra per ardua - which he said, "rings true for peace and world understanding six decades on and will remain true far into the distant future."