~ Idea 3301 - 3400 Section INTRODUCTION ~
A Boy's Letter to a Prime Minister
Never fail to denounce an injustice to the person at the top.
Someone wrote to me: "Dear Mr. Muller, I love your book of 2000 Ideas
but what can I do? I am a nobody, having a very low, minor job in a big
firm. You were lucky to have a great life in high positions allowing
you to know the whole world. You are still a big shot even if it is
only for one dollar a year. I cannot do anything and am very
frustrated, unhappy with my life. To read you made me even unhappier
and frustrated."
I wrote him back: "Well, I have my frustrations too, e.g. that so few of
my books are being read and so few of my ideas implemented. I am 77
years old and I could easily give up. But when that thought occurs to
me, I remember a story from my youth which lifts me up again and
prevents me from giving up. It is a letter which I wrote when I was a
refugee at the age of sixteen, with my father being mobilized in the
French Army, my mother without barely any resources and my studies and
normal life interrupted. Here it is:
September 1939. I was sitting in my room, reading romantic literature,
my soul filled with happiness and poetry about the beauty of the world.
From my window I glanced over the Saar River into Germany. During the
last few years the woods had disappeared from the hills on the German
side and had been replaced by wheat fields and a new village — Adolf
Hitler Dorf. Its inhabitants were metallurgical workers who also did
some farming and small animal husbandry in order to increase the
self-sufficiency of the German Reich. Along the river and its
tributary, the Blies, humans once again were divided by hatred. There
were constant incidents. The Germans organized innumerable noisy
parades along the river, appealing to the beastly side of human nature.
On the French side, we did not remain passive either: we sang the
"Marseillaise" at the opening of each soccer game in the stadium which
was located right along the border. The Nazis retaliated by holding
political meetings opposite the stadium at the exact time of the opening
of the games in order to drown the sounds of the French national anthem
under their Teutonic marches. Hatred was escalating again along a
peaceful river and under the same sun, arousing the emotions of the
people like a vicious tide. Noise, colors, words, music, uniforms,
sport, day and night, the living and the dead, everything was mobilized
to bolster the "greatness" of each nation.
But this was for me the beautiful age of sixteen, when to be alive and
to approach adulthood and love were tantamount to paradise. The
writings of Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Goethe and Schiller transported me
to heaven. The preceding year our town had been evacuated a first
time. We had fled to the French Jura mountains, to the summer house of
former tenants who had moved away from the border when they saw the turn
of events. Our place of refuge was not far from the region where
Lamartine had lived. I had walked in his woods, reading his poetry with
ecstasy, considering him the greatest literary genius the earth had
ever borne.
I was sharing my thoughts and feelings with my beloved authors when my mother climbed the staircase, entered my room and said:
"Boy, come down and help us pack. War is going to break out any
moment. Our town is again being evacuated. Our car has already been
requisitioned, but the driver can take us to our place of refuge with a
load of clothes and food if we can leave early enough. Every minute
counts. Get ready and pack your things.
I answered:
"I could not care less about that war. I hate all wars. Why should
anyone, especially a madman like Hitler, have the right to interrupt the
course of my life and of my studies?"
My mother looked at me sternly. Her blue eyes turned into cold steel
and became filled with a world of hard messages and thoughts. Then,
without a comment, she slapped me in the face with a strength that
almost knocked me senseless.
She left the room without a word. I had gotten her message; I packed my
clothes and went downstairs to help with the preparations of the rest
of the family.
Many years later, when addressing a group of veterans visiting the
United Nations in New York, a French officer, upon hearing that I came
from the town of Sarreguemines, had this comment:
"You must have left your town hurriedly, for when we entered it, we
still found dishes with food and unfinished meals on the tables." This
comment, indeed, describes better than anything else what our evacuation
was like.
In the afternoon the driver who had taken possession of our car drove us
to Lutzelbourg, a little locality forty miles away from the border,
where my mother had rented in anticipation of these events a small
apartment usually only occupied during the summer by vacationers. Days
ago my father had been mobilized into the French army and had left for a
destination unknown to us in a vast underground fortress called the
Maginot Line.
After leaving us at our place of refuge, the driver with our car returned to Sarreguemines and we never saw them again.
The following day, war was declared, annihilating my lofty, romantic
dreams and placing me at the age of sixteen at the helm of the family.
My mother tried to live on her meagre savings, which were rapidly
dwindling under the effects of inflation. The rent for our apartment
was high and the priest who owned it wanted us to get rid of our dog.
So we moved to a cheaper abode, an attic in a farmhouse of a hamlet
called Trois-Maisons (Three Houses). It was a tiny and poor hamlet
indeed, located on a desolate plateau near Phalsbourg, above
Lutzelbourg, swept by cold and rainy winds, a region deeply marked by
wars and desolation. We could walk both to Lutzelbourg and to
Phalsbourg, two places for which my heart soon developed a deep
affection:
Lutzelbourg for its red sandstones, its hills and little valleys densely
covered with pine trees, its crystal-clear river, and also a young
Parisian girl who was staying at one of the patrician houses and whom I
loved madly, without ever daring to address a single word to her;
Phalsbourg for its history, its fortifications half sunk back into
nature, its majestic church, its description by Goethe, the fact that it
was the birthplace of two famous Alsatian authors, Erckmann and
Chatrian,2 and the starting point of a memorable journey described in a
wonderful French schoolbook: A Tour of France by Two Children. How
often at the United Nations was I tempted to write a similar book
entitled A Tour of the World by Two Children!
Although war had been declared, there was little military activity at
the front. The Germans did not attack France until May of the following
year. For the moment, the daily communiqués were all alike:
"Some shooting and patrol activity on both sides of the Blies and the Saar Rivers."
Our evacuated town was apparently quite tranquil, and soon we heard
reports that some of the rich merchants were able to enter the city with
trucks and evacuate their merchandise. The refugees who lived in the
region were very bitter about this. One of the main topics of
conversation among them was how to get hold of a winter coat. With the
onset of the war this merchandise had disappeared from the stores. We
too wished to go home and bring back clothes and some of our belongings,
but we were not given any permits. I became deeply infuriated with
this injustice when I saw trucks carrying merchandise from our hometown
drive through the streets of Phalsbourg toward safer places. I talked
with the drivers and indeed they were evacuating the merchandise from
the stores of the rich merchants. I sat down and wrote a letter to Mr.
Edouard Daladier, the Prime Minister of France, describing the
conditions of the refugees on the eve of winter and the privileged
treatment being given to the rich, who, as usual, had the right
connections. I did not mince my words and I found it prudent not to
show my letter to my mother before mailing it.
In the meantime she had convinced a French officer to give her and a
friend a pass to a place called Rohrbach, where the husband of the
latter was serving in the Maginot Line. The two women hired a taxi and a
driver, pulled down the curtains inside the car — at that time
automobiles had elegant interior curtains and even little vases for
flowers — and we traveled happily through the combat zone to the Maginot
Line, where the husband of my mother's friend was called out of the
underground fortress and had a joyous reunion with his wife. The
soldiers were all from Alsace-Lorraine. They offered us a mighty fine
meal, and I listened attentively to their conversations carried out in
our dialect. Thus I became aware of another injustice:
They were bitterly complaining that there were so few "Frenchmen" on the
front. Most troops consisted of Alsace-Lorrainers and colonial
regiments. Only the officers were "French". My compatriots did not
hide their intention not to fight under such circumstances if the
Germans attacked. They had no illusions either regarding the outcome.
One of them who had served as a German officer in World War I told us
that when he joined his French regiment he was ordered to guard a bridge
with a stick because there were no weapons! These facts as well as the
disastrous defeat of France a year later never left my mind. Whenever I
hear someone laud the superiority of the French intelligentsia, I
cannot help remember how some of these brainy geniuses had mismanaged
the country, letting it be crushed within a few weeks by a ridiculous,
uneducated little corporal-painter called Adolf Hitler. The Maginot
Line itself, the costly brainchild of such a genius, proved to be
totally useless: Hitler's planes overflew it and his tanks and infantry
invaded France via Belgium.
My mother wanted to press her luck and go to our hometown, located right
on the border. We reached the entrance of the city, but at a
checkpoint a French officer looked into our car and when he saw two
women and a boy circulating freely in the combat zone, he blew his top
and had us expelled by the shortest route under military escort.
Despite this unsuccessful ending, we had greatly enjoyed our trip and
the two women were very proud of their exploit.
A few days later, knocks at our poor little attic door woke us up late
in the evening. My mother opened the door and we saw two gendarmes
(policemen) from Phalsbourg, who asked whether a certain Robert Muller
lived there. I reviewed rapidly in my mind whether I had committed any
mischief, but I could not remember any. My mother offered chairs to the
two men. One of them extracted from a leather bag a bundle of papers
on top of which I saw my letter to the Prime Minister! It was
underlined in red in several places and annotated in the margin. The
gendarme said to my mother:
"Your son's letter has been read and annotated by the Prime Minister
himself. He has asked the proper department to investigate his
accusations and these papers are all reports prepared in response to his
request. Apparently your son has won his case. We have been
instructed to issue passes to you and to all the refugees in the
region. You will be able to go home and bring back your possessions.
Please come to our office tomorrow morning. We will put a small truck
and a driver at your disposal. Here is your laissez-passer."
I had remained mouse-still during the entire conversation.
Nevertheless, when the two gendarmes left, they threw me a nasty look
which I interpreted as a mixture of nastiness and admiration for a
rotten kid who had the guts to write directly to the Prime Minister!
My mother did not allow me this time to accompany her, but when she
returned from our hometown with a truckload of clothes, linen, blankets
and preserves, she had a wonderful and thoughtful gift for me: in a
large box she had rescued and brought for me the seventeen volumes of my
beloved German encyclopedia, which my grandfather had given to me: an
1894 edition of the Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. It remained one of
the few memorabilia from my youth, because when we returned home in
1940, our house had been completely plundered. Later, in America, I
would show its beautiful illustrations to my sons, as my father and
grandfather had shown them to me.
I have drawn two important lessons from this anecdote:
First — if you see an injustice, do not wait for a better world;
denounce it right away to the person at the top, even if you have little
chance of being heard; you will at least feel better and sometimes you
might even get results.
Secondly — when I became myself a close collaborator of three
Secretaries-General of the UN, I made it a point to ensure that worthy
letters written by humble, well-intentioned people were always seen by
them, acted upon and answered. The right to complain and to receive a
reply should be made a basic human right, for government is here for the
people and not for the tranquility of the bureaucrats.
Later I learned that President John Kennedy set the rule that every
hundredth letter from the vast amount of mail a President receives every
day from citizens be handed to him unopened, so that he could read it
and keep in touch with his people. This good practice should be adopted
by the heads of state of all countries of the world. It would break
the barriers which their entourage usually builds around them under the
pretext of protecting their time. And in the year 2001, at the UN
University for Peace and Earth Council in demilitarized Costa Rica, I
was happy to learn that a position of Ombudsman would be created to
receive unattended complaints from people all over the world. May God
bless the incumbent of that new position. And may my story encourage
people to write to their heads of state and parliamentarians.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Monday, December 16, 2013
[GMW #2877] Make More Changes Now For Further Evolution
| [GMW #2877] Make More Changes Now For Further Evolution
Monday 23 December 2013, Editor: Easy
Idea Dream -Robert Muller's
Ideas 3001 to 3500
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~ Idea 3272 ~
Biologists tell us that most evolution takes place as a result
of crises. The world economic and ecological crises looming
ahead will force us to adopt new values and reforms, and create
new institutions and legislation to permit further evolution.
But the more changes can be made now, the less severe and
misery-causing these crises will be.
Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living, Volume III Chapter 2 The Miracle of Life Giving
The last Ministers on Earth who refuse international cooperation
are the Ministers of Armies, of Justice and of the Interior, all
ministries par excellence of national sovereignty. And it is
precisely in disarmament, world justice and world violence that
most urgent progress is needed. No wonder, therefore, that the
situation remains the same or worsens year after year in these
three fields on our little planet. Whose fault is it?
*
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References: Earth Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights Rights of: Children,Women, IndigenousPeople To Be Written: Rights of Nature, Birds, Animals, Fish, etc.
Daily Ray
of Hope
 David Cross, Photographer Nevada City, CA | Yosemite National Park, CA Keep close to nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. ~ John Muir More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org Subscribe to/or unsubscribe from Robert Muller'sGoodMorningWorld.org |
The first 4000 Ideas &
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[GMW #2876] Good Wishes Hand Written Sincere Words Can Replace Greeting Cards
| [GMW #2876] Good Wishes Hand Written Sincere Words Can Replace Greeting Cards
Friday 20 December 2013, Editor: Easy
Idea Dream -Robert Muller's
Ideas 3001 to 3500
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~ Idea 3271 ~
We must begin to suppress and stop many things on this planet,
not to constantly add more to the products, activities and
movements of humans.
Thus looking at the Father's Day cards received I feel that all these wishing cards for an increasing number of occasions everywhere in the world should be dispensed with. They are a waste of sizeable tonnages of paper. In the giant card-producing firms they have employees whose main task is to come up with more occasions to produce ever more diversified cards. Good wishes should be hand written by people in their own deep, sincere words and not in words written by others for business purposes. The Earth: "Dear Robert, I read over your shoulder what you just wrote and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will let you know my ideas on what else humans should dispense with in order to prolong my longevity and theirs. I have a long list." Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living, Volume III Chapter 2 The Miracle of Life Giving
Society can never consider individual human life as precious and
foremost enough.
*
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References: Earth Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights Rights of: Children,Women, IndigenousPeople To Be Written: Rights of Nature, Birds, Animals, Fish, etc.
WORD FOR
THE DAY
We don’t know what life will bring, so it is what we bring to life that matters. ~ Patricia Campbell Carlson Gratefulness.org Newsletter - January 2011 More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org Subscribe to/or unsubscribe from Robert Muller'sGoodMorningWorld.org |
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[GMW #2875] Ministries Of Ethics In Every Government To Judge The Ethics Along The Next Thousand Years
| [GMW #2875] Ministries Of Ethics In Every Government To Judge The Ethics Along The Next Thousand Years
Thursday 19 December 2013, Editor: Easy
Idea Dream -Robert Muller's
Ideas 3001 to 3500
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~ Idea 3270 ~
The heads of states meeting in September 2000 at the UN should
recommend that the United Nations Secretariat and all the 32
specialized agencies and world programs should submit their
visions and plans for the year 3000. It would be a new page in
human history, a new form of intelligence, the birth of a
species capable of looking into the whole future of a planet.
There should also be Ministries of Ethics in every government and a Commission, Department or Unit of Ethics in the United Nations and in each UN Agency, to judge the ethics all along these thousand years. Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living, Volume III Chapter 2 The Miracle of Life Giving
As long as highjacking took place from the communist countries
to the West, the highjackers were received as heroes and the
word highjacking could be found nowhere. In the western press
it was called: "detouring from normal air routes." After
highjacking took place from the United States to Cuba, the West
went into uproar and it was then called air piracy or
highjacking. Different sides, different words. Even today, in
the western media, an airplane is not "highjacked" from Cuba but
"commandeered"!
*
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DailyGood
9 Things Educators Should Know About the Brain Learning is a dynamic function that each person experiences in a vastly different way. For instance, one individual may retain knowledge the best by studying a textbook while another may need to link an idea to a physical activity they perform. It is important to apply this concept both in our classrooms along with our own daily lives. This is especially critical in a child's early formative years, as we can no longer apply "industrial methods" of education to our students today. In this piece, psychologist Louis Cozolino applies social neuroscience research to the classroom. He offers up nine insights from science that just might transform the way educators think about and approach their work. { read more } More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org Subscribe to/or unsubscribe from Robert Muller'sGoodMorningWorld.org |
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[GMW #2874] United Nations Actively Promote World Centuries & Millennia
| [GMW #2874] United Nations Actively Promote World Centuries & Millennia
Wednesday 18 Dec August 2013, Editor: Easy
Idea Dream -Robert Muller's
Ideas 3001 to 3500
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~ Idea 3269 ~
The United Nations has rightly proclaimed a whole series of
World Days, International Weeks and Years but must now also
actively promote World Centuries and Millennia to help our
long-term fate and future. Each century until the year 3000
should be given a name and there should be proclamations such as
Earth 3000, World Population 3000, The Seas and Oceans 3000, The
Environment 3000, Agriculture 3000, Human Settlements 3000,
Science 3000, Longevity 3000, World Ethics 3000, etc.
Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living, Volume III Chapter 2 The Miracle of Life Giving
I once asked an Asian attendant of a gasoline station of what
nationality he was.
*He answered: "What does it matter to you? I am a human being like you."
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References: Earth Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights Rights of: Children,Women, IndigenousPeople To Be Written: Rights of Nature, Birds, Animals, Fish, etc.
Daily Ray
of Hope
 Rob DeGraff | White Sands National Monument, NM
I'm always thinking about creating.
My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light. ~ Miles Davis More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org Subscribe to/or unsubscribe from Robert Muller'sGoodMorningWorld.org |
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[GMW #2873] Super Wealthy Devote Attention, Efforts & Resources To Salvation Of Earth & Humanity
| [GMW #2873] Super Wealthy
Devote Attention, Efforts & Resources To Salvation Of
Earth & Humanity
Tuesday 17 Dec 2013, Editor: Easy
Idea Dream -Robert Muller's
Ideas 3001 to 3500
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~ Idea 3268 ~
All the super wealthy and wealthy people who have personal or
family archives, museums and art collections should consider
henceforth that this Earth and humanity might come to an end in
the third millennium and that their memorabilia and possessions
will float on a dead planet, valueless except as a curiosity for
outer space visitors.
Why not therefore devote your attention, efforts and resources to the salvation of the Earth and of humanity. This would permit your memorabilia to survive for thousands of years to come. Please visualize and work for a date far in the future on which you would still like to see humans visit your collections and study and use your archives. Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living, Volume III Chapter 2 The Miracle of Life Giving
Once I saw a woman write on an official immigration form:
"World citizen with a Swiss passport." We should all follow her
example.
*
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International Day of Happiness
20 March From A GMW subscriber:
Are you aware that the UN created last year a
resolution for the International Day of Happiness
Bravo for Dr. Robert Muller and his heart.
Resolution adopted by the
General Assembly
[without reference to a Main Committee (A/66/L.48/Rev.1)] 66/281. International Day of Happiness The General Assembly,
Recalling its
resolution 65/309 of 19 July 2011, which invites Member
States to pursue the elaboration of additional measures
that better capture the importance of the pursuit of
happiness and well-being in development with a view to
guiding their public policies,
Conscious that the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal, Recognizing the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world and the importance of their recognition in public policy objectives, Recognizing also the need for a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes sustainable development, poverty eradication, happiness and the well-being of all peoples,
3. Requests the Secretary-General to bring the present resolution to the attention of all Member States, organizations of the United Nations system and civil society organizations for appropriate observance. 118th plenary meeting 28 June 2012 More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org Subscribe to/or unsubscribe from Robert Muller'sGoodMorningWorld.org |
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