by Stuart Haywood

Bermuda Sun

Thank you to Stuart Hayward for this excellent columm that he wrote for the Bermuda Sun newspaper on Maharishi's proposal for world peace (published Friday, 6 October 2001)

"These are bizarre times.

A couple of days ago, US President Bush began a campaign to convince people it was safe to travel in airplanes again. On the same day we heard that Logan Airport is no safer now than it was before the September 11 attacks-that since the attacks, 'sky-cops' testing security measures had been able to smuggle knives onto a plane. On the same newscast and immediately following the report about the President's new message that it was safe to fly, there was a news report that the military now had clearance, albeit with a few caveats, to shoot down planes commandeered by hijackers.

It's "safe" to fly, but the weapons the hijackers used can still be smuggled aboard. And if hijackers do take over an airplane, the US military can blow it out of the sky. Destruction of innocent airline passengers in the name of protection. Do you call that safe? I don't. I call that bizarre.

Also, the President has warned Americans that they will have to expect permanent war, in secret with heavy press restrictions, against a shadowy enemy that lurks in more than 60 countries-including the US. To conduct the war, the US government proposes to tap the phones, read the email, seize credit card records of its own citizens without court order. It seeks to detain and deport immigrants without cause or trial. It proposes to use foreign agents to spy on Americans. In order to protect freedom, Americans will have their cherished freedoms destroyed.

Destruction in the name of protection is also the philosophy of the military response to the attack. President Bush threatens to destroy the terrorists, any country that harbours them, and any country that doesn't join the US in the destruction effort. But killing people doesn't destroy the enemy, it only fertilises enmity. In the same way that destroying a hijacked plane doesn't eliminate future hijacking; neither will destroying the current crop of terrorists (if such was possible) eliminate future terrorists.

We know this because we've been using these methods for centuries. Three times in the past century alone, powerful countries unleashed their military might on smaller countries-France and the US against Vietnam, Russia against Afghanistan, and India against Sri Lanka. Three times the military behemoths had to withdraw, bloodied, bowed and beaten. Isn't there a lesson here?

Currently there is a tremendous hype in the US media about America's new war. The issue is being portrayed as though there's only two possible stances: going to war or supporting terrorism. Last Saturday, 10,000 to 20,000 people participated in a peace march in Washington DC. I didn't see this third possibility reported in the mainstream media, except for the Washington Post which branded the marchers as "un-American" (I thought peaceful protest of policy was eminently American).

A fourth possibility is one proposed last week by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in full-page ads in many newspapers (including the Bermuda Sun). He has offered to set up a peace force which he claims will reduce stress and tensions around the globe and have the real and lasting effect of dampening terrorist tendencies. I confess a bias here. More than twenty-five years ago, I trained as an instructor of Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique. I've met Maharishi several times, and never before or since have I encountered someone so sincerely and actively dedicated to world peace.

The intriguing aspect of Maharishi's proposal is that it requires no searching for or engagement with an enemy-real or imagined. It doesn't preclude rounding up the perpetrators and meting out justice-something everyone supports, including Maharishi. It does, however, eliminate the risks of harming innocent people and escalating combat. It is relatively inexpensive-the US defense budget is over $300 billion per year; Maharishi's scheme is budgeted at $1 billion, forever. And it does have scientific verification that it works.

The method uses the phenomenon that a group of people practicing together Maharishi's advanced meditation techniques exert a positive and calming influence in the community. The size of the group is determined by the population of the community. From the successful experience of over fifty research studies, some of them published in prestigious, peer-reviewed journals, Maharishi proposes to assemble a group of 40,000 to generate this positive influence for the entire 6 billion people on the planet.

Given that the only other proposals on the table for dealing with the September 11th attacks, and terrorism in general, are the ones that have failed miserably and repeatedly, Maharishi's proposal has great merit. As there is nothing to lose, it certainly seems worth a try.

Unfortunately, people-even otherwise sensible and pragmatic leaders-cling to problems (and failed practices) that are familiar and almost fear solutions that are not. That to me is most bizarre of all."

Reprinted with kind permission of Stuart Haywood and the Bermuda Sun