Peace and Prosperity
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Louis Damore, Peace and Prosperity, bahai-library.com.
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PEACE AND PROSPERITY

Mr Louis Damore

© EBBF, 2001

Friday 26 – 10 – 2001

This is a transcript of the lecture as it was presented at the conference
and has not been edited for content or grammar.

*****

I’m very happy to be with you today and would like to express my appreciation for your
invitation to speak with you. The late … Mr Fuller felt that the last fifteen years of the
twentieth century would be a period when humankind would be taking its final exam. One
wonders with the events of September 11th and since whether but Mr Fuller would give us a
passing or failing greed.

The 1997 State of the World report of the World Watch Institute concluded that humanity is
facing a triple security crisis. The first being the repercussions of social inequities, the second
the effects of environmental decline, and thirdly the dangers arising out of an unchecked arms
proliferation that is a direct legacy of the cold war.

Regarding the first issue, social inequities, scientists believe that human life began in Africa
some five million years ago. It has taken these five million years to nineteen hundred – the
start of the twenty first century - to reach a world population of one point six billion people.
We will be adding that same number of people to the face of the earth in just the next fifteen
to twenty years reaching a total of seven point six billion people. Ninety per cent of this
growth will be in developing countries. Africa, with the highest rate of population growth of
any region, will have approximately thirty per cent of this total growth – or an additional five
hundred million people. In 1900 there were fewer than one hundred million people in Africa.
In one hundred years, at the start of the twenty first century, that number has grown eight fold
to eight hundred million, and in another fifteen to twenty years will be one point three billion
people. Compounding this disparity and population growth between developed and
developing nations there’s an ever-growing economic gap between the have and have-not
regions of the world. David Landis, in his 1999 book ‘The Wealth and Poverty of Nations’,
points out that the ratio of income per capita in one of the richest nations in the world – lets
say Switzerland, and the poorest non-industrial nation, is currently four hundred to one. Some
two hundred and fifty years ago that same ratio was five to one. There are six billion people in
the world at the start of the century, nearly one half are living on two dollars a day, and one
point three billion of this half of humanity is living on one dollar a day.

As early as 1960, Lester B Pearson, then president of the U.N general assembly and formally
a Prime Minister of Canada, warned that no planet could survive half slave, half free, half
engulfed in misery, half careening to the joys of an almost unlimited consumption. Neither
our ecology nor morality could survive such contrasts.

The 1995 World Social Summit in Copenhagen acknowledged that poverty, unemployment,
and social disintegration are closely linked to issues of peace and security. The summit
concluded that there is an urgent need for a new global commitment, a global social compact
to reduce deep inequities that breed explosive social conditions, fuel ethnic antagonisms, and
drive environmental decline.

The second issue being environmental degradation; Forests are shrinking, water tables are
falling, soils are eroding, deserts are expanding, wetlands are disappearing, fisheries are
collapsing, rage lands are deteriorating, reefs are dying, and plant and animal species are
disappearing. As world population continues to expand at a rate of nearly ninety million
people a year - the entire population of Africa in 1900 – each day we push an estimated one
hundred and fifty plant and animal species into extinction. We produce chemicals that destroy
the ozone layer exposing ourselves and other species to harmful solar radiation. We put
chemicals into the air, water and soil that we turn to poisonous and cause global warming. I
was wondering as I was coming into Holland the measures they are beginning to take with
regards the end of Holland if the ocean begins to rise. We clear an estimated eleven million
acres of tropical forest each year, and at the same time allow more than a billion people to live
in conditions of extreme poverty and thirty five thousand children to die each day from
preventable diseases.

The third issue, arms proliferation; we continue to spend more than eight hundred billion
dollars a year on defence. The good news is that that’s dropped from one point three billion at
the height of the cold war. But that is not counting the proliferation of arms sales to terrorists,
which there is no way of doing a counting of. The US military budget alone, for 2001, was
more than three hundred billion dollars – and that is six times greater than Russia, which has
the second largest budget, seven times greater than China, which has the third largest budget.
President Dwight D Eisenhower, himself a decorated five star general of World War Two
fame, said:

“Every gun that is made, every war ship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final
sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
The world in arms is not spending money alone, it is spending the sweat of its labourers, the
genius of its scientist, and the hopes of its children.”

The international community is addressing these issues in every nation. There are emerging
organisations and individuals working for peace, justice, human rights and a healthy
environment. Houseman’s Peace Directory lists over three thousand such groups in one
hundred and fifty nations. Within this context, the global tourism industry has a key role to
play. International tourism arrivals in 2000 approached seven hundred million people, while
receipts were nearly five hundred billion dollars representing more than eight per cent of
world exports in goods and services. When you add in domestic tourism to all of that the total
for the travel and tourism industry is about four trillion dollars. Travel and tourism is now the
leading sector of the international trade and services and probably the most rapidly growing
sector in international trade. Tourism is already significant and growing in many developing
countries. In 1950 all but three per cent of international arrivals were in Europe and North
America. By 1999, in some fifty years, this per cent age has in creased to thirty eight per cent
with increase in marketures to developing countries and countries in transition. The World
Tourism Organisation forecasts that international tourism arrivals will reach one point six
billion in the year 2020. The growing preference for new forms of tourism related to nature,
wildlife, rural tourism, community tourism, and cultural tourism, the outlook for continued
growth in developing countries is ve ry promising. Tourism provides one of the few options to
diversify the economies of developing nations. Many of these nations are rich in bio-diversity
and cultural assets, which offer opportunities for important segments of the tourism industry
including nature based tourism, cultural tourism, rural and community based tourism.
Tourism is human resource intensive, creating more jobs each year than any other industry; it
offers a range of entrepreneurial opportunities for micro-enterprise, as well as small and
medium sized enterprise and community co-operatives. It offers opportunities for women,
youth and indigenous peoples, from unskilled to skilled and managerial positions. It offers
them opportunity to learn new languages, acquire new skills and enter a new realm of job
opportunities and advancement. Many craftsmen find their traditional forms of weaving;
metalworking and woodcarving can be used profitably as a result of the tourism industry. Art
forms such as music and dance are also sustained through tourism, and through tourism these
art forms and skills are passed on with pride to succeeding generations. Tourism can also help
reduce the flows of urban migration, which is one of key issues facing the world - the growth
in urban population, particularly in developing countries. It can do this through it’s
opportunities for rural and community economic development. There are also increased
efforts to link tourism to other industry sectors, particularly agriculture which helps to
compensate for the decline in global commodity prices. And tourism, properly managed, can
contribute to even helping the natural environment and the preservation of bio-diversity. Over
the years while I was in Canada, I got to know Canada’s environmental ambassador, Arthur
Kenpo. Canada took a lead role in developing the biodiversity convention for the 1992 world
summit and Arthur Kenpo plated a key part in that. And in our discussions he would
always say to me that he felt eco-tourism was the one hope for protecting biodiversity in
developing nations.
The linkages in tourism and peace were recently summarised by Pope John Paul II:

“Tourism puts us in touch with other ways of living, other religions and other perceptions of
the world and it’s history. This helps people to discover themselves and others both as
individuals and as communities. Immersed in the vast history of humanity, heirs to and
responsible for a universe that is both familiar and strange. This generates a new vision of
others that frees us from the risk of being closed in on ourselves.”

The issues that I outlined at the start of my talk did not suddenly appear in the 1990’s or the
1980’s. As my quote from Lester B Pearson indicated, the issues of social inequity were there
to be seen in 1960 and they increased rather than diminished. As early as 1967 Rachel
Carson sounded the alert on environmental issues with her book ‘Silent Spring’. The club of
Rome warned us of limits to growth with its milestone study of 1970. And General
Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of an unchecked military industrial complex as early as
the 1950’s.

The time has come, and long over due, for a peace industry complex, and it is encouraging to
see the work being done by the EBBF through conferences such as these and the publications
evident in your display out front. In his address to you last year, William Walker framed his
remarks with a quote from Leo Tolstoy:

“The soul meaning of life is to serve humanity.”

What better statement can we have tha n this as the guiding principal for a global peace
industry complex?

The International Institute for Peace Through Tourism was formed in 1986, the U.N
international year of peace. It was formed in response to issues such as we’ve talked about
earlier and also the growing tensions in the 1980’s between the East and West, as well in the
1980’s there was a very serious growth in terrorism. The institute evolved out of research that
my consulting firm was doing for Canadian clients over the period of ten years on the future
of tourism. When I first started sowing the seeds for an international conference on peace
through tourism the response from the industry leaders in Canada was ‘what tourism got to do
with peace? - And peace is the governments job’ All of that changed in late 1985/86 with the
peaking of terrorism - much of it aimed at the tourism industry. Most of you will remember
the hi-jackings of aeroplanes, the O’ Cally Laurel cruise ship seizure; airport attacks in Rome
and Vienna, and other terrorist incidents. The same industry leaders suddenly had a ‘road to
Damascus’ enlightenment – they realised the connection of peace and tourism. Without peace
there is no tourism, and in terms of the theme of this conference without peace there cannot be
prosperity.

Around the world in 1986 tourism declined by a third. That’s about the same drop that
occurred after September 11th . That’s the same kind of drop that occurred after the gulf war.
This global impact on tourism combined with the U.N declaration of 1986 as the international
year of peace resulted in the tourism industry association of Canada unanimously endorsing
the idea of an international conference on tourism and peace at their annual general meeting in
February 1986. And the international institute for peace through tourism was born a few
months later. The vision with that birth was the vision of tourism as a global peace industry
– an industry that supports and promotes the belief that every traveller is potentially an
ambassador for peace. The first global conference, ‘Tourism: A Global Force for Peace’, was
held two years later in Vancouver, British Columbia, with eight hundred participants coming
from sixty seven countries. The President of Iceland, who just that previous year had hosted
the Reykjavik Summit, was the honorary chairperson. And the opening ceremony featured
videotaped messages from President Regan and Pope John Paul II. The conference served to
create awareness to the potential of tourism, to contribute to mutual understanding among
peoples, international co-operation among nations. Even in the middle east, not currently, but
prior to the uprising that we saw beginning in September of last year, ministers of tourism
from Palestine authority, Jordan, Israel ad Egypt would stand together in media conferences,
at for example the world travel market, and together stand in solidarity to promote tourism to
the region rather than their individual countries. Tourism, more than any other industry, is an
industry where countries can collaborate not only on peace but also on environmental issues -
as we see in the Caribbean Tourism Organisation does all lot in this area and other
organisations such as Pacific-Asia Travel Association, European travel commission. It also
can contribute to an improved environment, both built and natural. Tourism in many places –
Costa Rica for one, which lost about half of its rainforest in a period of twenty years
following which the deputy minister of environment, began to introduce eco-tourism and he’s
been able to save the rest of that Costa Rican rainforest. And there are also contributes to an
improved built environment. Tourism is the economic engine that drives museums and
cultural events and theatre and what have you. It does this in such a way that it not only
benefits the tourists, but the residents of those cities. And in 1988 the concept of sustainable
development was a new concept just introduced by Jude Brumplin with her global
commission and the report that resulted - ‘our common future’ – and we talked about tourism
could make in sustainable development in that year.

Two subsequent global conferences in Montreal in 1994 and Glasgow 1999, each highlighted
success stories and examples of best practice that demonstrated these potentialities of tourism.
They were success stories that came from the private sector, the public sector and from
NGO’s from the local level to the na tional level and the international level.
With the third global conference the institute began an emphasis on partnering and steps were
taken to form four international networks among the educators, persons interested in rural and
community based tourism, indigenous tourism, and spirituality in tourism. Steps were also
taken to form a global coalition of partners for world peace through tourism. With the
founding partner committed to a millennium project that contributes to the vision of tourism
as a global peace industry, in between conferences, I IPT’ed the institute, developed the
worlds first code of ethics and guidelines for sustainable tourism – these were prepared for
Canadian tourism industry shortly following the Rio summit in 1992. As well we conducted
an international survey for the United Nations environment program on the state of the art of
the codes of conduct tourism and environment, and also developed guidelines for some
seventeen industry sectors that became the green leaf program of the Pacific –Asia Travel
Association. As part of Canada’s one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary as a nation, the
institute implemented a ‘Peace Parts Across Canada’ project. Some four hundred cities and
towns dedicated a part of peace, each with a peace grove of twelve trees as a symbolic link to
one another and this symbol of hope for the future. All four hundred of these parks were
dedicated on the 8th of October at noon as a peace keeping monument honouring world peace
keepers was unveiled in Canada’s capital, Ottawa.

The three global conferences that I mentioned, these projects together with a series of smaller
work shops and conferences served as the foundations for the first global summit on Peace
Through Tourism which was held in Oman, Jordan last November the 8th – 11th . His Majesty
King Abdullah was honorary chair of that summit which honoured the legacy of King
Hussein as a peacemaker and also served as a demonstration of support by the worlds largest
industry for a continuation of the peace process in the Middle East and other regions of the
world. Some outcomes included ratification of the Oman declaration by the participants from
some sixty countries, which included twenty-two chief executive officers, and sixteen
ministers of tourism. The Oman declaration has since been incorporated as an official U.N
document. Other outcomes included four international networks (that I mentioned earlier) of
coalition of partners for world peace through tourism with more than twenty international
partners, and the launch of a global peace parks project from Bethany, beyond the Jordan, site
of Christ’s baptism, and that was done on the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, on the
eleventh month of the first year of the millennium.

In two weeks, at the world travel market in London, we will be announcing the second global
summit on peace through tourism, which will be in Geneva on October 13th – 16th next year.
As the first global summit was in support of the U.N. international year for the culture of
peace, the second global summit will be in support of the U.N decade of peace of non-
violence for the children of the world. Again, we have several smaller conferences and
workshops leading up to the second global summit. The first two we’ve already implemented.
One was a workshop in Jamaica on community-based tourism, and the second is a spirituality
in tourism conference in a CZ that Steve mentioned. It is interesting to know that in a
connection with spirituality that Daghammer Showeled said:

“We will never have peace in the world until we have a spiritual renaissance.”

A third conference between Greek and Turkish travel executives is planned in April of next
year. This will be expanded to include Cyprus travel executives, and our aim is to harness the
sprit of the Olympics, which will be taking place in 2004, to improve understanding within
the region.
I would like to close with the wise words of Muhat Mu Ghandi. He said:

“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

Within that context, and within that spirit, we might each try to be more God like, as
expressed in a message that I recently came across my screen:

‘What is God like?
God is like general electric – He lights your path.
God is a little like bear aspirin – he works wonders.
God is a little like Hallmark cards – He cares enough to send the very best.
God is a little like Alberto V05 hairspray – He holds through all kinds of weather.
God is a little like Scotch tape – you don’t see Him, but you know He’s there.
God is a little like the copper-top battery – nothing can out last Him.
God is a little like American Express - … (inaudible)’

Ladies and Gentlemen thank you very much, and God bless you all.

(Questions from audience)

“I’m always looking for the … part so what you’ve showed just now, the … and the … part of
tourism. I also see the other part as information for the ecological part, but also the cultural
part, and in Holland there are some TV shows showing what is going on in other countries in
holidays, and what’s shocking to me is to see how our culture is … to the other culture instead
of learning, just moving the other culture away and just putting your own one. So how do you
deal with this?”

I think there’s a very, very significant need for education and this is one of the reasons why
we focused on developing an educational network to begin getting appreciation to these
particular issues particular to what you’ve just described. And travelling to another country
with a sense of humility and this probably sometime in the next couple of days (maybe you’ve
already begun to discuss it), but what is prosperity? Yes, we have material prosperity in the
western world, but you have all sorts of these instant millionaires in the United States –
probably in Europe as well – as a result o the information and computer era that began in the
1990’s and many of these instant millionaires have ended up in psychological consultations
with therapists – they’ve got all this money, but they still are not happy. I don’t know if any of
you remember it – when I was growing up there was a very popular song by Peggy Lee – ‘Is
that all there is?’ and that’s the realisation you come to when you’ve got everything you could
possibly want materialistically but you still don’t have that sense of happiness, satisfaction,
fulfilment, a sense of inner peace, a sense that you’re doing something that’s significant. Our
spirituality and tourism conference, as Steve just mentioned, was held in CZ, and I think
every one should go to CZ. Not only it’s a Unesco world heritage site, but to learn about the
life of Saint Francis. And here’s a man who gave his life to others, had a tremendous respect
and reverence for the environment, and he lived in joy and he gained this sense that happiness
can come more from simplicity than it can from material acquisition. It can’t come more form
the statement that William gave us last year from Tolstoy, that fulfilment comes from serving
others. There was a survey that was done by Fortune magazine about five or six years ago and
it surveyed mangers from warehouse manger level to top executive managers. And what they
found was the main motivation for these managers was an opportunity to make a contribution
to society – beyond being able to pay their mortgage and take care of their family and children
they really would like to fell they were making a contribution to society and also that they
were growing as a person in their careers, intellectually and what have you. So I think as we
talk about, and I’m sure you’ve talked about in past conferences, what is prosperity? We need
to return to our inner beings, our inner selves. Everyone, when you begin talking about peace,
and as the hymn says - ‘let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me’ – that’s where it
begins and what gives us that inner satisfaction and inner joy – and increasingly you find it
isn’t materialism. Addressing your question; there’s so many people that go to developing
countries to give aid or for whatever reason, and these people living in abject poverty they
find to be the most giving people they’ve ever met, and they’re still happy, and what little
they have they will share with you. And this is something I
Saw as a young marine. I was in the Philippines – people living in huts and so on, and they
were just so happy – particularly the children. So I think we can learn something from them
and this is something we all have to educate to come to this realisation.

(Question)

“I don’t know how the conversation got around, specifically with the U.S, and refers to the
tourism industry as a universal industry and as you know here in… It’s a booming
industry…(long audible part)…. So the lack of sensitivity over sincerity of the tourist,
depends on the tourist and the country he’s coming from, and he can see that everywhere –
it’s not the prerogative of the Americans actually, and you just go tot Spain and have a look
around you whether you go to Canary Islands or Majorca, and you see there is a colony of
Germany. You see that there are tourists there who are not there to learn anything about
Spanish culture; they are there to have very good cheap food and booze at the best price. So
this is opposite to what you have discussed and the sense of humility you were talking about I
think is something that, of course, we need – to be tourists who are there to appreciate
something. Secondly, about cultural exchange and cultural identity, I think it’s a universal
phenomenon this point…. It’s being threatened because suddenly people see on TV
something that is alien. Whether the identity of that culture is strong enough to withstand that
and be enriched by it or whether it’s so afraid that it will lose itself and melt, it would depend
on the reaction of the people and whether they are wise enough to incorporate what’s good
and reject what’s bad or a second choice is to take everything, good and bad, and their choice
to reject everything good and bad and by doing that, that’s when we have fundamentalism…
So by rejecting everything because it comes from outside. And as for poverty…I’m saying
this not as somebody who was born and raised in Texas, but as somebody who has been born
and raised in three different continents – I think I am allowed to say something. I think
poverty should never be idealised, altho ugh I agree totally that wealth does not create
happiness, I do also see that extreme poverty is tremendous… and as a result of injustices. It
creates unhappiness; it creates a total sense of un- love, of humiliation, of injustice, of
inequity. There are no hopes. The ideal good savage who is happy living in there is non-
existent. People get extremely sick, children die, and if they don’t die and grow up to be adult
they are sick or handicapped. So I think that thinking that wealth creates happiness and at
least a decent living standard, I think that is the right, absolute necessity for every human
being no matter what happens to them.”

I fully agree with what you’re saying, particularly the last part, and I didn’ t mean to suggest
that poverty should be a goal in what I was saying. Pope Paul VI said:
“Development is another name for peace”

And poverty definitely is a form of violence and that’s what this conference is about – how
can we help share the wealth of the world and how can we help raise the standards of these
people who are living in particular poverty. I certainly agree with that. The phrase that was
used by Dwain Elgin – he was with the Stamford Research Institute – and he did a lot of
research and writing on the concept of voluntary simplicity (this goes back to the 1970’s) and
Ghandi himself said that we should ‘live simply, simply, so that others could live’. And a
statistic I’ve run across just recently; seventy per cent of the space in U.S homes is used for
storage. So these are commentaries I think on the disparities that are there. And certainly we
need to work for equity, for justice, for a better standard of living for poor peoples and I agree
with what you were saying in the earlier two comments.

(Question)

“One quick comment and one question. As I listened to the eight different things you said
tourism helps to create, like jobs, like … news, like reinforcing culture, I said could you put
prosperity in place of peace? And six out of eight cases seem to me you could, and so quick
reflections why don’t you call your institute ‘the international institute for tourism and
prosperity’? But you don’t have to answer me! What I want to come back to is your statement
in the car yesterday as we were coming in about your efforts you’ve made to try and create …
of conducts and ethics with the tremendously large and diverse industry of tourism. Have you
had any impact, do you think, through that? And how does one go about introducing ethics in
such a large industry?”

I developed those guidelines and codes of ethics in sustainable tourism for the Canadian
tourism industry. We completed them in 1993. We began shortly after the Rio summit, and
one way that it’s done its by the process by which we develop the codes, which was a very,
very participative process. If any of you are familiar with the DelPhi technique – you go out
and you get expert opinion from a number of other sources. So we got expert opinion from
not only people in the travel industry, including academics and tourism leaders, but from the
areas of environment, culture, and so on, so you get the different opinions from a number of
key sources, and these people are inputting and then a process where you synthesise it and
feed it back…so anyway, number one, and I notice this is one of your principals, and that’s
consultation so that there is an ownership of the ethics when you come to time for
implementation. And the ethics were ratified by the Canadian tourism industry. The other
element of it is that a number of other countries have copied, in essence, those codes of ethics,
and all of this is an evolutionary process – it doesn’t happen over night, but there are
increasingly codes of ethics out there, and the world tourism organisation, just one year ago,
came out with a code of ethics for tourism, which incorporates a number of elements. So I
think it’s an evolutionary process, I think it’s a gradual process – but it is happening. The
other thing, particularly with industry, and I formed those codes of ethics in 1992, beginning
in the mid 1970’s with the first comprehensive study we did on the future of tourism, I began
to introduce a social and environmental ethic, at least to the Canadian tourism industry who
looked at that study, and as I continued to promote a social and environmental ethic – the
method I used was to show industry that it was in their own, self-enlightened long-term
interest. So in terms of adapting environmental values, there is not much you can save by
cutting down on the waste of paper, the use of fuels, etc, etc – recycling. And these kinds of
studies and statistics did become available. As well, when you begin to introduce social and
environmental values, for example Canadian Pacific hotels – before they introduced an
environmental program (and theirs is one of the top in the world) they did a survey of some
ten thousand of their employees and the response that came back was that eighty five per cent
fully supported the company getting into it, eighty six per cent would work over time on their
own time to help do the recycling, help do the things that were necessary, another ninety per
cent would take more pride in their company. So these have very, very strong benefits –
they’re not necessarily quantifiable but they’re there in the image of the company showing an
environmentally responsible, socially responsible ethic, which sells in the market place. It also
is a good image when you’re trying to attract the best employees in a competitive
environment for employing people and it makes people within the company feel better about
their company.
-- Peace and Prosperity (Used by permission of the curator)