Having received the invitation to participate at the 10th Doha Forum on Democracy and Free Trade (Qatar, 31 maggio - 2 giugno 2010),
Mario Capanna, President of the Genetic Rights Foundation, has prepared the following speech

“That which concerns everyone must be decided by everyone”

TOWARDS A WORLD PARLIAMENT

(Speech by Mario Capanna, President of the Genetic Rights Foundation, at the 10th Doha Forum on Democracy and Free Trade, Qatar, 31st May-2nd June 2010)

Dear Delegates,

I have the honour to address you as President of the Genetic Rights Foundation, an independent scientific and cultural organisation based in Rome, (www.fondazionedirittigenetici.org) which is made up of researchers and scientists, both Italian and foreign, whose mission is to provide rigorous information on the consequences arising from the use of GMO and biotechnology in all areas, ranging from the ecosystem, to the food chain, health, economy, finance, ethics, etc.
Democracy and free trade: is the main theme of this important gathering.
Neither democracy nor free trade exists in most of the world today.
The pretend world portrayed by the mass media, particularly in the West, shows a world overflowing with goods which sparkle like its rich cities (Doha, Rome, Paris, London, New York, Shanghai etc).
But, away from this fiction, the real world shows signs of devastation, carried out by the few at the expense of the majority of men and women.
According to a complex survey undertaken by the UN, which sought to monitor personal wealth distribution, it emerged that 2 per cent of the world’s population possesses more than half of the planet’s riches.
10 per cent of the population possesses some 85 per cent of the planet’s riches.
Given such findings, it is a pure contradiction in terms to talk about “free trade”.
There is no “free trade” and the “free market” does not exist. The market is coerced (as is commerce) for the simple reason that it is subject to capitalist profit dynamics, in which those groups (or nations) which are the strongest are able to dictate the rules.
Nobody should consider this an ideological description.
The proof is that the number of starving people in the world is once more on the increase.
In 2008 there were 850 million and, according to the FAO, by 2009 they had reached more than 1 billion.
Whilst we are here discussing, every five seconds a baby will die of malnutrition.
There are 12 little bodies a minute, 720 an hour, 17,280 a day, 6,307,200 a year. The same figure as those that went to the Nazi cremation ovens, only every year!
What is more, the amount employed by governments in Europe and the US, by way of capital injections and financial guarantees to bail out more than a thousand banks following on from the international crisis – caused by the very same banks! – and to avoid the bankruptcy of Greece, comes to 3,750 billion dollars.
Yet, last December, the world summit of FAO, which took place in Rome, was refused the sum of 44 billion dollars a year, with which to eradicate world famine. You might think that 44 billion dollars is a trifle compared to 3,750 billion dollars – some distance more than double the GNP of Italy.
This is how things are in the real world, rather different from world fiction.
Financial speculation is the cancer which is devastating the economy and commerce today.
While highlighting this, I am pleased to recognise that Islamic finance forbids such speculation.
Of the trillions of dollars and euros which flow daily around the world (data again from UN sources), some 95% is used for speculation and only 5% - only 5%! - for real economic transactions to do with energy, raw materials, machinery etc.
This “all devouring” speculation, in the same way as for petrol, plays a shameful role in foodstuff futures (the financial instruments which gamble on future prices) and which are transacted on the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).
The enormous sums wagered on the future price of wheat, rice, soya or maize impact on the current price of these foodstuffs so as to cause prices to rise with a rapidity which bears no relation to the real economy of supply and demand.
In this way, between 2005 and 2008 the cost of wheat rose by 177%, that of soya by 175% and the cost of rice by 165%.
If you consider that a price rise of just 1% of a foodstuff leads to a decrease in calorific intake of 0.5% by the poor, you can imagine the real tragedy of such consequences.
At the same time, the food industry multinationals have seen their profits soar. Danone, the French company has tripled its net profits, likewise the Swiss giant Nestlé.
Fertiliser producers (Monsanto, Syngenta, Potash, Yara, etc.) have all posted earnings up some 180%.
As such, as there is no democracy (in the real meaning), there is no free trade. And, as there is no free trade, there is no democracy.
Democracy as “power to the people” – and to peoples – has been ousted by the global dictatorship of profit as the aforementioned data shows.
Naturally the dictatorship of profit is more than happy to use, for its own ends, parliaments, governments, the media and state institutions as illusory mirrors of “democracy”.
Naturally the dictatorship of profit and of financial speculation has made politics its servant, transforming it into a tool for its own ends.
In this way, politics follows - and is led – transformed into pretence, a sham of what politics should be.
It is vital that politics returns to what it should be – participation by the people, by citizens, by peoples.
Knowing this, the 2,500 scientists who, in 2007, drew up the report for the UN on climate change, unanimously issued a warning to humanity:

THAT WE ARE STARING OVER THE ABYSS, THE TIME FOR HALF MEASURES IS OVER. IT IS TIME FOR A REVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS, FOR AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION AND FOR A REVOLUTION IN POLITICAL ACTION.

“Staring over the abyss”: the new Pillars of Hercules. The ones of antiquity, once fear had been overcome, were passed with impunity leading to discoveries of new horizons and new worlds. Passing the new equivalents would lead to nothing less than the extinction of the human species.
Of the three revolutions which the scientists consider necessary, the first and indispensible – a precondition for the other two – is that of consciousness.
We must equip ourselves with a global consciousness; we must reach a planetary awareness, if humanity wishes to continue living on Earth.
The time is right to put into practice the principle “That which concerns everyone must be decided by everyone”.
In this respect, the UN is no longer adequate. The Security Council – with the five permanent members’ power of veto – more often than not serves only to block decisions adverse to those five, or even only one of them.
Where really is democracy in the world today?
We need a World Parliament (WP) which effectively represents all the peoples of the Earth.
Technically speaking there are no complex problems to be overcome. A day needs to be established for the vote (following the different time zones) which would be based on the cardinal democratic principle of representative democracy – one person, one vote.
A parliamentary representative would be elected for every 6 million inhabitants, giving us a parliament of a thousand people.
If we wanted it more representative, we could elect representatives for every three million inhabitants of the planet, and we would have a parliament of two thousand people. This would still be less than the plethora of bureaucrats who crowd out the “Glass Palace” in New York.
The WP would nominate a President, the President’s Office would be tasked with preparing the plenary meetings.
By leaving powers decentralised at the level of the single states, the WP would concern itself with those great questions with a global impact such as: peace, disarmament, starting with nuclear warheads, remedying climate change, the equal distribution of resources and of wealth, the balanced development of Planet Earth.
It should be noted that no one country, not even the most populous, would have an outright majority, they would have to form alliances and everything that would take place, would do so in full view of the world.
This is the only realistic way of bringing about globalisation which would be multicentric, multicultural, democratic, shared by all, respectful of the dignity of all and a source of peace and wellbeing for everyone, something which today is indispensable. It would be the exact opposite of today’s globalisation which is unipolar, one way, centred on the strongest at the expense of the weakest and slanted in favour of the rich minority and away from the great majority of the dispossessed.

In this scenario, the European Union, the Middle East and the Gulf States could become the most important geopolitical realities in the world in terms of demography, production and trade.
That is why Europe must radically rethink its own role, abandoning the logic of neo-colonialism and profit and adopting a more solid participatory role, involving authentic cooperation whilst respecting cultural differences and differing origins.
The Genetic Rights Foundation is moving in this direction. We are realising the project Geneticamente: which will make Rome the Euro-Mediterranean capital of participatory scientific research.
By bringing together the best of science and research, a new horizon of cooperation, understanding and peace between Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and the countries of the Persian Gulf will be opened up.
The European Union is strong economically but weak politically.
The time is therefore right for the historic moment of an efficacious persuasion offensive by the Arab world - with its great civilisation and culture – to return to dialogue, to that golden age of Islam which came about between the eighth and eleventh centuries on the shores of the Mediterranean.
This is also the only way to resolve the tragedy of our Palestinian brothers who have the absolute right to full independence and to a State which coexists peacefully with Israel.
If we move in this direction and follow tenaciously the idea of a World Parliament, all the constellations of the world can unite with a single light.
Then yes we will have democracy and truly free trade. Rather than the ruin brought about by separate conscience – which is at the root of the dictatorship of profit – the global conscience will make us understand how we really are deep down: brothers who, together, are the observers of the universe.