“This is the passport that Gandhi would have carried.” – India’s Prime Minister Nehru
For many of us, the idea of a World Passport seems like a dream – access to any country, no need for visas – complete freedom to navigate the globe without the imaginary lines. What if I told you that for 62 years, Garry Davis lived as a citizen of no nation, only the world?
After World War II, compelled by the pain of war, Garry Davis gave up everything — a promising Broadway career, a life of wealth, even his American nationality – to become the first official world citizen and travel the planet.
A World Gone Mad
“The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.” – Thomas Paine
Garry Davis was a rising Broadway star when World War II started. The madness that plunged the whole world into chaos ripped families appart, and his brother was killed in action. Garry enlisted, eager to bomb Hitler’s war factories. The world changed for him when he was ordered to bomb a city full of civilians – he was horrified of the carnage. Enraged at the war system, he left the armed forces and set off the France. He gave up Broadway, and made the whole world his stage.
He has stood between Arab and Israeli guns, endured 34 prisons, and dared to leap up in a UN session to stand up for the rights of humanity.
Challenging the World
On December 9th, 1948, Gary rallied over 20,000 people in Paris and around the world to demand that the UN give humanity a voice in running our world. The very next day the Soviets stood aside and let the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) be passed unanimously. Five days later, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in her newspaper column: “How very much better it would be if Mr. Davis would… start then and there a worldwide international government.”
The Birth of A Dream
After much soul searching and enrolling 750,000 people, more than the population of 80 nations at that time, Garry, declared a Government of, by and for the people of the world. That government has issued hundreds of thousands of World Passports, many to stateless refugees who’ve used this powerful human-rights tool to gain freedom from squalid refugee camps and detention centers. 170 nations have stamped visas in World Passports (see copies at www.worldservice.org/visas.html ).
Even more importantly, that government is a forerunner, the kernel of the idea that we, the sovereign citizens, have the right, duty, and power to take back our planet and build the world we choose. The World Passport is the symbolic embodiment of the new way of thinking required if humanity is to survive and create a just, peaceful and sustainable world.
“Mark my words, this boy, Garry Davis, has grasped the only problem which deserves the devotion of contemporary man, the problem to which I myself am determined to devote the rest of my life, up to the very last day… the survival of the species. It is a question of knowing whether mankind – the very universe of man- will disappear by its own hand, or whether it will continue to exist.” – Albert Einstein, 1946
The World is My Country TRAILER from Arthur Kanegis on Vimeo.
YOUR DREAM
What adventures do you dream of embarking on? What projects have you always wanted to accomplish? What people do you admire because of what they have achieved? Connect with your deepest longing, find your aliveness, and start planning the exciting life you want to experience.
