The World Is My Country

The Loyd family.

and more outstanding Rotarians saluting Rotary International, volunteering in their communities and building peace around the world.

Thank you.

You are about to hear from an every-day man with an extraordinary life story.

A story that may well give us a road map to a better future.

He was an actor, a song and dance man, who lept off the Broadway stage onto the world stage in 1948, taking on cops, border guards, armies and whole nations, showing us that we don't have to be awed by their props of power and control.

We don't have to accept a world ravaged by war and plunging toward environmental disaster.

For 65 years as a citizen of no nation, only the world, [no audio] Garry Davis made his own props of freedom, demonstrating that we-the-people can tear down the walls of oppression and write our own story.

We can build a world that is constructive for all and destructive to none.

As Vermont author Abigail Stone put it: "Garry Davis opens the doors of our personal jail cells, hands us the rusty old key and says: 'Don't forget to dance on the way out'!"

So now here he is, the man Buckminster Fuller called... "The New World Man" - Mr.

Garry Davis!

[applause and cheers] I'm very appreciative of the fact that you're here as an audience and I'm here to entertain you, so it's like a temple.

You know, it's like a cathedral.

All actors feel the same way.

And what we get from you we get that... we get that attention, that electricity, we get that feeling back, and it feeds us.

So what do I need this for?

[cheers] [piano music and applause] [tap sounds] [cheers] [music stops] That's it!

[applause, cheers, laughter] my real dream... was to star... in a Broadway show!

I dreamt about that from almost day one!

And at 19, I got my big break.

Well, break, break... I got in the chorus... I got in the chorus of "Let's Face It!".

A big show on Broadway!!

At 19 years old!!!

[ music] We were in Boston, I went to the producer and said: "I'd like to understudy Danny Kaye!"

He said "What?!"

"Nobody can do Danny Kaye!"

I said, well, just for the rehearsals, the other understudies need somebody to read the role.

So he thought and said "okay"... Two years later... [whispering] Danny gets laryngitis... I'm down in the dressing room, down comes the stage manager...

and he says those magic words that every understudy wants to hear.

He looks down at me and says: "You're on!"

First reaction: "Oh my God, I gotta wash my hair!"

Sold-out matinee!

Here I am in front of an audience... at the Imperial Theater... in New York... on Broadway!!

But they want Danny Kaye!

They don't want me!

Can I really carry a Broadway show?

For two hours!

As the star?

Well, here's one of the numbers.

Oh, they passed a law... Oh, they passed a law... Oh, they passed a law... Down in Washington D.C...

Chorus behind me: "Yes Lord!"

Thanks, chorus.

[laughter] Yankee Doodle went to town In a goldfish bowl... new and shiny... They went Eeney, Meeny... Miiiiney... And cried "Hey young pup...

your number's up... Ha Di doddle do Di diddey Heeyt we geeg Ga giddle... [very fast and indistinct] Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr The mailman gi gaa git... Dooooooh Questionnaire!

Trrrrrrrrrrru The mailman gi gaa git... Dooooooh Report to doctor gi gaa git... Danny got 3 curtain calls.

Danny got 3 curtain calls.

I got 13 for that performance.

New York Times wrote an article, New York Times wrote an article, Columbia Screen Test afterward, I was made--by that one, one performance!

December 7th, 1941.

Ka-boom!

(Male) 'We bring an important bulletin from the United Press.

Flash, Washington The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

I'm no longer an actor.

I'm a draftee... with enemies I never knew I had.

I go from the Broadway theater to the European theater and into the 92nd Bomb Group.

I wanted to learn to fly... if I've to go to war, government would teach me.

My brother, Buddy, chooses the Navy.

While I'm in training, his tin-can destroyer is blown to bits at Salerno... That's a shock.

That's a shock I hope you never have, that a family member gets killed in war.

What's my reaction?

I wanted revenge.

I'm furious at the sailors who killed my brother!

My big brother, my mentor, We were young.

We were going to write We were young.

We were going to write plays... stories.

He was a great poet, He was a great poet, very talented.

We were going to change the world.

That was my first reaction-- Just... get these bastards!!

But... something happened!

As I'm flying over Germany in a B-17, we're ordered... to bomb Brandenburg.

We did, five miles up and then we go home.

And then we saw the pictures.

And I was horrified at the destruction!

So my revenge disappeared completely.

I turned to shame.

What was I doing?

My brother was killed and I'm killing brothers, and families.

My brother was killed and I'm killing brothers, and families.

Why weren't we arrested for killing people?!

Why weren't the Germans who killed you arrested?!

Well, 1946, the war is over.

I get another show.

"Three to Make Ready" with Ray Bolger.

Remember the guy?

The Scarecrow?

Wonderful, wonderful actor.

A great heart.

Now in this show, he plays the GI Sad Sack.

Now in this show, he plays the GI Sad Sack.

I'm playing the colonel... and then the general and so forth.

But offstage... I'm a real sad sack!

My friends used to say, "Garry isn't fun anymore."

I'm watching newsreels of bombed out Hiroshima, Nagasaki... (Male) "Hiroshima, seen from the air after the atomic bomb blast that virtually erased this city of 340,000 people from Earth.

As far as the eye can see, stretched scenes of desolation and ruin.

A girl 10 years old who was 400 meters from the epicenter.

You know that nuclear war... Einstein said: "if we don't eliminate war war's going to eliminate us!"

So I go on a quest-- To find out how to beat the most irrational enemy of all war itself!

I ask experts.

I go to the libraries.

I look for books.

No one has a clue!

I'm thinking to myself: "Is war inevitable?!"

Then I read a book, incredible book called The Anatomy of Peace.

And it struck me like lightning, that humans already have a system for eliminating war!

It's too simple!

"Come on, Garry, you're kidding!"

No!

Inside countries with one government, we don't fight wars!

"How about civil wars?"

Hah!

Two governments, two sovereignties!

But if everyone accepts one government, no war!

I look around New York and I see ethnic groups all over the place same ones that were at war with each other, in other countries.

Here they're playing chess in Washington Square.

Is it human nature... to go to war?

Why aren't they at war?

Conflicts can be resolved, not by blowing up neighborhoods but in a court of law!

Then I read Tom Paine's "The Rights of Man" Paine made that famous statement "My country is the world."

So if the world is our country - -this is too simple really-- If the world is our country and we claim it!

And we raise our allegiance to that level, to the top level... Hah!

No more fictional borders!

That's the key!

And therefore... no more wars.

Suddenly, it becomes very clear to me.

I didn't get arrested for bombing cities because there's no law against it!

National politicians fool us by talking about inter national law.

But treaties are just deals, between sovereign nation-states, which can be broken, and are, all through history.

(Male) "There before his cabinet President Coolidge signs for the United States a treaty designed to outlaw war".

Because there's no police force to enforce them.

In other words, very simply: No.

World.

Law !

And that hit me like a ton of bricks!

And that, folks, is why we fought World War II!

A war between the nations, not between us, the peoples.

If we'd had world law, we could have eliminated the global lawlessness, the world anarchy that gave rise to Hitler and the Holocaust.

And my brother would be alive today!

"There never was a war in history "easier to prevent by timely action "than the one that has just desolated such great areas of the globe.

It could have been prevented in my belief without the firing of a single shot."

"When Kansas and Colorado have a quarrel over the water "they don't call out the national guard in each state and go to war over it.

"They bring a suit to the Supreme Court of the United States and abide by the decision.

"There isn't a reason in the world why we cannot do that internationally."

"It'll be just as easy for nations to get along in a Republic of the World as it is for us to get along in the Republic of the United States."

[claps] When I finally realize that world law is essential for the survival of humanity I knew I had to take action.

"I was up there making war, bombing cities, "now I've got to make amends-- I've got to stop the next war!"

You imagine?

You see... I was going through my personal hell.

I was like a lot of these guys back from Afghanistan and Iraq.

You shoot somebody: you're shooting an image of yourself.

As the psychiatrists say, it's like a hole in your soul.

You can't get it out!

The last straw for me was the start of the Berlin crisis.

I'm in the active reserves!

[siren] What if I'm called for active duty to bomb Moscow?

Wow!

I had to do something.

So now here it goes.

I head to Paris.

I march into the US embassy, and I officially... give up... my exclusive... national...citizenship!

Now you say this is crazy.

I made a statement though.

I made a statement which said: "I'm taking the little bit of sovereignty that I possess, and I am placing it up on the top level, OK?"

And nobody can deny me that!

Because I am outside the states anyway.

I am no longer a national citizen so I can do what I want!

I can claim what I want!

And that's the day, the same day I did, that I claimed to be a Citizen of the World !

[applause and cheers] [loud applause and cheers] Me: "I'm a World Citizen !"

I walk out of the embassy.

Now I am free of the war system, liberated from national boundaries, waltzing above the entire system of nations!

Energized by a vision of a world with no borders !

No boundaries!

No fear!

A world...in which we are... One !

And you know what?

The world is already one!

And world citizenship is not a new idea.

Charlie Chaplin called himself a citizen of the world.

Socrates, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, all the great gurus, masters and sages called themselves citizens of the world.

But, unfortunately... not my own family!

My sister Ginny-- in Philadelphia-- opens the Republican National Convention... singing The Star-Spangled Banner!

And my father's playing-- he's got the orchestra for it when they hear about my citizenship.

Wow, what a shock!

What a contrast in family!

Dad implores me to reconsider, obviously.

Now the first thing the consul says: "Mr.

Davis you've got something belonging to us."

"Yeah?"

US passport.

Thanks very much, give it back!

So you give it back.

Now you've got no documents.

You walk out of that door onto the Champs Elysees in Paris and you've reentered France without documents.

It's the lot of millions of people.

So what does France do?

They say: "Get out!"

Get out, you're stateless, you ain't in our book-- if you don't get out, the pokey--go to jail!

I said fine.

I'll go to Germany to help rebuild what I destroyed!

But I can't get a visa to Germany without a passport!

The same thing.

In fact, as a stateless person, no nation will admit me, so where's a world citizen to go?

Up to the moon?

Into the ocean?

There's no other place!

So in that moment something very interesting happens.

France declares Palais de Chaillot "International Territory" for 3 months.

For the United Nations to hold its General Assembly.

The only year the UN was out of New York!

They had nowhere to go, the building wasn't built on the East River, so they went to Paris.

So I said, my God, here's a piece of world territory right in the middle of Paris?

Beautiful!

Makes my point!

So I go to the press-- the night before, Sept.

10th--make a statement, give it to the AP, the wire services, Reuters and so forth... Take my pack on my back, go to the Place Du Trocadro On midnight I leave France, by going to the territory of the Palais de Chailot!

I unroll my sleeping bag... And go to sleep!

[chuckling] Hey, lovely!

I'm out of France!

Next morning, about 6am: Nudge, nudge, nudge... "Monsieur !

Monsieur !

You cannot stay here!

It's against the law."

I wake up and say: "Out there's against the law for me! "

I show this gendarme what they call a "Refus de Sjour": they're refusing to let me stay.

He looks at it and says: "But... You must be out of France by September 11th!"

I said: "That's right!

And I am out of France... Did you know France ceded this territory to the UN?"

Him: "No, but you're in Paris!"

Me: "Yes, but here it's not French anymore!

It's not France!"

"If you take me away, back to France, you'll be importing an alien, you can get arrested" [laughter] He really backs off!

He needs some orders now... And then the press arrived... and it became a circus!

(Male) Garry Davis, ex-bomber pilot (Garry) That made a clamor all over the World!

Because Europe was still in ruins at the time and people were so fed up with war.

And then I say well, now that I've got the attention of the UN I'm claiming to be their first citizen.

The only guy they could get to the press was the Soviet Undersecretary-General.

And his statement was very interesting: "Davis... "is a world baby.

"States may join... "but diapered citizens... Nyet !"

[laughter] Anyway, the story went out.

Crowds started to gather around me.

I had students, I had housewives, I had businessmen.

People wanted peace !

This seemed a breakthrough for them!

They didn't know why... But at least one guy had broken through and was talking to the UN directly and they couldn't get rid of him!

It was a modern David and Goliath, kind of, one man against, against the goliath.

I held the ground there in this hectic time for six days and nights!

On the sixth day, a bunch of postal clerks came out of the Palais with sacks, and dumped the mail at my feet.

They were from the whole world!

Australia, India, Sri Lanka, from all over Africa, all over Europe... It was amazing... Talk about one world!

What do they say?

They're saying: "We're weary of talk!"

Saying: "We want peace!"

"You're our hope!"

"We're with you in our village, continuez!"

"How do I sign up as World Citizen?"

Many said: "You're like us... If you can be a World Citizen, so can I!"

So nine tenths of the letters said "We want to be World Citizens like you!"

It was the beginning of a movement.

On the seventh day... the UN was fed up!

[chuckling] Politicals all over the place were fed up!

This guy, you know... giving us a bad rep!

So they inveigh the French Minister of Interior to get this guy off their doorstep!

6am, I get up and the tent flies off over my head.

A hundred people around saying: "Garry, get out!

Get out!"

And a hundred gendarmes, with their patrol wagons... Boy they got everything out and me in the patrol wagon, and brought me back into France!

Illegally!

They should've been arrested!

[laughter] Well, OK, that was the first act.

What happened was a very well-known French war hero, Colonel Robert Sarrazac, organized two dozen leading writers to form what they call a "Conseil de Solidarit".

Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Andre Breton, Simone de Beauvoir, Raymond Queneau, Well, with so many Well, with so many wanting to be world citizens we opened a registry.

The small hotel I stayed in, ironically called the Hotel of the United States... Sign: "Register here as World Citizens" We took over the whole hotel.

The first floor was reception.

The second floor was registration.

The third floor was media.

The fourth floor was "Peuple Du Monde", our newspaper.

And the fifth floor was moi, me.

Now in two years, we had registered 750,000 people from all over the world!

Hey!

It's more people than many smaller nations, right?

This was the beginning... of a new constituency of citizenry on a global level... Something extraordinarily historic and extraordinarily important.

Now since the UN Charter mentions human rights eight times... They had to define them!

So they appointed Eleanor Roosevelt who was the US delegate to the UN as the chairperson of a human rights committee.

But the Soviet Bloc said: "Human Rights, no!

"It's an invasion of our sovereignty.

"We agree with economic rights but not human rights."

So Eleanor Roosevelt had meetings after meetings after meetings and my council decided we have to plot a very great, big act of political theater.

(Garry) But the Cold War is right there in that room!

Nations squabbling like little kids !

[a few words in Russian] (Male) Chair rules the remarks heard, entirely out of order.

So what I did was I got up before anybody could stop me.

There were balcony railings.

I leapt over them out to the front where everybody could see me and I shouted: (Young Garry) "I interrupt!

I interrupt!

I interrupt to make a statement!"

[multiple loud french voices] "Let him speak!!"

"I interrupt... in the name of the people not represented here!"

(Male) "At the UN's General Assembly, "Garry Davis, the World Citizen "who got people talking about him at the session's beginning when he invested the Palais de Chaillot..." (Garry) Herbert Evatt... He looks up... He sees me... [chuckling] It was like that!

Somebody from the people had the floor given by the President of the United Nations!

Well, I started: "The nations you represent divide us "and lead us to the abyss of total war.

"What we need is one government for one world.

"And if you won't do it, step aside!

"And a People's World Assembly "will arise from our own ranks "to do it.

Because we can be served by nothing less."

(Garry) Well I was hustled out, and, opposite, Sarrazac is giving the same speech in French.

(Garry) And then we took over.

We had so many people wanting to speak in that balcony that we interrupted that session for a full hour.

That went all over the world.

(Reporter) "At a recent sitting of the UN's General Assembly "an astonishing outburst from Mr.

Garry Davis, known as World Citizen No1."

(Young Garry shouts out) "I pass the word to the people!"

Well... we knew we had to go even bigger.

We had to plan a big, big... spectacular show.

To break the logjam... when that vote came up in the General Assembly.

We rented the biggest hall in Paris, called the Vlodrome d'Hiver.

The Vlodrome d'Hiver is the Madison Square Garden of Paris.

And we rented it on the 3rd of December to hold the meeting on the 9th, an impossible task to fill that hall in five days!

They put me in a little room and I was doing my speech.

Trying to learn it.

And the other speakers went up to the platform.

When I went on, I was brought up to this huge amphitheater, and I was absolutely stunned... by the number of people there!

It was 20,000 people!!

Life Magazine did a big spread on this.

Then a chant started, slowly building... "Garry... Davis... Garry...

Davis..." I mean I'm used to applause... but this was a shockwave of sound!

[roaring applause and cheers] My eyes get wide, my hands rise in the air... my fists clenched [Excited shouts of "Garry Davis"] I'm taken in!

[shouting in French: "Freedom!"]

I was taken in by the incredible [cheers, huge applause] thrust of power!

I began to lose myself in this kind of mass reaction.

But mass power is like a drug!

For a brief moment, I really gave in to the crowd's... adoration.

Then you draw back, fearful of what... the very thing we're rebelling against-- giving power to one person-- is happening!

So, I was, you know, terrified, terrified!

And then speaker after speaker... Everybody's restive, wants to hear what the President of the United Nations said about making peace.

Well, finally it came.

And here's one of the things he said.

He said: "As for me... "I would be in full agreement "with the ultimate goal of world federation and of world citizenship."

The hall erupts in cheers!

The letter continues.

"Indeed the Charter itself... stipulated... "that the great powers would make peace... "and that the primary function of the United Nations would be to maintain international peace...

once this has been made."

To the public, this was sheer gobbledygook!

Who the hell can make peace then?

If the United Nations can't make peace and admits it, who is to make peace?!

Nations can't make peace, they make war!

The crowd reacts... in a fury!

[clamor of disappointment] A young guy... his eyes really wild, you know, hair streaming, he pushes through our security, jumps onto the speaker's platform and he appeals to me: "We are tired of mere words.

"You're a man of action... "lead us!

"We will follow you.

Tell us what to do!!"

Young people, young people... And everybody's going yea, applause.

Hey, I didn't know how to answer that.

He was doing what I did at the United Nations!

Anyway, I pulled my thoughts together and began to read my speech.

and, It was totally inadequate, totally inadequate.

The microphones pick up my words hurls them out full-blown, you know from enormous speakers and I realize we are doing the very same thing I argued against You understand that?

We blather... about the horrors of world war... and the rights of man but what does it all mean if it's not followed by deeds?

You know, it's all blablabla.

Well, I finish... but boy, I feel totally drained!

I return to my little room at the hotel des tats-Unis, listening to the sad tinkling of the piano downstairs.

Pull out the flier with my picture on it that was given to these 20,000 people.

[wearily] Whooosh tear it up, crawl into bed.

But... if my reaction was negative... the world's press reaction was exactly the opposite.

News of the event echoed throughout the world!

(Male commentator) [loud applause] (Newsman) "And declared himself the first Citizen of the World" [huge applause] (Male) In Paris, followers of American Garry Davis who called himself "World Citizen No.1" have been demonstrating outside the chamber of deputies.

It was a sit down demonstration in favor of World Citizenship and other abstract ideas.

[Live sound from "Before the deluge" movie] (Reporter) 2000 Germans push into Technical University in Berlin to appeal for world citizenship.

These Germans, whose country has twice in a generation suffered defeat in aggressive wars are the latest to join the world citizenship movement started by a young American... Garry Davis.

(Announcer in German) (Garry) Why not?

Women saying: Now... here it comes... The day after our rally... on December 9th...

The 10th of December... the vote!

The vote on human rights.

And you know what it was?

It was unanimous!

Because the Soviet Bloc abstained!

We will never know why.

But the Soviet block for three years had said "We're going to vote no!"

But the 9th of December we took over... we the people, the world citizens of the world said: "Wait a minute... We need our human rights!

We need law, world law backing human rights!"

(Dr.

Evatt) We've reached the stage, gentlemen in which by an enormous vote... And without any... direct opposition this Assembly has adopted this very important declaration.

(Garry) Eleanor Roosevelt was very very happy.

She was so elated because now the declaration of human rights was proclaimed as... universal!

(Eleanor Roosevelt) We stand today at the threshold of a great event, both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind.

Five days later she mentions, in her newspaper column, our interruption... then explains the United Nations is not set up to govern, like Evatt said, and only to give nations a forum.

Then she writes something which blew... my... mind... a bombshell...

[softly] she writes this in her column: "How much better it would be if Mr.

Davis"-- You're not going to believe this!

Who?

Me?

[chuckles] The wife of the President of the United States saying: "Garry, we can't do it... go ahead, do it!"

I take that to mean that she's not talking really to me.

She's talking to every one of you.

She's saying each one of you... has to do it.

Each one of you... has the right, the prerogative, and the responsibility to make peace!

Anyway... To go back to my story... France was threatening to kick me out... to expel me.

What Colonel Sarrazac does, he asks for an audience with the President of France... and he grants it the next day!

So we go to the Palais de l'lyse.

We walk in, cameras rolling and so forth, but when he said: "OK I will give you my..." what they call "bienveillance"... "Mr.

Davis will not be expelled, because now he's got the aura of... my office."

Well, you know I should have been happy.

I should have been joyful and so forth... but instead... I feel I'm caught up in some fantastic, noisy, frenetic, desperate circus!

You know, it's like a dream where you know you're dreaming but you can't wake up!

You ever have one of those?

Until whatever's out there, devours you or whatever?

I was in this dream... I said... I said to my crew... I said...

"Look, you guys go ahead!

I have to have a time-out!

I'm tired mentally...

spiritually!"

Sarrazac says: "But you are the spark!

Le porte-parole... You carry the word!"

I say: "You guys are the organizers... "You're the famous writers, the big intellectuals... "I'm weary, I've done my job!

"You got a great beginning, 750,000 citizens!

"I'm hanging on here by the skin of my teeth!

I need some rest!"

Sarrazac is extremely disappointed by all this... So I did take a rest.

I decide since the UN had declared the right to travel, I would resume my efforts to go to Germany, to help rebuild.

So I hitchhike to Strasbourg.

I approach the Kehl Bridge which is on the German border.

I show the French official my refus de sjour-- my orders to leave.

He says: "Eh bien, you may leave!"

He didn't say: "Good riddance!"

But... [chuckles] I take one step and I'm met by a General... in his uniform and so forth... and he stops me!

He says: "Do you have a passport?

And a visa to enter Germany?"

I said: "Nope!

"But under Article 13.2 of the Declaration of Human Rights, I have the right to travel to any country!"

He says: [deep voice] "You may go no further!"

I say: "Yes but I've left France, I just left France!"

So I turn back to the Consul, the French immigration guy and ask: "Can I..." "get a visa to come back?"

"Oh, no no no no!"

[laughs] I said: "Well, I'm not in Germany... I'm not in France... I must be on the line between the two!"

Well I stayed on that line for two months!

On the Rhine River.

I was rejected by Germany.

I couldn't get back to France.

I'm freezing now... It's wintertime, Esther, a pretty young French girl, came over with her mom, who'd been my Au pair.

The press contacted my mother because she knew him.

She was his governess in Philadelphia in 1928 or '29.

She said: "Come along"... and I came along!

(Garry) She brought me a tent, she brought me food... she brought me blankets.

And years later... she became my wife... [Ooooohs] But that's another story.

Back on the border line, when I got freezing cold, she rallied the Alsatian supporters to build a small hut.

(Esther) Everybody was building it.

Children were romping around all the time, playing.

And I'm afraid the children stacked that stove a bit too strongly and it went up in a blaze.

That was a sign for me.

I give up now.

My very cabin... The place I am living in burns down.

[resigned tone] I've got to go back to the USA.

At first... as an immigrant, I'll have to go back as an immigrant.

(Garry young) This voyage... to this part of the world community known as the United States of America... is... more or less...

a private visit to my family and friends during which time I hope to... assimilate... and evaluate... my recent world citizenship experiences.

I've been asked whether I intend to regain my US citizenship.

Since this step I don't consider would change my state as a human being on the planet Earth, meaning simply my state of consciousness as a world citizen and a member of the world community, I see no necessity for it.

I intend to remain stateless... (Reporter) "Do you intend to promote your movement in the United States?"

My movement... I would say... that there is a community of world citizens rather than a movement.

When you say movement, and when you say my movement, you imply that I'm a leader.

I'm neither a leader nor a representative of world citizens.

I'm simply one of the world citizens in the community of world citizens.

But because of my stateless status, I'm detained.

Over the years, I've been in 34 prisons.

Thirty-four prisons in many countries, not because I committed a crime... but simply because as happens to many people, they have no documents!

What does the government do?

It holds them!

What's a refugee camp except holding people who have not committed any crimes?

Millions and millions of people, all over the world.

This is one of the horrors of the nation-state system.

Finally I get into another Broadway show.

[Song "I can hear you shyly saying, shall we dance" ] my heart... is not in it.

Sadly... I give up Broadway.

[sadly] For me it's the dark night of my soul.

Finally I get a job in a small machine shop in New Jersey.

I've never worked with my hands except as a carpenter a bit, Harry Jakobsen was a very rough-hewn Viking of a man.

Teaches me how to grind metal.

And of all things, he also teaches me an ancient wisdom science known as Brahmavidya.

Harry, master grinder in the machine-shop... was a guru!

Because he studied with an east Indian guru, Nataraja.

While I was learning how to grind metal we had long talks about wisdom itself.

It gives you a peace of mind.

All the stupid things go out of your mind.

Your mind almost becomes blank.

That sounds bad but... a higher level of rationality or reason or wisdom has now an opening to come in.

You get a burst of serenity from the energy, the universe.

So what happened?

I regained my mission!

I regained my mission to take up Eleanor Roosevelt's seemingly preposterous suggestion... that I start a government!

Wow!

But how?

Well I went to see a top constitutional lawyer.

This is interesting.

He says: "Garry, take a look at the 9th Amendment."

"All rights not specifically enumerated are reserved to the people."

Did you know that?

Here's a quote from the historic Declaration of Independence: Sounds astounding!

To institute new government!

The people institute new government?

But you want to know the great thing about all this?

At the global level, as Eleanor Roosevelt happily pointed out, there was no government to alter or abolish!

Nothing to overthrow, no violence-- which is always self-defeating anyway.

So there's no nothing except a wide-open... marvelous opportunity... for me to go out... and declare it!

So, I went up to Maine-- near where I was born-- and told my dad my plan.

He said: "People don't go around declaring governments! "

"Craziest nonsense I ever heard of!

"And in Maine too!

They'll laugh you off the platform-- that is if anybody shows up!"

[laughter] Well, people did show up-- not many, less than a hundred, a far cry from the thousands in Paris.

but it didn't matter!

Why?

Because my audience wasn't local.

It was global.

It was you and your grandchildren!

So, on September 4th, 1953 I declare... at the city hall of Ellsworth, Maine, a government of, by and for... the people of the world.

[applause] You say this is crazy?

But... I did it!

Then I set up the administrative agency of the government, which is now called the "World Service Authority".

And it's in Washington!

5 Thomas Circle.

It's functioning right now.

This is the international exit visa.

This is based upon article 13 section 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This doesn't mean that all governments are going to recognize this.

This gives us a tool to claim our rights... This is a bureaucratic tool.

Because what is stopping us from leaving is their bureaucratic tool.

In other words, the visa of control.

But we say: "OK, now we have our tool-- we are neutralizing your tool, and we're claiming the right to leave.

This is the beginning of a whole new development in human rights!

(Garry) My first passport was a little 16-page booklet.

Number zero-zero- zero-zero-one!

Well, I was first in line!

[laughter] And I entered India with it!

I met the prime Minister Pandit Nehru.

In his office, I tell him: "I am in this country on a World Passport.

I'm a world citizen!"

"Oh how jolly, how jolly!"

Then I presented him with his own World Passport.

And he says: "This is the passport Gandhi would have carried."

(Garry) No I am a world citizen.

That's all we have.

- Thank you!

- Thank you!

(Woman) Thank you!

It is marvelous!

It's euphoric!

It's euphoric to be standing on the top of the Berlin wall.

A wall which separated humans for 40 years.

And now... people are climbing up this side and jumping down the other.

It's unreal!

(Garry) You are the personification of human rights!

That implies World Law!

Mind boggling!

Mind boggling!

(Garry) Does world government scare you?

That's the question everybody wants to know... Oh, well, it does me!

If it's the same old forces of power, and money... controlling our lives from behind closed doors, the top-down theory, the New World Order, you've all heard about that... What if we the people institute our own government Truly of, by and for the people of the world World Law isn't beyond you, it is you!

We are World Law now.

If you take a piece of paper, and you say: "We agree to..." You know that's a legal document?!

You can take that into any court in the world.

We're already experimenting in making world law-- One community at a time.

"In view of the fact... (Repeated by the crowd) that the town of Burlington... (repeated) declared itself a World City.

(repeated) And in view of that... (repeated) that the city of Burlington... (repeated) joined over 1,000 cities throughout the world... that we, standing here, on global soil...(repeated) declare...

this park as World Territory!

(repeated) Would you say that we are now at a point, seeing that we have the World Wide Web... and the world is interconnected virtually... where we can stop with countries sectionalizing our planet and just become one united planet under one banner?

That's the name of the game here!

I can't believe you're here!

Bless you, bless you!

Come on in.

(Barbara) Robert remembered Garry, he thanked Garry for bringing him into this idea that we could become global citizens.

(Garry) Robert was one of the great exponents of this idea.

He gave his life to it.

I think that people are now realizing it is one world one family-- one human family... and either live in peace, as a family... or... that's it!

I heard the last trip Robert took, you went back to that spot-- - -We sat there!

We sat there!

Well we were there because we knew Garry Davis had slept there!

(Barbara) We went to the spot where Garry had the courage to live on the line between these two countries that had fought that awful, awful war... And we allowed ourselves to experience the joy of... No guards!

No kiosks!

Of no borders!

Now it's a free open bridge.

Strasbourg where Garry took his stand became the seat of the European Parliament!

And I'm absolutely positive that Garry inspired the European Union founders.

And the European Union succeeded in stopping wars between its members.

What Garry said worked.

Law stopped war!

But it didn't go global-- there's no World Law against war.

So wars still rage.

And as you see the floods of refugees coming in... And these little children being led off the boat... This is a very sad time!

You know the solution isn't to go backwards... and to build more walls... It's as Garry said: "Think outside the box to invent new solutions."

Here in Vermont we have town hall meetings.

Today, with the internet... we can allmeet in the same room... the global room!

We don't have to give our power away to representatives... Who become magnets for special interest money.

We don't have to be imprisoned by the inventions of the seventeen hundreds-- We don't need a middleman.

What if we invent a governing system in which each of us can participate?

Not mob rule... but true collaboration?

What if we invent World Money?

Why not?!

We humans are an incredibly ingenious species.

Why squander our genius on inventing "smart bombs" to do ourselves in?

[Boooom!]

Why not use our great ingenuity to invent "smart gov"-- a way we can all interactively... and intelligently... and heart-fully... govern...

our communities... our regions... and our world!

[cheers of great celebration] (Garry) "Visionary?"

You bet!

But... doesn't every advance start with imagination?

When we catch the vision of a people-powered planet... then... in this era of instant communication we'll be able to evolve the tools and the platforms we need to bring the highest and best wisdom of each individual to the task of governing planet Earth.

to the task of governing planet Earth.

Once we tap into the sovereignty of the whole, we can unleash the genius of humanity.

[broken weapon] crack!

End war!

End oppression.

Solve global warming.

[plunging dolphin] splash!

Global warming is at the forefront of a lot of people's minds, and weather change we're having weather patterns, flooding hurricanes, Obviously people have had a devastating impact on our planet.

It seems now more so than ever we're at a real tipping point.

I'd like to ask Leo, there's an old movie clich, "the planet is in peril"... And at the 11th hour things look really dark... and at the last minute our hero swoops in and saves the day... saves the world!

Who's the hero who's going to save us?

(Leonardo) There's gotta be millions of heroes!

That's my answer.

(Leonardo) This is a huge worldwide movement that needs to cross cultural boundaries, religious boundaries... it needs to unify all of us!

How can you argue with... wanting cleaner air, cleaner water!

These are fundamental human rights issues at the end of the day!

Everything has to come from the will of the people.

So... It requires you to ID yourself... as a World Citizen.

You don't have to give up your local citizenship or your national citizenship, you just have to add the top layer.

When each one of you does it tonight, in this group here, this small group, you're making peace between yourselves!

You're saying: "I'm peaceful", "I'm peaceful to you", "I'm peaceful to you" It's a contract we're making.

[elatedly] That can happen overnight!

No more war!

God!

No more war... What a historic sentence that would be!

Because it doesn't take a lot of people!

It takes people who exercise their sovereignty on that level... I am not a politician.

I'm an actor!

But to me... hey... we're on stage... all of us...

Everybody here... is on stage... and the stage... is global...

Hey!

it's our world folks.

[cutting sounds] schlakk!

And we human beings can do anything we set our minds to!

So say it with me... "I am a World Citizen... and my country... is the world!"

I am a World Citizen... and my country is the world!

[applause and standing ovation] Music over credits My country is called earth To give us your comments and reactions or for the full unabridged film and online Q&A with the director information on the world passport or a free guide to world citizenship go to worldcitizen1.com music over credits