Free | Current TV
Posted: 11/2/2011
The extraordinary true story of one man who took on all the nations of the world -- and won!
In 1948, compelled by the pain of war, Garry Davis gave up everything -- a promising Broadway career (he stood-in for Danny Kaye and got 13 curtain calls!), his well-to-do show-biz family, even his nationality to become the world s first official world citizen. He embarked upon a bold adventure, crashing borders, scaling cliffs, escaping a concentration-camp and challenging border guards, prison commandants and warring armies on a one-man mission to heal the wounds of war and to prevent World War III.
If I can show that it is possible for one man to live in a new global space, above the nation-states that divide us, and still survive, then I ll prove that it is possible for all of us to choose to live in the higher reality that we are already one planet, Garry declared in 1948.
With Albert Camus and others, he interrupted squabbling of nations at the UN in Paris, calling for world-wide elections to create a world parliament to outlaw war and make peace. 20,000 war-weary Europeans rallied with him to demand that the UN recognize the rights of humanity. The very next day the Soviet Union stepped aside and allowed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be passed unanimously.
Under the authority of that Declaration, and at the suggestion of Eleanor Roosevelt, Garry founded the World Service Authority in Washington DC, which has issued 2 million world passports, IDs, marriage licenses and other documents. (www.worldservice.org) While some nations reject the world passport, 150 Nations have stamped it with Visas. (www.eworldcitizen.com) Thousands of refugees and stateless people have used the World Passport to gain back their identity and for many their freedom.
Today Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu, Jimmy Carter, and other Elders are calling on a billion people to sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to make a personal pledge to protect the