Old version of the World Passport, from 1979
The website of the organization that issues this passport, the World Government of World Citizens and its associated World Service Authority (WSA), has a quote from Einstein:
So long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable. That is not an attempt to say when it will come, but only that it is sure to come. That was true before the atomic bomb was made. What has been changed is the destructiveness of war.
Garry Davis, the founder of the world passport, died in 2013 having spent his life advocating for “world citizenship.”
From the website of his organization:
On 25 May, 1948, in Paris, France, Garry Davis (26), a former Broadway actor and US bomber pilot in World War II, renounced his exclusive citizenship in and allegiance to the United States of America.
At the same time, he publicly declared himself a “citizen of the world.”
From that moment on, Davis, legally “outside” the nation-state represented the sovereignty of all human beings and become an operative world-government-in-microcosm.
From Wikipedia:
Desperate to prevent a possible World War III in a now “Atomic Age”, Davis utilized his thespian skills as Danny Kaye’s understudy to interrupt a session of the United Nations General Assembly on 22 November 1948, calling for “one government for one world”. Along with his support committee, he rallied 20,000 people at the velodrome in Paris to demand that the UN recognize the rights of Humanity. The very next day, on December 10, 1948, the Soviet bloc abstained, allowing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be passed unanimously.
On Davis’ “support committee” were no less than Albert Camus and André Gide, and he also had support from Eleanor Roosevelt and Einstein.
A page from the new version of the passport
Today both Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are said to be carrying Davis’ world passports, which Davis had argued must be honoured as legitimate travel documents based on the rights guaranteed by the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights.
“By 1975, Garry Davis had already been imprisoned 20 times for his attempts to cross international borders with nothing but a World Passport,” according to Wikipedia. Currently almost no states accept this document, and former musician and actor Mos Def, now Yasiin Bey, was recently arrested in South Africa for trying to use his world passport to fly.
Maybe we should all register for one in protest.
The world passport reminds me of the Earth Flag, which comes in several versions (see link).
PS Mauritania, Tanzania and Togo accept the WSA (World Service Authority) document. Burkina Faso, Ecuador and Zambia claim to accept it but this may no longer be true. The Vatican claims it is “supportive.”
Good read. As always.