A COMMUNIQUE FROM PROF. RAJANI KANTH (TRUSTEE) TO OUR ATTENDING PANELISTS

I take great personal pleasure in welcoming you to our planned Peace Congress this Summer of 2007.
Few would doubt, I think, that we are living through some dark times when much of common humanity appears at risk in terms of want, insecurity, and indignity. 
As such, there is much to be achieved at our Congress where, we the organizers, hope that we can all put aside our rank, status, professional orientation, and national origins, to see ourselves as mere planetary denizens committed to commencing some new dialogs that will keep the peace, enhance mutual welfare and evince respect for viewpoints other than our own. 
For too long, we have left it to states and governments to safeguard our welfare: perhaps it were time that we, the peoples,  took responsibility and declared commitment to achieve the same ends by starting to build direct, personal links within the human chain.
I know you will all contribute toward this end, and we thank you for your investiture of confidence in our efforts.
We are non-Partisan, non-Denominational and unconnected to any Sectarian model of social/political discourse.
Instead, we hope to foster a new openness to new ideas and initiatives that takes our common humanity as its starting point .
By January of 2007, we will begin furnishing more detailed information in this regard as we complete our initial preparations for the Congress. 
Please bear with us until then: and keep checking our Website – www.congress2007.net – for on-going information. 
Let us all be the change we each wish to see in this world.
With warm wishes,

Sincerely,

Professor Rajani Kannepalli Kanth
Helen Sheridan Chair/UMass-Amherst
Trustee, Congress 2007.

CONGRESS  2007 : A  DIALOG FOR OUR TIMES 
Communiqué#2 from Rajani  Kannepalli Kanth, Trustee

Years ago,  acclaimed  Physicist and Cosmologist, David Bohm wrote thus, in context of another gathering:
“The weekend began with the expectation that there would be a series of lectures and informative discussions with emphasis on content. It gradually emerged that something more important was actually involved — the awakening of the process of dialogue itself as a free flow of meaning among all the participants. In the beginning, people were expressing fixed positions, which they were tending to defend, but later it became clear that to maintain the feeling of friendship in the group was much more important than to hold any position. 
Such friendship has an impersonal quality in the sense that its establishment does not depend on a close personal relationship between participants. 
A new kind of mind thus begins to come into being which is based on the development of a common meaning that is constantly transforming in the process of the dialogue. 
People are no longer primarily in opposition, nor can they be said to be interacting, rather they are participating in this pool of common meaning which is capable of constant development and change. In this development the group has no pre-established purpose, though at each moment a purpose that is free to change may reveal itself.
The group thus begins to engage in a new dynamic relationship in which no speaker is excluded, and in which no particular content is excluded. 
Thus far we have only begun to explore the possibilities of dialogue in the sense indicated here, but going further along these lines would open up the possibility of transforming not only the relationship between people, but even more, the very nature of consciousness in which these relationships arise.” 
D. Bohm, Unfolding Meaning_,p. 175

This Congress is imbued with the spirit, and the sentiment, of the Bohm Dialog, as  referenced above, and  as  it has since come to be known.
It is Open-Ended, it is Self-Directed –  and Self-Realising.
The only targeted  Issue  in the Conference  is the fact that it  openly purports to be a  Peace Congress,where we are all being asked , albeit from within the ambit of our own varying lenses  of talent, skill and profession, to step out and define the Parameters of  World Peace, in  creative engagement with points of views, and perceptions, other than those  we  ourselves cherish.
This will involve a small  investiture of minimal effort to overcome parochial , professional,  prejudices [stemming from  rank, station, status,  and accomplishment] that usually  serve to divide thinking people from each other.
It is hoped that such a Face-to-Face  Dialog narrows Difference , and enhances Mutual Understanding; perhaps, at a stretch,  even mutual respect.
Even more , we may perhaps  ,  howsoever  serendipitously,  reach tentative agreement in many areas that affirm our common anthropic natures, whilst simultaneously affirming  legitimate differences of opinion , orientation, and  perspective.
The Congress Meetings are organized with a view to facilitating the aforesaid by allowing for variousProtocols of Interaction between Panelists , and  between Panelists and Participants, so thatIndividual, Group, and Collective Representations i.e.  the Three Modalities of Societal Life,  complement, and engage,  each other.
The  Congress Dialog commences with Panelists first presenting their own personal viewpoints, within the confines of their Individual Panels, in face of a small, if  highly Interactive, Audience of  Select Participants.
Next, they face the entire Congress  Gathering , as a whole, to both present,  and be confronted with , various  other viewpoints.
Then they retire behind Closed Doors, within Individual Panels, to  resolve and/or definedifferences, after which they will formulate a Majority Opinion and a Minority Opinion [wherever the latter is needed]  that will  constitute a set of  agreed-upon Policy Recommendations[Caveat: each and every Panelist can opt also Not to be associated with Either the Majority Or the Minority Opinion, by exercising the Right to Abstain: and such Abstentions will also  be Noted/Recorded  as per the preference of  the Abstaining Panelists].
Then, in the Final Stage, Panelists will articulate , and defend, these Policy Pronouncements to an Assembly of the Whole which will then accept or reject each Proclamation , by acclamation.
In effect , we are planning not merely the  usual ‘talking shop’ sort of Conference ,  but also   a Convention that enumerates  calls for  Creative  and, it is hoped, Original,  Plans of Action .
It is this Final Set of Accepted and Rejected Propositions that will constitute the real Bounty of the Congress that will be presented to the World, even as  Plans are additionally made, on site,  to continue theDialog forward,  armed  now with Clear Propositions, on a  similar basis, but  elsewhere in the world , in years to come.
I know each of you,  albeit within your own Frames of Reference,  can and will help realize  this Vision –indeed,  your Vision –  of what is possible ,  when we choose, in an atmosphere of Convivial warmth and  sincerity,  to  care about our Common Fate(s). 
Even if you  strongly disagree with this  Mission, we hope you will  still come  ,endowed with even more enthusiasm , to energetically articulate your own Dissent (that is ,  in fact, exactly what theCongress2007 Dialog is all about) which may help us all design the next such Congress with even  greater  diligence. 
Our  Collective Futures , as a Species, may well be contingent upon such Efforts.

CONGRESS  2007 : A  DIALOG FOR OUR TIMES 
Communiqué#3 from Rajani  Kannepalli Kanth, Trustee

Dear Distinguished Invitees: 
I take great pleasure in forwarding Congress Panel Allocations, arranged by Theme, by Attachment.
Please note that the Overarching Motif of the Congress is Peace , via the Medium of Understanding both our Commonality and Difference(s). Each Panel engages within the Terms of the General Theme indicated, interpreted very broadly. How you choose to present your Argument, be it Formal or Informal, Structured or Unstructured, is rather up to you.
It is Content that is of import: and the Will to communicate.
I urge you all to think Old ideas afresh, and, if possible, to think also of New ideas left unexplored by the inertia of inherited Paradigms.
This is also a Cross-Dialog: so many of you will be challenging, and be challenged by, Panelists in Fields quite other than your own.
I have nominated Provisional Moderators for each Panel: but each Panel is free to choose another, as it pleases.
I urge each Panel to get to know one another long before you arrive in Salt Lake City so that the Dialog commences earlier. To this end you will receive Contact information on each other very shortly.
It were also useful, and important if, leastways temporarily, during the Congress, that considerations of rank and station, honor and achievement, not to mention egos, were shelved as a prelude to free and unfettered discourse.
For us , you are All celebrities: but that’s only a point of departure. Once here, we will All be a Community of Equals, with important work to do.
Finally, this is Your Congress: We, the Organisers, are merely Facilitators – and we can only hope that you will come inspired to give of yourselves to as many Common Causes as you can help each other Identify in the 3 Days of the Congress.
I feel quite strongly, despite the risk of hyperbole, that the Future of our Species, in considerable jeopardy in these troubled times, may well depend on such efforts and initiatives.

With all good wishes, 
Professor Rajani Kannepalli Kanth 
Trustee-Congress2007