Realising Utopia: Reflections of a True Blue Dreamer

By Richard Valton

After searching for a unifying common platform incorporating all faiths but with no success (only his atheist friends responded positively!), the author reflects on the conditions to realise John Lennons Utopian dream depicted in his famous song Imagine and discovers that the organization of the United Nations needs reforming, adding an element of supra-nationality to it and redefining the nations rights to vote.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Aug 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524516413

Richard Valton

Richard Denis Robert Valton —Born in Paris, France, on 17/4/1943 —Education: Lycée Claude Bernard and Janson de Sailly, Paris; Ecole des mines de Nancy, 1963–1966; Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Université d’Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, 1966–1968; Ingénieur Civil des Mines at Gécamines, Katanga, Zaire, 1968–1973; MBA from INSEAD, Fontainebleau, 1973–1974. —Chairman/CEO of Electrolux CR, Vincennes, 1974–1983 —Manager of strategic planning, BHP Iron Ore, Perth, Western Australia, 1984–1996 —Director of a Swiss trading company, Zug, Switzerland, 1996–2000 —Tutor of business policy / marketing strategy in Curtin University Business School, Perth, 2001 —Coach/mentor/advisor for Aboriginal groups and small companies, Perth, 2001–2010 —Australian business volunteer / advisor for small enterprises on Pacific Islands and in South-East Asia 2008–2013 —Author of Impressions, soleil couchant and The Fraternity Revolution. —Treasurer of the Humanitarian Group, 2013–2015.

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Copyright © 2016 by Richard Valton.

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Rev. date: 08/26/2016

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Researching common ground for

a unifying starting position

Where Angels Fear

The Action Plan and its Priorities

Women and men

Short-sightedness of politicians

Death and the unjust distribution of talents

How to manage the transition

Conclusion to my survey and my ideas

Prologue

I finished writing my essay collection, The Fraternity Revolution, in May of 2001, prior to the events of the NYC twin towers on 9/11 by Al-Qaeda, events to which I alluded by focusing my writings on the violence in this world. I put a lot of thought behind every one of its phrases, as it took me 10 years to write.

I self-published the short collection of essays by the end of 2010 and let it run for about 5 years without promoting it. Then, when things started to unfold as I had predicted in my small booklet — I concluded that my logic was right — I started to promote it from the summer of 2015, when Europe was flooded with refugees, principally from the war zones of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, but from many other countries as well; they crossed to Europe through Greece from their base-camps in Turkey.

In parallel, the violent terrorist attacks grew at an increasing rate: the Madrid train bombings, the London underground attacks, the Norway attacks, then the Charlie Hebdo (for which the French invented the slogan: ‘Je suis Charlie’) and the Hypercacher of Paris, then the November attacks at the Bataclan (still in Paris), finally the Brussels attacks of last March. That’s for Europe alone. To be added are the attacks in the USA, Orlando very recently, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Turkey, Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Cameroon, Philippines, Tunisia, Egypt etc. No one is safe any longer in any country you go to, including Bali and Australia.

Please read The Fraternity Revolution as a preamble to this piece of writing. Cheap digital copies (less than 3US$) can be found with Port Campbell Press.

Researching common ground for

a unifying starting position

I ran a survey amongst my friends and family by March 2016 on four fundamental questions that were: a definition of the difference between man and what we call God, a communications question about ‘how we communicate with what we call God’, a connection question on how we connect or ‘see the light’ with such an entity and the place of evil in the universe.

I intend publishing it as a Post Scriptum in any supplementary re-printing of The Fraternity Revolution. I conceived this clear piece of thinking on a sleepless night using at first the definition I was carrying in me for more than fifteen years concerning the difference between man and God, a concept that I owe to Katia, my old Russian neighbour in Shenton Park. My conclusions, however, focused on the necessity of seeing the light, and were inspired, in part, by her membership in the Perth branch of the Theosophical Society, that well-known and esoteric group of mystics. On that point precisely I differed radically from her.

I had hoped to find, among those I surveyed, a consensus resulting from my four fundamental and straight-forward questions. Instead, I scared every one off by touching on issues that are rarely considered, by using capital-letter words (which leads to terrorism, some said) and by asking them indirectly to uncover their faiths. As a consequence, they automatically receded to their original faiths and answers built into their childhood, and took cover there as is usually the case when world order is challenged or questioned. I only had positive responses from my atheist friends, who did not shy away from the topic, but were not too representative as three quarters of humanity are believers, even if only because of tradition, group, family or cultural pressure.

This is the text of the fundamental questions:

1. What is man compared to what we call God?

Man’s realm is limited in relation to God’s, which is infinite by definition; it is like the difference between a cup of sea water and the sea.

2. How does what we call God communicate with us?

By prayer (Jesus), meditation (Buddha) or dreamtime (Aboriginals)? … through