"I believe deeply that we must find, all of us together, a new spirituality. This new concept ought to be elaborated alongside the religions, in such a way that all people of goodwill can adhere to it. We need a new concept, a lay spirituality. We ought to promote this concept with the help of scientists. It can lead us to set up what we are all looking for - a secular morality" - The Dalai Lama

Our ability to secure a fair and habitable world for future generations depends on increasing levels of co-operation. The United World Awakening is creating a practical framework for co-operating globally to achieve sustainability based on an Internet voting system. We hope it will ensure that humanity prospers in times to come so that we realise the potential of our creativity and technology.

The "Direct Democracy" voting system will give everyone an equal say in how society functions and changes. The Direct Democracy has been designed in such a way that people will not have to vote on every issue, and yet their voice will still be heard. This is achieved by allowing members to appoint any person as a representative to vote on their behalf. The Direct Democracy will be used to agree the extent of the Earth's limited resources and capacities, and then to set annual targets for each country. People will vote on the principles of allocation, for example, how much consideration should be given to where a resource is located, how much to historical use, and so on. Targets will be calculated based on the agreed extents and principles by using the Global Sustainability Model, a program that will be linked to the Direct Democracy.

Of course, each year some countries will fail to meet their targets, and others will exceed them. There will be no punishment or reward, so why will people care, why will they try to improve? Quite simply, citizens of countries that do well will feel good, just as people who fail will feel bad. This is because a new shared code of behaviour, that is to say a new morality, is arising which one day we will all share, and most of us care greatly what others think.

The new morality is called "Our Morals" and we will use the Direct Democracy to maintain it. It is based on a shared vision for the future. Most of our current economies are based on an obsession with economic growth, and we place no moral limit on how much a person can earn or consume. While we can't say exactly what the world will agree, we do know that the concept of sustainability will be an important part of the new shared vision. Therefore the question of how much we consume, and whether we merit what we consume, is becoming a major moral issue. While Our Morals will cover new ground such as consumption, it will exclude areas that old moralities concerned themselves with, especially those that divide us today. Our Morals will concern only those of our actions that significantly affect other people, and "accept diversity" or even "celebrate diversity" will be a key guideline just as the equivalent principle that we should "love everybody" is at the heart of all major religions.

How will we ever manage to reach global agreement? We must all realise that to secure our future we need to work together as a team, and teamwork requires compromise. If you disagree with any part of the text of Our Morals, you should try to change it via the Direct Democracy, not ignore it. Of course there will be situations where compromise simply can't be reached, and this is when the Direct Democracy is particularly effective. In such cases morals can be selectively applied to certain groups or communities if the vast majority of that group or community share the same value. Computers are the perfect tool for identifying patterns in voting, and will calculate the most democratic way to implement a moral, introducing regional or social group based variations, where compromise is not currently possible. Also, we think that people will learn how to think clearly about moral questions from the wisdom already agreed, so reaching agreement may be easier than you think. Read on and see for yourself.

Our Morals will naturally include guidelines that are only indirectly related to achieving global sustainability.  For example, it will include guidelines concerned with social justice, because social justice and sustainability are interconnected.  Today there is much unfairness, especially in countries that have adopted free-market capitalism. Although many people in a capitalist society are treated fairly, most people at the bottom end of society are exploited, and those at the top end are rewarded out of all proportion to their effort. Some people have become so disillusioned with this that they think society can do without money, but freedom means having the right to choose how we live today, or if we save for the future. Money makes this possible. A better idea then is to redress the balance by establishing a better relationship between effort and reward.  This will be achieved within the UWA by including guidelines which will indicate how much each different type of job should, in all fairness, be rewarded.  This is not to say that the UWA envisages a form of communism, on the contrary, the UWA is about promoting democracy.  Rather, the UWA envisages a free market economy that is constrained by global opinion.  Global opinion is already becoming very influential, and will become more so as more countries become democratised.  The fundamental concept behind the UWA is that it will create an effective method of harnessing and gauging global opinion.  The influence and effect of global opinion and the UWA on actual political and economic systems will become more effective as democracy become more widespread.

Now we'll tell you a little more about Our Morals and the new shared vision. Our Morals does not require strict adherence to rules because we can all think of circumstances where rules can be justifiably broken. Instead of rules, we will speak only of "guidelines". Similarly, Our Morals does not enable us to make hard-and-fast judgements about particular actions. Also, we know that any judgement we might make could change such as when we come to think differently about the circumstances or consequences of our actions. Therefore, we will speak only of making "assessments".

We envisage a world in which a person can choose to live modestly in a small property with simple foods, or they can work harder to gain more, either for their own benefit or to share with others for the love that brings. While we recognise that everyone has a duty to contribute to society, we also know that many people are brought into the world today in such a way that for one reason or another they are psychologically or physically incapable of fulfilling this obligation. Consequently, we believe that we should provide for the basic needs of people without requiring anything in return.

The evolution of our economic systems together with technological advances could now enable us to provide material security for all, allowing us to focus on fostering unity and compassion. In the same way that the cells of animals and plants had to learn to work in unison, we need to learn to work in harmony with each other for our very survival. Only then will we realise our creative and spiritual potential.

The UWA represents the natural progression for our future, and at first sight it may seem too good to be true. But it is a vision that is endorsed by very many intelligent and often sceptical people, and nobody has yet found a convincing flaw. You may think you have thought of one, but we think we've probably already thought of it and can give you a good answer.

As far as we know, there is no other hope that our children will be able to see a secure future for their children. It is time to stop waiting and wondering and to start acting and doing. One day we hope you'll join us, and then the world will be as one.

The current www.uwa.org Web site is a simple read-only site. As you will have seen it currently incorporates only a simple voting system which is not as sophisticated as it will need to be: for example it does not yet allow for vote transferrence ('mentor nomination'), cultural/regional variations in guidelines, or for changes to the vision which underlying Or Morals. The site will need to:

1. - Maintain a membership database, distinguishing between casual and serious members. Casual members need only supply an e-mail address, serious members will provide a snail mail address so a password may be physically mailed to them. Only serious members will be able to submit proposals to change Our Morals but both causal and serious members may vote on them. When voting closes for a proposal both the casual and serious tallies will be shown but the proposal will only be applied according to voting by serious members.
   - Prompt for proposals, including details of the endorsers
   - Hold proposals on a 'pending' queue to await confirmation from the endorsers
   - Transfer fully endorsed proposals to the 'accepted' queue
   - Display details of all 'accepted' proposals
   - Support the rolling voting system
   - Implement the results of voting
   In addition to maintaining Our Morals, the design will need to accommodate:
   - Proposals to be made concerning any part of the UWA's constitution, procedures, custodianships, use of funds and rates of pay
   - Voting to be made at local, regional, country or global levels depending on who is affected by the subject being voted on (eventually the Direct Democracy may become the key instrument of world governance)
   - Reaching consensus for issues arising from the creation of the Global Sustainability Model
   - Choosing between sustainability options and year-on-year plans for achieving them as devised via the Global Sustainability Model
   - Extending the Direct Democracy into new areas such as forming a political party if politicians decide to ignore us (in this case, we would also want to use the Direct Democracy to create our manifesto and elect our representatives)
   - Providing a mechanism for reserving/rewriting sections of the text that have started to read badly due to the disjointed nature of the review process. Once a year voting could be suspended for a few days while a group of people - elected via the Direct Democracy - undertake to produce re-writes that improve the wording but do not change the sense; the people could then vote as to whether or not to accept the re-writes.
2. Support discussion groups for the formation and gathering of endorsements for new proposals (possibly linked to the membership database and/or the code for submitting proposals)
3. Provide links to or repositories of other sources of wisdom
4. Eventually the UWA Web site may contain links to the Global Sustainability Model Web site so that guidelines such as those regarding average levels of consumption show actual figures based on the current sustainability option preferred by the people. Only the information relevant to the particular visitor's country/area should be displayed (a country/area prompt might be the first thing any visitor is asked to select).
5. Eventually we hope the UWA Web site will be available in many different languages; we want a design which can be easily modified to accommodate this requirement when the need arises and we have the resources to do it.

HOW YOU CAN HELP THE UWA

We particularly need to recruit people with technical skills, although we are grateful for offers of help of any kind. A UWA Custodianship will be offered to the person who agrees to lead the Web site design and coding project. For everyone this is a chance to become involved in something that may become one of the most significant developments in human history. Eventually it may well lead to a permanent paid position within the UWA organisation (you won't stand to become very rich, but you will certainly enjoy a fulfilling career). If the UWA succeeds, the people who helped it come into being will all be very loved.

CONTACTS

AND FINALLY...

• We need to be rigorous to ensure that we're not open to attack by hostile intellectuals

• Many movements in history have been inspired by academic texts

• We will produce all sorts of accessible promotional materials in the fullness of time

Our name was inspired by the plight of the U'Wa, a peaceful and enlightened tribe which lives in South America. They have recently threatened to commit mass suicide if major oil companies continue to encroach upon their sacred lands in their relentless pursuit of new oil fields. The U'Wa believe in the interconnectedness of all things. They believe that their way of life and rituals are keeping the planet alive and say that unless we come to our senses soon we are all doomed. Let us hope that the UWA is successful in sending the U'Wa a message of hope so that they do not despair of us.