From: Simpol <news@simpol.org>
Date: Mon, 15 Sept 2025 at 15:00
Subject: The Global Politics of Love: Part 4

The latest from the Simpol Campaign. View this email in your browser  Dear Peter Sunday 21st September 2025 is International Day of Peace. Peace, I’ve always felt, is not a directly attainable state. Rather, it’s the happy outcome of right relations between nations underpinned by practical, mutually beneficial cooperation. That’s the kind of cooperation Simpol proposes and which is explained in more detail in the next in our Global Politics of Love series (below). That said, I’m happy to report that Simpol will be participating in the International Day of Peace by contributing to the Connect for Peace initiative at https://connectforpeace.com/ Look out for further information and announcements on that website! Another very useful initiative is the collection of free courses available from Wikiversity. Of special relevance to Simpol is the course on Untangling Multipolar Traps https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Untangling_Multipolar_Traps in which Simpol is cited as a promising approach. Do take a look! A Global Politics of Love for People of All Faiths and None. And now we continue with the next in the Global Politics of Love series. As always, if you missed previous articles in the series, you can find them at  https://simpol.org/who-we-are/global-politics-of-love/newsletters Part 4: Reconciling Unity and Diversity   Recognising that we are all in the same boat, as we did in the previous newsletter, is a necessary starting point for transformative collective action. But we are still all different. We come from different cultures, countries, speak different languages, see the world differently, and so on. We are diverse, yet in the same boat.All faith and spiritual traditions recognise this paradox and seek to transcend it. The Koran, for example, appeals to us: ‘O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other).’ The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, too, recognises the unity-diversity paradox: ‘As all the spokes are held together in the hub and felly of a wheel, just so in this Soul all things, all Gods, all worlds, all breathing things, all selves are held together.’ Even though we are and always will be independent, diverse individuals, we can still be united through acting together simultaneously. Simultaneity is unity and diversity … simultaneously!  Simpol’s ability to reconcile opposites in this way is a mark of its love; of its capacity to transcend opposites and resolve conflicts. That reconciling love, as I hope you’ll see, is the underlying theme that runs through A Global Politics of Love for People of All Faiths and None. Another example is how Simpol’s concept of simultaneous implementation offers a solution to humanity’s timeless struggle to reconcile national self-interest with global common interest. Let me explain: The need for simultaneous implementation only arises because now, under globalisation, we’re faced with a whole new category of problem; problems which no nation alone can address without suffering a first-mover competitive disadvantage like climate change, extreme wealth inequality, nuclear weapons, regulating AI, and so on. This new category of problems gives rise to two distinct types of policy: those policies that need simultaneous implementation and those that don’t. Those that do, we call ‘simultaneous policies’. Those that don’t, we call ‘unilateral policies’. The former simultaneous category represents global unity. The latter unilateral category, national diversity. Differentiating between the two allows them to be reconciled and healthily integrated; the latter, being implemented by nations independently; the former, through Simpol simultaneously. In that way, both can be harmoniously pursued in parallel and brought together in productive union. This critical differentiation between unilateral and simultaneous policies is also an act of loving respect for all nations and their cultural and political differences. That’s because Simpol expresses the principle of subsidiarity; the idea that only what cannot be done nationally is taken up for action globally. Indeed, by restricting Simpol only to those policies requiring simultaneous implementation, it is prevented from interfering in any nation’s domestic affairs. Whereas the United Nations often imposes progressive Western values on developing countries in various domains, Simpol would not and cannot. While projecting such values may be the aim of other organisations, Simpol avoids this by focusing purely on productive cooperation. Indeed, the need for simultaneous implementation itself prevents Simpol from telling nations what to do or what not to do. Rather, it invites them to cooperate only on issues where simultaneous action is necessary, thereby solving global problems while respecting their sovereignty, individuality and cultural distinctiveness. In the first newsletter in the Global Politics of Love series, I suggested that a healthy family offers us a good model for overcoming such differences. As Baha’i leader ‘Abdu’l-Bahá suggests, ‘A family is a nation in miniature. Simply enlarge the circle of the household, and you have the nation. Enlarge the circle of nations, and you have all humanity.’ All parents know that their children are, like nations, at different ages and stages of development, so their needs and characters are bound to differ. A certain amount of freedom is therefore needed, including the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them. But order and unity are, of course, also needed. Here again, unity/order and diversity/freedom have to be reconciled. At the global level, Simpol invites international unity and cooperation where it is needed, but respects individuality and diversity where it is not. That, as Buddhists might recognise, is ‘the Middle Way’. That, again, is love. What do you think? How do you see unity and diversity being reconciled in the world? Drop us a line! Until next time. John and the Simpol team. John Bunzl – International Simultaneous Policy Organisation – September 2025 Get in touch Copyright © 2025 International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO), All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO) PO Box 26547, London, SE3 7YT, United Kingdom Add us to your address book