Garry Davis: When a man renounced his nationality to become a World Citizen

Paris, 1948 - A globalist dream emerges from the public squares

© Rossem, Wim van / Anefo

A pilot turned pacifist

25th May 1948

Garry Davis, a former American bomber pilot during the Second World War, made a symbolic and radical gesture. He renounced his nationality by depositing his passport at the US consulate in Paris. It was a gesture of rupture, of protest against war, against states, against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A gesture that marked the birth of the "World Citizen".

"I remember World Citizen Garry Davis. He was typing in the Trocadero square." Georges Perec, Je me souviens

The Trocadero as free territory

12th September 1948

Davis set up a makeshift camp on the Trocadero esplanade, which was international territory at the time, since the UN held its sessions there at the Palais de Chaillot. He stayed there until 18 September, expelled, but now in the spotlight of world public opinion.

Coup d'éclat at the UN "We the people"

19 November 1948

There was a dramatic turn of events at the United Nations General Assembly.

Davis interrupted the session to read a mundialist manifesto, which was soon followed by his fellow activist Robert Sarrazac.

The text was inspired by Albert Camus, among others.

"I appeal to you to stop deluding us with your political authority".

"We want the peace that only a world government can provide".

This moment would go down in history, captured by the INA cameras, and will be remembered as one of the first direct challenges to the UN by a free citizen.

The Vélodrome d'Hiver: 20,000 people for a man without a country

9th December 1948

The Vél' d'Hiv was packed to the rafters. Between 17,000 and 20,000 people cheered Davis, who took to the stage surrounded by partisans and figures from the Resistance. No flags, no war slogans. Just a motley crowd united by a thirst for peace and political renewal.

« On aurait dit un enfant découvrant un gâteau d’anniversaire avec toutes ses bougies. » André Fontaine, Le Monde, 11 décembre 1948

That evening, the World Citizen became an emblematic figure of a new post-national humanism.

A Christmas of peace

24th December 1948

Garry Davis, Robert Sarrazac and two members of the Conseil de Mondialisation were received by French President Vincent Auriol, himself from Revel, a mundialised town. It was a powerful gesture, an almost unhoped-for institutional recognition.

The spark of a world to come

What Davis ignited in 1948 was not a naïve utopia, but a courageous call to rethink the world order. It is the idea that peace cannot come from States, but from the peoples themselves.

A world without borders, where sovereignty would be human before national.

A world that the World Road, the Globalisation Charter, and the thousands of globalised communes will extend.