NEW YEAR’S EVE AS A SHARED HOLY DAY FOR HUMANKIND

- One Earth. One Humanity. One Solidarity.

By Denny JA

Imagine one night when humanity, across all time zones, pauses, if only for a moment, from its conflicts.

In glittering cities and quiet villages, in lands at peace and lands in pain, people everywhere turn their eyes to the same clock.

Not to measure power,
but to acknowledge togetherness.

No flag stands higher than the flag of humanity.
No prayer negates another. Only hopes stand side by side.

On that night, humankind, regardless of religion, nation, ethnicity, gender, or language, celebrates a shared holy day.
Not to erase differences,
but to honor a shared fate as human beings.

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Why Humanity Needs a Shared Holy Day

First, because we share a single destiny on one Earth.
Climate change, pandemics, war, hunger, and water crises do not recognize passports.

When the Earth is wounded, it does not ask what we believe.
A shared holy day reminds us that responsibility, too, is shared.

In Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari reminds us that human civilization endures not because of physical strength, but because of shared imagined agreements. Calendars, laws, money, and human values.

A shared holy day is among the most vital of such symbolic agreements.
It reminds us that beneath all differences, we still live within one great story, the story of the human species.

Second, because the world needs a moral pause.
Civilization moves swiftly, often without space to reflect.

A shared holy day becomes a collective brake.
A global moment to remember the most basic truth, that human dignity stands above any ambition.

Third, because peace requires ritual, not only resolutions.
Agreements may be signed, but wounds need symbols.

A shared holy day is a living symbol.
An annual ritual affirming that differences may be celebrated, but hostility need not be inherited.

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Why New Year’s Eve Is the Most Fitting Choice

New Year’s Eve is a neutral threshold. It was not born from a single holy scripture, nor claimed by any one tradition.

It is a doorway in time, a moment where all people stand equal, carrying the past while hoping for the future.

The New Year is a language understood by all humanity.
Every culture recognizes the turning of time.

When the calendar changes, people instinctively reassess their lives. This is a universal language, reflection and hope.

More than that, the New Year carries a promise of renewal.
If conflict is inherited, hope is a choice.

The New Year offers everyone an equal chance to begin again, without erasing who they are.

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The Origins of January 1: Belonging to History, Not to Any One Religion

January 1 emerged from the ordering of time in ancient Roman civilization, later refined through the Gregorian calendar in the sixteenth century.

It arose from humanity’s need to organize time, not from theological doctrine.

For this reason, January 1 is not the holy day of any particular religion. It is a civilizational agreement, a meeting point that allows humanity to move in a shared rhythm.

Precisely because of this neutrality, January 1 is worthy of becoming a holy day of humanity. A shared space that does not negate religious holy days, but complements them.

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Why This Idea Must Be Repeated

I proposed this idea last year, and it was published across various platforms.

I repeat it because the world has not grown calmer.

Wars still burn. The climate grows more fragile. Empathy is often defeated by algorithms.

In The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt emphasizes the importance of a shared public space.

A space where humans appear not as enemies, not as narrow identities, but as fellow inhabitants of the same world.

A shared holy day is the simplest form of a global public space. One time, one moment, when humanity chooses to be present together without negating one another.

Repeating an idea is not a sign of exhaustion. It is a sign of fidelity to hope.

History teaches us that great ideas are born not because they are spoken once, but because they are reminded again and again, until the world is ready to hear them.

I propose only one night each year, when humanity remembers that before we are anything else, we are fellow human beings whose destinies are intertwined, directly or indirectly.

If the United Nations is the home of nations, then New Year’s Eve can become the living room of humanity.
A place where all sit as equals, greet one another, and renew a shared promise to care for the Earth.

“Peace is not the absence of difference, but the decision to live side by side.”

May there come a day when, as the world’s clock strikes midnight, humanity does not merely count seconds, but also recounts the values that make us worthy of being called human.

One Earth.
One Humanity.
One Solidarity.

We therefore respectfully invite the United Nations General Assembly to proclaim New Year’s Eve as an International Day of Shared Humanity, encouraging member states and civil society to mark this night with inclusive, peaceful, reflective rituals.”***

Jakarta, December 31, 2025

References

1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari, Harper (HarperCollins Publishers), 2014

2. The Human Condition
Hannah Arendt, University of Chicago Press, 1958