Bermudians were this week urged to take part in a survey to help redefine "the American dream''.

Most of the components of the dream -- including abundant resources, a spiritual base, freedom, equality and justice, and individualism in initiative and service -- were crafted some 200 years ago by the US founders, said US-based Foundation for Global Community trustee Mr. Tony Lee.

But blacks and women were excluded.

Therefore, he told Rotarians, "the dream is working for some. But for too many it is not.'' Mr. Lee, an arbitrator and accountant from Wayland, Massachusetts, was invited to Bermuda to speak at Hamilton Rotary's weekly luncheon at The Princess.

He stressed that the redefining of the American dream was not only important to the US, but to Bermuda and the universe as a whole.

"The dreams of your children are the same as the dreams of American children,'' he said, "because we live on one planet and we all have to move in the same direction if we're going to build a true global community.'' Noting that the world had changed significantly with the end of the Cold War, Mr. Lee said no longer was there an abundance of resources in terms of forest, fisheries, and farms.

Since the 1930s the world's population had more than doubled from two billion people to 5.3 billion.

It was estimated that there would be 6.3 billion by the year 2000 and "perhaps as many as 10 billion people by the middle of the 21st Century'', Mr. Lee said.

This, he added, would have many repercussions, including a limitation on resources all over the world.

"Our forests, fisheries, and farm lands are under stress,'' Mr. Lee said.

"And we better think of living sustainable with our life support system rather than exploiting it.'' He also noted that one out of every five children in the US were living in poverty -- that is in a family with a total income of less than $13,000.

And he asked with the cost of a college education increasing: "How are the poor children going to afford college? Where's their part of the American dream?'' Mr. Lee noted that because many people in the US believed they had the right to own a gun, some 70 million of the 200 million firearms in the US belonged to private citizens.

As a result, he said, in 1990 12,567 people were killed by a gun in the US compared to 22 in Great Britain, 68 in Canada, and 87 in Japan in the same year.

"There's a growing sense that individualism has gone too far,'' he said. "We are one. The American dream needs to reflect our oneness.'' The issue of faith also needed to be "re-injected'' into the development "of who Americans are and what they stand for'', Mr. Lee added.

"I'm very concerned about the future and the American dream needs to be redefined,'' he told Rotarians. "I can use your help.'' Rotarians were given a copy of the 13-question survey and urged to take a few for others.

When completed they are to be mailed back to Mr. Lee.

Mr. Tony Lee.