(16th IPPNW World Conference, Beijing. Last plenary on Sunday 19
September 2004)
“I am strongly in favour
of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect
should be good... and it would spread
a lively terror..."
(Winston Churchill commenting on the British use of poison gas
against the Iraqis after the First World War).
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
From the statement just read out,
I would like to invite your attention to the words ‘the moral effect should be good and
it would spread a lively terror’ The words uttered in the
halcyon days of the Empire, as the British ventured into Mesopotamia
after the defeat of Turkey in the First World War, provide a glimpse
into the mind of the great English statesman, whose sentiment expressed
over 80 years ago has apparently lingered. As envisioned by Churchill,
the use of deadly, inhuman weapons – in the present case
depleted uranium (DU) - did spread lively terror in Iraq - even
if the rest of the world failed to see the ‘moral effect.’
When IPPNW was founded the threat of nuclear war was unmistakably
the great danger facing humankind. It remained that way for over
fifty years. Now the situation stands altered. Although proliferation
of nuclear weapons remains a strong possibility, other threats
of equal or higher magnitude have come into being. Post 9/11 and
post-Iraq this aspect can hardly be in doubt, especially when people
have started wondering whether democracies are able to control
the war-making power of their executives.
Recent examples are an indication
that national leaders increasingly tend to disregard the vox
populi. Fear of terrorism has provided
the excuse for moving beyond democratic constraints and for abrogating
international protocols. In a few short years the descent has been
steep enough to throw the residual vestiges of rationality, logic
and good sense that governed the conduct of diplomacy and international
relations out of the window. These have no appeal for today’s
wielders of power, especially those who threaten the global equilibrium.
The challenge before the world is not so much to diminish US power – a
catastrophic decline at this juncture not being in the global interest
- but to change US mindsets and channelise that amazing vitality
toward productive ends; ends that will allow for the speedy revitalization
of the planet. The interest of the world would be better served
should global bodies like the IPPNW now concentrate more on limiting
the more dangerous vertical proliferation rather than expending
the greater part of their energies on horizontal proliferation.
A major shift in the tenor and texture of the debate is now called
for.
Whatever else might have dominated the discussions in the last
few days, invariably the thoughts of many among the participants
turned to the newfound nuclear status of India.
Coming from India a few words on the subject might be in order.
The world was aghast when India exploded its first nuclear device
in 1974. The country waited a full quarter century before announcing
its nuclear status to the world in 1998. This time around the
shock was greater. The land of Buddha, Mahavira and Gandhi had
seemingly
abandoned ahimsa and joined the bandwagon of nuclear might. The
dismay within India was perhaps as great. Why did it come about?
Many in India felt that the 21st century milieu simply did not
allow space for practicing Gandhian pacifism in a standalone fashion.
The situation around the world
made it an impractical proposition, more so, if the vision was
not shared by other nations. Weakness
in any society, in any age, was an invitation to being subjugated,
India’s history demonstrating it to be undeniably so. Not
being able to stand up to the onslaughts of terrorism, unilateralism,
or capitalism as well as the sponsored threats from neighbors becomes
an indefensible proposition - morally, or otherwise. It is axiomatic
that durable peace demands a just and equitable international order.
Dr. Kalam, referred to as the father
of India’s missile
programme, is a humanist par excellence. Yet he has no doubt that
India should be a nuclear weapons power. His strong support of
India’s nuclear posture is the antithesis of the position
that a body like the IPPNW espouses. Where then lies the aberration?
Ultimately, if good sense, humanism and rationalism is to triumph,
it would require men like him and Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime
Minister at the helm of affairs in most nations of the world. Yet,
neither of these leaders will allow India to be dispossessed. Why?
In answering this question IPPNW would be able to find a way out
of the cul-de-sac in which the world finds itself. It is not inconceivable
that many of those people who have dedicated a lifetime to the
pursuit of universal nuclear disarmament might have ab initio been
looking at the issue from the wrong end of the telescope. Nations
with a consistent record of responsibility were being branded as
irresponsible, while those who consistently mock the collective
urge for a more rational global security order set the agenda.
Attention has to focus on the vertical proliferation spiral that
is being propelled by the direct penetration of the governance
process and the media networks by the military-industrial complex,
in country after another.
The developments in the US are not surprising. At least thirty-two
secretaries and other senior staffers of the present US Administration
are former board members, consultants or shareholders of the largest
armament industries and seventeen of them are connected to the
key suppliers of the missile defence system. The oil lobby and
the military contractors need no longer put pressure on the administration
since they are the Administration. The latest example is France.
By one calculation, 70 percent of the French press is now in the
hands of defence companies.
When Le Figaro, France’s leading centre-right daily newspaper,
along with some 70 others titles, was snapped up earlier this year
by Dassault, a big defence company, scarcely a French eyebrow was
raised. The government is now finalizing negotiations to buy, for
about €3 billion, some 59 Rafales, a new-generation fighter
aircraft made by Dassault. “The coincidence”, as Le
Monde put it, “is at the very least troubling.”
ECOLOGICAL
RAMIFICATIONS
The climactic event that took place on 11 September 2001 shook
the USA and the world. After three years the world has to move
on. Not everything should turn around 9/11, nor should the world
become hostage to that single event. Undoubtedly, 9/11 was a major
incident. But now there are other issues that have come centre
stage, crying for the attention of the world.
In the search for ways to ward
off the nuclear threat and related threats of mass exterminations – of
humans and other life forms - note has to be taken of the conditions
that give rise to
these threats and propel the world in directions that do not augur
well for humans and the planetary biota. IPPNW, the co-sponsors
of the 16th World Conference, have been largely concentrating since
inception on nuclear disarmament and the spread of nuclear weapons.
Today, however, equally deadly, if not deadlier, perils are surfacing
all around. Thus far the planetary destruction brought on by human
interventions, benign or devilishly malign, was generally limited
to the landmass of the planet, the terra firma. Now these malign
interventions are being pushed into the domain of the other two
elements that sustained life: the seas that were the cradle of
life and the atmosphere that gave to Earth its unique habitability.
The world is facing a situation whereby one strong individual
or a coterie of individuals in control of the levers of power of
a state can jeopardize the ecological future of a country, region,
or the planet without there being a mechanism in place to effectively
put a halt to the ecological decline. When taken collectively the
rapid ecological depletions taking place on Earth represent a potential
for habitability-eclipse for humans and various life-forms that
is several orders of magnitude higher than any nuclear exchange
that might take place between lesser powers or an asymmetric exchange
between a superpower and a lesser adversary. In fact, it could
be safely assumed that the Cold War type of nuclear destruction
that could have devastated the planet can be practically ruled
out unless the USA pushes China to take the same route over the
next twenty to thirty years. Meanwhile the ecological damage resulting
from the depletion of self-renewal mechanisms of the natural eco-systems
is threatening the very basis of planetary homeostasis.
The US dropped 15,000 PGM, 7500
unguided bombs and aimed 750 cruise missiles at Iraq in about
21 days, plus a colossal amount of artillery,
tanks and attack helicopter fire, not to mention mortars and small
arms fire. This was the amount of munitions expended in just three
weeks when the US forces had a relatively free run all the way
till they declared victory after the capture of Baghdad. What would
have been the quantity of munitions expended had the US been effectively
contested. Account needs to be taken of their toxic potentiality
for the Iraqis and for the coalition troops as well as the ecology
of the entire region. It is necessary to pause awhile to take note
of the ecological consequences of renewed military activity. The
report by a UN agency is a grim reminder of what is in store: “Through
explosive reactions, fires and the burning of great amounts of
different materials and chemicals and through intensive actions
of military airplanes, the millions of tons of oxygen that the
living world needs, have been irretrievably spent.” Add to
it an extract from an email received a bare few weeks before this
conference from Dr. Leuren Moret.
The renowned scientist writes: “Ernest and I and a small
group have collected over 4000 baby teeth and measured the strontium
90 in them, establishing the great harm to public health that nuclear
power has had, and to the environment. You will find our information
a very powerful additional argument to add to your message, and
I believe that the world will not change based on political arguments
- we must hit them over the head with the public health issue because
that convinces even the other side. We have 1-2 generations left,
and then it will be too late”. Unquote.
‘ Then it will be too late’ seems to be the recurring
theme of many of the thoughtful analyses coming from the ‘independent’ scientific
community from all over. It is a message that simply cannot be
ignored any longer. The message that has to go out from this conference
is ‘disarmament now’.
IPPNW and organizations wedded
to ridding the world of the nuclear horror must appreciate the
subtle change that has taken place in
the outlook of the middle classes who have been slowly sucked into
the maws of free market capitalism in country after another. The
essence of capitalism being self-indulgence, conspicuous consumerism
and instant gratification, parts of society experiencing greater
affluence have joyfully taken to the “who cares what happens
tomorrow” syndrome. Something similar is happening at the
other end due to extreme deprivation. People who are starving and
who do not know where their next meal is coming from cannot share
the concerns that inform conferences of this nature.
The DU weapons employment is being reintroduced to highlight an
even more frightening aspect. It betokens a conspiracy of silence.
Many scientific bodies and military hierarchies would have been
aware of the Gulf War Syndrome, especially when almost a third
of the 700,000 U.S. soldiers who served in the First Gulf War are
now collecting disability payments. Yet not a single government
had seen it fit to debate this issue before considering the dispatch
of troops to Iraq, where these weapons have been extensively used.
The media silence was equally deafening. The more worrisome aspect
is the surreptitious legitimization of the use of this weapon of
mass destruction. Not one government raised the issue when the
debates for the invasion of Iraq were taking place in the Security
Council for the best part of 2002 and early 2003. There were no
demonstrations or marches against the use of DU, including in the
Arab countries that would surely be affected by the radiation effects
of DU.
Hardly any government or non-governmental organization raised
this subject during the NPT Review Conference in 1995. Something
similar could happen in 2005 unless IPPNW and organizations committed
to nuclear disarmament resolve not to put pressure on anybody other
than the P5 to first meet their commitments by laying down a time
frame for reduction and phasing out of their nuclear weapons.Concomitantly,
the first item of discussion should be a full-throated, globally
orchestrated demand for forcing the United States to quarantine
all DU stocks and abjure the use of WMD in any future action.
Referring to the extreme killing
effects of radiation on biological systems, Dr. Rosalie Bartell,
one of the 46 international radiation
expert authors of the ECR report, describes it as: “The concept
of species annihilation means a relatively swift, deliberately
induced end to history, culture, science, biological reproduction
and memory. It is the ultimate human rejection of the gift of life,
an act which requires a new word to describe it: omnicide”.
She goes on to say, “It is up to the citizens of the world
to stop the depleted uranium wars, and future nuclear wars, causing
irreversible devastation. There are just a few generations left
before the collapse of our environment, and then it will be too
late. We can be no healthier than the health of the environment – we
breathe the same air, drink the same water, eat food from the same
soil. Our collective gene pool of life, evolving for hundreds of
millions of years has been seriously damaged in less than the past
fifty. The time remaining to reverse this culture of “lemming
death” is on the wane. In the future, what will you tell
your grandchildren about what you did in the prime of your life
to turn around this death process”?
The last sentence is the question
posed to us assembled here as well. If the process is not soon
reversed what indeed will we tell
our grandchildren? That we debated, we interacted with the others
whenever we could, but we ended up by losing the Earth for them.
And they will ask, who were the formidable opponents that were
able to thwart the wishes, nay aspirations, of 99.9 percent of
humanity? What should be our reply to this question? That some
of the finest minds in the world, backed by the hopes of almost
the entire human population could not loosen the malevolent grip
of a small group that was propelling the world toward disaster
that could be clearly foreseen? Clearly the time has come for all
of us to move ‘from awareness to action’, the title
of this paper.
In the light of the foregoing it needs to be considered whether
there would be a case for a public interest litigation by affected
persons and civil society acting as concerned citizens, at least
in the USA and UK to prosecute the respective governments for knowingly
exposing their troops to lasting harm through their own action
and not enemy action.
Whatever the official reaction to such charges
it would be possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the
scientists investigating the Gulf War Syndrome cases in these
countries were privy to the deleterious effects of DU. It can reasonably
be stated as a certitude that the case files would have been
seen
at the highest levels of decision-making. In which case the enormous
culpability of these governments can no longer be denied. The
same goes for the establishments of the European countries that
sent
their contingents to support the invasion of Iraq. They too were
aware that DU weapons would again be used in Iraq by the US forces.
Despite the overwhelming clamor against the Iraq War in the concerned
countries these governments had no qualms in sending their
soldiers into an environment in which the chances of exposing their
troops
to nuclear radiation were high. What emerges, therefore, is
the painful discovery that the establishments of countries that
dominate
the world today are apparently unconcerned about the acute
suffering that their soldiers are being subjected to through their
own
- and not enemy - action.
How then can they be expected to retain
an iota of compassion for the populations of countries against
whom they wage war, mostly in the developing world. Until
this debasement of the much-trumpeted core values of establishments
that run the world is taken note of there can hardly be any
hope of gaining the IPPNW objectives through the process of appealing
to the good sense of world leaders. The absence of ethics
and
morality
in governance is also being globalised at an accelerated
pace. It is radically re-shaping the attitude of governments to
the
people who elected them. It tends to undermine the strategies
for
a safer
world adopted by IPPNW and organizations working for a more
rational world order.
Unless the superpower halts the
militarisation of space it would be worth considering the global
chaos hypothesis. According to
this hypothesis mayhem is invited by abrogating – in the
manner of the USA - existing treaties that make civilized living
possible and let chaos take over. The losers will be the big ‘haves’ and
the P5 because their continued hegemony is possible only in a regulated
global order or on the conduct of nations adhering to the UN Charter.
The ‘non-haves’ would not have much to lose, in any
case. What is being said, in effect, is that the P5 better start
honoring their commitments under Article VI of the NPT here and
now or become P5 among P10, P 20 or even P30, ushering in a total
breakdown of the global order.
The ante is being raised by the
underdogs: accommodate, make meaningful concessions toward nuclear
disarmament in inviolable time frames, forgo research in further
refining the nuclear menace, downgrade and dismantle NMD, or lose
your dominion. A nuclear exchange at the present time would destroy
the planet to the extent that the Stone Age would be revisited.
Planetary renewal could come about within the life span of a hundred
generations of humans and some other life forms. As opposed to
this, the type of research going on - controlled and uncontrolled
- in planet-destroying technologies in many unmonitored, unregistered,
or diabolically-abetted laboratories around the world is such that
a similar exchange a few decades hence could virtually write finis
to the tale of humankind and ‘all kind’ on the planet
Earth forever.
Sri Aurobindo, the great philosopher-sage, a little before his
death had presciently warned humanity on the need for urgent remedial
action. In April 1950 in a Postscript Chapter to The Ideal
of Human Unity he wrote:
“The indwelling deity who presides over the destiny of the
race has raised in man's mind and heart the idea, the hope of a
new order which will replace the old unsatisfactory order, and
substitute for it conditions of the world's life which will in
the end have a reasonable chance of establishing permanent peace
and well-being.... It is for the men of our day and, at the most,
of tomorrow to give the answer. For, too long a postponement or
too continued a failure will open the way to a series of increasing
catastrophes which might create a too prolonged and disastrous
confusion and chaos and render a solution too difficult or impossible;
it might even end in something like an irremediable crash not only
of the present world-civilization but of all civilization”.
The digression not being a descent
into pessimism should serve to highlight the urgency for immediate
action, to very simply resume
the destiny of humankind from the handful of people who have taken
control of the levers of power in the superpower and some nations
around the world. They represent an infinitesimally small percentage
of the earth’s inhabitants. They have held sway for so long
because the world waited for good sense to prevail. The conclaves
to follow will have to formulate action plans to bring a modicum
of sanity back into the interaction between nations and the decisions
taken at the highest levels for the collective elevation of humanity.
Furthermore, Man having evolved as the head of the family of planetary
creation now owes it to all other beings that share the planet
with him to put their well being at par with, if not above his
own. This primary duty has been consciously neglected for the last
two millennia. Humankind simply cannot afford to turn its back
on it any longer.
THE
WAY FORWARD
What do we have to counter the
phenomenon of the ‘dogs of
war’ actually taking over the reins of government or the
power centers in country after country? As in the case of IPPNW,
hundreds, if not thousands of like-minded organizations, non-governmental
organizations, academic faculties, scientists and intellectuals
around the world share these concerns, as do hundreds of millions
of ordinary people. The question then arises, why aren’t
we winning? Why haven’t we been able to turn the tide? This
is what we should be introspecting about as individuals. It is
what we should be debating as a collectivity - the action plans
that will give us the results. Till a few years ago the subject
of nuclear proliferation could be treated in isolation. This is
no longer the case. Not only have several other pressing issues
intruded, the global reality is such that none of these humanity-threatening
concerns can be treated in isolation any longer.
It is the major outlays that decide – for individuals, societies
and nations – the pattern of returns, confirming the wisdom
of the old adage, ‘as you sow, so you reap’. Hence,
if the leading nation of the world is spending almost half a trillion
dollars on its military systems when it is the strongest nation
in the world, the resultant cannot but be heightened militarism,
tension and mayhem in the world.
The rolling back of the NMD architecture must, therefore, be placed
at the top of the agenda for nuclear disarmament. It should be
possible to mobilize civil society in Canada, Australia and the
U.K. to force their respective governments to dismantle the supporting
structures for the US campaign that is pushing the world toward
the militarisation of space. Why is the planet-annihilating NMD
issue not introduced into the election debates of the concerned
countries? As an example, Canada is in an enviable position at
the dawn of the new millennium. It is a country that has no enemies,
in the traditional sense. The enemies of USA are legion. They are
multiplying exponentially. Canada by participating in a programme
that is neither good for Canada nor the world, nor for that matter
USA, could invite retaliation from a potential adversary who, hypothetically
speaking, could hit Canada should the foe decide to degrade the
system without hitting USA. There are several other arguments that
can be factored in. The more important issue, however, is the total
exclusion of the public from delving into policies that are potentially
nation threatening or planet destroying (militarisation of space
and the mad race that would follow would certainly fall in this
category).
Canada is a highly developed country. If the advanced countries
do not publicly debate issues that are humanity threatening in
their import, is the world expecting Sudan, Haiti, Burkina Faso
or some other less or least developed countries to do so. The imbroglio
in Iraq is a case in point. The Prime Ministers of UK, Spain and
Poland decided to support the invasion of Iraq in spite of a huge
outcry against it. The issue was never debated as such. Protests
post-facto, after the mobilisation had started could not have halted
the process. An unequivocal stand against it at the very outset
- especially by the UK government - might have prevented the tragedy.
The pattern is no longer restricted to the military-industrial
complex. Till a few years ago an enlightened leadership in the
United States could have given the lead for reversing nuclear proliferation.
Being the lone superpower it should still, on the face of it, be
in a position to take the lead. What is the ground reality, however?
An enlightened leader with the attributes required to reverse the
dangerous decline might not find it possible today to come to the
fore and win election to the office of the President of the United
States. The interests that have taken an iron grip over the Washington
establishment, the media and wealth formation will simply not allow
such a species to co-exist. A few hard facts should suffice to
confirm the observation:
The two principal contenders
for the White House in the coming elections were both agreed
- and still agree - on the need
for the Iraq invasion in spite of the 9/11 Commission report and
exposures of deliberate falsifications that took place at the highest
levels of governance.
Extrapolating
from these positions in the run up to the US presidential election
it can
be stated that over fifty per cent
of Americans still support the decision to invade Iraq, again,
in spite of the wide dissemination of the 9/11 Commission Report,
the rise in US casualties and the near-universal condemnation of
the US policies in Iraq.
A look at the board members
of media companies is revealing. In America a large number of
the directors of NBC, CBS and ABC
all have common involvement with Rothschild/Rockefeller/Morgan
companies, as well as being members of the Council on Foreign Relations
and Trilateral Commission. In Britain, the Daily Telegraph is owned
by the Hollinger group, whose advisors and directors include Henry
Kissinger, Lord Carrington, Brzezinski and Lord Rothschild. The
current chairman of N.M. Rothschild, Evelyn de Rothschild, is on
the board of the Daily Telegraph. A former board member, Andrew
Knight, is now executive chairman of the 'rival' News International,
which runs The Times and the Sun, and which is funded by the Oppenheimers
and the Rothschilds. Regulatory bodies such as the Press Complaints
Commission also have links with the same people e.g. the chairman
Lord Wakeham who is a director of N.M. Rothschild. (The Media by
Ivan Fraser and Mark Beeston).
A handful of media barons
have a stranglehold on the global media. The extent of the media
holdings of Rupert Murdoch
and the influence that a single individual wields in shaping the
global discourse and, what is more important, the public position
on that discourse hardly needs elaboration.
Private military companies (PMC) - mercenaries in plainer
language – manning the occupation administration’s
front lines are now the third-largest contributor to the war effort
after the United States and Britain. They will be even less amenable
to civilized restraints in the countries where they are deployed.
Star Wars is no longer
a futuristic theory. Sometime this summer, the US will station
10 missile interceptors in Alaska
and California, with more to follow soon. The Pentagon has spent
$16 billion on the project, with major funding increases on the
way.
Several millennia ago Kautilya in his Arthasastra had written: “It
is the nature of power to assert itself”. The truism of that
pithy statement has manifested itself through the ages. It is being
demonstrated today in the shape of the superpower hegemony and
the lesser hegemonies being witnessed around the world, by nations
and by individuals.
The process of nuclear disarmament
has for too long been dominated by the Western powers. A major
shift to the East, based on a strategic
dialogue between China, India, Russia, and at some stage, Japan
could become the linchpin for creating the universal nuclear disarmament
framework. China, Russia and India acting in unison could become
the initial guarantors of the nuclear disarmament process in Asia,
as a prelude to universal disarmament. (A framework for a model
protocol is under preparation). These nations have centuries of
accumulated wisdom behind them, which could now be tapped to find
answers to problems that have defied solution. In inviting the
great Eastern civilizations to take the lead in the search for
global solutions it is not intended to diminish the centrality
of USA to effective resolution modes. The world’s unstinting
support to the US was unequivocally demonstrated after the 9/11
attacks in USA. Even now, no world power can be viewed as hostile
to America, a golden opportunity to sit together and resolve issues
that threaten global harmony.
This body’s paramount concern remains the spread of nuclear
weapons. While the chances of proliferation – both horizontal
and vertical – are more than they were a decade earlier,
paradoxically the world has in fact got a breather as far as the
likelihood of use of nuclear weapons is concerned. Barring some
unforeseen developments there is very little chance of nuclear
weapons being used in the foreseeable future between countries
and certainly not amongst the larger, more stable countries. Today
only two entities threaten each other and the world with the threat
of weapons of mass destruction, these being the superpower USA
and its principal adversary the shadowy radical elements out to
hit USA wherever they can. At least for the next ten to fifteen
years the nuclear exchange at the lowest kiloton yields is more
likely between these two adversaries.
This period becomes the window
of opportunity to effectively roll back the nuclear peril. The
cataclysmic holocaust that could have resulted from an exchange
between the two superpowers during the Cold War decades when
the doomsday clock in New York came close to one minute to midnight
can be practically ruled out for at least the next decade or
two.
However, as far as the planet is concerned, the bigger danger
to planetary decline stems from massive deforestation, species
extinction,
breakdown of the inter-species genetic barriers, global warming
and, most importantly, the likelihood of the pursuance of the
capitalist consumption patterns by the developing world, being
propelled by
the forces of globalization into this mould at a self-energizing
pace. If the remaining virgin forest tracts disappear and the
capitalist consumption patterns become the norm for the bulk of
the human
race the damage to the Earth would be far more than a suitcase
bomb or a few low yield nuclear bombs going off.
It is above all the U.S. public that must appreciate that at the
end of the day the course that America takes in the coming years
will depend largely on how the USA deploys its wealth. For example,
should it persist with the planet-destroying star wars programme,
with outlays of tens of billions of dollars, leading up to possibly
half a trillion dollars or more over the life of the programme,
then America will surely get firmly sucked into the negative spiral
of decline and decay. The rest of the world would be dragged down
as well.
CONCLUDING
REMARKS
The
dawn of the twenty-first century
has not ushered in an era of peace. It is with sadness that one
sees the gradual abandonment
of the gentler philosophies and traditions of humankind. The urge
to simply kill and squash the opponents is superseding, in many
cases, the mere geopolitical realignment aims of the belligerents.
The challenge before the IPPNW and this conference is to convert
the overwhelming yearning for peace and equality - for the two
are eventually inseparable - into a cutting edge tool to counter
the hegemony of the wielders of power, that threatens the world
with annihilation. Our strategy, therefore, after laying out the
broad framework, must go deeper into the nitty-gritty of discrete
elements for implementation. Today unbridled capitalism, which
has become the handmaiden of environmental degradation, nuclear
proliferation and the militarisation of space has become a ‘rogue’ process.
In other words, it is a runaway process that might no longer be
amenable to control.
Before coming to Beijing I was
asked, “Which way is China
headed”? The people who posed the question seemed a worried
lot. China is a great nation. It is perhaps the second most powerful
nation after the US today. It has a great civilization heritage.
I did not give an answer before leaving. I shall attempt to do
so now. The answer is: it all depends upon the path that China
follows. Will it be a frenzied push toward American style consumerism
or would there be a strategic pause to re-evaluate its options
- a conscious turning towards its civilisational past as the wellspring
of its future progress? Should China and India decide to join hands
to map out their collective march to a more rational world order,
assuredly the world would have turned the corner; toward a better
future for the human collectivity. For, unless there is progress
beyond competing national interests to planetary interests there
can be little hope for improving the human condition, or the global
order, to meet the challenges and aspirations of the 21st century.
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