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WORLD CITIZEN LETTER: 484
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WCL 484 October 2004
World community
In World Citizenship and Mundialism, which was published in 1991 at an exorbitant price, I discussed the concept of a world community - does it exist or is it in the making? Perhaps not surprisingly my conclusion was that it does exist already. The further question of whether world citizenship is or is not a valid concept is sometimes disputed by political theorists and is probably a question for the birds ... or for the political theorists. But there is one method of answering the question, based on a very practical way of looking at things. And corroboration comes, in a way, in attitudes which are common knowledge.
As Garry Davis points out in one of his Letters to World Citizens, the commentators on world affairs are always pointing to "the conscience of humankind", "world public opinion" and the like. The "views of the world community" are also often seen as indicating this, that, or the other take on what is happening, has occurred, or should be followed. The proposals themselves may be less important or wrong-headed and indeed, they are very often contradictory. The point is that they rely upon a view of global community which shows how far we have already progressed towards accepting that such a thing exists.
Which is what matters. If folk all over the world recognize outrages like the genocide in Darfur, where the Sudanese government is conniving at the terrorisation of a part of its native population, as affronts to the ideas and attitudes of civilized people the world over, they constitute part of the burgeoning world community. If they express their feelings, then the world community is on the way to taking action. If its governments, or some part of them, are moved to act against the perpetrators of violence and outrages, then the community is acting as one, at least attempting to do so.
Most difficulty comes when the community wants to see action taken, but has little coherent idea of what should be done, nor how to take action; and has few, if any, instruments for acting effectively. A world community relying on the United Nations is using a broken reed: the UN is specifically left relying upon the action of its members, not upon the capacity of the UN itself and the members are not united, either in making decisions, or in putting into effect any that have already been taken. So the world community is not complete: it has not provided itself with a means of putting its will into effect.
What we have is a community either immature or hamstrung in its natural development. We can see and specify the needs required to reform the global polity: what we cannot yet do is exert the political that will be needed in order to bring about such reform. We have a world community, with millions of world citizens who are either unaware or unsure of what should be done to bring about change and in effect we are suffering from arrested development. But both world community and world citizenship are real enough: we can testify to that in our thoughts, statements, discussions and writings.
So the opinions of mankind usually remain simply opinions, only bursting into action when indignation or outrage reaches the point where governments feel obliged to act; or when apparent self-interest seems to coincide with universal need or wishes. The organized and regular activity of a civilized community is lacking in our world: something which does not deny such a community exists. Its feeble protestations bear witness to the existence, but they are neither strong enough nor coherent enough to lead to proper action. Given time, that will change.
John Roberts
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