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WORLD CITIZEN LETTER: 541
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WCL 541 November 2006
Survival of civilization and the paradox of war
The human future now appears to be what HG Wells envisaged in his Things to Come, with enormous catastrophe followed by the escape of a small group to the refuge of a distant land, probably New Zealand. There the survivors of our world's collapse could hope to resurrect human civilization and lead it to a more peaceable and humane future. Wells envisaged not climate change, but war as the then cause of human downfall. We now face the possibility of both.
War is the paradox. It brings forth the greatest and worst of human characteristics. Immense self-sacrifice, often preceded or followed by the basest of actions, all undertaken by much the same individuals in the course of campaigns accompanied by great waves of idealism and devilish propaganda. The more sinister side lies in the preparations, but there too motivations are mixed. Some providers of the most ghastly weapons convince themselves or are convinced that for the sake of their nations or tribe that they must fulfil the obligation to destroy enemies.
Yet within these warring groups are also individuals who still seek merely their own private purposes. The black marketeers, the profiteers and the professional criminals who see society as only existing to provide a living without other work. Thus motives within warring combatants are also very mixed. We are social animals but we remain individuals and it is the combination of the two that makes humans, unlike bees, of immense creativity but of equally great capacity for mischief.
One of the worst features of war is that it encourages the internecine human rivalry. Not only is it caused by divisions but it also exacerbates them, making cooperation and collaboration upon which we rely more difficult or impossible. Now, at a turning-point in human history, when it appears that we are likely to render our own environment uninhabitable, all the major states spend a huge proportion of their wealth upon military and other measures of hostility to their neighbours.
Thus, instead of calling immediate conferences and setting all our scientists to work on all and every measure to stave off the threat of global warming, the powerful sovereign state is in denial and the others are busy with other things. War, civil war and terrorism loom much larger in the minds of our rulers than a two-decade prospect of global oblivion for millions. The provision of cheaper air flights and more comfortable lives is a joint aim of the majority of the affluent and businesses that will provide them. Secondary to that so far is the haunting thought that their children or grand-children will suffer the consequence of our insouciance.
And yet, and yet ... we cannot abandon our infatuation with war. The greatest expenditure, the most massive organisation, the peak of endeavour is still capacity to destroy enemies. At the very time when climatic change is well known to be an imminent threat, one leader who denies it and one who does not, conspired to launch an illegal war which consumes more resources and creates more pollution than any other one action. Their joint act had led to further lawlessness and violence which again endangers the fragile habits of cooperation upon which the survival of human civilization may depend.
Human traits of self-preservation and striving can only be kept in check by law, which is the antithesis of the anarchy which comes from war. The sole means of making world law acceptable is if we can see the world as world citizens. Only by recognising ourselves in that way - millions of us - shall we be able to surmount our tribal divisions for long enough to save the human race from itself and the threat of self-destruction.
John Roberts
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