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WORLD CITIZEN LETTER: 73
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WCL 73 August 1999
Littlehampton - world centre
In one sense many of us think of ourselves as the centre of the world, but it had not previously occurred to me that the small town we live in might qualify in that way, until I began to indulge in some lateral thinking. Since, of course, for a sphere, any pont on the surface, in one sense, is equally as central as any other. So, yes, my home-town of Littlehampton, not “the back of beyond” as pejoratively it might be referred to, is a world centre. Flying to Rome, as is necessary to go to the world federalist meeting at Ventotene at the end of the month may again involve my crossing the English coast above my home.
Then, pursuing my lateral thinking, I recalled a tour around the local industrial site, the Body Shop, where we watched raw materials coming in from all quarters of the and then being despatched to 91 or 100 countries as finished products. So again a world centre, for the local school-teacher who started the first branch nearby in Brighton was Anita Roddick, daughter of an Italian immigrant family. And, delving into the past of a small local engineering firm we learnt that it manufactured pumps. Those pumps for a hundred years or more have been sent out to many Third World countries to provide the capacity to bring up water from wells that sustained villages in areas otherwise little affected by modern times.
In Littlehampton, which does not give the impression of being at the forefront of thinking in global terms, we have a large sign put up by children from a local primary school. That declares: "ONE WORLD: BORROWED FROM OUR CHILDREN." So perhaps we d o have enough lateral thinking still going on to qualify as a world centre in the minds of the inhabitants; perhaps we shall find someone emerging in the next century who will astound everybody by the breadth of their vision from an early age and be hailed as a leader for the future progress.
Not before time, if it happens, for what we need, despite all the cries for more scientific advances, greater productivity, profitability, entrpreneurs to create new businesses and better examination successes, is just that. Breadth of vision, to see a better world, not one that is more like the present one - obsessed with production, hurried, greedy, divided, warlike and chaotic - but one where people wish to, and can, live lives that are more suitable for human communities. Perhaps as the centre of the world we could set an example?
John Roberts
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