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March-Apri l 1972
tht: highest forms of interest on our
small and interdependent planet?
That any wound of this Earth is a
wound of the body as a whole? That
parochial policies are self-defeating and
self-Jestroying? Is this not what our
youth
i~
trying so desperately, though
not so cogently, to tell us?
Squalid poverty lives side by side
with over-abundance on our Earth. We
have reached the moon, but we have not
yet reachcd each other. We must pass
from words to deeds. \Y/e must pass
from rights to obligations. We must
pass from self-interest to mutual inter–
est. We must pass from partial peace to
total peace.
The Un ited Nations can be only what
its member countries choose to make it.
At present, especially in the discharge
of its política[ functions, it is weak and
inadequate, but it is still the best hope
for getting out of your intolerable dan–
gerous thermonuclear juogle and for
creating the beginniogs of a civilized
international community.
A
Chance to Establish Order
We see ominous events and prc–
carious situations on every side, but
have yet to find a way to deal with thcm
and to make thern less hazardous.
We are in the position of the bomb–
disposal team which knows the danger,
hears the ticking, and watches with
mounting anxiety as others shake and
jostle the dangerous explosive.
We are luckier than our fathers were
in thc twent ieth year of the league of
Nations (statement rnade in
1965),
bccause wc still have time to face the
facts.
Tn 1946, Sir Winston Churchill said
of the League of Nations:
"The League of Nations did not fai l
because of its principies aod concep–
tions. Tt failed because these prin–
cipies wcrc deserted by those Statcs
whi ch had brought it into being.
Jt
failcd becausc the Governments of thosc
States feared to face and act whilc time
remained. This disaster must not be
repeated."
Why the United Nations
Is
Weak
The weaknesses and shortcomings of
the Unitcd N ations lie not in its con-
The
PLAlN TRUTH
stitutional purposes, objectives and
procedures but in world conditions at
the present juncture of history. The pro–
ceedings of the Organization inevitably
mirror the state of the relationships
betweeo different nations and
~ometimes
between the rulers and the ruled, the
economic circurnstances under which
they live; the social conditions that sur–
round them. Jt is in these realms, and
not in the structure of the United
Nations, that the roots of the troubles
of the world
Iic.
The troubles arising from present
11
shortages verging on famioe, and Jack
of medical care.
Much of thc trouble between nations
arises from the exploitatioo of a variety
of situations and conditions by politi–
cians, idcologists, and sometirnes mili–
tary Jeaders, in pursuit of power. We
must recognize, howeve r, that this
exploitation would not be possible if it
did not strikc a responsive chord in the
minds of people throughout the world.
Thcre is undeniably a strain in the col–
lective subconscious of the human race
which, in deliance of all common sensc
Kilburn
-
Ambouodor
Collo9o
FORMER UN SECRETARY-GENERAL U THANT
-
o mon
ded ico t~d
to
peoce in o world dedicoted to wor.
conditions are abundant. They are the
prevalence of narrow nationaltsms, the
periodic reliance on crude power -
whether política[, mi litary or economic
- to serve or protect supposed national
interests, the appalling rise in the quan–
ti ty and destructive potential of nuclear
armaments, the evcr more serious gaps
in economic development, the per–
sistence of colonial dornínation over
severa[ mi llion people, the continuing
prevalence in many parts of the world
of racial discrimioation and suppression
of human rights, and, among popu–
lations constantly increasing, the wide–
spread inadequacies of education, food
or prudence, tends on occasion to drive
mankind toward conftict and even
mutual extermination. The problem is
how to deal with this freakish human
tendency.
What We Could Do Together
JIV
ha/
C01t/d
11/e
b11i/d if u•e IUOI'ked
together?
Thís simple but tantalizing
question is a sharp reminder of the
irony
of
the present state of mankind.
It dramatizes the persistent struggle
between our wisdom and our foolish–
ness, our strength and our weakness,
our creativeness and our self -destruc–
tiveness, our idealisrn and our basencss.