by Harold S. BIDMEAD
"In both war and peace, anything less than enough soon proves to be the equivalent of nothing... The mere existence of a world organization, however inadequate, may cause too many to trust it just one day too long, and we may never have another chance."
The "one day" too long may have already arrived, but
it behooves us to be optimistic. Nevertheless, it seems obvious that,
by its very existence, the "United" Nations has delayed for more than two
generations the creation of a genuine peacekeeping organization based on
the principles of democratic government.
In the words of Cassandra (Dorothy Thompson) just after signature of the UN Charter: "The Charter is something worse than nothing. It is nothing behind a facade of illusory security. Its sole purpose is to lull people to sleep in the face of danger."
Some environmentalist friends of mine are tireless in their striving to save the Earth's ecology, yet fear that no world government will ever emerge to save the planet itself. My own concern is due to the fact that so many self-appointed peace "scientists" are working for a compromise between world government and the old 1919 league system, faithfully reflected in the UN.
As the former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali told President Clinton: "The UN is not, and never could become, a global government." (San Francisco Examiner, 27 June 1995)
"Governance", the hobby horse of the Commission on Global Governance, if it created an organization that was an "improved" league but falling short of a government, would be less than enough, still a mere debating society.
If still based on national sovereignty, the hobby horse of the "Nobel Peace Laureates", authors of Manifesto 2000, it would still be worse than nothing, an effort to keep the peace by making war.
If it were a "strengthened", "improved", "democratized" League, as advocated by organizations such as the World "Federalist" Movement (WFM), it would still be, in the words of that genuine federalist Lionel Curtis: "A reed too weak to lean on, yet strong enough to pierce your side with its broken end."
Almost from its inception, WFM was captured and enslaved by the UN Association. Now its officers seem not to know what a federation is. If its members are true federalists they should rid themselves of league compromisers. WFM serfdom must end. A few years ago a local WFM branch searched its and WFM records in vain for a definition of federation. As a genuine federalist journal, FCE publishes the principles of federalism in 18 languages. An unfettered federalist movement would at last be free to educate the public as to the truth. In the words of the editor of "Toward World Governance", which tore the report of the Commission on World Governance to shreds: "International law cannot be enforced on sovereign States without waging war" (Prof. E.E. Harris).
Another of the nine authors, Prof. D.R.Griffin, quotes Albert Einstein: "Transformation of the UN into a world government would hardly differ from the creation of an entirely new organization."
Federalists not only fear that the compromisers will fail, but also that they will succeed. A league with teeth would possess no democratic control over whom, when and how it would bite (though it would probably lose its dentures the moment it opened its mouth). As for the project of conferring supplementary powers on the league, Alexander Hamilton wrote in this context: "the machine, from the intrinsic feebleness of its structure, will either moulder into pieces despite our ill-judged efforts to prop it up, or ... we shall entail upon posterity one of the most execrable forms of government that human infatuation ever contrived." (New York Packet, 14 Dec. 1787)
Don't aim at less than enough, at something worse than nothing. The world needs a government, not a mere debating society.
