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I agreed with what was done to put a stop to what was happening in the Balkans.
And I would have been delighted had Rwanda's neighbours or any sufficient group of countries intervened to stop what happened there.
It lessens me in my own eyes to know that my species can behave in the disgusting fashion that the people of Rwanda and the people of the Balkans have recently done. And it certainly behoves us all to find ways to put a stop to such appalling things.
That you believe the vehicle for action should continue to be the nation state is understandable. History and human development has brought us to the point where we are currently organised into nation states. Within each nation state we have the institutions and traditions that allow us to act in close co-operation.
But you are far, far too timid in thinking that human development can go no further.
And it is doing so. This very discussion illustrates exactly how fast entirely supra-national developments are progressing. The WWW is by far the most dramatic development of my time and is, of course, entirely supra-national.
Even in the world of political action development goes on. The European Union is a new thing born directly out of the determination to find a way to end the dreary round of war.
France lost a whole generation of young men on their own soil at Verdun. As a direct result the French nation have been heart sick of war ever since.
WWII eventually swept across Germany and that nation lost even more people.
That the initiative towards an ever closer union in Europe that will make (and perhaps already has made) wars between European nation states a thing of the past originated with those countries is no surprise.
The UN is, as yet, a weak and scrawny sort of thing. But it has not died. People keep trying with it.
And the Balkans atrocities were put a stop to. And not by any single nation state or limited alliance acting out of narrow self interest alone.
And every single state has already signed up to a treaty obligation not to be an aggressor. And are sufficiently embarrassed when they break it not to declare war.
Far from being Utopian, taking away from nation states the entitlement and then the capacity to wage war is something we must do and there are abundant signs that we can perfectly well do so.
I do not know whether the process could be expected to take a hundred years or a thousand or ten thousand. But the starting point is an acknowledgement that it is worth doing. Once the will exists I would not be surprised to find that it actually turned out to be quite easy. When I was a boy no one could have imagined a UK society in which the position of women is as it is to-day. And yet now it seems quite odd to think that it was ever otherwise. So quickly can change rooted in what is fundamentally sensible and right take a firm grip.
And I would have been delighted had Rwanda's neighbours or any sufficient group of countries intervened to stop what happened there.
It lessens me in my own eyes to know that my species can behave in the disgusting fashion that the people of Rwanda and the people of the Balkans have recently done. And it certainly behoves us all to find ways to put a stop to such appalling things.
That you believe the vehicle for action should continue to be the nation state is understandable. History and human development has brought us to the point where we are currently organised into nation states. Within each nation state we have the institutions and traditions that allow us to act in close co-operation.
But you are far, far too timid in thinking that human development can go no further.
And it is doing so. This very discussion illustrates exactly how fast entirely supra-national developments are progressing. The WWW is by far the most dramatic development of my time and is, of course, entirely supra-national.
Even in the world of political action development goes on. The European Union is a new thing born directly out of the determination to find a way to end the dreary round of war.
France lost a whole generation of young men on their own soil at Verdun. As a direct result the French nation have been heart sick of war ever since.
WWII eventually swept across Germany and that nation lost even more people.
That the initiative towards an ever closer union in Europe that will make (and perhaps already has made) wars between European nation states a thing of the past originated with those countries is no surprise.
The UN is, as yet, a weak and scrawny sort of thing. But it has not died. People keep trying with it.
And the Balkans atrocities were put a stop to. And not by any single nation state or limited alliance acting out of narrow self interest alone.
And every single state has already signed up to a treaty obligation not to be an aggressor. And are sufficiently embarrassed when they break it not to declare war.
Far from being Utopian, taking away from nation states the entitlement and then the capacity to wage war is something we must do and there are abundant signs that we can perfectly well do so.
I do not know whether the process could be expected to take a hundred years or a thousand or ten thousand. But the starting point is an acknowledgement that it is worth doing. Once the will exists I would not be surprised to find that it actually turned out to be quite easy. When I was a boy no one could have imagined a UK society in which the position of women is as it is to-day. And yet now it seems quite odd to think that it was ever otherwise. So quickly can change rooted in what is fundamentally sensible and right take a firm grip.
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