My vision for peace
On the anniversary of the attacks in New York and
Washington, former US President Bill Clinton says we
can only counter the threat of terrorism by reparing the
widening rift between the haves and the have-nots of
our planet
Sunday September 8, 2002
The Observer
guardian.co.uk
The following is an excerpt from Mr. Clinton's article:
" The central reality of the twenty-first century world, as the
spread of terrorism and the vulnerability of the United States to it
demonstrate, is that our era is globally interdependent but far
from integrated. We learned on 11 September that the very
forces of globalisation we helped to create - open borders and
commerce, easy travel, instant communications, instant
transfers and widened access to information and technology -
can be used to build or destroy, to unite or divide.
At the same time, old confrontations have taken on frightening
urgency, especially the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir and
the violent stalemate in the Middle East. Progress on these and
other global challenges requires us to develop a larger strategy
for American foreign policy, rooted in a fundamental commitment
to move the world from interdependence to an integrated global
community committed to peace and prosperity, freedom and
security.
At the heart of all these struggles is a global battle of ideas,
especially in the Islamic world, where fundamentalist rivalries
have twisted religion to justify suicide assassination of innocents
as a legitimate political tool blessed by Allah. This epic battle
revolves around three very old and fundamental questions: can
we have inclusive communities or must they be exclusive? Can
we have a shared future or must our futures be separate? Can
we possess the whole truth or must we join others in searching
for it?
These dilemmas present perhaps the most enduring conundrum
of human history: can people derive their identity primarily by
positive association or does life's meaning also require negative
comparison to others? From the time people came out of caves
and formed clans, their identities were rooted both in positive
associations with their own kind and negative views of those who
were outside their community. This kind of self-definition has
dominated human societies for most of the 6,000-plus years of
organised civilisation.
For all the progress of the past, we nearly destroyed the planet
in the first half of the twentieth century. The idea of a global
community of cooperating members was not institutionalised
until the United Nations was founded in 1945. Achieving it was
not a practical possibility until China decided in the 1970s to
move toward the rest of the world and the Berlin Wall fell in
1989. Since then, the world has been consumed with religious,
racial, ethnic and tribal conflict.
Clearly, hostility and violence among different peoples are not
genetically ordained. People may be mutually suspicious of 'the
other', but they have to be taught and led to kill. Our challenge is
to figure out how people can enjoy the benefits and identity of
their discrete communities and still successfully be part of larger
communities. The European Union is a shining example of how
former enemies can retain national identity and still become
close allies.
An idea of community requires belief in a shared, not a
separate, future, one in which everybody counts, everybody has
a role to play and we all do better when we help each other.
Belief in a shared future requires rejecting the radical
fundamentalist claim to possess the whole truth in favour of the
belief that life is a journey in search of the truth and that we all
have something to contribute. That leads us to the core of what
we value in the integrated global community: our differences are
important, but our common humanity matters more.
The challenge of Islamic radicals embodies all of these
fundamental issues. People who support Osama bin Laden and
believe in his vision of the world want exclusive, not inclusive,
communities. They insist on a separate future based on their
version of the truth. These elements are all at the root of the
India-Pakistan conflict and the divide between Palestinians and
Israelis. The violent groups with exclusive claims to a separate
future are active in Indonesia, the Philippines, Colombia and
elsewhere.
The political and ideological world needs to do what the
economic world has already done - develop a global
consciousness that allows for inclusion, a shared future, a
cooperative search for truth.
This is not, as some have asserted, a Western concept. The
fastest growing economy in the Middle East is Dubai, a Muslim
country actually seeking residents from other nations and
quietly integrating with the modern world. The leaders of Dubai
have chosen a shared future rooted in tomorrow's possibilities.
Turning these ideas into action will take time and will require
more than talk. We must fight the terrorism and violence that
threaten to destabilise the world with an aggressive security and
foreign policy designed to produce more partners and fewer
terrorists.
Our security policy should include five major elements:
First, we should support President Bush and our military in
finishing the job of getting Osama bin Laden and the other
al-Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan.
Second, we must do everything we can to end the North Korean
nuclear missile programme. This is a very big deal: the North
Koreans may not be able to grow enough food to feed their
people, but they are world-class missile builders and they sell
missiles to our adversaries.
During my administration, we succeeded in ending North
Korea's nuclear programme and its testing of long-range
missiles. At the end of my second term, we came close to an
agreement to end its missile programme entirely. The key to the
final agreement was to be a presidential visit to North Korea. I
was willing to go, but in the last few weeks of my administration
we had to focus all our energies on the apparent chance to
achieve a Middle East peace agreement. I decided not to risk
this chance by taking a trip that would have had to include
South Africa, China, and Japan.
I remain convinced that an end can be negotiated to the North
Korean programme if the Bush administration makes it a high
priority.
Third, we must constrain the production and distribution of
chemical, biological, and small-scale nuclear weapons. We
know that Saddam Hussein is a continuing concern because his
laboratories are busy. His military is much weaker than it was at
the time of the Persian Gulf War, but the threat of his labs is
real. It is not as immediate as the need to restart the Middle
East peace process and stop the violence there, and it may not
require an invasion, but it must be addressed.
Fourth, we should increase the capacity of our friends to deal
with terror. I support what President Bush is doing to help
President Gloria Arroyo in the Philippines. I also believe Bush is
right to broaden the uses of our aid to Colombia, in order to save
the oldest democracy in Latin America from the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc. The Farc are, in fact,
terrorists in the service of drug traffickers who are trying to make
Colombia the world's first narco-state. " |
