ONLY GLOBAL SOLUTIONS CAN TACKLE GLOBAL PROBLEMS

By - - and Mario Soares Reprint | | Print |

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LISBON, Apr 8 2008 (IPS) - The world, and the West in particular, are passing through a period of transition and profound insecurity which is manifesting itself in every sphere and makes the near future impossible to predict, writes Mario Soares, ex-president and ex-prime minister of Portugal. In this article, Soares writes that the major problems facing the world are still not receiving a global response, which could come only in the form of a major restructuring of the UN and the Security Council. The G8 club of rich nations lacks legitimacy to serve as a pilot for the world. There is, thus, a major vacuum in the world order. The world order is once again multilateral. The American empire as such is on the way to disappearing. Solutions to the problems that the world faces do not depend only on the West (Europe and the US), as was thought at the beginning of this century, but on others as well: the so-called emerging powers -Russia, China, India, and Brazil- as well as Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, and Turkey. The West must understand that it has to negotiate with these countries and participate in the reform of the UN.

On the economic front, we are on the brink of an international recession that started in the US and is being felt in Europe and the rest of the world. It is impossible to know whether it will deepen or whether we have passed through the worst of it. The answer to this depends not only on the West but also on a number of international factors, like the price of oil and the behaviour of the emerging economies.

Speculative capitalism has become a quagmire, given that the speculative economy has little to do with the real economy. Huge fortunes are made and lost in fiscal paradises, awash in dirty money from drug trafficking and other illicit lines of business (prostitution and the illegal trafficking of arms, human organs, etc), while the real economy is beset by unemployment, economic exhaustion, inflation, stock market and credit crises, and irregularities and bankruptcy in banking and insurance institutions that were until now considered rock solid.

The international financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – which do not depend on the UN- have shown themselves to be obsolete and incapable of addressing the financial crisis now underway. The same could be said of the World Trade Organisation -also unrelated to the UN- in which the needed consensus of the emerging and developing countries is growing harder and harder to obtain.

In this era of globalisation -which spans not only economics but also science, technology, information, and the new phenomenon of world public opinion- the major problems facing the world are still not receiving a global response, which could come only in the form of a major restructuring of the UN and the UN Security Council. The G8 grouping of the most powerful countries remains but a club of rich nations and lacks legitimacy to serve as a pilot for the world, as clearly demonstrated in recent years. There is, thus, a major vacuum in the world order.

The contemporary world is faced with major problems that will threaten the survival of humanity if they are not addressed in the near future. In order of importance:

-Most important are the grave environmental problems: the ozone hole, global warming, climate change, pollution of water and the water table in particular, desertification, the shrinking of biodiversity, the progressive disappearance of forests, and urban degradation.

-The hunger and endemic poverty that afflict more than two thirds of the world population despite the fact that science and technology have the resources to easily eliminate both if there were the political will to direct them.

-Violence -which is stoked by the violence shown daily by the media-, conflict, war, unlimited arms sales, the build-up of nuclear weapons, which the great powers and international institutions are incapable of stopping.

-Pandemics like AIDS and other diseases that had been almost eradicated but which have rebounded, like tuberculosis, and malaria, among others. These must be addressed at the global level.

-Religious and political fanaticism, the loss of values in the consumerist and hedonist societies of our age, the scorn for social and environmental problems and human rights.

All of this adds up to a profound world crisis comparable to that at the beginning of the Second World War after the sweeping victories of Hitler and Japanese imperialism, which certain pessimists feared would set the world back 1000 years. Today, as then, we cannot lose hope and give up the fight for the values of universal humanism.

The world order is once again multilateral. The American empire as such is on the way to disappearing. Solutions to the problems that the world faces do not depend only on the West (Europe and the US), as was thought at the beginning of this century, but on others as well: the so-called emerging powers -Russia, China, India, and Brazil- as well as Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, and Turkey. In other words the West must understand that it has to negotiate with these countries, just as it has to participate in the reform of the UN if it is to effectively address the great challenges of our time.

Much still depends of the US and its next president. Whoever it is will have to radically change Washington’s domestic and foreign policy in order to prevent the country from falling into decline. And the EU will have to summon the courage to define an autonomous strategy and define the path that it wishes to follow in the coming year as an institution and an actor on the international stage. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)