本文へスキップ

  日本語  

The need to fight for peace
By Zdzislaw L. Sadowski
Ex Depuy Prime Minister of the Republic of the Poland

Present trends of economic development of the world must cause increasing concern. The tendency towards self-destruction, neatly identified more than 30 years ago by the Meadows Report on "Limits to Growth", gains momentum ever since. The ecological damage, the dangerous climatic changes, as well as the rapidly widening social inequalities throughout the world, constitute imminent dangers for the future of mankind. The spreading new civilization of information with its knowledge-based economy, while highly efficient in bringing about wonderful progress in the conditions of every-day life for those better-off, sadly fails in dealing with these phenomena.

It is said that, since World War II, there was not a day without military conflict somewhere in the world. It should be understood that the most disastrous of these conflicts have a lot to do with the ways in which the world economy develops, notably with the increasing need to gain and protect access to crucial raw materials, like oil. The fight for this access can take on various disguises, such as conflict of civilizations or religions, but one should always look deeper to understand what is really going on.

The present day war against terrorism is no exception. Growth of world terrorism is, of course, a fact. But the very idea of fighting terrorism with military force is completely devoid of sense. What is really necessary is to identify the causes of terrorism and take real rather than verbal action against these causes. Top on the list of these causes is probably the utter poverty of billions of our co-inhabitants of the planet. The plan conceived under the auspices of the UN to reduce world poverty by half before 2015 seems to remain a pious desire without much prospects for implementation.

If real action is not taken, the world will continue on the road towards disaster. The question remains open, how this can be done in the present geopolitical configuration. The main hope seems to be in working towards strengthening a widespread world movement which would fight for peaceful cooperation between nations based on a new system of international law to rule out the use of all forms of military measures in solving economic, social and political problems. Even if it is difficult to expect ready fulfilment of this desire, this goal deserves of being pursued in all nations with increasing strength and dedication.

24.12.2005