- Valson Thampu
As per the Hindu worldview, the intensification of disorder, or adharma, is the prelude to a divine intervention in the prevailing scheme of things that has become manifestly unsustainable. So, adharma compels avatars. German romantic philosophy intuited this in a different way. Intensifying disorder becomes, of itself, the furnace in which an alternative gets forged. As Immanuel Kant argues it in Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim, the disarray in the world order based on the sovereignty of nation states presages the emergence of an alternative order. As St Paul puts it, ‘When the new comes, the old must give way’.
Now consider the present world order. Clearly, in the last few years -and, in particular, in the few recent months- the rivalry between sovereign nation states has intensified to an alarming extent. Especially since Donald J Trump has assumed office, the awareness that the global scenario ripples with dangerous levels of international tensions has become pervasive. To the NATO, Russia is the foremost threat; a threat-perception understandably intensified by the ‘special operations’ that country launched in Ukraine, awakening pan-European insecurity. From the perspective of the US, China is the foremost threat. Together China and Russia, with North Korea and Iran in tow, as well as the inclination of more and more countries to turn to China, the threat perception continues to heighten. To make matters a whole lot worse, the show-casing of the chilling efficiency of Chinese weapons through Operation Sindhoor and the global spread of the Chinese footprint, makes the West nervous as never before.
The clearest sign of this nervousness is the recent Trump announcement that America will invest heavily in creating a golden-dome air defence, after the fashion of Israel’s Iron Dome. Equally significant is the pressure being brought upon the member nations ramp up their defence spending to 5% of their national GDP, from the current level of around 2%! Europe is poised to slide back into its good old groove of militarism; especially thanks to the Putin-phobia causing shivers in European capitals.
We can read this scenario in two ways. First, there is a real and pressing need for the US and EU to brace up for the ominous Sino-Russian challenge. The second possibility is that this hysteria is being worked up on purpose to shore up the depleted and depleting substance of the US.
The long and short of the sketchy observations provided above is to suggest that the current global scenario is truly precarious. Even India and Pakistan came perilously close -who knows? – to a Nuclear Winter! Given all that, and more, we are today left only with two options. Either the leaders of the world let the situation slip out of control, each trying to thrive at the expense of his putative enemy. Or, these global players realize that the present scheme of things is unsustainable, and that it cannot be redeemed through a few cosmetic touches. Something counter-intuitive needs to be evolved.
Maybe, what Jesus envisaged could point to the way forward for humankind. How about envisaging a secular-political counterpart to the Kingdom of God that Jesus advocated? That would point to something like a world government, endowed with adequate authority and power to quell the disorderly dispositions and ambitions of the confederated nations and ensure that every nation abides by the rules-based cosmopolitan order. But the real roadblock here is that this goal cannot even begin to be pursued without the sovereign individual nations agreeing to compromise their sovereignty vis-a-vis international issues, just as the various states that comprise the Indian Union, have no jurisdiction over international issues, but fully empowered vis-a-vis the law-and-order situation in them.
Such a prospect seems desirable at least from two considerations. Under the present scheme of things, a major chunk -perhaps an unaffordably large chunk- of global resources is consumed by the insatiably avaricious military-industrial-complex, with its innate need to keep blood-letting and large-scale destruction chronic. Even a small portion of this wasteful humungous expense, if applied to poverty alleviation, can substantially improve the plight of the two billion poor people in the world. Secondly, the massive pollution of the environment and degradation of the earth that wars necessarily bring about, can be eradicated. Above all, humankind can rest in relative peace, rather than languish in the present state of creeping anxieties about wars, global disruptions, and recessions.
If at all this dream of a confederated world government is to get underway, it is imperative that the dogmas on which the sovereignty of nation-states is established be questioned. The tyrants and dictators of the present world order are sure to fiercely resist such an enterprise. A spiritual re-orientation of our species is a pre-condition for effecting this paradigm-shift in world politics. That leaves us with the good old question: Who will bell the cat?
