Iā Aokuso 12, 1945, i le ono aso talu ona faaumatia e le malo o Amerika le aai o Hiroshima i se pomu atomika e tasi, na tuuina atu ai e Robert Hutchins, le peresitene o le Iunivesite o Chicago, se lauga faalauaitele mataina. Speaking on his weekly radio program, the Chicago Roundtable, Hutchins observed that Leon Bloy, a French philosopher, had referred to “the good news of damnation” under the assumption that only the fear of perpetual hellfire would motivate moral behavior. “It may be,” Hutchins remarked, “that the atomic bomb is the good news of damnation, that it may frighten us into that Christian character and those righteous actions and those positive political steps necessary to the creation of a world society.”
E tusa ai ma Hutchins, this world society would serve as the foundation of a world government, and, in the context of the existential danger posed by nuclear war, he was totally committed to creating it. “Up to last Monday,” he said, “I didn’t have much hope for a world state.” But the shock of the atomic bombing, he added, crystallized “the necessity of a world organization.”
In the following months, Hutchins created and, then, presided over a Committee to Frame a World Constitution―a group of farsighted intellectuals who conducted discussions on how best to overcome humanity’s ancient divisions and, thereby move beyond nationalism to a humane and effective system of global governance. In 1948, they issued a Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution, with a Muamua i le faailoaina atu faapea, ina ia faamautinoa le agaʻigaʻi i luma o tagata, filemu, ma le faamasinotonu, “e tatau ona iʻu tausaga o atunuu ma amata ai le vaitaimi o tagata.”
O le komiti a Chicago na fausia ae o se vaega itiiti o se mea e ofo tele ma faatosina faiga malo a le lalolagi that, drawing on the slogan “One World or None,” flourished during the late 1940s. In the United States, the largest of the new organizations, United World Federalists, claimed 46,775 members and 720 chapters by mid-1949. The goal of creating a world federation was endorsed by 45 major national organizations, including the National Grange, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the United Auto Workers, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, the Young Democrats, the Young Republicans, and numerous religious bodies. That year, 20 state legislatures passed resolutions endorsing world government, while 111 members of the House of Representatives and 21 Senators sponsored a congressional resolution declaring that the new United Nations should be transformed into “a world federation.” Much the same kind of uprising occurred in nations around the world.
Although this popular crusade waned with the intensification of the Cold War, as did the hopes for a sweeping transformation of the nation-state system, the movement did secure a number of vital changes in the international order. Not only did the Malo Aufaatasi amata ona faia se vaega taua i le filemu ma le amiotonu i le lalolagi atoa, ae o le uluai uunaiga mo le malo o le lalolagi-o le tulaga lamatia o taua faaniukilia-na amata ona talanoaina e sosaiete o le lalolagi.
Ioe, a tele, felauaiga faaniukilia faakomepiuta, often led by former activists in the world government campaign, emerged and rallied people all around the planet. In this fashion, it placed enormous pressure upon the world’s governments to back away from the brink of catastrophe. By the mid-1990s, national governments had reluctantly agreed to a sweeping array of international nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties and were no longer threatening to plunge the world into a nuclear holocaust.
Peitaʻi, talu ai nei lava, ua malepe ai le sosaiete o le lalolagi ona o se tulaga mataʻutia toe fo'i mai le lotonuu. From the United States to Russia, from India to Brazil, numerous countries have been swept up in xenophobia, triggering not only a disastrous revival of the nuclear arms race, but an inability to work together to challenge the latest existential threat to human survival: climate change. Championing their own narrow national interests―often based on little more than fa'aleleia atili tupe mama a latou fale gaosi oloa―o malo nei ua sae ese mai le faatapulaaina o maliega tau siosiomaga faava-o-malo i aso ua mavae pe, i se tulaga sili, ua faaalia lo latou le naunau e faia ni laasaga sili ona taua e foia ai le faalavelave.
And a crisis it is. With the polar ice caps melting, sea levels rising, whole continents (such as Australia) in flames, agriculture collapsing, and storms of unprecedented ferocity wreaking havoc, climate catastrophe is no longer a prediction, but a reality.
O le a se mea e mafai ona fai i ai?
Clearly, just as in the case of heading off nuclear annihilation, no single nation can tackle the problem on its own. Even if a small country like the Netherlands, or a large country like the United States, managed to quickly develop a system of 100 percent renewable energy, that action would be insufficient, for other countries would still be generating more than enough greenhouse gasses to destroy the planet.
O lea e leai lava se isi fofo i le faʻalavelave faʻafuaseʻi o le tau nai lo le faʻagaloina e tagata ma malo o latou faʻalavelave faʻavae ma amata ona amio o se vaega o se sosaiete o le lalolagi, o loʻo fusia faʻatasi e se faiga lelei o pulega faʻavaomalo. O le faʻalavelave o le tau, e pei o le faʻamoemoe o le faʻaumatiaga faaniukilia, o le "tala lelei o le malaia." Ma e na o le galulue faatasi e mafai ona tatou faatoilaloina.
Tasi le lalolagi pe leai!
Dr. Lawrence Wittner, faʻatautaia e Filemu, o le Professor of History ua maeʻa i SUNY / Albany ma le tusitala o Fefinauaiga o le pomu (Stanford University Press).
O le ZNetwork o loʻo faʻatupeina naʻo le agalelei o ana tagata faitau.
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