Humanity Will Emerge From Its Dark Night of Despair Into a Light-Infused Future

In a world that is buffeted by crises that assail it from all sides it is easy to succumb to despair. Yet, despair is probably the gravest of all the dangers we face given that it destroys our motivation, leaving us indecisive, confused, uncertain, and ultimately paralyzed precisely when we need to act as never before to avoid a further rending of the fabric of society, whether through war or unmitigated global warming, economic disaster or the corrosive forces of prejudice.

The antidote to despair is hope that is fueled and sustained by a more empowering understanding and interpretation of the events that humanity is experiencing. For me that hope is encapsulated in the faith I have that humanity, as a collective whole, is approaching the age of its maturity and that this period of turbulent transition is characterized by two parallel processes of integration and disintegration.  As our immature, selfish part reaches its peak and begins to fade away, our mature nature grounded in a deep awareness of the oneness of humanity starts to emerge.

This simultaneous process of death and rebirth is best understood by reflecting on the process that occurs as a caterpillar undergoes metamorphosis to transform into a butterfly. The caterpillar consumes large volumes of food and goes through a repeated process of molting or shedding its skin. Eventually, it reaches the limit of what it can achieve in its earth-bound state. It then forms a cocoon around itself and begins to excrete enzymes that literally start to dissolve and consume its body. This process of the caterpillar’s disintegration is like the process we have been witnessing in human society for a while. We humans have been voraciously consuming our finite resources to such a degree that it has set off a chain of disastrous consequences as reflected in extreme droughts, fires, floods, environmental disasters, and a global pandemic. 

The good news is that within the cocoon, hidden from sight, there is another process taking place. This process is performed by small clusters of cells called imaginal discs that are latent within the caterpillar from the beginning of its existence. During the cocooning stage, each cluster begins to grow a particular part of what will eventually become the emerging butterfly. While the number of cells in each of these clusters is initially small, they begin to multiply rapidly. This process occurs at the same time as the enzymes are consuming the remaining portions of the caterpillar.

Similarly, in our world there are clusters of human beings that have been tirelessly working toward the creation of a unified world in which the principle of the oneness of humanity is recognized as a foundational law governing our spiritual and social reality. These clusters serve the interests of all of humanity regardless of national, ethnic, racial, gender, economic, or class difference, and they are driven by a desire to love and serve all human beings. An example of such a cluster is the growing number of global civil society organizations that are actively working in solidarity in a quest to achieve world peace. Another example are the many interfaith groups that are growing in number and size and are assiduously building the much-needed human capacities of consultation, collaboration, and solidarity necessary to build a better world. 

Finally, when the time is right and butterfly is fully formed, it slowly breaks out of its cocoon and emerges as a magnificent new creation of a higher order. Whereas the caterpillar was earth-bound and therefore limited in both its vision and capacities, the butterfly can fly, and consequently, its capacity surpasses that of the caterpillar. Moreover, its horizons are broader and its perspectives greater. So, too, the time will come when the process of the disintegration of our current societal systems will come to an end, along with all the attendant mess it produces. Meanwhile, we will have simultaneously developed new capacities, tools, and moral standards that we need to serve us in this stage of our emerging humanity. Spurred by the capacities and insights of a new maturity we will bend all our energies to creating a peaceful and just world in which we can each actualize our God-given potential and strive to make this world a better place for those who will come after us. 

The above article, written by Sovaida Ma'ani Ewing, was published on the website of the Interfaith Council of Metropolitan Washington (DC) on January 3, 2023.

Sovaida Ma’ani Ewing is an author, speaker, international lawyer, life mastery coach, and founding director of The Center for Peace and Global Governance (cpgg.org), a virtual think tank and online forum that pools and proposes principled solutions to pressing global challenges.  Her latest book, available on Amazon, is “The Alchemy of Peace: 6 Essential Shifts in Mindsets and Habits to Achieve World Peace.” She also hosts a live video podcast “Re-Imagining Our World” on FB and the CPGG YouTube channel –– https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN9dLePUrhCFsVA9hlzjGjA — that is dedicated to creating a vision of the world we want and infusing hope that we can make the choices necessary to attain it. Sovaida is a lifelong, active member of the Baha’i community and has served on the Board of the Interfaith Council of Metropolitan Washington.

It's Time to End the Suffering!

 

Our world is being crushed under the torrent of cascading crises. In the past two years alone, we have been buffeted by the twin crises of a global pandemic and a global economic recession which continue to plague us on top of the increasing ravages of climate change. Just as we thought things couldn’t get worse, we find ourselves in the grip of a war in Ukraine that has spawned a massive refugee crisis, severely disrupted energy markets, spawned a global food crisis, contributed to a looming global economic recession, and is likely to trigger a Third World War that could involve nuclear weapons.

 

It beggars belief that our 21^st century world allows one leader to hold the entire world hostage given that humanity’s unprecedented interconnectedness and interdependence has made it a single body with its multiple nations serving as its limbs and organs. Just as it makes no sense for us to stand back and allow malignancy in one part of the body to magically heal itself, so too, it makes no sense for the community of nations to abdicate responsibility by standing by as one nation is ravaged by war; for, in the end, the well-being of the world is dependent on the well-being of its constituent nations and vice versa. The Ukraine war provides us with ample evidence of this principle: it has already spurred a massive refugee crisis, triggered a global shortage of energy resulting in a spike in the price of oil and gas, inflation is running rampant, decimating economies in its wake and poised to tip the world into an economic recession, and the UN estimates that 828 million people go to bed hungry while 50 million are on the brink of starvation as we stand in the grips of a global food crisis caused by shortages of wheat, barley, corn and fertilizer. Last, but not least, it is increasingly evident that the risks of miscalculation in this war could lead to a global war that could well include the use of nuclear weapons. 

 

Any use of nuclear weapons will be catastrophic. Experts tell us that even a limited nuclear war (confined by geography and duration) is likely to result in 10 years of no summer, destroying crops and resulting in 1 billion of the world’s population starving. The stakes are unacceptably high. The time for apathy is over. The international community can no longer abdicate its responsibility. We, the world’s citizens, must do our part and urge our leaders to act with ceaseless energy to build a system of global governance fit to serve humanity’s needs at this stage in its collective growth that is founded on two insights: firstly, the fundamental interests of all nations are fused, it is therefore futile to continue attempting to maintain an equilibrium of competing interests; secondly the moral obligation enshrined in globally-accepted principles like the Responsibility to Protect are meaningless if there is no institution to embody and apply them.

 

Our first step should be to press our leaders to enter into a global agreement creating a viable system of collective security. This agreement would limit the amount of arms each nation can possess to what is necessary to maintain order within its borders. All other weapons must be destroyed under a system of international supervision to be devised. Similarly, all nuclear weapons must be eliminated in phases over a set period of time. Nations must agree to forego war as a tool of international relations. Most importantly, they must agree that if any one nation breaches any of the provisions of this agreement thereby threatening the world’s peace, all would arise against it and bring it to heel. Ultimately, this is the only untried yet effective way to stand up to a bully on the international playground. 

 

It should immediately be apparent that such a rule-based system of collective security is useless unless backed by a robust system of enforcement which is why the second action step has to be the establishment of an international standing force made up of troops and equipment contributed by all the nations of the world. This force would function at the behest of a global legislature directly elected by the peoples of the world and in accordance with predetermined rules laying out the conditions for its use. Its primary aim should be to maintain or restore peace for example in cases of proven genocide, or unlawful territorial aggression, or illicit nuclear weapons programs. It could also be used to assist populations in times of natural disaster like earthquakes, tsunamis, or pandemics.  

 

By taking the steps proposed here we will ensure that the suffering of the people of Ukraine and many others like them whether in Yemen, Tigray, Sudan, Syria, or Myanmar, to name a few will not have been for naught. We will have responded to the observation and call of President Zelensky in his address to Congress: “We need to create new tools to respond quickly and stop the war . Today, the world does not have such tools.” He went on to say the institutions we created in the past don’t work and “So we need new ones, new institutions…” Let us heed his words and build a viable system of collective security and a standing international force to ensure that the world will never again experience such horror.

A Better Future Requires Recognizing the Interdependence of the World

If there is one lesson that the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing global economic recession have taught us, it is that we live in a world that is so interconnected and inextricably interdependent that it has effectively become a single organism. This is a reality that no amount of denial will change. On the contrary, such denial will only cause us to suffer more intensely. We will be better off if we fully recognize and embrace this reality.  

It is worth pondering what acceptance of this reality means. Two thoughts come to mind. The first is that if the world is so interconnected that it is truly akin to a single body, it is futile for any single organ or member to claim that it can go it alone without the support and aid of the rest of the body. Just as it would be nonsensical for the liver to tell the kidneys that it does not care if the kidneys are diseased because it is only concerned with its own health, it is similarly untenable for any nation to tell another nation that its problems are its own and are of no interest to others.  

The growing litany of challenges that have been plaguing the world for years — ranging from climate change to the current pandemic — are demonstrating with increasing clarity that in today’s world the advantage of one nation can only be guaranteed by assuring the advantage of the whole world, just as the well-being of any one organ of the body is dependent on the systemic health of the body as a whole. Once we have deeply understood this truth, the next logical step for humanity is to put aside the childish fetish of nationalism and develop new capacities such as consultation, collaboration, and cooperation, worthy of its growing maturity toward unity and the capacity to meet its current needs as a single organism.  

The second thought that comes to mind is that while many of our most intractable challenges are global in nature — including climate change, the threat of nuclear war, COVID-19 and other pandemics, global economic recessions, and terrorism, to name a few — and therefore demand global solutions, we find ourselves entirely lacking the collective decision-making and enforcement institutions we so desperately need to effectively tackle these global challenges.  

Now, more than ever, we need to have an infrastructure of global governance that includes a world legislature that has democratic legitimacy, allowing for the voices of people of all nations to be properly heard in the context of frank and respectful consultation and a fair and transparent system of decision-making that leads to effective results. Imagine how much better off we would all be during this pandemic if such a system of global governance existed today.  

Equally important, however, we need to develop the skill of electing worthy leaders who possess the skills and qualities of character necessary to make service to humanity’s collective interest a prime consideration in all their decisions. This skill is vital to ensure that any new global institutions we create are not subject to abuse.  

We can begin to hone this skill of picking fit leaders who are aware of the interconnectedness of our world and our oneness by practicing it in our elections at home. Every time we think about electing a public servant, whether at the local, state, or national level, we should mindfully seek out a person who recognizes that their job is to guarantee the well-being of the people who elect them while also taking into account the collective interests of the community of nations.

                           **********************************************

This article was written as an Op-Ed piece.  It was picked up and published by the following papers at the end of October 2020:

Columbia County Observer, October 27, 2020:

https://www.columbiacountyobserver.com/master_files/Letters-Op-Ed/20201027_shaping-a-better-future-by-recognizing-the-interdependence-of-the-world.html

LA Progressive, Oct. 28, 2020: https://www.laprogressive.com/global-connection/

Westside Gazette, October 28, 2020:

https://thewestsidegazette.com/once-we-recognize-the-interdependence-of-the-world-we-can-shape-a-better-future/

Sierra County Prospect, October 28, 2020

http://www.sierracountyprospect.org/2020/10/26/accepting-reality-10-28-20/

Cheney Free Press, October 29, 2020:

https://www.cheneyfreepress.com/story/2020/10/29/opinion/better-future-requires-recognizing-worlds-interdependence/27350.html

The Problem with Short-Termism — Learning Lessons the Hard Way with COVID-19

If you have ever stopped to consider our typical response to a global challenge — whether it's another instance of genocide, an illegal nuclear weapons program, or a financial crisis, or whether it is climate change, unprecedented migration, or a potential pandemic like Ebola — you will have noticed that our knee-jerk response is to find a solution based on short-termism (also known as expediency).

What I mean by an expedient solution is one that has three features: First it is reactive — we lurch from crisis to crisis attempting to put out the fire of the day. Second, it is based on a consideration of short-term benefits without regard to long-term consequences. Third, it is based on a narrowly-conceived self-interest that fails to take into account the broader common interests of an interconnected humanity. 

A consequence of this expedient approach is that we never get to the root of any of our global problems and successfully solve them. Instead we content ourselves with temporarily extinguishing the flames while the embers continue to smolder, waiting for the gusts of wind occasioned by the next crisis to restart the fire. How many times have we seen this phenomenon play out with repeated genocides despite our loud promises of "never again!" Nuclear proliferation and illegal nuclear weapons programs proceed apace despite our protestations that they must stop. The number of refugees worldwide is greater than it's ever been. Financial crises recur with greater ferocity and fears of potential pandemics have been averted only for us to find ourselves in the thick of a swiftly-moving COVID-19 pandemic without adequate preparation. 

Another consequence is that our solutions to one problem often sow the seeds of the next disaster: We sent arms and trained fighters to dislodge the Soviets from Afghanistan only to find that we had created a new challenge in the form of the Taliban. We then entered into a war to uproot the Taliban and ended up mired in a conflict that continues to this day.  

To make matters worse, our solutions to various global challenges are often incongruent with each other and end up undermining each other. In a quest to lock up much-needed energy resources in the form of oil, a country will agree to overlook the gross human rights abuses perpetrated by another country as China did during the genocide in Darfur, warning that it would veto any attempt by the Security Council to formally declare the killings in Darfur a genocide.

A recent example that illustrates the disastrous consequences of problem-solving based on short-termism involves the decision by the Ecuadorian government to build a dam. Its purpose was to meet the country’s energy needs and help lift its population out of poverty quickly. To achieve this goal, it borrowed vast sums of money from China . Unfortunately, in their eagerness to do the deal, neither Ecuador nor China paid adequate attention to the fact that the dam was built just below a volcano. Consequently, only two years after the dam was completed there already were 7,000 cracks in its machinery. In addition, large amounts of silt, trees, and bushes were piling up in its reservoir, rendering it ineffective. Not only did the completed dam fail to achieve the goal of alleviating poverty, but the Ecuadorian government soon discovered that it did not have the means to repay its debt to China. In the end, Ecuador has ended up worse off than it was before it embarked on this venture. Its energy needs are still unmet and China now gets to keep 80 percent of Ecuador's most valuable export, oil, making Ecuador even poorer than it was to begin with.

For decades we have ignored the glaring evidence that short-termism is an outworn habit that does not serve our well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic is now teaching us, in the hardest way possible, that we simply can't do business as usual anymore. It is time to change our collective dysfunctional habits now, chief among them the habit of employing expediency to solve global challenges. The prolongation of a universal crisis that is playing out across the world is forcing us to think ahead, plan proactively for a time when we can emerge out of a global lockdown, and revive our battered economies. We need to do all this while also preparing for the possibility of a second and third wave of infections caused by the coronavirus and while working on antidotes and a vaccine.

The obvious question is: Is there an alternative method we can employ to solve our global challenges that is more effective, constructive, and empowering than short-termism? If so, what is it? The simple answer is: Yes; we can opt for a principled approach to solving global challenges. What, you may ask, does this entail? Essentially it requires that we do three things: First, identify a set of shared foundational principles that can form the basis of a new system of global governance. Second, get a handful of national leaders who are trusted and have standing in the international community to agree to these identified principles and then seek the consent of all their fellow world leaders. Finally, get the nations to commit to applying these shared foundational principles methodically and uncompromisingly whenever they want to solve any given global challenge. 

For those of you who are skeptical that such agreement is possible, I would invite you to consider the universal adoption of a new principle of the "Responsibility to Protect" otherwise known as R2P at the global summit in New York in 2005. The process that was followed to achieve this goal is highly instructive and can be used as a roadmap to replicate a similar success in achieving global consensus around a set of shared global ethics.  If you would like to learn more about the process employed, you can read more about it in my book "Building a World Federation: The Key to Resolving our Global Crises." 

Fortunately, a number of prominent figures have been talking about the importance of identifying and agreeing upon a shared set of foundational principles or what they sometimes refer to as a set of “shared global ethics.”  A couple of blog posts ago I shared with you an analogy given by Professor Kishore Mahbubani, formerly Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and later Dean of the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He describes the world as a ship with 193 cabins, each of which has its own set rules and staff to govern its internal affairs. In addition to pointing out that the ship as a whole lacks both cabin and crew, he also observes that the governing rules being applied within some of these cabins pose a direct threat to the ship as a whole and may cause it to sink with all its occupants. Even prior to Professor Mahbubani's astute observation, the governing body of the Baha'i community in its 1985 message to the people of the world, titled "The Promise of World Peace," urged leaders to begin solving their problems by identifying the principles involved and then applying them, rather than turning to expedient solutions. Gareth Evans, former foreign minister of Australia and long-term head of the International Crisis Group similarly expressed his view that the only way to find viable and effective solutions to problems of governance was to first identify the principles involved and then apply them methodically. He bemoaned the fact that this was not current practice at any level of government that he had seen. Others who have joined the growing chorus calling for nations to adopt a set of global ethics include Pascal Lamy, former director-general of the World Trade Organization, and Ian Goldin, professor of Globalisation and Development at Oxford University. 

By far the most compelling reason for adopting a set of global ethics is this: Just as there are physical laws that govern our lives — such as the law of gravity — so too, are there principles that govern our social reality. The most important of these principles is the oneness of people and nations. These laws operate on us whether we choose to recognize and acknowledge them or not. However, let us be clear: We ignore them at our peril. Imagine what would happen if we were to build an airplane without taking into account the law of gravity. No one would want to fly in it as the result would be disastrous! Why then, do we think when building institutions and organizations that govern our societies — whether political, social, financial or otherwise — we can ignore certain principles and truths about who we are as human beings and our relationship to each other without consequence? We flout these social realities at great cost to ourselves. It is no wonder that our social institutions are crumbling.  

Let us then commit to working together to replace our destructive habit of short-termism with the empowering, future-building habit of seeking principled solutions to our global challenges!

We’re Birthing a New Global Order — It’s Going to be Messy!

Famous 20th century psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, pointed out that while we are often faced with situations in life that are beyond our control, one thing that no one can ever take away from us is our choice about how we react to these circumstances. This precious freedom to choose our reactions can spell the difference between living a life fraught with fear, anxiety, and a sense of helplessness, or one that is infused with a sense of meaning and purpose, and marked by serenity, inner peace and joy.

While the coronavirus pandemic and its twin, the global economic recession threaten each and every one of us in multiple ways, we would do well to  remember that in the midst of this turmoil, we retain individual and collective choice. We can either choose to respond to these twin challenges with fear, anxiety, and a complete loss of hope — all of which trigger feelings of apathy and lethargy that ultimately cause us to procrastinate making decisions and taking constructive action. Alternatively, we can choose to perceive these same circumstances through a different and more empowering lens: What if we view these disasters as a collective test that offers us a prime opportunity to birth the kind of world we have been longing for, a world of peace and security in which the dignity and nobility of each human being is universally acknowledged and upheld? Choosing to view our reality in this light has several benefits: We free ourselves from the intense mental and psychological suffering — the deep unhappiness, depression, fear, and anxiety to which we otherwise subject ourselves — a suffering that depletes us and affects our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. Not only do we then become ineffective actors in shaping our destiny, but we also become an added burden on others. This shift in perspective also has the incredible benefit of energizing us with hope. It offers us a vision of what is possible despite the circumstances. It also provides us with tremendous motivation and energy to act tirelessly and with focused determination and perseverance to create the world we want and deserve.  

When I look at everything that is happening, I can't help but think that our global society is going through a period of metamorphosis akin to the one that the caterpillar goes through before it becomes a butterfly. There are a couple of features of this process that are particularly relevant and shed light on our current process. The first is that once the caterpillar cocoons itself, it begins a dual process of destroying its old self while simultaneously preparing to emerge as a completely transformed creation. During this period of cocooning, the butterfly releases enzymes that literally dissolve its former shape, turning it into a messy liquid goo. At the same time, small clusters of cells called "imaginal discs" that have always been latent in the caterpillar and that are the building blocks of each part of the butterfly-to-be start to multiply and prepare themselves for the emergence of this wondrous new creation. This building process quickly accelerates eventually yielding a fully-formed butterfly. These twin processes of integration and disintegration occur simultaneously. Yet, while it’s going on, to all appearances the process seems messy, chaotic, and unpleasant and unlikely to result in anything good. The second feature is that the new creation is of a higher order than the old, with greater capacities: While the caterpillar is earth-bound, the butterfly has the new-found ability to fly and, in that sense, to literally rise above and transcend its former limitations. It also has a broader perspective and is able to see a wide range of possibilities. The third feature is that despite the initial paucity of imaginal discs, they multiply rapidly in the midst of all the disintegration. Ultimately, the butterfly is read to emerge at exactly the right time, when there is nothing left of the caterpillar.

What if this process mirrors exactly what we are currently experiencing? Our old world order is crashing down around our ears. It is undoubtedly messy and painful. We are literally experiencing the implosion of the social, economic, political, environmental, and religious systems we have painstakingly built. Isn't this likely to be happening because these systems  are clearly not fit for us at this stage in our collective historical evolution? Dare we not hope that what will emerge from this is a radically new global order founded on a radical shift in our very conception of society and of our reality as human beings? We are already beginning to see some leaders of thought observe that it is time for a completely new approach. In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Henry Kissinger observes that no one country, not even the United States, can go it alone to overcome the virus. He asserts that “addressing the necessities of the moment must ultimately be coupled with a global collaborative vision and program.” A few days prior to that, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres raised the clarion call for a massive, multilateral response based on “shared responsibility and global solidarity” to build a better world. He urged us to remember that, “we are only as strong as the weakest health system in our interconnected world” and observed that our world has irrevocably changed, saying, “We can go back to the world as it was before or deal decisively with those issues that make us all unnecessarily vulnerable to crises.” 

Let us then grab this opportunity to develop the capacities, powers, moral standards, and institutions fit for our current stage of development. For this to happen, however, we must hold a vision of the kind of world we really want and deserve — a better world founded on the awareness of the oneness of humanity, a oneness that is the operational principle of international life, including our institutions and the principles upon which they are based. 

COVID-19 and the Global Economic Crisis: Stumbling Blocks or Stepping-Stones Toward an Effective System of Global Governance?

We humans are strange creatures. We often tend to put off making important decisions and taking vital action until we hit a crisis point. We do this in both our individual and collective lives. The problem is that in today's world some of the decisions we have steadfastly refused to make can spell the difference between life and death. We are learning this the hard way with the coronavirus pandemic and its twin, the growing global economic crisis. 

And yet, there are still constructive choices we can make. Rather than stumbling blocks, we can choose to treat these crises as stepping-stones helping us build an effective system of global governance fit to respond to our collective needs in the 21st century and beyond. We have known for a long time that climate change poses a dire threat to life on earth in many different ways. We have also known that the continuing proliferation of nuclear weapons increases the threat of a nuclear war, which, whether deliberate or accidental, will have horrific consequences. Yet, we have been content to stick our heads in the sand and abdicate responsibility for making collective, global decisions that will ensure that these nightmares are mitigated or never come to pass. 

We have made the same mistake with respect to the looming threat of pandemics. For years, we have talked about the possibility of such an event, and yet we have failed to take the necessary steps to ensure that we were prepared to tackle such a crisis swiftly and effectively. While some voices have for many years been calling for the creation of a limited form of global government, most of our leaders have been unwilling to countenance such an idea. Yet, finally, in the face of the enormous physical, economic, and mental suffering we have begun enduring in the wake of the coronavirus, we are starting to hear voices among the world's leaders calling for the creation of some kind of system of global governance that is capable of responding to the needs of the 21st century. Such voices should be encouraged and applauded.

Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, Arancha González Laya, expressed her view in a piece published by The Washington Post today that it is "time to be bold and envision new ways forward for our international institutions." She clearly articulated the goal: "to find ways to reinforce the institutions that work, replace those that do not, create those that are missing and, overall, promote simplicity, effectiveness, coherence and cohesion." 

What an incredible call to action! This is precisely the kind of leadership we need — one that is willing to acknowledge and dispense with systems that are not working and no longer ensure the well-being of those they were created to serve. And one that recognizes the need for collective consultation in order to conceive of new global structures: capable of managing collective problems that impact humanity as a whole.

Also today, the views of Gordon Brown, the former prime minister of Britain were clearly laid out in an article published by The Guardian.  He cut straight to the chase, urging world leaders "to create a temporary form of global government to tackle the twin medical and economic crises caused by the Covid-19 pandemic." 

He highlighted the obvious yet often unacknowledged fact that "this is not something that can be dealt with in one country," rather it is something that requires "a coordinated global response," starting with "some sort of working executive." 

This kind of call confirms world historian Arnold Toynbee's predictions in the last century that — despite our strenuous resistance to any notion of a world government — once we faced an existential threat, we would rapidly,though reluctantly, abandon our resistance in favor of a world government, albeit limited in scope to what is absolutely necessary to effect the global management of global challenges.

We, the people of the world, have a choice to mitigate our global suffering and to ensure that our hardships have not been in vain. It is up to us, one and all, to demand of our leaders that they seize this opportunity to demonstrate the statesmanship, vision, and courage required to build those global decision-making and enforcement institutions we so desperately need to meet the urgent needs of an inextricably interconnected world.

The COVID-19 Pandemic: We Sink or Swim Together

If there is one thing the world is learning rapidly, it is that tackling the global COVID-19 pandemic  requires acting collectively to manage a collective problem. This has been a lesson that humanity has long resisted as it has stubbornly clung to outworn habits of nationalism and competition fueled by all sorts of fear such as fear of the “other” or fear of insufficient resources.

Over the years, circumstances have afforded us ample opportunity to learn the importance of collective action. We have confronted a number of growing global crises that endanger our peace and security. Climate change, migration, the growing extremes of wealth and poverty, and nuclear proliferation rank high among them. And yet, despite the severity of these crises, we have been unwilling to give up our old maladaptive habits of focusing on our self interest, both on the individual and national levels. We have stubbornly refused to admit that the advantage of the part can only be ensured by guaranteeing the advantage of the whole, and that we are all better off when our primary loyalty is to the human race as a whole. We have failed to understand that if we are to thrive as individuals and nations we must ensure that all nations and all peoples can thrive.

Now, however, the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus is giving us a unique and unprecedented opportunity to learn this lesson quickly. Indeed, we are being given a crash course in the truth of the oneness of humanity and its inextricable interdependence and in the need for collective action. The stakes are high — it's do or die for many. We  can and are learning this lesson, albeit slowly: Whether at the city, county, state, national, or international levels, we are being painfully forced to learn this lesson, kicking and screaming as we go.  

The good news is that our self-destructive behaviors — including excessive focus on nationalism, xenophobia, and racism — are simply long-standing habits, and habits can be changed. Renowned historian Arnold Toynbee, writing in the second half of the 20th century, concluded that the global community must change its habits if it were to survive. He went on to predict that it would ultimately do so, but only when confronted by an existential crisis — which he believed would be precipitated by the atom bomb. He theorized that, once confronted with such a crisis, humanity would rapidly shed its old habits — albeit reluctantly — and embrace new ones, including the recognition that we need some form of world government with the authority to ensure humanity’s collective interests.

The COVID-19 pandemic is demonstrating one of the areas in which we must have mechanisms of global governance — including collective decision-making and enforcement — to protect the world community against global pandemics. In this regard, we are gradually becoming conscious that we need to engage in collective action, collaboration, and coordination on a scale never seen before. We are learning this at different levels — within countries, such as the U.S., where it is becoming apparent that our response is a patchwork one, depending on which city or state we live in. We are also learning this at the regional level: The European Union is beginning to grasp that there needs to be far more coordination at the regional level to take steps protecting the citizens of the EU. To this end, the EU has taken initial steps such as closing the EU's common borders. And we are beginning to learn this at the global level where organizations like the World Health Organization have been trying to get nations to act but lack the authority to pass binding regulations that governments would have to follow, let alone the ability to enforce their recommendations.

It is time to ratchet up our learning. Just as the virus is spreading exponentially, so too must our awareness of the oneness of humanity and of our inextricable interconnectedness grow, resulting in the acknowledgment that it is time to build a new system of global governance fit for the 21st century and beyond.

The awareness we need is perfectly summed up by the following analogy offered a number of years ago by Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.  He observed that there had been a time not long ago when the nations of the world were like self-contained boats sailing on the sea of international life. Each boat had its own captain and crew, and the main purpose of the international order was to create rules that ensured that the movements of these boats were coordinated to avoid accidents. However, time has moved on. Our current reality is completely different. Given the unprecedented degree of our interconnectedness, our situation could more aptly be described as that of a ship consisting of 193 cabins, each representing a nation state. The problem is that, while each cabin has its own captain and crew dedicated to maintaining order within that cabin and serving it, the ship as a whole lacks both captain and crew.  

What we may well ask, are the concrete implications of this analogy? The first is that in a time of global crisis, such as the world faces with the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no one at the helm of our ship capable of steering us clear in the stormy and turbulent seas. Nor do we have hands on deck dedicated to the collective good — the business of saving the ship as a whole  — rather than the narrow well-being of the members of one or other of the cabins onboard. The second is that the principles and rules by which the inhabitants in one cabin govern themselves could actually prove detrimental to people in other cabins and could cause the ship as a whole to sink. It is not hard to recognize how this plays out in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic where actions taken by one national government such as restricting the export of medical supplies would detrimentally impact the citizens of other nations. 

For humanity to survive and thrive all this must change. We must quickly craft new global decision-making institutions that have the authority to pass binding regulations to protect us all in certain narrow spheres where the only solution lies in collective action. We also need global enforcement mechanisms to ensure that all nations comply with these collective rules.