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The United Nations And Today's Challenge To Mankind Last year in addressing the graduating class of his daughter, President Johnson said . . . "The world has narrowed to a neighborhood but has not broadened to a brotherhood." Therein lies the crux of the world's ills .. . the tension between India and Pakistan, the Cyprus sOrespot, the Berlin Wall, the divided Korea, the Civil strife in the Dominican Republic and Viet Nam. This is the challenge to us as peoples in today's world. Science and technology has given us a new so ciety where space means nothing. -With Telstar and the Satellite, messages and pictures go around the world quicker than they could have gone around a small village at the turn of the century. In commer cial aviation planes move through the sky at 35,000 feet with a speed of 800 miles per hour. Twenty years ago we talked about going to London to have dinner and return to the states for breakfast the next morn ing but now we can realistically discuss a trip to London for lunch and back here for dinner in the same day. / Science has conquered the ravages of Yellow Fever, Tuberculosis and most of the plagues which so long afflicted mankind and only the most pessimistic be lieve we will not soon conquer those killers, heart trouble and cancer. Our technicians have converted dusty,'winding, unsightly country roads into beautiful stretches of macadam and concrete permitting us to travel by automobile six hundred miles in a single, average travel day. Members of this same craft can now erect a fifty story building in weeks . . . buildings could only have dreamed of at the turn of the century. As Americans we can rightfully be proud because we stand at the very forefront of these material achievements with an economy that is rapidly push ing toward seven hundred billions per year, where we consider a family income under $3,000.00 per year as being below the Poverty line" when many coun tries count themselves advanced with an average fam ily income of $500.00 per year. And yet we have only 6% of the world's population, live on less than l/30th of the world s geographical area, and have only a limited amount of the world's key raw materials. Despite all these advancements, however, in the words of Ambassador Stevenson last March . . . "The world now lives in a circle of fear and suspicion. America alone since World War II has spent 800 billion dollars on its military establishment. Hundreds of billions more have been expended by Europeans and Asians mainly convince aggressors that aggres sion does not pay and has nojuture whether in Cen tral Europe, Korea, Africa or Viet Nam." Today world governments spend 120 billion dollars each year; South Koreans have one-half million men under arms, Taiwan feOO.OOO, South Viet Nam 250,000, Thailand is armed to the teeth. India has an un precedented defense while hundreds die in the streets of Bombay and Calcutta from lack of food. We spend 53 billions each year while 20% of our population lives below the poverty line. The world has 20 million By James K. Perry ■ 'Sag i V 1 _ Hv . titl \ H J I men under arms but the United Nations cannot find 20 thousand men and 100 million dollars for inter national peacekeeping. There are still those who decry the United Nations which as of last month had worked 20 years to make effective the charter signed in San Francisco in 1945 . a charter which promised to "maintain interna tional peace and security: to develop friendly rela tions among nations based on respect for the equal right and self determination of peoples: to cooperate in solving international problems of an economic, so cial, cultural or humanitarian character and in pro moting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all: and to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in attaining these common ends. We have fought two world wars in this century with no victor . . . no vanquished . . . just one loser . . . Mankind. Einstein was asked about the type of weapons that would be used in the Third World War ... he replied ... "I don't know what will be used in the Third, but in the Fourth one man will use slingshots for the Third will reduce survivors to a Prehistoric state." Not long ago United Nations Secretary General U Thant asked: "Is the human race so destitute of wisdom, so incapable of toler ance ... so blind to the simple dictates of self preser vation that its last proof of progress is to be the extermination of all life on our small planet?" The shaky and unhealthy relationships existing between Mr. K. O. Mbadewe, Minister of Stat* for Nigeria, Is greeted by Dr. Newton Hill forces of mankind make us wonder if Man will ever "beat his swords into plowshares and his spears into pruning hooks." The world has gone from crisis to crisis and none can doubt that the only instrument found to successfully contain us has been the United Nations. Whatever our differences, we have a com mon interest in survival. In the words of a Dominican Republic representative recently . . . "We must find a solution to crises . . . nobody WANTS to die." There are still the naive, the clandestine, the isolationists who say . . . "We ought to get out of the UN!" or "Let's mind our own business and let THOSE people fight it out among themselves" . . . like a neighbor's house on fire down the block, being gutted by flames and we won't even call the fire department, let alone serving as a volunteer to put out the fire . . . and never realizing it might burn down to our very door in time. This calloused attitude indicates these people just do not realize how small the world has become. In addition, the United Nations works tirelessly to solve the battle of the Haves against the Hovenots .. . those who refuse to accept poverty as a fact of life in the battle of the idealogies, and in revolt of those who are tired of being discriminated against because of skin color, religion, or race. This wise motto is enshrined in the UNESCO charter . . . "There is no peace in the world today because there is no peace in the minds of men. The UN has made and still is making a tremendous con-
The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.)
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July 3, 1965, edition 1
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