A tragedy turned into everyone’s political weapon by Regan O'Sullivan

The case of Henry Nowak has left Britain with many questions but perhaps the most revealing aspect of the entire affair is not what happened. It is how quickly every political tribe rushed to turn a human tragedy into ammunition for its own preferred argument.

Within hours familiar battle lines emerged. On one side, Nigel Farage and a collection of hard-right commentators seized upon the case as proof that immigration itself is the source of Britain’s social problems. On the other sections of the left treated the incident as yet another opportunity to portray the police, security services and wider institutions as fundamentally incompetent, biased or corrupt. The result was a national conversation that generated plenty of outrage but remarkably little clarity.

This has become one of the defining features of modern British politics. Every event must fit an existing narrative. Facts are no longer examined first and interpreted later. Instead, conclusions arrive immediately, and facts are selected afterward to support them.

For Farage and his allies, the formula is familiar. If an individual connected to immigration is involved in a major controversy, the case becomes evidence that immigration policy itself is broken. Nuance disappears. Individual responsibility becomes collective guilt. The complexities of integration, crime, social cohesion and border policy are flattened into a single slogan designed to provoke anger rather than understanding.

Yet the reaction from parts of the left has often been no less predictable. Rather than focusing primarily on the circumstances of the case, attention quickly shifted toward institutional failures. The police were accused of incompetence. Security agencies were questioned. Broader claims about systemic prejudice and institutional collapse followed soon after. In some corners, the assumption seemed to be that every controversy must ultimately prove that authority itself is the problem.

The consequence is a strange political symmetry. The right sees immigration behind every failure. The left sees institutional failure behind every controversy. Both sides are frequently searching less for truth than for confirmation.

Meanwhile, the public is left wondering what actually happened. Britain deserves better than this endless cycle of political opportunism. Serious questions about immigration policy should be debated seriously. Concerns about policing and security should be examined rigorously. Neither subject benefits from being transformed into a reflexive ideological battlefield.

The real test of a healthy society is whether it can investigate difficult events without immediately turning them into symbols. That requires patience, evidence and a willingness to accept uncomfortable conclusions, even when they do not neatly support one's political preferences.

What the Henry Nowak case has ultimately exposed is not merely disagreement about immigration or policing. It has exposed a deeper problem in Britain's political culture. Too many public figures now approach major events as opportunities rather than responsibilities. They see headlines and hashtags before they see human beings.

That is why so many people have come away from this case feeling confused. They have been bombarded with competing narratives, each designed to serve a political constituency. What has often been missing is a genuine commitment to understanding the truth wherever it leads.

In the end, the tragedy became a mirror reflecting Britain's polarized politics. The far right used it to attack immigration. Parts of the left used it to attack institutions. And somewhere beneath the noise, the facts struggled to be heard.

D-Day’s misunderstood, misread and mispreached by John Reid

There was something deeply jarring about hearing U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth use a D-Day anniversary speech in France to criticize European nations over migration and warn of what he described as an “invasion” on their shores. The beaches of Normandy are among the most sacred sites in modern democratic history. They are places where remembrance should unite people around the sacrifices made to defeat tyranny, not serve as a backdrop for contemporary culture-war rhetoric.

D-Day was a moment when democracies came together to confront a genuine military threat. Thousands of young men crossed the English Channel knowing many would never return home. Their courage helped liberate Europe from fascism and laid the foundation for a postwar order built on alliances, cooperation and shared democratic values. To invoke that legacy while promoting a political agenda rooted in nationalism and division feels less like honoring history than repurposing it.

The language of “invasion” has become a central feature of modern right-wing politics on both sides of the Atlantic. It transforms complex questions about migration, asylum, demographics and economic change into a simplistic narrative of national survival. The word is deliberately chosen because it evokes fear. It suggests armies rather than families, conquest rather than movement, enemies rather than human beings. Such rhetoric may energize political supporters, but it rarely produces serious solutions.

Europe unquestionably faces difficult migration challenges. Governments must manage borders, enforce laws and maintain public confidence in their immigration systems. Those are legitimate responsibilities. Yet reducing every migration debate to apocalyptic warnings about civilizational collapse does not strengthen democracy. It weakens it by encouraging citizens to see entire groups of people as threats rather than individuals.

Equally troubling is the increasing tendency among some political figures to fuse nationalism with a particular vision of Christianity. Faith has played an important role in Western societies for centuries, and millions draw moral guidance from religious traditions. But democratic governments are strongest when they protect pluralism rather than elevate one religious identity above all others. History offers countless examples of the dangers that emerge when political power and religious certainty become too closely intertwined.

The broader MAGA worldview that Hegseth appeared to champion often presents itself as a defense of traditional values. Yet too frequently that defense comes with hostility toward those who do not fit within a narrow cultural framework. Migrants become scapegoats. Religious minorities become suspects. LGBTQ citizens become symbols in political battles they did not choose. The result is not national renewal but a politics of exclusion.

What makes this particularly striking on a D-Day anniversary is the contrast between the message and the moment. The Allied victory commemorated in Normandy was not merely a triumph of military force. It was a victory for democratic ideals over authoritarian impulses. It affirmed that free societies are strongest when they reject politics based on fear, resentment and rigid notions of identity.

The lesson of D-Day should not be that nations retreat behind walls, real or metaphorical. It should be that democracies have the confidence to confront challenges without abandoning their principles. Leaders who stand on those historic shores inherit a responsibility to remember that distinction. They should honor the past by defending the values that made liberation possible, not by turning remembrance into another stage for division.

#eBook: The Ledger of Ruin by Dag Hansen

 

For seventy years, the American Empire ran on a simple premise: that paper, blessed by the full faith and credit of the United States Treasury, was worth more than the gold in the ground, the oil beneath the sand, or the sun blazing over the equator.

This was the true architecture of power, not aircraft carriers or stealth bombers, though they helped but the invisible, iron logic of the petrodollar, the SWIFT messaging system, and the unshakable belief that a dollar was a dollar was a dollar.

This book is not a history of that empire's wars. It is the story of its accounting.

How America's new empire fractured the world's last bank

Ovi eBook Publications 2026

The Ledger of Ruin

Read it online or download HERE!
Read it online & downloading it as PDF or EPUB HERE!
Or enjoy reading it online & downloading it as PDF HERE!
All downloads are FREE!

---

For more eBooks check Ovi eBookshelves HERE!

Ma-Siri & Co #124 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Ma-Siri is a mother, a grandmother and a very active social life,
searching for the meaning of life among other things and her glasses.

For more Ma-Siri & Alexa, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

---

Sudan braces for worsening child malnutrition as pre-harvest season starts - Save the Children

Sudan is bracing for a rise in child malnutrition as the lean or pre-harvest season starts with the prospects for crop production looking bleak after more than three years of war with conflict ongoing, warned Save the Children.

Agriculture accounts for up to 80% of food [1] and income in Sudan, but the conflict, combined with climate pressures, has decimated farming and further declines in cereal production are forecasted [2] ahead of planting starting this month.

Already about 19 million people – or two in every five Sudanese - are facing acute food insecurity, according to the World Food Programme [3]. The ongoing conflict has caused the world’s largest displacement crisis, forcing about 14 million people [4] from their homes, reducing access to farmland, damaging infrastructure and irrigation systems and causing shortages of seeds, fertilizers, and equipment. 

In the eastern state of Gedaref, once known as the breadbasket of Sudan, the impact is visible in overcrowded nutrition clinics treating growing numbers of malnourished children. Omer*, aged 12 months,  is one of about 50 babies treated for severe acute malnutrition in the past month at a Save the Children nutrition clinic, where staff say numbers are rising and set to get worse.

Omer’s mother Reem*, 35, said her son had faced health issues since birth but his admission for severe acute malnutrition was due to the conflict, with less farming and more people to feed. Up to one million people arrived in Gedaref at its peak to escape violence in the capital Khartoum, adding a third to the population. The number of displaced people living there now is about 200,000.      

“The war has made life harder for us all as there is less food due to less farming and more people,” said Reem, a mother of 10, who is feeding her son therapeutic milk every two hours.

Save the Children staff at the nutrition clinic said they treated more than 1,400 children for severe acute malnutrition last year, with 38 dying of hunger-related causes. So far this year they have treated about 200 children with 3 deaths, and they expect numbers to rise rapidly in the lean season before the harvest starts in October.

Meanwhile, the war has also crippled the health system, with 37% of health facilities [5] across Sudan’s 18 states non-functional, according the World Health Organization, and aid cuts forcing the closure of health centres across the country. On top of this, the crisis in the Middle East has disrupted shipments of urgently needed medicines [6] and therapeutic foods as well as leading to spike in prices for fuel and fertilizer needed in farming.

Save the Children’s Sudan Country Director, Mohamed Abdiladif said:

“The situation for children in Sudan is deteriorating even further as this conflict continues, with millions of children in the country impacted. What should be one of the country’s most productive agricultural regions is now struggling to feed its own people, with families pushed to the brink. Children are arriving at clinics dangerously malnourished, and without urgent support, many more will follow as the lean season sets in.

“The international community cannot look away. We urgently need increased funding and access to deliver life-saving nutrition and healthcare to children before this crisis spirals even further out of control.”

With only 22% of the $2.9b UN appeal for 2026 covered [7], Save the Children is urgently calling for increased funding to the humanitarian response in Sudan to continue providing vital services to the most vulnerable communities across the country.

Save the Children has worked in Sudan since 1983 and provides programming for children and families affected by conflict, displacement, extreme poverty and hunger. 

*Names changed to protect identities

---

Save the Children, all children deserve better. We champion the rights and interests of children worldwide, putting the most vulnerable children first. With 25,000 dedicated staff across 116 countries, we respond to major emergencies, deliver innovative development programmes, and ensure children's voices are heard through our campaigning to build a better future for and with children. https://www.savethechildren.net/

The betrayal behind the betrayal by Jerome Weiss

Political scandals are rarely just about money. They are usually about trust; who gave it, who abused it and who was left standing in the wreckage when the truth finally emerged. That is what makes Nicola Sturgeon’s recent remarks so striking. Speaking publicly after her estranged husband, Peter Murrell admitted embezzling more than £400,000 from the Scottish National Party, the former first minister did not sound like a politician managing a crisis. She sounded like someone trying to make sense of a personal collapse.

“I was deceived, betrayed and lied to,” she said. The words carry weight not simply because they came from one of the most powerful figures in modern Scottish politics, but because they expose the uncomfortable reality that public leadership does not grant immunity from private deception.

For years, Sturgeon and Murrell were perhaps the most influential couple in Scottish politics. He ran the SNP machinery. She led the party and the government. Their partnership appeared inseparable, prompting critics to question whether too much power had become concentrated within a single household. Yet the image projected to the public now appears radically different from the reality hidden behind closed doors.

The most difficult question for many observers is whether Sturgeon should have known. It is a fair question. Political leaders are expected to recognize warning signs. They are expected to understand what is happening within organizations they lead. The fact that Murrell’s admitted misconduct stretched across more than a decade naturally invites scrutiny.

But there is another reality that should not be ignored. Fraud often succeeds precisely because the perpetrator understands how to conceal it from those closest to them. History is filled with examples of spouses, relatives and business partners discovering that the person they trusted most was living an entirely different life.

The public may struggle to separate the political figure from the spouse. Yet the distinction matters. Sturgeon is facing two separate reckonings. One is political. The other is deeply personal. The political reckoning concerns what this episode says about governance, transparency and accountability within the SNP. The party built much of its reputation on presenting itself as a competent alternative to Westminster politics. Murrell’s actions have damaged that image profoundly. Questions about oversight and internal controls will not disappear simply because one man has admitted guilt.

The personal reckoning may be even harsher. Sturgeon’s comments suggest someone confronting the possibility that a marriage spanning decades was built on assumptions that ultimately proved false. Few experiences are more destabilizing than discovering that the person sitting beside you for years was hiding something fundamental about themselves.

Adding another layer of irony is the reported warning from Alex Salmond, Sturgeon’s former mentor and later political rival. The relationship between Salmond and Sturgeon deteriorated into one of the bitterest feuds in modern British politics. Yet history has a habit of revisiting old conflicts with uncomfortable questions attached. If warnings were given, people will inevitably ask whether they were dismissed too quickly.

None of this erases Murrell’s responsibility. In fact, it reinforces it. The scandal is not merely that money was allegedly stolen from a political party. It is that trust was stolen from colleagues, supporters and, according to Sturgeon herself, from the person who believed she knew him best. Political betrayals are common. Personal betrayals are devastating. When the two collide, the damage extends far beyond the balance sheet.

JD Vance exporting MAGA’s culture wars by Howard Morton

There is a peculiar arrogance that sometimes accompanies great power, it is the belief that political figures from influential nations can wander into the domestic debates of other countries, offer sweeping judgments about their societies and expect gratitude rather than resentment. The latest example comes from U.S. Vice President JD Vance, whose comments about immigration and the death of Henry Nowak prompted an unusually sharp rebuke from Downing Street. British officials accused him of trying to interfere in their democracy and of deliberately stirring division.

They have a point. Political leaders are entitled to opinions. They are even entitled to disagree with the policies of allies. But there is a meaningful distinction between discussing shared challenges and inserting oneself into another nation’s political arguments in a way that appears designed to inflame tensions. Vance has increasingly blurred that line.

His comments regarding Britain fit a broader pattern. This is not the first time he has appeared eager to weigh in on the internal affairs of another democratic country. He has previously expressed admiration for Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and embraced Orbán’s political project as a model for conservatives elsewhere. What might have seemed like a strategic alliance among ideological allies instead highlighted a recurring problem: foreign politicians often misunderstand the domestic realities of the countries they seek to influence.

Hungary offers a useful lesson. Orbán has spent years cultivating an international image as a champion of conservative resistance against liberal institutions. For some American politicians, he became a symbol rather than a statesman, a political mascot onto which broader ideological aspirations could be projected. Yet voters tend to be less interested in symbolism than in everyday realities. They care about economic conditions, public services, corruption, opportunity and competence. Elections are not won by international endorsements.

Indeed, there is often something counterproductive about high-profile foreign interventions. Citizens may disagree intensely among themselves, but many become remarkably united when outsiders appear to lecture them about how they should govern their own country. National pride has a way of transcending partisan divisions.

This is especially true when the outsider arrives from the United States. America remains enormously influential, but influence can easily become overreach. A vice president speaking about immigration in Britain or endorsing political movements in Central Europe does not necessarily strengthen those causes. In some cases, he may unintentionally weaken them. Voters do not always appreciate the implication that foreign observers understand their societies better than they do.

The deeper issue is that democracies function best when their debates remain rooted in local realities. Britain’s immigration policies should be decided by British voters and British institutions. Hungary’s future should be determined by Hungarians. Americans should decide American questions. That principle should not be controversial.

The temptation for politicians to become international culture-war celebrities is understandable. Social media rewards provocative statements. Global ideological movements create audiences that extend far beyond national borders. But governing is not performance art, and diplomacy is not a podcast.

The role of an American vice president should be to strengthen alliances, not test their limits. Allies can disagree without turning every disagreement into a political spectacle. When elected officials begin treating other nations as stages for their own domestic narratives, they risk generating exactly what they claim to oppose: greater polarization, deeper mistrust and unnecessary division.

Sometimes the most respectful contribution a foreign politician can make to another democracy is also the simplest, stay out of its election campaigns and let its voters decide for themselves.

The oceans cannot vote by Maddalena Conti

World Oceans Day arrives this year with a peculiar sense of irony, governments, corporations and activists will spend a day praising the seas as humanity’s life-support system, while much of the political conversation in America is moving in the opposite direction. The return of Donald Trump to the White House has brought back a familiar slogan... “drill, baby, drill.” It is a catchy phrase, politically effective and economically seductive. Yet it also captures a worldview that treats nature primarily as a warehouse of resources rather than a system of limits.

The oceans, unfortunately, do not care about election slogans. For decades, environmental policy has operated on an uncomfortable compromise. Nations have sought economic growth while attempting to reduce the damage done to ecosystems. The balance has never been perfect, but the direction of travel was broadly clear. Cleaner energy, tighter regulations and greater awareness of climate risks became part of the mainstream policy consensus across much of the developed world.

That consensus is now under strain. Rising energy prices, geopolitical tensions and voter frustration have made environmental ambitions look less urgent to many politicians. Trump’s enthusiasm for expanding fossil-fuel production reflects a wider political mood. Economic security increasingly outweighs ecological caution.

There is a logic to this. Voters tend to worry about fuel prices before they worry about sea temperatures. Politicians who ignore that reality rarely stay in office for long. The problem is that political incentives operate on election cycles, while oceans operate on geological and ecological timescales.

The consequences are already visible. Marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent. Coral reefs are under growing pressure. Fisheries face disruption as species migrate toward cooler waters. Coastal communities confront rising risks from stronger storms and creeping sea-level rise. None of these developments are partisan. Fish, currents and storms do not distinguish between Democrats and Republicans.

Supporters of aggressive oil and gas expansion often argue that technological innovation will eventually solve environmental problems. Human ingenuity, they contend, has repeatedly overcome dire predictions. There is truth in this optimism. Technology has delivered remarkable gains in efficiency and emissions reduction. But optimism is not a strategy. Betting the future health of the oceans on breakthroughs that may or may not arrive is a risky form of environmental gambling.

What makes the current moment particularly troubling is the growing temptation to frame environmental protection as an elite concern. The oceans suffer from a public-relations problem. They are vast, distant and easy to take for granted. Unlike inflation or immigration, they rarely dominate campaign speeches. Their deterioration occurs gradually, often beyond the sight of voters.

Yet the oceans are not a luxury issue. They regulate climate, support food systems, facilitate trade and sustain billions of livelihoods. A degraded ocean is not merely an environmental problem; it is an economic one.

World Oceans Day should therefore serve as more than a ceremonial celebration. It should be a reminder that prosperity ultimately depends on functioning natural systems. The debate is not between economic growth and environmental protection. It is between short-term extraction and long-term resilience.

Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” may energise supporters and promise immediate gains. The oceans, however, offer a quieter lesson. One can withdraw from a bank account for only so long before the balance runs dry. Nature operates according to the same principle. The difference is that when the oceans send the bill, there is no possibility of renegotiation.

A state that wears the mask of morality to cover a hate crime by Solomon Barber

There is a peculiar transformation that occurs when prejudice acquires official stationery. What begins as social hostility becomes something far more powerful and dangerous, law. In Ghana, a recently revived bill threatens to impose prison sentences on people who identify as LGBTQ+, while also punishing those accused of promoting, advocating, or funding LGBTQ+ activities with penalties of up to ten years behind bars. The legislation is often presented by its supporters as a defense of culture, morality, or national values. Yet beneath the rhetoric lies a more uncomfortable reality. When a government uses its power to criminalize people for who they are or for peacefully expressing support for them, the state itself becomes an instrument of discrimination.

The word “hate crime” is usually reserved for acts committed by individuals. We imagine a vandalized house of worship, a violent attack, or a threat directed at someone because of their identity. But there is another form of hostility that deserves scrutiny: hostility codified in law. It is one thing for a private citizen to harbor prejudice. It is something else entirely when the machinery of government adopts that prejudice and attaches prison sentences to it.

Supporters of such measures often insist that they are merely reflecting public opinion. History, however, offers little comfort in that defense. Popularity has never been a reliable measure of justice. Majorities have repeatedly supported policies that later generations recognized as profound violations of human dignity. The role of democratic institutions is not simply to count heads. It is also to protect rights, especially when those rights belong to unpopular minorities.

The most troubling feature of the Ghanaian proposal is not only the punishment of LGBTQ+ individuals themselves. It is the attempt to criminalize advocacy and support. Such provisions expand the scope of punishment from identity to speech, association, and conscience. They create a climate in which a teacher, journalist, religious leader, family member, or human-rights advocate could face severe consequences for expressing sympathy or defending equal treatment. Fear becomes contagious. Silence becomes a survival strategy.

Governments frequently justify these laws as protections against foreign influence. Yet human dignity is not a foreign import. The idea that individuals should not face imprisonment because of their identity is not the property of any continent, ideology, or political bloc. It is a principle rooted in the belief that citizenship should not depend on conformity.

The irony is striking. States that claim to be defending social harmony often end up institutionalizing division. They create legal categories of approved and unapproved citizens. They transform neighbors into suspects and differences into offenses. The result is not moral strength but legal exclusion.

A government possesses powers that ordinary citizens do not. It can arrest, prosecute, imprison, and stigmatize. That is precisely why governments carry a greater responsibility than private individuals. When those powers are directed against a minority group, the consequences extend far beyond individual cases. The message becomes unmistakable: some citizens deserve protection, while others deserve punishment.

A society reveals its character not by how it treats the majority, but by how it treats those with the least power. Laws that criminalize identity and advocacy do not elevate a nation’s moral standing. They diminish it. And when prejudice is enforced through the authority of the state, it ceases to be merely a social attitude. It becomes official discrimination wearing the robes of law.

Our Common Oceans and Seas by Rene Wadlow

 

The people of the earth having agreed that the advancement of man in spiritual excellence and physical welfare is the common goal of mankind...therefore the age of nations must end, and the era of humanity begin.”
Preamble to the Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution

The United Nations is currently preparing a world conference 5-7 June 2017 devoted to the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal N° 14: Conserve and sustainable use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.  Non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the U.N. are invited to submit recommendations for the governmental working group which is meeting 24 to 27 April in New York.

The Association of World Citizens has long been concerned with the Law of the Sea and had been active during the 10-year negotiations on the law of the sea during the 1970s, the meetings being held one month a year, alternatively in New York and Geneva. The world citizens position for the law of the sea was largely based on a three-point framework:

a) that the oceans and seas were the common heritage of humanity and should be seen as a living symbol of the unity of humanity;

b) that ocean management should be regulated by world law created as in as democratic manner as possible;

c) that the wealth of the oceans, considered as the common heritage of mankind should contain mechanisms of global redistribution, especially for the development of the poorest, a step toward a more just economic order, on land as well as at sea.

The concept of the oceans as the common heritage of humanity had been introduced into the U.N. awareness by a moving speech in the U.N. General Assembly by Arvid Pardo, Ambassador of Malta in November 1967.  Under traditional international sea law, the resources of the oceans, except those within a narrow territorial sea near the coast line  were regarded as "no one's property" or more positively as "common property."  The "no one's property" opened the door to the exploitation of resources by the most powerful and the most technologically advanced States.  The "common heritage" concept was put forward as a way of saying that "humanity" - at least as represented by the States in the U.N. - should have some say as to the way the resources of the oceans and seas should be managed.  Thus began the 1970s Law of the Seas negotiations.

Perhaps with or without the knowledge of Neptune, lord of the seas, the Maltese voted to change the political party in power just as the sea negotiations began. Arvid Pardo was replaced as Ambassador to the U.N. by a man who had neither the vision nor the diplomatic skills of Pardo.  Thus, during the 10 years of negotiations the "common heritage" flame was carried by world citizens, in large part by Elisabeth Mann Borgese with whom I worked  closely during the Geneva sessions of the negotiations.

Elisabeth Mann Borgese  (1918-2002)  whose birth anniversary we mark on 24 April, was a strong-willed woman.  She had to come out from under the shadow of both her father, Thomas Mann, the German writer and Nobel laureate for Literature, and her husband Giuseppe Antonio Borgese (1882-1952), Italian literary critic and political analyst.  From 1938, Thomas Mann lived in Princeton, New Jersey and gave occasional lectures at Princeton University.  Thomas Mann, whose novel The Magic Mountain was one of the monuments of world literature between the two World Wars, always felt that he represented the best of German culture against the uncultured mass of the Nazis.  He took himself and his role very seriously, and his family existed basically to facilitate his thinking and writing.

G.A. Borgese had a regular professor's post at the University of Chicago but often lectured at other universities on the evils of Mussolini.  Borgese, who had been a leading literary critic and university professor in Milan, left Italy for the United States in 1931 when Mussolini announced that an oath of allegiance to the Fascist State would be required of all Italian professors. For Borgese, with a vast culture including the classic Greeks, the Renaissance Italians, and the 19th century nationalist writers, Mussolini was an evil caricature which too few Americans recognized as a destructive force in his own right and not just as the fifth wheel of Hitler's armed car. 

G.A. Borgese met Elizsabeth Mann on a lecture tour at Princeton, and despite being close to Thomas Mann in age, the couple married very quickly shortly after meeting.  Elisabeth moved to the University of Chicago and was soon caught up in Borgese's efforts to help the transition from the Age of Nations to the Age of Humanity. For Borgese, the world was in  a watershed period. The Age of Nations − with its nationalism  which could be a liberating force in the 19th century as with the unification of Italy − had come to a close with the First World War.  The war clearly showed that nationalism was from then on only the symbol of death.  However, the Age of Humanity, which was the next step in human evolution, had not yet come into being, in part because too many people were still caught in the shadow play of the Age of Nations.

Since University of Chicago scientists had played an important role in the coming of the Atomic Age, G.A. Borgese and Richard McKeon, Dean of the University felt that the University should take a major role in drafting a world constitution for the Atomic Age. Thus the Committee to Frame a World Constitution, an interdisciplinary committee under the leadership of Robert Hutchins, head of the University of Chicago, was created in 1946. To re-capture the hopes and fears of the 1946-1948 period when the World Constitutions was being written, it is useful to read the book written by one of the members of the drafting team: Rexford Tugwell. A Chronicle of Jeopardy (University of Chicago Press, 1955). The book is Rex Tugwell's reflections on the years 1946-1954 written each year in August to mark the A-bombing of Hiroshima

Elisabeth had become the secretary of the Committee and the editor of its journal Common Cause.   The last issue of Common Cause was in June 1951. G.A. Borgese published a commentary on the Constitution, dealing especially with his ideas on the nature of justice. It was the last thing he wrote, and the book was published shortly after his death: G.A.Borgese. Foundations of the World Republic (University of Chicago Press, 1953). In 1950, the Korean War started. Hope for a radical transformation of the UN faded.  Borgese and his wife went to live in Florence, where weary and disappointed, he died in 1952.

The drafters of the World Constitution went on to other tasks.  Robert Hutchins left the University of Chicago to head a “think tank”- Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions – taking some of the drafters, including Elisabeth, with him. She edited a booklet on the Preliminary Draft with a useful introduction A Constitution for the World (1965) However, much of the energy of the Center went into the protection of freedom of thought and expression in the USA, at the time under attack by the primitive anti-communism of then Senator Joe McCarthy.

In the mid-1950s, from world federalists and world citizens came various proposals for UN control of areas not under national control: UN control of the High Seas and the Waterways, especially after the 1956 Suez Canal conflict, and of Outer Space. A good overview of these proposals is contained in James A.  Joyce. Revolution on East River (New York: Ablard-Schuman, 1956).

After the 1967 proposal of Arvid Pardo, Elisabeth Mann Borgese  turned her attention and energy to the law of the sea.  As the UN Law of the Sea Conference continued through the 1970s,  Elisabeth was active in seminars and conferences with the delegates, presenting ideas, showing that a strong treaty on the law of the sea would be a big step forward for humanity. Many of the issues raised during the negotiations leading to the Convention, especially the concept of the Exclusive Economic Zone, actively battled by Elisabeth but actively championed by Ambassador Alan Beesley of Canada, are with us today in the China seas tensions. While the resulting Convention of the Law of the Sea has not revolutionized world politics – as some of us  hoped in the early 1970s - the Convention is an important building block in the development of world law. We are grateful for the values and the energy that Elisabeth Mann Borgese embodied and we are still pushing for the concept of the common heritage of humanity.

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

Rene Wadlow, President and a representative to the United Nations, Geneva, Association of World Citizens

Ian Glim #010 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

A bewildered soul navigating global complexities armed
only with earnestness and a sharp, sarcastic wit.

For more Ian Glim, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

---