Democratic Cooperation Is the World's Only Hope

Francis Crick, Nadine Gordimer, José Saramago and Others
Los Angeles Times Syndicate International
Tuesday, December 11, 2001

STOCKHOLM

The following statement, prepared in consultation with an extensive group of Nobel prize winners, was some time in the making. Sept. 11's appalling terrorist attacks occurred after the statement was written. The terrorization of civilian populations has, for too long, been a horrifying aspect of the global scene. The time has come to end it. This will require a reshaping of relations within the human family. Our statement, addressed to the long term, is a plea for just such a reassessment of our obligations to one another:

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The most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world's dispossessed. Of these poor and disenfranchised, the majority live a marginal existence in equatorial climates. Global warming, not of their making but originating with the wealthy few, will affect their fragile ecologies most. Their situation will be desperate and manifestly unjust.
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It cannot be expected, therefore, that in all cases they will be content to await the beneficence of the rich. If, then, we permit the devastating power of modern weaponry to spread through this combustible human landscape, we invite a conflagration that can engulf both rich and poor. The only hope for the future lies in cooperative international action, legitimized by democracy. It is time to turn our backs on the unilateral search for security, in which we seek to shelter behind walls. Instead we must persist in the quest for united action to counter both global warming and a weaponized world. These twin goals will constitute vital components of stability as we move toward the wider degree of social justice that alone gives hope of peace.
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Some of the needed legal instruments are already at hand, such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Convention on Climate Change, the START treaties and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
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As concerned citizens, we urge all governments to commit to these goals, which constitute steps on the way to the replacement of war by law. To survive in the world we have transformed we must learn to think in a new way. As never before, the future of each depends on the good of all.