Summing Up With A Good Hope
What makes the past year radically different from all previous ones is not that it was the first year of the new century and the new millennium, that would be merely symbolic.
For the first time in many years, there is no point at all in drawing a rating list of landmark events. For the first time in many years, the point in question is really the global processes, which leave no one indifferent. Perhaps, for the first time ever one can say that globalization has really begun, the globalization of life with all its problems, feelings, traditions, tragedies and expectations.
The sole event that marked the year 2001 and heralded a new era was the September 11 tragedy in the United States. Small wonder that Osama bin Laden who is believed to have masterminded the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon was almost named Person of the Year by Time Magazine (as once were Stalin and Hitler). Someday, historians might write that the September 11 terrorist acts triggered what should have actually begun right after World War II, together with the foundation of the United Nations, for the actual result of the September 11 events was not the operation in Afghanistan by the promptly set up anti- terrorist coalition or its forcible attempt to bring life in that country back to accepted norms, but the creation of a coalition which should and actually does go far beyond this tactical objective.
Politicians, political scientists, and the press claim that for the first time in world history, such a broad and truly global coalition is emerging. Its objective can and must extend far beyond fighting global terrorism. Which, in response to those who advocate the idea of a war of civilizations, has united and will unite the most typical representatives of various branches of the modern global civilization. Which, in fact, can (or rather must) become the foundation of a new world order.
Everything that happened after September 11 was marked by the practically complete informational victory of the United States. There might be different attitudes toward this, but there remains no doubt that some basic global values, common to all, do exist. And in an effort to protect them, the disputes and controversies that used to highlight world news before September 11 can now be forgot for a while. This is what led to the domination in the world media space of everything connected with the coalition’s activity, the coalition that has been taking all the more tangible shape from day to day. The regrettable examples of tension in the Middle East, Kashmir, and the Korean Peninsula are most likely exceptions from the general rule.
And within this context it becomes axiomatic that absolutely all the present and potential members of the new global company, absolutely all actors on the world stage, both the so-called old democracies and the nascent ones, like Ukraine, will have to revise their basic goals, strategies and tasks. This also concerns the United States. Because after the Second World War, the world was built as a Pax Americana, according to American approaches to norms and values. It was a world of distrust, confrontation, Cold War, and permanent threat of nuclear war. In that world the United Nations was but a place where a balance of interests was supposed to be reached, while in reality, the balance was ensured by a strategy of mutual assured destruction (MAD). But now, entirely different ideas should take over. Now, in the global world, the West, East, South, and North should be exclusively geographical terms, and this has been understood in both Washington and Moscow. Obviously, the Washington Treaty, the EU statutory documents, and many others should be at least rewritten. The place, role, and functions of the United Nations should be defined in a new way, new limits should be set for globalization and for the sovereignty of each particular subject of the coalition.
Certainly, any alliance, association, or coalition designed to act against rather than for something is doomed to fall apart. The for has not yet been formulated as long as the war continues despite its outcome being a foregone conclusion. The for is a new world order — which would be founded on the basic values stated clearly in all holy writs (The Koran, Torah, Bible etc.), which would guarantee protection and security, which would above all leave no place for the global hatred that results in wars and acts of terror. Where the ideas of globalization would work for mutual enrichment, not only financial, which would stop debates over superpowers, the mono- or multipolar world. Which, subsequently, requires a maximally simple and generally acceptable comprehensive system that rules out any clubs of “notables.”
The point in question is also how able today’s Ukraine is to join this global system. Not just able, although that is a matter to be decided far from instantly. Ukraine will simply have no other choice. The only question of choice is how we move toward this goal, what baggage we will bring with us, and what responsibilities we assume. All other results of the past year as well as the years to come will be derived from this common denominator.
