Dawn Breaker's Reflections

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, left, talks to Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorin, during a private meeting at his office Friday, Nov. 7, 2003, in Washington. The countries with the largest economies in North and South America, the United States and Brazil, are locked in a trade dispute that threatens one of President Bush's top economic goals: creation of the world's largest free trade area spanning the Western Hemisphere. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)-Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press) Mbeki welcomed Lula's Africa initiative-AFP

The upcoming Miami talks between trade ministers representing 16 of the 34 countries of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the world's largest proposed free trade area, have become the subject of criticism and skepticism of many experts, mostly due to the current standoff between the two largest economies and co-hosts of the FTAA over the scope of the agreement, and the recent collapse of the World Trade Organization's ministerial meeting in Cancun, whose issues are now being carried on into the Miami talks. If the US refuses to discuss the issues Brazil wants on the table (reduction and eventual elimination of tariffs (duties) and agricultural subsidies), the trade talks face a possible fate similar to that of the Cancun WTO ministerial meeting in September. Moreover, if any hostility arises between the U.S. and developing countries over such issues, this hostility could lead to a greater standoff within the WTO, and if allowed to progress even further, to mutual retaliatory trade sanctions and an eventual Trade War which could cause great devastation to our global economy. To avoid the possibility of such an end result, the U.S. hastily arranged for a private meeting of its trade representative Robert Zoellick with Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorin. The results of their meeting will be closely linked to the success or failure of the trade talks in Miami next week.

Shortly after the Zoellick-Amorin meeting, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula daSilva completed his tour of Africa in South Africa, where he raised a renewed call for fairer international trade rules for developing nations, pledged to bolster the unity of developing nations in their struggle to gain leverage in the arena of World Trade, and strengthened the bonds of unity between Brazil and South Africa, two of the members of the "G3", a coalition of southern hemisphere developing nations that is calling for reformation of current World Trade practices and rules. The G3 recently spearheaded the group of 20-plus developing nations that successfully de-railed the Cancun WTO talks over disagreements on agricultural subsidy and trade tariff policies, which it views as protectionist and unfair towards developing nations.

In my humble opinion, these two separate yet tightly inter-twined events mark yet another step of humanity towards a more unified, prosperous global society free of all barriers to trade and commerce. Although the obstacles to such a goal are great and may seem unsurmountable, it is humanity's destiny to achieve it. As we begin to see more bonds of unity similar to the South Africa-Brazil relationship form between nations of the East and the West, the North and the South in ever-increasing and expanding circles of unity, we will also begin to see a substantial increase in the standards of living of humanity as trade and commerce between these nations flourish, and the establishment of a prosperous global civilization the likes of which have never been seen. Whoah now, wait a minute! Where did all these optimistic words come from; aren't we supposedly on the verge of a global trade war? This optimism which may seem utopian and naive to many comes from the Writings and vision of Bahá'u'lláh, who 150 years ago foresaw the calamities that would encircle humanity, but also saw beyond these the glory and greatness of a future golden global civilization.

On this subject, a quote with some related material from "The Prosperity of Humankind", a statement prepared by the Bahá'í International Community, first distributed at the United Nations World Summit on Social Development:


"The bedrock of a strategy that can engage the world's population in assuming responsibility for its collective destiny must be the consciousness of the oneness of humankind. Deceptively simple in popular discourse, the concept that humanity constitutes a single people presents fundamental challenges to the way that most of the institutions of contemporary society carry out their functions. Whether in the form of the adversarial structure of civil government, the advocacy principle informing most of civil law, a glorification of the struggle between classes and other social groups, or the competitive spirit dominating so much of modern life, conflict is accepted as the mainspring of human interaction. It represents yet another expression in social organization of the materialistic interpretation of life that has progressively consolidated itself over the past two centuries.

In a letter addressed to Queen Victoria over a century ago, and employing an analogy that points to the one model holding convincing promise for the organization of a planetary society, Bahá'u'lláh compared the world to the human body. There is, indeed, no other model in phenomenal existence to which we can reasonably look. Human society is composed not of a mass of merely differentiated cells but of associations of individuals, each one of whom is endowed with intelligence and will; nevertheless, the modes of operation that characterize man's biological nature illustrate fundamental principles of existence. Chief among these is that of unity in diversity. Paradoxically, it is precisely the wholeness and complexity of the order constituting the human body -- and the perfect integration into it of the body's cells -- that permit the full realization of the distinctive capacities inherent in each of these component elements. No cell lives apart from the body, whether in contributing to its functioning or in deriving its share from the well-being of the whole. The physical well-being thus achieved finds its purpose in making possible the expression of human consciousness; that is to say, the purpose of biological development transcends the mere existence of the body and its parts.

What is true of the life of the individual has its parallels in human society. The human species is an organic whole, the leading edge of the evolutionary process. That human consciousness necessarily operates through an infinite diversity of individual minds and motivations detracts in no way from its essential unity. Indeed, it is precisely an inhering diversity that distinguishes unity from homogeneity or uniformity. What the peoples of the world are today experiencing, Bahá'u'lláh said, is their collective coming-of-age, and it is through this emerging maturity of the race that the principle of unity in diversity will find full expression. From its earliest beginnings in the consolidation of family life, the process of social organization has successively moved from the simple structures of clan and tribe, through multitudinous forms of urban society, to the eventual emergence of the nation-state, each stage opening up a wealth of new opportunities for the exercise of human capacity.

Clearly, the advancement of the race has not occurred at the expense of human individuality. As social organization has increased, the scope for the expression of the capacities latent in each human being has correspondingly expanded. Because the relationship between the individual and society is a reciprocal one, the transformation now required must occur simultaneously within human consciousness and the structure of social institutions. It is in the opportunities afforded by this twofold process of change that a strategy of global development will find its purpose. At this crucial stage of history, that purpose must be to establish enduring foundations on which planetary civilization can gradually take shape.

Laying the groundwork for global civilization calls for the creation of laws and institutions that are universal in both character and authority. The effort can begin only when the concept of the oneness of humanity has been wholeheartedly embraced by those in whose hands the responsibility for decision making rests, and when the related principles are propagated through both educational systems and the media of mass communication. Once this threshold is crossed, a process will have been set in motion through which the peoples of the world can be drawn into the task of formulating common goals and committing themselves to their attainment. Only so fundamental a reorientation can protect them, too, from the age-old demons of ethnic and religious strife. Only through the dawning consciousness that they constitute a single people will the inhabitants of the planet be enabled to turn away from the patterns of conflict that have dominated social organization in the past and begin to learn the ways of collaboration and conciliation. "The well-being of mankind," Bahá'u'lláh writes, "its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.""

(Baha'i International Community, 1995 Mar 03, The Prosperity of Humankind)



Yet another loooong post at this break of dawn; more mental food for break-fast, heheh... until next post!