Civilizations do not clash over cultures; only States clash over territories and resources. History never came to an end and never will, only the regimes, oblivious of their outmoded paradigms come to end. Romans did not realize that equality of all human beings in the eye of one God was the new creed of the time and lost to the Christians. Muslims failed to notice that state power now resided in development of technology and new weaponry and thus went into decline. Likewise, if the present superpower continues to be blind to the foremost issues of the present day world, it will come to grief.

The over riding issues predicate international justice to lessen the pains of nations who have been rendered defenseless and are subjected to inequities, and the safety of global environment which may die off if not protected from the heedless commercial abuse. The process of inflicting remote-controlled weapons on people who cannot retaliate, declaring freedom struggles to be a crime and unleashing surrogate agents against the weaker states for selfish motives cannot go on forever. People of the world would find ways to rise against tyranny as they always have in the past.

Disregarding the ugly alternatives, hopefully information can prove to be the weapon of peace. Information Technology is already working as a catalyst to bring together the people of the world in awareness about facts that at one time could be hidden and distorted by the media, influenced by the state and military-industry complex.

IT has established new linkages between one set of problems and the other, turning the whole world into one integrated network. The deteriorating global environment is linked to extreme poverty on the one hand and a high degree of affluence on the other. The exploding population in the tropics gets poorer as it keeps destroying the rain forests to make a living. The political oppression in distant lands that enrages the youth, the diseases that fester amongst the poor, and the opium farmers that must produce to buy food, eventually come calling at the doors of the rich in the form of terrorism, AIDS and drug packets.

People of the world are now interacting with each other and asking "Is not elimination of poverty now, a necessity rather than charity for saving the world? Will it not be cheaper to nip the diseases in the bud rather than wait till they reach epidemic scales and devour billions of dollars? Why not divert a part of the budget of Drug Enforcement Agencies to educate and help the farmers earn a better living with other crops or taking up other professions? Will not a small part of trillions of dollars spent on crushing dissent in pursuit of national interest; remove the very causes of dissent and ÔterrorismÕ? What is the cost-benefit ratio of covert intervention in the affairs of the underdeveloped nations? Will it not be eventually more profitable to allow them to develop themselves? "


In a multilateral world America cannot afford to maintain a unilateral policy like opposing: the establishment of an International Criminal Court of Justice, Kyoto conference on climate change or the World Conference against racism. As the Internet grows numerous web sites are reaching out to the conscientious citizens of the world with facts, where there are undeniable indications that a new global consciousness is developing which will be a force to reckon with. The human concern is breaking through the national borders and carving out new virtual territories on the map of universal morality. It is evolving new centers of opinion-power in the domains of environments, human rights, economic tyranny and weapon trade, which monitor, censure and expose the mindless onslaught of the conventional politics against humanity. This emerging universal morality is nameless, but will soon organize as a global community of their own, like Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others, to awaken the conscience of the world.

We, the people of the world, have to join hands against the oppressors of the world. We must serve each other with truth and goodwill and struggle for the same justice amongst the nations that is expected for people within a nation. We have to make sure that our Governments establish and open up to the global network of information and look after the global interests of humanity as well as our local concerns.