Tensions and conflicts in the third World

Abstract

In no other time in history -living as we do in the atomic age -have the problems of humanity been so severe in their causes and in their consequences. Inequality has become for us the most outstanding institutional form of conflict among nations and peoples. In 1975, in this world of crisis, three out of every four human beings belongedto the Third World. In the year 2000, which is our immediate borderline in the challenge for survival, approximately five out of every six human beings that is, 80 per cent of the total world population will be living in the peripheral regions. ' None of these figures are new to you. I offer them here only to point out an aspect of which we often lose sight; that within the next nineteen years, the US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand will represent only 13 per cent of the world's population while the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, on the other hand, will make up a mere 7 per cent. Above and beyond possible and foreseeable changes that might take place in these two regions the East and the West it seems impossible to speculate regarding peace and development without there being an adequate solution to the dilemmas of the South. In a few words: although the East-West contradiction could lead to a nuclear war and the general destruction of civilisation, on the other hand a fruitful dialogue between the North and South could mean a stage of reconstruction as well as bringing about the most important change that mankind has witnessed in recent centuries. That is, the creation of a New International Economic Order, the only logical outcome of the North-South dialogue. The only alternative is a yearly get-together for rhetorical discourse, a dialogue of the deaf. The contemporary world's greatest challenge lies ultimately in the discovery of a formula to integrate science and technology into the struggle against misery, poverty and the misuse of economic and military power. This can take place, it is not a Third World utopian dream, for the world possesses the outstanding and significant human resources and a great reserve of human wisdom. We have more educated people living today than during the whole of human history. Are we to