End of nations benefits humanity

Had I not been denied the opportunity to study in the Netherlands because of the information in my credit file, things may have been quite different. Aside from possibly getting blazed out of my skull with an intensity that would make your 420 look like a mere spark, I would have seriously considered becoming a Dutch citizen. I'm already an ex—patriot, why not become an expatriate?

The problem with my doing such a thing is that I would just be trading one nation for another. Though I would certainly consider it to be a trade up, I would be missing the whole point of my own anti—nationalist rhetoric. I wouldn't be bucking against the system. Rather, I would be finding a way of perpetuating the game that would be more suitable to my tastes. For even in moving to the Netherlands I would never truly become the citizen of the world that I so desire to be. The only way that this could indeed happen is with the attenuation and subsequent death of nations.

Many of the arguments about the existence and perpetuation of nations can turn in upon themselves. One such argument claims that the world is populated with people of all sorts of races, religions and political bents, and thus nations must exist. This position collapses, particularly if one lives in a country like America. Despite its diversity, there is really little likelihood that squabbles between states or people within the US will set off a mutually assured destruction of all of the people in the world via (for example) a nuclear holocaust.

Another argument is that without nations to defend these differing ideologies there would be widespread anarchy. If one actually studies anarchy theory, it is in fact an understanding of radical self—governance and — in theory — is not necessarily a bad thing. Yet more often than not, anarchy is associated, and sometimes justly so, with unfettered violence and death. If this is what one means when they are concerned about possible global anarchy, I assure you that it has been around for quite some time. It is inherent to the very nature of nations.

The greater problem of nations is that with their existence, the very concept of human rights is a joke. Most societies deem that killing someone, let alone killing a person for being of the "wrong" color, religious affiliation, etc., is unacceptable. When such an atrocity occurs, there is punishment in some form. However, if you happen to be born in the wrong nation at the wrong time — such as in Iraq during the past 10 years — then you can be killed with impunity.

It would seem the formation of the United Nations would serve to reign in the possibility of such violence. Yet though the nations of the world might be united in name, they are most certainly not in action as the UN suffers from the problem of competing executives. Paralleling the UN to the three branches of the American government, this becomes clearer. The global legislative branch can be found in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. Though the General Assembly often acts in a manner in line with the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, its efforts amount to little more than a colossal spilling of ink. The overarching power of the Security Council has to do with this in part, but the ineffectiveness of the General Assembly can be traced to another source. The global judicial branch can be found in organs such as the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. Here, human rights violators from around the world are tried and convicted for their crimes. Yet again the judiciary is not used as it should be. For if it were really a tool of justice for all instead of that of the mighty, virtually every American president and secretary of state from World War II on would be held accountable for their actions.

The problems of the global legislature and judiciary can be traced to the absence of any real global executive. With nations comes the problem of the competing executives, where he who has the biggest guns decides if and/or when global edicts such as those issued by the General Assembly are to be followed. In fact, if a nation possesses enough military might, it won't even concern itself with the opinions of the UN at all. The United States did this last year when it utilized the outmoded cold war relic that is NATO to circumvent the inevitable veto of its actions in the former Yugoslavia by the Security Council. Purportedly this was done to hedge the tide of a genocidal regime. Yet where was the United States when the slaughter in Rwanda occurred? The Hutu didn't offer the Tutsis the option of being expelled. Rather, they felled hundreds of thousands of human beings with machetes in the course of a few months. Without adequate manpower to secure the region, the world sat by as the rivers in the area began to swim with the bodies of the dead.

With the reduction of the role of nations and their submission to an overarching executive power that is truly at the behest of the UN, such crimes against humanity can not only be dealt with as they happen, but can also be prevented. Though nations in name can still exist, there is fast approaching a time when they need to ride off into the sunset of human history. Nations must die for humans to live. For the death of nations is the birth of the world proper.

This has been my sometimes less than humble opinion.

Stonegarden Grindlife is a senior in the School of Liberal Arts.

End of nations benefits humanity

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