TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/010791/0107999.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.2 KB | 107 lines

                                                                                MEN OF THE YEAR, Page 39

AMERICA ABROAD

Best of Times, Worst of Times


By STROBE TALBOTT


    To hear George Bush tell it, the post-cold war era was off
to a promising start. At a wreath-laying ceremony in Prague's
Wenceslas Square on Nov. 17, he hailed the emergence of an
international "commonwealth" based on the "renaissance" of
freedom. Yet from the same podium on the same day, Vaclav Havel
spoke of dreams unfulfilled, a glorious cause in danger of being
"spoiled," a "political climate sullied by the poison of
demagogy and political, ethnic and racial intolerance." Between
them, the two Presidents captured the good news and the bad
about 1990: for the world as a whole, there was exhilarating
progress toward cooperation and cohesion, but for many nations,
things fell apart and the center could not hold.

    Havel's concern was focused on his own country, where
Slovaks have resumed their ancient feud with Czechs. Throughout
Eastern Europe, hating and fearing the Russians is no longer a
uniting preoccupation; thus many of the peoples of Yugoslavia,
Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria are free to lapse into their old
habit of hating, fearing and sometimes fighting each other.

    Meanwhile, in the Soviet Disunion, the growing nationality
problem within some individual republics makes it unlikely that
they can remain intact if they achieve independence from the
Kremlin.

    There's a word for the force that inflames Slovaks against
Czechs, Serbs against Croats, and Azerbaijanis against
Armenians. It's not politics but tribalism, the same phenomenon
that led to slaughter between the Tutsi and Hutuin Rwanda during
the autumn, and the Zulu and Xhosa in South Africa throughout
the past year.

    A far milder but still worrisome version of that curse
exists even in North America. Separatist passions in Quebec have
raised the possibility that Canada will not make it to the 21st
century in one piece.

    So Havel, in his apprehensive, almost despairing speech in
Wenceslas Square, was speaking for more than just his own corner
of Central Europe. Yet Bush's upbeat assessment of a tumultuous
year was not out of place either. While 1990 witnessed a
resurgence of nationalism in its most divisive, destructive
forms, it also brought a countervailing trend: an increase in
the willingness of many nations to pool energies, resources,
political will, even sovereignty, on behalf of shared objectives
and mutual interests.

    The example that has dominated the headlines, and the one
for which Bush personally deserves the most credit, is the
multilateral response to the gulf crisis. The end of the cold
war has also permitted the United Nations to broker the
settlement of one long-simmering conflict in southern east Asia.
The idea of numerous states joining in a single market is
nowhere as close to becoming reality as in Europe, but other
regions will, over time, almost certainly follow suit. Bush has
contributed to that prospect with his call on June 27 for a
free-trade zone that would embrace the U.S., Canada and all of
Latin America.

    One powerful argument for supranational structures is that
they can help contain the threat of nationalism. Tribal
animosities pose a danger not only to the countries where they
arise but to neighbors as well. Aside from anxieties about his
own quarrelsome countrymen, Havel must be concerned whether the
breakup of Yugoslavia would generate waves of refugees and the
spread of violence across borders. That nightmare explains in
part why he and other East European leaders hope the West
Europeans will expand the geographical scope of their experiment
in economic and political federation.

    The more Croats think of themselves as part of a continental
union with headquarters in Brussels, the less they may nurture
grievances against Belgrade. By the same token, Quebeckers may
be more willing to accept ties to Ottawa if they are part of a
close-knit and prosperous hemispheric community.

    As for the Soviet Union, the world has never before had to
worry about a civil war in a country with almost 30,000 nuclear
weapons. It does now. As it dissolves, the U.S.S.R. seems to be
returning to an almost medieval association of highly autonomous
city-states. Whether that process continues to be relatively
peaceful depends on what happens not just inside the boundaries
of the late, great U.S.S.R. but outside as well. The
industrialized democracies must strengthen and broaden their
existing economic, political and security arrangements and
develop new, more inclusive ones. NATO which is still an
anti-Soviet alliance, must give way to the Conference on
Security and Cooperation in Europe, with the Soviet Union and
its eventual spinoffs as members.

    That way, the future leaders in Moscow, Kiev, Vilnius and
Vladivostok will feel they are participants in, and
beneficiaries of, the renaissance and the commonwealth of which
Bush spoke in Wenceslas Square. The more closely integrated the
international system, the less the disintegration of the Soviet
Union is likely to turn ugly -- and the better the chance that
Bush's hope will prevail over Havel's pessimism.