HEAVY FOG BLOCKS ENGLAND’S VIEW OF THE WORLD

By René Wadlow

In her recent address to the Annual Conference of the Conservative Party, Theresa May, the new British Prime Minister, said in speaking of the world economy and the role of transnational corporations, “If you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.” As a World Citizen, I would say that the reverse is true: If you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of everywhere and so are concerned with the dignity and well-being of each person in the world.

If only the British Prime Minister could remember the words of her fellow Briton Thomas Paine, “The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion” …

Therefore we must be concerned with the well-being of all the English and even their Prime Minister. It is true that the recent vote on leaving the European Union indicated that a heavy fog prevents some English from seeing the Continent. Small towns and rural areas, marginal to world economic currents, voted more heavily to leave the EU while the larger cities, especially(y London, a key player in the world economic system, voted to remain. There have been half-serious propositions that London could join the EU as a “city-State” perhaps to be followed by Geneva for the same reasons.

One can participate in a world-oriented economic system without necessarily feeling that one is a world citizen just as one can walk in the woods without feeling the beauty of Nature or the majesty of the growth of the trees. World citizenship as living in harmony with Nature is a question of values held in the mind and emotions centered in the heart.

Sadiq Khan, the recently-elected Mayor of London, claims that “London is Open”. But if the British capital wants to remain an “open” place, sooner or later it may have to go its own way and leave the UK.

As citizens of the world, our high endeavor is to develop free human beings who are able themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility – these three forces are at the very core of our efforts. Therefore, there is a need to strengthen our inner spiritual life and at the same time to plan in a realistic way the methods we can use to improve the emerging world society.

It is likely that the fog will lift, and people living in England will see that there is land beyond the waters and that we are all bound together with a sense of responsibility for the world but also with joy in our common humanity.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.