By Park Tae-woo
We appear to be witnessing a fourth wave in a world transforming to full democratization as it flees from oppressive, dictatorial and undemocratic practices.
It is astounding to watch the gradual collapse of oppressive regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other Middle East and North African nations in which the people's aspirations for freedom are becoming more intense.
Is it impossible for us to have a world full of peace in which everyone in the world will be guaranteed full rights and a peaceful life? This is never an easy question to answer.
As an international political scientist, I have elaborated much on peace studies thinking on how to secure this kind of world, albeit, gradually. Peace studies is a field that came into being after World War II, largely due to the failure of a range of social and internationalist movements to prevent the outbreak of two world wars within 25 years.
Entering the 1990s, peace and security concerns began to focus more on major issues such as the North-South wealth divide, poverty issues and global environmental pollution. Conflict resolution and post-conflict peace building have been dominant issues in critical security and peace studies areas. Potential areas for conflict also include “energy wars” and ethnic cleansing.
When we look at the popular uprisings in Northern Africa and the Middle East, we have to think about conflict resolution in ways to guarantee and protect people's basic political and civil rights. Three recent areas of interest on this issue usually center on conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peace-keeping.
Along with a combination of socioeconomic divisions and environmental constraints, the human security dimension covers a wide range of issues in a much more comprehensive way, as we have come to recognize ― looking at the recent people's uprisings in the Middle East ― how the Arabs gained momentum of courage for more liberty.
Political philosophers and scientists, to date, have gone through multidimensional, ontological efforts to call for a comprehensive rethinking of the concept of security, incorporating unprecedented cooperation for sustainable world peace for all individuals, regardless of group or nation, and also for economic development and environmental management.
We political scientists have a deeper imperative to understand the interconnected problems of the world’s politics, economies and ethnic issues, and their relationship to comprehensive security. We have to develop acceptable and more active peace regimes for world peace, not only to tackle those issues in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, but also to tackle security linkages in theory and practice.
Looking into the issue of Libya, we all have the responsibility to protect people's basic human and political rights in the name of the United Nations or other accepted models of peace regimens.
At this critical juncture, the U.N. must act in its prescribed role, not hide behind lofty principles. Unfortunately, however, we all agree that its capacity and role is too limited and constrained, even as we watch the recent resolution in response to Moammar Gadhafi's continued assaults on civilians in Libya. It is of little relief that the U.N. Security Council adopted this unanimous and historic resolution in an unusual session.
We must not overlook the importance of the enhanced role of peace regimes with a more reconciled and strengthened responsibility to protect people, based upon a more extended concept of comprehensive human security.
In this context, the situation in Libya is a test case to search for the potential to either reform or transform the function of the U.N. or to look for ways to build more peaceful and powerful peace regimes.
Dr. Park Tae-woo lectures on international politics and major international issues in Korea University and Kyung Hee University in Seoul. He also serves as an honorary consul of East Timor in Korea and as the president for the Institute for Blue Politics and Economy. He could be reached at t517@naver.com.