United approbations

By William R. Jones

My mother always said that if you want someone to conform, then hurt them in the pocketbook. Yes, in our household she controlled the purse strings. That's why we sons and daughters were obedient or compliant to her wishes. Indeed, we accommodated her because we always wanted money for something. Thus, we yielded or compromised to effect agreements with her. Her method brought us quickly into accordance without any other punishment. In recent times, we around the world have been inundated with pocketbook issues, leaving us with little pocket money for small personal expenses, and in some cases, dire necessities.

Now we have seen the same means taken or same procedure followed to achieve an end applied internationally much in the same way, specifically, through imposing sanctions. Coercive economic measures adopted by several nations in concert eventually force a nation violating international law to desist or yield to adjudication.

Personally, I support such actions to bring into line those nations that are aberrant. Unfortunately, such actions will affect injuriously the receiving nation's innocent citizens. Only the citizens of that country can resolve that. They must understand that their government is made and moved by them. They must devise a way to change their leaders and their government. Oftentimes, such efforts come down to a mass revolt against authority, along the lines of a revolution ― or successful, formidable resistance that results in a major change of leadership and government. As Voltaire said, “It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.” So now, as one diplomat stated, “The whole world is learning that treaties, constitutions, ordinances and bonds are good only to the extent that they are made coincident with basic human relationships, which have the approval of that sensitive, quick-acting and dominant power, the public opinion.”

And, it very much appears that the whole world opposes certain governments that impose hardships and other oppressive and worrisome burdens upon their people, exacting unnecessary demands of them. We know “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

A Canadian former Columbia University history professor, who saw the world as a whole and was a dedicated protagonist of a policy of cooperation among nations, stated, “No international Eighteenth Amendment will get rid of war or the instruments of war until civilization finds a way for accomplishing what war has done in the past. Simply to prohibit war is not going to get rid of it. Wars must be anticipated and the causes got rid of by a readiness to accept peaceful means of settlement.”

Let us be as endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful as possible when attempting to resolve problems in the world. Let us realize that often power is nothing more than a pageant, and it, too, shall pass. The novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, wrote, “Everyone is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything.” And, a final notable quote by author Leon Uris: “To me a writer is one of the most important soldiers in the fight for the survival of the human race. He must stay at his post in the thick of fire to serve the cause of mankind.”

The author (wrjones@vsu.edu) published the novella, "Beyond Harvard," and presently teaches English as a second language.