unskilled. The only way in for the great majority
is to take advantage of international obligations
for countries to accept people in danger of harm
in their own countries – these are the asylum
seekers. Large numbers apply annually to Western
European countries which are unwilling to absorb
them and try to distinguish between those gen-
uinely in danger and those who are not but are
seeking a better life, the so-called economic
migrants. Thousands of tragedies result daily.
Governments find themselves under popular pres-
sure to limit entry though historically immigrants
have benefited the countries they enter once they
have been able to establish themselves. The per-
ception is that they cost the state money and use
resources already inadequate for the indigenous
populations. Often of different race and culture,
they start as strangers who have to assimilate and
it is difficult for many to accept those different to
themselves. The influx of migrants, whether
Mexican in California or Afghans in Britain, is a
major domestic issue. Actually in a global per-
spective the numbers are minuscule.
Even adding illegal immigrants, the eight
wealthy countries between them receive less than
400,000 applications, reject most and, with illegal
immigrants, probably absorb less than half a
million in a population of over 600 million.
Medical advances are able to keep pace with dis-
eases, though remedies are not available every-
where. That lack, too, is slowly improving. Racial
discrimination has not ceased but has lessened
and is recognised for the evil it is.
Has the world become a better place in the
new century? The global response of generosity
to help the victims of the earthquake in the
Indian Ocean, which struck with especially dev-
astating force the Aceh province of Indonesia and
the Tamil region of Sri Lanka on 26 December
2004, showed that on occasions when the world’s
media are fully engaged, common feelings of
humanity break through. The death toll on that
single day reached at least a quarter of a million
and millions more lost everything, perhaps just
one member of a family survived with tens of
thousands of children orphaned. Nature cannot
be tamed, but the death toll of man’s conflicts
exceed many times those of nature and attract less
attention and response from the wealthy nations:
the millions of dead in the civil wars of the
Congo, the millions in the southern Sudan, which
hopefully can make a UN brokered peace reached
in January 2005 work, while in the western
Darfur region more than a million have fled and
tens of thousands have been killed and there is no
end in sight.
There are too many conflicts in Africa, Asia
and the Middle East raging simultaneously for
any one nation, even the most powerful, the US
and allies, to engage simultaneously. The role of
the UN is dependent on the backing of its
members especially the permanent representatives
of the Security Council. The UN has often shown
a readiness to agree on resolutions, to offer peace-
keeping international forces, on occasion to
impose sanctions, to act as mediators, to provide
humanitarian aid, all functions of great value, but
can rarely agree to intervene with military force.
Nations pursue their self-interests above common
global goals unless the global goals are perceived
as in their own interest. Nor can governments set
themselves against the popular will for the more
than a limited time even in more authoritarian
societies. There is no prospect for universal peace,
but the possibility of warfare on a global scale
between the most powerful nations of the world,
which caused such human and material ravages
during the course of the twentieth century, has
receded. Peace is the only option between nuclear
armed Russia, the US, China, and Europe, global
trade a necessity for their mutual prosperity.
Representative government based on the consent
of the people, however, remains far from univer-
sal. Europe is no longer the cauldron from whose
centre global wars have spread, but it is at peace,
bound by treaties requiring respect for human
values and backed by economic union and law.
For peoples in the greater part of the world the
future holds the promise of better times even in
the less developed and poorest regions. But there
is a long way to go before basic human rights are
enjoyed by all and poverty, disease and the mil-
lions of unnecessary deaths they cause no longer
blight the lives of those not fortunate enough to956 GLOBAL CHANGE: FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY