A MUCH LARGER SCHENGEN

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/03/15/much-larger-schengen/

• The world-state is still far away

It may be a joke that the US President Donald Trump imagines Schengen to be a place ‘somewhere out there in China’, but he may well do so, given the rest of his misconceptions, even worse than the idea that we have been ruled by Turks for 600 years. Yet, the idea of Schengen, although it may be restricted at present to an area comprised of just 26 European states with no border or visa controls like one big state, and even though the ‘one big state’ is only for the purpose of international travel: you get a Schengen visa and you can visit any of those26 states– that idea makes you stop and think. Would something like that, even more than that, on a much larger scale, be possible? Like a much larger, much more powerful Schengen;

Civilisation after all seems to have been moving from a scattering of individuals towards a conglomeration of individuals into a single unit, the unit getting larger and larger until who knows, unlikely as it seems at present, one day Dante’s dream of world government may come true. Even ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian Kings dreamt of ruling ‘all that the sun encircles.’ Somewhat flawed as to the science if encircle means to travel around, but the idea was out there.

Those scattered groups of humans went on to form tribes, which still exist today, although today they are part of one State or another. Before that it was after hundreds of years of living as independent tribes that Sumer came into being around 4500 BC, and what might have been the first ever city, Uruk. Uruk had some 50,000 to 80,000 citizens living in approximately a 2.5 sq mile area surrounded by walls. The region in was what is now Iraq, east of the Euphrates River. There were no countries at that point.

Not many people know much about San Marino or even of its existence today, but that was the first country as we know it, and it came into existence a few thousand years after Sumer in 301 BC. Its constitution, which was written in 1600 AD, is one of the oldest in the world. Today it is one of the world’s smallest countries, a tiny mountainous area entirely surrounded by Italy. But from a single country the world went on to many, and then groups of several nations banded together for various reasons, for example the African Union (AU), the Commonwealth of Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and others, with the European Union as the most recognized, with its open borders, single currency, and unified economic policy.

When the League of Nations came into being after the First World War it was unable to prevent the Second World War. Around then came Communism at its peak, and the United Nations which came into being after the Second World War with its most important feature, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UN’s members consist of almost all the recognized countries of the world, that is 196 out of 199. But it seems unlikely that even the United Nations as it exists today will be able to prevent a third world war if it comes to the point. The United Nations must widen its remit.

Several persons including Gandhi, Bertrand Russell and Einstein were keen to allow the UN to grow towards becoming a world federal government, but for now it is still restricted to aiming for international justice, peace and security, fostering economic cooperation, education, and providing a meeting point for the nations of the world.

The idea of a single entity is now more than appealing. It appears almost inevitable with the means of transport we now possess, and the communications technology at our fingertips which is almost impossible to control. In fact communications and viruses have been thumbing their noses at authorities today, crossing borders with impunity despite controls, respecting neither regulations nor differences. The list is likely to grow.

After Dante, many people have advocated world government. Kant, Ulysses Grant, and even Lord Tennyson, who said: “…in the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold, a fretful realm in awe. And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law.”

There was also William Gladstone, Friedrich Nietzsche, and then later Bahaullah, the founder of the Baha’i faith. Bahaullah apparently ‘envisioned a set of new social structures based on participation and consultation among the world’s people, including a world legislature, an international court, and an international executive empowered to carry out the decisions of these bodies.

Bahai’s great grandson described Bahai’s vision of a world state as per the Bahai faith as ‘the world’s future super-state’ with the Bahai faith as the ‘state religion of an independent and sovereign power.’

And this is where the problem comes in.

Of the factors that would prevent a world state, two of the most major are likely to be racial and religious constraints.

Unless the major religions can be brought to sit at the same table without each trying to eliminate the other, unless governments that build walls against other nations can be taught to build bridges instead there can be no such thing as a single unified independent and sovereign force that includes all the people of the world. And till that happens, war is likely to be the method of choice in resolving disputes.

People can be taught racial non-discrimination, but can they be persuaded to leave religion out of matters of State?