{"id":3057,"date":"2013-07-13T01:45:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3057"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:45:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:40","slug":"56-the-idea-of-a-league-of-nations-vol-25-the-human-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/25-the-human-cycle\/56-the-idea-of-a-league-of-nations-vol-25-the-human-cycle","title":{"rendered":"-56_The Idea of a League of Nations.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChapter XXIX <\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Idea of a League of Nations<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HE ONLY<\/b> means that readily suggests itself by which a necessary group-freedom can be preserved and yet the
\n unification of the human race achieved, is to strive not
\ntowards a closely organised World-State, but towards a free, elastic and progressive world-union. If this is to be done, we
\nshall have to discourage the almost inevitable tendency which must lead any unification by political, economic and administrative means, in a word, by the force of machinery, to follow the analogy of the evolution of the nation-State. And we shall
\nhave to encourage and revive that force of idealistic nationalism which, before the war, seemed on the point of being crushed on
\nthe one side under the weight of the increasing world-empires of England, Russia, Germany and France, on the other by the
\nprogress of the opposite ideal of internationalism with its large and devastating contempt for the narrow ideas of country and
\nnation and its denunciation of the evils of nationalistic patriotism. But at the same time we shall have to find a cure for the
\nas yet incurable separative sentiments natural to the very idea to which we shall have to give a renewed strength. How is all this
\nto be done? <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn our side in the attempt we have the natural principle of
\ncompensating reactions. The law of action and reaction, valid even in physical Science, is in human action, which must always depend largely on psychological forces, a more constant and pervading truth. That in life to every pressure of active
\nforces there is a tendency of reaction of opposite or variative forces which may
\n\t\t\tnot immediately operate but must eventually come into the field or
\n\t\t\twhich may not act with an equal and entirely compensating force, but
\n\t\t\tmust act with some force of compensation, may be taken as well
\n\t\t\testablished. It is both a philosophical necessity and a constant
\n\t\t\tfact of experience. For  Nature works by a balancing system of
\n\t\t\tthe interplay of opposite forces. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 523<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhen she has insisted for some time on the dominant
\nforce of one tendency as against all others, she seeks to correct its exaggerations by reviving, if dead, or newly awakening, if
\nonly in slumber, or bringing into the field in a new and modified form the tendency that is exactly opposite. After long insistence
\non centralisation, she tries to modify it by at least a subordinated decentralisation. After insisting on more and more uniformity,
\nshe calls again into play the spirit of multiform variation. The result need not be an equipollence of the two tendencies, it may
\nbe any kind of compromise. Or, instead of a compromise it may be in act a fusion and in result a new creation which shall be
\na compound of both principles. We may expect her to apply the same method to the tendencies of unification and groupvariation in dealing with the great mass unit of humanity. At present, the nation is the fulcrum which the latter tendency has
\nbeen using for its workings as against the imperialistic tendency of unifying assimilation. Now the course of Nature’s working
\nin humanity may destroy the nation-unit, as she destroyed the tribe and clan, and develop a quite new principle of grouping;
\nbut also she may preserve it and give it sufficient power of vitality and duration to balance usefully the trend towards too heavy a
\nforce of unification. It is this latter contingency that we have to consider. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe two forces in action before the war were imperialism
\n\t\t\t\u2014 of various colours, the more rigid imperialism of Germany, the
\nmore liberal imperialism of England, \u2014 and nationalism. They were the two sides of one phenomenon, the aggressive or expansive and the defensive aspects of national egoism. But in the trend of imperialism this egoism had some eventual chance
\nof dissolving itself by excessive self-enlargement, as the aggressive tribe disappeared, for example, the Persian tribe, first
\ninto the empire and then into the nationality of the Persian people, or as the city state also disappeared, first into the Roman Empire and then both tribe and city state without hope of revival into the nations which arose by fusion out of the
\nirruption of the German tribes into the declining Latin unity.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t Page \u2013 524<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn the same or a similar way aggressive national imperialism by overspreading the world might end in destroying altogether
\nthe nation-unit as the city state and tribe were destroyed by the aggressive expansion of a few dominant city states and
\ntribes. The force of defensive nationalism has reacted against this tendency, restricted it and constantly thwarted its evolutionary
\naim. But before the war, the separative force of nationalism seemed doomed to impotence and final suppression in face of
\nthe tremendous power with which science, organisation and efficiency had armed the governing States of the large imperial
\naggregates. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll the facts were pointing in one direction. Korea had disappeared into the nascent Japanese empire on the mainland of Asia. Persian nationalism had succumbed and lay suppressed
\nunder a system of spheres of influence which were really a veiled protectorate,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 and all experience shows that the beginning of
\na protectorate is also the beginning of the end of the protected nation; it is a euphemistic name for the first process of chewing
\nprevious to deglutition. Tibet and Siam were so weak and visibly declining that their continued immunity could not be hoped for.
\nChina had only escaped by the jealousies of the world-Powers and by its size which made it an awkward morsel to swallow,
\nlet alone to digest. The partition of all Asia between four or five or at the most six great empires seemed a foregone conclusion which nothing but an unexampled international convulsion could prevent. The European conquest of Northern Africa had
\npractically been completed by the disappearance of Morocco, the confirmed English protectorate over Egypt and the Italian
\nhold on Tripoli. Somaliland was in a preliminary process of slow deglutition; Abyssinia, saved once by Menelik
\n\t\t\tbut now torn by internal discord, was the object of a revived dream
\n\t\t\tof Italian colonial empire. The Boer republics had gone under before
\n\t\t\tthe advancing tide of imperialistic aggression. All the rest of
\n\t\t\tAfrica practically was the private property of three great Powers
\n\t\t\tand two small ones. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 525<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t In Europe, no doubt, there were still a few small independent
\n\t\t\tnations, Balkan and Teutonic, and also two quite unimportant
\n\t\t\tneutralised countries. But the Balkans 
\nwere a constant theatre of uncertainty and disturbance and the rival national egoisms could only have ended, in case of the
\nejection of Turkey from Europe, either by the formation of a young, hungry and ambitious Slav empire under the dominance
\nof Serbia or Bulgaria or by their disappearance into the shadow of Austria and Russia. The Teutonic States were coveted by
\nexpanding Germany and, had that Power been guided by the prudently daring diplomacy of a new Bismarck,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 a not unlikely
\ncontingency, could William II have gone to the grave before letting loose the hounds of war,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 their absorption might well
\nhave been compassed. There remained America where imperialism had not yet arisen, but it was already emerging in the
\nform of Rooseveltian Republicanism, and the interference in Mexico, hesitating as it was, yet pointed to the inevitability of
\na protectorate and a final absorption of the disorderly Central American republics; the union of South America would then
\nhave become a defensive necessity. It was only the stupendous cataclysm of the world war which interfered with the progressive
\nmarch towards the division of the world into less than a dozen great empires. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe war revived with a startling force the idea of free nationality, throwing it up in three forms, each with a stamp of its own.
\nFirst, in opposition to the imperialistic ambitions of Germany in Europe the allied nations, although themselves empires, were
\nobliged to appeal to a qualified ideal of free nationality and pose as its champions and protectors. America, more politically
\nidealistic than Europe, entered the war with a cry for a league of free nations. Finally, the original idealism of the Russian revolution cast into this new creative chaos an entirely new element by the distinct, positive, uncompromising recognition, free from
\nall reserves of diplomacy and self-interest, of the right of every aggregate of men naturally marked off from other aggregates to
\ndecide its own political status and destiny. These three positions were in fact distinct from each other, but each has in effect
\nsome relation to the actually possible future of humanity. The first based itself upon the present conditions and aimed at a
\ncertain practical rearrangement. The second tried to hasten into  
\n\t\t\timmediate practicability a not entirely remote possibility of the
\n\t\t\tfuture. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 526<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe third aimed at bringing into precipitation by the
\nalchemy of revolution \u2014 for what we inappropriately call revolution, is only a rapidly concentrated movement of evolution
\n\t\t\t\u2014
\na yet remote end which in the ordinary course of events could only be realised, if at all, in the far distant future. All of them
\nhave to be considered; for a prospect which only takes into view existing realised forces or apparently realisable possibilities is foredoomed to error. Moreover, the Russian idea by its attempt at self-effectuation, however immediately ineffective,
\nrendered itself an actual force which must be counted among those that may influence the future of the race. A great idea
\nalready striving to enforce itself in the field of practice is a power which cannot be left out of count, nor valued only according to
\nits apparent chances of immediate effectuation at the present hour. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe position taken by England, France and Italy, the Western European section of the Allies, contemplated a political
\nrearrangement of the world, but not any radical change of its existing order. It is true that it announced the principle of free
\nnationalities; but in international politics which is still a play of natural forces and interests and in which ideals are only a comparatively recent development of the human mind, principles can only prevail where and so far as they are consonant with
\ninterests, or where and so far as, being hostile to interests, they are yet assisted by natural forces strong enough to overbear these
\ninterests which oppose them. The pure application of ideals to politics is as yet a revolutionary method of action which can
\nonly be hoped for in exceptional crises; the day when it becomes a rule of life, human nature and life itself will have become a
\nnew phenomenon, something almost superterrestrial and divine. That day is not
\n\t\t\tyet. The Allied Powers in Europe were themselves nations with an
\n\t\t\timperial past and an imperial future; they could not, even if they
\n\t\t\twished, get away by the force of a mere word, a mere idea from that
\n\t\t\tpast and that future. Their first interest, and therefore the first
\n\t\t\tduty of their statesmen, must be to preserve each its own empire,
\n\t\t\tand even, where it can in their view be  legitimately done, to
\n\t\t\tincrease it.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t Page \u2013 528<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe principle of free nationality could only be applied by them in its purity where their own
\nimperial interests were not affected, as against Turkey and the Central Powers, because there the principle was consonant with
\ntheir own interests and could be supported as against German, Austrian or Turkish interests by the natural force of a successful
\nwar which was or could be made to appear morally justified in its results because it was invited by the Powers which had
\nto suffer. It could not be applied in its purity where their own imperial interests were affected, because there it was opposed to
\nexisting forces and there was no sufficient countervailing force by which that opposition could be counteracted. Here, therefore,
\nit must be acted upon in a qualified sense, as a force moderating that of pure imperialism. So applied, it would amount in fact
\nat most to the concession of internal self-government or Home Rule in such proportion, at such a time or by such stages as
\nmight be possible, practicable and expedient for the interests of the empire and of the subject nation so far as they could
\nbe accommodated with one another. It must be understood, in other words, as the common sense of the ordinary man would
\nunderstand it; it could not be and has nowhere been understood in the sense which would be attached to it by the pure idealist
\nof the Russian type who was careless of all but the naked purity of his principle. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat then would be the practical consequences of this qualified principle of free nationality as it would have been possible
\nto apply it after a complete victory of the Allied Powers, its representatives? In America it would have no field of immediate
\napplication. In Africa there are not only no free nations, but with the exception of Egypt and Abyssinia no nations, properly
\nspeaking; for Africa is the one part of the world where the old tribal conditions have still survived and only tribal peoples exist,
\nnot nations in the political sense of the word. Here then a complete victory of the Allies meant the partition of the continent
\nbetween three colonial empires, Italy, France and England, with the continuance of the Belgian, Spanish and Portuguese enclaves
\nand the precarious continuance for a time of the Abyssinian  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t Page \u2013 529<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nkingdom. In Asia it meant the appearance of three or four new nationalities out of the ruins of the Turkish empire; but these
\nby their immaturity would all be foredoomed to remain, for a time at least, under the influence or the protection of one or
\nother of the great Powers. In Europe it implied the diminution of Germany by the loss of Alsace and Poland, the disintegration
\nof the Austrian empire, the reversion of the Adriatic coast to Serbia and Italy, the liberation of the Czech and Polish nations,
\nsome rearrangement in the Balkan Peninsula and the adjacent countries. All this, it is clear, meant a great change in the map of
\nthe world, but no radical transformation. The existing tendency of nationalism would gain some extension by the creation of
\na number of new independent nations; the existing tendency of imperial aggregation would gain a far greater extension by
\nthe expansion of the actual territory, world-wide influence and international responsibilities of the successful empires. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStill, certain very important results could not but be gained which must make in the end for a free world-union. The most
\nimportant of these, the result of the Russian Revolution born out of the war and its battle-cry of free nationality but contingent
\non the success and maintenance of the revolutionary principle, is the disappearance of Russia as an aggressive empire and its
\ntransformation from an imperialistic aggregate into a congeries or a federation of free republics.1 The second is the destruction
\nof the German type of imperialism and the salvation of a number of independent nationalities which lay under its menace.2 The
\nthird is the multiplication of distinct nationalities with a claim to the recognition of their separate existence and legitimate voice
\nin the affairs of the world, which makes for the strengthening of the idea of a free world-union as the ultimate solution of
\ninternational problems. The fourth is the definite recognition by the British nation of the qualified principle of free nationality in
\nthe inevitable reorganisation of the Empire. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t1<\/sup>Not so free in practice under Bolshevik
\n\t\t\trule as in principle; but still the principle is there and capable
\n\t\t\tof development in a freer future. <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t2<\/sup>Unfortunately this result seems destined to disappear by the formidable survival of a \u00a8
\n military Germany under the Fuhrer.
\n  
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013530<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis development took two forms, the recognition of the principle of Home Rule3 in Ireland and India and the recognition of the claim of each constituent nation to a voice, which in the event of Home Rule must mean a free and equal voice, in
\nthe councils of the Empire. Taken together, these things would mean the ultimate conversion from an empire constituted on the
\nold principle of nationalistic imperialism which was represented by the supreme government of one predominant nation, England, into a free and equal commonwealth of nations managing their common affairs through a supple coordination by mutual
\ngoodwill and agreement. In other words, such a development could mean in the end the application within certain limits of
\nprecisely that principle which would underlie the constitution, on the larger scale, of a free world-union. Much work would
\nhave to be done, several extensions made, many counterforces overcome before such a commonwealth could become a realised
\nfact, but that it should have taken shape in the principle and in the germ, constitutes a notable event in world-history. Two
\nquestions remained for the future. What would be the effect of this experiment on the other empires which adhere to the
\nold principle of a dominant centralisation? Probably it would have this effect, if it succeeded, that as they are faced by the
\ngrowth of strong nationalistic movements, they may be led to adopt the same or a similar solution, just as they adopted from
\nEngland with modifications her successful system of Parliamentary government in the affairs of the nation. Secondly, what of
\nthe relations between these empires and the many independent <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t3Now called Dominion Status. Unfortunately, this recognition could not be put into force except after a violent struggle in Ireland and was marred by the partition of the
\ncountry. After a vehement passive resistance in India it came to be recognised there but in a truncated form shifting the full concession to a far future. In Egypt also it was only
\nafter a struggle that freedom was given but subject to a controlling British alliance. Still the nationalistic principle worked in the creation of a free Iraq, the creation of Arab
\nkingdom and Syrian republic, the withdrawal of imperialistic influence from Persia and, above all, in the institution of Dominion Status substituting an internally free and equal
\nposition in a commonwealth of peoples for a dominating Empire. Yet these results, however imperfect, prepared the greater fulfilments which we now see accomplished as
\npart of a new world of free peoples.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013531<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nnon-imperial nations or republics which would exist under the new arrangement of the world? How are they to be preserved
\nfrom fresh attempts to extend the imperial idea, or how is their existence to be correlated in the international comity with the
\nhuge and overshadowing power of the empires? It is here that the American idea of the League of free nations intervened and
\nfound a justification in principle. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUnfortunately, it was always difficult to know what exactly
\nthis idea would mean in practice. The utterances of its original spokesman, President Wilson, were marked by a magnificent
\nnebulous idealism full of inspiring ideas and phrases, but not attended by a clear and specific application. For the idea behind
\nthe head of the President we must look for light to the past history and the traditional temperament of the American people.
\nThe United States were always pacific and non-imperialistic in sentiment and principle, yet with an undertone of nationalistic
\nsusceptibility which threatened recently to take an imperialistic turn and led the nation to make two or three wars ending in
\nconquests whose results it had then to reconcile with its nonimperialistic pacifism. It annexed Mexican Texas by war and
\nthen turned it into a constituent State of the union, swamping it at the same time with American colonists. It conquered
\nCuba from Spain and the Philippines first from Spain and then from the insurgent Filipinos and, not being able to swamp them
\nwith colonists, gave Cuba independence under the American influence and promised the Filipinos a complete independence.
\nAmerican idealism was always governed by a shrewd sense of American interests, and highest among these interests is reckoned the preservation of the American political idea and its constitution, to which all imperialism, foreign or American, has
\nto be regarded as a mortal peril. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs a result and as the result of its inevitable amalgamation with that much more qualified aim of the Allied Powers, a League of Nations was bound to have both an opportunist
\nand an idealistic element. The opportunist element was bound to take in its first form the legalisation of the map and political
\nformation of the world as it emerged from the convulsion of the  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013532<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nwar. Its idealistic side, if supported by the use of the influence of America in the League, could favour the increasing application
\nof the democratic principle in its working and its result might be the final emergence of a United States of the world with
\na democratic Congress of the nations as its governing agency. The legalisation might have the good effect of minimising the
\nchances of war, if a real League of Nations proved practicable and succeeded, \u2014 even under the best conditions by no means
\na foregone conclusion.4 But it would have the bad effect of tending to stereotype a state of things which must be in part
\nartificial, irregular, anomalous and only temporarily useful. Law is necessary for order and stability, but it becomes a conservative
\nand hampering force unless it provides itself with an effective machinery for changing the laws as soon as circumstances and
\nnew needs make that desirable. This can only happen if a true Parliament, Congress or free Council of the nations becomes an
\naccomplished thing. Meanwhile, how is the added force for the conservation of old principles to be counteracted and an evolution assured which will lead to the consummation desired by the democratic American ideal? America’s presence and influence in
\nsuch a League would not be sufficient for that purpose; for it would have at its side other influences interested in preserving
\nthe status quo <\/i>and some interested in developing the imperialist solution. Another force, another influence would be needed.
\nHere the Russian ideal, if truly applied and made a force, could intervene and find its justification. For our purpose, it would be
\nthe most interesting and important of the three anti-imperialistic influences which Nature might throw as elements into her great
\ncrucible to reshape the human earth-mass for a yet unforeseen purpose. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t4<\/sup>The League was eventually formed with America outside it and as an instrument of European diplomacy, which was a bad omen for its future.
\n   <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013532<\/font><\/p>\n

\t<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/font> <\/font> <\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XXIX   The Idea of a League of Nations   THE ONLY means that readily suggests itself by which a necessary group-freedom can be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-25-the-human-cycle","wpcat-58-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}