Beyond the west
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1235230,00.html
The free world has global responsibilities - and the most important is
to end the poverty that blights millions of lives
Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday June 10, 2004
The Guardian
In today's world, more people are more free than ever before. Our
possibilities of helping the others out of unfreedom are also larger
than ever. But what are the basic terms of engagement that we, in the
west, propose to the rest of the world? At the moment, there are two
extreme positions, the western triumphalist fundamentalist and the
western cultural relativist. The first is well captured in the opening
of the Bush administration's 2002 national security strategy. "The
great struggles of the 20th century between liberty and
totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of
freedom," it begins, with perfect accuracy, but then goes on "and a
single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy and
free enterprise." A single sustainable model? What titanic hubris.
Timothy Garton Ash
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