THE RIGHTS OF MINORITIES 233

with regard to changing economic and social structures. Perhaps we will learn to see all this as one process of growth and development, where all humanity can benefit, if we can find the ways to share the cost equitably.

Today there is no alternative to living responsibly in one world.

THE RIGHTS OF MINORITIES

bY

MAX WARREN

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as adopted and pro- claimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948, had as the background to its idealism the horrors of totalitarian tyrannies. Understandably the accent was laid on the need to assure for the individual certain basic decencies of living as well as rights without which a truly human life is almost impossible.

Totalitarianism, however, presents mankind with another threat to which, in the main so far much less attention has been paid. The ethos of totalitarianism tends towards an insistence on uniformity. It is impatient of variety. In one place “a hundred flowers” will wither : in another cultural idiosyncracies will be viewed askance, their protagonists disciplined : in yet another religious activities other than those of the prevailing majority will scarcely be tolerated. Such is the nature of totalitarianism.

Human nature, however, thrives best on variety. Men by nature and endowment do not all feel alike, think alike and act alike. The hard- won fruits of civilization consist in no small measure in civilized man’s capacity to enjoy the differences which distinguish him from other men and other men from him. Here lies the inner core of human resistance to the tyranny of uniformity.

Historically, however, it would appear that individual protest becomes effective only when it appears as the protest of some coherent group. An individual can be liquidated fairly easily. A group conviction shared by a significant number of people creates a minority opinion. Now if

234 THE ECUMENICAL REVIEW

variety is the spice of life then minorities have something to contribute to the mental and spiritual life of mankind. But it is precisely minorities which face the most serious discrimination for their very existence is a threat to the smooth working of the omni-competent modern State, which even in the most liberal countries constitutes by its own innate tendencies a form of “creeping” totalitarianism. No country in the world is immune from this tendency, for no country can evade the com- plexities involved in the interlocking pattern of our world-community in which economics and education, health and the population explosion combine to set a premium upon centralized planning and over-all control. The crude totalitarianisms of Fascism and Communism are perversions of an inescapable development. But the development can be saved from perversions if there is perpetual vigilance to preserve not only the basic human rights of the individual but also the proper freedom of minorities which are non-conformist to the general pattern.

This is an area in which from the very start the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs has been active , notably in Spain and Colombia. The threat to the genuine freedom of minorities is literally world-wide and calls for the specialized attention that the CCIA is uniquely qualified to provide. This is not least the case because of its deservedly high reputation in the lobbies of the United Nations. For minorities are not always wise in pressing their claims. The Commission may well have as important a role in advising minorities about their duties as exercising pressure on governments to respect their rights.

Meanwhile the minorities themselves are so varied in character as to defy classification. Only their minority character serves to link together such disparate groups as the Asian in East Africa, the Koreans in Japan, the Protestants in Spain and the immigrant communities in Britain. A Commission hoping to grapple with such problems must surely be allowed a maximum of flexibility if it is to operate successfully. Still more impor- tant as a ground for the maintenance of the Commission’s present considerable measure of autonomy is that it shall be seen to be a body which can intervene where the grievances of a minority, when based on colour prejudice, may well constitute a presumptive cause of civil war and even trigger off a world-codict. Such is the possibility presented by the Negro in the United States today and possibly the white minority in Rhodesia “the day after next.” Nor when the issue of race is under consideration can the problem of a ruling minority as in South Africa be held to lie outside the Commission’s mnge of concerns.

OUTLINE FOR A NEW ETHIC OF WAR 23 5

Until the United Nations has sponsored a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Minorities as detailed and comprehensive as the Decla- ration of December 10, 1948 the Commission of the Churches on Inter- national AEairs will have work to do.

OUTLINE FOR A NEW ETHIC OF WAR

by

ERWIN WILKENS

One of the fundamental conditions for the age of science and tech- nology is the ensuring of world peace. The question of man’s chance of survival is not prompted by some irrational existential fear ; it springs from a sober analysis of the present international situation. The Christian Church cannot evade the urgent duty of rendering service to the world of today and of examining the theological foundations for so doing; in both these undertakings it must practise the widest possible ecumenical cooperation.

The ensuring of world peace presents the people of the world with a tremendously complicated political task. When we speak of peace we must qualify the term. Peace is not synonymous with the absence of war. Peace is organised order of the highest positive quality.. Liberty and justice are its indispensable hallmarks. Hitherto the preservation of these and other precious possessions has been bound up (in the poli- tical thinking of the nations) with willingness to defend them and to restore them, if necessary by resorting to war. The disappearance of war as a political corrective, to be used in the last resort, must be regarded as a turning-point as revolutionary as the discoveries of Copernicus were at that time. The import of this revolution has as yet scarcely penetrated the consciousness of the nations, whose thinking and power- structures still conform to the old patterns of the closed society.

By accepting the time-honoured tenet of “the just war,” the Christian tradition has tried to condone war as an ethically-definable factor. Faced by the question of war, Christians had to seek the Christian way of life in this sinful world, neither withdrawing from the world nor