Change in way of change

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34128, 14 April 1976, Page 22

Change in way of change

Co-operation and assistance on a world-wide [scale would be possible in the future because people at large were nowbringing about change which used to be left to poliical leaders, said a [visiting authority on international affairs in Christchurch yesterday.

The 1976 John F. Kennedv Memorial fellow visiting New Zealand (Mr Harlan Cleveland) said there had. been many changes in the. way people thought recently.! This had been led by people i at large with the political' leaders going to the head of. the parade once it was! under wav. Mr Cleveland is a former i United States Assistant Sec- 1

retary of State for international organisational affairs under President Kennedy, and a former United States ambassador to N.A.T.O. People’s minds had been changed over environmental issues, population, family planning, the status of women and consumerism; all these changes had been led by people at large. Mr Cleveland said the world was about to start in a new kind of relationship between rich and poor countries, which he called “a new international economic order.” Within 30 years, he said, there would be a world standard for basic human needs — a minimum entitlement for every human being. This radical change in

- consideration for other people was possible because of the change in the way change now came about — through the people a' large. World peace required a flight of the imagination but it was quite within the capacity of the human animal, Mr Cleveland said. When the United States withdrew from the Vietnam war it was the first time in history that a war had been deliberately lost without using the weapons at hand. Mr Cleveland said he was confident people would begin to think more beyond their immediate needs and to the needs of others. He quoted the environmentalist lobby as one recent example where people had been thinking more of other people and future generations than themselves.

His new world order) would have a monetary system which was truly international, Mr Cleveland said. It would cover food, commodities, the regulation of multinational corporations and the shift in industrial geography. There would not be such a thing as a world government: no one would be thoroughly in charge and everyone would be partly in charge, he said. In this new order New Zealand had a I unique role to play in bridging the different societies. I New Zealand could empathise with developed as well as developing countries though Mr Cleveland said he did not see any evidence of New Zealand playing that > role yet,