A Snarling World
pp. 73-75 · Read in the full issue
A Quick look At A Snarling World
International Relations, As Seen By R. W. Robson, in Europe
As seen and heard from this vantage-point in the centre of Western Europe, world con ditions today are ugly and
alarming.
FEAR of what the atom-bomb may do to humanity may prevent another world war; but a com bination of circumstances over population, Communist intrigues against old-style Western systems, the rising tide of African and Asian nationalism, the bumbling incom petency of United States diplomats in relation to international affairs, the unpredictableness of this vast, new Red China —seems to make peace and progress in human affairs simply impossible.
Wherever one goes, one senses a vast uneasiness. People are produc ing and training children, in In creasing numbers; but they seem everywhere to have a decreasing faith in the kind of world the com ing generations are to enter.
Beatnik types, individually and in gangs, wander unashamed in all the great cities. Their behaviour, like their clothes, express a spirit of don’t-care-a-damn —let us live only for the day. Any one, reading the world’s newspapers, watching the world’s so-called leaders assembling for their ceaseless, useless confer ences, listening to the world’s radio screeching, can scarcely blame the beatniks.
No Spanish Politics
I resided briefly in the South of Spain. Every morning, I saw Ameri can jet-fighters from a base near Cadiz, screaming back and forth along the coastline, watched silently by the Spanish townsfolk (who have learned, the hard way, never to express a political opinion).
Clearly, the Americans are taking over in Spain.
Every evening I listened to an English broadcast from Rabat (across the Strait, in Morocco) and learned much of the immeasurable fermentations going on throughout the Arab nations, from Northwest Africa right across to the Persian Gulf. I heard Cairo’s bitter threats against Israel.
They are shadow-sparring again in Cyprus. I was close alongside when de Gaulle clamped on the iron hand in Algeria, and savagely suppressed a minor revolution. My radio here tells me of nasty anti-British moves
tthe British West African colonies, Lich are not reported in any estern newspapers.
Today, British and French news :pers are screaming at Germany cause Germany is seeking military ses in Spain—seeking elbow-room • the inevitable day when the mton will lock horns with the onstrous Red Slav power created his eastern frontiers in 1945-6 the tragic errors of American :;atesmen”. They say that Ger jiny, for the third time in living smory, is building herself up into mighty military striking-force. :obably, they are quite right.
Chicken A La American How the chickens come home to mst!
In 1918, at President Woodrow ilson’s insistence, the League of j-tions was formed. After that, nerica refused to join the League Nations. The League virtually coi ned within eight years, and per tted the birth of the Berlin ')me-Tokio Axis, and World ar 11.
In 1945, the American and British fees smashed Hitler’s armies in estern Germany—and then, in eordance with undertakings given Roosevelt to Stalin, they stood ck and allowed the Russians to ter Berlin and establish the Iron irtain, and call the tune of the )ld War.
Iln 1956, realising that mounting :ian nationalism was opening the lole Middle East to Communist netration, Britain and France oved in to Suez to put a curb upon r. Nasser, now called here “Egypt’s Her”. They could have stopped e rot; but they were forced out ain by a distastrous combination Eisenhower incompetence and
Dulles intransigence. Now it is too late—the Communist emissaries are all through the Middle East and North Africa, and clamping an economic hold upon the Arab and Asian countries.
Khrushchev and Dutch N. Guinea Even as I write this, I have before me a copy of a London news paper, describing the visit of Mr.
Khrushchev to Indonesia. He has “loaned” Indonesia another £B9 millions Stg. (making a total of £132 millions, compared with America’s total loans of £l9O millions). He has made arrangements 1 under which thousands of Russian technicians will go to Indonesia, to help In donesians spend the money. He has assured Indonesia that he will back, to the hilt, Indonesia’s claim to Dutch New Guinea.
Which is bringing this section of the Cold War right to the front door of Australia and the Islands of the South Pacific.
Not long ago, I sat on the top deck of a ship in Balboa, in the Panama Canal, reading Time, of December 7, 1959. There, on page 26, was an account of how the Panamanians were demanding the withdrawal of the Americans from the Canal Zone; and a photograph of a GI defending himself with bared bayonet against a mob of Panama hoodlums, who obviously wanted to exterminate this symbol of American power. I suddenly re alised that, from were I sat, I actu ally could see the spot on the Zone border where that incident occurred, and was photographed.
"Why Not Us?"
An hour later, over in Panama City, I talked about it to a couple of ardent Panamanian patriots.
“If Nasser can take the Suez Canal off the French and British, and show that the Egyptians can run it, we can do the same with the Americans and the Panama Canal,” seemed to be their argu ment.
Truly, the little chickens of the well-meaning, altruistic Americans are coming home to roost.
Perhaps I am too old to see the future clearly.
But here, watching ;nis pande monium created by incompetent statesmanship and irresponsible journalism, I feel that there is no hope for the survival of Western type civilisation unless the Western nations are incomparably armed.
We of the West—especially the English-speaking peoples have given incalculable wealth, in know ledge and money, to the rest of the world; but, if ever they get the chance, the Communist, Arab, African, and Asian countries will tear us down and destroy us. A few weeks here, at the centre of the clamour, with leisure to read and listen, leave no doubt of that.