26 October 2005
Lori Kurtzman. "Miami U. applauds Gorbachev"
Oxford - The hope, Mikhail Gorbachev said, was that globalization would address the world's major issues. Security. Poverty. The environment.
"No country alone can cope with those problems," he said, but as the theory went, maybe they could handle them together.
But world politics lagged behind rapid world changes. Globalization evolved blindly and without governance. The gap between the have and have-nots grew wider, and some of those who felt left out of the process struck out against it.
What remained was a lot of instability, said the former Soviet president, which led to bigger problems: "The roots of terrorism (are) in this marginalization of the Islamic world, in the humiliation of the people in that world."
Speaking through a translator to a crowd at Miami University's Millett Hall Monday night, the former Soviet leader said the world can still pull together and fix its problems.
But to do so, he said, will require a new world vision, new policies - and new leaders.
"We need new thinking for the new world," he said, noting, "I am still an optimist."
Gorbachev - a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose policies are credited with both helping to end the Cold War, and blamed for playing a part in the collapse of the Soviet Union - came to Miami as part of the Jack R. Anderson Distinguished Lecture Series.
University officials put the crowd estimate at more than 8,000, an audience that greeted him warmly: They gave him standing ovations both after his speech and a brief question-and-answer session. Some left during the speech, though it might have been because they had problems hearing him; Gorbachev and his interpreter spoke simultaneously.
During his 40-minute speech, Gorbachev recounted the history of his political career and suggested that the world needed to return to the more open and globally cooperative climate of the 1980s, around the time he introduced his perestroika (restructuring) program to the Soviet Union. He was critical of the United States for "disregarding the United Nations and the U.N. Security Council" and entering into the war with Iraq.
"This is something that divides the world rather than unites the world," he said, later adding: "You cannot make people happy by using tanks and missiles."
Gorbachev also noted that "a lot that happens in the world today hinges on the vision of the United States," and that the country should not try to dominate the world. Which all comes back to the globalization theory, and cooperation.
"All of us need to work together in addressing the problems of security, in addressing the problems of poverty and the problems of the environment," he said. "No country alone can cope with those problems."
The Enquirer, October 25, 2005
