Internationalism

Internationalism is a political principle that advocates greater political or economic cooperation among states and nations. It is associated with other political movements and ideologies, but can also reflect a doctrine, belief system, or movement in itself. Supporters of internationalism are known as internationalists and generally believe that humans should unite across national, political, cultural, racial, or class boundaries to advance their common interests, or that governments should cooperate because their mutual long-term interests are of greater importance than their short-term disputes.

• In world affairs, I am an optimist. Despite attention-grabbing headlines about the latest shocking incidents, and worrisome developments resulting from the fact that nationalism is still trumping internationalism, I believe that overall the people being born today, in whatever countries and circumstances, have a better chance than ever before of living worthwhile lives.... And, in the meantime, as inhabitants of this small planet, perhaps with most of our worst times behind us, I'm confident that we can, in general, find much to be thankful for.
  • Ashleigh Brilliant, From his Brilliant News email messages to subscribers, Tuesday, November 21 2017

• It is the fundamental duty of the citizen to resist and to restrain the violence of the state. Those who choose to disregard this responsibility can justly be accused of complicity in war crimes, which is itself designated as ‘a crime under international law’ in the principles of the Charter of Nuremberg.
  • Noam Chomsky, in John Duffett International War Crimes Tribunal: Against the Crime of Silence: Proceedings. Simon and Schuster, 1970. p. xxiv; Republished at Foreword in chomsky.info, accessed May 23, 2014.

• Cuba has probably been the target of more international terrorism than the rest of the world combined and, therefore, in the American ideological system it is regarded as the source of international terrorism, exactly as Orwell would have predicted.
  • Noam Chomsky, Talk titled "American Foreign Policy" at Harvard University, March 19, 1985; Republished at chomsky.info/talks, accessed May 23, 2014.

• there are other alternatives. For example, the alternatives that are favored by the overwhelming majority of the population of the United States. I mentioned one piece of it: let the UN function. The UN isn't perfect, a lot of things wrong with it, just like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights isn't perfect... But one step would be to pay some respect to the "decent opinion of mankind", to quote the famous author, and let international institutions function so as to reduce the likelihood that anybody will use force...
  • Noam Chomsky, Talk titled "The Idea of Universality in Linguistics and Human Rights" at MIT, March 15, 2005 [1]

• The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term "globalization" to refer to the specific version of international economic integration that they favor, which privileges the rights of investors and lenders, those of people being incidental. In accord with this usage, those who favor a different form of international integration, which privileges the rights of human beings, become "anti-globalist." This is simply vulgar propaganda, like the term "anti-Soviet" used by the most disgusting commissars to refer to dissidents. It is not only vulgar, but idiotic. Take the World Social Forum, called "anti-globalization" in the propaganda system -- which happens to include the media, the educated classes, etc., with rare exceptions. The WSF is a paradigm example of globalization. It is a gathering of huge numbers of people from all over the world, from just about every corner of life one can think of, apart from the extremely narrow, highly privileged elites who meet at the competing World Economic Forum, and are called "pro-globalization" by the propaganda system. An observer watching this farce from Mars would collapse in hysterical laughter at the antics of the educated classes.
  • Noam Chomsky, Interview by Sniježana Matejčić, June 2005 [2].

• The United States is the most powerful technically advanced country in the world to-day. Its influence on the shaping of international relations is absolutely incalculable. But America is a large country and its people have so far not shown much interest in great international problems, among which the problem of disarmament occupies first place today. This must be changed, if only in the essential interests of the Americans. The last war has shown that there are no longer any barriers between the continents and that the destinies of all countries are closely interwoven. The people of this country must realize that they have a great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The part of passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end to lead to disaster all round.
  • Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the U.S.A." (1921)

• Science is international but its success is based on institutions, which are owned by nations. If therefore, we wish to promote culture we have to combine and to organize institutions with our own power and means.
  • Albert Einstein, Letter "Einstein in Singapore." Manchester Guardian, October 12, 1929

• Many persons have inquired concerning a recent message of mine that "a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels." Often in evolutionary processes a species must adapt to new conditions in order to survive. Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we knew it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking. In the light of new knowledge, a world authority and an eventual world state are not just desirable in the name of brotherhood, they are necessary for survival. In previous ages a nation's life and culture could be protected to some extent by the growth of armies in national competition. Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. This must be the central fact in all our considerations of international affairs; otherwise we face certain disaster. Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars.
  • Albert Einstein, The Real Problem Is in the Hearts of Men, The New York Times Magazine (June 23, 1946)

• The highest instrument of inner awakening of race is combat, and war is its highest expression. That pacifism and humanitarianism are phenomena closely linked to internationalism, democracy, cosmopolitanism and liberalism is perfectly logical – the same anti-racial instinct present in some, is reflected and confirmed in the others. The will towards sub-racial levelling inborn in internationalism finds its ally in pacifist humanitarianism, which has the function of preventing the heroic test from disrupting the game by galvanising the surviving forces of any still not completely deracinated peoples.
  • Julius Evola, Metaphysics of War [2007], p. 67

• Our country is the world — our countrymen are all mankind.
  • William Lloyd Garrison, Motto of The Liberator (1831)

• Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkably subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations— he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction.
  • Christopher Hitchens, For the Sake of Argument ("The 'We' Fallacy"), February 1988.

• The Great Error of the Century (i.e., to consider nationalism a Rightist idea) was largely due to the resentment against the destructive idea of Internationalism, prone to trample down every tradition, everything organically grown, eager to transform the world into a dull, uniform place without romantic variations, where everybody between Hammerfest and Capetown would wear long pants, inflammable celluloid collars and speak Esperanto.
  • Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Menace of the Herd (1943), p. 195

• The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
  WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
  • Karl Marx, conclusion of The Communist Manifesto

• If the emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfill that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices, and squandering in piratical wars the people’s blood and treasure?
  • Karl Marx

• Imagine there's no countries,
  It isn't hard to do,
  Nothing to kill or die for,
  And no religion, too,
  Imagine all the people
  Living life in peace...
  • John Lennon, Imagine

• Before we can build a stable civilization worthy of humanity as a whole, it is necessary that each historical civilization should become conscious of its limitations... If there is a single goal for all civilization, it does not mean that all shall speak a common tongue or profess a common creed, or that all shall live under a single government, or all shall follow an unchanging pattern in customs and manners... Economists warn us that war does not pay. It is bad business. Some of us are growing pacifist by policy, though not by conviction. The East and the West are not so sharply divided as the alarmists would make us believe. The products of spirit and intelligence, the positive sciences, the engineering techniques, the governmental forms, the legal regulations, the administrative arrangements, and the economic institutions are binding together peoples of varied cultures and bringing them into closer reciprocal contact. The world today is tending to function as one organism...
  • Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Kalki: or The Future of Civilization (1929)

• While the triumph of mechanical inventions provides a common basis for the civilization of the future, the break-down of traditional systems of thought, belief, and practice is the necessary preparation for the building of a spiritual unity. The leaven is at work among all the peoples, especially among the youth who are unwilling to be mere clay in the hands of others, be they ever so old or wise. There is a quickened consciousness, a sense of something in adequate and unsatisfactory in the ideas and conceptions we have held and the groping after new values. Dissolution is in the air... It is true that internationalism is growing. Economists warn us that war does not pay. It is bad business.
  • Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Kalki: or The Future of Civilization (1929)

• In everything we are destroyers – even in the instruments of destruction to which we turn for relief. The very socialism and internationalism through which our choked spirit seeks utterance, which seem to threaten your way of life, are alien to our spirit's demands and needs. Your socialists and internationalists are not serious. The charm of these movements, the attraction, such as it is, which they exercise, is only in their struggle: it is the fight which draws your gentile radicals.
  • Maurice Samuel, You Gentiles, pp. 152-153

• ...my idealism is based upon a broad horizon of internationalism, which represents the right to be free and to establish justice, even though to achieve this it may be necessary to establish it upon a foundation of blood. The oligarchs, or rather, the swamp geese, will say the I am a plebeian, but it doesn't matter. My greatest honor is that I come from the lap of the oppressed, the soul and spirit of our race, those who have lived ignored and forgotten, at the mercy of the shameless hired assassins who have committed the crime of high treason, forgetful of the pain and misery of the Liberal cause that they pitilessly persecuted, as if we did not belong to the same nation.
  • Augusto Sandino, The San Albino Manifesto (July 1, 1927)

• International Criminal Court
• International law
• United Nations

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Internationalism