The Federal Principle

One interesting solution that is being considered for various countries with diverse geographically-based ethnic groups who have entered into a cannibalistic power struggle for national dominance is to apply the federal principle.

This consists of: (1) dividing the country into political units that roughly encompass those ethnic groups' traditional or current territories (states, provinces, departments, or whatever); (2) establishing a democratic government in each unit, complete with legislative, executive and judicial powers; (3) establishing a federal government to create the legal framework within which the federated units will pass their own laws and interact with each other.

The same federal principle can also be applied at the local level, if the provincial level is not sufficient to satisfy popular demands. The federal government has ultimate control over all natural resources in the country, and administers them directly or by delegation in benefit of the whole. There is also discussion of a bottom-up taxation scheme, as opposed to the top-down method that most countries currently use, but that is another issue.

This would be the beginning of a solution for this specific problem, but if the US public wants to make sure that something like this never happens again, it should demand that its government promote the application of this same federal principle to international relations, making each of the current independent nation-states a federated member of a world-wide democratic legal system, again complete with legislative, executive and judicial powers.

For a statement by the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations on how this can be achieved in practice, see http://bahai-library.org/?file=uhj_turning_point_nations.html. See also the "World Federalist Movement" at http://www.wfm.org/, which is "an international citizen's movement working for justice, peace, and sustainable prosperity" that calls for "an end to the rule of force, through a world governed by law, based on strengthened and democratized world institutions" and is "inspired by the democratic principles of federalism."

Does the US believe strongly enough in democracy to apply it to international relations, even if it means giving up its hegemonic power over the rest of the world and its economy? Or is democracy only an ideal when I am the one benefiting from it? Do the people of the US care enough about those living in other countries to bow to their interests as deeply as they have bowed to their own? Federalism makes us all citizens of one country, thereby sharing the same overall fate. In other words, it serves to wake us up to and officialize the current world situation.

Residents in all federated states of the US felt personally affected by the very localized attack of 9/11. In contrast, how closely have they felt similar tragedies in other, non-federated, parts of the world, like the Madrid bombings, for example? Aye, there's the rub!