Forging The Finest Print

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Operation Outreach Forging the finest print

(This is posted by Leounheort, taken from his official blog)

Operation Outreach is exactly what it says it is: an effort to reach out to the rest of the world. Traditionally, European countries have allowed ghettos and neighbourhoods consisting solely of ethnic minorities to keep to themselves, and often fail to listen to them. Outreach will attempt to end this, both in Europe, and the world. Operation Outreach is a massive bicultural exchange programme that comes in many forms.

Firstly, the local government must take steps to ensure that the voices of the ethnic minorities are heard. The mosaic approach to various races and religions, which basically mean leaving people to do as they please, has failed: one need only look at the riots in Paris and Sydney last year.

Governments should adopt the 'melting pot' approach, meaning integration of their population, regardless of race, language, or religion. There should be no more ghettos; people of various ethnicities should mingle and co-exist with each other. The government must take active steps to ensure this, through the media, school exchange programmes, and the like. This should be two-way, i.e. both the majority and minority races should strive to understand each other better, instead of the former reaching out to the latter, but the latter not doing anything at all.

In this way, both ethnic minorities and majorities will learn and understand each others' way of life. This is especially important, for without understanding, there can be no harmony, and there can be no understanding without knowledge. Each link in this chain is interdependent; the greater whole (and its resulting benefits) simply cannot exist without any one of these elements. As people simply will not go out of their way to interact with others from different minority groups without a real reason to, the government must step in and take action, before it is too late.

Secondly, the West must reach out to Islam. The War on Terror cannot, must not, be seen as a clash of civilisations. If it were, than we would have lost, for there will be no casus belli any more, at least, not a just one. This can be done through a macro version of Operation Outreach, through large-scale versions of the above suggestions. We must, however, be careful, for it is entirely possible for Operation Outreach be misintepreted as a campaign to instil Western values in the Middle East, or, Heaven forbid, be abused to spread propaganda. Like I said, this must be two-way, and be governed by an international body.No one nation, not even the United States of America, can hope to achieve this. International cooperation is a must, for this, quite literally, involves the world.

Naturally, this body is the United Nations; it is the only organisation with the clout to (hopefully) do such a thing. I thus propose a new branch of the United Nations, (tentatively)called United Nations Operation Outreach to execute Operation Outreach on a global basis. UNOO will consist of members from around the world, and report to the Secretary General. No member may have a veto power; all resolutions passed shall be decided by majority vote, pure and simple. No country may choose to blatently ignore the UNOO. At the very least, it should have the power to send diplomatic messages and signals. Harsher measures are not practical; they will not even be accepted by the UN, since this is, at heart, a bicultural exchange programme on a massive scale, and nothing more.

The UNOO, however, can refer transgressors to the UN General Council for follow-up action, though only as a last resort.Hopefully, the world will adopt my suggestions, or at least a variation of them that is acceptible, and begin Operation Outreach, or a variant of it that embodies its aims: to allow a free flow and exchange of culture and knowledge from East to West, and vice versa.

After all, the very sanity of the world could one day depend on Operation Outreach, or something similar.

Published by Typewriter King | 3:18 AM

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