Is World Unity Finally Within Reach?

DRUGS

TERRORISM

SELFISHNESS

WAR

NATIONALISM

HATRED

CRIME

WORLD unity! What a blessing it would be for mankind! But is there anything to indicate that it is more than just a Utopian dream? Or has it perhaps finally been brought within reach?

If you have ever traveled extensively, you may have experienced the frustration of keeping your finances straight. Likely you had the challenge of converting your Japanese yen into German marks, then into Italian lire, over into English pounds or maybe American dollars, all the while trying to figure out what this or that would cost “in real money.” Thus, no doubt you can see the advantage that world unity would bring in just such a small matter as common currency.

Or what about those endless passport and customs controls? What an inconvenience and what a loss of time! These, too, would cease were world unity a reality. No more: “Would you open your suitcases, please? How long do you plan on staying? Where?” and sometimes even “Why?”—almost as though you were not really wanted.

Of course, these are minor inconveniences when compared to the really BIG problems that world unity would solve. Gone would be the political differences, faultfinding and name-calling that only too often escalate into trade embargoes, currency restrictions, disruption of diplomatic relations and sometimes climax in war itself, with all its needless misery and suffering.

If people could resolve their political differences, think of the tremendous amount of money, presently set aside for national defense, that would immediately become available! This money could provide everyone with decent housing and dignified employment and working conditions. It could make desolate areas habitable, build roads and hospitals, and improve the educational system. Why, the list of possibilities is almost endless!

In view of the benefits brought about by unity, it is understandable that repeated attempts to achieve it have been made. On a small scale some of these attempts have been successful. Groups of people have been united into strong nations. Consider, for example, the Holy Roman Empire, the British Empire, or, more recently, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Other attempts, although not necessarily with political integration as their goal, have nevertheless brought about increased unity of thought and action between groups of nations. The League of Arab States is one example, as is the United Nations organization.

Some consider world unity, however, as purely Utopian. Why even the Holy Roman Empire and the British Empire broke up with time, they will point out. Even stable federal governments are having problems, like the government of Canada, which is concerned that Quebec might break away from the rest of the country.

So although desirable, there seem to be heavy undercurrents running against world unity. Abba Eban, former foreign minister of Israel, once said: “A paradox of our times is that the proliferation of small nation-states goes hand in hand with a search for wider forms of integration, as exemplified in the United Nations, the European Economic Community, the Organization of American States and the Organization of African Unity.” The intervening 14 years since these words were spoken only serve to verify them, because during this period many new nations have come into existence: Angola, Bangladesh and Botswana to mention only three. Now, 150 nations are members of the United Nations, the most ever.

In view of this strong trend toward nationalism, can we realistically speak of world unity? Yes, we can. We feel that world unity is, not only desirable and achievable, but inevitable! And we feel that it will bring about benefits of which man today cannot even dream.

But still the question remains: How will it be achieved? Western Europeans may see progress toward a proposed “United States of Europe” as a step in the right direction. Could this, if achieved, prove to be the big breakthrough? Would it finally put world unity within reach? Let us consider the evidence.

Is a “United States of Europe” a Step in the Right Direction?

EUROPE was for centuries the center of world civilization and culture. It experienced the Renaissance; it mothered the industrial revolution; it financed the exploration of distant “undiscovered” lands; it colonized them and made nominal Christians out of “pagan natives.” Even today Europe makes its influence felt in many parts of the earth.

That is why many persons feel that a united Europe—perhaps even a “United States of Europe”—would have a positive, beneficial effect on the rest of the world. Could it perhaps be a step in the right direction—in the direction of world unity?

Attempts at Unification

The famous French writer Victor Hugo served as president of a congress held in Paris in 1849 that pleaded for a United States of Europe to ensure universal peace. Later Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austrian, founded what was known as the Pan-European union with a similar goal, but it too met with little success.

After emerging from World War II, which split Europe into two political blocs, Western European nations began giving renewed consideration to the desirability of unification. Eastern European nations rejected the idea, seeing in it a political move by the Western nations to oppose the Communist bloc. Hence, the so-called “United States of Europe” has been solely a Western European project.

A first step was taken in 1949 when 10 of these Western European nations agreed to set up a Council of Europe. It was “for the purpose of safeguarding and promoting the ideals and principles which are part of its common heritage and to favor their social and economic progress.” Although it had no decision-making powers, yet it served as a consultative group or forum where member nations could express opinions and make recommendations.

Winston Churchill said of this Council: “The first step has been taken, and it is the first step that counts”—provided, of course, that the first step is in the right direction. Was it? The fact that other European nations have joined this Council—at present there are 20 members—seems to indicate that at least they feel that it was.

In 1951, at the suggestion of the French minister of foreign affairs, Robert Schumann, five of these original 10 nations (France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), together with the Federal Republic of Germany, formed the European Coal and Steel Community. They thereby pooled their basic resources and made them subject to a new multinational authority.

Since this proved quite practical these six nations ventured another step forward in 1957. They set up the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. Later, in January 1973, these communities were enlarged to nine members when Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined the movement. This “Common Market,” as it is generally called, was considered a further step toward eventual complete economic and political union.

How Do People Feel About It?

The common man’s attitude is based not so much on the political implications of this union as on the practical results he himself has experienced. Housewives are happy that they now have a greater variety of foodstuffs to choose from, and that foreign products tend to be more economical because of the favorable trade arrangements within the Common Market and with other nations.

Travelers are happy that freer movement between states has become possible. Governments seem to be more willing to cooperate on common problems: terrorism, inflation, unemployment, energy. A European driver’s license appears to be on the way, even as later, perhaps, a common currency.

Euro-Barometre, a publication of the Commission of the European Communities, announced in its July 1977 issue the results of polls taken every six months since 1973. It said: “Attitudes in the Community as a whole have changed very little . . . six in ten (57%) felt that the Community was ‘a good thing,’ between one and two in ten (14%) feeling that it was ‘a bad thing.’ . . . Attitudes still vary considerably from country to country, but less so than in 1973.” This article also pointed out that 42 percent of those questioned felt that the movement toward European unification should be speeded up, 34 percent preferred to see it continued as at present, while only 11 percent wanted it slowed down.

Two New Steps in the Offing

One of the European Community’s institutions is called the European Parliament (not to be confused with the aforementioned Council of Europe). It serves as a sounding board for the Community’s problems. But since it is not a legislature, its powers are limited. Until now members have been appointed by the individual national parliaments, but in 1976 it was decided that general elections should be held in the spring of 1978 to elect them directly. Difficulties in deciding on electoral procedures, however, forced postponement, and the elections have been rescheduled for June 7-10, 1979.

Interest in these elections has been sluggish. One poll indicates that only 28 percent of the population of the Federal Republic of Germany are at present seriously considering voting. Opponents say that the elections are merely a political experiment without any real meaning and that they will fail to change the general situation. Proponents, on the other hand, feel that elections will at least heighten interest in the Parliament and impress on its members the fact that they are responsible to the people who elected them. Be that as it may, the elections, if and when they are held, will probably add momentum to the forward drive in the general direction of a “United States of Europe.”

Another step being debated involves enlarging the Common Market to include Spain, Portugal and Greece. Some fear that this would weaken the alliance. Although Spain’s King Juan Carlos in his coronation speech mentioned that ‘Europe would be incomplete without the Spaniard,’ yet there is some reluctance on both sides to press forward with the idea. With unemployment already running uncomfortably high within the Common Market, its present members are reluctant to admit nations with an unemployment problem even greater than their own. Some have been talking in terms of a 10-year negotiating period, which understandably is not acceptable to those who want faster progress.

Obviously many persons feel that enlargement would hinder rather than advance the possibilities of European unity. John Cole in an article in The Observer expressed it this way: “Enlargement also probably means the abandonment for many years of any hope—or fear—of a federal Europe, any early possibility of economic and monetary union.”

Additional Barriers to Progress

Nationalism is undoubtedly the greatest barrier to real unity. Cooperation among political equals for mutual commercial benefit is one thing; surrendering one’s national sovereignty, or even a part of it, is something else. In fact many alliances have been formed with the understanding—yes, even on the condition—that national sovereignties be respected and in no way infringed on. History teaches us that nations and rulers are seldom willing to surrender their sovereignty to others.

Even nations with a similar form of government based on a common ideology are not particularly interested in uniting under a single government. The Soviet Union and China, for example, have even developed their own types of Communism. Great Britain and the United States of America probably enjoy one of the most intimate relationships between world powers that has ever existed. Yet, would we expect plans to unite them politically, possibly resulting in either a “President of Great Britain” or a “Queen of the United States,” to be met with unanimous and instant approval?

Political unity, if it could be achieved, would obviously go far in promoting world unity. But political unity would mean eliminating nationalism, and nationalism dies a hard death indeed!

Another thing: the basis for unity must be a common law acknowledged by all and to which all would submit themselves, without exception. But a common law presupposes a single standard of conduct and ethical convictions. Can there really be unity as long as peoples and nations go on setting up their own standards, “doing their own thing”? This absence of similar convictions and standards of conduct makes the formation of a common law to which all would submit themselves extremely difficult to attain. Who would have the wisdom and the needed authority to set such standards to which all would be willing to submit?

Dr. Owen, British foreign secretary speaking in Brussels in February of 1978, said that the “fully fledged federalism,” to which some people remained committed, was “a noble goal but one which for most of us in Britain is unrealistic, and to some mythical. We cannot see in concrete terms how nine nations with very different political, social and cultural traditions . . . can possibly become federated over any time-scale of political activity on which it is realistic to focus.”

Under the title “Europe Tomorrow,” the German monthly Unsere Arbeit (Our Work) stated: “The way to a European Union—with its own legislative body, government, central bank, and all the symbols of a sovereign state—is arduous, and full of hindrances. Even the Common Market, the starting point of the federation, . . . does not function without complaint.”

Time magazine called the Community, after 20 years of existence, “more an underdeveloped adolescent than a mature adult” and added that “further progress toward a truly unified Europe is perhaps more elusive today than it was at the onset of the great experiment. Member states still do not hesitate to bypass Community institutions when there is a national advantage to be gained.”

So although progress has been made, it appears that the problems still facing this Western European undertaking are formidable. In many ways they are similar to those faced on a global scale by the United Nations organization. Let us turn our attention to it, then, for a moment and see whether it perhaps has succeeded in putting world unity finally within reach.

[Diagram on page 8]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

Common Market Nations

1 Italy 2 France 3 Fed. Rep. of Germany

4 Belgium 5 Netherlands 6 Luxembourg

7 Britain 8 Ireland 9 Denmark

Not Yet

10 Greece

11 Portugal

12 Spain

Europe

8

9

7

5

4

3

6

2

11

12

1

10

NORWAY

SWEDEN

DEM. REP. OF GERMANY

POLAND

CZECH.

AUST.

HUNGARY

YUGOSLAVIA

ALB.

AFRICA

[Picture on page 5]

Winston Churchill said: “The first step has been taken, and it is the first step that counts.”

Does the U.N. Have the Solution?

Can the U.N. plug up the leaks?

FRANCE

CHINA

U.S.S.R.

GREAT BRITAIN

U.S.A.

TERRORISM

NATIONALISM

SELFISHNESS

HATRED

DRUGS

CRIME

WAR

TYPOGRAPHICAL errors are the bane of the printing business. In a newspaper article some years ago about the United Nations, the “i” and the “t” in “united” accidentally got transposed. So instead of speaking about the United Nations the article ended up referring to the Untied Nations.

Of course, with tongue in cheek, one might explain away the mistake as being no mistake at all. Although the U.N. still exists after its founding over 30 years ago, yet there have been times when the nations seemed rather more “untied”—each nation going its own way and seeking its own interests—than tied together, or united, in mutual interests and endeavors.

Commendable Goals

The goals of the United Nations organization are commendable. “The purposes of the United Nations are,” so reads its charter, “to maintain international peace and security.”

Article 55 of the charter says: “With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, the United Nations shall promote: a) higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development; b) solutions of international economic, social, health, and related problems; and international cultural and educational cooperation; and c) universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”

Fine goals, but to what extent have they been reached? To what extent can they be reached? An article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 1965 called attention to certain facts that still apply today 14 years later: “A balance of twenty years of UN history and a long list of conciliation and mediation measures shows that the United Nations have been successful in cases where the ‘super powers’ have not been directly involved.”

The article called attention to the fine work done by organs of the United Nations in other fields, such as by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and by a host of others.

There are U.N. agencies, for example, dealing with the peaceful uses of outer space, of atomic energy and of the seabed. Questions of the environment, industrial development and economic development also come up for consideration. There is a United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control. Much has been done in the way of disaster relief. One of the most remarkable achievements was caring for the needs of millions of Bangladeshi refugees after the war with Pakistan.

A Committee on Crime Prevention and Control has also done fine work. The first major intergovernmental conference ever devoted solely to women was sponsored by this organization in Mexico City in 1975.

A Basic Problem

However, these fine results are generally not the basis for any judgment made of the organization itself. The U.N., the article continued, “must get used to the idea that it will be measured by a political tape measure.”

Applying a political tape measure is difficult, however. The U.N. is no common political government. It is something different. It is not a world government, nor was it designed to be such, although Kurt Waldheim, its present secretary-general admits: “In its early days there was a widespread anxiety that the United Nations would infringe on national independence and sovereignty.”

But how could it? The U.N. has no power to make laws, much less to enforce them. Its decisions are not binding on the nations that are members. The member states are all sovereign and are considered equal. It is this very lack of real authority, respected and accepted by all member nations, that seems to be one of the major built-in defects of the U.N.

For example, with the exception of cases involving international peace and security, there is no provision made for the United Nations to interfere in the internal affairs of the individual nations. But this, of course, allows for interpretation—what are international affairs and what are purely internal matters?

United States President Jimmy Carter has spoken out strongly in favor of human rights and protested their disavowal, in some countries, in violation of the United Nations’ charter. Other countries accuse the United States of unduly interfering in their internal affairs by doing so. In actuality it boils down to the fact that each nation only accepts what it wants to accept and rejects what it considers an infringement on its rights as a sovereign nation. It is the same problem as in the “United States of Europe,” only on a grander scale!

Strong Nationalism

This is backed up by what a U.N. pamphlet says regarding the U.N.’s International Court of Justice: “The Statute of the Court is a part of the Charter of the United Nations, and every Member State has automatic access to the Court. States parties to the Statute may at any time declare that they recognize the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court in legal disputes. The majority of Member States have not yet accepted compulsory jurisdiction.” [Italics ours.] So it is a court without any real authority, a ‘paper tiger!’

Kurt Waldheim, reviewing 30 years of U.N. activity, said that a workable international system must inevitably entail limitations on individual sovereignty. He said that although in some fields such limitations were being achieved, yet there have also been “strong reassertions of nationalism” throughout the entire world during the past 30 years.

“Strong reassertions of nationalism” make achieving world unity more difficult. Waldheim expressed what the U.N. was up against by saying: “The strengthening of our Organization’s role in maintaining peace by securing general respect for the decisions of its principal organs is perhaps the most difficult task of all.”

Achieving such “general respect” is admittedly not easy. N. J. Padelford and L. M. Goodrich, in their book The United Nations in the Balance—Accomplishments and Prospects, make this significant observation about the U.N.: “It has been called upon to keep the peace where there has been no peace in the hearts of men . . . The Organization cannot prevent a nuclear war from engulfing mankind if nations become bent upon this. It cannot compel great powers to do its bidding or to follow its recommendations. . . . It offers a forum in which the representatives of states can reason together, if they will. It can make available procedures of preventive diplomacy, of conciliation, and of peace-keeping to help settle disputes and to maintain international peace and security. But states must be prepared to accept and use these or the efforts will be stillborn.” [Italics ours.]

That is the crux of the matter. To gain unity there must be willingness on the part of all to cooperate for mutual good. This willingness must be a desire born of the heart, not simply of the mind. In short, love is the key to world unity.

But nationalism, the biggest problem standing in the way of world unity, is no expression of love. Instead, it stresses the personal, selfish interests of one nation, rather than seeking the overall welfare of all nations.

True love requires widening out in an individual’s interests and affections to include, not just those of his own nation, but peoples of the entire world. It requires international thinking.

But love cannot be legislated. How, then, can it be achieved? Is there any evidence to show that the nations, either those toying with the idea of a “United States of Europe” or the 150 member nations of the U.N., have recognized this key and are using it to open the door to world unity, bringing it finally within reach?

Rejoice! World Unity Is Within Reach!

PEACE and unity go together. If you have one, you have the other. World unity would ensure world peace, a peace as abundant and lasting as the unity upon which it was based.

But both are dependent upon something else. Upon what? Psalm 119:165 answers: “Abundant peace belongs to those loving your [God’s] law, and for them there is no stumbling block.”

Loving God’s law, not just simply knowing it, is what is necessary to overcome the stumbling blocks on the road to peace and world unity. That love is the key that opens the door to world unity.

Pointing up this fact are the words of Roman Catholic Franz Cardinal König of Austria. Speaking about the possibilities of achieving a united Europe, he said: “The symptoms of spiritual sickness in today’s western man can be summed up briefly: the inability to love. . . . We all know that we Europeans are going through a crisis. We have the feeling that this crisis of the western world proceeds from a spiritual uprootal. . . . In the mad scramble for material prosperity man is being brought to ruin both physically and spiritually. . . . To the extent that man becomes spiritually sick, the problems of the coming Europe will be unsolvable.” [Italics ours.]

No Love for God

World unity is not just a matter of politics. It involves spirituality; it involves religion, Bible-based religion. Getting to know God’s law means studying the Bible carefully. Learning to love God’s law entails more: meditating on its wisdom and on the personal benefits of obedience. A person who thus learns to love God’s law will express it by loving his neighbor, but primarily by loving God.

Governments, as well as the humanitarian organs of the U.N., may express a certain love for neighbor, but where is their love for God when they set themselves in opposition to his kingdom? Have they done this? Yes.

Bible chronology and the fulfillment of Bible prophecy indicate that in the year 1914 the words of Revelation 11:15 were fulfilled: “The kingdom of the world did become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.”

What does this mean? It means that after giving man thousands of years of time to rule the world without interruption, God through his Son Jesus Christ has now stepped in to bring about the world unity man has shown himself incapable of producing. But instead of looking to God’s kingdom, the nations have banded together—united, as it were, in the U.N. or other organizations—in opposition to this kingdom.

Psalm 2:2-6 foretold this: “The kings of earth take their stand and high officials themselves have massed together as one against Jehovah and against his anointed one . . . Jehovah himself . . . will speak to them . . . saying: ‘I, even I, have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain.’”

“Dash Them to Pieces”

Jesus foretold that a worldwide preaching work (Matt. 24:14) would be carried on after God’s kingdom began to rule. This would allow earth’s inhabitants an individual opportunity to decide whether to support Jehovah’s sovereignty or that of the nations.

After this opportunity had been presented to the extent that God desired, Christ would turn his attention to the nations and do to them as Psalm 2:9 says: “You will break them with an iron scepter, as though a potter’s vessel you will dash them to pieces.”—See also Daniel 2:44.

Should this impress us as being strange or cruel on God’s part? Human governments often take strong measures when they consider their existence or the welfare of their citizens threatened. Should the Creator of the universe have any less right to take action when he sees the very existence of mankind threatened by disunited nations through nuclear warfare?

United Religiously Under One Government

La Nouvelle Gazette, a Belgian newspaper, headlined an article: “To Avoid a Nuclear War Within 25 Years, American Experts Have Found Only One Solution: That of Jehovah’s Witnesses!” It went on to explain: “The only remedy would be a major relinquishment of sovereignty by each country . . . in favor of a world government.” It said this was exactly “the proposition upheld by Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

But what is this “proposition” that even caused an Australian newspaper to state that “Jehovah’s Witnesses is the only world peace movement to succeed”? Have they really found the key to peace, to world unity?

Jehovah’s Witnesses have chosen to unite themselves under one government, God’s government. This calls for a stand of strict neutrality toward the affairs of the over 200 nations in which they presently live, a stand generally so well known that it hardly needs any documentation here.

Although God’s kingdom is a heavenly government, it is a reality. It has earthly agencies or organs that contribute to peace and unity: training programs, schools, judicial systems and counseling arrangements. Thousands have been helped to give up drugs, smoking, excessive drinking, promiscuous sex, and have learned to be honest, conscientious workers. Has this contributed to their health, their general welfare, their peace of mind and their happiness? Judge for yourself.

These agencies have also helped thousands of persons to become literate. Whereas the literacy rate among Jehovah’s Witnesses in Nigeria is about 77 percent, The Times, a Nigerian newspaper, recently spoke of “a literacy rate [throughout the country] of only 20 per cent.” In an interview with Jehovah’s Witnesses, a former secretary of education in Santo André, SP, Brazil, declared: “It is rare to find persons or groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses who are so interested in the education of their neighbours with the purpose of incorporating thousands of persons into a society from which they were excluded previously due to illiteracy. You can count on our backing and gratitude. If such efforts were made by other groups there would be less illiteracy in Brazil.”

God’s government is interested in educating its subjects so that they can gain accurate knowledge of its laws. It has also provided for judicial arrangements to see to it that these laws are enforced. But since its subjects are convinced that these laws are just and right and designed to make them happy, they are willing to accept the heavenly government’s compulsory jurisdiction. Persons who live in over 200 different countries and yet have been able to unite under a common law based on a single standard of conduct and ethical convictions, and who actively support the same one government, have come a long way indeed in achieving within their ranks world unity.

The Milwaukee Sentinel stressed this when it said about Jehovah’s Witnesses: “Their agreement is not on just the trivialities of life, but the vital things—rules of conduct, adherence to principles, worship of God.” The Brazilian newspaper O Tempo agreed: “Although there are many imposing religions with their propaganda in all parts of the globe, there does not exist a single one on the face of the earth today that shows the same love and unity as the theocratic organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

This is because Jehovah’s Witnesses are loyal subjects of their chosen government. What nation on earth today could claim to have ONLY loyal subjects, plagued as many of them are with radical groups intent on overthrowing the government, with citizens who render lip service, but disloyally cheat on their taxes, sidestep inconvenient laws for personal advantage, show disrespect for the “decisions of its principal organs” and poke fun at their leaders?

Subjects of God’s reigning kingdom, on the other hand, obey its laws to the best of their imperfect abilities, even when inconvenient, because they love God’s law. They show respect for the “decisions of its principal organs” and are willing to pay back to their government its just dues.

In fact they are even willing to die in defense of their heavenly government, willing to die for their country, as it were. Their exemplar, Jesus Christ, laid down his life, not in defense of the Roman Empire, nor to preserve the Jewish system of things, but to promote the interests of God’s kingdom. It is this unbreakable loyalty to God’s government based on love for God that ensures their unity.

This unity, however, does not stifle individualism or variety. Former foreign minister of Israel Abba Eban once said that “national diversity can be a source of intense and positive vitality, provided that it is reconciled with the restraints and solidarities of an international order.” Jehovah’s Witnesses living in over 200 different nations maintain their “national diversity”—manner of dress, local customs, way of life, all the diversity that God purposed among mankind—and this is truly “a source of intense and positive vitality” because it allows them to learn from one another. National groups strong on hospitality are teaching more restrained peoples to be more open and generous; those with organizational talents are helping others to become more practical and efficient; good traits of others are being assimilated, while negative traits are being eradicated. They have learned international thinking, thus letting their “national diversity” be “reconciled with the restraints and solidarities of an international order,” in this case God’s kingdom.

For all of this Jehovah’s Witnesses take no personal credit. They do not claim to be the architects of world unity. It is God who has provided the key to world unity and the key is available for all to use. The unity that Jehovah’s Witnesses demonstrate can only be attributed to their willingness to conform their ways to the ways of God. This is the wise thing to do and the only way to ensure living in God’s new system of things described at Revelation 21:3, 4: “And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.” This is what God’s kingdom will do!

The proposed “United States of Europe,” or even a United Nations Organization, is a poor substitute—indeed, no substitute—for God’s kingdom, despite the fact that Pope Paul VI, addressing the U.N. in 1965, spoke of the peoples’ turning “to the United Nations as to the ultimate hope for harmony and peace.” The truth of the matter is that more and more of the peoples are turning to God’s kingdom as the ultimate hope, drawn by the world unity it has already brought about on a small scale and in expectation of the world unity it will shortly bring about on a global scale.

The publishers of Awake! sincerely hope that many more may still learn about God’s marvelous provision and take advantage of it. The key to world unity has been found and the door to it has been opened. Rejoice! World unity IS within reach! Will you reach out to accept it?

“The fruit of righteousness has its seed sown under peaceful conditions for those who are making peace.”—Jas. 3:18.