It's
sixty years since the end of World War Two. What would you
say about the state the world's in now?
Well, if you look back, since the end of the Second World
War people seem to think we've lived in an era of peace but
since then there have been 25million people killed in war
and probably about 75million people seriously injured, and
that's leaving out all the people who've died of poverty and
other diseases. We've had over 100 wars and some of them individually
have killed over one million people so the idea we've moved
from war to peace is a misnomer.
 |
| Professor
Paul Rogers |
The
Second World War was easily the worst in terms of numbers
killed but there have been ongoing conflicts ever since, and
even if the Cold War never went hot, so to speak, there were
numerous proxy wars - East-West proxy wars - and 10million
people died in those. So, in one sense, it's worth looking
back at the end of the Second World War and reflecting that
it at least came to an end, but to get the impression we are
out of the woods is very far from the truth.
You
are a professor of Peace Studies but every time the BBC talks
to you it tends to be about war or terrorism but your starting
point is still peace?
Yes, within the department we have people working on many
different areas and we have a whole team who work on conflict
prevention and conflict resolution. I tend to work on issues
of actual security so, if you like, I'm more at the hard end
of things in the department but, even so, what you try to
do in my kind of work is to point to the dangers of war and
its effects and look always at creative alternatives. So,
yes, I am a professor of Peace Studies. I'm looking at it
in a fairly hard-headed way.
You
say you look at peace and conflict at all sorts of levels
so would your department also be looking at tensions in, say,
cities like Bradford?
Very much so. The department is now very big - we have
400 students from 40 countries or so, and we do a wide range
of work. One of our more recently established centres is the
International Centre For Participation Studies, and that's
very much about communities working together, and the staff
are closely connected with developments in Bradford. It's
part of a community and university-wide initiative called
A Programme For A Peaceful City led by one of my colleagues,
Jenny Pearce, so the department goes from the community to
the international level and different people work in the different
areas.
 |
| A
memorial to North Vietnamese soldiers - "Even if
the Cold War never went hot there were numerous proxy
wars." |
At
the end of World War Two I assume the United Nations was seen
as a way to make sure a war on this scale would not happen
again but the League of Nations after the First World War
was a failure. What sort of job do you think the United Nations
has done?
If
you look at it overall some of the specialist agencies of
the United Nations have been very good. The World Health Organisation,
the International Labour Office and, indeed, the UN Conference
on Trade and Development have been trying for 30 years to
get everything from trade reform to aid development so in
all those areas I think you can see a lot that is positive.
The UN was weakened in a sense by the attitude of its member
states but in many ways a lot of what it says or does is imaginative
and far-sighted but implementation is another matter. Throughout
the last 60 years the UN has tried on numerous occasions to
bring wars to an end, to put observer missions in...I wouldn't
pretend the record is as good as it should be but I do feel
that's partly the fault of the leading member states that
tend to use it for their own devices.
You
talk about the leading member states. I suppose what we've
had is a few dominant powers. Does that make war inevitable?
It doesn't make war inevitable but when you get major
powers that are clearly vying for position then it can very
easily lead to conflicts, particularly when they believe they
can almost bypass international law. We've been in a period
over the last 50 years or so, trying to get more and more
international agreements, really to counter the tendency of
states to act purely in their own interests. We're in a difficult
position at present because, if anything, things are going
a little bit backwards but in many other areas there are international
agreements that do actually work - aspects of the international
law of the sea, many of the agreements on health issues and
communications. In all those sorts of areas the UN does oversee
inter-govenmental relations and that is all very positive
but I'm not pretending we haven't got a huge way to go, even
so.
 |
| Rwandan
refugees - millions of people have been displaced by war
since 1945 |
You
mentioned going backwards. What do you think is the most serious
challenge facing the world today?
I think one of the problems is you do have an extremely
powerful state, the United States, which was almost dealt
a body blow by the 9/11 attacks and has acted very vigorously
and in some ways very antagonistically to traditional principles
of international law. At the moment it's going through a phase
of going its own way much more, to the real worry of many
people in other parts of the world, not least in European
capitals. There are a number of treaties that have been abrogated
or ignored by the US so I think that's one problem, but one
also has to say that some other states hide behind that US
attitude so it's not just the Americans who are causing problems
at present.
