Some founding member states were very young, just then recently set free from centuries of colonial rule. All were still preoccupied with tasks of rebuilding lives and neighborhoods shattered by the Great War. The ideological divide was to get deeper and wider. The foundations for the walls and curtains that defined an era were just being laid. Now, we are all part of the global village.
Interdependence is recognized and accepted fact.
Globalization is in the lips of everyone, sometimes with scorn at other times with affection, but always with discernment that it is the wave of the future. Above all else, that future belongs to all the world's people, to both the affluent and the destitute, to both the strong and the weak. With everyone's direct involvement in charting and realizing our common destiny, we open the door to the fullest flowering of humanity's potential. We also affirm human dignity. The past would simply repeat itself.