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Navigating a New World: Canada's Global Future
In Navigating a New World Lloyd Axworthy charts how we can become active citizens in the demanding world of the twenty-first century, to make it safer, more sustainable and more humane. Throughout he emphasizes the human story. As we meet refugees from civil war and drought, child soldiers and landmine victims, the moral imperative is this is a deeply compassionate appeal to confront poverty, war and environmental disaster.
Before Lloyd Axworthy entered global politics, "human security" -- a philosophy calling for global responsibility to the interests of individuals rather than to the interests of the nation state or multi-national corporations -- was a controversial and unfamiliar idea. When put into action, human security led to an international ban on landmines, initiatives to curtail the use of child soldiers, and the formation of the International Criminal Court. Today, with conflict raging across the planet -- and building -- the need for a humane, secure international governance is more vital than ever. So how can Canada reject a world model dominated by U.S. policy, military force and naked self-interest? How can we rethink a global world from the perspective of people -- our security, our needs, our promise, our dreams?
Lloyd Axworthy delivers recommendations that are both practical and radical, ranging from staunch Canadian independence from the U.S. to environmental as well as political security; from rules to govern intervention when nations oppress their own citizens, to codes of conduct on arms control and war crimes.
Arresting and provocative, Navigating a New World lays out just why Canada has the skills to lead the world into a twenty-first century less nightmarish than the last, and help make the world safer and more just for us all. This is a call for action from one of Canada's most eloquent statesmen and thinkers, and is essential reading for all Canadians.
Where is the line we draw in setting out the boundaries for being responsible for others? Is it simply family and close friends? Do we stop at the frontiers of our own country? Does our conscience, our sense of right or wrong, take us as far as the crowded camps of northern Uganda, surrounded by land mines, attacked repeatedly by an army made largely of child soldiers? I believe we in Canada have a special vocation to help in the building of a more secure order. We need not be confined to our self-interest. -- from Navigating a New World
From the Hardcover edition.
Before Lloyd Axworthy entered global politics, "human security" -- a philosophy calling for global responsibility to the interests of individuals rather than to the interests of the nation state or multi-national corporations -- was a controversial and unfamiliar idea. When put into action, human security led to an international ban on landmines, initiatives to curtail the use of child soldiers, and the formation of the International Criminal Court. Today, with conflict raging across the planet -- and building -- the need for a humane, secure international governance is more vital than ever. So how can Canada reject a world model dominated by U.S. policy, military force and naked self-interest? How can we rethink a global world from the perspective of people -- our security, our needs, our promise, our dreams?
Lloyd Axworthy delivers recommendations that are both practical and radical, ranging from staunch Canadian independence from the U.S. to environmental as well as political security; from rules to govern intervention when nations oppress their own citizens, to codes of conduct on arms control and war crimes.
Arresting and provocative, Navigating a New World lays out just why Canada has the skills to lead the world into a twenty-first century less nightmarish than the last, and help make the world safer and more just for us all. This is a call for action from one of Canada's most eloquent statesmen and thinkers, and is essential reading for all Canadians.
Where is the line we draw in setting out the boundaries for being responsible for others? Is it simply family and close friends? Do we stop at the frontiers of our own country? Does our conscience, our sense of right or wrong, take us as far as the crowded camps of northern Uganda, surrounded by land mines, attacked repeatedly by an army made largely of child soldiers? I believe we in Canada have a special vocation to help in the building of a more secure order. We need not be confined to our self-interest. -- from Navigating a New World
From the Hardcover edition.
- GenresNonfiction
464 pages, Paperback
First published August 3, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 22, 2021
The author paints a picture of a perfect world. There will always be rich and always be poor. Always be happy and always be suffering. Without suffering you do not know what happiness is. Also, not sure where he thinks we are going to get the money to enact his action steps, taxpayers? Typically government response, there is no limit to money.
August 17, 2010
The author, Lloyd Axworthy, is a former deputy prime minister and former foreign affairs minister of Canada.
My review in January, 2005:
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Navigating A New World: Canada's Global Future
Lloyd Axworthy
Vintage Canada
$22 CDN (Softcover)
**** 1/2
The scale of the humanitarian tragedy in southern Asia following last month's massive earthquake and the devastating tsunami it triggered has awakened many around the world to a need for greater cooperation among countries to look after one another.
The notion that we are all one another's keepers and ultimately responsible for our collective safety is as old as humanity. It's something Canada expresses by funding humanitarian projects through the Canadian International Development Agency, and that Canadians in particular have expressed in their response to the disaster, donating more than $70 million to relief efforts, while Ottawa has pledged up to $80 million.
To put this into context: "In the past two weeks, as many people died from AIDS [in developing countries:] as died in the tsunami. The money the government has pledged is the equivalent of what CIDA has spent on all humanitarian catastrophes this past year," David Morley, executive director of Doctors Without Borders Canada told Now magazine last week.
The implication is that more needs to be done on an ongoing basis to provide what is known in political and diplomatic circles as "human security," a subject former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy tackles, stating what Canada can -- and should -- do in his book Navigating A New World.
Axworthy skilfully explains issues and challenges facing Canada and the world, peppering his book with anecdotes and examples of situations he encountered during his tenure in Parliament -- all without the self-aggrandizement that often accompanies retired politicians' writings.
A substantial part of Axworthy's book deals with fallout from the U.S. attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which has focused attention on a narrow aspect of human security -- for better or worse. Since 9/11, "there is a constant trumping of rights in the name of counter-terrorism: the Geneva Convention on war prisoners is flouted, basic domestic rights ... are ignored, and allies in the battle against al Qaeda are given full licence to continue repression of their own populations," he writes.
But rather than filtering the world through 9/11-tinged glasses, he addresses the broader and complex interplay of factors that contribute to human security, including two chapters on the environment.
Prescribing specific reforms and a hands-on approach, Axworthy asserts that Canada must make its own decisions rather than letting the global agenda -- and Canada's path through it -- be dictated by others.
"Canada is only one community amongst many," he writes. "We have no pretensions about wielding a big military stick, nor do we have any whiff of manifest destiny. But we can offer ideas, skills, resources and a political commitment to working with others to find practical, peaceful solutions, and a sense of quiet optimism about the future. We can hold out hope for many around the world."
Saleem Khan
My review in January, 2005:
---
Navigating A New World: Canada's Global Future
Lloyd Axworthy
Vintage Canada
$22 CDN (Softcover)
**** 1/2
The scale of the humanitarian tragedy in southern Asia following last month's massive earthquake and the devastating tsunami it triggered has awakened many around the world to a need for greater cooperation among countries to look after one another.
The notion that we are all one another's keepers and ultimately responsible for our collective safety is as old as humanity. It's something Canada expresses by funding humanitarian projects through the Canadian International Development Agency, and that Canadians in particular have expressed in their response to the disaster, donating more than $70 million to relief efforts, while Ottawa has pledged up to $80 million.
To put this into context: "In the past two weeks, as many people died from AIDS [in developing countries:] as died in the tsunami. The money the government has pledged is the equivalent of what CIDA has spent on all humanitarian catastrophes this past year," David Morley, executive director of Doctors Without Borders Canada told Now magazine last week.
The implication is that more needs to be done on an ongoing basis to provide what is known in political and diplomatic circles as "human security," a subject former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy tackles, stating what Canada can -- and should -- do in his book Navigating A New World.
Axworthy skilfully explains issues and challenges facing Canada and the world, peppering his book with anecdotes and examples of situations he encountered during his tenure in Parliament -- all without the self-aggrandizement that often accompanies retired politicians' writings.
A substantial part of Axworthy's book deals with fallout from the U.S. attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which has focused attention on a narrow aspect of human security -- for better or worse. Since 9/11, "there is a constant trumping of rights in the name of counter-terrorism: the Geneva Convention on war prisoners is flouted, basic domestic rights ... are ignored, and allies in the battle against al Qaeda are given full licence to continue repression of their own populations," he writes.
But rather than filtering the world through 9/11-tinged glasses, he addresses the broader and complex interplay of factors that contribute to human security, including two chapters on the environment.
Prescribing specific reforms and a hands-on approach, Axworthy asserts that Canada must make its own decisions rather than letting the global agenda -- and Canada's path through it -- be dictated by others.
"Canada is only one community amongst many," he writes. "We have no pretensions about wielding a big military stick, nor do we have any whiff of manifest destiny. But we can offer ideas, skills, resources and a political commitment to working with others to find practical, peaceful solutions, and a sense of quiet optimism about the future. We can hold out hope for many around the world."
Saleem Khan
May 4, 2013
Axworthy could have been a great Prime Minister. His thoughts and ideas and world view were/are simply too big and brave and entirely beyond the systems and structures of power. This book was a major inspiration to my perspective on the need for our highest ideals and ideologies to roll up our sleeves and get down to work.
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January 22, 20162004
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews