The Unheard Cry of Nations

The Unheard Cry of Nations

Nations march to a fundamental beat slightly different from the individuals who inhabit them because so many persons make up a nation.

The unheard cry coming from many nations is the desire to build right human relations with other countries. Some lands create foreign policy that puts integrity, reverence for life and quality relationship with other nations as high priorities.

With every passing day more people yearn for leadership that can and will make quality relations with other countries a primary goal of foreign policy. Canada is an example although relations between Canada and the US have had some rocky periods.

The 1980s was such a period. Sometimes looking at the behavior of nations has a rhetoric all its own, although a backward look proves that the seeds of goodwill can grow out of disagreement.

It was a time when the cooperative attitude of either nation had an effect not only on the other but also affected relations with Europe and on many of the pressing issues of the decade including bi-national cooperation on many different global issues including elections in both countries.

The two countries squabbled over fisheries. Canadian officials pleaded that the US would do what it could to stop acid rain pollution in the forests and lakes of Canada.

In turn Americans were angry with the nationalistic stance of Canada. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau established a National Energy Program for Canada, an effort that tried to Canadianize the oil and gas industry there.

he US balked over Canada’s policy which was eventually diluted due to US pressure.

The two countries had very different opinions about safeguarding North America and their pledged defense of Western Europe. They could not agree on how to deal with the Soviet Union. Reagan didn’t like Trudeau’s peace initiatives. On the other hand Trudeau opposed Reagan’s anti-Soviet stance.

Politically the differences of opinion worked out so that Americans came to understand that Canadians and Canada had its own customs, its own way of looking at things and doing things in the world.

It is a guess on the author’s part that the Canadians breathed a sigh of relief that their powerful neighbor to the south had finally understood Canada enough to realize and respect Canada as a fully appropriate and independent nation in the world fully capable of making its own foreign policy and decisions without pressure from the US.

Canada-US relations are among the best neighbor-to-neighbor dealings in the world. Both nations have real feelings for each other. We have developed mutual trust and respect. As the Dalai Lama has said,

“From that, we can share other peoples’ suffering and build harmony in human society. We can create a friendly human family.”

As trust and respect grow between Canada and the US, quality human relations will increasingly demonstrate. The important thing is to respond with compassion and have an understanding of each others’ basic humanity, respect each others’ rights, share each others problems and then just try to get along.

After all, no matter what country a person is from, this is what most of us want: quality human relationships within our nation that make us safe and happy.

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Compassion in Global Politics by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso from Transnational Perspectives, Volume 11, Number 4, 1985.

© 2014 Rebecca Field