Tell Every Nation It’s Democracy or Isolation : Change: Think of it happening: Humanity fixes politics to make peace, freedom and justice really work.

History’s most challenging moment is right now. From Taiwan to Namibia, from Poland to Brazil, from the Soviet Union to South Korea, the revolution for democracy rises to overthrow tyrants and to build peace and justice through government by consent of the governed. The pace of political change is amazing. The exciting reform movements in 1989 have shifted into antiquity, replaced this year by mass demands for democracy now.

Think of it happening: Humanity fixes politics to make peace, freedom and justice really work. Think of it failing: The revolution becomes a disaster, and democracy dies.

In 1947, the United States faced an analogous challenge in Europe. Then, as now, the immediate result of the overthrow of the tyrant is chaos. The looming threat is the temptation to get a new tyrant to restore order. But thanks to the vision of the then-secretary of state and President, we came forth with a plan to bring a new Europe into existence by offering major aid to the European countries, in common, if they could join one another and plan democratically. The Marshall Plan succeeded--a true, historical fact, contrasted with the various ideological fantasies still sprawling about.

Today, the movement for democracy can win if we join together and create a common federation of genuine democracies linked by political, military and economic support.

This effort should reach out to every real democracy, not just to those in the neighborhood. As our minds have moved from the gradual to the immediate, they should move from the continental to the worldly. Not that long ago, geography was a most important factor in the organization of human society. Less so today. Developments in military technology, economic trade, transportation and communications have transcended localities, creating a new arena of international activities that engage everything and are governed by nothing. That is dangerous business--anarchy plus interdependence. But the solution is to transcend the presently restricted political institutions by inventing new ones to encompass the powerful reality of the emerging international relationships.

Like the Marshall Plan, democratic federation worked. Not perfectly: In the United States, ours broke down in the Civil War. Since then, however, the history of American democratic federation, along with that of Canada and Australia and India, stands out as a relative success compared to totalitarian nationalism in the Soviet Union or scattered anarchy among the nations in Africa. Federation and democracy share the recognition that differing communities can maintain political distinctions within the commonality of commitment to fundamental principles of procedures and rights. The establishment of federation is essential to the success of the new democratic revolution, because major cultural and political differences will prevail, as democracy’s mutually respecting discourse defines and amends the relationships.

Differences among communities need not destroy federal democracy. One of the most interesting historical observations is that democracy has emerged and persisted in wildly different nations. Who would have thought it could happen not only in Great Britain and the United States, but in Costa Rica, India, Germany, Australia, Japan and Venezuela? The facts imply that democracy is not dependent on culture, in its deep sense, but that it can be born and stay alive in nations with strikingly different religions, ethnicities and histories. Democracy demands nonviolence, rule of law, deliberative discourse, human rights for all--and representative government. It does not demand that citizens love one another, but that they commit conflicts to a democratic federation and live with the results.

Thus, today’s federation of democracy should move beyond the concern over the unification of East and West Germany, the composition of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the Europe of 1992, or even a rebirth of the Atlantic Alliance. Every nation that succeeds in establishing democracy--real democracy--should join and receive the strongly supportive economic and social advantage. Every nation struggling to establish its democracy should be helped by the federation. Every nation that rejects democracy should be cut out and vigorously pressed for reform by the federation.

Rejecters of democracy should never receive support from a government committed to democratic principles. The scandals by which tyrants in Turkey, El Salvador, Libya, China and Mozambique and other brutal, corrupt, inhuman butcheries receive aid from democracies should be stopped--now. But that is not enough, either. It is immoral and unjust for democracies to tolerate totalitarians--not only in our house or next door but wherever they are butchering our human brothers and sisters. So the new federation of democracy is not to be a United Nations--not an all-inclusive, loose-jointed organization that includes fake national Mafias. If it is brought across to democratic voters that their tax money is buying the tools that Turks use to torture children, they will agree to shift such payments to the cause of stopping Turks from torturing children. The demand that admission to the federation of democracy requires democracy is essential.

Equally essential is the demand to help burgeoning democracy. Think of Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia. More than four decades of experience under a political system in which one has virtually no motive or opportunity to participate in democratic-type activities. Systems in which one is dominated and manipulated by force and its threat, by lies, by money corruption, by hunger and humiliation. Think of Namibia, thrilled with the new hope of democracy but surrounded by nations where the hope was killed. Think of the Soviet Union, whose surrender of despotism may trigger secessions that can tear it apart.

To suppose that democracy will happen just because an alternative is rejected is tragically naive. Implementing democracy takes major, concentrated political action far beyond the publication of a written constitution. That is why democracies like the United States and Japan--and all the other real democracies--should be investing much talent and money into the emergency rooms where potential democracies are coming to life.

Before our states were united, there were those who found it an odd idea, a bizarre outreach from a here to a there. They were wrong. So are those today who think all will turn out for the best if we just let it go on. The time to federate democracy is now, because whatever it is that made the revolution happen, this is the day it stands a chance to rescue the human race.