At the beginning of this year, at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting at Davos in Switzerland, global leaders voiced a concern for the world. Fragmentation of the world is causing harm to human race. The forum called for greater cooperation among nation states to solve the problems faced by humanity anywhere in the world. Problems faced by nation states are often not being created within their national boundaries.
The call at the WEF meeting to end fragmentation resonates with Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore‘s philosophy of internationalism, to stop fragmentation of world humanity into pieces of nation states, sited within geographical boundaries, to pursue nationalism as the sole motive of national life.
Tagore’s idea of internationalism is not about global governance dismantling of all nation states and surrendering national sovereignty to a global authority. His philosophy of internationalism centres around cooperation, understanding, mutual respect and pursuit of unity of mankind.
Almost hundred years ago, Tagore lectured in Japan on the disastrous side of nationalism. His idea of internationalism calls for more global inter-connectedness in place of fragmentation, unity in place of isolation.
