On May 5, 1980, after a grave illness that lasted almost four months, President Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia died. He is remembered for his forceful statesmanship and the reforms he brought to his country. In 1948 he stood against Joseph Stalin and became the first communist leader to break away from the Soviet bloc.
Tito poured much of his energy into the non-aligned movement, which he helped to found in 1961. Today the movement involves almost 100 nations committed to remain neutral in resistance to Soviet and U.S. power struggles. One of Tito's last efforts was to oppose the pro-Soviet stance of Fidel Castro at the movement's most recent conference, held in Havana, Cuba, in 1979.--The Editors
With the death of Yugoslav President Tito, world attention has turned again to one of his crowning achievements, the founding of the non-aligned movement. Amid the renewed polarization in international relations, this movement continues to offer a vital alternative to the false dilemmas into which the big power blocs plunge humankind at regular intervals. Western Christians who struggle to maintain a critical awareness of the tension between their own interests and the interests of the rest of the world's population would do well to pay closer attention to the principled stances taken by these nations in the self-interest of the majority of humankind.
Long gone are the days when a U.S. secretary of state denounced the very concept of non-alignment for being not only infeasible but also immoral. Yet today, as in the days of Secretary Dulles, the Cold War is waged in some quarters with the self-justifying overtones of a holy crusade. But both East and West, each for its own reasons, profess respect for the contribution which the non-aligned nations are making to the resolution of world crises both acute and long-term.
Read the Full Article
