Chapter Chapter Thirty — Ground Swell
On the west coast of the US, chaos reigned throughout the night. Everyone feared the likelihood of the two other nuclear weapons being used elsewhere, though most of the political analysts considered Washington or New York to be the most likely targets.
The Little River people considered that another large country was more likely.
In the event, it was only on the following morning that the relevant news shot around the world.
It seemed to the informed in the wake of it, that the true intent of the terrorists was more complex than simply attacking one nation. Two of China’s largest industrial cities, Guangzhou and Shanghai had been crippled. Now on a war footing more urgent and aggressive than anybody else, China couldn’t be sure of what or whom it was fighting.
In recent years, rising oceans, oxygen deprivation and the extensive loss of productive land had crippled many nations. Grave shortages of food along with dwindling energy resources created unprecedented economic hardship and in the wake of the blasts, people decided that they’d had enough — many people.
Unrest started in China, which might well have been the intent of the perpetrators but when huge riots and demonstrations spread around the world, it began to look as if they might have miscalculated the extent of the reaction.
Finn and Stan came to find Reimas shortly after daybreak, knocking on his door.
“Come in,” said Reimas, sitting up.
“Things have gone to shit overnight,” said Finn, entering.
“More bombs?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“China.”
“No kidding?”
“You said it,” Stan observed. “What the hell do they want?”
“But the word is, the people are out,” said Finn.
“Out?”
“Yes, in their millions, apparently.”
“Where, in China?”
“Yes, but heading west with the sunrise too. People are gathering in the eastern cities, here, already.”
Reimas looked grim but seemed vindicated.
“All the chaos and strife was designed to bring limited numbers out and provoke an incautious response from us,” he said. “Seeing only a limited initial response, and nothing from the GI, they felt they had to step things up, but they’ve overstepped the mark.”
As they weighed the theory, he jumped up and threw open the curtain.
“Get all our people on the radio, Finn,” he said. “We’ll meet over Hawaii so we only have to use short range transmission.”
Within half an hour, all the core GI members were in the air and most took even less time to reach the rendezvous. While waiting for the latecomers to arrive, something became clear to Reimas.
It was the same everywhere. People were out in masses. No one was working. Few were in their homes. The streets and squares around the world were full, and everywhere, in almost every country, economically advanced or otherwise, they were calling for the Little River simply because the time was right. They’d heard about it, they’d seen evidence that they cared, and they damn well needed it.
Global Unity was on the nose and people felt that if they were given any more time in authority, crisis would turn to catastrophe. It was all happening so fast. To engineer change in a relatively small country like Australia was one thing but this new ground swell of popular opinion had swept the world in hours.
If Global Unity had been behind all the latest troubles, they had miscalculated. With all their other troubles, the latest round of strife had been too much for the hard-pressed people of the world to bear. Fear, as a means of control, could only hold sway for so long.
Reimas felt exultation, but soon afterwards experienced a suspicious reaction. Always wary when things went too smoothly, alarm bells rang in his head. It was early days, quite apart from anything else, and there was much, still, to achieve.
Bringing him back to the present, Sean reported that all forty-nine GI flyers not on specific missions had arrived.
“Events are accelerating around us, my friends,” he began, speaking over the comm. “Partly this is our doing but other things are at work, and we must ride this storm with every faculty about us. Whatever you see, whatever you hear, ask yourself who needs to know about it and make sure they do.
“As for the immediate business at hand, we’ll have to establish an international ruling structure and we’ll need to choose three principal players in each country. They should understand and be in full agreement that only one, as the regional secretary, can have the final say in his area, and that the other two will act as his deputies, at his side and in liaison with the Institute.”
“Can we really go ahead with something like that so quickly?” Jos asked.
“If we don’t, then it will be out of our hands, and no one else is equipped so well to do this. We can’t simply leave the world to fall apart.”
“No,” Sean agreed, “but I’ve always been worried that something like this might happen. We need to take the rule that’s being handed to us on a platter, but the fact is we’re over extended. It’s happened too quickly.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Reimas asserted. “We can only work with what we’ve got and we won’t get a second chance.”
“But we don’t even have regional secretaries yet and we’ve barely had time to formalize the lines of communications with the regional tributary organizations.”
“Nor have we the facilities yet to ramp up production of the flyers,” said Sean. “Our people have been stuck on trying to figure out the Vezarin alterations to the drive on yours, Blaze.”
“What, no luck yet?”
“There’s something about the light harmonics that they don’t quite understand.”
“Then put it on the back burner for the moment. We need more units, many more, and it won’t matter if they have to be modified later.”
“Right. We can try to make the crucial components more modular and easily accessed.”
“That will do. Meanwhile, although we have to acknowledge that all this may be happening too quickly, we can’t afford to wait. The GU was behind all the strife, but they overdid things when we didn’t jump into action. Now we have an opportunity, but it’s a dangerous one. We take over, but we’ll certainly be stretched. Our people will have to come out in the open and they’ll be easy marks.”
“Valhalla technicians are working on a personal form of the flyer shielding,” Sean responded. “That’s one thing they have been able to get out of the reverse engineering.”
“Effective?”
“Against bullets. Anything going fast will get deflected, but not so good with knife attacks or perhaps even an arrow.”
“Well, we’ll have to issue body protection as well.”
“Sounds uncomfortable,” said Arabella.
“Not at all,” Sean responded. “The modern stuff feels like silk.”
“Okay,” said Reimas. “So we’re all agreed, we go ahead?”
There were no objections.
“As team leaders covering the main developed countries, you’ll have to vet the leaders that the local groups choose. Screen them with the scanner, and let them know in no uncertain terms that their job is to build a Little River hierarchy subject to the Global Institute congress. Remind them, if need be, that we have the necessary firepower and the will to ensure compliance on matters of global importance. The world can no longer exist without it.”
“Easier said than done, perhaps, Blaze,” said Erin. “This is a message that they should all hear together. It should come from you.”
“Yes,” Sean agreed. “We can’t afford to build this on shifting ground. They must know who and what they’ll be loyal to.”
“All right,” Reimas replied. “Once they’re chosen, bring them to the Castle Citadel and we’ll meet.”
“Tomorrow?”
“If possible. Maybe the day after.”
With that, the flyers and their crews returned to the cities in which they’d been operating.
Reimas flew straight to New York, with Finn, Stan and Arabella, where they met the local Little River leader, Zane Garland, and his team.
So far, there had been riots and demonstrations in the east, but no one had tried to speak to them or to tame the beast in any way, and the local River leaders were becoming increasingly worried that many innocent people would be lost in the violence.
Across the Atlantic, in Berlin, the German crew had reported considerable success by simply uncloaking their flyers and hovering low over the city centre. Rowdy crowds had gathered beneath them but seemed more excited than destructive.
People listened receptively in the end to the GI’s explanations, given over the PA system, of what was happening and why, and once put in the picture had arranged a meeting platform from which negotiations could be conducted.
It took a little longer in New York than anywhere else, but by mid afternoon, a vast throng had gathered in Central Park calling for the River. Local River members decided to speak from atop one of the flyers. That way, people could see who and what they were dealing with, and the explanations of the events of the last few days were all the more persuasive.
Once those in the crowd knew the full picture, they all wanted to do something and cheered like thunder on hearing the proposal that they could be organized into provisional groups to take control of the city.
Each group, once assembled, was assigned a leader from the local Little River team, who maintained radio contact with Zane and his close advisers.
In the US, Arabella stayed to liaise while Stan returned to co-ordinate efforts in California. Reimas and Finn flew on to Washington.
Within days, a basic Little River hierarchy was set up in most of the world’s cities. Outbreaks of violence continued to disrupt progress back to order, but the River ignored it, since prevention was impossible. They’d been forced into assuming control, but their principal goal was not to protect people. It was to establish a workable administrative vehicle.
Global Unity forces maintained a bubbling maelstrom of confusion, death and disorder in the world, and with that as a daily backdrop, life drove on in the pursuit of more significant events.
Occasional attempts were made by the GU military to assert control, but understandably, soldiers were unwilling to take on such large crowds. The inevitable subsequent bloodbath might excite so much fervour in the crowds that they would be unstoppable.
Where Global Institute flyers were used as focal points to engender crowd co-operation, they excited initial responses from the GU regional air forces, but precise and lethal responses from cloaked companion flyers stamped ‘cancelled’ on that.
At the end of the third day following the nuclear blasts, local vehicles for control were considered sufficiently well established to allow for a meeting of city leaders.
In recent years, Global Unity had already largely done away with the national level of administration, except in China, the last country to hold out. States within nations, also, had little significance, as subunits of national organization that barely existed anymore.
Cities and their associated regions held the greatest power and, now, most of those in the economically developed regions were submitting to GI overrule, usually under the auspices of the Little River.
Reimas and the Valhalla Conventicle, now renamed the Valhalla Congress, of which he had become the new unofficial leader, were amazed at how quickly the Little River’s transition to power progressed. They were also suspicious.
Few signs of the true enemy emerged. Nowhere, except in a few corpses in Paris, had they found minds that seemed alien. Despite that, there was a brooding presence throughout the world. Also, many GI people were struck by the co-ordinated way in which key instrumentalities had been attacked. With the destruction of each crucial utility, it made it that much harder for the Little River administration to maintain order.
Given the need to cement rule and re-establish production before too much of the population starved, Reimas finally called the meeting of regional leaders that had been put off several times in the last few days. Some, in view of their massive workload, were still unwilling to attend, but were persuaded in the end with a determined carrot and stick approach.
Despite the individual challenges and demands on the time of everyone involved, not to mention the danger, the commitment of the new Little River hierarchy was strong.
A coalition of such responsible minds could deal with the challenges, but anything that would make their task easier was vital. To that end, all the local leaders were promised flyers, weapons, portable generators, food, fuel, shield generators and medical supplies.
Late in the afternoon of the third day from the nuclear attack, thirty flyers were sent out to collect all the local area leaders. Even with them, however, prudence dictated that the passenger viewing screens be blanked out in the final low approach over land. There was no point in risking anyone unnecessarily knowing the precise location of the Valhalla citadel.
On arrival, the local leaders were taken immediately through to the great hall, and, from there, to the central control room. In charge of seating, Heidi and Sky had ordered the construction of a temporary amphitheatre surrounding two-thirds of the granite table.
Around the table itself, there was room for thirty. A further three hundred and sixty people could be seated comfortably on the five tiers of the amphitheatre, facing the speaker’s seat.
When all had arrived and been shown to their seats, Reimas stood at the stone table, surrounded by his closest GI colleagues.
“Welcome all, to this historic gathering,” he said, opening the meeting. “From what I’ve heard, there has been widespread approval of our drive to take control, and we must presume that this is the beginning of a world alliance that will bring our planet into a new era of peace, prosperity and co-operation.”
“World government by the Little River,” one of the visiting leaders called out, and the call was met with a roar of assent.
“I hear you,” Reimas said, leaning forwards a little towards the microphone and raising his voice to deal with the clamour. “It must seem to you all, now, like a foregone conclusion, but before giving way to any presumptions concerning the future, I must point out the dangers inherent in a world administration.”
Some nodded and murmured their agreement.
“If we simply adopt the old era pseudo-democratic bureaucracy of the Global Unity, anew, onto the world stage, there would be the potential for great evil. Such governments have no spirit and no sense of family or national responsibility.
“We should never aim to destroy the character and identity of nations by stripping them entirely of power. All the same, the world clearly needs some sort of effective global administration to deal with the problems the sphere itself faces and that no one nation can control — the oceans the air and the frozen poles.
“Certain elements of administration will need to cede to us and I welcome suggestions concerning how this might be done.”
Gregori, of the Russian contingent, rose and made a deep rumbling sound from his enormous chest to signify his desire to speak.
“The Global Institute, Little River alliance is a structure that has been proven to work very well. Its constitutional guidelines have performed admirably in the most challenging of circumstances, and with it, we should be able to sensibly arrange a corporate style hierarchical structure for the world itself that would offer both efficient and compassionate leadership.
“I know the word ‘corporation’ has come to have some terrible connotations,” he continued, “but since the whole world must be included in all this, the interests of the corporation could not conflict with the interests of the world. Such a structure, employing the clear lines of communication delineated in the GI guidelines would provide an inbuilt counterbalance to the concentration of power held by any chosen leader.”
His comments were met with cautious approval, but also raised issues that resulted in others wishing to have their say. Amongst them, Cathy, from the Irish group, rose to her feet and received the nod from Reimas.
“Thank you, Blaze,” she began. “I have to agree with your thoughts on the old style of government. Such blind autocratic systems hide most effectively behind bureaucratic incompetence and procrastination and rarely have the interests of the individual at heart.
“Thus corrupted, government actively discourages the generation of any constructive processes, but it has so frequently prevailed because many believe the alternative to be inherently chaotic. Allow too much input from the masses and you get rebellion and disorder instead of cooperation and gratitude.
“The fate of Tsar Alexander the Second is a very good example that serves well to illustrate the point. The Narodnaya Volya anarchists, otherwise known as the Narodniki, murdered him on the very day that he had ratified reforms aimed at the eventual establishment of representative government. This left his son Alexander the Third with the firm conviction that only stern and conservative rule could be effective. It also left him with an unyielding burden of rule and little time to spare for guiding and educating his own eldest son, Nicholas.
“Alexander the Third died relatively young in the event, having given little practical guidance to his ill-fated son on how best to deal with the burden of rule. Nicholas’s overly conservative approach to this task was born of a poorly disciplined intellect and a consequently unrealistic assessment of his own standing in Russia. This led to chaos and destruction of catastrophic proportions — a failure that might well be traced back to the untimely demise of his grandfather.
“The careless and nihilistic plot of the Narodniki certainly influenced the younger Alexander’s judgement, but such actions also do much to cement the association in the minds of many between catastrophic disorder and progressive rulers who have a predisposition for community consultation.
“If we’re to have any hope of proving them wrong, we’ll need to foster, in every nation, the proliferation of a new style of national congress intended to assist the channels of communication, to promote fair decision making on local issues, and to help each other cooperate in the daily problems of life.”
There was a strong chorus of agreement, with many a ‘hear, hear’ and loud whistling.
“These national bodies could operate very well within a structured and coherent world network,” Cathy continued, “but only if they have a single individual of power and respect to which they can address their most important conclusions. We need only witness the terrible ineffectiveness of all our old, supposedly democratic systems that so rarely made sound and just decisions, to know that one individual must have the final say.
“Whatever problems we had were at least partly the result of Global Unity, and it led quickly to a chronically disintegrating society, ridden with the most appalling injustices — but if we don’t take the opportunity to comprehensively review the system it might end up the same, even without them in control.”
Cathy resumed her seat and Reimas stood again.
“Thank you Cathy, for those insights,” he said. “It’s clear that one of the principal problems in the old system was indecision. Without a single conscious responsible individual making the final choice, especially in critical matters that effect the whole world, albeit in consultation with a representative structure, the buck will only keep on being passed, especially where choices are controversial. This in turn paves the way for any evil influence to undermine us.”
Sean rose to speak, in turn.
“Especially now, in the current climate of confusion and disorder, I absolutely agree that we need to have someone capable of addressing the difficulties of subtle and awkward issues, and of making choices that will initiate a positive course of action in each and every case.
“There will, from now on, be hundreds of tough decisions to make — decisions that would almost certainly otherwise be stalled by some tier or other of government, industry, powerful self-interested lobby groups or pathetic religious sects, and we cannot risk their being waylaid from so many quarters.”
That observation received overwhelmingly enthusiastic acclamation given that so little of value had been achieved in the recent past. In one sense, Reimas began to feel the weight of the challenge, given the sort of power they appeared to want to give him, but it also gave him heart to know where the consensus of the meeting was headed.
He gave Angus the go ahead next.
“The best kind of political autonomy, my friends, is a powerful leader’s will, assessed and backed up directly by millions of politically involved citizens. Such strength has the best chance of contesting all the self-interested forces such as multinational corporations, powerful and suspect religious sects and other lobby groups with vested interests.
“Even so, we must also ensure that our national community structures evolve into adequate instruments for individual expression. They should not control or restrict people who seek to have a voice but give them the opportunity instead to join in and contribute to the discussion if they wish.”
Angus sat down, and Erin was given the floor.
“Modern life in the world at large suffers from a loss of love, care and appreciation,” she began. “Too much of humanity fails to stop to ‘smell the roses’ in all areas of life.
“Many of you know my role in ‘The Rose’ but I don’t make that observation merely to help you place me. The fact is that in modern times vast numbers of people have stepped onto a conveyor belt and, in so doing, have allowed themselves to become part of the machine. They ignore their own freedom to choose, watching TV instead of expressing themselves, accepting the preferences of multibillionaire media magnates, and racing along the treadmill of consumer satisfaction instead of looking at what they might contribute to the general good themselves.
“Within the limits dictated by circumstances so far, the GI has become a completely independent forum for public communication, not owned by self-interested power bases hungry for more power, and with no particular axe to grind.
“I envisage the GI, Little River alliance becoming the primary vehicle for the expression of public opinion, information and debate within all nations. With it we will resolve the best and clearest ways to do things. Yet in support of the previous speakers, I believe that to operate effectively such a confederation of nations must have a universal president with a specific mandate for the new job he faces, and I think there is no doubt in anyone’s mind here as to who qualifies.”
The Estonian representative, Kasper, took to his feet then amidst the loud applause.
“Some will harbour fears about clear individual leadership, given the recent history of despots and tyrants in Europe,” he began, “but the GI guidelines are clear and positive.
“We cannot obstruct the elevation of a leader because of some arbitrary devotion to social equality. While we may all share equal potential, we are not all equal, and to presume so is to waste the abilities of the superior. To do so would indirectly stifle the self-expression of all within that society, since poorer leadership would create a poorer society.
“To deny good leadership could very well be considered the ultimate product of the spirit of envy. Such, no doubt, was the spirit of the Narodniki, who supposedly sought to bring justice to their country but only really wanted to impose the impossible ideal of equality.
“As we have heard, their actions only served to destabilize the psychological wellbeing of the Russian royal family. There seems little doubt that the consequent inexperience, ignorance and paranoia of the last Tsar created a power vacuum that helped to spill Russia, not to mention the rest of the world, into the chaos and darkness of war. This of course allowed the rise of the dark terror of Jewish inspired and manned communist dictatorship under Lenin and Dzerjinsky.
“In contrast to such monsters, the voice of a leader should be an example to inspire thought in everyone, rather than a vehicle for the repression of the less powerful, and if it is effective in that way, then such a voice should be welcomed.
“To this end I call for us to hear the voice of the one that we all know, the one whose voice speaks the message of reason, and who we know, through his dedicated efforts to free the world, cares greatly for the wellbeing of those around him.”
There was a roar of applause, and it was fully five minutes before Reimas could possibly respond to their demands to hear him speak.
“It is clear that you wish me to be president of what will effectively be the new world congress,” he said following lengthy applause, “and I grant you such a thing is necessary. In our current situation, there must be one person with the autonomy to have a vision and seek approval for its execution.
“I must agree with those who have spoken already, to say that the maximum facilitation of self-expression is indeed the answer to all problems, big or small, and the key to most of the challenges humans face.
“Societies and nations might have outstanding characteristics that contribute to some sort of shared sense of identity, culture, language and history, but they don’t have intellect, or feelings; nor do they have a conscience.
“Society cannot be an individual and, as such, it can have no effective moment-to-moment decision-making capacity. It has no compassion or mercy, and no capability of expressing itself. It is not a conscious entity, but unfortunately it can rule our lives.
“Nations are groups of people joined by common blood, by family, but governments are nothing more than machines — machines that should serve the individual and its many needs — needs that include communication, cooperation and self-expression.
“Like computers, the expression of such social juggernauts are limited to the outcome of their programming and, as such, they should always be programmed to serve the individual. That way, true national identity will be expressed.
“Individual expression has long been stifled in our world, yet in the end, at our level, it has won through, and now, with a little more hard work and co-operation, we can ensure the survival of that practical ideal.
“Modern societies have been blighted by a pervasive and shameless materialism pushed by a limited, evil, exploitative group, and this has been exacerbated by a limited willingness to consciously assess ourselves and evaluate our surroundings that has led us steadily and surely to the brink of disaster.
“We should take note that a pervasive tone of despair is reflected in the widespread occurrence of crime, drug abuse, violence and suicide. It can also be seen in our allowing, within our wider family, the very existence of such things as dirty war, poverty, disease and malnutrition.
“Despite the presence of these afflictions, we can and should be assured that there are no problems invincible to the power of individual self-expression.
“The art of intellectual expression through literature, and the technical skills of coherent linguistic structure that are so much an integral part of it, are the only practical means available for assessing the quality and meaning of our lives. Experts in areas of science and technology need these skills no less yet they remain, for the most part, rank beginners in the structure of written thought.
“There isn’t one occupation or field of expertise where greater facility with such self-expression would fail to lead to vast improvements in performance yet societies around the world have failed to provide meaningful avenues through which their best writers could make effective contributions.
“In many areas, people have been accorded respect largely by virtue of their involvement in the material wealth cycle, despite the fact that, perversely, the production of material things of dubious worth has generally contributed to the destruction of our world far more quickly than the damage can be repaired.
“The real problem is that most of us have become so distant from an everyday facility with thought that the resultant emptiness can only be filled by acquiring something new as frequently as may be. It might be only superficially different from the last acquisition, but it helps to hide us from the despair that nips at our heels.
“Living in the shallow iceberg tip of our minds, many of us go from one movie screening to the next, in a futile attempt to shut out the claustrophobia and despair of our own unremitting boredom. We persist in such follies, though it is a house of cards doomed from the outset to fall down.
“All the elements of a wonderful and magical future have long been staring us in the face. It’s simply a matter of employing the mental dynamo of self-expression so that we can interact in a creative and sustainable way. In comparison to the recent past of only two or three hundred years ago, we live in a world possessing much greater potential — a magical future to which our forebears aspired.
“Yet has it felt like it thus far? Instead, we have squandered almost everything of worth. The systems and conventions of our world are no better than a horde of vile mechanical locusts steadily munching away at all that’s beautiful. Continue on that path and there’ll be nothing left but sludgy excrement, and mountains of garbage full of rubbish.
“In other words, under the current system in which humanity operates, individuals are serving the industrial machine around which our society is organized — a machine without brain, emotions or consciousness of any kind with which to appreciate that service — instead of the machine serving, as it should, the individuals.
“It’s time to push for a vast and far-reaching change in the way things are done on this planet. There can be no pussyfooting around here with limited changes in attitude and some gradual trend towards superficial appropriation of a cosy range of environmental values. We have to face up to an immediate severe curbing of our materialistic obsessions, not only for the sake of our planet, but for the sake of our happiness as well.
“We should encourage durability in technology rather than fashion and flimsiness, lest we become even further obsessed in toying with trinkets, and we should value learning, and honour it by promoting a system of education that was designed to encourage people to learn how to learn, rather than obsessing with the constant absorption of supposed facts.
“This is no time for political delicacy. We need action and we need it fast. We need to reform our current political systems radically by abandoning the prevalent party system of supposed democracy, by eliminating private electoral funding and by abandoning compulsory voting. Only a careful vote is a vote worth counting. Having voted in representatives in a sensible way, there should then be discourse between the one individual and the many in the most effective manner that can be devised.
“People need to belong to a clan in order to be truly happy, because without a clan they cannot have a voice. Such a voice, however much it may be the product of many minds, must be heard and responded to by an individual and, for that to happen, the nations of clans must have a single leader.
“The clans and their leader must maintain a healthy dialogue, so the clans need to get together regularly to sort out what they firmly believe. Only then can their determinations be presented to their leader, and those determinations are the things that a leader would deliberate on, so that he can then make an executive choice for the wider context.
“Once the world leader makes those executive decisions, they should only be finally instituted if they can be justified to the clans, and if they accept his reasoning.
“With that sort of power, the world will then be able to confront the environmental vandals of the past. Even if this wonderful world, our host, could actually tolerate our abuses without ultimately dying, it is still pertinent to ask whether we should offer up our clear blue skies, our clean and life-filled streams, our sense of oneness with nature and, indeed, our own very limited time, in exchange for mere things.
“Is a super disc, or a toilet camel, or any number of other such fundamentally frivolous things worth the sacrifice of our world?
“Within such a system the expression of love and care for each other, in everything that we do, would be the thing most valued.”
Applause, when he ceased to speak, seemed to shake even the bedrock foundations of the subterranean congressional room. Reimas, and the other GI people around the stone table rose and bowed in response.
As they left, Angus asked the visitors to accompany them to a formal dinner held in their honour. Attendants showed the guests to the dining hall where they were presented with a wide selection of great international dishes, while the citadel residents took the opportunity to engage them in conversation.
Over the best of fare, any remaining ice was broken and the delegates felt comfortable enough now not only to digest the food but the ideas as well.
Although many had long-held similar views, they were initially surprised by the depth of Reimas’s take on things. Great changes were needed if the world was to survive, but without a single leader’s visions and decisiveness, that could never take place.