Lawrence Auster
Friday, July 20, 2001

Delegates keep invoking "transparency" as though it were the solution to all the global, regional and national problems caused by small arms and light weapons, including not only violence, of course, but poverty, lack of regional development, the marginalization of minorities and women, and even the sexual exploitation of children.

At first glance, "transparency" seems simply to mean that the gun control activities of the member states will be known by other member states, helping all governments work together to cure the scourge of small arms and light weapons. It is a positive-sounding word, suggesting openness, accessibility and democracy.

At the same time, however, there are reasons to doubt that the U.N.'s devotion to "transparency" is entirely sincere. For one thing, the conference's own sessions in which the delegates are debating and drafting the final Program of Action – which many delegates hope will evolve into a binding international instrument – are strictly closed to the press. This hardly seems "transparent."

Another contradiction is that the draft Program of Action is written in obscure and repetitive boilerplate that extends over 102 mind-numbing paragraphs, making it difficult for any normal person to understand the document's real drift.

Fortunately for us, however, a particularly enthusiastic global gun controller, Dr. Natalie Goldring of the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives, has pulled together in accessible form all the undertakings in the Program of Action relating to "transparency." They are:

• Keeping comprehensive and accurate records on the manufacture, production, holding and transfer [italics added] of small arms and light weapons within states' jurisdictions

• Properly maintaining such records so that the information in them can be retrieved easily

• Ensuring accountability for all weapons owned and issued by the state

• Ensuring the effective tracing of all weapons owned and issued by the state

• Exchanging information on their national marking systems on small arms and light weapons

• Making public or submitting to regional and international organizations information on
  • Small arms confiscated or destroyed within their jurisdiction

  • National laws and regulation related to preventing and reducing the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, and

  • Information about other issues such as illicit trade routes and techniques.

Speaking before the meeting of Non-Governmental Organizations on Monday, Dr. Goldring triumphantly described these provisions as "the beginnings of a global transparency regime."

What does this ominous-sounding phrase mean?

Carefully reading the above, we see that it means a system in which every single piece of data about the manufacture, ownership and history of every weapon in every country will be known to a central global agency.

It means, in short, total knowledge – by U.N. bureaucrats – of every publicly and privately owned gun on Earth.

Unlike Orwell's Big Brother, whose power to spy into the lives of his subjects only extended as far as his own totalitarian government of "Oceania," the U.N.'s proposed knowledge base will potentially cover every nation, home and individual on the planet.

Yet at the same time, this global humanitarian organization will strive to keep its own power invisible. This is, in fact, the very nature of the liberal state.

As an illustration of how this one-way visibility operates, think of ABC's "Nightline." Ted Koppel sits there in all his smug glory, peering at a huge view screen (hints of Big Brother) on which is shown the face of the person being interviewed. The trick is that although Koppel can see the guest, the guest cannot see Koppel. The guest is reduced to an object of Koppel's condescending or contemptuous gaze, unable to respond to his insinuations on an equal basis.

In other words, the supposed journalist who is asking questions of the guest is in fact exercising power over the guest. Though Koppel is the true reality-shaper in this situation, his own motives, methods and assumptions go entirely unexamined. He's just a journalist. The fact that he is the true power holder is never acknowledged.

In much the same way, under a regime of "transparency," the people of the world, meaning us, will be completely visible to the global gun examiners and gun controllers, while the gun controllers will remain invisible and unaccountable to us.

As the conservative writer James Kalb has explained to me, the reason for this invisibility of power is that liberals, believing in equality, see power as an unequal and oppressive thing that must be eliminated. But the liberal state – or rather the global liberal state that is the ultimate goal of the U.N. – represents the equality and well-being of humanity itself. Therefore, it is not regarded as an actor exercising power. And therefore its true power remains unseen.

And that is why liberals are not alarmed at the prospect of all firearms in the world being owned by the state. Since only individuals are thought to have power and their guns will have been taken away, as far as the liberals are concerned there will be no guns. As we move toward global government, the only entity in the world that will actually exercise power will not be seen as exercising power at all.

This liberal form of tyranny may be more dangerous and insidious than Communist tyranny, because, unlike Communist tyranny, its power is hidden behind a veil of humanitarianism.

We should be grateful to Dr. Goldring for helping make the global gun controllers' true intentions so transparent to us.

Lawrence Auster can be reached at lawrence.auster@att.net.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Guns/Gun Control
United Nations