distribution of wealth inherent in this development. Thinkers in
developing countries were not slow to point out that such initiatives
served primarily the needs of the Western world. Nevertheless, their
emergence marked a fundamental change of direction that would increasingly
open participation to a wide range of states and institutions.

A humanitarian initiative of a kind never previously conceived opened
still another dimension of the global integration occurring. Beginning
with the "Marshall Plan" devised by the government of the United States to
rehabilitate war-torn European nations, those nations that were able to do
so turned to serious consideration of programmes that might foster the
social and economic development of rising nations. Widespread publicity
awakened a sense of solidarity with the rest of the world on the part of
peoples in lands that enjoyed reasonable levels of education, health care
and the application of technology. In time, this ambitious initiative came
under attack for the mixed motives attributed to it. Nor can anyone deny
that the long-term results of development projects have been
heartbreakingly disappointing in their failure to close the yawning gap
between the rich and the poor. Neither circumstance can obscure, however,
a sense of common humanity in its objectives that spoke perhaps most
eloquently in the response it evoked from an army of idealistic youth of
many lands.

Paradoxically, in the Far East particularly, even war had a certain
liberating effect on consciousness. As early as 1904, the Russo-Japanese
conflict had been seen in parts of the Orient as encouraging evidence that
non-Western peoples could resist the apparently invincible might of the
West. The effect had been heightened by the events of the first world war,
and greatly advanced by the success of Japanese arms in withstanding for
so long the massive Western effort devoted to defeating them during the
period 1941-1945. The second half of the century saw this new
technological expertise give birth to modern economies in half a dozen
nations of the region, whose innovative products and industrial energy,
particularly in the areas of transportation and information technology,
were able to hold their own with the best that the rest of the world had
to offer.

* * * * *

By 1946, the end of hostilities had opened the way for the launching by
Shoghi Effendi of a second Seven Year Plan