There was so much suffering and so many people were killed in Burundi that all of us must ask the question who, if anyone, was to blame? What were the causes? Perhaps somehow we can find a way to prevent recurrences in Burundi and elsewhere. One can identify some men who obviously played a role in ordering executions and/or eliminating people for reasons of personal vengeance. The real villains, however, were not a few individuals but the type of alienation existing in the Burundi nation. This alienation—caused primarily by hate and fear—has triggered from time to time massive violence by neighbor against neighbor in both Rwanda and Burundi. Like a disease, it can recede and then break out again, resulting in further bloodbaths in Burundi.

The American crisis in values and meanings has led many to look for a locale where common beliefs; and behavior patterns can be engendered, appraised and nurtured. Words like “Vietnam,” “Watergate,” “Energy-versus-Ecology” codify complex issues for debate. Yet a nation with a troubled soul does not know where to take up the issues. Religious organizations and voluntary associations abound, but, it is argued, they are too private and particular. The nation seems to be the only available matrix and repository of common values. “One can only reach out to the universe with a gloved hand,” said the poet William Butler Yeats. “That glove is one's nation, the only thing one knows even a little of.”

So you think America had a troubled winter? Striking truckers, gasoline shortages and long lines at the pumps, food prices up 30 per cent and a President in deeper trouble than any President since Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover.

But suppose your constitution was only a year and a half old and your political system seemed to depend mainly on the art of one adroit and very energetic man. Or that the political coalition which alone could provide some inclusive national direction was eroding, leaving only splintered, regional parties as a plausible alternative. Or that economic resources were becoming so scarce that wherever policy-makers turned they found a nearly empty barrel.

A politically ambitious young man approaches a fork in the road. Standing there are Hitler, Lenin and Juan Domingo Peron.

“Which is the way to political power?” asks the young man.

“No doubt about it. Go right,” answers Hitler.

“No. No. No. The only way is left,” retorts Lenin.

“Don't listen to those two,” advises Peron. “The best way is to signal left and then turn right.”

The joke making the rounds of South America is greeted with a stony silence in much of Argentina as leftists are becoming aware that they have been had by an old warrior more interested in a political comeback than a social revolution. The feelings of betrayal and disillusionment are bitterly sinking in. Where does the Peronist Left go now that Peron has turned right?

In Pompidouian France the government's objective is to make everyone believe that having more is living better, with the result that even the less affluent are purchasing new cars and second hemes, and no one, seemingly, is learning how to repair old ones or is concerned about the 11 per cent interest rate on new mortgages. A French jeweler today will not even look at your Timex watch, and the day has already come when the staterun Gaz de France is reluctant to take on any new customers because this could necessitate laying larger pipelines to satisfy increased demand.

Political authority is the right to exercise the power of the polis, the political community, over and on behalf of the members of the community. It implies the obligation of the members to obey those who exercise power by right when they act within the limits set by the criteria of authorization. Every political society this side of the eschaton must embody viable relationships of authority and obedience. If not, the society must either be sustained by tyranny, which is arbitrary force and not authoritative power, or else dissolve into anarchy, which surely then will lead to tyranny.

As with most countries, Italy combines its future with its past. It is not surprising, therefore, that on January 1, 1974, Italy announced its “official” entry into postindustrialism, while still “unofficially” hanging onto all the old industrial and preindustrial methods of production. Once again the government initiated modernization, only this time it's done by computer: all taxpaying citizens are being programmed to become honest.

When the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party met in February, 1973, PCI Secretary Enrico Berlinguer reported that “membership in the party and, to a less satisfactory extent, in the Youth Federation (FGCI), shows a constant increase.” During the past several years the PCI has again become a point of reference for an increasingly high number of people who either join the Party or at least gravitate around it. Such a “return”— to be understood literally in some cases—is particularly interesting because it involves a high proportion of Italian youth, especially students, and some prestigious representatives of the Italian cultural world.