The enduring legacy of the twentieth century is that it compelled the peoples of the world to begin
seeing themselves as the members of a single human race, and the earth as that race’s common homeland.
Despite the continuing conflict and violence that darken the horizon,
prejudices that once seemed inherent in the nature of the human species are everywhere giving way. Down with them come barriers that long
divided the family of man into a
Babel of incoherent identities of cultural,
ethnic or national origin. That so fundamental a change could occur in so brief a period -- virtually overnight in the
perspective of historical time -- suggests the magnitude of the possibilities
for the future.
(The Universal House of Justice, from April
2002 message to the World’s Religious Leaders)
