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The 21st century has always been a popular science-fiction subject — whether it's taken the form of a vision of paradise on Earth or a futuristic nightmare. Now, however, we are less than five years away from the new millennium and faced with the disheartening prospect that the real nightmare is that the status quo will remain unchanged.

The cynics among us say the hype surrounding the coming millennium is just another pipe dream. There is no escape, they maintain, from the fitful fever that has consumed mankind for the better part of the 20th century: two world wars, genocide in Germany, Cambodia and Rwanda, famine in Armenia and Ethiopia, and ethnic bloodshed in the Middle East, South Africa and Northern Ireland.

The cause of this is the growing imbalance between the "North" and the "South" — a euphemistic way of describing the world's haves and have-nots.

Over the last three centuries, the balance has tilted heavily toward the North's colonialism and exploitation of the South. Rapid industrialization has led to the increasing centralization of wealth and opportunity in a few, fortunate regions. That has left the fate of the South in the hands of the North — a situation that should not, and cannot, long endure.

This is not to say that attempts to alleviate some of these concerns, such as the dismantling of colonial empires, the creation of international organizations and private humanitarian aid, haven't been made under the current system. The end result, however, has always been simply a reshuffling of the deck, with a different set of privileged nations astride the globe.

At the end of the Cold War, some heralded the beginning of a new era. At present, however, the world's leaders have remained subservient to the interests of the old order, their attempts at change incompletely implemented, occasionally considered but generally co-opted, thwarted or ignored.

The time is past for half-hearted efforts and windy rhetoric. For those of us looking for a fair interaction between developed and developing countries — one that avoids paternalism on one side and dependence on the other — the need for a new formula is becoming increasingly urgent.

Some of our leaders have called for the nations of the South to cease contact and shun cooperation with the North, focusing instead on greater South-to-South integration. The ostensible rationale for this is that the North's interests consistently run counter to those of the South, both on political and economic fronts. The nations of the North will never accept less than a master-slave relationship with countries of the South, such as Pakistan.

This type of thinking is as deluded as it is self-destructive. It denigrates the well-intentioned work being done by people in the North to help alleviate the problems of the South. It ignores the increasing interdependency of all nations. It can only lead to greater conflict and consequent suffering.

For the people living in the South who want prosperity, equality and security, the only solution is collective bargaining with their Northern counterparts.

Such bargaining should not take the form of a pious and self-righteous assertion of our destinies as a group or an appeal to morality on the part of richer countries, however. With few exceptions, morality has played little role in international affairs throughout history — self-interest has always prevailed in the end. But it is self-interest that's our strongest trump card.

If we in the South have a lot to lose politically and economically from failure to meet these challenges, so do the richer countries from our ensuing instability. A country's wealthy cannot survive in isolation from the desolation of the poor masses. So, too, the rich in a global village cannot afford to hold at bay the burgeoning mass of disgruntled humanity for long.

Bargaining as a united whole, held together by common interests, does not mean the nations of the South must share common identities, paths, cultures or even traditions. But the effects of war, debt, poverty, disease, environmental degradation and prejudice recognize no frontiers and no hemispheres. It is for precisely this reason that we must look beyond the boundaries that separate us.

As citizens of a common Earth with common needs — and a common future — we must all wake to the realization that it is in everybody's interest to help those struggling to fulfill their dreams. We must work together as partners rather than rivals, in cooperation rather that competition, through consensus rather than imposition.

If we don't — if the status quo remains and inequality continues to drive at the soul of our peoples — our nightmares will be our children's reality.

COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.