Activity Seven

This activity is to accompany Unit Two of the Curriculum Guide.

Incorporating the C.E.L.s:

Concept Application Lesson for:

Collective Security
Aggression
Sanctions
Morality
Dialectic Reasoning
Inferences

This concept application activity provides students with an opportunity to use an historical situation and to apply the skills of dialectical reasoning and drawing inferences based on available information. The targeted issues are Italian aggression against Ethiopia in the , the reaction of the League of Nations and the implications of the situation for the immediately following years.

Knowledge Objectives

The student will:

know that national self-interests are the dominant influences guiding the actions of nations on the international scene;
know that nations are reluctant to entrust significant powers to international bodies, fearing that those bodies might use their powers against their particular national interests; and,
know that a failure to enforce collective security for the members of an organization will weaken the commitment of the members to that organization and encourage them to seek security elsewhere.

Skills Development

The student will:

practise making and testing generalizations;
practise the skill of hypothesizing;
practise using the following analytical skills:
- defining the main parts,
- describing cause and effect relationships,
- describing how the parts of the whole are related to each other; and,
practise using the skills of dialectical reasoning;

Values Issues

The student will:

discuss whether an organization such as the League of Nations could have effectively prevented foreign aggression by a major power against a smaller nation; and,
discuss whether nations are prepared to surrender some of their powers and rights to an international body in order to secure peace and reduce the chances of foreign aggression.

Outline of the Activity

Step One

Provide students with the following statement and discuss the situation which gave rise to the statement.

Following the Italian invasion of his nation, the Emperor Haile Selassie addressed the League of Nations and appealed for the organization to stop the aggression.

"It is my duty to inform the governments of the deadly peril which threatens them. It is a question of trust in international treaties and of the value of promises to small states that their integrity shall be respected. In a word, international morality is at stake."

Have the class discuss this quotation. The discussion could focus on such questions as:

Could the League have stopped the Italian aggression?
What "message" did the League's response send to the world?
Should international relations be based on some moral principles?
Does national self-interest always take precedence over the "welfare" of other nations?

Step Two

Have the student groups, representing specific nations, review the response of the League to the Emperor's plea for assistance.

The groups could represent the following nations:

Germany, Britain, Italy, France, Britain, Japan, Canada, Soviet Union and any smaller nation in Europe.

Groups are to prepare dialectical arguments supporting or opposing the intervention of the League in the Ethiopian issue.

When preparing their arguments, the groups have to be aware of that the interests of the nation they represent play a critical role in formulating their national position.

Groups will present their nation's position to the class, providing the rational for their position.

In a follow-up discussion, have the class return to the key questions discussed at the beginning of the activity.

Evaluation Instrument:

Have students compare the provisions relating to international aggression and the mechanisms to protect countries against such aggression available to both the League and the United Nations. They are to prepare a paper focusing on the issue of:

Are the smaller nations "safer" from international aggression today than they were during the life of the League of Nations?