From a public health perspective. one of the major challenges after 11 September is whether we can build a more caring communitarian world. The signs are not good. Behind the media hype, what comes through is largely a lack of institutionalcaring. People as individuals still seem to care even if their voices are muted.

Markets and neoliberal globalisation serve to create yet greater maldistributions not only of resources but also of power and influence. They reduce us too often to being consumers only when being citizens, especially world citizens, is increasingly important. When leadership is missing from the world stage, there remains no one but world citizens to adopt a world perspective.

Television pictures and the fact that …