More than the interplay of politics and national self-interest shaped the post-war world, argues Allan Griffith, for 31 years foreign affairs adviser to Australian Prime Ministers.By Allan Griffith

Since independence from Britain and Egypt 32 years ago, Sudan has seen violence and discrimination between racial and religious groups. This has invited harsh military dictatorships and further deepened the rifts between the Sudanese people.

The silence was almost tangible. It hung over a stony hillside scarred by the skeletons of mulga trees, a landscape stilled as if in reverence for the sacred carvings etched in the sheer red faces of the gorge.

In today's Australia it is no surprise that most of us find the name of one of our foremost social thinkers hard to pronounce.

To amend Winston Churchill's words about the Battle of Britain, never in the course of human history has so much been owed by so many to so few.