Whither the World?
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The year 2001 marks the turn of a new millennium. Nowadays, there
should be a better chance for human solidarity and the development of
a global civilization. But this will be possible only if we try to
find the common values and norms that unite us in human suffering and
aspirations. In this dialogue, it is more and more important to lis-
ten than to talk.
In the 1850s, a Native American leader Chief Seattle expressed the
sense of despair of a vanishing civilization as follows: "If I decide
to accept [your offer to sell my indigenous lands], I will make one
condition: the white man must treat the beasts of this land as broth-
ers. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by
the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and
do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important
than the buffalo that we kill only to live. What is man without the
beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from great loneli-
ness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beast also happens to
man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the
sons of the earth".
If 19th century America had no mercy for buffaloes, the 20th century
world had no pity for humans. The 20th century may be justly called a
Century of Death by Design. The past century was the most secular and
violent century in all human history. Over 170 million people were
killed in the name of a number of "isms", including Fascism, Nazism,
Communism, Liberalism, Hinduism, and Islamism. Governments were the
main agents of "democide", killing not external enemies but their own
citizens, not in wars but in domestic repression. Is the 21st century
continuing the same trends? The massacres in Rwanda-Burundi, Kosovo,
Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Palestine-Israel are not encouraging
signs. The spreading violence at schools in the United States and in
Europe against immigrants is equally alarming. Accelerating modernity
is disenchanting the world at an accelerated pace.
The new secular religions have subjected us to the tyranny of time
and 'progress'. Under the forces of globalization, technology and bu-
reaucracy, the individual seeks a false security in acquiring com-
modities. Having weakened community connections, the modern world in-
creasingly measures us in terms of what we have rather than what we
are. Families are disintegrating and communities have problems to
deal with their young and old. Possessions become the mark of secu-
rity and distinction. But there are those who cannot possess and are
left behind. The deprived are being exposed to global advertising
that wets their consumer appetites. Hence, market and religious fun-
damentalism are currently the two most powerful world religions.
Adapted from Majid Tehranian
Director, Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy
Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, April 16, 2001
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