The conundrum of a huge horse shit problem
Early 2001 I was in the mood to say to a young history student: “We will experience another Middle Ages!” I knew it was an exaggeration to utter such a prophecy but I did foresee turmoil and confusion before, not much later, it actually hit us. Things were going ways they couldn’t last, I felt. And bang! 9/11 happened and there was a subsequent burst of the economic bubble. It is not a delusion coming out of wisdom by hindsight.
Every since, the world has been too optimistic about the immediate future. A bubble had burst, the world adjusted to a point – but by far not enough, Afghanistan and Iraq were overrun by the Western world, many tens of billions of dollars are drained from the world economy and after a few years the bubble sizzles again, big time… and things as yet are getting worse. Still, we are led to believe that our leaders are on the right track.
The crisis that we experience now is going to be a long one, I am convinced of that; long and still more painful, not less, both for the stagnation in our economy and for reasons of world politics.
But does this all amount to such disintegration or disfigurement of our world that real times of darkness and strife lay ahead, a world – a western world in particular – going out of control? Anyone contemplating such prospect would find it both highly unlikely and plausible at the same time. On the one hand we are too sophisticated – in all dimensions – to let this happen. Whatever forces of disintegration may challenge us, our societies have too many vested interests to uphold their intricate structure, their governance (at all levels) and infrastructure, the organization of our markets and services and so on. But all of this at the same time is our great vulnerability. If only we think of a worldwide failure of the internet (however this may happen) or of the potential fall-out as a result of secondary consequences of Global Warming. None of it may be around the corner, but we can not rule them out. Increased interdependence at ever increasing scale in terms of systems, governance, markets and supplies inevitably offers us as many opportunities as it offers the potential of great peril.
Dali's pessimistic view of our world
At the same time we have severe unresolved conflicts in our world and the responses thus far have not brought us close to a sustainable resolution by any measure. The combination of age old regional strife, a long history of Western interventions, and protracted social and economic stagnation in the Arabic world is a major complication in our present time. We tend to reduce the antagonisms which plague the Arab world, including their considerable adverse spin-offs in our world, into simple – indeed, often medieval - terms of political and religious conflict. Our interest – more than ever – is in grasping its complexity, in many more than mere political (or religious) dimensions. 1)
A future of our world as we wish to see it
The underlying failure of the Western world is to come to terms with its own role, indeed in a long-winding history going back more than a century, in the creation of these antagonisms, with the impact of its current (largely military and political) involvement and with its true interests in the longer term. I am not suggesting that all of this is negative or driven by our own interests only. Nor am I suggesting any excuse or justification, for instance, for the violence caused by countries and people in the Arab world itself. Again, there is too much complexity to put it into terms of good versus bad. We do have interests of course, which can not merely be expressed in our desire to secure peace and security in the world, let alone our projection of freedom and democracy as the best recipe to affect these. One such interest is the continued exploitation of and access to the remaining oil resources.
But if it is true, as many contend, that the present state of affairs – and the daily draining of huge resources needed at least to not make it worse – is an exercise without end, then only some thorough rethinking on all sides will ever get us out of it. Mere pacifism and idealistic benevolence are insufficient and will prove just as ineffective as a protracted projection of military might and corporate muscle. But this is only self-evident. The key first of all is understanding, not any immediate solution or intervention.
But however this may be, the political climate to really rethink our concept of sustainable solutions for the multifaceted issues between the Western and the Arab world on our side is not helped, to say the least, by the images we hold (perhaps first of all of ourselves and) of Muslims, the Islam in general and of the general character of Arabs. Deep down many of us nourish the sense of their backwardness, cruelty, lack of imagination and their obstinate refusal to align with the modern age. When we see them, in increasing numbers, walking on our own streets, occupying our space, erecting Mosques and draining our social resources, and there is an outcry: stop the Islamization! A single sentence that summarizes the mind prison that we have allowed ourselves to be locked into. But it isn’t as if the armies of Iran or Egypt stand at our front door, the reality is quite the reverse. We call it upon ourselves if our medieval prejudices lead to the disintegration we profess to counter. Without sympathy we will never succeed.
Every time I think of the seemingly insoluble issues of our time – resources, population, economy, security, all up to and including the very sustainability of life on our Planet – I am reminded of the greatest issue facing the government of New York City by the end of the 19th century: the cumulating pile of horse manure, caused by increased traffic. It wasn’t solved, eventually, by effective “horse manure drainage provisions” or traffic policies of any kind. The issue simply disappeared from the agenda by the advent of the motorcar.
The true solutions of many issues are still hidden in the Chrystal Ball
Perhaps, in hundred years time, historians will look at our issues much in the same way. We struggled to win a lost cause, but were saved by one or the other innovation, a new perspective, perhaps a common enemy, or a combination of all. We can not foretell. But I am convinced that by merely wishing to solve the issues of the Middle East and related issues, we will not succeed. Intrinsically this would offer noting, no true perspective beyond the known horizons to the people involved.
All of this seems to point at magic as the single force that can save our world. Indeed, how Medieval can one become? To a certain extent, we have no alternative, at least if we are to sustain our material prosperity. Some breakthrough in the search for new, durable energy capable of lighting and moving the masses, is obviously required. But in a time when Facebook has decided to run its servers in part on coal, this prospect should for be projected at considerable distance in the future.
In the mean time, it is better not merely wait for the magic. What counts is not when solutions are found, it is the commitment and (self-) confidence that we need to get there. Otherwise indeed the slope downwards will be one without end.
---
(1) I find myself greatly inspired, for instance, by Robert Fisk, Arabist and celebrated journalist of “The Independent” and author of a number of books on the history, nature and underlying complexities of the present-day conflicts in the Middle-East. In one sentence he describes the insoluble reality of the US presence in Iraq: “America should leave Iraq, it will leave Iraq, but it can’t leave Iraq”.
No comments:
Post a Comment