Preparing for the third millennium

By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed

One of the points that struck me in Galtung's paper was his contention that Christian civilisation was on the wane while Islam was acquiring new vigour, a point that now seems to be corroborated by a number of signs. Another point he made was that India represented the epicentre of human wisdom, unequalled by the civilisations of the monotheistic religions which rose to its west or of Bhuddism, Shintoism and other civilisations to its east.

Actually, what I am really concerned with is the methodology Galtung used in his paper, which proceeded from the premise that history is made up of two distinct elements: obvious variables and apparent constants. If the latter can be isolated and extrapolated into the future, they can reveal constraints on possible change and help us chart the likely course of future developments.

This methodological approach can help us discover that the end of the second millennium is marked by an extremely important mutation for humankind, that can be summarised in the following manner: since the middle of the twentieth century, technology has come to acquire new features that are gradually giving it precedence over ideology in the determination of the future of the human species. The effect of technology today is not limited to changes discernible by our five senses, nor to changes within our space-frame, but extends to the levels of the infinitely small and the infinitely big.

In the past, we could destroy a house, we could not smash an atom. Today we can. And, thanks to the fact that we can operate effectively at the micro-level, we can also operate at the cosmic level. This includes the ability to blow up the planet, albeit accidentally. Hydrogen bombs operate at the level of the nucleus of atoms, and trigger explosions which can threaten our survival on Earth. Even if humankind has put an end to the threat of nuclear war, a questionable proposition at best, micro-organisms like the HIV virus, arguably an off-shoot of technological pollution, can, if no cure is found in time, bring about more deaths in the next century than all the casualties of all the wars fought in the twentieth century.

The real problem is that although modern science and technology offer unlimited vistas, their adverse side effects are not always predictable. Events that are revealed to us through our five senses appear to us as real (though what is real in terms of common sense need not necessarily prove true) while reality beyond what can be grasped by our five senses, whether in the infinitely small or the infinitely big, is only revealed to us through mathematical formulae which, being amenable to different interpretations, face us with new forms of uncertainty, and, consequently, with elements of unpredictability that can compromise the very survival of the species.

This makes for a paradoxical equation: the benefits of science and technology are always relative, in the sense that they do nothing more than enhance the quality of life, while if only one of their unpredictable side effects turns out to be so adverse as to threaten the very existence of life on earth, their negative impact would be absolute. Although in statistical terms the possibility of a worst-case scenario cannot be discounted altogether, measures can be taken to reduce the risks in the hope that it can be postponed indefinitely. A major concern in the coming millennium will be to minimise the risks of a worst-case scenario, without sacrificing humankind's endeavour to probe the unknown indefinitely, and at an ever-expanding scope.

In the twentieth century, the conflicts between man and his fellow man over socio-political, i.e., ideological issues, were more devastating than ever before, but now seem to be a lesser evil than the threats implicit in the relationship between man and his natural environment, now that technology has become so potent. In man's consciousness, it is still ideological conflicts that prevail. That is why Fukuyama's theory of "the end of history" is wrong. Only recently, Madeleine Albright urged America's European allies to embrace an American vision of the Western military alliance to cope with more distant threats in the 21st century. Albright asserted that the world's changing security environment meant that "a ballistic missile attack using a weapon of mass destruction from a rogue state" now posed as much of a threat to the NATO alliance as the arsenals of the Warsaw Pact did two decades ago.

In five months' time, NATO will be celebrating its 50th anniversary. It is planning on the occasion to approve a blueprint that will chart its future course. This means that, in the consciousness of politicians, ideology is still the main frame of reference when it comes to drawing up the future. But for the first time, a multinational spacecraft is being constructed, because no country alone, however powerful, can construct it on its own. This is a forerunner of the planetary approach that will characterise the space age as it unfolds. The probing of the infinitely big is now determining action to be taken at all other levels, including the infinitely small. This is the very opposite of what things have been throughout the 20th century where movement has been from ever-smaller, towards the ever-bigger, entities, not the opposite.

That is what I meant by the mutation currently underway. As we move into the third millennium. Man is more and more dethroned from his central position in the universe. So far, he has seen his world outlook expand in parallel with his awareness of the much famed theory of the Big Bang. His problem now is how to avoid, if not in terms of scientific knowledge, at least in terms of psychological stress, to become the victim of an ever-shrinking universe which would find its ultimate Armageddon in a virtual, if not real, much dreaded Big Crunch.