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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Ending the century, not History!
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
The fall of the Berlin wall ten years ago signaled the end of the twentieth century, not the one hundred years stretching from 1900 to 2000, but the "short twentieth century" which eminent British historian Eric Hobsbawm defines as the period between 1914 and 1989, that is, between the outbreak of the first world war and the end of the Cold War, or third world war, as symbolised by the fall of the Berlin wall.
Placing history in a logical rather than chronological frame of reference, Hobsbawm considers the early years of the twentieth century prior to World War I to be an extension of the nineteenth, as nothing of historical significance distinguished them from the previous century. Similarly, he sees the years since the fall of the Berlin wall, though technically part of the twentieth century, as actually part of the twenty-first century, even if the distinctive features of the coming century are still in the making. Thus if, as Hobsbawm suggests, a century should be defined in terms of the new and distinctive dynamics that distinguish it from the one that precedes it, the real beginning of the twenty-first century predates its formal beginning by a full decade. Still, the formal beginning, now only weeks away, is an opportunity to look back on the twentieth century and examine the specific features that set it apart from the century before it and, we are told, from the one coming after it.
Much of the history of the twentieth century was shaped by the interplay between the various 'isms' that dominated the political landscape: fascism, Nazism, communism, capitalism, etc. It is interesting here to compare between the way in which the bloc of states symbolising communism collapsed following the fall of the Berlin wall and the way Nazism and fascism collapsed following Hitler's defeat in World War II. Unlike the first and second world wars, World War III, better known as the Cold War, was not waged on the field of battle because all the protagonists were aware that a military confrontation would necessarily begin where World War II left off, that is, with nuclear explosions millions of times stronger than those which devastated Hiroshima and Nagazaki. A world war in the conventional sense was thus not a viable instrument of politics, as it carried within it the very real threat of self-annihilation. And so, despite the intractability of the Cold War, what came to be known as the nuclear balance of terror proved an effective deterrent against all-out war.
But though the survival instinct imposed self-restraint on the parties when it came to engaging in armed conflict, this did not apply to other forms of confrontation. The West applied tremendous pressure to bring about the collapse of the communist world. Some of its most prominent strategists, such as Robert McNamara, foresaw the possibility of bringing about this collapse by exhausting the Soviet Union's energies through a draining -- and ultimately unequal -- arms race, thus dispensing with the need to engage it in actual warfare. At the end of the day, however, it was internal factors rather than external pressure that caused the Soviet Union to implode.
The event inspired both supporters and opponents of communism to come forward with theories attempting to explain how it had come about. Perhaps the most famous theory of all was Francis Fukoyama's 'end of history' theory, which blurred the differences between the collapse of Nazism and fascism (following a world war) on the one hand and the collapse of communism (without a war) on the other, by attributing the collapse in both cases to the triumph of liberalism. In the aftermath of World War II, it was impossible to conceive that history had come to an end, if only because it was the object of two diametrically opposed interpretations: a Marxist interpretation based on historical determinism and a liberal interpretation based on the free market.
Another essential difference between the two cases is that the general consensus after World War II was that Nazism and fascism should be totally extirpated, while no one even suggested a ban on communist parties as such, which continue to exist in western democracies as well as in many other parts of the world. Thus there is no symmetry between the two ideologies which Fukoyama postulates were defeated by the western ideology of liberalism. Extreme right-wing racist ideologies are illegal in many parts of the world, while forces attributing themselves to the left, even the communist left, continue to operate in the political mainstream. A decade after Fukoyama predicted the end of history, the vast majority of governments in the European Union are social-democrats.
Nor can we assume that the fall of the Berlin wall has brought an end to the acute polarisation that characterised the world during the Cold War. Bipolarity is still with us, albeit in different forms. The end of the Cold War brought an end to geographical bipolarity, not an end to bipolarity in all its forms.
The disappearance of geographical bipolarity set the stage for globalisation, which purports to bring the peoples of the world closer together. But it remains an ambivalent notion, not least because it has not put an end to division and fragmentation along ethnic, cultural, class and national lines. Eliminating such divisions remains a formidable task for the twenty-first century.
The alternative for the bipolar world is not a unipolar world order, nor does it promise to become a multi-polar world order. The system is still bipolar although no longer based on a geographical divide but on societal and developmental discrepancies. Thus one pole stands at the summit of the global community, secure in its self-proclaimed legitimacy, while the other stands as the pole of attraction for all the forces rebelling against what they see as a dubious and self-serving world order. The so-called 'rogue' states are seen as providing havens from which this counterpole can launch activities outside the scope of world legitimacy, which often assume the form of terrorism.
This explains why wars have not disappeared. True, wars are seldom conventional wars, assuming rather the form of 'low intensity' guerrilla-like wars. So far, they have not resorted to the use of weapons of mass destruction but it is only a question of time before terrorist gangs have access to nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
Ten years after the fall of the Berlin wall, other equally insurmountable walls continue to stand. They have even proliferated, despite all the rhetoric about democracy, the search for a Third Way, even for a Third Left that is neither communism, social-democracy nor a neo-liberal Right cloaked in leftist clothing, which is now seen as a more intelligent alternative to rampant market economies that have sharpened divisions in the age of globalisation.
We might be only on the threshold of the formal twenty-first century, but we are already at the very heart of the problems the new century is expected to raise. Despite its claims about promoting democracy and the values of civilisation, the short twentieth century, with two deadly world wars, permanent local wars and boundless human suffering, has been one of the most barbaric in history. There is no guarantee that matters will improve in the twenty-first century, despite the unprecedented progress in science and technology. One element, however, can be a factor for optimism and hope. It is to understand that the end of history can never occur because history is never a zero-sum game. The balance of power is always skewed in one direction or another, and, accordingly human struggle and conflict will always continue. The dynamics of history cannot grind to a halt. It is to be hoped that the awesome power of weapons of mass destruction and the fear of self-destruction will spur the human race to unite in the face of this common danger, and to realise that salvation lies in cooperation not strife.
