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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 January 2000 Issue No. 463 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 January 2000 Issue No. 463
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Millennium Features Profile Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters What is left to the third millennium?
By Assem El-Qirsh *The palm of the 20th century is now clearly legible. The hand holds no more secrets or surprises. It is a palm more sharply etched than we had thought, its strong lines cut through by ragged gashes of misery. Its mountains of jubilant victory plunge precipitously into valleys of crushing defeat. Over its undulating contours, the fates of millions crash against the follies of world leaders, the conspiracies of enemies, the wrath of nature and the whims of scientists.
Because of its teeming legacy, it will be some time before it sinks in that the 20th century, with all the good and evil it has brought, has really "ended". It will take even longer for the clouds of dust raised by the feet of clashing armies (generally engaged in unnecessary wars) to settle, and for the din of 100 tumultuous, impetuous, perplexing years to die down, clearing the air for new voices from a century bearing new initial digits.
With all its storms, wonders and mysteries, the 20th century has staked out a place for itself on the list of the most surprise-filled, glittering, thrilling centuries. Above all else, it was a century of volatility and contradiction, dreams and disillusionment, transformation and regression. It was the century of fast-food, big business and the Beetles; a time to liberate both mind and body (with mini-skirts, bikinis and hot-pants); a time to break idols and smash taboos (the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union, the necktie). The century of revolutionaries, traitors and tyrants was also the century of Coke, Viagra, blue jeans and the mobile phone; of AIDS, satellites, Lady Diana and Dolly the Sheep. In this century, humanity brought communism to life and buried it, became addicted to football and added cigarette smoking to its vices, laughed at Mickey Mouse (and at itself) and brought the atomic genie out of its bottle.
For decades, during the Cold War, human beings faced off across an iron wall of enmity. But human beings did learn, if very slowly, that there is no difference between black and white. They also discovered the new continent of the Internet and conquered the secrets of the universe (while failing to learn enough about themselves). They attained undreamed-of horizons, but never forgot how to remain primitive to the core. In spite of their sweeping advances, they remain as impotent as ever against the wrath of nature, disease, starvation, greed and spite. At least human beings have come to realise how insignificant they really are within the greater scheme of the universe.
The 20th century was also the century in which we learned how best and worst can coexist under the same sky, how everything and its opposite can be justified, how ignorance and genius can be cheered in the same breath. It was thus the century of great hopes and even greater follies, of naïve lies smoothly swallowed by millions and lofty ideas that never made sense to anyone, of flagrant colonialism in a different guise and a globalisation that no longer bothers to mask its face.
Among other things, the century exposed the worst that is in us. It began in war and never brought peace. For long years, we excelled in dogged persistence, refusing to learn how to resolve our conflicts with anything but claws and teeth, as though to deliberately spite our gifts of speech and hearing. Pockets overflowed and bellies stretched to bursting point, yet the rich still wished for more. Racists wanted this world for themselves alone, in spite of its accommodating vastness. Rulers succumbed to their megalomania and used every conceivable device known to tyranny to inflict their caprices on their peoples (the history of Africa and the Third World offers dozens of examples).
Without a thought for mercy or morals, leaders of nations blithely signed orders to annihilate millions of their adversaries, or sent their own people off to die. While revolutionaries burned with zeal for a better world, madmen (such as Hitler and Mussolini) set the world alight to perpetuate their rule and perpetrate their nightmarish vision. Millions of people poured their anger into the streets, challenging tanks and mortar fire to alter reality (as was the case in China, to cite but one example), many millions more cowered, alone in their homes or hideouts, holding their breath and restraining their dreams so as not to arouse tyranny's wrath. Of course, to round out the picture, there were also mass murderers who discovered that crime pays, and found that, as long they as they remained powerful enough to stifle resistance and perhaps even orchestrate encouragement, they could perpetrate the most unimaginable atrocities with impunity.
The century that has just passed was also one of abbreviations, acronyms and icons, as easily chewed as a take-out burger: UN and G7, CD and e-mail, M as in MacDonald's and V for victory. The century had its symbols, icons and bugbears: Guevara's beard and Stalin's mustache, the Soviet sickle and scythe, Hitler's swastika and the donkey of the US Democratic Party, Mohamed Ali's glove and Umm Kulthoum's handkerchief, Naguib Mahfouz's trilogy and Einstein's relativity, Abdel-Nasser's nose and Marilyn Monroe's mouth, Gandhi's loom and Elvis Presley's guitar, Soad Hosni's spontaneity, the stones of the Intifada. There were also the hats (De Gaulle's, Lenin's or Uncle Sam's), Arafat's kufiyya (and his kisses), Khomeini's turban and Sadat's pipe, not to mention the Australian kangaroo, the dove of peace, Taha Hussein's glasses, Charlie Chaplin's walking stick and bowler hat, Tawfiq El-Hakim's donkey, Indira's sari, Mao's collar, the heart-throbbing strains of Abdel-Halim Hafez and the clink of Europe's Euro.
And of course, there was the star of David! For, after all, it was also Israel's century, a century of land theft and partition, brutality and occupation, biased judgements and illegal settlements. For the Arabs, it was a century of resistance and impotence, partial agreements and signatures distorted by twisted arms, an unbalanced balance of power and nonsensical equations catering to the pragmatism of a world that cares not a hoot for the weak.
Sadly, for the Arabs, too, it was the century of lost opportunities. Not because they resisted so long -- and so rightly -- giving their land to Israel, but because they squandered endless years floundering in failure to consolidate their ranks. They wasted untold energy and resources sharpening the swords they held at each other's throats, and sacrificed generations to futile backstage skirmishes, assiduously ignoring the lessons of the past and failing to prepare themselves for the future.
If warfare and brutality played the leading role in this century, however, science frequently stole the limelight. Working miracles worthy of any shaman, technological breakthroughs enabled human beings to glimpse the far side of Mars, cross the threshold into the age of test-tube babies and cloned sheep, or empower the computer to beat us at chess. As life went faster and became easier, the world also began to trespass on religiously forbidden ground, using genetic engineering to tamper with creation and turning the secrets of the atom to genocidal ends.
The "last century", as it became known as of midnight on 31 December, was also the age of television despotism. Thanks to satellite communications, we can sit in our bedrooms watching distant wars as entertaining as a game of Atari. The whole world can watch as international statesmen are stripped bare by scandals of money and sex. Watergate, Irangate and Monicagate were three of the century's most notorious and long-playing serialised political dramas. The media tyranny that brought millions together in shared grief at the death of a king or a movie star, and sometimes the ravages of a natural disaster, also unified the world in applause at a World Cup goal, a medicine to alleviate human misery or an adventurer who broke the barriers of time and space. This same tyranny brought us a realism (or the impression thereof) that shaped our (mis)conception of the world around us.
The century that is now gone, sweet and bitter as it was, was the century that unified and enraptured the world, but also divided it and caused it to grieve. Politics corrupted, and art redeemed. People everywhere now laugh at the same jokes, regardless of their native language; they sing along to the same tunes, whatever their nationality; and they watch the same films with the same intensity, even if the subtitles are inaccurate.
The century that has passed gave us just as many reasons for apprehension as for optimism. The one that is beginning brings as many hopes and new dreams as it does further shocks. Certainly, it will hold more surprises, raise new spectres and put us through new tests. The first century of the third millennium holds many answers, too. May it bring a happier and safer world.
* The writer is assistant editor of Al-Ahram.
