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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Languages we need to learn
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
The day following the Euro-African summit meeting held in Cairo a few weeks ago, someone asked me for my assessment of the event. My reply necessarily touched on the historical dimensions of the relationship between the two continents. I pointed out that once upon a time, colonialism had justified its African incursions as part of its mission to spread civilisation to the backward regions of the world. However, the inhabitants of these regions saw colonialism as a curse and a source of great suffering. Under the pressure of the colonial yoke, they struggled relentlessly until they obtained their independence. But more often than not, rule under independence proved incapable of fulfilling their dreams and satisfying their aspirations. To my mind, the Euro-African summit seemed to be reflecting an attempt by the concerned interlocutors to find a formula, in the context of globalisation, by which to give Europe's 'civilising' mission a second try!
Dealing in a civilised manner means, among other things, settling disagreements in a peaceful way; that is, by means of dialogue conducted in a language that is mutually intelligible -- not through violence. Unfortunately, our contemporary world, despite the globalisation process, despite the Information Revolution, despite the unprecedented facilities in communication, is having greater difficulty than ever before in finding common languages capable of ensuring meaningful dialogue, wherever dialogue is needed.
A case in point is the difficulty of dialogue with the so-called 'new world economy,' often described as a 'market economy' within the context of democracy and human rights, and which stands at the heart of the 'new world order.' Who would have thought that, at a time markets reign supreme, a conference organised by the World Trade Organisation should have turned into the debacle it did in Seattle last year because of the inability to find a common language between the various actors who constitute the key interlocutors in this 'new world order'? How to explain, more recently, the totally unpredictable collapse of the stock markets, particularly the Nasdaq composite of the large technology-based companies, which witnessed on 14 April a 34 per cent drop from its record high on 10 March? How can we talk of stability or the ability to control events in such unpredictable and vulnerable circumstances? Moreover, was it just an accident that Nasdaq's near-crash came only one day after the court ruling against Bill Gates and Microsoft? How viable is a global economic system that is so dependent on the fate of one company, ultimately of one man?
The furore over Syrian writer Haydar Haydar's novel A Banquet for Seaweed is a graphic illustration of how difficult it can sometimes be to find a common language in which to conduct a constructive dialogue. Egyptian society split into two conflicting camps, each presenting persuasive arguments in support of its stand. The problem is that neither was prepared to hear the arguments of the other, as the two proceeded from two mutually exclusive frames of reference. The camp which used religion as its frame of reference categorically refused the idea that artistic or literary freedom could be used as a cover to denigrate religion, while the advocates of a secular outlook were outraged that religion could be invoked to justify repressing freedom of expression and the unfettered blooming of art, literature and every expression of creativity. This clash is difficult to overcome, albeit because religion resorts in the final analysis to absolutes, while secular knowledge, derived from human experience, involves not only objective reality but also the human observer's subjective appraisal of that reality, which differs from one person to another. So where to place the line of demarcation between what is 'absolute' and what is 'relative'?
The inability to communicate is particularly true when the issues at stake are not disputes over conflicting interests between humans who, eventually, can always talk to each other, even when they belong to environments as different from each other as the continents of Europe and Africa, but more particularly as a consequence of the onslaught of modern technology on mother Nature; that is, the often impossible dialogue, with no common language whatsoever, between the realms of technology and ecology.
Until recently, technology could not harm Nature much. Today, the ecological infrastructure of our planet is exposed to relentless aggression due to the potency and irrepressible power of modern technology. A recent United Nations report highlights the fact that, despite the indisputable increase in ecological awareness, the threats to both the environment and to human development as a whole in the coming years will remain critical because of the ever growing demand on natural resources. Consumption, and therefore depletion of these resources, especially if they are non-renewable, is increasing exponentially, due not only to the quantitative increase of world population, but also to the qualitative increase in per capita consumption due to development.
The UN document reports the findings of a collective work by 197 scientists in various fields of specialisation reached throughout the last two yeas which confirm that the present prodigality in natural resources is bound to have irreversible adverse effects in future which will seriously undermine the chances for sustained development. Already the surfaces of forests have decreased by half over the last century because of man's ever greater consumption of timber, which has in turn caused desertification to reach a critical threshold. Moreover, the different species of fish in the seas and oceans have decreased by 20 per cent (some have become totally extinct) and 70 per cent of once arable land can no longer be considered as such.
Technology has no common language with Nature's ecological balance. And the incompatibility is expected to increase still further with the growing robotisation of technology and the development of artificial intelligence. Equipped with such an 'intelligence,' and with the ability of having 'languages' of their own, machines are now acquiring one of humanity's most singular and outstanding characteristics. And, if we add to the growing independence of machines from man the current attempts to clone not only mammals, but even in some not too distant future human beings themselves, we are likely to come across types of 'intelligence' which human intelligence may be unable to control.
The lack of a common language between Man and Nature found a graphic illustration in an event which took place last week, when five of the sun's planets moved into new positions that brought them all on one straight line. The event provoked dire predictions that ranged from claims that it would provoke disturbances in the earth's magnetic field, tidal waves and other natural disasters which could deeply affect the planet's equilibrium, to doomsday scenarios. In this, like in many other fields, lack of ability to develop a common language between the various 'actors' in our present world's global game can affect our future in the most significant manner.
One main reason for the potency of present-day technology is its ability to reveal to us the secrets of worlds traditionally inaccessible to us: worlds belonging to the infinitely small on the one hand and the infinitely large on the other. Thanks to technological prowess, man is now capable of investigating both the world of the atoms and that of the galaxies, of moving out of the macro-world with which he is familiar thanks to his five senses and using the micro-world of the atom to radically transform the macro-world to which he belongs. The ability to move out of and then back into our traditional world has created virtual reality. New languages have materialised. New perspectives have opened up. At the same time, however, we have discovered that the more we know, the more we are aware of what we do not know, and the more we need to decode languages that remain beyond our reach. Once again, how can knowledge, always 'relative,' get closer to the 'absolute'?
