Let me start with a quote from Tolken which I think seem to be more appropriate and relevant to us Year 2025, a quarter of the 21st Century, is pitched and surrounded by all kinds of chaos and unpredictability – the countries that claim to be great democracies want to be greatest see to be foundering from democratic values and deviating from the edict of free world. Wars and conflicts have erupted around the world. The paradox is that those who keeps lauding about ‘peace’ and against ‘war’ is now igniting wars and conflicts.
Be it a migrant in the city or a landless agricultural labourer or a white-collar workers concerned about his/her job or students who raise their voices against injustices and wrong policies in the colleges or the leaders who oppose government autocratic and fundamentalistic, the ruling governments or those individuals and communities facing bleak prospects or those struggling with generational change or others worried about abstractions like democracy and justice, they are living under anxious moments not knowing what would happen next.
It is important that we should zoom out, and 2025 does not seem all that different from 1925. Let us revisit what happened a century ago. Similar tectonic shifts scrambled people’s lives. On the one hand there were monumental progress, wealth generation, but widening inequity and inequality. Technology was at the verge of gaining momentum and taking-off. If we are now talking about and experiencing digital frontier today, with AI and biotech innovations, it was the cascading effect of steamships, railways, electrification and telecommunications that had shaken the social and economic terrains and political templates then.
The West and the so-called ‘developed’ and ‘rich countries’ enjoyed the booty from the colonies and made stupendous progress and amassed huge wealth through extraction and exploitation of raw materials and labour respectively. Then and now, the gains of technological progress and opening of the economies vis-à-vis globalization were and are unevenly spread and now it is lopsided. Massive fortunes were made from colonial plunder, monopolies, unregulated trade, control of multilateral agencies by the powerful were based on resource extraction, industrial innovation and infrastructure.
The larger point in all such disputes, and the violence that follows, is that at the root of these conflicts is history, which told as a long reel of conquest and subjugation. Accounts of battles and empires ignite sentiments, creates false memories, whether these be of valour, humiliation and revenge. We are taken hostage by history, forgetting our present and the reality of those around us. We depend on interpretations of those historical events and form our own opinion. Look at current conflicts in Manipur that stretches back to pre-colonial times. At the surface level we may be carried away by those narratives that seem to be visible and dominant.
Take others such as Ukraine-Russia war has its roots in colliding notions of the past. Zionists believe in a biblical-cum-historical claim on the land of Israel. Palestinians are not persuaded. This time, it is Gaza paying the price of history. In India and Pakistan, school histories teach our common freedom struggle in dramatically different ways including the portrayal of Gandhi and Jinnah or the events like 1857 rebellion. Independence and partition between India and Pakistan are interpreted differently by both the countries based on their ideologies and political compulsions. These narratives continue to remain for long time—keep simmering in one way or others. One of the classic examples is the rivalry between France and Great Britain simmers even they have been on the same side for couple of centuries. In recent times we have been witnessing protests, street fights and statue toppling of historical figures, disputes over textbooks that allegedly paper over a racist imperialist past.
The world had remained inward looking despite the WW1. The world at large retreated from trade and other cooperation failing to seize the short-term advantage. Workers feared because of the introduction of machines which would replace them and stock marked fluctuated and helped the share-holders and brokers to manipulate the shares. Social safety nets, fair regulation and multilateral global institutions were acting in support of the rich and developed countries. We live in a lawless world. Rule-based world order is gone.
Current world order is moving towards empire-building of two important countries that are vying against each other by way of hegemonic interests. The trend posits the Darwinian formulae: “Survival of the Fittest” premised on ‘Laws of the jungle’. These signs and trends posit that history does not repeat itself, but it certainly seems to rhyme. This does not mean that events don’t matter, or we are doomed as to repeating our traumas. But it is a call for engagement and participation. We live in times of historic tumult. The past events remind us that how people and countries survived and to trace the movements of that part of history.
Transformation or change is only a turn of the wheel. Change or transformation when we think it ma appear big, but it is possible. History has shown ample examples. What is happening in our world is to destroy and engage in re-construction and process goes on and on. History offers this lesson candidly that war and peace are both inevitable. The Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska wrote about mundane life-sustaining work even in the middle of war, someone pushing the rubble off the road so the corpse-filled wagons can pass. A generation that lived in conflict gives way to another that remembers little, and another that remembers nothing.
The editor of “The Times of India” in his editorial column rightly said that “Hisotyr is always a play of perspectives. We can never find peace or progress in litigating abstract bygones. What’s more, the past is not a story of power and humiliation alone. There are far more intesting threads to follow, which are more relevant to our lives. Many recent histories have explored human societies through objects and technologies, commodities like sugar or coffee, or horses or porcelain. Today’s Mind field (below reveals the march of time through the story of money. We may never be able to settle what happened at the beginning of the universe, but we can explore our curiosity about the world right under noses.”
A generation that lived in conflict gives way to another that remembers little, and another that remembers nothing. As someone rightly pointed out that “In the grass that has overgrown/causes and effects, /someone must be stretched out/blade of grass in his mouth/gazing at the clouds.” And so, it is, in good times or bad times humanity struggles and survives. We do not know what would happen. Big things are in ferment, just like a century back. Eventually they will all settle down, like before. To conclude let me bring a quote by Ronald Reagan that “Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.”
Dr. John Mohan Razu
RELATED POSTS
View all
