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A New Century
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 10:39:46 -0500 (EST)
Dear All,
The concluding century has seen advances in human knowledge and
affairs the nature of which might be described as awe-inspiring -- but
that would be a serious understatement. Today telescopes peer billions of
years into the distant past to see galaxies innumerable trillions of miles
away. We have cracked the DNA code and have begun using this knowledge
to bring health to the ill. Our understanding of the human brain is
growing tremendously, even as neuroscience is yet early along the path
it may come to travel. Relativity and quantum physics have literally
transformed our understanding of the universe. The Internet gives each of
us ready access to a global if (as yet?) partial and somewhat haphazard
network of knowledge.
We live much longer than in the past. The life expectancy in the
United States has grown by nearly 30 years this century; the life expectancy
in Mexico has grown by over 40 years.
http://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/timewarp/timewarp.html.
And yet, as human knowledge of the world around us and within us has
charged ahead, this century has been marked too by the extreme narrowness
of the human mind and failings of the human heart. Certainly this century
will be remembered in large part for new heights of "man's murderous ways
towards man." Such horrors are not themselves new, but this century, they
reached a scale and a degree of organization unprecedented and, I
fervently hope, never to be matched again: the gas chambers of Auschwitz,
the deadly plans of Stalin which caused millions to starve to death, the
Khmer Rouge, Rwanda, Idi Amin of Uganda, apartheid, Afghanistan, the
trenches of the first World War, the bombs of the Second...and the list of
humanity's most inhumane acts could go on.
This century, sadly but aptly, has been termed the bloodiest century.
Risks of this form of violence -- violence marked by people intentionally
inflicting harm, pain, suffering, death upon other people -- will
continue. The present decade has seen such violence in places like
Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone...and sadly, this list too
could go on. Weapons of mass destruction -- nuclear, chemical, and some
would say especially biological -- are a threat that is on the rise. But
the mass intentional destruction of human life has, I believe, peaked in
the twentieth century. Increasing interdependence among nations,
economies and cultures intertwined, the knowledge that all-out war could
now mean all-out destruction, a forum to which virtually all states
belong -- the United Nations...
I think the greatest threat for the next century is another form of
violence, of inhumanity, one that is more subtle but no less fatal. It
is the violence of the void. It is the violence of disregard. It is the
violence of lethal inequality. It is the violence of passing off this or
that tragedy as someone else's problem. It is the violence of not what
people do, but what people fail to do. It is the violence of indifference.
Bullets and an empty stomach can be equally fatal. This violence is not
new, but it is more painful than ever because in our wealthy world, it is
now possible to bring peace to the battlefield of poverty.
The mark of this violence is that it can -- and does -- exist all
around us, yet we do not see it. Bombs fall, bullets fly, buildings
crumble -- these are loud events. Sometimes we respond -- as in the world
wars -- sometimes we do not, as in Rwanda. But whether or not we respond,
at the very least we have no doubt that this is violence. We know that
there is a crisis out there.
Today, the danger is that the violence of poverty is too subtle, too
distant, for us to notice. We look around our neighborhood -- willfully
or otherwise failing to see shadows under the bridge and curled up in the
doorway -- and tell ourselves, things are good. Our neighborhood, our
country, our world, they are doing well. The Cold War is over, democracy
is spreading, the economy is prospering. The biggest threats seem to be
so-called rogue nations -- or at least their governments. For the most
part, the picture is bright, hopes are high, the future is filled with
promise.
But tell that to the parents who cannot feed their children. Tell
the parents in Bangladesh who must decide whether to give their children
water contaminated with arsenic or no water at all that there is no
crisis. Tell the homeless mother who who must decide whether she and her
children will sleep outside in the cold or face the possibly greater
dangers of a public shelter, tell her that there is no crisis. Tell the
Venezuelans (or the Nicaraguans and Hondurans before them), as their
flimsy shacks were being washed away by rain and mud, that there is no
crisis. Tell the women of Afghanistan that there is no crisis. Tell the
people of Somalia that there is no crisis. Tell the people of the Indian
state Orissa that there is no crisis. Tell the Botswanan orphan whose
parents have died of AIDS that there is no crisis. Tell the street
children of Mexico City or New Delhi that there is no crisis. Tell the
newborns of Sierra Leone, Uganda and Malawi -- whose life expectancy is
less than 40 years (http://www.popin.org/6billion/t27.htm) -- that there
is no crisis. Tell them that this is not a time when the well-being and
often the very lives of a substantial portion of the people of this earth
depend on whether we who think that times are good will rise our sights
beyond ourselves to the broader humanity.
In that spirit of looking beyond ourselves and into the eyes of
humanity, I offer you these hopeful glimpses of the coming century:
A world in which the twentieth century dream of "all human rights for
all" is realized.
A world in which we are cognizant of the fact that "there but for
fortune go you or go I," and we treat those who have gone there, where
life is tough, with respect and dignity.
A world where your land is my land and my land is yours, where you
are welcome into my home and I into yours, where the walls around nations
and ethnicities and races and classes have fallen.
A world in which we value people for who they are.
A world where I seek to understand you and you to understand me.
A world in which we understand our common humanity as we embrace the
differences in culture that come from our various expressions of that
humanity.
A world where people laugh only with each other, and not at each
other.
A world of inclusion, a world in which we treat those who have had "a
bad break" -- whether in their health, their work, their ability to
support themselves... -- in such a way that they still feel -- and are --
part of the community.
A world where the proclamation that followed the Holocaust, "never
again," is taken seriously and is realized.
A world where we are aware that our actions today will have effects
tomorrow -- on the climate, on our environment -- and where we act with
due respect for those who will be here tomorrow.
A world that still has significant amounts of rainforests, a world
that is rich with the diversity of life.
A world in which communication technology expands and enhances the
connections, relations, interactions among people, and does not replace or
dehumanize human contact.
A world in which we appreciate that while we may each be, in the
grand scheme of things, but a single atom, these atoms are the building
blocks of the universe entire.
A world in which people have enough education not only to get by,
to earn a living, but also to begin to appreciate what an incredible gift
life is, what a wonderful pocket of the universe is our planet Earth.
A world that moves forward as one, with all people sharing in the
wonders of life and of science, which gives us a deeper understanding and
ability to enjoy and live that life.
A world where we realize that the moral foundation of our society,
that all people are equal, crumbles in the midst of opportunities and
realities that are filled with such inequality -- but where we stand
by justice and refuse to let that foundation crumble.
A world at peace, filled with justice.
"A better world, a world of harmony and understanding, a world in
which it is a joy to live. This is not asking for too much."
Will this better world be our world? Is this a dream that can be
realized? That, my friends, is up to us.
Thank you for taking the time to read this message, and a happy and
peaceful new year and new century to you,
Yours,
Eric
"I have only dreams: to build a better world, a world of harmony
and understanding, a world in which it is a joy to live. This is not
asking for too much."
-- Yitzhak Rabin
"The dream knows no frontier or tongue
The dream no class or race...
To save the dream for one it must be saved for all."
-- Langston Hughes, "Dream of Freedom"
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their
dreams."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
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