Among other
things, the 20th century will be known as the
bloodiest century of them all so far, and there
is no end in sight to the carnage and warfare
that bedevil us. How come we have learned so
little from our suffering and pain? In some
ways, we are very intelligent; we are creative
and imaginative, but in others we are very stupid
and wasteful, and can destroy, very quickly,
what it has taken us so long to build up.
It will also
be known as the century of the Refugee. We have
witnessed the phenomenon of the international
refugee on an unprecedented scale, as people
fled their homes and countries in search of
peace, freedom and happiness, which they felt
were unattainable where they lived. The consequent
intermingling of people of diverse races, cultures
and religions, coupled with the ease of travel
today, has caused the World to shrink considerably;
we are no longer shut off from each other by
national boundaries, and hopefully, we are moving
towards the time when people will consider themselves
as members of the human race, instead of the
many categories that they insist on dividing
themselves up into.
The global
Environmental Crisis we are involved in recognizes
no frontiers, checkpoints or passports, and
concerns everyone. Slowly, we are coming to
realize that the Earth, and everything on it,
is endangered. Whether we shall be able to halt,
or even to slow down the destructive and destabilizing
processes we have started, only time will tell,
but we can never hope to succeed without cooperating
on a world-wide scale.
This
Crisis, if it awakens us to the necessity of
overlooking the differences between us and cooperating,
could have some very positive effects. |