Socio Political Rants
This is a follow up from the really great debate from the "Here are the Cartoons we’re not supposed to publish" Mainly most of the comments has to do with the rise of Muslim Fundamentalism, how to deal with it, and slowly veering to the "clash of civilization," debate. (I hope it keeps going)
This is what I have been thinking lately as I watch the "dissatisfaction" over western values rise in the fundamental Muslim world, the nuclear threats of Iran, China and Japan’s increasing Militarism, North Korea’s nuclear tests, the US coming out and directly attacking the Muslim leaders for using the cartoon to incite hatred for the west for their own political purposes (which is exactly what the whole "Cartoon" thing is.)
Has there been a time more political contentious than right now in our life time (I was born 1974)? Was there ever a time when the world felt frightening, that one could see it being a possibility that there is another "world" war. That nuclear weapons could be used? That I actually feel the reality of the words "Containment of threats?"
I think this because I was listening to an artist interview of Alex Gormley, and he said he chose to make these giant casts out of lead because he grew up under the Soviet-US nuclear threat, and the idea of having to hide in lead cast bunkers and dying in them was very real. I thought, I had never felt such fear, never known that a nuclear war might happen, as by the time I was old enough to understand anything political, USSR and US were signing treaties, the Berlin Wall fell, and my late teens were a time of hope for a new freedom and it’s pretty much been that way until September 11th, and even then I had no real understanding of what was happening.
So, what I want to know is that if this fear, concern, and not being happy with the way things are going is a product of me being more aware or that the US has inflamed the middle east even more with the Iraq war (although September 11th happened first so obviously there was tension) or really at this time in history things are changing?
I am turning 32 next week, so I am really thinking of the history of the last 30 so years. I think most of the commenter are around the same age. So I am curious if people feel the same way as well and what they fell is the "right" way to deal with these threats.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
I think the tension in the world today is not as bad as the 1970s.
Your childhood in the 1989-1998 period was an unusually peaceful era of world history. The dissolution of the USSR ended financial support for many terrorist groups and left wing dictatorships. In response, the US abandoned its funding of right wing dictatorships and anticommunist guerillas as well. For example, Arafat was prompted to negotiate with Clinton and Israel because Fatah was going broke without Soviet cash.
The 1970s was much darker than today. Back then it looked like communism was winning. The American economy was falling apart because of huge inflation and unemployment. America was running budget deficits to support its military in Europe and Asia. Our allies in Asia looked pathetic. South Korea was a poor farming backwater governed by a brutal military dictatorship, while North Korea boasted a booming economy. Japan remained in shambles; their chief exports were plastic flowers and radios.
Soviet military advisors were suddenly everywhere. The Red Army steadily expanded troop garrisons in East Germany and Poland, rolled mechanized divisions into Afghanistan, and trained Palestinian terrorists in Moscow. The threat of full nuclear exchange was very high.
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I turn 34 on Wednesday so I beat you by a couple of years π
First off, I’d say that your question possibly requires a sense of scale and perspective as you are obviously referring to events that affect the global order or that have a global perspective. A person’s experience in say post unification Germany is probably quite different to one in post Apartheid South Africa or democratic South Korea or Taiwan, which all happened around the same time. I also think that there are an astonishing number of people who exist outside of this kind of universal consciousness (including the Muslim world)and in fact I think what you are by implication referring to is the shared Anglosphere.
I agree with you that we had a period of calm from the fall of the Berlin Wall until 9/11. I usually think of them as the Clinton years. It’s funny how we think of periods of history in terms of US presidents. Reagan and Bush I was the Soviets and the first Gulf War. Clinton was the time of peace and also of the rise of technology in our lives, and that was part of the hope, that technology would help us to transcend our existence and so we had acid house and smart drinks and techno and rave and The Shamen(what happened to them?), and we celebrated Gibson for predicting the Internet. And then came Bush II and 9/11.
I think in terms of being contentious, I think our lifetimes are going to be the making of the future direction of the human race. Consider that we know our origins lie in evolution, that genetic evolution ended with the paleolithic peoples many thousands of years ago, and that the evolution of ideas within culture is the current stage of evolution, and one that is happening at an accelerated rate. In a sense we belong to a common stream of ideas of how to organise society, and have faced down a direct threat from an offshoot of ideas (Marxism) and its near twin (Facism) that trails in its wake. And now we have the rise of another, dormant set of ideas that wishes to assert itself and perhaps impose itself on us. Sorry this sounds simplistic, but reductionism works. We still have that promise of technology, developing at an exponential rate to save us and allow us to transcend our human condition. Nuclear fusion, biotechnology, unlimited computing power all await us, but first we have to finesse our way past this threat with perhaps the threat of tension in the Pacific Rim awaiting us in the future.
Coming back to topic I would say that the only other periods of History that probably felt this contentious were probably the years after the First World War and again after the Second World War when I think people really felt that a previous world order had been overthrown and there was the uncertainties of the new situation to deal with.
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er, rob, i think glutter meant- is this the most contentious time in the last 30 years.
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I agree
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My greatest concern and the concern of most of us right wingers is ‘can we trust the crazy Muslims and their left wing spawn’ as much as we trust ourselves. Unfortunately, I do ot think so and probably much of you think the same the same way. Peace, love and save the whales.
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er, mish. I think I’ll post what the fuck I want.
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For people in the West, like me, things are still safer than during the cold war. I doubt a suicide bomber will come knocking at my door any time soon. On the other hand, the threat of the Soviet Union launching nukes at me was very real. Fundamentalists haven’t really killed a lot of people and probably won’t soon either (no matter how many scarestories about suitcase nukes go around). Even the fact that I’m a frequent flyer doesn’t frighten me – how many planes have been targeted by terrorists as a percentage of the total?
During the cold war we had a major global empire, equipped with huge amounts of the most modern weapons available, supported by several terrorist organisations (RAF, Red Brigades, CCC, etc.) that was capable and ready to kill us all. Now we have a fringe philosophy that isn’t supported by most of the people in their world, that’s as low tech as they come and a few countries that are dangerous to a few of their neighbours at the most.
The difference is that we now have 24h new stations that milk every incident for what it’s worth, and repeat that every hour on the hour on and on and on. Then there’s the internet where, under the cover of anonymity, extremist wingnuts can make asinine statements for which in real life their mommy would smack them upside the head. And then of course there is this president who relies on fear to keep his poll numbers up and seems to be doing everything he can to create more terrorists.
Don’t believe the hype.
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I think the “hype” of terroists blowing up the planes as you say is that it has everything to do with the increase of 24 hour news.
However, I don’t think the invasion of Iraq, the very real hatred in the middle east and the rise of fundementalism and the contencious nature of the middle east is. It is true that the nuclear threats of yore was more dangerous, but I don’t think we could ignore the threats of middle eastern countries rise in military power. Maybe Europe is safer now, but the balance of power is shifting towards other parts of the world.
Yan
PS. Rob and Mish. Be Nice!
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