Reflections on the century

The rise of Asia for a middle path

Compiled by Louis Benedict and Ameen Izzadeen

With a pure heart, selfless spirit that gave him the strength and power of a mighty army, India's prophet and apostle of peace Mahatma Gandhi is our choice as the greatest human being of the century — because we believe that as the conscience of an increasingly insensitive if not senseless world, he positively influenced the course of history more than any other.

The man who challenged and overcame the greatest empire under the sun without lifting a sword — though derided by the western colonial establishment as a half-naked fakir —proclaimed and lived a philosophy which is still inspiring millions to climb every mountain, search every sea and follow every rainbow till they find their dream where the world will be one community, all people brothers and sisters of one body and where sacrificial service above self-interest would be the only religion or spirituality.

It was on these lines that another philosopher hearing the toll of a funeral bell said, "It tolls for me, because I am part of humanity and every person's death diminishes me."

Gandhi who portrayed the heart and soul of India's liberative spirituality, perhaps foreseeing the technological revolution of the Bill Gates era, warned that people might learn how to fly like birds going to the moon or Mars— they might learn to swim like fish and conquer the depths of the ocean — but all of that would be as destructive as the nuclear bomb if people forgot how to walk like human beings.

On this momentous day when we see an event that will not be seen for another 33 generations, it would be prudent to reflect on where all this began, what is happening and where or what we are heading for in the new millennium.

According to the Book of Genesis, "In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the power of God was moving over the water. Then God commanded, 'Let there be light' — and light appeared. God was pleased with what he saw. …"

After many millennia and millions of years, what do we see to a large extent? It was not a cynic who wrote "creation in reverse" which runs like this:

"In the end man destroyed the heaven that was called earth

The earth had been beautiful until the self-centred spirit of man moved over it and destroyed all things-

And man said.... Let there be darkness...

And there was darkness - And man liked the darkness:

So he called the darkness security.

And he divided himself into race and religions, classes, and sexes of society.

And there was no evening and no morning on the seventh day before the end. And man said...

Let there be strong governments and world trade organisations to control us in our darkness.

Let there be armies to control our bodies so that we may learn

to kill one another neatly and efficiently in our darkness.

Let there be violence and counter- violence.

And there was no evening and no morning on the sixth day before the end. And man said...

Let there be intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs to kill faster and easier.

Let there be gas chambers and furnaces to be more thorough.

And there was no evening and no morning on the fifth day before the end. And man said...

Let there be drugs, pornography and other forms of escape, for there is constant annoyance... reality which is disturbing our comfort.

And there was no morning and no evening on the fourth day before the end. And man said....

Let there be division among nations, so that we may know our common enemy. And there was no morning and no evening on the third day before the end. And finally man said...

Let us create God in our image (an intelligent super computer perhaps). Let some other God compete with us.

Let us say that God thinks... as we think... hates as we hate,.. and kills...

And there was no morning and no evening on the second day before the end

On the last day there was a great noise on the face of the earth...

Fire consumed the beautiful globe,

And there was- SILENCE.

The blackened earth now rested to worship the one true God.

And God saw all that man had done-

And in the silence over the smoldering ruins-

God wept..."

Going back to our personality of the century, we could reflect today on his warning that bigotry or extremism of any sort causes more destruction and massacres than any other evil or injustice. Gandhi whose vision and goals transcended racial, religious, caste and social barriers and touched the mountain-top experience of unity in diversity, called on people to make a commitment to the middle path.

But the world did not listen. It did not know how.

In economics and in socio-politics, the world apparently went to extremes. Hopefully, as we move into the new millennium, we will see a blending and accommodation among all that was good in all the 'isms' and systems.

The BBC's 'brain of the millennium', Karl Marx had seen the exploitative and unbridled crony capitalism of the 19th century and proposed historic remedies as outlined in his Das Kapital and other celebrated works. His vision got flesh and blood through Vladimir Lenin — he led the revolution against the Czarist empire in Russia. Unchecked capitalism had gone to the extremes of self-centredness and self-interest by allowing privileged individuals the freedom to amass wealth far beyond their needs by trespassing or trampling on the rights of others. The rich and ruling classes built more barns or Swiss bank accounts while millions or billions of people were pushed deeper into enforced poverty. We saw how, capitalist nations built up and destroyed mountains of wheat, butter and other products to maintain better prices for them while millions in Africa were dying of starvation. Again we go to Gandhi who proclaimed that the world had enough wealth and resources to meet the need of six billion people, but not enough to meet the greed of some sick capitalist systems.

Though most government leaders of the West played politics and chose to underplay or perpetuate the monstrous gap in the world, it was inspiring to see pop groups and singers like Bob Geldof taking the lead in international movements to feed the starving world. Again by the turn of the century, it was Bob Geldof who inspired pro-people economists to launch a campaign for the writing off of third world debts amounting to trillions of dollars so that freed from the enslavement of the devastating debt burden, they could get up and walk again as human beings. According to a recent survey, if the money spent by the United States during the past 50 years in developing nuclear weapons is stacked in one dollar notes, it will go upto the moon and come back.

At the other extreme, we saw Marxist-Leninism, communism, socialism or whatever we choose to call it, going to the extent of denying individuality and personal freedom in favour of collectivisations.

As the Russian revolution passed the stage of euphoria over the liberation from the tyranny of the Czar, it developed heart trouble as it faced hard realities. Self-interest, the desire for personal gain or glory and horrible manifestations of egomania brought about distortions in the philosophy. Marxism in the classic sense called for the state to wither away. But with the emergence of Josef Stalin, the world saw the creation of an Iron Curtain, the iron fist and another monstrous tyrannical centralised bureaucracy. In trying to destroy individuality and the unique feature in each person, Stalinist communism became as dangerous and devastating as unchecked capitalism.

Hopefully with the dawn of this millennium, we are seeing, especially in countries like China, a well balanced blend of what is good in the principles of the free market economy and socialism. After the historical revolution and the awesome rule of Mao Zedong in the Great Hall and on the Great Wall of China, it was the dynamic moderate Deng Xiaoping who guided the mighty nation of one billion people towards the middle path that could be a guiding star for the world. To give the free market a human face and ensure equity with national growth, Deng Xiaoping kept one foot on the accelerator to develop a market economy while keeping the other foot on the brakes to ensure that a privileged few did not grab too much and that the socialist principle of equal opportunity prevailed to the extent possible.

With China giving leadership along with Japan, India and the East Asian economic tigers, the stage is set in this new millennium for the emergence of Asia as the financial and economic centre of the world.

It will perhaps be a fulfilment of Napolean's prophecy when he looked at China and exclaimed — "Let this sleeping giant lie, when it awakes the world will be shaken."

Our ten top personalities of the century:

o Mahatma Gandhi
o Vladimir Lenin
o Mao Zedong
o Deng XiaoPing
o Nelson Mandela
o Albert Einstein
o Mother Teresa
o The Beatles (John Lennon, Paul MCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr)
o Mohamed Ali

Honourable mention:

o Jawaharlal Nehru
o Marshal Tito
o Gamal Abdul Nasser
o Ho Chi Minh
o Franklin Roosevelt
o Winston Churchill
o Kim Il Sung
o Alexander Fleming
o Martin Luther King
o Julius Nyerere

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