Three Global Temptations

Three Global Temptations (May 8, 2009)

 

            At this junction of human development, the global problems we have to face attest to the successes and accomplishments of man, his mental scientic genius, his legitimate ambitions for acquiring what he can afford to, his quest for liberty and the reward for a comfortable life after a hard day work.  The global problems we have to resolve attest to man ethical and moral failures to catching up to his mental agility.  Man has proven his individual instinct capability for survival in a sustainable earth; man has now to prove that he developed enough collective instinct to survive an earth on the way to depletion.

            It is appropriate to consider the example of a team of rock climbers.  The team has the appropriate equipments tested scientifically and the proper training physically.  There are three main risks for the team to fail in his mission of reaching the top.

            The first temptation is that a member of the team to go bereck and take a dive and thus carries the rest of the team with him. A few people have this urgent temptation to dive, and when available, they would try dangerous acrobacies.  Luckily, the two populous nations of China and India have taken off; they have the tools, the technology, and the means to care for their over 2 billion citizens if they don’t try to catch up in a few decades what took centuries for the USA, Europe, and Japan to reach in stable governments, and legitimate desires for comfort.  There are many more millions who have been humiliated for centuries and robbed of their basic dignity; they are not going beserck because of pauverty and means for survival as individual; they are dangerous because of a collective sense of insignificance and desperation toward the policies of the colonial powers of resuming this process of humiliation and denying them even diplomatic respect as recognized States.  Not all Moslem States feel this desperation: Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey have taken their destinies in their hand.  What the European Union and the USA have to focus on, right now, is to salvage the remnant of dignity among the Arab populations.

            The second temptation facing the team of climbers is the wall, the rock face. Most team members might have the techniques of sheltering from falling rocks, slippery sections, brittled portions, and blowing winds.  Human kind has learned to take shelter until the danger passes over.  Most of us have developed the instinct of prudence, not interference, and keeping low levels. We are at a junction where danger is not to pass over on its own volition and no sheltering behavior can protect us for survival. Human kind has to move as a team of bold activists and turn out heavily to put their words and opinions at work.  We may hold to our tribal customs, our illusory identities, our comfortable life styles, our chimerical convictions and all is lost.  The team has to support the weakest member as difficulties surge and be confronted collectively.

            The third temptation braving the team is deciding on the target of the mission and it has to be a collective goal. There are no tops to reach in human progress but there are defining phases.  We are at the dawn of Prehistory and a new kind of history has to be achieved and written. Tribal history has done its function but it is of use for our current global problems. National wars, religious wars disguised as ethical values, ideological wars, cultural wars, or war of “civilization” have been tried and they all failed to bring reprieve and salvation. A new adventure for human kind is facing us boldly and we have to invent a new kind of history more appropriate to our survival. The new history should be focused on resuming our medical successes, eliminating pain and diseases, eradicadin weapons of mass destruction, keeping us functional in old age, overcoming illiteracy, investing on continuing education, creating opportunities for various skills, desires, and achievements, preserving dieing languages and literature, managing human rights, and salvaging the dignity of every human being.

 

            Frankly, The European Union is actually the main laboratory for confirming that “Tribal History” is exhaling its last breath; that human dignity is not measured by fictitious apartheid scales based on color, religious affiliation or ethnic origins; that humiliating man is not a point of view or can generate any temporary benefit. If God has been angry for milennia then He has an opportunity to feel proud of his Creation.