SPEAKING FREELY Is Asia the light of the future?
By Nicholas A Biniaris
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.
Please click hereif you are interested in contributing.
The first tragedy which survived the ravage of time was the Persians by
Aeschylus performed in Athens on 472 BCE. It
narrated the war between the democratic small Greek city-states and the vast
Persian Empire.
The play takes place not in the triumphant Athens but in a bereaved city of
Susa. What was a clash of civilizations ended up as the "West" appropriating
the political paradigm of Asia by building the Greco-Roman and Byzantine
empires which encompassed the Mediterranean world up to the 7th century when
Islam appeared on the scene. The tragedy was popular in Rome and Byzantium
since the wars with Persia continued up to the 7th century CE.
Asia, as the richest and most advanced part of the world, the epicenter of
urban communities which American historian, philosopher of technology and
science and literary critic Lewis Mumford called the mega-machine of
civilization, Asia the fountain of religious thought, ground of immense empires
and technology fed the imagination and the desire of the West, ie, Europe for
riches, fame and knowledge.
However, for the past two centuries, this vast continent turned to a backward
place where human existence was and still is a struggle for survival, a state
of affairs so well understood by Buddha and so well embedded into his view of
liberation from the shackles of suffering.
It took 15 centuries for the West to develop a new mindscape that is the
scientific view of the world. The result of this radical transformation of
human thought brought about the decline and backwardness of Asia.
Today, Asia is taking up the challenge of Europe by redescribing itself with
this new narrative of science and technology. This view of the world has given
to us the power to shape our future, a hopeful future or even a probable
self-destruction. What started back then as a clash of civilizations is
actually over for now.
Human effort is driven by technology is the dominant underlying reality of
humanity. This fact, though, neither cancels conflict as a mode of behavior
among states, nor their opposing interests. Communist-cum-free market China,
democratic but caste-ridden India, nuclear-stricken Japan, opium-ridden
Afghanistan, and the vast oil and gas reserves of central Asia and the Middle
East crescent, form a landscape full of opportunities and existing or potential
conflicts. What the appropriation of the paradigm of science achieved was
globalization which is building a common destiny for all.
How can we picture the future for Asia? Shall it be a new golden age or a
preamble for the destruction of the planet as we know it? There are three
factors which will determine its future and ours.
The first factor which limits Asia’s future is what brought about the rise of
the West, not science per se, but the mindscape of unlimited "progress" driven
by technology.
Constraints for Asia are set by nature itself, constraints which are coming to
haunt us all. Projections of world institutions show that China will have a
greater gross domestic product (GDP) than the US up to 2030.
This will not make the Chinese people richer than the Americans. However, it
raises the elementary question of how this change will come about. What does
this mean for natural resources, and pollution of the planet? Does Asia have
the choice to embark upon an unlimited application of technology to fulfill its
dream of Western standards of living? It does, but it is a self-defeating
choice. As a small example of the demands for the future let us think that
Pakistan by 2025 will need additional water equal to the two thirds flow of the
Indus River, the only river in Pakistan.
Secondly, there is another limitation for Asia's rise and this is the
long-standing inherent tensions and antagonisms among the rising or aspiring
powers of the continent. There are three dominant blocks, the Chinese, the
Hindu and the Islamic. The fist is the most coherent and solid within its
limits and potentialities, because its political model is an experiment with
unknown ramifications and its potentialities are based on an ancient and
tightly knit distinct society.
The second, the Hindu block is in the process of asserting itself as a viable
model for development. This is more democratic and open but at the same time
chaotic and ridden by endemic poverty and degradation. The third, the Islamic
is in conflict with itself and its neighbors. The Sunni-Shi'ite conflict is in
the open, the fundamentalism of certain groups and the ideas of terrorism have
provoked the well-known responses of the West and the two long-term clashes in
Palestine and Kashmir are unresolved with potentially lethal wars for both
regions.
What passed as the peak of the Western narrative, the Cold War, which ended
with a rational accommodation of the conflict does not necessarily lead to the
same course of events for Asia. Furthermore, America and Europe are still part
of Asia's equation. The balancing or destabilizing effects of such interference
can be seen in the case of Taiwan and Japan and on the other hand in the case
of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
One way or another Asia is destined to make its own choices. The post-modern
West is receding from the area either as a military or as an economic force.
This change of the guard, this transition period may take years or even
decades; however, Asia's face is coming to light as it asserts itself in terms
of the economy, the management of resources, the relations it forges with other
parts of the world and most of all with itself. This is not an easy period but
rather a dangerous one.
The present economic crisis is unfolding in an unpredictable way which may
bring about the fall of some national economies and even force the world to an
economic setback. Asia is part of this narrative and in a significant way since
it is comprised of an agglomeration of dynamic economies which keep the wheels
of growth turning. And we must keep in mind that these vibrant economies are
based on technology.
Asia's development is based only upon the appropriation of science and
technology and this is a very good reason to doubt the possibility of Asia's
rise to a glorious future. This fact does not secure but rather limits the
possibilities of the West to stay at the present level of economic prosperity.
We face a double paradox.
Asia has limited possibilities to escape poverty and backwardness without
research and technology and at the same time it is bound by this same necessity
to limit its aspirations. At the same time it is only technology which can
continue to make credible the narrative of Asia's rise. It is only research and
technology which can realize development for all not as a zero-sum game. So far
some parts of Asia are progressing in an impressive way; others are entangled
in various conflicts and abject poverty.
History, though, is riddled by contingencies. What Asia has the choice to do is
to compete with the West not only in science or technology or in per capita
income but also by invoking the rich resources of its tradition, a commitment
to social harmony and to the spiritual aspect of humanity. Science is
indubitably the only open path for survival of the billions of humanity.
The planet cannot sustain seven billion souls today and close to ten by 2050
without the intervention of technology for food production, energy and raw
materials. It is also obvious, that we cannot turn back to an agrarian society.
We cannot reclaim the past with the tools of the present. But at the same time
we cannot survive as a whole with the sole vision of competing for numbers
about GDP, productivity and currency wars. We need to cultivate our self
awareness and our quality of emotional and social harmony.
We, in the West have come to realize, even in a yet undefined way, that we
cannot control our future without the aid and co-operation of Asia. This is the
stark reality for the West. It is not an easy lesson to digest for a part of
the world which grew up with the absolute power to steer the destiny of mankind
to its present condition.
We must come to look closer to the cultural heritage of Asia. The spiritual
tradition of Asia is immense and neglected. This treasure of human achievement
is buried in the folklore of nativism, parochialism, and even tolerance towards
crude human degradation. It is time for both the West and Asia to come to
engage not with tradition per se but with the spirit of what the great sages of
the East and the West be quested upon us.
This is not a utopian proposition, it is rather a pragmatic view of a possible
future of man upon a planet which by sheer chance offered us the gift of
thought, language and the choice to decide to act and pass judgment upon the
consequences of these acts as good or bad. We cannot avoid pain and death; we
can avoid cruelty and humiliation of other human beings as a choice bestowed
upon us, as a sign of real progress.
What Aeschylus narrated in the Persians is still taking place. Xerxes
the mighty Persian Emperor thrashed the sea which dared to sink his ships while
crossing the Hellespont. In the ancient drama his household and his mother
Atossa are eagerly waiting for the news of his campaign against the Greeks.
When the messenger and Xerxes himself arrived we learn that he lost the battle
at Salamis, a defeat in the sea. Since then we have punished nature as well as
ourselves with war, unbridled progress and ideological intransigency. At this
point we are waiting for the news from our campaign of folly against our own
survival. We are trying to manage our lives as a struggle between oblivion and
historically spiritual beings. Asia is the variable which will determine the
outcome of this effort.
Nicholas A Biniaris has taught philosophy and political theory at NYC in
Athens. His historical novel The Call of the Desert was recently
published in Greece, he is a columnist and an economic and foreign policy
analyst.
(Copyright 2011 Nicholas A Biniaris.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.
Please click hereif you are interested in contributing.
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