Three Perspectives on the Human Future
This article is a transcript of the presentation Chaiwat Satha-Anand delivered at the SHAPE webinar ‘Humanity’s Future’ on 27 October 2022.
My response to the three excellent and thought-provoking presentations by three wonderful friends Richard Falk, Joseph Camilleri and Chandra Muzaffar could be encapsulated in a single number: 312. But where does this number come from?
Apart from the fact that in numerology, that is “angel numbers”, 312 is the combined age of 4 old men before you, mine included. A question could immediately be raised, how could 4 men, and not a single woman speaker, with a combined age of 312 years talk about the future of humanity, knowing well that it is the younger generations with all kinds of differences, including genders, who will inherit the earth?
I will however use the number 312 to ponder three elements I consider crucial for any meaningful meditation of Humanity’s future(s). They are: three crucial themes endangering the world; one solution suggested in a possible journey to mitigate the awful consequences of the three dangerous issues; and two inspirations drawn from the teachings of Buddhism and Islam as reliable companions in fostering preferred Humanity’s future(s).
Three themes: remilitarization, dangerous DNA, and “property without rights to exist”.
Remilitarization: February 24, 2022, marked the beginning of a return to a most dangerous global trend: remilitarization of the world. It signifies a world that recklessly returns to militarism as the condition whereby military values and frameworks come to dominate state structures and public culture, domestically and globally.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the German Bundestag three days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine when Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Germany’s decision to supply weapons to Kyiv, to support a wide range of sanctions against Russia, and to boost German defense spending. This is a reversal of historical German policy not to export arms to war zones, maintain defense budget below 2% of GDP, nor allow third countries to send German-made arms to deadly conflict areas. Scholz argues that Putin was not only invading a country but is destroying the European security structure.
As the war has dragged on for 10 months, with the European human atrocities daily displayed and its impact on global climate change due to its fossil-fuel dependence not known, it has become a marketplace of death by so many weapons producers showcasing modern and highly advanced instruments of destruction designed for no other purposes but to take sacred human lives, while other global priorities seem to be relegated to marginal importance.
Dangerous DNA One of the dire consequences of the present remilitarizing moment is to accentuate existing dangerous DNA in international organizations originally designed
to be a military and security pact. NATO is a political and military alliance with a built-in “integrated military command structure”. Born inside the bosom of the Cold War, its DNA has been to fight against its sworn enemy: the Communist Warsaw Pact. But after Cold War ended in the early 1990s, and the Warsaw Pact gone, the organization could be seen as suffering from a loss sense of meaning and a chronic disease called “enemy deprivation syndrome”, the term coined by Joseph Nye. Its “military pact” DNA dictates that such an organization could not vigorously exist without enemy.
Consider its sister organization in Southeast Asia: SEATO (Southeast Asian Treaty Organization). While many security specialists consider the organization a failure especially after the Americans lost the Vietnam War, I would argue that one of the most remarkable Southeast Asian wisdoms on living together in a new historical moment was to just let SEATO die its natural death. As a result, Southeast Asia was left with a free space where former “enemies” such as “Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia” could be invited to join in a new non-military organization, ASEAN as friends. Obviously not without some weaknesses, but ASEAN was not born with a flawed DNA dictating it that to exist, it must have enemies, as evident in the case of NATO.
“Property without rights to exist” Perhaps the most telling evidence of how far the present remilitarization moment would go in jeopardizing the world occurred in Birmingham on August 23, 2022, when Liz Truss then British future prime minister, declared that she would launch a nuclear strike on Russia, even though the result would be “global annihilation.” Listening to her emotionless expression, one cannot help but ask “by what authority” does a British Prime Minister, or anyone else have which entitle him or her to annihilate the world?
I would also argue that such weapons of mass destruction do not have a right to exist. In the field of nonviolent action, there is a healthy debate on the issue of property damage. According to the Catholic Berrigan Brothers, some property has no right to exist, and therefore damage done to this type of property is considered nonviolent action. According to 1986 War Resisters League Organizer’s Manual, examples of property with no right to exist include nuclear weapons, napalm, electric chairs, or ovens in Hitler’s concentration camp. If one follows this formulation, then when asked what are these nuclear weapons that belong to countries such as the US, Russia, or South Korea? One possible global response would be: they are “property with no rights to exist.”
One Solution A decade ago, in The Future of Power (2011), the eminent Joseph Nye argues eloquently that the future of power is a matter of whose story wins. We need a very good story to tell the world that would help us-I mean all of us, young and old with all beautiful differences, to walk towards the future without fear, and to look back at our own past without despair.
Two Inspirations: Buddhism’s “friend in suffering” and Islam’s “neighbour”
Friend in suffering: More than any other religions, perhaps, Buddhism underscores the fact that human life cycle with birth, getting old, sickness and death, is suffering. For the enlightened ones, Buddhist wisdom suggests a life of understanding the world of impermanence through the language and thought of detachment. But for ordinary people without the blessing of such wisdom, how are we to live? Buddhism inspires us to live with others as “friend in suffering”. The important Buddhist message here is that “friend in suffering” consoles us with the fact that we are never alone in such misery. At times, caring for the suffering others would invigorate us to make our own lives of suffering more bearable and meaningful.
Neighbour: Listening to how Prophet Muhammad advised Muslims to treat their neighbors can be exhilarating. He said: “Do you know what the rights of a neighbor, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, are? Help him if he asks your help; give him relief if he seeks your relief; lend him if he needs loan; show him concern if he is distressed; nurse him when he is ill; attend his funeral if he dies; congratulate him if he meets any good; sympathize with him if any calamity befalls him; do not block his air by raising your building high without his permission; harass him not; give him a share when you buy fruits, and if do not give him, bring your buys right to your house quietly and let not your children take them out to excite the anger of his children.” I would say that Prophet Muhammad’s teaching reenchants common wisdom “to love thy neighbor” with an extraordinary degree of sensitive caring towards other human beings, our global neighbors, deserve to be treated.
With a sense of “tragic optimism” where a series of little improvement counts, there is no human struggle more noble at this time than to break free from the chains of despair and begin a new journey of hope.
Photo credit: Aleksandar Pasaric