Our century, our future

More than for its progress, the 20th century should be remembered for its brutality

At the century's close, it's tempting to tick off the vast scientific, social, and technological accomplishments of the past 100 years and express genuine wonderment at how far we have come. Innovations such as air travel, automobiles, and the Internet have helped tear down borders and foster an unprecedented sense of global community. Medical breakthroughs have curbed disease and lengthened lives, and the expansion of educational and economic opportunities continues to promote individual equality, liberty, and prosperity.

But as important as these strides have been, it's fair to say that the 20th century will be remembered as much for barbarism as for progress. Make no mistake: the past 100 years have been bloody ones, marred by repeated, horrific acts of violence, war, and genocide that have left few corners of the globe untouched. No statistic can humanize the suffering, of course, but this century's death count is staggering: an estimated 30 million killed in war, another 170 million killed in state-sponsored acts of ethnic and political cleansing.

Sociopathic attempts to foster perfect societies were behind many of the century's greatest atrocities. Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China strove to construct perverse utopias by promoting terror, extinguishing freedom, and scapegoating entire cultures -- Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, free thinkers, peasants, intellectuals -- virtually to the point of extinction. The world has yet to recover from this sustained, systematic chain of murder.

Most still don't fully comprehend the entire catalogue of 20th-century horrors. After all, for every world war, there have been thousands of deadly border skirmishes; for every well-documented assassination, there have been countless "disappearances" that go officially unrecorded. Our understanding of these atrocities remains grossly incomplete. Decades later, historians and human-rights activists are still trying to unravel and chronicle the crimes perpetrated by Germany, Russia, and China -- even as they struggle to comprehend more-recent terror campaigns in Cambodia, Chile, Rwanda, East Timor, Iraq, and the Balkans. It is the grimmest of enterprises, measuring history in blood lost and shallow mass graves.

But it's crucial to fully examine and account for all these outrages, if for no other reason than to make sure they are never forgotten. Progress has a way of lulling people to sleep, and the latter-day marvels of science and technology can delude humankind into thinking it has evolved more than it actually has. Indeed, if the 20th century has taught us anything, it has shown that even in the face of enormous advancement, we have not been able to suppress the most primal and savage of human conflicts -- the clash between empowered and the powerless. Even today, it's clear that mass devastation remains quite possible, even inevitable. As Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould noted recently, human nature has not changed in 50,000 years.

Sad but true. Gould's observation should not be construed as a tonic for complacency; rather, it should send a spark up our spines -- a spark to remind us of our duties at home and our responsibilities (to be shared) abroad.

There is no set response to terror. Diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, and military intervention are among the traditional tools at a powerful nation's disposal. It's dangerous to generalize about how they should be used. But it's even more dangerous for the United States to withdraw from international engagement, as the Pat Buchanans of the world would have us do.

What, then, should be the foundation of our principles? We suggest two: oppose torture and oppose genocide. This may seem deceptively simple. But it's easier said than done. Over the past 100 years many US allies -- and the US itself -- have been guilty of one or the other, or both.

There are many wrongs in the world, and common sense tells us that we cannot right them all. But we can, perhaps, try to establish a baseline for minimally acceptable international conduct. A continuing debate over where that line should be drawn would be a national stimulant -- an antidote to complacency and isolationism.

Anyone who doubts that slow and sometimes unsure traditional diplomacy can work should look to Northern Ireland and the Middle East, two of this century's most volatile flash points. As 1999 draws to a close, it looks as if the basis for a workable peace may finally have been achieved in Ireland. And although peace is not yet at hand in the Middle East, optimists believe that the ground has been laid for a Northern Ireland-like breakthrough. We all must invest in such hope if we are to move forward.

Here in Boston we have a strong tradition of activism to guide us. Massachusetts, together with Virginia, furnished the intellectual energy that powered the American Revolution. The abolitionist impulse burned nowhere more brightly than in this city. And the suffragettes who fought for women's right to vote and paved the way for the women's liberation movement were welcome in this community as they were in few others.

How do we reconcile these movements, some more than 200 years old, with the 21st century? They are all about the right to self-determination -- the right to be oneself without harming others. They serve as benchmarks for the challenging years to come.

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.