The End of History? The short, strange era of human civilization would appear to be drawing to a close | Noam Chomsky
Recent Noam Chomsky article for In These Times
It is not pleasant to contemplate the thoughts that must be passing
through the mind of the Owl of Minerva as the dusk falls and she
undertakes the task of interpreting the era of human civilization, which
may now be approaching its inglorious end.
The era opened almost 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent,
stretching from the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates, through Phoenicia
on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean to the Nile Valley, and from
there to Greece and beyond. What is happening in this region provides
painful lessons on the depths to which the species can descend.
The land of the Tigris and Euphrates has been the scene of unspeakable
horrors in recent years. The George W. Bush-Tony Blair aggression in
2003, which many Iraqis compared to the Mongol invasions of the 13th
century, was yet another lethal blow. It destroyed much of what survived
the Bill Clinton-driven U.N. sanctions on Iraq, condemned as
"genocidal" by the distinguished diplomats Denis Halliday and Hans von
Sponeck, who administered them before resigning in protest. Halliday and
von Sponeck's devastating reports received the usual treatment accorded
to unwanted facts.
One dreadful consequence of the U.S.-U.K. invasion is depicted in a New
York Times "visual guide to the crisis in Iraq and Syria": the radical
change of Baghdad from mixed neighborhoods in 2003 to today's sectarian
enclaves trapped in bitter hatred. The conflicts ignited by the invasion
have spread beyond and are now tearing the entire region to shreds.
