End Of History? Not Quite

A visitor to Moscow would be immediately struck bydisease, hunger, natural calamities, apathetic rulers,
the fact that an otherwise dull Kremlin now seducespoverty and ignorance everyday, and those who
one to break the sound barrier in a mike, rediscoversuggest that the panacea of all evils is to watch
one self on a Compaq or simply feel Warner in amore movies, guzzle more beers drink more colas,
Pringles. If this is not enough then there is alwaysand Just Do It?Tied to the above factors is the fact
Chairman Mao in Tiananmen Square calling uponthat all over the world maybe in the countries
workers and peasants to not only carry forward thethemselves, the so-called engines of globalization
revolution but also gulp down a Sprite, while they areseem to be acquiring local hues and colours as they
at it. Numerous more examples abound from theclank. Be it the fact that fast food giants serving local
Adriatic, so what does it all signify? Is it truly the endcuisines, global television channels beaming
of History? Do we now see a time when a matterprogrammes in regional languages or giant
of ideology is drinking a Coke or a Pepsi? Closercorporations trying to be more uniform global
introspection would reveal that it is not quite so.Letsystem, driven by the forces of profit and loss
us begin by noting that the world has not got rid ofseems to be weakening.If Bill Gates came to
or minimized the areas of conflict. From the moreHyderabad to sell his Windows XP, an Indian has
recent Israeli- Palestinian clashes, to the problems inmoved to Redmond to design it for him. As a result
Chechnya, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, parts of Africa etc.America is browning and in a decade from now, the
The war on Terror has brought Afghanistan and Iraqwhite man would be a minority on his island.
into global focus. Tensions persist on one form orImmigrants are no longer poor Italians, Irish and Jews
another and have the potential to assume moresailing to their land of opportunity in claustrophobic
enormous dimensions at any time. Closely related toships but are in fact an important constituent of the
this point is the fact that there are vast areas of thedemographic profile of every western country. Over
globe that were, in a sense left behind in time: partsthe years these Patils and Changs have emerged as
of the middle-east, chunks of Africa and Latinsignificant pressure groups in the government of their
America and especially Afghanistan are regions wherenew homeland, and it is only with a passage of time
modernity as we know it has failed to penetrate letthat we will realize the full impact of these
alone reach a critical mess to iron out medievalmovements of migrants on the history of
tensions and propel the inhabitants towards growthmankind.Equally significant has been the revolution in
and self realization. Such geographical pockets arethe fields of science and technology. We are today
breeding grounds of what may seem outdated, yetwitness to a rapid advancement in communication,
in fact extremely potent ideologies and movements.especially information technology and networking. The
These regions are not merely trouble spots of theworld is increasingly shrinking to become one global
world meant to be fumigated at will by the forces ofvillage. One development in one part of the world
modernity in their multi-billion dollar corporate avatarssoon affects the life of people in other parts of the
but are in fact pointers towards more seriousworld. Say for instance, oil production. If Saudi Arabia
matters. Namely how does one reconcile theor any of the major OPEC nations decide to cut
difference between the majority of the humanproduction, even if it is a marginal cut, oil prices shoot
population that is battered by pressures of war,up and political climate can change.