Reflections at the End of the Century

James Matlack directs the AFSC Washington Office, 1822 R Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009; 202/483-3341 <jmatlack@erols.com>

The end of the year 1999 and the turn of the Millennium provide an occasion for review of the twentieth century. Looking back over "our" century, what does the balance sheet look like between the patterns of violence and warfare on the one hand and advances toward human community and well-being on the other.

An Age of War

At first glance the century now coming to a close seems dominated by warfare, weapons developments, appalling conflicts, and human suffering. The means of killing have changed and intensified beyond imagining, decade by decade. One hundred years ago the cavalry charge was a staple of military attack. Now a rapid-fire personal gun can make a mass-killer of a solo combatant, whether on the battlefield or in the schoolyard. Over the years the marvels of technology and industrial engineering have been applied to cutting-edge weapons development as well as their mass production. The stunning birth of human flight, later matched by human exploration into space, were both immediately turned to military uses, intensified destruction, and new levels of peril for civilian populations. (The Wright brothers' first contract for planes was with the US Army. The US space program emerged as the lengthened shadow of the Geman V-2 rocket.)

More ominous than the sheer lethality of all the planes, tanks, howitzers, and other high-tech apparatus of warfare is the trend through the Twentieth century that has seen a steady increase in the ratio of civilian-to-military casualties. In short, ever greater numbers of non-combatants have been killed and maimed (and starved, made ill, exiled) in modern warfare. Armies and navies used to fight each other. Through the 1900s, however, they increasingly attacked whole nations, assaulting civilian society and its productive capacities as a route to victory over opposing military forces. This paradigm in which civilians are the primary victims of conflict is especially evident in the civil strife and terrorist attacks at the end of the century.

Beyond the casualties of war, the Twentieth century provides a staggering catalogue of victims who perished due to totalitarian and ideological misrule as well as prejudice, ethnic and nativist passion, and genocidal crusades. Calculated campaigns of starvation, victimization and extermination span the century from the Armenians to the Rwandans and Kosovars, killing far more than the direct death toll of all the wars. No one can doubt that "our" century has been marked by mass slaughter and calculated annihilation of whole populations.

At mid-century we entered the Nuclear Age of war. Ever since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities, none of us has slept as safely anywhere in the world. Of course chemical weapons were a ghastly though local feature of World War One. Carpet bombing became a slow-motion form of mass destruction by air attack in World War Two. We still face dire hazards from chemical and biological weapons that can be employed by small groups as well as nation states. Yet none of these risks come near to the incomprehensible devastation that would result from large-scale use of nuclear weapons. No other form of attack carries the same potential to extinguish the human species.

What can stand against this appalling chronicle of violence, conflict, and victimization that defines the terrain of the Twentieth century? What can redeem such suffering and bloodshed? Nothing can relieve the actual suffering and tragedy already experienced so widely through the 1900s. One can, however, find positive gains and social advances that are equally a part of the legacy that we confront as the Millennium turns.

In 1900 most people of the world lived under political and economic systems that seem in retrospect closer to feudal times than to our own day. A majority labored under colonial rule with control and benefits centered upon an imperial, often expatriate, elite. Monarchy and autocracy were the most common forms of governance, only occasionally restrained by democratic participation. For those caught in the intensifying industrial revolution, work was commonly long, hard, unsafe, and ill-paid, and allowed no means of organizing for self-protection. The ecological ravages of urbanization, industrialization, and population growth were largely unchecked and would remain so through much of the Twentieth century.

While none of these damaging patterns has been completely reversed or eliminated, major changes for the better are evident in all of them. Even though enormous social and political struggles remain before us, more people have some measure of influence over the conditions of their lives as well as participation in the systems of their governance than ever before. Democracy has become the dominant model for deciding public policy even though yet to be achieved in many societies and imperfectly practiced in others. Following the global trauma of World War Two, colonial empires were largely dismantled. Many new nations came into being to face the challenge of self-rule. The performance of these new national entities has been mixed at best and flawed in many ways but breaking the hold of colonial and imperial powers must be counted as a major advance of the century.

In the same post-World-War-Two context, the United Nations was founded. Along with its related international agencies, the UN represents the first and last best hope for a system of global governance that can quell the lethal rivalries of nation-states and move us toward world-wide standards and improvements in health, education, human rights, economic development, environmental preservation, and conflict resolution. The United Nations remains far short of its best potential but it is an indispensable mechanism for creating and protecting a better life for the peoples of the world.

When assessing the positive achievements of the Twentieth century, emphasis must be given to social as well as political gains. The role and status of women have been transformed both in the United States and, to a lesser extent, around the globe. The struggle is far from over but parity seems within reach by contrast with 1900 when it seemed unimaginable. Similar and profound changes have been achieved by Afro-Americans and by other embattled ethnic and racial groups in our country. Racism remains the "original sin" of American culture and is nowhere near being expunged. Yet one must recognize the advances won by hard struggle through the decades of the 1900s. On the world stage, the effort to create enforceable standards for protection of human rights still hangs in the balance but has forward momentum.

Conditions of labor have also improved over the last hundred years. Not for all workers in all settings but cumulatively and consistently the circumstances of labor, workplace safety, compensation and benefits are far better than when the century opened. Labor unions and international labor standards have become important elements in the global economy, although still seriously impaired or suppressed in many countries.

The 1990s have seen rising awareness of civil society as a broader base for citizen participation in governance than merely holding elections. The fall of communist autocracies across Eastern Europe did not result from military attack but from the energized, united actions of social groups in each country. Although the causal factors in China are less clear, civil society seems a strong influence in the sweeping economic "liberalization," even while its aging communist leaders try to repress political change-an imbalance not likely to be sustained.

In seeking to promote economic growth, development, and sound governance throughout the less-advanced nations, it is now a shared assumption that the civil society in each case must be engaged and empowered. Economic stimulation through rewarding narrow elites is no longer regarded as a viable approach, although it persists too often in practice.

What can be said of the public outcry and organized campaigns to curb militarism, weapons developments, and warfare through the Twentieth century? Such endeavors seem dwarfed by the grim realities posed by World Wars, nuclear explosions, and the prevalence of warfare. Nonetheless the role and effect of anti-war efforts should not be underestimated.

In the United States popular support and opposition have exercised considerable influence over national military policy and our government's willingness to enter or sustain various wars. The 1920s and 1930s were marked by powerful anti-war and isolationist sentiments. Since the broad consensus in support of World War Two, no other war has gone unchallenged. The US pulled out of Vietnam far short of "victory" because public opinion compelled withdrawal. The Nuclear Freeze movement and related organizing rallied increasing opposition to reliance upon a readiness to unleash nuclear war as the keystone of our national security policy. Similar citizen-based initiatives, exchanges, and campaigns helped to end the Cold War stand-off with its lethal potentials.

Anti-war endeavors have had only a partial success in the United States, however. For half a century we have seen disproportionate levels of military spending and excessive investment in weapons research, development, and procurement. Popular organizing has put some limits on military policy and "power projection" but has not displaced their central role in the Federal government, a dominant role that is quite at odds with our previous historical experience and with the antipathy of the Founding Fathers to a standing army. A recent example of the strong impact but less-than-full success exercised by public anti-war pressures can be seen in the campaign that led to a treaty to ban land mines but failed (so far) to secure the sign-on of the United States government.

What are our prospects as we face the new Millennium? Can the human community reduce the scourge of war and instead raise up the well-being of all peoples on the earth? The war system and human capacity for violence have shown resilience in every generation. We can hardly expect to quell them, to grow out of their destructive behaviors, in the foreseeable future. Yet we must struggle and organize to minimize conflict and to remove (in John Woolman's phrase) the "seeds of war." Amid the many national, ethnic, and historical pretexts for warfare that carry over into the new Millennium, I see two systemic risks that must be addressed with special urgency the nuclear threat, and gross inequality in our economic processes. Although the Cold War is over, we are not out from under the pall of the mushroom cloud. Nuclear explosions in India and Pakistan along with the rejection of the Test Ban Treaty by the US Senate are vivid reminders that the danger level is rising again. Thousands of war-heads remain dangerously armed. More governments seek to possess nuclear weapons. At this critical time, policy debate in the United States is skewed by a strong faction in favor of a "robust" nuclear arsenal, continued testing, and threat of the use of nuclear weapons to compel compliance from other governments. As Yogi Berra said, "Its déjà vu all over again." A brash new generation of political leaders seems to remember none of the lessons and cautions so painfully learned in the early years of the nuclear era. Vigorous public organizing and wise diplomacy are required to move the US and the nations of the world toward the reduction and ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons.

The second risk factor is more complex and pervasive, but no less dangerous or destabilizing over the long haul. Economic systems must bring adequate benefit to the majority and not shower riches upon the few or else massive upheavals and dire conflict are inevitable. While there has been marked improvement in the standard of living for most peoples of the world over the last century, the focal issue is growing disparities of wealth and advantage in economic terms.

People will labor long and endure hardship if they believe that they have a fair chance to share in the benefits of the economy. Conversely, sooner or later they will rise up in anger and desparation if they feel excluded and exploited. Both in this country and in the global economy there is accelerating concentration in the patterns of wealth and economic power. The world has never been so closely interconnected through trade, finance, and electronic technology. Awareness of the growing disparities is now spurred worldwide by instant communication systems. This global consciousness could be a force for understanding, tolerance, and mutual support. Unless economic systems are reformed toward more equal benefit for all, however, it will become a trigger for conflict.

The United States has a special responsibility to respond and to reform because of our leading role as a super-power in both military and economic terms. Transformation must begin at home where wealth and power concentrated ever-more rapidly through the 1990s (e.g. the top 1% of American households now own 35% of the nation's private wealth). At a recent seminar on economic trends I heard a leading expert acknowledge that, "We know how to stimulate economic growth; we have some useful ideas for poverty alleviation; but we simply do not know how to do equity." Both in national policy and in global economic processes we must learn how to "do equity," how to enable the whole society to benefit from the economy, or else our future prospects will be bleak (and deserve to be so).

Where do our strengths lie for achieving such needed transformations? Our best, perhaps our only stategy is to organize the people. No surprises here, and no guarantees. Long familiar struggles must be sustained and expanded. A truly global social alliance rooted in civil society may be the only countervailing force for change, for justice and peace, that we can mobilize against the centers of corporate and governmental power.

The tasks are daunting, yet inescapable. We are called to them by our deepest faith and values, our quest for sustainable human community. The current campaign for debt relief carried out by Jubilee 2000 is an encouraging example of knitting together such a worldwide coalition and inducing governments to alter their policies. We are engaged in a long-term struggle with scant grounds for optimism. Yet we cannot go forward without hope. Hope is rooted in faith, in the sufficiency of God's power to redeem all things, and all persons. We should take counsel from Margaret Mead, the noted anthropologist and feminist, when she said, "Never doubt that a small group of committed persons can change the world; its the only thing that ever has."