Harvijay's Corner

 

"Utopian Enthusiasm"

By Harvijay Bahia

Midnight December 1999, the World erupted to music, dance, revelry, unimagined festivity in anticipation and to usher in the New Millennium Dawn... a dawn of expectations, hope, anxiety and prospects, one that the world hoped would erase the memory of morbid events of the 20th century, that had its moments of grand success and equally grand failures, of ideas which were both great and tragic, carried out by great and evil men. They were the years of progress and regress, of hubris and humility, century of competing ideologies... Communism and Democracy... and of course the greatest evil forces of Hitler’s regime... the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The celebrations undoubtedly helped to bury the past momentarily... as the World also marginalized the achievements and reasons that we need to thank the previous generations... for the freedom that many nations gained, the victories over fascism and communism, for the enormous strides towards conquering disease, for the moral awakening, for the inventive genius that made the world global vide WWW... to list a few.

For better and worse the 20th century story is a loud carnival throbbing with scenes both spectacular and outrageous, garish and radiant, reckless and heroic... the entire narrative of 100 years appeared to have been shelved and confined to the coffins of history, by the volcanic exuberance of one night 31st Dec 1999, and by the force called "HOPE"... but to many it was an "Utopian Enthusiasm" which was soon to be proved right.

The world woke up to a rude awakening for the divine had other plans for the coming decade. Before the sun rose on the horizon of the new decade an alarm sounded at a nuclear power plant in Onagawa, Japan, as the world held its breath, fortunately the Y2k meltdown never happened... but more was in store, enough to make this as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade one has ever seen during times of peace... though no major wars were fought, the horrific events of 9/11 and 26/11 changed the world, forcing us to question the security we had until then rarely worried about or thought off. Nature was not far behind as it too lashed out, Tsunami killed more than 200000, Earthquake in Kashmir added another 80000 to the death toll... Global Warming took a firm footing that could lead to unprecedented disasters... Political Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has left countless dead and is still simmering... the most defining consequential moment of the decade arrived on the scene in the form of "Financial Meltdown" the world over, as if the economic Gods were personally conspiring against humans, not forgetting in the name of religion terrorist bombings and attacks all over, any time, anywhere, the sheer thought that we are not safe anytime and anywhere is profoundly unsettling.

Once again we are on the threshold of a new decade, and once again the world will erupt on 31st night to the "Utopian Enthusiasm"... let this one be with caution... let the coming decade be a useful one, a decade of goals attained and moral battles won. When at the holy moment the clock strikes twelve... a decade will be born... at that moment...

'O, PRAY FOR WISDOM AS IT COMES TO BIRTH... TO DO YOUR SHARE AND BUILD GODS KINGDOM HERE UPON EARTH'...

Lest we forget... that... "The World is not getting smaller, the missiles just go further".

---Harvijay