In the first of a five part special report, Ahmed Shibli, managing director of ETD Consulting sets out his own unique take on the twenty-first century to date and how several disparate events that have shaped our lives over the past twenty years may well be connected.
Part One
Just as the Big Bang started as a particular singular event and the universe started expanding about 13.8 billion years ago, the 21st century started with a big bang of its own known as 9/11, some twenty years ago, resulting in the invasion of Afghanistan by the USA and its allies. Just as the scientists are trying to work out if they can explain everything going on in this universe with a ‘single string theory’, I wonder if there is a unifying string theory that can connect the dots of the world micro-events and possibly explain the recent invasion of the Capitol building in Washington DC. For someone like myself who is not a politician but has spent a lifetime solving science problems, it looks as though such a single string theory might just exist. After all, we are all humans with similar emotions, economic interests, prides and prejudices, patriotism, greed and so on.
But before I go into exploring this theory, I must say that being someone with a deep interest in the development of the ‘third world’, I saw the advent of 21st century as a glorious beginning when apartheid had come to an end, Mozambique and Angola were not being sabotaged by their big neighbour, democracy was taking hold in South America, the former Soviet Union had chosen a different path and so on. Alas, the 21st century for many countries started with a different type of big bang – the start of new wars, religious extremism, accentuation of internal conflicts and so on.
Coming back to 9/11, the ripple effects of the Afghanistan invasion are being felt even today, 20 years after the war started with no end in sight, making it America’s longest war in history. The rest of the 21st century has seen continuous turmoil, with the invasions of Iraq and Libya by the West and the civil war in Syria with the West and its Middle East allies supporting the rebels and, Russia, with its brutal intervention, and Iran supporting the regime.
The overall effect was hundreds of thousands (or possibly over a million, depending on which data you believe) dead and many millions becoming refugees. If a million people died in the Middle East’s recent wars, and if we assume that there are four injured for everyone death, then perhaps many millions were injured and disabled in these desperate countries. Then followed the drone attacks, justice from the air, with the single push of a button by someone sitting thousands of miles away in Nevada desert and oblivious to the ground realities.
The ripple effects of all this reached the West in the form of so-called ‘Islamic terrorism’ although it resulted in the death of tens of thousands in the Muslim countries themselves. The countries in turmoil gave rise to desperate civilians many of whom tried to escape to the West for the future security of themselves and their children. This in turn resulted in divisions in the EU countries with many closing the doors to these ‘terrorists’, others making arguments that they will be ‘swamped’ by the ‘flood’ of people with their alien culture and religion, while some countries, such as Germany, welcomed many. Under this strain, cracks started appearing in the EU with right wing parties and populist leaders with attractive slogans and ‘alternative truth’ theories gaining popularity. In the UK the slogan ‘76 million Turks are coming’ was used to scare the people off the EU.
To be continued...
