On the night of 31st December 1999 my wife, my son, his girlfriend, and I travelled in a chartered Jubilee Line train from Westminster (we’d been at a reception at the House of Lords) to North Greenwich to see in the turn of the millennium at what was then known as the Millennium Dome. The Queen was there. Tony Blair was there. Jools Holland was there. The Corrs were there. And so were thousands of people who’d managed to get tickets for this great event.
Millennium bug
What was the great panic of the day? Does anyone now remember the so-called millennium bug? Y2K? The calendars on many computer systems, we were told, had been programmed with only two spaces for the numbers representing the year. So, as our year ticked over from 1999 to 2000, the dates on the world’s computers would tick over from “99″ to “00″ and aeroplanes would fall out of the sky, banks would stop operating, power stations would shut down, the world would grind to a halt.
As Big Ben struck 12 midnight, as the fireworks went up along the Thames, as we all joined hands in the Millennium Dome, turned to face the Queen, and began to sing Should auld acquaintance be forgot,/ And never brought to mind ?/Should auld acquaintance be forgot,/ And days o’ lang syne ? we mentally held our breath and waited for the aeroplanes to fall.
Life went on
Nine years on we’re still here. People went on flying. Punters went on getting money from those ATMs. Life seemed to go on pretty much unhindered.
Until 2008, that is.
Abyss?
And now we are looking into the abyss. (We must be, Woollies is closing down.)
In October the Universal House of Justice (the Baha’i community’s world governing body) wrote this to the Baha’is of the world:
Behold how even in the short span of time since we raised this warning [in April about the disillusionment of humanity], financial structures once thought to be impregnable have tottered and world leaders have shown their inability to devise more than temporary solutions, a failing to which they increasingly confess. Whatever expedient measures are adopted, confidence has been shaken and a sense of security lost.
Forecasts from some fairly reliable sources are indicating that 2009 will be a very tough year for the world’s finances and the world’s economies.
Each of one of us, wherever we start from, is likely to be less well off at the end of 2009 than we are now. A lot less well off.
One reason: our governments have paid out vast sums to shore up the tottering financial structures. Where do governments get their money from? From you and me, from us the taxpayers of the world. Another reason: the value of investments of all kinds has fallen dramatically.
Could we have foreseen this?
Could those of us who enjoyed the show in the Dome on Millennium night nine years ago have foreseen where we’d be today?
Probably not. And yet one far-sighted man, writing in the 1930s, outlined with great trenchancy the trajectory that humanity would follow before it arrived at its destiny – a new global civilization based on a deep-rooted understanding of human oneness and solidarity and on justice, the necessary concomitant of unity.
Humanity comes of age
Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Baha’i Faith from 1921 until his death in London in 1957, wrote a magnificent series of letters to the small North American Baha’i community during the Great Depression in which he described two parallel processes: the collapse of a world order based on outmoded concepts, values and practices; and the gradual emergence of a new world order, based on the “organic and spiritual unity of the whole body of nations”.
This process, riven with turmoil and upheaval and the sweeping away of much that is familiar, Shoghi Effendi describes as “the coming of age of the entire human race”.
All present appearances to the contrary, humanity will eventually recognize its true nobility and oneness. But like recalcitrant teenagers we will have to go through a lot of suffering and self-examination before we can be truly mature.
The fire of ordeal
photo credit: Clive Rogers
In 1931 Shoghi Effendi wrote:
That nothing short of the fire of a severe ordeal, unparalleled in its intensity, can fuse and weld the discordant entities that constitute the elements of present-day civilization, into the integral components of the world commonwealth of the future, is a truth which future events will increasingly demonstrate.
In 1936 he wrote:
As we view the world around us, we are compelled to observe the manifold evidences of that universal fermentation which, in every continent of the globe and in every department of human life, be it religious, social, economic or political, is purging and reshaping humanity in anticipation of the Day when the wholeness of the human race will have been recognized and its unity established.
And again:
Beset on every side by the cumulative evidences of disintegration, of turmoil and of bankruptcy, serious-minded men and women, in almost every walk of life, are beginning to doubt whether society, as it is now organized, can, through its unaided efforts, extricate itself from the slough into which it is steadily sinking. Every system, short of the unification of the human race, has been repeatedly tried and found wanting … And yet crisis has succeeded crisis, and the rapidity with which a perilously unstable world is declining has been correspondingly accelerated … Sore-tried and disillusioned, humanity has no doubt lost its orientation, and would seem to have lost as well its faith and hope. It is hovering, unshepherded and visionless, on the brink of disaster. A sense of fatality seems to pervade it. An ever-deepening gloom is settling on its fortunes as she recedes further and further from the outer fringes of the darkest zone of its agitated life and penetrates its very heart.
Building a new civilization
On Saturday and Sunday I shall be taking part in a conference in London of over 3,000 Baha’is from Greenland and Iceland, the Nordic countries, the UK and Ireland. This is just one of 41 conferences that are bringing Baha’is together all around the world.
To do what?
To explore and plan how we can rapidly share with as many people as possible the message that there is a clear way ahead out of this gloom and turmoil. More than that, we want to invite people to join us on a path of transformation, to become active participants in building the new civilization that really is our only hope.
Baha’u'llah, Founder of the Baha’i Faith, describes the fundamental purpose of the Faith of God as being
to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race.
And He writes:
He Who is your Lord, the All Merciful, cherisheth in His heart the desire of beholding the entire human race as one soul and one body. Haste ye to win your share of God’s good grace and mercy in this Day that eclipseth all other created days.
Happy new year?
No doubt 2009 will be challenging for all of us. But if we understand that the challenges are an expression of a new world order being born, we can find meaning and happiness in midwifing the birth.
Happy New Year!
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Baha’u'llah, Shoghi Effendi, millennium, Millennium Dome, credit crunch, financial downturn, new world order, unity
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{ 10 comments }
Thank you, dear Barney, for these thought-provoking concerns and the beautiful advice from the Baha’i writings. Keep up the good work in 2009!
Many thanks, Della. I’ll do my best!
Thank you, as always, for this thoughtful post! Back in 98 and 99 I was employed by the local power company fixing the Y2K bug on their computer systems. So it was the focus of my thoughts and concerns for 2 years!
I was recently looking for “end of year reviews” and I found the UN Millenium Development Goals report for 2008 here : http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ It clearly shows the two processes you speak of (tearing down and building up). Sadly, the global economic crisis is having a disproportionate impact on the poor, and global climate change is increasing faster than anticipated. There have been some positive changes specifically in education and in reduction of some childhood diseases, even the fact that a Millenium Goals report by the UN exists is a sign of a new international world order.
Best of luck at the conference, I was at the Stamford Connecticut one and it was awe inspiring.
Anne, thanks for your comment. You are absolutely right about the disproportionate impact of the global economic crisis and climate change on the poor, but perhaps it’s at the meta-level that we can see real change for the good. The existence of the MDGs is, as you suggest, a sign of change. There is a real sense amongst individuals, local groups, governments, even at the UN, that we have a collective responsibility for the good of the whole population of the world. Last year, during the Walk of Witness I listened to Gordon Brown speak with passion about ending poverty. He really meant it. The problem, though, is that the power of rhetoric outruns the power of action, and effective action is often stymied by vested interests at all levels.
Still, I think we are moving (very slowly) in the right direction.
Life is both very complicated and ultimately simple. 2009 will be challenging in so many ways but we can move together. I wish you well at the conference and more generally in the brave new (Woolly-less) world of 2009.
Good point, Tess. We can meet the challenges of 2009 and beyond much better if we move together.
The conference will be quite a gathering and I’m looking forward to it.
I wish you a fruitful 2009.
A very interesting article.
But I would like to point out that the wiki article doesn’t mention several of the more serious impacts of the millennium bug.
For example:
Millennium bug caused error in Down’s screening
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/millennium-bug-caused-error-in-downs-screening-669268.html
there were also reports at the time of several immediate failures in hospitals including problems with dialysis machines in the UK and a more serious problem with one hospital in the Far East. Yet somehow it is now remembered as a non-event.
And we still don’t learn, as the recent problems with businesses hard coding VAT rates showed.
Thanks, Tig. Very interesting comment.
Thanks for this post (and the insights shared across your blog at large)! Only a few weeks-in and I find myself turning to the World Order letters with increasing frequency to contextualize and better understand the events of 2009
I’m glad you find value in my blog. I really must be more focused on keeping posting. Life has many demands, and sometimes the blog is on the back burner.
Ah yes, the World Order letters provide us with vital understandings of what we’re going through right now.
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