http://www.nationalreview.com/lopez/ledeen200601090808.aspJanuary 09, 2006, 8:08 a.m.
One Moment in Time
Our age of revolution.
There's an old Chinese theory according to which the best way to understand historical events is not to reconstruct the sequence of "causes" by which the events were "produced," but rather to look at the unique characteristics of the moment in which the events occurred. I know there's an old Chinese theory for most anything, but this one has stayed with me ever since I first read about it in an essay by Carl Gustav Jung, and back in the Eighties it occurred to me that Pope John Paul II had understood its wisdom. The pope once remarked that there were times when dramatic change was impossible, and at such moments anyone who tried to achieve it was like the fool beating his head against a stone wall. But there were other times when the acts of a single individual could change the world. He knew he was living at such a time, and he saw his mission as inspiring individuals to take those actions, and change the world for the better. That was one reason why his famous call, "be not afraid," was so right for those times, and why a handful of brave individuals famously changed the world.
This historical moment is not easy to understand, since we are in transition from a relatively stable world, dominated by a handful of major powers, to something we cannot yet define, since it is up to us to shape it. It seems clear, however, that there is a greater rapidity of change, accompanied — inevitably — by the passing of the leaders of the old order. This is particularly clear in the Middle East, where seven key figures have been struck down in the past six years: King Hussein of Jordan in February, 1999. King Hassan of Morocco in July of the same year. Syrian dictator Hafez al Assad in June of 2000. Yasser Arafat of the PLO in April, 2004. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in May of last year. Ariel Sharon of Israel was incapacitated by a stroke in early January. And, according to Iranians I trust, Osama bin Laden finally departed this world in mid-December. The al Qaeda leader died of kidney failure and was buried in Iran, where he had spent most of his time since the destruction of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Iranians who reported this note that this year's message in conjunction with the Muslim Haj came from his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, for the first time.
...........
— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
