Turbulence (1)

Those prophets of great change around the potentially awesome date of 2012 -- see, for example, Daniel Pinchbeck's troubled account -- must be quietly reflecting that it's all shaping up as expected. Not only are entire societies and regions in turmoil, the planet itself seems to have stored up all those millennial events that never happened in 2000 and is dishing them out with ever greater intensity. If ever there was a time in history for humankind to pause and consider deeply how it goes about its business, surely that time is upon us.

Two extremes of image have impressed themselves on our consciousness through the upheavals of the last month. On the one hand, the sheer scale and fervour of protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square, following on from events in Tunisia and subsequently throughout the Arab world. At the other extreme, heart-rending pictures of the devastation inflicted on Japan's north-east by a truly millennial earthquake and tsunami, the total wreckage of homes and livelihood, the displacement of half a million people, the shock of loss made even more unbearable with the grim uncertainty of a possible nuclear disaster still hanging over Fukushima.

Something unites these two extremes, namely the ennobling quality of humans to join together in creative endeavour to, as Arthur Koestler used to say, lift themselves up "by their own bootstraps". We saw this self-organising potential in Cairo as the thousands gathered there in protest built up, as it were, a microcosm of the society they yearned for, without rancour, oppression, intolerance. All worked together regardless of race, religion or tribal loyalty, to make their tented city a well-run community. The Egyptians themselves were proud of this achievement, and drew attention to it as proof of the depth and sophistication of their society.

The Japanese, too, have displayed an impressive dignity in their response to immeasurable destruction and loss. Those less affected by the disaster have come together to help those most in need. We have seen no hysteria, no ranting, no searching for blame. Sadness and composure reign in the land of the dispossessed, a land which, from their current perspective, must seem lost for good.

CJM