One of my graduate students remarked the other day on how miserable his thesis topic – the 2006 war in Lebanon – is; and it led me to point out to him how miserable contemporary history is now compared to what it used to be when I was young. I recalled a remark made by my sister-in-law a few years ago about how so much current modern literature is depressing and wretched – no one lives happily ever after anymore – and I think it applies to contemporary history as well. 30 years ago, the world was a more optimistic place, wars were cleaner, and even the bad guys were nicer than they are now.
Back in the late Sixties, even allowing for the mess in Vietnam, the world was fairly positive. Men landed on the moon, technology promised a better tomorrow and no one really expected the Cold War to turn hot. In 1967 and 73, in the Middle East, it seemed clear who was right and who was wrong. Back then, the Israelis were still seen as worthy victims of the Nazis who had built a nation of kibbutzim and who were the only island of western democracy in a sea of backward Soviet pawns. Out numbered by enemies provided with Soviet T-62s, Migs and SAMS, they used a handful of F-4 and Super Shermans and some modern armour, with a lot of dash and pluck and tank commanders sporting eyepatches to win against the odds. Even terrorists were less threatening – hijackers might blow up planes, but they usually freed all the passengers first. Internationally, even a crook like Richard Nixon could go to China, advance détente and extricate America from Vietnam.
Now, well, all is changed, isn’t it. The wars in Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda drag on, and get bigger and worse. The Great War in Africa has been joined by the War in Darfur as a major tragedy with combined death tolls which easily exceed that of WWI. Afghanistan and Iraq drag on as wars without end. In the Middle East, Israel is not only no longer the good guy, but is wracked by a problems of self-image which go back to the very origins of that state in 1948 which are now questioned by revisionist historians. Their army can no longer win wars, and now practice counter-insurgency by using helicopter gunships and tanks in Gaza. On the other side of the hill, terrorist leaders brainwash women and boys into random suicide attacks at bus stops. Every time we board a plane, we live with the risk that we may become part of some grisly terrorist fireball of jet fuel and body parts. All in all, it is pretty miserable. The news is bad, people are depressed, and very few people see any clear path to a better tomorrow. It is hard to feel that you can contribute your bit to making the world a better place when it seems bent on going to hell.
Conventional wisdom sees the collapse of communism, symbolically marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall , as the major turning point in recent world history. I’m not so sure, and I think between 1972 and 1974 is a more important turning point. The Oil Crisis, the confrontations between government and unions in the UK, with the three day weeks, the huge blow to confidence in politics arising from Watergate and the escalation of terrorism after the Munich Olympics all seem to mark a sea change in world affairs which is as important as 1989. Indeed, you could argue that the fall of communism was a consequence of the economic fallout of the crisis of the 1970s – it was that period which hit many communist bloc economies like Poland and Yugoslavia; producing hardship which fed demands for political change. In terms of the ‘free market agenda’ of Thatcher and Reagan, well, both left office with government spending as high a percentage of GDP as when they started their crusades, so by that measure, their efforts to roll back government can hardly been seen as a success.
It is a long way from the old, progressive whig version of history, which charted mankind’s path onwward and upward, supporting a grand narrative which was postive and upbeat. On the one hand, as a historian, I have a responsibilty to tell it like it is, and right now it seems that it is bad. On the other hand, part of me wants to find bits of the current mess we are in that offer the prospect of a more positive, alternative future history to the gloomy prospects we see at present. Many people see the current interlocking crises in economics and global security, along with climate breakdown, as part of a slow decline of ‘civilisation as we know it’ (CAWKI, if you like acronyms). I acknowledge that is a plausible interpretation, but I’d like to work out an argument that it is or could be an age of transition. As a discipline contemporary history looks for the past roots of present problems. I wonder if we can apply the same methods to discern in the present the roots of a better future, and direct our energies to making it a reality. It would be nice, in thirty years time, to be able to write some cheerful history.
Leave a Reply